Visions of Lorelei: Jim Balent

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Steven

Continuing Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces the soul-stealing succubus. Today we’ve got a sketch from one of the 1990s’ top “bad-girl comics” artists.

In 1991, before his work on DC Comics’ Catwoman was even on the horizon, Jim Balent and writer Ed Polgardy were the creators of an indie horror miniseries, From the Darkness. The story was okay—a half-naked vampire queen on a rampage—but the real, er, draw was Balent’s great black and white artwork. So when I wandered past Balent’s table at an NY comic con and realized there was no line in front of him, I went back and asked him for his take on Lori.

Pretty impressive, wouldn’t you say? No wonder DC hired that guy!

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Visions of Lorelei: Mike Mignola

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Steven

Welcome to day six of Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces the soul-stealing succubus.

Sure, today he’s known for his creation Hellboy—the star of various comic book minsieries and a pair of movies directed by Guillermo Del Toro—but back in the day Mike Mignola was a mainstream artist who’d been wowing comic book fans with his work on DC’s Cosmic Odyssey and Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, and Marvel’s Rocket Raccoon and Alpha Flight. And when I stumbled across his table at an NY convention in the early ’90s, Mignola was immediately added to the list of artists I wanted to draw Lori. Thank goodness he agreed to do it!

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Visions of Lorelei: Tim Vigil

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Steven

Continuing Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces the soul-stealing succubus. Today we’ve got a pencil masterpiece by the artist of one of horror’s creepiest comics!

When it came to horror comics in the 1990s, no series was more of a psychological attack on all that’s good and decent in the world than the ode to unrepentant sex and violence called Faust: Love of the Damned (which is making its return this fall). And no artist could ratchet up the gore and sexual deviations to squirm-inducing levels more than Faust co-creator and artist Tim Vigil.

So when I came across his table at a New York convention in 1992, of course I had to request a sketch of Lori from him.  😀

Now, don’t get the wrong impression—despite the lightshow around her hands, Lori’s a succubus, not the Scarlet Witch. If I remember correctly, Vigil got the idea after I showed him a Lori commission that seventies horror artist Tom Sutton had done for me, in which Sutton had drawn Lori using magic to reanimate a corpse. (You’ll find that incredible art reproduced as the frontispiece in Sects and the City.)

Nevertheless, it’s quite a drawing, wouldn’t you say?

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Visions of Lorelei: Billy Tucci

Posted on August 4, 2012 by Steven

Continuing Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces The ’Warp’s first horror heroine.

“Hey, congratulations, man!” a friend of mine said back in 1994. “How’d you get Billy Tucci to put Lorelei in that comic?”

I looked at him like he was nuts. “What’re you talking about?”

“That Shi comic of his that just came out—Lorelei’s in it!”

I had absolutely no idea how that could have happened. I knew what Shi was—Tucci’s self-published, top-selling bad-girl comic about a modern-day female Japanese warrior—but as far as I could remember I’d never crossed paths with the guy. So I was pretty sure my buddy was mistaken; no way could Lori be popping up in a Shi comic, certainly not without a heads-up from Tucci. Still, I figured it wouldn’t kill me to drop by Forbidden Planet and look into it.

Turned out “that Shi comic” was Shi/Cyblade: The Battle for Independents, the second half of a crossover with Top Cow Comics in which Tucci and Top Cow president/artist Mark Silvestri were making a major push to promote indie publishers to mainstream comics fans (part 1 was titled Cyblade/Shi).  Seemed like an admirable idea, but as I thumbed through the issue I didn’t see any evidence of my girl making her full-color debut. Then I hit the two-page center spread:

Yup. There was Lori, in the middle of a charge by indie characters against the big, bad mainstream corporations. Looking at it now, that spread’s like a gigantic “where are they now?” of indie comics. The only characters I still recognize, other than Shi and Cyblade, are: my friend Richard C. White’s Troubleshooters Inc. werewolf, Nightstalker, in the upper-left corner; Greg Hyland’s Lethargic Lad riding Stephen R. Bissette’s T. rex from Tyrant; Jim Lee’s Grifter in front of them; David Mack’s Kabuki (standing to the right of the motorcycle); and Jeff Smith’s Fone Bone.

Well, my immediate impression was that it was kinda neat, but I was puzzled why no one had ever contacted me. I guess in their enthusiasm to spread the word about indie comics, Tucci and Silvestri just went ahead and put in characters they liked. (I have a feeling I wasn’t the only creator surprised by their character’s appearance in the comic.) Didn’t really matter to me—I appreciated the nod, and it was nice seeing Lori in a full-color comic for the first time.

