CT Horrorfest 2019 Report at the StarWarp Concepts Blog

Frank-Romano-DevilThis past Saturday, StarWarp Concepts (and me, naturally) made its first appearance at the sixth annual Connecticut Horrorfest, held at the Naugatuck Event Center. It was the perfect setting for creating horror convention nightmares, given its location: on Elm Street! (Freddy says hi, by the way, and he’ll see you in your dreams.) And considering the headliners were Doug Bradley (Pinhead of the Hellraiser movies), Tobin Bell (Jigsaw of the Saw movies), and David Naughton (star of An American Werewolf in London), it’s no surprise that horror fans came out in droves.

So how’d it go for SWC and me? Well, if you head over to the StarWarp Concepts blog, you can read my CT Horrorfest 2019 report and see for yourself!

Welcome CT Horrorfest 2019 Attendees!

Hoover_PandoraThanks for stopping by the StarWarp Concepts table today, and for your interest in my Goth adventuress, Pandora Zwieback. If you’re here because you spoke with me, then click on the cover you see to the right and download the Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0 digital comic that I showed you. Not only is it an introduction to Pan and her world, hosted by Pan herself, but it contains two sample chapters from her first novel, Blood Feud. Give it a read.

The Saga of Pandora Zwieback is the young adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel series that I write. It’s the story of 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 a shape-shifting monster hunter named Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin, in the first critically acclaimed novel, Blood Feud, 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. But before Pan can learn more about what she can do, she and her parents are drawn into a conflict between warring vampire clans that are searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father.

Blood Feud is 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.”—Melissa Voelker, HorrorNews.net

“One of those fabulous books that manages to straddle the young adult/adult fiction divide, catering equally for teens and more, ahem, ‘mature’ readers alike with a light touch that makes it a joy to read.”—Kell Smurthwaite, BCF Book Reviews

blood_reign-coverPan’s debut adventure continues in the second novel, Blood Reign, in which she and Annie face challenges from not just vampires but legions of monsters led by a fallen angel—who happens to be one of Annie’s ex-lovers! Blood Feud ended on such a shocking cliffhanger that Blood Reign picks up right where the previous novel left off and hits the ground running, in a story filled with danger, high-speed car chases, vampire hit squads, and a generous helping of romance—all while Pan tries to make sense of her increasingly weird life. Pan fans (I call them “Panatics”) can’t seem to get enough of StarWarp Concepts’ resident Goth girl, so feel free to join their growing ranks—we love adding new members to Zwieback Nation.

“If Blood Feud, the first volume, took some deliberate pacing steps to build Pandora’s character, Blood Reign eschews that as it thunders along at breakneck speed, barely pausing for breath at any given time (and, I must say, the volume was devoured at speed as well)… I thoroughly enjoyed this volume.”—Andrew Boylan, Taliesin Meets the Vampires

“If you thought the first book, Blood Feud, was high powered, you’ll love this book! To paraphrase movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn’s quote: Blood Reign starts with an earthquake and builds to a climax…. This was one fun read!”Dwight Jon ZimmermanNew York Times bestselling coauthor of Lincoln’s Last Days

Pan’s first prose adventure concludes in the upcoming Blood & Iron, in which she, as well as her friends and family, will try to stop the legions of monsters from taking over the world.

pan_annualAlong with Blood Feud and Blood Reign, also available is the 56-page comic book The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, which features two adventures (written by me) of Pan and her friends that are separate from (and take place after) the novels: a full-color drawn by Eliseu Gouveia (The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0), in which Pan and her boyfriend, Javier, run into one of his ex-girlfriends…whom Pan can see is really a mythological siren that can enrapture men with her voice; and a short story that pits Pan, Annie, and Javier against a trio of Elegant Gothic Lolita vampires—in a shopping mall! An additional backup tale, “After Hours,” is provided by DC Comics writer Sholly Fisch (Scooby-Doo! Team-Up) and comic-art legend Ernie Colon (Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld).

