Valentine’s Day—the world’s favorite day for romance and outpourings of love—is close at hand, and coincidentally it just happens to fall smack-dab in the middle of Women in Horror Month. If you’re a horror fan, what better way to celebrate both holidays by snuggling up with your significant other and reading the story of Carmilla, the vampiress in search of love…and blood?
In 1871, J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic vampire tale, Carmilla, debuted in serialized form in the pages of the magazine Dark Blue and was then reprinted in Le Fanu’s short story collection, In a Glass Darkly, published in 1872. If you’re unfamiliar with what’s probably Le Fanu’s most famous work, here’s the back-cover copy from our edition, which has become the most popular title in our Illustrated Classics line:
Before Edward and Bella, before Lestat and Louis, even before Dracula and Mina, there was the vampiric tale of Carmilla and Laura.
Living with her widowed father in a dreary old castle in the woods of Styria, Laura has longed to have a friend with whom she can confide; a friend to bring some excitement to her pastoral lifestyle. And then Carmilla enters her life.
Left by her mother in the care of Laura’s father, Carmilla is young, beautiful, playful—everything that Laura had hoped to find in a companion. In fact, the lonely girl is so thrilled to have a new friend that she is willing to overlook the dark-haired beauty’s strange actions…which include a disturbing, growing obsession for her lovely hostess.
Carmilla, it seems, desires more than just friendship from Laura….
Critics love Carmilla, too!
“What makes Carmilla so endearing is the fact that the story is centered around two female characters, whose complicated relationship is colored by thinly veiled lesbian undertones.”—Slate
“Carmilla manages to pack in a lot of creepiness, narrative complexity, and moral ambiguity. It is worth reading both as a progenitor of the vampire genre and as a nuanced portrayal of a female relationship—part romance, part horror story—that exists outside the confines of masculine power.”—The Toast
Carmilla is available in print and digital formats, and features six spectacular black-and-white illustrations by artist Eliseu Gouveia (Lorelei: Sects and the City, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1). Visit its product page for further information.
Today is the U.S. release date of Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), the latest entry in Warner Bros.’ DC Comics movie universe, in which star Margot Robbie reprises her well-received portrayal of the Clown Princess of Crime, Harley Quinn, last seen busting out of Belle Reve prison with her “puddin’,” the Joker, in 2016’s Suicide Squad.
Heroines & Heroes is a collection of comic stories and pinups written and drawn by Steven A. Roman (that’s me!), dating back to my days in the early 1990s small-press movement—that age of dinosaurs in which creators like me used to make our comics by printing them out on photocopiers and then stapling them by hand. In H&H you’ll find mainstream heroes and small-press heroines, and even a couple of anthropomorphic bikers!
The popularity of role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons (which is currently going through a resurgence) and the like remains as healthy as ever these days, and among the handy reference books that are available for gamers and gamemasters you’ll find our own how-to book, 
Women in Horror Month is here again, that annual celebration that shines the spotlight on the contributions of all the female creators—writers, artists, movie directors, producers, special makeup artists, special effects experts, etc.—who’ve brought thrills and chills to generations of fans around the world.
This past weekend, the StarWarp Concepts crew rolled into Brooklyn for the second annual Pow Con. So, how’d it go? Well…it could’ve gone better…
Well, after the low sales and the daylong aural barrage, that was the final indicator it was time to pack up and head home; we wouldn’t be back for day two. After all, I couldn’t leave all my stuff in there and run the risk of damaging the books. So with a heavy sigh, the crew and I tore down the setup and headed to White Castle for some much-needed comfort food. (All right, it’s my idea of comfort food, but still.) And so our excursion to Pow Con 2020 came to an end.
Thanks for stopping by our booth this weekend and for coming here to check things out at a more leisurely pace. We’re always thrilled to meet potential new readers intrigued by our range of dark-fantasy and fantasy titles, and hope we can add you to our growing fan base.
Currently, our most popular series is The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, the young-adult, dark-urban-fantasy adventures of a 16-year-old Goth who’s spent the last decade being treated for mental health problems because she thought she could see monsters. It’s only after she meets a shape-shifting monster hunter named Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin that Pan discovers she’s never been ill—her so-called “monstervision” is actually a supernatural gift that allows her to see into Gothopolis, the not-so-mythical shadow world that exists right alongside the human world. Pan’s adventures can be found in the trilogy of novels 
Yesterday, I told you about StarWarp Concepts’ appearance this coming weekend at the second annual Pow Con, being held at the Brooklyn Expo Center. We’ll be selling copies of our in-print titles, but in addition to that—since we’ve luckily been assigned an endcap booth (A9!) at the corner of two aisles, which means we’ll have two tables—I’ll be offering some of my non-SWC work, which skews more toward mainstream audiences than the adventures of the soul-stealing succubus Lorelei or teen Goth adventuress Pandora Zwieback:
Sunn: Another ibooks, inc. release—this one from 2003—it’s a young adult graphic novel about a teen whose father is a Superman-like hero. When Dad is injured battling a super-villain, his son creates his own super-costume identity as Sunn. This one-off origin story features art by Kevin Lau (Vampi, Iron Fist: The Return of K’un Lun) and comic-art legend Alex Nino (Batman Black and White, The Fury of Firestorm).
Best New Zombie Tales 2: Another anthology, this one from Books of the Dead Press, it includes my story “Laundry Day,” about a group of people trapped in a Laundromat at the start of a zombie apocalypse. A standard-enough setup, perhaps, but reviewers were surprised by the twist it took at the end. If you’re a fan of stuff like The Walking Dead, you should definitely give it a read.
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