Welcome back! Yesterday I told you about half of the titles we have lined up for 2019; now here’s the other half. Some of these aren’t final cover designs, but they’ll give you a good idea of what we’ve got in store.
From the Stars…a Vampiress: An Unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures by Steven A. Roman: 2019 is the 50th anniversary of Vampirella, the queen of the comic book bad girls. Created by sci-fi legend Forrest J Ackerman and publisher James Warren, and designed by comic artist Trina Robbins and painter Frank Frazetta, Vampirella landed on newsstand magazine racks on July 15, 1969 and immediately became a comic-book horror icon who’s still around today. In this guide I take a look at her Warren Publishing adventures from the sixties to the eighties, as well as the (terrible) TV movie that ran on Showtime in 1996 and the well-known Hammer Films version that was supposed to be made in the seventies. More on this special project tomorrow!
Lorelei Halloween Special #1 by Steven A. Roman, Eliseu Gouveia, and Steve Geiger: 2019 is also Lorelei’s 30th anniversary, and to celebrate the occasion the creative team behind the critically acclaimed graphic novel Lorelei: Sects and the City reunites for this one-shot comic, joined by legendary painter Bob Larkin (Star Wars, Star Trek, Vampirella, Doc Savage, Dazzler) as cover artist. In 1969, an alien pilot named Celestina crashed on Earth and wound up becoming the lead singer for a folk band. Today, still looking young and vibrant, she crosses paths with Lori—who’s really disappointed to find out her parents’ favorite music artist is a fellow succubus with designs for Lori’s soul! Is it a fun and sexy tribute to a certain outer-space vampiress who inspired Lori’s creation in 1989? Hmmm…could be…
Lorelei Presents: Vampires of the Void by Gardner Fox, Wally Wood, and Joe Orlando: A free digital comic that reprints the Golden Age sci-fi tale that inspired Lorelei Halloween Special #1. Originally published in the 1950s, this story by writer Gardner Fox (Green Lantern, Justice League of America) and artists Wally Wood (Daredevil, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents) and Joe Orlando (Superman, Tales From the Crypt) involves an invasion of Earth by a race of aliens whose vast technology runs on the power of human souls!
Tales to Sorta Tremble By, edited by Steven A. Roman: During the 1950s, comic book publishers were required to include text pages in their releases if they wanted their publications to meet U.S. postal requirements as magazines. They solved this problem by running mini prose stories, one to two pages in length, in the comics—including the horror ones. Tales to Sorta Tremble By collects 13 of those stories, with subjects ranging from vampires and werewolves to evil killer plants and mean-tempered zombies.
Gabriel Grub and the Goblins by Charles Dickens: Before miserly Ebenezer Scrooge had a run-in with ghosts in the pages of A Christmas Carol, author Charles Dickens wrote The Pickwick Papers, in which he introduced readers to Gabriel Grub, a foul-tempered gravedigger sorely lacking in the Christmas spirit. But all that changes when he draws the attention (and the ire) of the Goblin King, who sets about teaching Grub the error of his ways. It’s the perfect story to get you ready for the holidays—if you’re a horror fan, that is!
There’ll be further information on each title as we move ahead, but between this and yesterday’s list of titles…well, hopefully this’ll make up for all the problems we ran into last year. Stay tuned!
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