Give the site a look-over—we’ve got plenty of free stuff you can download, and a gallery called “The 13 Days of Pan-demonium”: 13 unique drawings of Pan and Annie by a host of talented artists. And when you’re done, don’t forget to Like Pan’s Facebook page, so you can keep up-to-date with all the latest news.

A special shout-out to teen readers and Pandora Zwieback fans who are budding authors, but who may think their work isn’t all that good and worth continuing: Check out “Again, He Who Stalks”—a science-fiction story I wrote for my high school’s literary magazine when I was 16. Take a look at thatand tell me you can’t do better! 😀

And please keep in mind that Pan’s publisher, StarWarp Concepts, is not just a YA fiction house. It also publishes illustrated classics (including J. Sheridan’s Le Fanu’s vampire romance Carmilla, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s A Princess of Mars, and the official 1932 novelization of the original King Kong); graphic novels for superhero fans and adult horror aficionados; digital and print comic books; artist sketchbooks; and writing guides for budding authors. Give them a visit and check out all they have to offer.

Connecticut Horrorfest 2019 Is This Saturday!

CT-Horrorfest-2019-posterMonster fans from far and wide will be gathering this Saturday in the Nutmeg State, Connecticut, for the 6th annual Connecticut Horrorfest, and among the vendors you’ll find there will be the StarWarp Concepts crew—our first-ever appearance!

We’ve been hearing good things about this one-day show since it debuted in 2014, and its success has steadily grown in size each year to the point that they’ve had to move it out of its original hotel setting and into a more traditional convention location: in this case, the Naugatuck Event Center, at 6 Rubber Avenue in Naugatuck, Connecticut. Considering this is the first convention SWC has hit in about three years, we’re looking forward to it!

CT Horrorfest is being held September 14 from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. For more information, including the latest list of special guests—which includes Hellraiser’s Doug “Pinhead” Bradley, Saw’s Tobin “Jigsaw” Bell, Danielle Harris of the Halloween film franchise, and David Naughton, star of An American Werewolf in London— visit the CT Horrorfest website.

See you there!

Gah! Last-Minute Cancellation!

MinCon-logoHey, folks, just a quick note to say I’ve had to cancel my appearance at this year’s MinCon, which takes place tomorrow at the Mineola Memorial Library.

I’ve got a growing pile of freelance work on my desk and it reached the tipping point yesterday, and made me realize I needed to focus on clearing that up this weekend. Sorry about that!

Even though StarWarp Concepts won’t be at the show, be sure to stop by the table of my friends J.D. Calderon and Daphne Lage, the creative team behind fantasy indie publishing house Dream Weaver Press. J.D. is the writer/creator of The Oswald Chronicles—about the adventures of a sorcerous mouse—and the cocreator of the anthropomorphic epic fantasy comic Tall Tails. Daphne is the cocreator and artist of Tall Tails.

For more information on the show, visit the MinCon website. And since it’s held every two years, hopefully I’ll see you there in 2021!

MinCon 2019 Is This Weekend!

MinCon-logoSummertime and convention season are both in full swing, and so it’s time for StarWarp Concepts to hit the road and meet the public. Sure, it’s been a few years since the SWC crew has made a con appearance (was Big Apple Con really three years ago?), but I think we still remember how to set-up and take down our vending material. It’s just throwing stuff in boxes, right?

Anyway, our first stop is MinCon, being held this coming Saturday, July 13, at the Mineola Memorial Library out on Long Island.

You’ll find the StarWarp Concepts crew stationed at one of the vendor tables, hawking some of our popular titles, including our latest release: Richard C. White’s noir-dark fantasy collection, Chasing Danger: The Case Files of Theron Chase. I’m not sure where exactly we’ll be placed, so come find us!

And since MinCon is a family-oriented show, we’ll even have stuff for superhero fans—specifically, The Bob Larkin Sketchbook, which features Bob’s pencils for various superhero projects, and copies of my X-Men: The Chaos Engine trilogy of novels, the Sunn young-adult graphic novel I wrote, and the Untold Tales of Spider-Man anthology I contributed to (all while supplies last).

The Mineola Memorial Library is located at 195 Marcellus Road, in Mineola Memorial Park. For more information, visit the MinCon website.

And Yet Another Roadstop…for Next Year!

pow-con-logoSo far, the StarWarp Concepts list of 2019 convention appearances has included comic shows, horror cons, and even a library. Well, add one more to the list—but this one doesn’t happen until 2020!

January 25–26, 2020: Pow! Con 2: This Brooklyn-based comic show debuted this past January in the neighborhood of Bay Ridge, and was apparently received so well that it needed to expand to a larger venue. In 2020, it’ll be held at the Brooklyn Expo Center in Greenpoint.

I’ll admit there was a slight hesitation before we signed on: The Expo Center was also the location for BoroughCon 2018 last June, and the reports on that were extremely discouraging—poorly run, no promotion, practically no attendees other than the vendors and artists, the fact that security doesn’t lock the doors at night when more than one event is being held there. Things turned out so badly that the BC showrunners decided they needed to take a year off to take stock of their situation.

But Pow! Con creator and showrunner Salvatore Lo Medico has assured me that the doors will be locked at night for this show, and hopefully they’ll do some heavy promotion as 2019 progresses for peak fan attendance. Considering how expensive it’s become to exhibit at conventions these days, especially in Manhattan, it’d be nice to have a moderately priced, successful outer-borough show to go to.

More news to come on other SWC convention appearances as information becomes available!

Panapalooza 2019 Continues!

monster-mania-logoBack on January 30, I told you about two conventions stops I’d set up for 2019—MinCon in July and CT Horrorfest in September. Well, you can add one more to the tally, coming this fall:

October 4–6: Monster-Mania Con: Held at the Delta Hotel Marriott in Hunt Valley, Maryland, this horror con has been growing in attendance every year—and no wonder, considering the caliber of genre guests they always manage to bring in. So far they’ve already got Mr. “Evil Dead” himself, Bruce Campbell, on board, as well as Tony Todd and Virginia Madsen—stars of the original Candyman (there’s a remake currently in development)—and Danielle Harris of Halloween fame.

With CT Horrorfest in September, that now means StarWarp Concepts will be exhibiting at two major terror fests this year, so if you’re attending either show (or both!), be sure to stop by the dealers’ rooms to pick up all the SWC titles you’re missing.

More news to come on other SWC convention appearances as information becomes available!

Down the Convention Path We Go…

ForestRoad-KarenArnold-PubDomPics

As I mentioned back in the January 7 post, in addition to the long-awaited release of the third Pan novel, Blood & Iron, Pan’s publisher, StarWarp Concepts (in other words, me), is making plans for convention appearances this year—the first time we’ve been on the road since…let me check…March 2016, at the Big Apple Con in Manhattan. So that means we’re long overdue for going adventuring—join us, won’t you?

We’ve currently got two venues locked in: MinCon in July, and CT Horrorfest in September, with others to come.

MinCon is a one-day show held every two years at the Mineola Memorial Library in Mineola, New York (located on Long Island), “celebrating comics, fantasy, science fiction, gaming, and anime,” as their site says. This year, it’s being held on Saturday, July 13; you’ll find the SWC table somewhere among the stacks of library books—I’ll let you know exactly where as soon as I find out.

CT Horrorfest is Connecticut’s sole horror convention, and this one-day gathering of monster kids keeps getting bigger every year. In 2019 it’s being held on September 14 at the Naugatuck Event Center in the town of Naugatuck (located in New Haven County), right at the corner of Rubber Avenue and…Elm Street?! Huh. I’m probably gonna need one of those clicker-counter things to keep track of all the Freddy Kruegers sure to show up for photo ops…

More information on both shows—and other convention appearances—as the information becomes available!

(Photo by Karen Arnold, courtesy of Public Domain Pictures)

Welcome, Big Apple Con 2016 Attendees!

