Horror Street: Happy Halloween!

Welcome to another installment of Horror Street, my ongoing journey in search of awesome yet spooky graffiti art on the streets and little-traveled corners of New York City!

Today, in honor of Halloween, we have on display a little demon artwork for your enjoyment: the eerie New York Oni, a fantastic mural I came across during my wanderings in Long Island City, Queens, way back in 2016.

The oni is a cave- and mountain-dwelling demon found in Japanese folklore that doesn’t just like to kill wayward travelers, it likes to eat them, too (would that make them distant cousins of Leatherface from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?). For more information on these devilish creatures, check out this entry at Yokai.com.

Stay tuned for further installments of Horror Street—there’s plenty of macabre graffiti art to be found on the streets of New York, if you look in the right creepy places! And be sure to check out my previous HS entries, which include such sights as the Brooklyn Vampire, the demonic D-Rod, the regal Griffin, and even a trip to the Ghostbusters firehouse!

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

NYC’s Trick or Streets Returns for the Spooky Season

If you live in a big city, you know how dangerous trick-or-treating can sometimes be, with dodging speeding cars and trucks while you’re trying to make the rounds of your favorite candy-giving haunts—even in the daytime!

Last year, New York City took steps to try and make trick-or-treating a much safer event, by instituting “Trick or Streets,” an expansion of its “Open Streets” initiative that closes certain streets to vehicular traffic so that NYC residents can walk and bike on them without fear of injury. (It’s a popular program that started in May 2021 as a result of the pandemic lockdown, so that people could finally get out of their homes and apartments to enjoy fresh air.) And now it’s back for its second year!

On Halloween, certain streets will be closed off in Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn, allowing you and yours to hit the pavement and fill those goody bags. (Weather forecasts indicate chilly temperatures, cloudy skies, and possible showers during those hours, so be sure to bring along an umbrella.)

For more information on the city’s Halloween plans and a list of family-friendly events being held, head over to the Trick or Streets website.

Have a fun, and safe, Halloween!

Get a Head Start on Halloween with a Holiday Classic

When the spooks have a midnight jamboree
They break it up with fiendish glee
Ghosts are bad, but the one that’s cursed
Is the Headless Horseman, he’s the worst
—“The Headless Horseman,” from Ichabod and Mr. Toad
Sung by Bing Crosby

Halloween is just five days away, so the timing couldn’t be better for fans of the Spooky Season than right now to familiarize themselves with a classic story that’s an entry in StarWarp Concepts’ SWC Horror Bites line: Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow!

The tale of schoolteacher Ichabod Crane’s terrifying encounter with the Headless Horseman has captivated readers ever since its first publication in 1820, in Irving’s collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., and in the 200-plus years since, it’s become the quintessential Halloween story. It’s also been the basis for countless movies, TV shows, comic books, and other pop-culture adaptations (and knock-offs), but if you’ve never read the original source material, then there’s no time like the present!

Here’s the back-cover copy to pique your interest:

Getting Ahead in This Town Can be Murder…

Sleepy Hollow, New York, appears to be the perfect peaceful location for newly arrived schoolteacher Ichabod Crane, whose nerves always seem a little on edge. The people are nice enough—with the exception of the town bully, Bram Bones—the meals they serve are even better, and most appealing of all is the beautiful Katrina Van Tassel, daughter of one of the town’s wealthiest families.

But lurking behind Sleepy Hollow’s peaceful setting is a terrifying secret: a murderer stalks the countryside—specifically, the ghost of a Hessian soldier whose head was blown off by a cannonball during the American Revolution. Ever since his grisly death, the dreaded Headless Horseman has been searching for a replacement…

…and Ichabod Crane’s noggin looks to be just the right size…

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a digital-exclusive chapbook available from the StarWarp Concepts webstore. Visit its product page for ordering information.

It’s National Comic Book Day 2023!

Today is National Comic Book Day, an unofficial “holiday” that’s celebrated every year on this date…although no one seems to know why that is, or who exactly started the tradition. Nevertheless, if you’re thinking that the friendly fiends at StarWarp Concepts must have some illustrated fiction that would be perfect for this occasion—you’re absolutely right! 

The 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 Steven A. Roman (that’s me) and illustrated by Eliseu Gouveia (Hell High), 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 56-page, full-color comic special that features cover art by award-winning artist Henar Torinos (Mala Estrella) and contains three original stories. In “Song of the Siren,” written by me with art by Eliseu Gouveia, the teenaged Goth adventuress matches wits with a man-stealing enchantress who’s set her sights on Pan’s boyfriend, Javier. It’s followed by “After Hours,” by writer Sholly Fisch (The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries), and comic-art legend Ernie Colon (Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld), in which a demon walks into a bar to unwind after a long day of scarifying. And rounding out the issue is “Shopping Maul,” a short story by me with title-page art by Elizabeth Watasin (Charm School), in which Pan and Annie, along with Javier and Pan’s best friend, Sheena, run into a group of Gothic Lolita vampires out to do more than a little window shopping.

Heroines and Heroes: Another free digital comic book! It’s a collection of stories (and a few pinups) that I’ve drawn over the years, featuring mainstream and indie comic characters that include the superheroic Blonde Avenger fighting a (maybe?) vampire, the anthropomorphic Motorbike Puppies, the half-human/half-rabbit superspy Snowbuni, and my “legendary” Wonder Woman-meets-Harley Quinn three-page tale that was meant to be my entrée to fame and fortune as a DC Comics artist (it didn’t work out, though). 

Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings: 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 (Chasing Danger: The Case Files of Theron Chase) and Joni M. White, and illustrated by Reggie Golden and Randy Zimmerman.

The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual and Troubleshooters Incorporated are available in print and digital formats. Pandora Zwieback #0 and Heroines and Heroes are digital exclusives. Visit their respective product pages at StarWarp Concepts for ordering information, as well as sample pages.

It’s National Encourage a Young Writer Day 2023!

Here’s the sort of “they’ve got a holiday for everything now” celebrations I have no trouble supporting: National Encourage a Young Writer Day! Although no one seems to know the origin of this “holiday,” according to the National Day Calendar:

“Observed each year on April 10th is National Encourage a Young Writer Day. Do you know a young person who has a vivid imagination, maybe someone who likes to tell stories and reads a lot of books? These may be the signs of a great young writer. National Encourage a Young Writer Day would be a good time to talk to them about their ideas and dreams. Encourage them to pursue their goals and develop their writing skills.”

“Again, He Who Stalks” page 1

As I always say, everybody’s gotta start somewhere, and that’s true for writing as much as any other career. Want an example? Check out my first published work, “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, young writers, and then get to work—you could only do better!

Horror Street: Happy Friday the 13th (Part 1)!

It’s the first of two Friday the 13ths this year—today and, appropriately enough, in October, right in the heart of Spooky Season. And since it isFriday the 13th, there’s no better time than right now to post the latest addition to Horror Street, my ongoing journey in search of awesome yet spooky graffiti art on the streets and little-traveled corners of New York City!

Jason Voorhees, the murderous, hockey-mask-wearing star of the Friday the 13th movie franchise—including my favorite entry, Freddy vs. Jason—in which he goes toe-to-toe…er, machete to finger-knives with Freddy Krueger of Nightmare on Elm Street fame—is the subject of this piece of graffiti art that I came across in 2021, in a dead-end street (how appropriate!) in the East Williamsburg area of Brooklyn. I don’t know who the artist is—I can’t make out the signature—but the piece was too good notto take a picture of it!

Stay tuned for further installments of Horror Street—there’s plenty of macabre graffiti art to be found on the streets of New York, if you look in the right creepy places! And be sure to check out my previous HS entries, which include such sights as the Brooklyn Vampire, the demonic D-Rod, and the regal Griffin!

Happy Godzilla Day 2022!

It was on November 3, 1954, that the atomic-powered dinosaur Godzilla made his big-screen debut in Japan as the king of the monsters in the now-classic kaiju film Gojira (which became Godzilla when it reached the United States). And today, 68 years after Toho Studios first unleashed their monster, he’s still as popular as ever.

At its heart, Gojira is a metaphor for the horrors of radiation sickness and widespread destruction experienced by the Japanese citizens as a result of the US dropping atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to force an end to World War II. But it didn’t take long for audiences to look beyond the message and also recognize it as an outstanding monster movie, and to make Godzilla a worldwide icon.

So, how can you celebrate this special day? Well, you could have your own, personal movie marathon. In addition to the original Gojira and the long list of Toho-produced films that followed (including Destroy All Monsters, King Kong vs. Godzilla, The Return of Godzilla, and the most recent, Shin Godzilla), you can watch Legendary Pictures’ trilogy of Godilla (2014), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), and Godzilla vs. Kong (2021). Plus there’s the Toho-Netflix animated trilogy Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017), Godzilla: City on the Edge (2018), and Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018). There’s plenty of Big G adventures to enjoy.

With regard to the original Godzilla movies, the art you see up top is by my friend Bob Larkin, who you might recognize as the cover painter for the Pan novels Blood Feud and Blood Reign. Bob did this cover for Marvel Comics’ Monsters of the Movies, a short-lived series that was meant to be their answer to Famous Monsters of Filmland, which was the gold standard of horror entertainment magazines covering movies and TV shows from the 1950s to the early 1980s. This particular image was done to promote issue 5’s cover story, “Godzilla: Tokyo’s Greatest Nemesis,” an overview of the Toho movies from the original up to 1973’s Godzilla vs. Megalon. Bob provided covers for five of MotM’s eight issues. 

And speaking of the talented Mr. Larkin, if you’re a fan of great art, Pan’s publisher, StarWarp Concepts, has a book you might just be interested in…

The Bob Larkin Sketchbook is a collection of some of the incredible pencil drawings by the legendary cover painter for Doc Savage, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Star Trek, Star Wars, Planet of the Apes, and many other pop-culture icons. What you’ll discover when you see this collection is how wide-ranging his subjects are. Sci-fi, horror, Westerns, pulp adventure, crime fiction, movie merchandise, even wrestling stars—as we say on the book’s back cover, there really is little that he hasn’t painted. 

The sketchbook features three pieces created especially for it: the Pandora Zwieback cover art you see here; a portrait of Patricia Savage, the fightin’ cousin of pulp fiction’s top-tier adventurer, Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze; and a two-page spread in which Doc faces off against another Golden Age crimefighter—The Shadow!

The Bob Larkin Sketchbook is available in print and digital formats. Visit its product page at StarWarp Concepts for ordering information.