This is fantastic news! Bob Larkin—the legendary artist whose work graces the covers of the Saga of Pandora Zwieback novels, as well as the pages of his own Bob Larkin Sketchbook—now has an online gallery, and it’s open for business!
Bob Larkin: The Illustrated Man was launched on January 6 by two of Bob’s biggest fans, Courtney Rogers and Scotty Phillips, and it showcases a wealth of painted covers, movie posters, and toy packaging that Bob has created during his long career.
From pulp hero Doc Savage to superheroes like the Hulk and the X-Men (even the Toxic Avenger!) and horror icons like Dracula, the Wolfman, and Godzilla, one look at the gallery and you’ll see why Bob has been such an inspiration to a generation of artists.
Just click on the logo above to get started, and prepare to be amazed!
“Roman brings horror to NYC and spins a tale that keeps the reader enthralled…. I recommend this book for all horror readers and especially to young girls.”
The fact that Blood Moon Rising’s offices are based in Queens, NY—Pan’s home borough—makes the positive reaction all the sweeter. I mean, who doesn’t love a monster-fightin’ hometown girl?
You can read the entire review—as well as a review of Carmilla, StarWarp Concepts’ first classic reprint (with illustrations by The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0 comic artist Eliseu Gouveia)—by clicking on the cover. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the magazine!
Blood Moon Rising is also the sponsor of The Institute of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction, a one-day gathering being held this March at the main branch of the Queens Public Library, which is located in Flushing—a neighborhood that is immune to all your petty, childish jokes about toilets, so don’t even bother! 😀 Click the link in the Events listings for more information on the show.
An addendum of sorts to the previous post, for those of you who don’t think I work enough around here. 😀 Among all the goings-on at the StarWarp Concepts offices during the holiday break, I forgot to mention an interview I did that was conducted by Michele Lee of the young adult book site Reading Bites:
“Any creature of the night that sparkles in sunlight isn’t a vampire—it’s somebody who got covered in glitter at an all-night rave and stumbled outside in the morning!”
You can find that and all the other potentially controversial comments I make by reading the entire interview here.
Happy Belated New Year’s wishes to one and all! Yet even with the holiday season come and gone, there’s never any rest for the wicked over here at Zwieback Central, where stuff was continuing to happen while you were away. Let’s review what you might have missed, shall we?
E-books
A reminder from the end of last year: Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is available for your e-reader—and for the incredibly reasonable price of just $3.99! If you’ve been holding off from buying the print edition, or know someone who might be interested in giving Pan’s literary debut a read, then here’s where you’ll find it:
Smashwords: Apple iPad-, Kindle-, Kobo-, Nook-, Palm-, and Sony Reader–compatible files available at the StarWarp Concepts store.
Critical Acclaim
Posted just a few days before Christmas, there was yet another positive review of Blood Feud, this time courtesy of Melissa Voelker at HorrorNews.net:
“Far and away one of the best young adult supernatural fantasy novels released in the last few years…. [Pan is] exactly the kind of teen heroine that readers should be standing up and cheering for.”
Read the entire review by clicking on the logo above.
The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0—our free, downloadable comic that you’ll find in the sidebar—has been updated! No more references to past selling dates, and now it has the actual text from Blood Feud for the comic’s sample chapters. If you know anyone who might be interested in Pan’s adventures, then please spread the word and have them download this special introduction to the book series.
And as for some non-Pan-related updates…
The SWC 2012 Catalog
Over at theStarWarp Concepts site, you’ll find the final version of The ’Warp’s publishing list for the entire year, now available for download. Go read it—the company’s not all about Pan, y’know! And wait until you see what’s listed among the SWC offerings for this year’s Free Comic Book Day celebration in May!
What, Another Site?
I’ve now got my own Author Page at Amazon.com! As some of you folks know, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback is just my latest project; the Author Page is where you’ll find a list of all the other books I’ve written or contributed to, and what’s still available for completists who can’t get enough of my exceptional writing. 😉 Zombies, superheroes, Doctor Who, Final Destination—is there nothing cool that I haven’t written?
Were we busy over the holidays, or what? And we’re just getting started!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a sequel to Blood Feud to get back to writing… 😉
Back in the November 7 post, I told you about my decision to go with Bob Larkin–painted covers for Pan’s novel series as opposed to the fairly interchangeable photo covers that just about every other publishing company uses for their Young Adult titles. One of the reasons was that I couldn’t imagine what it would take to have a replica of Pan’s leather jacket created, complete with the bat ornament that hangs off its left shoulder.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, courtesy of master artist and sculptor Bob Larkin, I proudly present the one-of-a-kind, real-life Pandora Zwieback leather jacket—complete with bat shoulder ornament and pentagram choker!
