Author Archives: steven

Discussing Marvel’s X-Men on the Graymalkin Lane Podcast

Posted on by

Here’s a blast from the past about an old writing project I never thought I’d be discussing these days—but there’s a good reason for it…

This past September, I was contacted by Chad Anderson, the host of Graymalkin Lane, a podcast series dedicated to exploring the past and present of the X-Men, Marvel Comics’ hugely popular group of superhero mutants. The reason he reached out? To discuss X-Men: The Chaos Engine, a trilogy of original novels that I wrote between 2000 and 2002 for BP Books, a branch of the publishing company I was editor-in-chief for at the time, ibooks, inc.

Spoliers ahead: In case you’ve never heard of the project (and why should you, the books have been out of print for over 20 years), the trilogy involved the X-Men returning to Earth from an outer space mission, to find it’s now ruled by Doctor Doom, the Fantastic Four’s archnemesis—and he’s married to Storm of the X-Men! Worse yet, he’s made all this happen by taking possession of a Cosmic Cube: a device that alters reality to match its owner’s wishes. (Fans of the Marvel Studios movies know it better as the Tesseract—the glowing blue box that was one of the Infinity Stones, as seen in Captain America: The First Avenger, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame.)

Matters quickly spiral out of control, leaving Betsy Braddock, the ninja warrior known as Psylocke, the sole X-Man who’s tasked with saving the world—not just from Doom, but from Magneto, mutant master of magnetism, and Captain America’s Nazi enemy, the Red Skull! What kind of realities do each of the villains construct? What effect do their authoritarian visions have on other dimensions? How is Psylocke supposed to put the pieces of a fractured multiverse back together? You’d have to read the books to find out!

What Chad wanted to discuss is “Fascism in Science Fiction,” a topic he’s covering all this month, and given my X-books involve a trio of dictators who bend the world, and the subjects they rule over, to meet their diabolical needs (especially the Red Skull)…well, considering the current shape of the country these days, with its constant attacks on science, intellectualism, books, sexual orientation, and race, the topic is certainly a timely one…unfortunately.

But we also touch on lighter subjects: my history with the Marvel Novels program of the 1990s and early 2000s; some behind-the-scenes tales of the creative process behind the Chaos Engine project; and my background as a comic creator and author. So, come for the discussion on the X-Men and fascist superheroes, stay for the dirt on my adventures dealing with the Marvel Licensing division.

Plus: the Graymalkin Lane Players perform an audio-drama adaptation of X-Men #99!

Check out and/or download the Graymalkin Lane episode by clicking this link to Redcircle. I had fun being on the show; hopefully you’ll have just as much fun listening to it!

Horror Street: Happy Day of the Dead 2025!

Posted on by

Welcome back to Horror Street, my ongoing journey in search of awesome yet spooky art on the streets and little-traveled corners of New York City!

A couple weeks back, I hopped on the #7 subway line and headed out to Flushing, a well-known Queens neighborhood in the eastern part of the borough, to visit Flushing Town Hall. My original goal was to check out a comics-themed exhibition, Comics in the City: Sequential Art Is… (which closed October 20), but then I learned there was another exhibition running—one that might be of interest to horror fans…

MexFest 2025: Day of the Dead/Rituals of Resistance is an art exhibition that, according to FTH, celebrates “Mexican culture in NYC—present visual works for a multidisciplinary exhibition honoring Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). This year’s MexFest theme, Rituales de Resilience (Rituals of Resilience), centers around memory, cultural ritual, and ancestral connection.”

There were, of course, other pieces than what you see here—some poetic, some spooky, some subtly political, and all worth giving a look to.

MexFest 2025—which is free to attend—ends November 30, so visit the Flushing Town Hall website for more information.

Stay tuned for further installments of Horror Street—there’s plenty of macabre graffiti art to be found on the streets of New York, if you look in the right creepy places! And be sure to check out my previous HS entries: the Brooklyn Vampire, the demonic D-Rod, Where the Gene Wilder Things Are, a Beetlejuice sighting, the beast called Queens’thluhu, the scarifying Ghoulmobile, the regal Griffin, the Spooky Forest, and the Demon Door!

(Photo © Steven A. Roman)

Happy Halloween 2025!

