Well, here’s something I hadn’t seen in a store in a long time: the first-ever edition of Lorelei: Building the Perfect Beast, Vol. 1, released by The ’Warp in the summer of 2005. And yet there it was, just the other day, among the remaindered graphic novels being sold at the Times Square location of Midtown Comics, one of New York’s premier comic shops. Man, that really takes me back…
Perfect Beast 1 was a collection of the first Lorelei comic series that ran from 1993–95 (issues 0–5), and began the origin story of the redheaded succubus who now stars in our soon-to-be-published graphic novel, Lorelei: Sects and the City. It featured art by David C. Matthews and Kevin Tuma, a cover by Bob Larkin, and an introduction by Charles de Lint, World Fantasy Award–winning author of such urban-fantasy novels as The Blue Girl and Widdershins.
(Funny story: When I started publishing the Lorelei comic, I offered subscriptions. One of the first subscribers was some guy named de Lint who lived in Canada. Imagine my surprise when I later discovered he was a big-time author—who liked my writing! And then, of course, I wasted no time in asking him for an introduction to the trade collection.)
Don’t worry if you missed out on this Perfect Beast 1 trade collection, though—it’s scheduled for re-release in 2013, with a new cover by Larkin and a new chapter drawn by David C. Matthews. The concluding volume is scheduled for 2014, featuring art by Eliseu Gouveia, who’s been stunning everyone with his work on The ’Warp releases A Princess of Mars, Carmilla, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0, and Lorelei: Sects and the City.
