Got Plans This October? I Sure Do…

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Believe it! In a major undertaking for this blog, I’ll be writing thirty-one straight days of posts about horror movies, horror comics, and other horror stuff for you to enjoy as we wait for the arrival of Pan’s favorite holiday (mine, too)—as well as the publication of Blood & Iron: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 3, which will occur right in time for Halloween!

The annual Countdown to Halloween is a blogathon event started in 2009 by comic writer John Rozum and blogger Shawn Robare, and every year the list of participating sites gets longer as more folks join in—and this year, Pan’s online home is getting involved!

The fun starts October 1st. Be sue to mark it on your calendar!

Pandora Zwieback: Blood & Iron a Real Treat for Halloween

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blood-and-iron-cvrThe wait is almost over!

She’s been shot at by vampires, killed by a fallen angel, come back from the dead, and nearly trampled in a zombie stampede for sweets, she’s maybe started to fall in love with a boy named Javier, and her mother’s been turned into a vampire, but teenaged Goth Pandora Zwieback has a whole new set of challenges facing her in the latest volume of her adventures: Blood & Iron: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 3!

When we last saw Pan, she, Javier, and their friend, the immortal, shape-shifting monster hunter named Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin, were trapped on a remote South Pacific island, and the fallen angel Zaqiel—not just Annie’s former lover, but the creature who had killed Pan and turned her mother vampiric—was leading an army of monsters to free his fellow bad angels. Could things possibly get any worse? Well, if you asked Pan, she’d probably say that’s a rhetorical question when it comes to her increasingly complicated life—and she’d be right!

Blood & Iron: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 3 is scheduled for release in late October, during the Halloween Countdown celebration we’ll be hosting all month long at this blog. Hey, what better treat for All Hallows’ Eve than curling up with the conclusion of Pan’s first literary adventure—the vampire war begun in the novels Blood Feud and Blood Reign?

Stay tuned for further information!

SWC Horror Bites: Something You’ll Want to Devour

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whitefell-werewolf-cvr“Short tales to appease your monstrous hunger for suspense” is how we describe SWC Horror Bites, a chapbook series that will be available in print and e-book formats exclusively from the StarWarp Concepts webstore, and at the conventions we attend. The series, which launches in February (during the annual celebration of Women in Horror Month), will be a mix of new and classic horror stories.

And if you head over to today’s post at the StarWarp Concepts blog, you’ll see my explanation of what this program holds in store for fans of literary horror this year. A feminist werewolf tale, a classic ghost story from Charles Dickens (but not starring Ebenezer Scrooge), and an anthology of spooky stories that first appeared in 1950s horror comics are just the start of the menu for SWC Horror Bites. Go check them out!

Happy 2017, Panatics!

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Believe it, skeleton man—that’s what you get for sleeping through Christmas! Still, I hope Santa and the Krampus brought you—and you Panatics—everything you wished for (or wished on others…mu-ha-ha).

blood-and-iron-cvrTwo thousand seventeen promises to be a busy year for Pan’s publisher, StarWarp Concepts, whose plans include—you guessed it!—the much-anticipated release of Blood & Iron: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 3 this October. It’s the conclusion of Pan’s first literary adventure, which began in the first novel, Blood Feud, and continued into Blood Reign, and pits Pan, her family, and her friends—including immortal monster hunter Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin—against the forces of monsterdom, who are led by the fallen angel Zaqiel—who’s also a former lover of Annie’s!

But starring in a new novel isn’t all that’s in store for Pan this year, and if you check out today’s post at the StarWarp Concepts blog, you’ll learn what SWC has in mind for our favorite Goth adventuress, as well as its other publishing plans. Head over there now and give it a read!

So, When’s the Team-Up?

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If, like me, you’re a fan of Marvel’s run of superhero movies—the most recent of which was the blockbuster Doctor Strange, starring Benedict Cumberbatch (a really good film, by the way)—then you’ve probably been waiting to see what was next for their version of the Amazing Spider-Man, who was introduced in Captain America: Civil War and is now played by actor Tom Holland. I certainly have—Spidey’s always been my favorite superhero; in fact, my writing credits include a short story starring him (“The Ballad of Fancy Dan,” cowritten with Ken Grobe for the anthology Untold Tales of Spider-Man) and a young adult novel (Spider-Man Super Thriller: Warrior’s Revenge, ghostwritten for author Neal Barrett Jr.).

