This section was written to say a bit about myself, in case you were curious about what kind of person devotes so much time and effort to a site not designed to generate income. You can call me Rocco, which is what my small but close-knit group of friends have been calling me for near a decade. I live in Toronto, Ont, Canada,( but God Bless America and Marlboro cigarettes, which are tough to get up here ) and work for a company called Digital Vantage Point as a web site designer / webmaster. It's a great little company ( there's only three of us right now ) that specializes in remote content management and secure e-commerce. We build sites that can be maintained and updated remotely by our clients, using the internet, effectively saving them time and money over the long haul, as well as offering a slew of other services.

The Last Few Years

     I've been designing web sites for about the last year, working mostly from my home,( click HERE to see some examples ), and up until around the middle of Sept '98, have been unemployed since Nov '95, by choice. ( I spent those three years learning everything I could about PC's, inside and out, having never touched one before, and how I could make a career out of integrating art and technology. I think I'm doing alright so far. ) My background is in fine arts, being mostly self-taught, as is the case with almost everything I've learned since high school. Before working with PC's, though, I did waste about six years working for banks and brokerage firms, as a messenger and money market cage junior banker, respectively. High stress days consisting of high pressure multi-tasking followed by almost daily trips to the local watering hole. It's amazing how much I don't miss those days, most of which are a blur to me.

Background On My Interest In Mickey Spillane

     Like many people my age (30), I grew up on a steady diet of television,

so it should come as no suprise that I was first exposed to Mike Hammer through the television show starring Stacey Keach, though I was not a fan at the time, nor am I now. It wasn't until years later, having been a fan of comic book writer and artist Frank Miller( whom I'd rate as one of the mediums greatest creators ) that I began to read his Sin City series ( which I highly recommend, published by Dark Horse ), rendered in black and white, and written in a style reminiscent of Spillane and other hard-boiled authors. This peaked my interest and so several years ago, I picked up my first Mike Hammer book, 'The Killing Man', in a used book store and have been a fan since. In case you're wondering, Spillane is about the only detective author I read. My tastes are quite varied, having read various books by authors of different genres. Some of my personal favorites include Aristophanes, Homer, the Bible( it's a really good read, especially if you are not clouded by faith, no offense ), John Steinbeck, William Burroughs, Tom Robbins, Phillip K. Dick, Neil Gaiman, Frank Herbert( everything he's written, especially the Dune series) Jack Kerouac, Anne Rice, Herman Hesse, John Irving, and more.

Why Mickey Spillane?

     How is it that I decided of all things to create a Mickey Spillane / Mike Hammer Site? When I first began using the Internet,( a trial AOL account which I dropped as soon as the time ran out ) I browsed and browsed, looking for information on Mickey Spillane, just out of curiosity. I was blown away by the lack of sites I could find. Here is one of this century's most popular authors ( at least in terms of book sales ) and almost nothing. So when I began building sites, I naturally chose to fill the void. I hope I've done a good job so far, since this site is not even close to being where I want it to be. Hope you're around for the next evolution of this site, as I promise to make it as exciting as the books and author for whom this site is dedicated.

All books, characters, book covers, photos and excerpts are © Mickey Spillane/E.P Dutton (publisher). All other content, including images, backgrounds, etc are © David Seong, unless specified otherwise. Any use of layout or images from this site without my permission will probably never be found out by me, and I don't think I'd bother harrassing anyone over it anyways, considering the time and effort involved. If there is any question over the content on this site, I'd rather have you contact me to work it out, as opposed to simply getting a "you're in trouble, buster" letter.