Dear King Features Syndicate,

We are unhappy with the way the novel The Real Flash Gordon has been handled. Here is the situation as we understand it:

In an attempt to revitalize the Flash Gordon franchise, HarperCollins Entertainment hired Matthew Woodring Stover to write The Real Flash Gordon. Stover’s editor at HarperCollins, Josh Behar, apparently loved the story. Harper’s marketing staff apparently loved the story. It was sent off for approval at Hearst Publications, the honchos at which apparently loved it. The novel eventually made its way to King Features Syndicate, the Hearst subsidiary which actually controls the rights to the Flash Gordon franchise.

Approval for publication was never given; Rick Karo, Executive Vice President, Entertainment Licensing and Family Programming of Hearst Entertainment, decided that the book was an “unwholesome use of the trademark.”

The Real Flash Gordon should have come out mid-2002. It has been solicited on online bookstores such as bn.com and amazon.com. It’s made it into the Books in Print catalogue. And right now it looks as if it will never be published. Which is a shame. By all accounts, The Real Flash Gordon is a great read. As the author himself puts it:

In The Real Flash Gordon, there isn’t even any language stronger than the occasional goddamn. Anyone who knows me understands the profound respect I have for the classics in our genre. That’s why my book is named The Real Flash Gordon. My Flash is exactly the true-blue champion of the American Way that Alex Raymond dreamed up, and my novel works just like the original Flash Gordon strip: it goes like lightning from one incredible situation to the next, and every chapter ends with a cliffhanger. There is enough mind-bending super-science, rock-jawed heroism and plain old-fashioned adventure for five books; there is true love defying time, distance, even death; there is dark villainy of such depths as to beggar any power of description. There’s even some laughs. Not to mention gorgeous babes in scanty outfits.

Hey, like I said: it’s faithful to the source material.
Matthew Woodring Stover is an excellent author whose four published novels have received many accolades from a fan base which is growing daily, and which will grow exponentially with the publication later this month of his first Star Wars novel.

It is simply not right that The Real Flash Gordon should not be published. It will appeal to Flash Gordon fans, it will appeal to Matt Stover fans, and it will appeal to a good number of Star Wars and genre fans. Nearly everyone that has read it has loved it. Nearly every fan that hasn’t read it wants to.

So we ask that The Real Flash Gordon be approved for publication.