Sweet, aren’t they? It’s the same make of women’s motorcycle jacket that Bob used for the Blood Feud painting. The neckwear is a combination of a three-tier choker I found through Amazon.com, and a large piece of Halloween costume jewelry. The bat ornament is constructed of Sculpey modeling clay over a metal frame, then baked in the oven—which means that once it hardened, the thing became extremely fragile; drop it on the floor and it’s bye-bye, ornament.
The devil art is the 16th-century title page image from Eloy d’Amerval’s epic poem Livre de la Deablerie (reproduced in the Picture Book of Devils, Demons and Witchcraft, from Dover Publishing, which is where I found it). I scanned it and Bob printed it on cotton, then attached it to the jacket with industrial-grade glue—that thing is never coming off!—and painted over the image. Then, after he stripped the oil from the jacket cuffs, the sleeves each took about 30 coats of white paint as a primer so the black leather wouldn’t show through. And after many more hours of painting and waiting for each coat to dry, the sleeves were done—and Pan’s jacket was finally complete!
What about the bat-faced belt buckle she also wears? (And if you’ve read Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1, you know where she’ll be getting that from, at some point…) I’m so glad you asked—because Bob sculpted that, too!
That’s just damn creepy-looking, isn’t it? Not to mention those wings would probably stab Pan in the stomach every time she bent over—but hey, she’s a fictional character with the reader-influencing power of suspended disbelief, so she can wear whatever she wants! 😀
And before you ask, I’m still using painted covers on the series!
* * *
And with that we come to the end of 2011. (Yeah, I know there’s one more week left, but the office’ll be closed between Christmas and New Year’s—at least that’s the plan.) It’s been a mildly bumpy road, this first year back in the publishing saddle for StarWarp Concepts after a six-year hiatus, but the madness has been fun in its own way. And rest assured, we’re just getting started!
However, we couldn’t have made it this far without the support of you folks out there, so on behalf of book designers Mat Postawa and Mike Rivilis, Web designer Dave De Mond, artists Bob Larkin and Eliseu “Zeu” Gouveia, and photographer Marc Witz, I wish you and yours a fun and safe holiday season and a Happy New Year.
The holidays are here, so what better time to curl up with your favorite e-reader and catch up on the doings of Goth adventuress Pandora Zwieback in her first novel?
Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is available right now at the following e-tailers, for the quite reasonable price of $3.99:
Also available at DriveThru Fiction: J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 19th-century vampiress novella, Carmilla—illustrated by Pandora Zwieback comic artist Eliseu Gouveia, and on sale for just $2.99.
Just click on the logos and start your last-minute shopping!
Last Thursday I appeared on the Scifi Diner podcast to promote Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1, but that’s not all we discussed! It turned into an hour-long, freewheeling conversation that spanned my writing and editing careers, my fanboyish obsession with Doctor Who, the state of young adult fiction, praise for Pandora Zwieback artists Eliseu Gouveia and Bob Larkin, and even a plug or two for some StarWarp Concepts releases.
A big shout-out to hosts Scott Hertzog and Miles McLoughlin for allowing me to ramble on as much as I did, but once they got me started on a topic it was hard to shut up. 😀
Grab yourself a snack and a favorite beverage, then click on the Scifi Diner logo to head over to the show’s site and download the new episode. It’s a Pan-tastic interview!
Sorry about the lack of updates around here these past couple of weeks, but have no fear—the Hype Hearse is back on the road! First stop:
This past weekend I had the pleasure of appearing on the podcast Sci-Fi Saturday Night to promote Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 and, despite all my uhh-ing (Gah! I hate doing that!) as I stumbled through the conversation, I had a good time. Learn the history of Gothopolis, and the secret influence behind the Pan series, then howl with laughter as I recount my brief misadventure trying out as a Batman Adventures artist for DC Comics. Good times, good times…
Just click on the logo above to head over to the show and give it a listen.
But that’s not my only appearance this month! On Thursday I’ll be interviewed by the folks at Sci-Fi Diner Podcast, and there are Q&A’s in the works for Reading Bites—the blog for the book-review site Monster Librarian—and Books of the Dead Press, the publisher of Best New Zombie Tales 2, an anthology to which I contributed. I’ll let you know when those interviews run—and whether more are coming!
So you thought all the coverage of the 2011 New York Comic Con had been exhausted, did you? Not true—and there’s videographic evidence to prove it!
The Web site Invest Comics has posted the third and final installment of their video tour of the con—just click on the logo above to view the sights and sounds of the East Coast’s version of Thunderdome. I come in at the 11:35 mark and hype Pan’s adventures for about a minute, but you should definitely watch the rest of the video (along with parts 1 and 2) to check out the other small-press publishers who were exhibiting, and to get the full NYCC 2011 experience.
Now if only I didn’t hate the sound of my own voice…
An addendum of sorts to the previous post, for those of you who don’t think I work enough around here. 😀 Among all the goings-on at the StarWarp Concepts offices during the holiday break, I forgot to mention an interview I did that was conducted by Michele Lee of the young adult book site Reading Bites:
