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D.F. Noble has been a sort of mentor to me since I first heard I had been accepted in the StrangeHouse Books anthology Zombie! Zombie! Brain Bang!. If I have a question, I usually contact Noble. He’s relatively new to the game too who, along with Kevin Strange (Robama Pocalypse, Cotton Candy), formed StrangeHouse Books  January of 2012 so in some ways he’s also a sort of a brother-in-arms--learning about promotion and the dos’ and don’ts’ in the world of the independent pulp writer, like I’m currently doing.            
             Unlike a lot of writers releasing zombie and pulp horror fiction, D.F. Noble has an intelligent, literary spice to his work, that’s subtle, and as humble and down to earth as the man himself. Beer Run of the Dead is one of my favorite zombie novels, and if you haven’t read it, please do so now. His story, and Kindle single, Baby Armor is clever and ingenious. Baby Armor makes me jealous, actually. I wish I’d thought of it. Also, Baby Armor is the best story in Zombie, Zombie, Brain Bang!—and that also makes me jealous. Click to buy Baby Armor for--narrated by Morgan Freeman--for just .99 on Amazon


Come to think of it, our relationship as acquaintances and writers, kind of reminds me of Mila Kuniz and Natalie Portman in Black Swan—ya know, without the hot cunnilingus scene.  Mila Kuniz goes downtown on Princess Amidala!          
 No matter how much I train, and fast, and sleep with choreographers, fuckin’ Noble will get the lead in this Bizarro ballet.
Jason Wayne Allen and Atrophied Gangsters is proud to present…
My Zombie Soul Brother 




    


J.W.A.:  So, have you seen Black Swan with Natalie Portman? Why do so many dudes think she’s so hot? Yeah, she played Princess Amagdala in the Star Wars films, which raised nerd-boners like flags on the 4th, but she only leaves me half-massed, like a national tragedy. Yeah, she’s kind of hot but there is something sad going on there.
     Thoughts? 
A pretty good movie, but confusing at times. D.F.N  : Well first, I'd to thank you for the interview. I'd also like to mention your short story Zombies of East Jesus is funnier than hell. Anybody that can put zombies, time machines, and the yearning to see some great boobs together to start off an apocalypse is brilliant in my book.(J.W.A.: Editors note: Aw shucks and* blushes*)
 As for Black Swan and Natalie... Black Swan was a lot better than I thought it would be. I walked away from it “half massed” like you said but it was still a damn good flick. I mean, she's a big budget actor, it's probably wrong of us to expect strap-on's from her and Mila, but hey, we were all secretly hoping for it. I think Natalie just has that mousy look to her. Almost like a new age Winona Ryder. Something about that frail elven look that really turns on the nerd in me. I start imagining me in armor, her with those ears and it's all over brother.
J.W.A.:  So, let’s say God was like “Noble, you’re such a bad ass, I’m going to do a remake of human kind in your image. I’m gonna hook you up with some fire-ass pussy! Name a star of motion picture, hell name a fictional character—ya like Vampirella, Lady Death, Jessica Rabbit, Gadget from Chip ‘N Dale’s Rescue Rangers?--name it, bro, who do you want as your Eve?”
D.F.N  :  Much in the vein of Natalie Portman, I would ask God for Keira Knightley. Another frail and exquisite princess type. I'm also a huge fan of Fiona Apple, so you can pretty much see where my heart and mind is won when it comes to women. I'm attracted to ladies of all kinds, but those in particular could make me act a fool and fist fight a guy for no reason besides genetic prowess. Being old and out of touch, I had to google Keira Knightley.  Not bad for a choice of  Eve. Personally, I'd have chosen someone with bigger tits and ass, but I'm a pig, and can't appreciate class and poise...that's how JWA rolls.

J.W.A.:  When I first started looking into StrangeHouse Books, the first thing I noticed in your Facebook pictures and around your guy’s page was Tromette, Ellie Church. Being a fan of Troma, I thought this was fucking cool! So, what’s the relationship between StrangeHouse Books and the lovely Ellie Church and Troma films? Tromette, Ellie Church likes StrangeHouse Books. 

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And Then YOU Die from HM&M Films D.F.N  : I think her and Kevin became friends on Facebook first, and since we all did shows at the same places it was inevitable that we would meet. Her and her hubbie Brian Williams are some of the coolest cats I've met on the road. I absolutely love those guys, great party people and both of 'em are extremely talented. Some of the best nights are Kevin, me and Brian standing next to Ellie while she tries to slide her foot into her phone thinking it's a shoe... We drink a lot. Jesus! I love Tromaville!
More of Miss Church

J.W.A.:  Do you have a favorite Troma film?
D.F.N  : Class of Nuke 'em High, but eh... I would probably argue for Red Neck Zombies. I don't think it was a straight forward production from the Troma crew, but I watched the shit out of that movie when I was a kid. I think I actually stole it from a video store and never returned it. Something else Noble and I have in common. This is also my favorite Troma film, the third in the series has more boobs in it than you can count--even if you count by twos'


J.W.A.:  Who influences you as a writer?
D.F.N  :  When I was pretty young, it was comics like Spawn that really influenced me. Eventually I graduated to actual books when I shot out the neighbor's truck window with my BB-gun (it was a total ricochet, but no one ever believed me) and my dad pretty much grounded my ass after a good arse-kicking. He left me in my room for what seems like an entire summer. No games, no comics, no toys. Nothing. Just a box of books. Which happened to be Conan, a shit ton more of Conan, and the Holy Bible at the very bottom. I read all those Conan books and I think that's first real time I was swept away by reading. Eventually, I got to the Bible and you know, some of the Old Testament is a lot like Conan. I lost interest in the New Testament. Felt too sissy after coming off all the blood, rape, incest and war. After that, I gobbled up all the Stephen King I could find, got into Douglas Adams, Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson. I would say those writers probably had the most influence on me.

J.W.A.:  How old were you when you first published, and what was it?
D.F.N  : I was first published in March of this year. I was 27 I think. I'm horrible with tracking time, so you'll have to forgive me. My first stories were published in the anthology Strange Sex. I had three stories in the thing, and a teaser in the back from Scary Fucking Stories. Basically what happened was when Kevin first put the idea forward, we had no idea if we would have any submissions since we were brand new to the scene and I wrote my balls off to make sure we had enough just in case. All the stories were based around horror and sex and comedy, and I think the gem from the work there was probably the story Foreigner. I won't give all the details, but it's written in broken English and probably the dirtiest, grossest thing I've ever written.

J.W.A.:  Do you write every day? Do you have essentials you have to have when writing: Coffee, Cigarettes, Booze, and Drugs?
D.F.N  : I try my damndest to write everyday. I tend to take a couple days off to take a break, but the process is always there behind the eyelids. Always plotting, fantasizing, daydreaming the next scene. I like to keep a steady 3-5k a day when I'm down in it. Sometimes it's only 1k. The staples are usually cigarettes and some caffeine based liquid. Usually coffee. I go back and forth with writing while drunk, and that usually depends if I have any booze left from the night before to write while I drink. Something about drinking, it brings out that talkative side in a person, and it can honestly help to loosen me up, and just write without pretension. Pot or anything else just sounds like a complete catastrophe trying to flush something out. Although, I couldn't lambast a person, who say, enjoyed eating a quarter bag of shrooms and doing an eight ball to get the job done. Hey, whatever floats your boat.
J.W.A.:  How did you hook up with Kevin Strange? The President of StrangeHouse Books.

D.F.N  : I first met him through a short film of his called “Dead Shit.” I played a small role as a Steak 'n' Shake zombie, and we talked here and there throughout the years after that. We started heavily talking again during 2011 when we both found out we were writing fiction, and things kinda blossomed from there. Not sexually though. Not yet anyway. Click Here! Check out Kevin's Books. I highly recommend Robama Pocalypse and Cotton Candy is the raunchiest and weirdest shit you will ever read

J.W.A.:  You guys are literary road dogs—the Metallica of the independent world of pulp fiction. What has been your favorite Convention? Where and Why?

D.F.N  : You know, this year is a blur. I have been so consistently drunk on the road, that all the shows really kind of smudge together in my mind. We bring at least two half gallons of vodka every show, so somehow through thousands of years of my white trash genetics, I'm able to get black out drunk and still talk to people and sell books. My kidneys fucking hate me. I don't think I can pinpoint any one particular show. I love Chicago though, it's the one place I always throw up at.
J.W.A.:  StrangeHouse Books, hands down, has the best cover artists in books. Mainstream, indie, or otherwise. Period.(Kevin Strange’s Robama Pocalypse made me aware of Jesse Reid Wheeler, who did the art for Celebutante Meat-House, and whom I consider a friend. Wheeler is slated to do the cover for my tentively titled, upcoming release, Bath in a Bucket of Butchers Knives) how do you guys find your artists and what is your favorite StrangeHouse cover?

