The Secret Origin of Sebastienne Mazarin (Part 1)

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Back on August 24th you were introduced to Pandora Zwieback 1.0—the original, non-Goth version of Pan that I created for an unfinished screenplay in 1984. But how about her mentor, Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin, 400-year-old shape-shifter and professional monster hunter—where did she come from?

Would you believe from comic books? Yes, indeedy.

The project began in 1993, with a comment made to me by artist Louis Small Jr., who at the time was being heaped with praise for his work on Harris Comics’ new Vampirella series (recently reprinted in Dynamite Entertainment’s Vampirella: Masters Series, Vol. 5). Although comic fans loved his art, he wasn’t feeling much of that love from his bosses at Harris—in fact, they’d already started promoting the artist scheduled for the next story arc! Understandably annoyed, Louis wished he could create his own Vampirella-type character, to show Harris what they were missing out on by ignoring him.

A few days later, I presented him with Heartstopper, a proposed series about a shape-shifting monster hunter named Sebastienne Mazarin: half French, half Brazilian, all badass.

As I explained to Louis, having Annie as a shape-shifter instead of a vampire would deflect any negative comments about how he was just trying to rip off Vampirella by drawing another female bloodsucker. And making Annie a Latina would help her stand out from the multitudes of white superhero women that dominated the market. Louis agreed, and got to work sketching.

The first thing you probably noticed is Annie’s wearing a lot less than today’s version. Such was the state of the industry in the 1990s—a decade when having a half-naked female character in your comic practically guaranteed it would get published. And sell phenomenally well. It’s a period now known as “the bad girl era.”

(Bad-girl comics—for those of you unfamiliar with the term—starred heroines who possessed a lot of attitude but very little clothing; a bikini and thigh-high boots with stiletto heels were the basic uniform. Vampirella, Catwoman, Lady Death, Shi, Flare, Witchblade—the list was endless. And the one thing they had in common was that they sold insane amounts of copies—because fanboys DO luv their scantily clad fantasy women…)

True to form, the bad-girl approach worked. Louis and I had gotten a bit chummy with Joseph Monks, co-creator (along with artist Joseph Linsner) and former writer/publisher of the horror comic Cry For Dawn. After a creative-differences split with Linsner, Monks planned to continue publishing and was looking for projects. When I pitched Heartstopper he said it was definitely something that would make for a good series, and wanted it to be one of CFD Productions’ new titles. (I’m pretty sure it was Louis’s sketches that sold him.)

First, though, he wanted to tease the series in the first issue of his anthology series NightCry.

That sounded like a good plan, so Louis and I got started. I wrote the first-issue script, and Louis…ran into scheduling problems. Apparently those Vampirella issues he drew proved to be more popular than expected, and now he was being flooded with art commissions and offers to draw comics for other, larger publishers. And when you’re a freelance artist trying to make a living from drawing comic books, you’ve gotta go where the money is. (Being a freelancer myself these days, I understand that logic all too well.) It was easy to see that Louis would never have the time to focus on Heartstopper.

That didn’t stop him from trying, though. He managed to complete eight penciled pages as the deadline for NightCry #1’s trip to the printer drew ever closer. Then Monks—realizing he had room for only four of those pages (one of the other stories ran long)—handed them off to an inker to make that deadline, rather than give Louis time to ink them himself.

The problem was, the new guy was a rookie inker. Never been published. Never really inked anybody before, either. The results were…pretty ugly.

In the end, between the bad art job and Louis being unavailable to work on the series, it was decided that Heartstopper was not going to be one of CFD’s new titles. In retrospect that was just as well—the company folded two years later—but I was still disappointed.

But, I thought, maybe if I can find another artist who’s as good with the bad-girl stuff as Louis is, I can try and place the series with another publisher.

And that was when an equally talented artist named Uriel Caton entered the picture…

We’ve Got E-books!

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That’s right! Available for purchase right now from DriveThru Horror is the PDF edition of Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1!

Well, no, you can’t buy it for a dollar, but the low, low price of $4.99 is just as good, isn’t it? Of course it is!

Also available is J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s vampire classic Carmilla ($3.99!), which features six beautiful illustrations by resident Pandora Zwieback artist Eliseu Gouveia.

It’s a baby step into the 21st century for StarWarp Concepts, but we are working on other platform editions (Kindle, Nook, Kobo, etc.); I’ll have news on each one as they become available. For now, just click on the DriveThru logo above to check out the first two SWC releases!

I Think I’m Seeing a Pattern, Here…

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The good news keeps on coming for Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1! If I’m not careful, I might actually start thinking I’m some amazing, big-time writer!  😉

Lady Kell of the UK’s BCF Book Reviews has posted a rave review:

“Attention all monster maniacs, vampire victims, Goths, fans of the macabre and all-out urban fantasy, paranormal and supernatural snapper-uppers—there’s a new series on the market and you’re gonna love it!”

Read the entire review here.

This Just In: Superdogs Love Zwieback!

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Hey, everybody—it’s the first-ever review of Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1!

Ashleigh Mayes, founder of the blog Krypto Dies, has posted her review of Pan’s first adventure, and I think it’s safe to say she really liked it:

“This book absolutely sucked me in and didn’t let me go! I found myself being late to work and class and ignoring the rest of the world. The characters are beautifully developed and relatable. Pandora is so three dimensional that you feel like you’ve known her your entire life…. No matter what genre you’re into, Blood Feud has something to offer any reader of any age.”

Read the entire review here.

Even the Undead Love Zwieback!

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Another day, another fantastic review of Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1!

The vampire-fan blog Taliesin Meets the Vampires—which recently enjoyed the StarWarp Concepts release of the classic novella Carmilla—has posted their review:

“Blood Feud is a young adult book that does the all-important job of translating well to an adult audience…. Roman’s writing is wonderfully crisp, drawing us into a hidden world that is great fun.”

Read the entire review here.

You’re Supposed to Encourage Them, Y’know…

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Ever since I got involved in book publishing, I’ve subscribed to the Publishers Weekly newsletter. (PW is a magazine that’s the bible for the industry—sort of a combination New York Times Book Review and literary Entertainment Weekly.) In one of the recent newsletters, there was a link to an article by bookstore owner Josie Leavitt, titled “She’s Not a Strong Reader”

“…after two failed attempts to get the book [the teenage girl] wanted, she finally let me help her. I got her a wonderful stack of Libba Bray and Sarah Dessen and left her alone, only to have her mother announce to me, ‘She’s not a strong reader.’ As if that explained why her daughter was taking her time to choose the right book.”

And that reminded me of a similar encounter I had at the 2005 San Diego Comic Con, only in this case it involved a young boy (maybe 10 years old) and a copy of a Young Adult novel that I was selling at my booth: Spider-Man Super-Thriller: Warrior’s Revenge.

Now why, you ask, would I be selling copies of a book written by Neal Barrett Jr.? Simple—because Neal didn’t write it, I did. In fact, it was my first novel! (Long story short, Neal’s manuscript had been rejected by Marvel Comics’ licensing division, and I was brought in to write an entirely new manuscript. Problem was, the covers had already been printed, so no author credit for me.)

Anyway, the boy’s eyes made a slow pass across the table and then locked on the Spidey cover. (It is pretty eye-catching, thanks to the great work of artists Mike Zeck and Phil Zimelman.) He picked up the book.

“It’s a novel,” I told him. “Spider-Man and the Hulk fight the Super-Skrull.”

His eyes got real big. He thumbed through it, liked what he saw, and told his father he wanted it.

And Dad balked.

“I don’t know…” He thumbed through it, too. “It’s not a comic book. Are you sure you’re gonna read it?”

“Yes!” the kid said. “I really want it!”

Dad frowned. “I don’t know…”

I was a little surprised by his reaction. I mean, after a dozen or so years of exhibiting at comic cons I’d gotten used to teens and adults grimacing when they realized that things like my other Marvel project X-Men: The Chaos Engine Trilogy and this Spidey adventure were actual books, with lots of words on the pages. Gah! How horrible that I actually expected them to read something without pictures! (Not that there weren’t some pictures—for Warrior’s Revenge, artist James Fry had provided ten fantastic illustrations.)

But here was a boy who saw all the words on the pages and still wanted to read it—and Dad was trying to discourage him? WTH, Dad?

“Y’know,” I said to the dad, “if he likes to read, that’s really not a bad thing.” The unspoken nudge being it would be a good thing to buy it for his son. (Besides, I was charging only three dollars—what a bargain! I mean, I recently saw a copy of it for sale at Amazon.com for $121.00!)

Dad sighed. “I guess…” He shrugged. “All right.”

He paid for the novel, I autographed it, and off the kid went, happily clutching his new book. And I stood at my booth and shook my head, wondering why any parent would want to discourage their child from reading.

Enter: The Girl With the Cookie Name

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So now that we’ve wrapped up “The 13 Days of Pan-demonium,” I think it’s safe to say you’re familiar enough with our resident Goth girl to know what she’s about—especially if you’ve bought a copy of BLOOD FEUD: THE SAGA OF PANDORA ZWIEBACK, Book 1. You have, haven’t you? (No, the book plugging never ends around here—we got books to sell!)

But where did the girl with the unusual name really come from…?

 FADE IN:
1. EXT: NEW JERSEY TURNPIKE – NIGHT
The hour is late on this warm summer evening, and traffic along the
New Jersey Turnpike is light and brisk. A light rain spatters down on
the asphalt, the droplets blurring approaching headlights, transforming
them into multipointed blobs of light.
Through the lines of traffic moves a Greyhound bus, the sign above its
large windshield proclaiming “NEW YORK” as its destination.
2. INT. GREYHOUND BUS – TRAVELING – NIGHT
Within the cramped confines of the bus sit no more than ten PASSENGERS,
all but two of them dozing in their seats. In the rear left-hand corner
of the bus sits PANDORA ZWIEBACK, an attractive, auburn-haired,
sixteen-year-old girl. Dressed in colorful, baggy clothing, a bright
green beret perched on her head at a rakish angle, Pan has the look of
a free spirit about her.
Pan gazes out the window and stares at the skyline of Manhattan, ablaze
with the lights of the towering buildings. Pan’s eyes seemingly light
up as she smiles broadly.
3. EXT: NEW JERSEY TURNPIKE – NIGHT
The bus continues on its way, entering the Lincoln Tunnel.

And that was how the original—and very different—version of Pan was introduced, in a screenplay called The Nightlife Ain’t No Good Life that I started writing in 1984 but never completed. (The title, BTW, comes from the song “Night Life,” written by Willie Nelson. I didn’t know that at the time; all I knew was that blues legend B. B. King sang the hell out of a cover version of it—look it up on YouTube.)

Inspired by the viewing of perhaps one too many movies by director John Sayles (Eight Men Out, The Brother From Another Planet), Nightlife was the story of a pregnant, teenage runaway who winds up at New York’s notorious Port Authority Bus Terminal, and the people she meets—no supernatural elements, just the character-driven tale of a troubled girl trying to make sense of her life.

“A troubled girl trying to make sense of her life.” Okay, so maybe not all that different from the Pan Zwieback of today… Well, except for the red hair and the unplanned pregnancy, of course.

So, why didn’t I finish the screenplay? I can’t remember; in fact, I’d forgotten all about it until I was cleaning up the basement a few years back and stumbled across the original typewritten pages and handwritten plot notes. Imagine my surprise when I realized just how long ago I’d come up with Pan’s name! 1984? Wow.

As for why “Pandora Zwieback”…

“Pandora” because the idea was that at the end of the screenplay, after all the troubles she’d been through, she’d still be hopeful about her future. “Zwieback” because…well, because I’d flipped open the dictionary toward the back and looked for a word that I thought would sound good when combined with Pandora. And I did like how “Pandora Zwieback” sounded.

So there you have it. Greek mythology + hard cookie = weird name for an odd but lovable girl who over the years evolved from pregnant runaway to Goth monster hunter—mainly because the name kept popping into my head as I’d work on various projects and I’d think, “Yeah, I should do something with that…” And then one day I finally did do something with it.

Not exactly the earth-shattering origin story you were expecting, is it?  😉

And this doesn’t even cover the brief time there was a second version of Pan, who was meant to appear in an adventure comic strip for the magazine Popular Science for Kids. But that, as the saying goes, is a story for another time…

13 Days of Pan-demonium: Werewolf Café

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And so we reach the end of “The 13 Days of Pan-demonium,” our artistic celebration of the release of BLOOD FEUD: THE SAGA OF PANDORA ZWIEBACK, Book 1 (on sale now!).

Our final artist is: CIARAN LUCAS!

Now that’s what I call a magnificent digital painting! “Werewolf Café” shows Pan discovering that not even her favorite coffee house is a safe haven from the horrors that constantly haunt her. I mean, a werewolf—drinking tea! Tea! In a coffee house! How horrific is that?

Here’s a true tale of artistic mistaken identity: I discovered Ciaran’s work through DeviantArt, where he’d posted a cartoony Doctor Who drawing in his gallery. I liked the illustration so much I added to my own page’s Favourites, then asked him if he’d like to be part of the 13 Days because I enjoyed his art so much.

Unfortunately, it turned out he didn’t draw that Doctor Who piece—he only colored it! (Oops.) Embarrassed, I went back through his gallery to check out his own work and saw that he was an amazing digital painter—so I invited him again! He said yes (thankfully), and the fantastic results are here for all to enjoy.

These days, Ciaran is busy working as a colorist for such projects as Bluewater Production’s Vincent Price Presents, and Image Comics’ upcoming MacGyver miniseries (yup, based on the old Richard Dean Anderson TV show). Click Ciaran’s name up top to stop by his DeviantArt page and see his other work. You can thank me later.

*          *          *

So, what do you think? Has the art we’ve showcased during the “13 Days” promotion been as jaw-droppingly amazing as I think it is? Lemme know, you Pan-atics. (No, the 13 Days may be over, but the awful puns will never stop!)

13 Days of Pan-demonium: Subtlety? Not Really Her Strong Suit

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The Pan-demonium reaches its penultimate moment as we continue celebrating the publication of my novel BLOOD FEUD: THE SAGA OF PANDORA ZWIEBACK, Book 1, on sale right now from StarWarp Concepts and all fine online bookstores.

Say hello to…ME!

That’s right, on rare occasions I actually will pick up a pencil and draw something, although not as often as I used to. (Hey, somebody’s gotta write these Pan novels!) Back in the day, I did my share of convention sketches, usually involving superheroines and cartoon characters—or a combination of both. Once I even crossed Ariel, the Little Mermaid, with Catwoman and created…CATFISH-WOMAN!

These days, however, I tend to focus on my writing and let the professionals do the art. In fact, the only reason I did this particular Pan drawing was because I realized I was one artist short for the 13 Days promotion. Still, it was fun to try my hand at drawing Pan and Annie; maybe I do it again one day!

In the meantime—look! I have my own DeviantArt page, where I post some of my drawings, along with sample pieces by other artists that tie into my various projects. So, feel free to take a look at the gallery I set up—after you buy Blood Feud, that is!

Tomorrow, the “13 Days of Pan-demonium” reach their senses-shattering conclusion! Be there, effendi! Excelsior!

(Hey, who let Stan Lee in here…?)

13 Days of Pan-demonium: Hey, You Mind? I’m Trying To Read!

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The Pan-demonium continues as we celebrate the publication of my novel BLOOD FEUD: THE SAGA OF PANDORA ZWIEBACK, Book 1, on sale right now from StarWarp Concepts and all fine online bookstores.

Stupid ghost—get your own book! Today’s illustration is a special treat, because it’s by none other than Pan’s co-creator and designer: URIEL CATON!

I first met Uriel back in the early ’90s, through a mutual friend (and comics artist) named Delfin Barral. At the time, I needed an artist for a “bad girl” comic project I was working on, so Del opened up the copy of the Comics Buyer’s Guide that I had with me, and pointed to a full-page ad for a comic titled The Outer Space Babes. The first-issue cover art and interior pencils were by his friend, Uriel Caton.

Holy Moses! Sexy women—in spaaaace? And before that he’d been drawing sexy women for b&w publisher Eternity Comics’ flagship title Ex-Mutants? Now I had to meet the guy! (What? I did say it was the 1990s, didn’t I? It was the decade of the bad-girl comic!)

Not long after, Uriel signed on as co-creator and penciller of the bad-girl project, titled Heartstopper, which introduced readers to Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin, sexy monster hunter and all-around badass. (Now sexy monster hunter and fully clothed mentor to our Goth adventuress.) The comic made its debut in 1994, through Millennium Publications—and quickly died, unfortunately.

(For the story of what ultimately happened with Heartstopper, and how it morphed into The Saga of Pandora Zwieback…well, that’s a blog post for another day.)

After Heartstopper, Uriel went on to do work for other publishers, including DC Comics’ JSA Annual #1. Did you know he’s listed as co-creator of the female assassin Nemesis, along with now-big-time Hollywood screenwriter David Goyer of Blade, Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight fame? It’s true!

These days, Uriel works as the Senior Minimate (2D) Artist for Diamond Select Toys, a division of Diamond Distribution (the folks through which your local comic shop gets its weekly funny-book shipments). But even though a lot of his time is spent designing blocky figures based on movie and comic book licenses, it’s apparent from today’s “Ghostreader” art that he still knows how to draw the cutest girls around.

The “13 Days of Pan-demonium” keep rolling on! Tune in tomorrow for (or hide in fear from) my contribution to this event!