Action Pulp!

February 1, 2026

By Adam Messer

Percival Constantine is an author and teacher who began filling notebooks with stories and drawings, which led to publishing books, podcasts and more.

Please introduce yourself.

My name’s Percival Constantine, and I’m an author originally from the Chicagoland area, but am now based in Japan. Besides writing, I’m also a podcaster, a teacher, a comic book letterer, an amateur artist, and an all-around nerdy dad. I grew up on a steady diet of movies, superhero comics, and video games. All throughout my childhood, I was told I would eventually outgrow these things, and now in my forties, that still hasn’t happened. If anything, my love for them has only increased in time, so much so that I now pass on my obsessions onto my kids and my students. 

I’ve been a published author since 2007 and in that time, I’ve published over thirty books. I’ve also contributed to prose anthologies and comics by a number of different indie publishers. When I’m not writing, I also host two podcasts — Superhero Cinephiles and Japan On Film, and those are about exactly what you’d expect from the titles. 

In 2008, I made the decision to experience living in Japan with the intent of only staying maybe three years at the most. Now almost twenty years later, I’m still here with no intent to leave. 

What genres do you write and why?

I’ve dabbled in a few different areas — action/adventure, mystery, science fiction, western, steampunk, fantasy, horror. But these days, mostly I write superheroes and urban fantasy. 

Urban fantasy came about as a desire to actually make some money off my writing. I’d always been a fan of urban fantasy TV shows, like Buffy and Supernatural, and urban fantasy comics like Hellblazer. And I had this image of a character named Luther Cross come to me one day. I dusted off that character and began writing the Luther Cross series of novels, which went on for six books. That series led to two spin-offs — the five-book Morningstar series, and the (as of this writing) incomplete Mark of Cain series. I’ve also co-written the Chaos Caretakers Trilogy and I’m in the middle of the first book in a new urban fantasy series.

As for superheroes, I’ve just always loved them. I had a copy of the 1978 Superman movie on VHS, and I watched that thing so much when I was a little kid that the damn tape broke. From there, I progressed on to the 1989 Batman and then three animated shows that are probably in the DNA of every Millennial superhero fan—Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman: The Animated Series, and X-Men. From there, I was hooked. I eventually got into comics, and that led to me writing superhero fanfiction, and a desire to write superhero comics.

When I started writing novels, I hadn’t considered doing superhero fiction. But then I happened upon Van Allen Plexico’s Sentinels series. It made me ask the question, “How come I’ve never tried this?” So I began work on the Vanguard series of superhero novels. Currently, I’m in the early stages of a new superhero universe that reimagines and repurposes public domain heroes in new settings.

What is your earliest memory of reading?

My dad would read me old myths and legends, like Robin Hood and King Arthur. As I started learning to read, I became interested in picture books that were based on stuff I enjoyed in TV and movies, so stuff based on TMNT, Batman, etc. Whenever my parents would go grocery shopping, there was a magazine section that carried comic books. So I would sit there in front of the magazines and leaf through the comics until my parents finished their shopping and came to find me. 

When did you know you wanted to write? How did it happen?

As a kid, I just naturally dug storytelling. I loved playing with action figures and making my own stories with them, I’d draw my own comics, and I would even dictate stories into this old tape-recorder my grandfather gave me. Then when I was around nine years old and we had a school assignment to write a story. I decided to do my own version of X-Men’s Days of Future Past story and it was absolute garbage. But I had a lot of fun writing it. From there, I started writing all sorts of stories. My parents bought me these notebooks for school, and instead of filling them with school assignments or class notes, I filled them with stories and drawings. Some of them were fanfic, some were original stories featuring my friends and I as superheroes. Once I got on the internet, I found out about online fanfic and that was basically it for me. Virtually every free moment I had was spent writing stories and posting them online. 

What’s one of your favorite scenes in one of your books?

That’s a really hard question. I think in my first novel, Fallen, there’s a pivotal scene in the middle of the book that’s a huge turning point. A character goes through a pretty dramatic transformation and I just remember really being in the zone as I wrote it. When I got the manuscript back from my editor, her note in that scene was just one sentence: “Jesus Christ, what the f***?!” 

What makes a good character? A bad one?

I think a good character is one that the audience can understand and finds compelling. Not necessarily like, and certainly not agree with, but one that they can understand. And I think that understanding is what compels people to follow the character through the rest of the story. A bad character is one that makes me just say, “So what?” If I don’t give a damn at all about what’s happening to this character, then that means the writer hasn’t given me a reason to care. And it usually goes back to that understanding angle. 

Michael Corleone is an absolute bastard, but he’s really compelling to watch and I can understand why he does the things he does, even while acknowledging that they’re monstrous. That makes him interesting. 

What moves the story for you?

It’s definitely character. I’ve watched movies with plots that move so fast, you barely have time to breathe. But to go back to the previous response, if those events aren’t happening to a compelling character, I don’t give a damn. I often think in terms of movies, so that’s what I keep going back to, but I recently rewatched Django Unchained and even though it’s almost three hours long, Django, Schultz, Candie, and Stephan are so well-written and compelling to watch that you can’t look away and it keeps the story moving. That dinner scene is extremely tense, even without any guns drawn. There are movies half as long as that, but they feel ten times longer because the characters are boring to watch.

What is your favorite book and why?

It’s hard to pick one. 1984 remains one of the most haunting books I’ve ever read, especially given the world we’re living in now. Frankenstein is a book I’ve revisited several times and it always draws me back in. Books like Slaughterhouse-Five, House of Leaves, and Kafka on the Shore just absolutely blew me away with how they pushed the boundaries of what’s possible in fiction. And then there are books that are just flat-out fun. Derrick Ferguson’s Dillon series falls in that category. 

What do you want to say to your audience?

Two things: first off, thanks for the support. And second, don’t be a stranger. A lot of times, writing is such a solitary endeavor that it can feel no one is paying attention. I always love to hear from readers. There are few things more rewarding than hearing that someone was moved by something I wrote. 

What advice do you have for new writers?

Make a habit. Writing for five minutes every day will bring you a lot closer to finishing your work than  a two-hour writing session once a week. Once a week is easy to blow off. Every day for a few minutes is harder to make excuses for why you can’t do it. And if you miss a day, don’t feel like you have to make up that time. Just jump right back on the horse. I promise you you’ll get a lot more work done and feel much better. Even if the words suck and it’s torture to get them on the page, you can always rewrite those words later. You can’t rewrite a blank page.

Also, learn the business. You don’t have to chase trends, but you should know who your audience is and what they’re looking for. Study what other writers who are more successful than you are doing. Doesn’t matter if you think you’re a better writer than they are, clearly they’re doing something right and you should figure out what. And yes, I know this is easier said than done.

Do you have anything else you would like to add?

Just that to once again encourage people to reach out to me. I’m not on much social media, though I do hang out on Bluesky from time to time. I also lurk on Substack quite a bit and I have some free fiction on there that people can check out. 

And if you enjoy superhero movies and/or Japanese movies, please check out Superhero Cinephiles and/or Japan On Film, available for free wherever you like to listen to podcasts. 

Website:

Official Site: https://percivalconstantine.com

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/percivalconstantine.com

Substack: https://pulpcorner.substack.com

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/percivalconstantine

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