So now all these years later, I have just one question left to ask:

“Hey, Tucci, where are my royalties?”  😀

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Visions of Lorelei: Joseph Linsner

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Steven

It’s day three of Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces The ’Warp’s first horror heroine. Today we have my all-time favorite convention sketch, done by an artist whom you may have heard has some familiarity with drawing spooky, redheaded femme fatales…

Flashback to 1989. About five minutes after I’d picked up my first-ever Lori sketch from artist Dave Simons (see yesterday’s post for that drawing), I wandered into one of the other convention areas and saw two guys sitting behind a table, promoting Cry For Dawn, a horror comic series they were about to publish.

One guy identified himself as the comic’s writer, Joe Monks; the other was the series’ artist, Joseph Linsner. What got my attention, though, was the painted art they had on display showcasing Dawn, the star of their comic. I asked Linsner if he wouldn’t mind doing a sketch of my redheaded femme fatale. He said sure, asked to borrow the Simons sketch for reference, and said come back in an hour. One hour later, I had this.

Absolutely stunning, wouldn’t you say? And most of it’s rendered in colored pencil! Linsner said he had to stop himself—he was enjoying the sketch so much he realized he was putting too much work into it. Hey, I didn’t mind.  😀

Of course, Dawn became Linsner’s seminal character—eventually becoming a cottage industry of prints and T-shirts and statues and cosplay contests and, yes, even more comics—and he became a pretty big name in the industry. Deservedly so, in my opinion.

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Visions of Lorelei: Dave Simons

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Steven

Welcome back to Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces The ’Warp’s soul-stealing succubus. For day two, we have the first-ever Lorelei convention sketch that I commissioned.

In 1989, Dave Simons was the inker of Marvel Comics’ Ghost Rider, bringing—with penciler Bob Budiansky—a Bernie Wrightson–like look to a series that had started out as a 1970s horror title but had eventually devolved into just another superhero comic. At last the motorcycle-riding hero was returning to his horror roots, which meant that when I learned he was attending a comic book convention in New York City (one of the early Great Eastern Cons, I think), I put him on my list of artists I wanted to approach for a sketch.

See, 1989 was also the year that I introduced Lorelei in a digest-sized comic that I’d spent months drawing—my very first comic project—so I was curious to see how professional artists would interpret her. Simons was the first I talked to—and man, was I happy with the result!

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Visions of Lorelei: Louis Small Jr.

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Steven

Welcome to Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that celebrates the recent publication of Lorelei: Sects and the City, a Mature Readers graphic novel that reintroduces The ’Warp’s first horror heroine: the soul-stealing succubus Lorelei, who made her small-press comics debut in 1989 before starring in a short-lived, full-size comics series in 1993. We kick things off with a team-up that will probably never happen—but a fella can dream, can’t he?

I first met artist Louis Small Jr. in early 1993—I was making plans to publish Lori in her first full-sized comic, and Louis was getting attention as the penciler of Harris Comics’ recently launched Vampirella series (with some guy named Jim Balent inking him—hey, whatever happened to him?). Considering how ugly the art was on Harris’ previous Vampirella comic—the b&w miniseries Morning in America—Louis’s art was the proverbial breath of fresh air. And I told him so, when I ran into him at the ’93 Great Eastern Convention in New York. He was talking to a friend of mine who saw me coming and yelled out, “There’s that guy I was telling you about, who’s the big Vampirella fan!” And then I gushed about how awesome Louis’s art was.

The gushing paid off. Turned out Harris Comics wasn’t really promoting Louis’s appearance at the con—in fact, they didn’t even have copies of Vampirella #1 on display—and he was feeling pretty annoyed. But now, here was someone excited about his art, and he felt appreciated—so appreciated that he stopped by my artist alley table the next day to say he’d be willing to draw the cover for the upcoming Lorelei #0 for free.

Skip ahead to fall ’93. By then I’d published two issues of Lorelei—#0 and #1, both with covers by Louis—and I was trying to figure out a way to get people’s attention at another Great Eastern show. How about a free b&w poster? I thought. But what should the subject be? Lorelei, obviously, but there needed to be a real eye-grabbing element. Then the idea just popped into my head…

Lori and Vampirella, drawn by Louis—makes sense, doesn’t it? And the people who picked up the poster sure loved it. Unfortunately, this is as close to teaming up as these two ladies have ever gotten. Ah, well. But it’s sure a nice piece, isn’t it?

