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Pandora Zwieback Examines Halloween TV Marathons
Hey, fright fans! Over at the Pandora Zwieback blog, I’ve taken a look at all the horror TV shows and movies (both classic and contemporary) that are scheduled for certain U.S. cable television stations as they celebrate Halloween 2016. There are some good ones to watch, like Vincent Price in The Tingler (the poster for which you see here), about a killer parasite that can only be stopped if its victims scream—scream for their lives! Head over to the Pan site and give the four-part post a read!
Posted in Halloween, Holidays, movies
Tagged halloween, halloween marathons
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Venus F Review at Comics for Sinners
Over at the news site Comics for Sinners you’ll find my review of Venus F., on sale right now from Oniric Comics. Created, written and illustrated by Chris Malgrain (Stan Lee’s Alexa, The Formidables), this one-shot, Mature Readers black-and-white special involves a woman living on a bleak future Earth who searches for meaning in her life, by traveling to other planets. The art is stunning, and the story is completely “silent,” without captions or word balloons; it’s up to the reader to consider what the heroine is thinking. Head over to C4S to find out more.
Speaking of science fiction heroines on other worlds, are you familiar with Dejah Thoris, kick-ass princess of the Martian city of Helium and costar (with her love interest, Earthman John Carter) of the classic science fantasy novel A Princess of Mars? No, then allow me to explain…
Created by author Edgar Rice Burroughs (who also created Tarzan the Ape-Man), A Princess of Mars served as the basis for Disney Studio’s 2012 big-budget adaptation, John Carter—a movie that was tragically mishandled by the Mouse’s marketing department, despite it being a fairly faithful translation from printed page to silver screen.
A Princess of Mars, originally published in 1912, is the first in Burroughs’s “John Carter of Mars” ten-novel series about a post–Civil War era American who suddenly finds himself on the Red Planet, battling to stay alive against all sorts of alien threats. It served as the basis for Disney’s 2012 film adaptation, John Carter, and inspired a century’s worth of SF works, including Flash Gordon, Star Wars, and James Cameron’s Avatar. The special StarWarp Concepts edition—available in both print and digital formats—features six incredible illustrations by SWC artist supreme Eliseu Gouveia (Carmilla, Lorelei: Sects and the City), and a special introduction by Mars-fiction expert John Gosling, author of Waging the War of the Worlds. Here’s the back-cover synopsis:
Captain John Carter thought his days as a fighter were over. The South had lost the Civil War, and as a soldier now without a battle to fight or a cause to believe in, he journeyed west in search of a new life.
But not even Carter could have expected that his new life would begin with his death in the Arizona desert, and his inexplicable arrival on the barren plains of the planet Mars. Or that he would find love in the eyes of the beauteous Dejah Thoris, princess of Helium.
A prisoner of the giant, green-skinned warrior race called the Tharks, Dejah Thoris is meant to be used as a pawn in the ongoing war between the Tharks and her people, the red Martians—unless the gentleman from Virginia takes sword in hand to free her…and thus unite a divided world.
Once more, John Carter has a cause to fight for—and this time, a love to win, as well….
A Princess of Mars is available in print and digital formats. Visit its product page for ordering information.
Posted in Comic Books, Reviews
Tagged a princess of mars, chris malgrain, comic book reviews, comics for sinners, illustrated classics, oniric comics, venus f
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The Formidables Are Here!
Do you remember the days when superhero comics used to be fun and not contests to see which publisher could come up with the grimmest and grittiest antihero? When heroes fought villains and not one another? When Marvel Comics actually acknowledged the existence of the Fantastic Four? 😉
Well, it’s just that sort of nostalgic approach you’ll find in the pages of The Formidables #1, now on sale from French publishing house Oniric Comics, and available in English-language print and digital formats through online distributor Indy Planet. Created by writer/artist Christophe Malgrain, The Formidables are a quartet of superheroes battling evil in 1950s America, with their first challenge coming in the form of a Communist super-villain—who’s disguised as a white supremacist!
It’s a unique take on the genre, with Chris examining topics like race relations and sexual identity in a Cold War setting, with an appropriate amount of punching and explosions mixed in, of course—we are talking superhero comics, after all!
So, naturally, the question you’re thinking of is, why would I be promoting some other publisher’s superhero comic, here at the SWC blog? Well, if you know me by now, it’s probably because I’m somehow involved in the project—and I am! Not only is Chris Malgrain my old creative partner from the one-off comic Stan Lee’s Alexa (and a contributor to the 13 Days of Pan-demonium gallery), but I’ve also signed on to be Oniric’s U.S editor for their English-language translations. (What that means is I tweak Chris’s dialogue and captions to make them sound a bit more “American.”)
