Walk on the Wild Side - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,138
that though he always drank, his alcohol intake increased greatly in the later 1970s. That was my feeling also, but since I don’t drink myself I don’t have a good way to judge how much somebody else is putting down. (There’s no “Fix me one while you’re in the kitchen” for a yardstick.) It’s my suspicion that Karl drank because he couldn’t write rather than the reverse, but I don’t know.
In his later years Karl wrote a number of short stories, some of which were brilliant (here I’m thinking particularly of “Neither Brute Nor Human”). In his last year or so his output increased significantly, though I wouldn’t put the quality of those stories against that of his early work.
Karl proved unable to finish even the large fragments from his productive period. He completed one fragment as a novelette, “Blue Lady, Come Back.” I found its depiction of Manly to be both false and offensive, and the result lame by any standards. (Karl, Manly and I had together visited the haunted house of the story.)
Karl did a screenplay for a third Conan movie. That got him money ($30,000) and some anecdotes about Hollywood, but the screenplay was rejected before the studio shelved the project. He did a treatment for a film about the Asian culture-hero Monkey, for Japanese backers. They liked his work, but they ultimately picked another writer who had experience in animation when they decided to go that route. Those were the only film/TV writing projects for which Karl was paid, though he occasionally received option money and himself worked on spec on ideas which didn’t get funded.
A local artist had done half a dozen pages of art for a graphic novel, Tell Me, Dark, but he wasn’t himself a writer and came to Karl for a script. They sold the project to DC on the strength of artist’s name for very good money (Karl’s share was $15,500).
Karl wrote Tell Me, Dark with four “tracks,” as he called them, of text. Material from any or all tracks might be in a given panel.
I asked Karl how DC could make that intelligible in a comic format; he replied, “That’s their problem.”
DC ultimately solved the problem by rejecting Karl’s script. Another writer wrote the book (with Karl’s permission) from the art, with no reference to Karl’s text. At the insistence of both the artist and the actual worker, Karl was allowed to keep the whole advance and DC kept Karl’s name on the book. None of the published text is Karl’s.
There’s one more story about Karl that deserves to be told here. After Karl’s death another friend and I were emptying Karl’s house of material that the family didn’t have to know about. I was pulling things out of a closet and the friend was tossing them into a garbage bag to be taken to the dump.
I tossed out a padded envelope containing three porno novels. The friend looked more closely at them: they were three copies of the same 1973 Beeline Book, The Other Woman, credited to “Kent Allard”—the name Karl generally used in his fiction for the character representing himself. There was a typed slip from the publisher identifying them as author’s copies.
During a time when I saw Karl very frequently, and when we frequently talked in our desperation of trying porn despite the extremely low rates of pay (about $300 for all rights), he’d written a porn novel of which I knew nothing. That sort of sums up Karl: I probably knew as much about him as anybody else did, but nobody knew—or knows-the whole truth. Particularly the truth about the really basic question: why?
He was so much. He could have been so much more.
—David Drake
Acknowledgements
All stories by Karl Edward Wagner have been reprinted by permission of the Karl Edward Wagner Literary Group.
“Various Encounters with Karl” copyright Peter Straub 1983. Originally published in In a Lonely Place- Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Last Wolf’ copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1975. Originally published in Midnight Sun #2, Summer-Fall 1975.
“Into Whose Hands” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1983. Originally published in Whispers IV.
“More Sinned Against” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1984. Originally published in In a Lonely Place.
“Shrapnel” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1985. Originally published in Night Visions 2.
“Silted In” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1987. Originally published in Why Not You and I?.
“Lost Exits” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1987. Originally published in Why Not You and I?.
“Endless Night” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1987. Originally published in The Architecture of Fear.
“An Awareness of Angels” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1988. Originally published in Ripper!.
“But You’ll Never Follow Me” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1990. Originally published in Borderlands.
“Cedar Lane” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1990. Originally published in Walls of Fear.
“The Kind Men Like” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1991. Originally published in Hotter Blood.
“The Slug” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1991. Originally published in A Whisper of Blood.
“Did They Get You to Trade?” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1992. Originally published in MetaHorror.
“Little Lessons in Gardening” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1993. Originally published in Touch Wood: Narrow Houses Volume Two.
“A Walk on the Wild Side” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1993- Originally published in The Ultimate Witch.
“Passages” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1994. Originally published in Phobias.
“In the Middle of a Snow Dream” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1994. Originally published in South From Midnight.
“Gremlin” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1995. Originally published in Beyond # 1, April/May 1995.
“Prince of the Punks” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1995. Originally published in 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories.
“The Picture of Jonathan Collins” copyright Karl Edward Wagner *995- Originally published in Forbidden Acts.
“Locked Away” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1995. Originally published in Dark Love.
“I’ve Come to Talk with You Again” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1995- Originally published in Dark Terrors: The Gollancz Book of Horror.
“Final Cut” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1996. Originally published in Diagnosis: Terminal, An Anthology of Medical Horror.
“Brushed Away” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1997. Originally published in Exorcisms and Ecstasies.
“Old Loves” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1985. Originally published in Night Visions 2.
“Lacunae” copyright Karl Edward Wagner 1986. Originally published in Cutting Edge.
“The Truth Insofar As I Know It” copyright David Drake 1995. Originally published in Exorcisms and Ecstacies. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Various Encounters with Karl (by Peter Straub)
The Last Wolf
Into Whose Hands
More Sinned Against
Shrapnel
Silted In
Lost Exits
Endless Night
An Awareness of Angels
But You’ll Never Follow Me
Cedar Lane
The Kind Men Like
The Slug
Did They Get You to Trade?
Little Lessons in Gardening
A Walk on the Wild Side
Passages
In the Middle of a Snow Dream
Gremlin
Prince of the Punks
The Picture of Jonathan Collins
Locked Away
I’ve Come to Talk with You Again
Final Cut
Brushed Away
Old Loves
Lacunae
Afterword: The Truth Insofar As I Know It (by David Drake)
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
Introduction: Various Encounters with Karl (by Peter Straub)
The Last Wolf
Into Whose Hands
More Sinned Against
Shrapnel
Silted In
Lost Exits
Endless Night
An Awareness of Angels
But You’ll Never Follow Me
Cedar Lane
The Kind Men Like
The Slug
Did They Get You to Trade?
Little Lessons in Gardening
A Walk on the Wild Side
Passages
In the Middle of a Snow Dream
Gremlin
Prince of the Punks
The Picture of Jonathan Collins
Locked Away
I’ve Come to Talk with You Again
Final Cut
Brushed Away
Old Loves
Lacunae
Afterword: The Truth Insofar As I Know It (by David Drake)
Acknowledgements