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Talking About a Beautiful Monster

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Steven

As part of the SWC promotional machine’s push to spread the word about our brand-new Mature Readers graphic novel Lorelei: Sects and the City, Rob Caprilozzi of the Horror News Network conducted an interview with me that’s just been posted to the site Comic Monsters:

“Lori’s story goes like this: She used to be an acclaimed photographer known as Laurel Ash, but after meeting a man of mystery named Arioch she wound up undergoing a supernatural process that turned her into a succubus—a sexual demon. As a result, she can consume the souls of her victims, draining their life force until they become withered corpses…. After she became a beautiful monster, Lori made a conscious decision to only take the souls of bad guys; whether she can keep to that promise is a topic for future stories…”

Read the entire interview by clicking the Comic Monsters logo up top.

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What Are the “Visions of Lorelei”?

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Steven

In 2011, The ’Warp introduced dark-urban-fantasy readers to my novel series The Saga of Pandora Zwieback through “The 13 Days of Pan-demonium”—a celebration of the publication of Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1. Well, I figured, why not do the same thing for StarWarp Concepts’ first horror heroine, the succubus Lorelei, and her brand-new Mature Readers graphic novel Lorelei: Sects and the City, which is on sale right now?

Thus, Visions of Lorelei, a 13-part artistic event that will run here on the SWC blog August 1–13. This event, however, is a little different from when I hired artists for the “13 Days of Pan-demonium” promotion, because I already have a collection of Lorelei drawings.

During my more fannish days I used to do what a lot of convention-goers do, if they’ve got the money: pay your favorite artists to do sketches of your favorite comic book characters. In my case, I’d ask them to draw Lorelei. This lasted between 1989—after I’d introduced her in a minicomic that I’d written and drawn—and 1992, when I started making plans for launching StarWarp Concepts and making Lorelei a real comic book, and needed the money to get things done.

Who’s in the lineup? For starters, we’ve got Louis Small Jr. (Vampirella); Uriel Caton (JSA Annual and Pandora’s co-creator); Dave Simons (Ghost Rider); Mark Beachum (Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man); Frank Thorne (Red Sonja); Tim Vigil (Faust), and Gray Morrow (Zatanna). And then there are the surprise guests you probably would have never expected to see drawing my soul-stealing femme fatale!

Some are rough pencils, some are fully inked; some are in color, some in black and white. But all of them are artworks I’m proud to have in my collection, and I hope you’ll enjoy seeing them.

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Lorelei: Sects and the City Now On Sale

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Steven

Let the word go forth: Lorelei: Sects and the City is now available for your reading pleasure! This 152-page graphic novel features a script by yours truly, and art by Eliseu Gouveia (the fantastic artist of our illustrated classics Carmilla and A Princess of Mars, and the comic The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0), Steve Geiger (Web of Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk), and Neil Vokes (Flesh and Blood, Fright Night).

Lorelei Munro is a succubus attempting to stop Elder Gods from destroying the world, but that proves difficult to accomplish when she becomes the target of fanatical cultists who worship those very gods. If you’re a fan of old-school horror comics like Vampirella, Creepy, Tales of the Zombie, and Werewolf by Night, then this is the book for you!

Speaking of fan appeal, this tome also showcases work from three of horror comics’ greatest artists: Ernie Colon (The Grim Ghost, Inner Sanctum), Tom Sutton (Werewolf by Night, Ghost Rider), and cover painter Esteban Maroto (Vampirella, Zatanna: Come Together). Plus there are pin-ups by Louis Small Jr. (Vampirella, Supergirl). Now that’s some package!

Due to some adult themes in the book (sex, violence, nudity, and an armory’s worth of F-bombs), we’ve designated it a Mature Readers title (for readers 18 years and older) and placed a parental advisory on the front cover. If you’re a teenaged fan of my Pandora Zwieback novels (and thanks for being one), this really isn’t a graphic novel for you—but your dad might like it!  ;-D  (Cue the legions of female readers now screaming “Ewww!”) But don’t worry, Pan-atics, you’ll get your own comic adventure next year, in The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1.

For more information on the book, visit the Lorelei: Sects and the City product page. There you’ll find where to order it from, and you can also check out some sample pages. Get your copy today!

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