Well, not too long ago, the trailer dropped for that next chapter, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and the biggest surprise—for me, at least—was that Spidey and his Aunt May (played this time by Marisa Tomei) have apparently moved from their decades-long comic home of Forest Hills to another Queens, NY neighborhood: Sunnyside—home to none other than a certain monster fighter named Pandora Zwieback!

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Yup, that’s Peter Parker in his Spidey costume, hanging out on his fire escape, with Manhattan in the distance, Queens Boulevard below him, and the No. 7 subway train passing by.

So the only question that comes to mind is, of course, when’s the team-up, movie folks? Marvel Presents: Queensborough Team-Up, perhaps? It’s box-office gold, I tells ya!  😀

Sugar and Spice and Everything Goth

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powerpuff-girlsHere’s something I forgot to post some months ago, but it’s a goofy enough image that I thought you might enjoy it. Or at least groan and roll your eyes at it!

Back in April of this year, when Cartoon Network was set to broadcast its revival of their popular animated series The Powerpuff Girls—about a trio of superpowered little girls created in a lab through the combination of “sugar and spice and everything nice” plus Chemical X—one of the promotional tools set up to get the word out was a website called Powerpuff Yourself (which is still active). The idea is that you create your own character from a selection of skin tones, hair colors, clothing, etc. and see what they would look like if they appeared in The Powerpuff Girls.

pandoraz-townsvilleWell, how could I resist?

So say hello to the Powerpuffed version of Pandora Zwieback, dropping by the city of Townsville (where the girls live) for a bit of cartoonish monster hunting. She’s accompanied by her pet cat, Vlad, who’s not interested in fighting monsters—but he wouldn’t mind fighting you for that last bit of food on your plate!

So…how hard did your eyes roll? 😀

Beast Feast Marathon on Movies! Channel

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beast-feastHappy Thanksgiving to all you Panatics across the USA—and outside the US, of course (although I’m pretty sure our particular November holiday is just another Thursday for you). It’s a day of celebration and getting together and things to be thankful for, and for monster fans like you and me, it’s also a day to prepare for another horror movie marathon on the Movies! TV Network, this time being held on Friday.

I’ve been checking out Movies! since it got added to Time Warner Cable’s selection of channels, and they’ve got a pretty decent library of films for different kinds of movie fans. But they really outdid themselves this past Halloween, with an all-day marathon of classic frights. Well, they’re following that up with a post-Thanksgiving monsterfest dubbed Beast Feast!

monster-squadThe day starts off with 1987’s The Monster Squad at 8:00 a.m. (ET), the much-loved story of a group of pre-teen monster fans who suddenly find their hometown under siege from the real Dracula, Wolf Man, Frankenstein’s Monster, Mummy, and Gill-Man (in other words, the Creature From the Black Lagoon).

The programming continues with the 1981 fantasy Dragonslayer, starring Peter MacNicol (Ghostbusters II); 1960’s The Lost World, an adaptation of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel, with Michael Rennie (the original The Day the Earth Stood Still), Jill St. John (Diamonds Are Forever), Claude Rains (The Invisible Man), and David Hedison (TV’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea); and 1985’s Silver Bullet, the adaptation of the Stephen King and Bernie Wrightson illustrated novella Cycle of the Werewolf, with Gary Busey (Predator 2) matching wits with a particularly nasty lyncanthrope.

Those are followed by a triple feature starring the Big G, himself: 1992’s Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth; 1995’s Godzilla vs. Destroyah; and 2002’s Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla. And then wrapping up the marathon is 1983’s Cujo, another Stephen King adaptation, this one pitting Dee Wallace (The Howling) against a rabid St. Bernard.

Sounds like a fun day of monster watching. Give it a look while you’re recuperating from all that Thanksgiving turkey!

Happy Local Comic Shop Day 2016!

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Pandora0_CoverToday is Local Comic Shop Day, an annual appreciation “conceived and implemented by ComicsPRO comic book specialty retailers to call attention to locally owned independent comic book specialty stores, celebrating their unique and vital role in being the primary fire-starters of pop culture.” In other words, it’s a way of encouraging comic fans to visit their LCS and give them some business as the holiday season kicks into high gear. So get out there tomorrow and support your LCS!

For more information, including a list of participating stores and the special collectibles they’ll be offering for sale, visit the Local Comic Shop Day website.

But it’s not just the retail shops that have something of interest for comic fans—not when StarWarp Concepts has its own range of comics and graphic novels to offer!

pan_annual2015The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0: A free, downloadable comic that serves as an introduction to the adventures of Pandora Zwieback and her monster-hunting mentor, Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin, with an 8-page story written by me and illustrated by Eliseu Gouveia, and a preview of Pan’s first novel, Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1. 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.

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 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).

Heartstopper: The Legend of La Bella Tenebrosa: Long before she met Pan, Annie was the star of this short-lived “bad girl” comic book miniseries published in the 1990s. Here you’ll find Annie doing a bit of research for an article about gentlemen’s clubs in Times Square—research that includes actually performing as an exotic dancer (I did say it was a ’90s comic, didn’t I?). It’s that part-time gig that brings her into contact with Corum de Sade, a heavy metal singer with a deadly secret: he’s a soul-devouring incubus! All three issues—written by me, with art by Uriel Caton (JSA Annual), Holly Golightly (School Bites), and David C. Matthews—are available for free from this very website, so download them today!

heroinesandheroes-1Heroines & Heroes is a collection of comic stories and pinups all drawn by 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: “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 (it didn’t work out); “Dirty Laundry,” an adventure of small-presser Jeff Wood’s rabbit-eared superspy, Snowbuni; three pages from the mid-‘90s indie comic Motorbike Puppies; and “I Was a Super-powered Vampire Slayer!,”an adventure of the indie superheroine The Blonde Avenger. Twenty-four pages of comicky goodness—and all for free!

The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special is a digital pirate-fantasy comic created and written by Richard C. White, coauthor of SWC’s supernatural-superhero graphic novel Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings. 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), it’s 48 pages of high-seas adventure perfect for fans of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise, as well as classics like The Crimson Pirate, Against All Flags, Captain Blood, and The Sea Hawk—and it’s available for download for just 99¢!

SWC_Troubleshooters_CvrTroubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings is a general readers’ graphic novel about a group of supernatural-superheroes-for-hire taking on their first case. The team consists of a wizard, a female ninja, a sorceress, a werewolf, and a rock ’n’ roll lighting designer wearing high-tech armor. Sure, they might not be on a power level with the Avengers or Justice League of America—they’re more like superpowered Ghostbusters—but they get the job done. The graphic novel is written by the husband-and-white team of Richard C. White (The Ultimate Hulk) and Joni M. White, and illustrated by Reggie Golden and Randy Zimmerman.

Snow White: Not really a comic book, but our presentation of the classic story by the Brothers Grimm features full-color illustrations first published in 1883 (and they really are beautiful drawings), and is available for immediate download for the low price of just 99¢!

The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual and Troubleshooters Incorporated are available in print and digital formats. Pandora Zwieback #0, Heartstopper, Heroines and Heroes, The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon, and Snow White are digital exclusives. Visit their respective product pages for ordering information, as well as sample pages.

Happy reading!

The Spooky Season’s Not Quite Over Yet…

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book-of-lifeHalloween might have come and gone yesterday, but for folks in Mexico, it was just the beginning of their three-day festival known around the world as Dia de los Muertos: the Day of the Dead!

Beyond the costumes and the skeletons and the candy, it’s a time for families to remember loved ones lost over the years. Let me just borrow this quote posted on Wikipedia, taken from Frances A. Day’s Latina and Latino Voices in Literature, to explain the holiday:

“On October 31, All Hallows Eve, the children make a children’s altar to invite the angelitos (spirits of dead children) to come back for a visit. November 1 is All Saints Day, and the adult spirits will come to visit. November 2 is All Souls Day, when families go to the cemetery to decorate the graves and tombs of their relatives. The three-day fiesta is filled with marigolds, the flowers of the dead; muertos (the bread of the dead); sugar skulls; cardboard skeletons; tissue paper decorations; fruit and nuts; incense, and other traditional foods and decorations.”

If you’re in the mood for a fun, spooky movie that celebrates the…er, spirit (sorry) of this holiday, check out The Book of Life, a 2014 animated film produced by director Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pacific Rim) that features the voices of Diego Luna, Zoe Saldana, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, and Ron Perlman. It’s sort of like a Mexican take on The Nightmare Before Christmas—at least animation-wise—about a bullfighter’s adventures and romances in the afterlife.

And if you’re looking for some StarWarp Concepts treats, how about some free digital comics? Check out this Halloween post from yesterday and see how you can download your own copies of The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0, the horror adventure Heartstopper: The Legend of La Bella Tenebrosa #1–3, and the superheroine-themed Heroines and Heroes.

Have a safe and happy Day of the Dead!