D.F.N  : Ah yes, I have a huge boner for Jesse. That's a great writer and artist there. Total package, you know? Like I wish he was my dad. But usually, we've made some great connects through deviantart.com, guys like Gabriel Wyse (Scary Fucking Stories, Zombie! Zombie! Brain Bang, and Vampire Guts in Nuke Town) and Kevin found Shamus Beyale through a fellow indie filmmaker named Dustin Mills (Puppet Monster Massacre, Zombie A-hole). I'm not sure how exactly we met Jesse Wheeler, I think him and Kevin ran into each other online somehow. But a mix of internet stalking, and doing the shows have brought some killer artists to light. Favorite book cover is a throw up between Zombie! Zombie! Brain Bang! (Gabriel Wyse) and my brother's novel, Baby Fever (Shamus Beyale). Both are extremely beautiful covers.
J.W.A.:  Favorite beer?
D.F.N  : I'm a cheap bastard. PBR or even Keystone Ice, Old Milyuckee. I have a cast iron stomach, and I don't drink for taste.
J.W.A.: Same here. I always hear “I don’t know how you drink that stuff,” anytime I’m around people and sipping a 24oz Steel Reserve. PBR gives me the squirts though; I love it, but try to avoid it.
J.W.A.:  All us drunks have “I got so drunk, I…” anecdotes. What is your favorite of yours?
D.F.N  :High school, I got so drunk I took off all off my clothes but my boxers at a buddy's house party, threw up all over the bathroom, ate a big bowl of jello out of the fridge with his dog, went downstairs into his little brother's room, pissed on a kid in a big oval wicker chair who was wrapped in a sleeping bag, then proceeded to put on this tiny red jacket out of the kid's closet. I don't remember any of this. I remember waking up on the couch and not being able to move my arms because the jacket was so damn small. When I realized I was in only in my underwear, my first and immediate thought was that I was raped and I became extremely angry and wanted my pants. It took a minute, but they eventually led me through my path of destruction. That's probably the apex of my drinking fiascoes. We were on spring break in a small town, with access to too much liquor and other stimulants and depressives. A three day binge ended up on me pissing on a 6th grader. It's okay. He forgave me later.

J.W.A.:  Let’s talk Bizarro.Who are some of your favorite writers and books from the scene?
D.F.N  : Honestly, I'm still pretty new to the scene. Kevin introduced me to Carlton Mellick, and that guy is just pure inspiration. I have a hard time finishing a book because I read a thatch, and immediately get to writing. I've been writing weird shit since I was a kid, I just couldn't help myself. I couldn't write something “normal” for the life of me, so when I found the Bizzaro movement I instantly felt at home. I don't think everything I do can be claimed in the Bizzarro genre. Beer Run of the Dead is more just a straight horror comedy to me, and Scary Fucking Stories is straight horror fiction, so I deviate a lot, from being serious and creepy to silly and surreal. Just kind of quarky. And I'm gonna say something that people may bust my balls for, but Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, to me, has all the elements of Bizarro. It's just so absurd and surreal, with flavors of Dada that it reflects a lot of Bizzaro even though it's a much older book. You wouldn't believe how happy I was to find that people were doing this. So much fiction is humdrum anymore and so overdone, that Bizzaro is a breath of fresh air. I can't really claim to be a Bizarro author, though some of the stuff I do could probably fall into the realm. I'm just a weird dude, I write weird shit.

J.W.A.:  I hear tale of StrangeHouse Books releasing a Lovecraftian anthology. If it goes down, are you submitting? And can you give us some kind of idea of what the story you’re submitting will be about? Since I was just a lad I've been a fan of Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos. I'm submitting, but have too many mythos stories in my arsenal. Deciding which is right for StrangeHouse will be tough. D.F.N  : Yeah, Kevin wants to start it sometime next year before the summer, and at the moment my mind is a complete blank on what story I'll do for it. I'll always submit something, or try to, which doesn't mean I'll get in just in case what I put out is pure crap. I'd rather not be included if I didn't have confidence in the thing. For example, Baby Armor in Zombie! Zombie! Brain Bang!, started as a simple joke. Kevin already had his story planned out, and I was binging ideas around trying to get a laugh out of the guy to see if something would stick. I mentioned a suit of babies and a bank robbery and bam, Baby Armor was born.
J.W.A.: Favorite Lovecraft story and why?
D.F.N  : That's a hard one, but the Shadow Over Innsmouth comes to mind first. Probably because we just listened to an audio version of it on the way to a show. So much of his stuff has genuinely creepy moments, but that story just sticks with me. It's got this almost detective noir, and I love the elements of using dialogue, and characters inside the story to tell you the story. I use a lot of that technique in Scary Fucking Stories and it just works somehow. Mix in a little 1st or 3rd person to deliver the action, and build it up with dialogue, and if you work at it hard enough, you've got your own creepy story to tell. Lovecraft just amazes me, for his era and those ideas that man created and the major influence he's had in horror, it just makes me hope there's an afterlife of some sort so he can look down and see what good work he's wrought. He died penniless and with regret from what I know, but now, his thoughts are immortal.. J.W.A.:  Kindle, Nook, and E-readers in general:What’s your opinion on digital publishing and the paper-less era?What about self-publishing?