Posted on by

It’s Halloween! And celebrations can be found everywhere, including in Pan’s home neighborhood of Sunnyside, Queens, where I took this spookily decorated window in a local thrift shop. Gee, some of those items might look pretty good in the StarWarp Concepts home office…

It’s also this year’s celebration of Frankenstein Friday, which is observed on the last Friday in October—and fortuitously enough, that just happens to be today! As to the origins of this unusual holiday, according to the calendar site Checkiday:

“Frankenstein Friday was created by Ryan MacCloskey of Westfield, New Jersey, in 1997, to celebrate the birth of the Frankenstein monster, and its creator, Mary Shelley. He created it on a Friday because of the alliteration the name makes, and because it’s easier to be festive on a Friday.”

Works for me! After all, with writer/director Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein having had a limited theatrical run a couple of weeks ago (before it heads to Netflix on November 7), who’s to say it’s not a great time to celebrate Mary Shelley’s legendary novel—especially on Halloween! (I got to see the movie during its recent limited theatrical run—definitely watch it when it debuts on Netflix, it’s a fantastic adaptation!)

So while you’re devouring all those sweet treats tonight, spend some time with Frankenstein’s Monster—he’s certainly got enough movies and cartoon appearances to keep you occupied beyond the midnight hour!

(Photo © Steven A. Roman)

Horror Street: Pennywise’s New York Adventure

Posted on by

Check it out—three Horror Street entries in the same month! Well, with Halloween just a week away, and things like the Spirit Halloween Subway in town for the Spooky Season, the timing seems perfect for my latest NYC discovery, even if it doesn’t involve street art.

This week, my wanderings took me north along Manhattan’s prestigious Park Avenue, home to the headquarters of megacorporations and the apartments/condos/town houses of the ultrarich. And it was while I was waiting for a red crosswalk signal to change on a corner in the East 60s that a flash of red caught the corner of my eye. I looked toward one of the pedestrian islands that run along the center of Park Avenue and saw…

Well, now. Looks like someone’s a long way from Derry, Maine…

In case you’re not in the know, Derry is the fictional stalking ground of Pennywise, the evil, murderous clown who inhabits the town’s sewer system in the pages of Stephen King’s classic novel It, and later portrayed by Tim Curry and Bill Skarsgard on film and TV.

Has Pennywise grown tired of Derry? Has he set up house in Midtown Manhattan? Can he even afford the rents in New York—I mean, what does sewer space go for these days on Park Avenue?

Or maybe it’s just a very sly, very low-key way of promoting the clown’s upcoming TV series, It: Welcome to Derry, which premieres on HBO Max this Sunday?

Whatever the red balloon represents, it might be best to just avoid the area’s sewer gratings for a little while—unless, that is, you’re curious to discover if you can float down there…

Stay tuned for further installments of Horror Street—there’s plenty of macabre graffiti art to be found on the streets of New York, if you look in the right creepy places! And be sure to check out my previous HS entries: the Brooklyn Vampire, the demonic D-Rod, Where the Gene Wilder Things Are, the beast called Queens’thluhu, the scarifying Ghoulmobile, the regal Griffin, the Spooky Forest, and Beetlejuice himself!

(Photo © Steven A. Roman)

DriveThru’s 2025 Halloween Sale Is On!

Posted on by

It’s time to celebrate the Spooky Season—with e-books and digital comics! E-book distributors DriveThru Comics and DriveThru Fiction—along with sister site DriveThru RPG—have kicked off their annual Halloween sale, during which you can purchase thousands of horror-themed digital books and comics and roleplaying games at special prices! It runs until October 31—and yes, you’ll need to set up an account (it’s free) to take advantage of this promotion.

Included among the many participating publishers is StarWarp Concepts (of course), which means you can get select titles at lower prices, including the Illustrated Classic Carmilla, the dark-fantasy-noir story collection Chasing Danger: The Case Files of Theron Chase, the graphic novel Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings, and the full-color comic special The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1.

Again, the sale runs through Halloween, so head over to the StarWarp Concepts publisher pages at DriveThru Comics and DriveThru Fiction and start shopping!

NYC’s Trick or Streets Returns: A Safe Way to Celebrate Halloween

Posted on by

If you live in a big city, you know how dangerous trick-or-treating can sometimes be, with dodging speeding cars and trucks while you’re trying to make the rounds of your favorite candy-giving haunts—even in the daytime!

