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.