D.F.N  : I'm kind of old school. I prefer a book on my shelf, and I didn't think I'd ever come around to the e-book craze, but... Goddamn, it's pretty easy on your wallet, as a consumer and a publisher, so I understand it. I'd still rather have a book. I don't have to worry about charging the battery, and as far as I know, I couldn't get the author to sign my digital copy, so I'll respectively stick to paper for the most part.      And self-publishing, I can't encourage it more. StrangeHouse was born under the same urge as the frustrated writer waiting to get published. There are tons, and tons of amazing authors out there, and as any writer knows, it's not easy to get into a publishing house, especially if you have dreams of playing ball with the big boys. People also tend to forget that Poe and Mark Twain were self-published. There's just something attractive about cutting your own path and having no one to answer to that gives me an erection about that kind of freedom and power. I mean, you still have to do the hard work. Nothing comes easy, and all of us have to pay our dues to achieve that dream of writing for a living. That's a lot of sacrifice and grit to do that. If you have those kind of balls, I say do it.
J.W.A.:   Beer Run of the Dead is a future cult classic. What are some of your favorite zombie novels?
D.F.N  :Well thanks on the compliment, ha. I'll have to buy you dinner and take you on a date for that. And for a long time (before the internet was so easily accessible) zombie fiction was fucking hard to find. I found Brian Keene's The Rising and City of the Dead and I love those books. Probably the only books I read twice, and I eventually came across J.L. Bourne's Day By Day Armageddon. Those two really stand out to me. I know there's a ton more out there, I just haven't got to them yet.
J.W.A.:   Many critics and readers are of the opinion that, Zombies are over saturating the market, zombies are everywhere. Do you think there is anything else left to be said regarding the undead?
D.F.N  : Me and Kevin argue about this quite a bit. He hates zombies. He's in the over saturated camp. Personally, sure, a lot of zombie entertainment is over done, and terribly produced. But there are gems out there. Look at the Walking Dead for fucksake. I think what we're seeing is zombies being inducted into the monster hall of fame alongside Frankenstein, Vampires, and Werewolves. Zombies are enjoying somewhat of a heyday, and I'm happy with wide selection to choose from. I think of that zombie paradigm as a playground. It's a playground that we're used to, a lot of the same plot, and characters are going to be common place, but that doesn't mean there can't be new exciting additions added to that playground. I mean, we're not just dealing with zombies, it's also the apocalypse and people have had boners for the apocalypse since time immemorial. You're going to be hard pressed to remove that from the human psyche. It's also part of the reason I wrote Beer Run of the Dead. I wanted to add my own section to the playground. I wanted to create something for zombie fans being a huge zombie fan myself. And inevitably, zombies are the background. People come for the zombies, but stay for the characters.

J.W.A.:   What do we fans have to look forward to in the future from D.F. Noble and StrangeHouse books?
D.F.N  : I've just finished the first draft of a new novel called “Grown Ups Must Die.” It's more on the serious, survival horror side of my fiction, and deals a lot with gritty reality. Fucked up parents, bullies, savagery and an event that leaves children to fend for themselves during an apocalypse. I would say imagine Lord of the Flies on acid, meets Night of the Living Dead , meets The Signal, meets Conan and Gummo. The story was so fucking big in my head, I literally had to break the first book down otherwise the damn thing would have been a tome, and just cost too much on the consumer side. So, like Beer Run, it will have several other books trailing it to encompass the whole story. And I'm about halfway through a new novel called “Apocalypse Meow.” Which is a detective noir, with bits of bizarro quarkiness and just good hokey fun like Matlock on shrooms. A lot of the novels this year are definitely apocalypse themed for the coming End Times. Planet X and what not.
J.W.A.:   Well dude, it’s been awesome. Thank you for the interview, and I always look forward to your drunken I.M.s and bullshitting with you in the wee witching hours.
D.F.N  :Thanks again, Jason. Always a blast. One of these days we'll meet up at a show and drink the tits off something.
See ya on Facebook.You can always find us at www.strangehousebooks.com www.facebook.com/strangehousebooks my personal page at www.facebook.com/dfnobleauthorWe're also on goodreads.com and all the books are available at amazon.com.

Jason Wayne Allen is a writer of Horror and Bizarro Fiction. He is currently writing his ass off, in preparation for his post-apocalyptic, 2013 takeover.  Read, Like, Review,Love and Buy the works of Jason Wayne Allen Here by clicking!


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