Thanks for stopping by the StarWarp Concepts table today, and for your interest in my Goth adventuress, Pandora Zwieback. If you’re here because you spoke with me, then click on the cover you see to the right and download the Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0 digital comic that I showed you. Not only is it an introduction to Pan and her world, hosted by Pan herself, but it contains two sample chapters from her first novel, Blood Feud. Give it a read.

blood_feudThe Saga of Pandora Zwieback is the young adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel series that I write. It’s the story of 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 a shape-shifting monster hunter named Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin, in the first critically acclaimed novel, Blood Feud, 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. But before Pan can learn more about what she can do, she and her parents are drawn into a conflict between warring vampire clans that are searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father.

Blood Feud is 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.”—Melissa Voelker, HorrorNews.net

“One of those fabulous books that manages to straddle the young adult/adult fiction divide, catering equally for teens and more, ahem, ‘mature’ readers alike with a light touch that makes it a joy to read.”—Kell Smurthwaite, BCF Book Reviews

Blood-Reign-FinalCvrPan’s debut adventure continues in the second novel, Blood Reign, in which she and Annie face challenges from not just vampires but legions of monsters led by a fallen angel—who happens to be one of Annie’s ex-lovers! Blood Feud ended on such a shocking cliffhanger that Blood Reign picks up right where the previous novel left off and hits the ground running, in a story filled with danger, high-speed car chases, vampire hit squads, and a generous helping of romance—all while Pan tries to make sense of her increasingly weird life. Pan fans (I call them “Panatics”) can’t seem to get enough of StarWarp Concepts’ resident Goth girl, so feel free to join their growing ranks—we love adding new members to Zwieback Nation.

“If Blood Feud, the first volume, took some deliberate pacing steps to build Pandora’s character, Blood Reign eschews that as it thunders along at breakneck speed, barely pausing for breath at any given time (and, I must say, the volume was devoured at speed as well)… I thoroughly enjoyed this volume.”—Andrew Boylan, Taliesin Meets the Vampires

“If you thought the first book, Blood Feud, was high powered, you’ll love this book! To paraphrase movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn’s quote: Blood Reign starts with an earthquake and builds to a climax…. This was one fun read!”Dwight Jon Zimmerman, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Lincoln’s Last Days

pan_annualAlong with Blood Feud and Blood Reign, on sale right now is The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, which features two brand-new adventures (written by me) of Pan and her friends that are separate from the novels: a full-color comic story drawn by Eliseu Gouveia (The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0), in which Pan and her boyfriend, Javier, run into one of his ex-girlfriends…whom Pan can see is really a mythological siren that can enrapture men with her voice; and a short story that pits Pan, Annie, and Javier against a trio of Elegant Gothic Lolita vampires—in a shopping mall! An additional backup tale, “After Hours,” is provided by DC Comics writer Sholly Fisch (Scooby-Doo! Team-Up, Action Comics, Batman: The Brave and the Bold) and drawn by comic-art legend Ernie Colon (Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld).

Give the site a look-over—we’ve got plenty of free stuff you can download, and a gallery called “The 13 Days of Pan-demonium”: 13 unique drawings of Pan and Annie by a host of talented artists. And when you’re done, don’t forget to Like Pan’s Facebook page, so you can keep up-to-date with all the latest news.

A special shout-out to teen readers and Pandora Zwieback fans who are budding authors, but who may think their work isn’t all that good and worth continuing: Check out “Again, He Who Stalks”—a science-fiction story I wrote for my high school’s literary magazine when I was 16. Take a look at that and tell me you can’t do better! 😀

And speaking of short stories, there’s “Pandora Zwieback and the Bloggy Thing,” in which Pan is asked by a horror site to write a guest post for their blog, to promote her book series. I originally wrote it as a real-life guest post for a site called Writing Belle, and Panatics enjoyed the meta aspect of it.

And please keep in mind that Pan’s publisher, StarWarp Concepts, is not just a YA fiction house. It also publishes illustrated classics (including J. Sheridan’s Le Fanu’s vampire romance Carmilla and Edgar Rice Burroughs’s A Princess of Mars); graphic novels for superhero fans and adult horror aficionados; digital and print comic books; artist sketchbooks; and writing guides. Give them a visit and check out all they have to offer.