The Formidables #1 can be purchased right now from Indy Planet, so visit its product page for ordering information.
Posted in Comic Books
Tagged chris malgrain, oniric comics, the formidables
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Happy Teen Read Week 2016!
Teen Read Week 2016 is happening right now, October 9–15. What is it? Well, to quote the event’s website:
Teen Read Week is a national adolescent literacy initiative of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). Its purpose is to encourage teens to be regular readers and library users.
Teen Read Week’s 2016 theme is “Read for the Fun of It,” in which “library staff and educators are encouraged to leverage this theme to highlight all of the resources and services available to the 22% of the nation’s youth who speak a language other than English at home.”
For more information on this annual event, visit the Teen Read Week site.
And speaking of books for teens that can be fun to read, are you familiar with my young adult, dark-urban-fantasy series The Saga of Pandora Zwieback? Pan is a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s spent the last decade being treated for mental health problems because she can see monsters. It’s only after she meets an immortal shape-shifter named Annie 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. You’ll find Pan in the following titles:
The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0: A free, downloadable comic that serves as an introduction to Pan and Annie—with an 8-page story written by me and illustrated by Eliseu Gouveia—as well as Pan’s first novel, Blood Feud (via a pair of preview chapters).
Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1: This critically acclaimed novel is the beginning of Pan’s story, explaining how she, her parents and friends, and Annie are drawn into a conflict among warring vampire clans searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father. It’s a character-driven action-fest that leads immediately into the second novel:
Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2: Pan and Annie face even greater challenges as the vampire clans draw up plans to go to war with humanity. Leading the charge is a fallen angel named Zaqiel, whose previous attempt at subjugating the world was stopped by Annie—who, back in the day, was Zaqiel’s lover! But Pan isn’t about to let some ancient monster win the day, not when the lives of her parents and friends—along with those of every human on the planet—are at stake, so she leads a charge of her own. But whose side is going to emerge the victor remains to be seen…
Blood Feud and Blood Reign are available in print and digital formats. The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0 is a digital exclusive. Visit their respective product pages for ordering information, as well as sample pages and chapters.
It’s Banned Books Week 2016!
Got a favorite book? Well, odds are good there’s someone out there in the United States who’d liked to see it censored. And that’s where Banned Books Week comes in—an annual celebration of literacy in which the spotlight is shone on the problem of censorship in U.S. libraries and bookstores. To quote the Banned Books Week website:
Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982.
This year’s focus is on diversity, and why so many books—like the acclaimed firsthand account of the Holocaust, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Girl (file that ban under: what the hell is wrong with people?), perennial “favorite” Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, and Jessica Herthel and Jaz Jennings’s I Am Jazz—that celebrate it were among the top titles banned in 2015.
Banned Books Week 2016 is happening right now, September 25 to October 1, so visit the BBW website for more information, including a list of the books they’re celebrating this year.
You Want to Talk Vampire Hunters?
Tonight is the broadcast premiere of Van Helsing, the SyFy Channel’s latest entry in their ever-growing scripted-series schedule, and one that has no connection to that terrible Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale movie from 2004. To quote the press release:
“The 13-episode series, from acclaimed filmmaker Neil LaBute, will focus on Vanessa Helsing (True Blood’s Kelly Overton), the latest in a long line of famed monster hunters. The series will feature an intriguing twist on the Dracula story, with Vanessa being resurrected in a future in which vampires rule the world. Discovering that she holds a mysterious power over them (the bloodsuckers, that is), Vanessa must lead what’s left of humanity against the vamps in a post-Rising world.”
Well, if vampires and the hunters who fight them are your thing, are you familiar with my young adult novel series The Saga of Pandora Zwieback? Pan is a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s spent the last decade being treated for mental health problems because she can see monsters. It’s only after she meets Annie 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. You’ll find Pan and Annie battling evil in the following titles:
The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0: A free, downloadable comic that serves as an introduction to Pan and Annie—with an 8-page story written by me and illustrated by Eliseu Gouveia—as well as Pan’s first novel, Blood Feud (via a pair of preview chapters).
Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1: This critically acclaimed novel is the beginning of Pan’s story, explaining how she, her parents and friends, and Annie are drawn into a conflict among warring vampire clans searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father. It’s a character-driven action-fest featuring the kind of gun-toting vampires that Selene would feel right at home among, and it leads immediately into the second novel:
Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2: Pan and Annie face even greater challenges as the vampire clans draw up plans to go to war with humanity. Leading the charge is a fallen angel named Zaqiel, whose previous attempt at subjugating the world was stopped by Annie—who, back in the day, was Zaqiel’s lover! But Pan isn’t about to let some ancient monster win the day, not when the lives of her parents and friends—along with those of every human on the planet—are at stake, so she leads a charge of her own. Yes, there’s more vampire gunplay involved—the undead sure do like their firearms—but that’s only part of the dangers Pan has to contend with, as her adventures take her to a mysterious South Pacific island where monsters dwell.
The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1: A spinoff from the novel series, this 56-page, full-color comic special finds the teenaged Goth adventuress battling Gothic Lolita vampires and a jealous, man-stealing siren. It features stories by me and Sholly Fisch (Scooby-Doo Team-Up), art by Eliseu Gouveia (The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0), comic-art legend Ernie Colon (Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld), and Elizabeth Watasin (Charm School), and cover art by award-winning artist Henar Torinos (Mala Estrella).
Blood Feud, Blood Reign, and the Pan Annual are available in print and digital formats. Pandora Zwieback #0 is a digital exclusive. Visit their respective product pages for ordering information, as well as sample pages and chapters.
Posted in Television, Television Shows
Tagged Pandora Zwieback, shameless plugs, van helsing
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It’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day 2016!
That’s right, swashbucklers, whether you’re a fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise, classic films like Captain Blood, The Crimson Pirate, and The Sea Hawk, or even baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates (okay, maybe that last one’s a stretch), today’s your chance to celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day! And StarWarp Concepts has exactly the kind of pirate-fantasy comic you’re looking for!
The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special is a one-shot digital comic created and written by Richard C. White, author of SWC’s supernatural superhero graphic novel Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings, as well as Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination. Drawn by Bill Bryan (artist of Caliber Press’ Dark Oz and DC Comics’ House of Mystery), and featuring cover art and color by Eliseu Gouveia (SWC’s The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, Lorelei: Sects and the City), it’s 48 pages of high-seas adventure for just 99¢!
Visit the Sea Dragon’s product page for more information, including sample pages.
And speaking of Rich White and fantasy adventure, have you checked out his popular how-to world-building book for writers and gamers?
In Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination, Rich takes you through the step-by-step process of constructing a world for your characters, from societies and governments to currency and religion. Included is an interview with New York Times bestselling author Tracy Hickman (Dragonlance) that discusses his methods of world building, as well as his creative experiences during his time as a designer for gaming company TSR, the original home of Dungeons & Dragons.
Terra Incognito is available in print and digital formats, so visit its product pages for ordering information.
Posted in Events, Publishing
Tagged chronicles of the sea dragon, international talk like a pirate day, richard c. white
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It’s National Read a Book Day 2016!
Today is National Read a Book Day, which is celebrated in the United States every September 6th since…well, nobody seems to know precisely when this “holiday” began, or who started it, but it’s a celebration of reading, so it’s all good, right? And if you’re looking for the right book on this special day, here are a few StarWarp Concepts titles you might want to consider:
Dark Urban Fantasy
Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is my young adult novel that’s perfect for lovers of dark urban fantasy. It introduces readers to Pandora Zwieback, a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s spent the last decade being treated for mental health problems because she can see monsters. It’s only after she meets professional monster hunter 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. In Blood Feud, Pan, her parents and friends, and Annie are drawn into a conflict among warring vampire clans searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father.
In Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2, Pan and Annie face even greater challenges as the vampire clans draw up plans to go to war with humanity. Leading the charge is a fallen angel named Zaqiel, whose previous attempt at subjugating the world was stopped by Annie—who, back in the day, was Zaqiel’s lover! But Pan isn’t about to let some ancient monster win the day, not when the lives of her parents and friends—along with those of every human on the planet—are at stake, so she leads a charge of her own. But whose side is going to emerge the victor remains to be seen…
Illustrated Classics
A Princess of Mars: Originally published in 1912, this is the first in author Edgar Rice Burroughs’s “John Carter of Mars” ten-novel series about a post–Civil War era American who suddenly finds himself on the Red Planet, battling to stay alive against all sorts of alien threats while falling in love with a beautiful Martian princess. It served as the basis for Disney’s 2012 film adaptation, John Carter, and inspired a century’s worth of SF works, including Flash Gordon, Star Wars, and James Cameron’s Avatar. The special StarWarp Concepts edition—available in both print and digital formats—features six incredible illustrations by SWC artist supreme Eliseu Gouveia (Carmilla, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, Lorelei: Sects and the City), and a special introduction by Mars-fiction expert John Gosling, author of Waging the War of the Worlds.
