It might seem hard to believe, but 2023 is the year that Pan’s publisher, StarWarp Concepts, celebrates its 30th anniversary!

After a trial run publishing a handful of small-press (in other words, digest-sized, photocopied, and hand-stapled) comics from 1989 to 1992, it was in the spring of 1993 that I officially launched SWC as an indie publisher, with the release of Lorelei #0, a 24-page black-and-white comic about a soul-stealing succubus, written by me and drawn by fellow small-presser David C. Matthews (Satin Steele, Maxwell Madd and His Wrestling Women), with cover art by Louis Small, Jr. (Vampirella, Batman). The debut issue sold well enough, back in those long-ago days of the black-and-white comics explosion in the 1990s—#1 sold even better—and the legend of the horror company with the science-fictiony name began!

The whole story of my adventures in self-publishing will be told in installments over at the SWC blog, so if you’re interested in learning the origins of Lorelei, monster hunter Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin, and (of course) Pandora Zwieback, along with various tales of my publishing adventures, then be sure to bookmark the SWC blog and follow along.

SWC will be celebrating all year long in a number of ways, and this-here Pan blog will be occasionally joining in the festivities, so get ready for some fun!