In 2022, New York City took steps to try and make trick-or-treating a much safer event, by instituting “Trick or Streets,” an expansion of its “Open Streets” initiative that closes certain streets to vehicular traffic so that NYC residents can walk and bike on them without fear of injury. (It’s a popular program that started in May 2021 as a result of the pandemic lockdown, so that people could finally get out of their homes and apartments to enjoy fresh air.)

Continuing the tradition, tomorrow kicks off Year 4’s Trick or Streets 2025: a two-week festival during which a number of streets will be closed off in Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn, allowing you and yours to hit the pavement and celebrate the Spooky Season with “live music, fun activities, interactive performances, and more.” (Keep an eye on local weather forecasts, though, so you can dress accordingly.)

For more information on the city’s Halloween plans and a list of family-friendly events being held, head over to the Trick or Streets website.

Have a fun, and safe, October!

Horror Street: Riding the Spirit Terror Train

Posted on by

Whaaat? Two Horror Street entries in the same week? Hey, why not? It’s Spooky Season, after all, and even though this one doesn’t involve street art, my most recent discovery is something all horror fans in New York City should check out, if only for the fun aspect of it.

While wandering around Manhattan this past weekend, my feet took me along West 14th Street where, on the corner of 6th Avenue, I spotted a Spirit Halloween popup store. What I didn’t realize at the time is that this location (for this year, anyway) serves as Spirit’s “flagship store” in NYC, and is home to their theme for 2025: the Madison Scare Park subway station—complete with haunted subway car!

I mean, how could I not take some pictures of such a great-looking display, with its unique passengers like the mutant rat and the electrified corpse?

So, if you’re in the New York City area, head on down to the Spirit Halloween store on the corner of 6th Avenue and West 14th Street, and take a terror ride at Madison Scare Park!

Stay tuned for further installments of Horror Street—there’s plenty of macabre graffiti art to be found on the streets of New York, if you look in the right creepy places! And be sure to check out my previous HS entries: the Brooklyn Vampire, the demonic D-Rod, Where the Gene Wilder Things Are, the beast called Queens’thluhu, the scarifying Ghoulmobile, the regal Griffin, the Spooky Forest, and Beetlejuice himself!

(Photos © Steven A. Roman)

Horror Street: It’s Showtime!

Posted on by

Welcome back to Horror Street, my ongoing journey in search of awesome yet spooky graffiti art on the streets and little-traveled corners of New York City!

With the Spooky Season in full effect right now, and today being the Monday the 13th (yes, okay, I know it’s not Friday, but…close enough for horror, right?), who better to drop in on than that ghost with the most, the one and only Beetlejuice!

I stumbled across the cinematic supernatural superstar this past summer, while wandering the streets of East Williamsburgh, in Brooklyn—a very popular industrialized neighborhood rich in street art. (I’ll have other pieces to show from that area in future Horror Street entries.)

There’s a good chance you’ll still be able to find BJ haunting East Williamsburgh—as temporary as mural art tends to be, sometimes the really good ones can remain untouched and unchanged for years. So, go hunt down that pesky ol’ ghost; be sure to tell him Lydia Deetz sent you!

Stay tuned for further installments of Horror Street—there’s plenty of macabre graffiti art to be found on the streets of New York, if you look in the right creepy places! And be sure to check out my previous HS entries: the Brooklyn Vampire, the demonic D-Rod, Where the Gene Wilder Things Are, the beast called Queens’thluhu, the scarifying Ghoulmobile, the regal Griffin, the Spooky Forest, and the Demon Door!

(Photo © 2025 Steven A. Roman)

Conventioneering at Home: Not at NYCC 2025? Join the Party!

Posted on by

As pop culture and comic fans know, today is the opening day for New York Comic Con 2025—which, if it runs true to form, will be an absolute madhouse this weekend!

Unfortunately, Pan’s publisher, StarWarp Concepts, won’t be part of the festivities (it’s really expensive to exhibit there). But that doesn’t mean you can’t experience a sort of scaled-down SWC version of the big show right here!

You want vendors? Though SWC’s webstore is currently down, you can order their ever-expanding roster of titles from such retail sites as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop. On the e-book and digital comic front, you can purchase books, comics, and graphic novels from their publisher pages at DriveThru Fiction, DriveThru Comics, and Smashwords.

Convention giveaways? Their Downloads page has a bunch of free stuff—Pandora Zwieback wallpapers for your smartphone and computer, book samples, and free digital comics:

Heroines & Heroes is a collection of comic stories and pinups all 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. Leading off is “V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N (in the Summertime),” a three-page Wonder Woman vs. Harley Quinn story that I wrote and drew in the late ’90s as a sample for a DC Comics editor who thought I’d be a good fit for their Batman: The Animated Series comic (long story short, it didn’t work out). The WW/Harley matchup is followed by an adventure of small-presser Jeff Wood’s rabbit-eared superspy, Snowbuni; three pages from the long-canceled indie comic Motorbike Puppies; and an adventure of the indie superheroine The Blonde Avenger.

The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0 is a full-color introduction to the young adult novel series of the same name, hosted by Pan herself. Pan is a 16-year-old New York City Goth who’s not only a horror fangirl but someone with the rare ability to see the for-real monsters that regular humans can’t (she calls it her “monstervision”), and with the help of a 400-year-old, shape-shifting monster hunter named Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin, she’s learning how to protect her family, her friends, and the world from the supernatural dangers out there—and maybe even have some fun while doing it. This 16-page comic features a seven-page story written by me, with art and color by Eliseu Gouveia (The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, Carmilla, A Princess of Mars), and includes two sample chapters from Blood Feud, the first Pan novel.

Artists Alley? The Gallery area—think of it as an online artists’ alley—features The 13 Days of Pan-demonium, containing original renderings by artists from indie and mainstream comics, including Elizabeth Watasin (Charm School), Teri S. Wood (Wandering Star), Neil Vokes (Tom Holland’s Fright Night), and Louis Small Jr. (Supergirl)!

So the StarWarp Concepts crew might not be hanging out at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center over in Manhattan, but at least you can have a con-like experience from the comfort of your home!

Getting in the Halloween Mood

Posted on by

Halloween is only three weeks (and a few days) away, so it’s the perfect time to get in the spooky mood—unless you’re already in it, of course! If you’re not, though, here’s some ways to spark your inner ghoul:

Horror movies! AMC Fearfest, Turner Classic Movies, the SyFy Channel, Movies! TV Network, Freeform, and Svengoolie (on MeTV) are just some of the cable stations chock full of Halloweeny programming during October, and streaming sites like HBO Max, Tubi, and Pluto are constantly adding horror movies to their lineups. There’s a lot to see before All Hallows’ Eve, so as the old saying goes, check your local listings for more information.

Then there’s Countdown to Halloween, an annual collection of blogs (mostly horror-themed) that commit to posting daily entries every day of the month, on a wide range of topics from comic books to toys, classic horror movies to music, and even wanderings through local cemeteries.

There are also the ghoulish deejays spinning tunes over at Halloween Radio and its five channels (Main, Soundtracks, Atmosphere, Oldies, and Kids), which stream year-round—perfect for when you’re looking for background music to play while you’re decorating your home or apartment, carving pumpkins, or working on your costume.

Are you a comic book fan? Then stop by your local comic shop to check out the latest spooktacular offerings this month, including Archie Comics’ Archie’s Halloween Spectacular, DC’s Zatanic Panic and Harley Quinn x Elvira #1, and Boom! Studios’ Hello Halloween.

But the true meaning of horror can be found this coming weekend on the Hallmark Channel, which is set to debut Haul Out the Halloween, an actual Halloween-themed romance movie, on Saturday night! First it was Hallmark’s annual “Countdown to Christmas” marathons during October, where it’s round-the-clock holly-and-ivy-draped programming in an attempt to distract everyone from the ghoulies and ghosties we enjoy, and now they’re horning in on All Hallows’ Eve itself—does their evil know no bounds?!

(Actually, it’s pretty well known that horror and Hallmark have a weird relationship. For all the counter-Halloween programming they do, Hallmark does have a following for their Christmas movies among horror fans, and then there’s the fact that not only have a number of horror writers and directors contributed to the yuletide filmfests (Fred Olen Ray, David DeCoteau, Michael Varrati), but even horror icons like Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead), Natasha Henstridge (Species), and Patricia Velasquez (The Mummy) have starred in them!)

Whatever it is you do to get ready for Halloween, have a fun time doing it!

(Collier’s cover image courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Collection)