Carmilla is J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 19th-century classic vampiric tale of love gone wrong. Laura is so desperate for a friend that when a young woman named Carmilla practically turns up on the doorstep of the castle owned by Laura’s father, she thinks her prayers for companionship have been answered. But as she comes to realize, Carmilla isn’t as interested in making friends as she is in spilling blood. Regarded as the one of the earliest female vampire tales—if not the first—Carmilla was an influence on author Bram Stoker in the creation of the vampire brides in his seminal novel, Dracula, and remains a popular character in fiction to this day. Just like with A Princess of Mars, our edition contains six original illustrations done especially for StarWarp Concepts by the super-talented Eliseu Gouveia.
Writers’ Reference
Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination is our popular how-to book for writers and gamers in which bestselling fantasy author Richard C. White (Gauntlet: Dark Legacy: Paths of Evil, The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special, Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings) takes you through the step-by-step process of constructing a world for your characters, from societies and governments to currency and religion. Included is an interview with New York Times bestselling author Tracy Hickman (Dragonlance) that discusses his methods of world building, as well as his creative experiences during his time as a designer for gaming company TSR, the original home of Dungeons & Dragons.
All titles are available in print and digital formats, so visit their respective product pages for ordering information. Happy reading!
Posted in Events
Tagged national read a book day
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Happy Book Lovers Day!
Hey, fans of reading! Today is Book Lovers Day, a worldwide event celebrated every August 9th, and if you’re looking for the right book on this special day, here are a few StarWarp Concepts titles you might want to consider:
Dark Urban Fantasy
Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is my young adult novel that’s perfect for lovers of dark urban fantasy. It introduces readers to Pandora Zwieback, a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s spent the last decade being treated for mental health problems because she can see monsters. It’s only after she meets professional monster hunter 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. In Blood Feud, Pan, her parents and friends, and Annie are drawn into a conflict among warring vampire clans searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father.
In Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2, Pan and Annie face even greater challenges as the vampire clans draw up plans to go to war with humanity. Leading the charge is a fallen angel named Zaqiel, whose previous attempt at subjugating the world was stopped by Annie—who, back in the day, was Zaqiel’s lover! But Pan isn’t about to let some ancient monster win the day, not when the lives of her parents and friends—along with those of every human on the planet—are at stake, so she leads a charge of her own. But whose side is going to emerge the victor remains to be seen…
Illustrated Classics
A Princess of Mars: Originally published in 1912, this is the first in author Edgar Rice Burroughs’s “John Carter of Mars” ten-novel series about a post–Civil War era American who suddenly finds himself on the Red Planet, battling to stay alive against all sorts of alien threats while falling in love with a beautiful Martian princess. It served as the basis for Disney’s 2012 film adaptation, John Carter, and inspired a century’s worth of SF works, including Flash Gordon, Star Wars, and James Cameron’s Avatar. The special StarWarp Concepts edition—available in both print and digital formats—features six incredible illustrations by SWC artist supreme Eliseu Gouveia (Carmilla, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, Lorelei: Sects and the City), and a special introduction by Mars-fiction expert John Gosling, author of Waging the War of the Worlds.
Carmilla is J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 19th-century classic vampiric tale of love gone wrong. Laura is so desperate for a friend that when a young woman named Carmilla practically turns up on the doorstep of the castle owned by Laura’s father, she thinks her prayers for companionship have been answered. But as she comes to realize, Carmilla isn’t as interested in making friends as she is in spilling blood. Regarded as the one of the earliest female vampire tales—if not the first—Carmilla was an influence on author Bram Stoker in the creation of the vampire brides in his seminal novel, Dracula, and remains a popular character in fiction to this day. Just like with A Princess of Mars, our edition contains six original illustrations done especially for StarWarp Concepts by the super-talented Eliseu Gouveia.
Writers’ Reference
Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination is our popular how-to book for writers and gamers in which bestselling fantasy author Richard C. White (Gauntlet: Dark Legacy: Paths of Evil, The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special, Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings) takes you through the step-by-step process of constructing a world for your characters, from societies and governments to currency and religion. Included is an interview with New York Times bestselling author Tracy Hickman (Dragonlance) that discusses his methods of world building, as well as his creative experiences during his time as a designer for gaming company TSR, the original home of Dungeons & Dragons.
All titles are available in print and digital formats, so visit their respective product pages for ordering information. Happy reading!