Tag Archives: starwarp concepts

IndyFest Magazine Profiles StarWarp Concepts

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Good news, everyone! StarWarp Concepts is the cover feature of Dimestore Productions’ just-published IndyFest Magazine #85, in which Managing Editor Ellen Fleischer interviews author and SWC publisher Steven A. Roman (that’s me) about the company’s critically acclaimed releases—including my novel series, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback—and SWC’s first lady of horror, Lorelei. Just as exciting is the fact that the cover art is a special illustration of Pan crossing paths with Lori, by Eliseu “Zeu” Gouveia, artist of SWC’s The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, and Lorelei: Sects and the City!

Although the print version retails for $6.00, you can obtain the digital edition of IndyFest Magazine #85 for free from Dimestore’s website; just download the issue from right here.

IndyFest is the brainchild of publisher Ian Shires, one of the mainstays of small-press comic book publishing. Back in the early, early days of The ’Warp, when it was just me writing and drawing Lorelei comics, publishing things like the original version of Richard C. White’s Troubleshooters, Incorporated, and printing everything on photocopiers, Ian was one of the fellow self-publishers I bought mini-comics from (I think it was his series Dungar the Barbarian). His Dimestore Productions house has grown significantly since then—as has The ’Warp—so it was nice to be in touch with him again. And special thanks go out to IndyFest managing editor Ellen Fleischer for setting up the ’Warp coverage!

Now head over to Dimestore Productions and get your free digital copy of IndyFest Magazine #85!

And don’t forget SWC’s latest releases, which are now on sale: my young adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 continues the monster-fighting Goth girl’s struggles to prevent a monster takeover of the world; and in Lorelei Presents: House Macabre, the flame-tressed succubus tries her hand at hosting a horror anthology comic, in stories written by yours truly and Dwight Jon Zimmerman, with art by Uriel Caton & “Chainsaw” Chuck Majewski, Lou Manna, John Pierard, and Juan Carlos Abraldes Rendo.

Happy Children’s Book Week!

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cbw_2015_posterIn case you hadn’t heard, this week marks the 96th anniversary of Children’s Book Week, the longest-running national literacy initiative in the USA. Events are being held all around the country to encourage young readers of all ages (that includes you teenagers out there) to either discover the joys of reading, or reintroduce you to them.

Speaking of books for teen readers, have you met Pandora Zwieback, star of my young adult novel series The Saga of Pandora Zwieback? 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 a shape-shifting monster hunter named Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin 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.

blood_feud_largeBlood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1: This critically acclaimed novel is the beginning of Pan’s story, explaining how she, her parents, and her friends, are drawn into a conflict among warring vampire clans 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. It’s a character-driven action-fest that leads immediately into the second novel:

Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2: Pan faces even greater challenges as the clans draw up plans to go to war with humanity. Leading the charge is a fallen angel named Zaqiel, whose previous attempt at subjugating the world was stopped by Pan’s monster-hunting mentor, Annie—who, back in the day, was Zaqiel’s lover!

And for lovers of illustrated fiction (in other words, comics and stuff), we have a collection of titles you might be interested in:

pan_annualSnow White: StarWarp Concepts’ 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 #0: A free, downloadable comic that serves as an introduction to both Pan—with an 8-page story written by me and illustrated by Eliseu Gouveia—and her first novel, Blood Feud (via a preview chapter).

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).

troubleshooters_lrg_coverTroubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings: Perfect for superhero fans, this graphic novel is about a supernatural team of superfolk-for-hire, consisting of a wizard, a sorceress, a female ninja, a high-tech-armor-wearing rock concert lighting designer, and a werewolf. Written by the husband-and-wife team of Richard C. White (The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special) and Joni M. White, and illustrated by Reggie Golden and Randy Zimmerman, Night Stalkings presents the TSI members on their first mission: protecting a multimillionaire from a trio of Middle Eastern demons out to raise a little hell!

The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special: Available for just 99¢, this 48-page one-shot stars the mysterious Captain Asheera, his elven first mate, Safir, and the rest of the crew of the privateer Sea Dragon in a rousing, swashbuckling adventure perfect for fans of the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise and other classic sea-faring epics. Written by Richard C. White (Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings), with art by Bill Bryan (House of Mystery, Dark Oz), the special features cover art by Eliseu Gouveia (The Saga of Pandora Zwieback).

Snow White, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0, and The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special are digital-exclusive titles, but the Pandora Zwieback novels and annual, along with Troubleshooters, Incorporated, are available in both print and digital formats. Visit each of the titles’ product pages for more information, including sales links and sample pages and chapters.

IndyFest Magazine Shines Spotlight on StarWarp Concepts

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IndyFestThis just in: It’s been confirmed that StarWarp Concepts—publishing home of The Saga of Pandora Zwieback and a host of other great novels, graphic novels, and comic books—will be the cover feature of IndyFest Magazine #85, coming this June!

IndyFest is a monthly celebration of independent creators in various media, such as comics, novels, children’s books, music, painting, and film—and now it’s SWC’s turn to get some attention, courtesy of Managing Editor Ellen Fleischer, who’ll be interviewing me about The ’Warp and its inner workings.

And to make this a really special occasion, I’ve commissioned Eliseu Gouveia—artist of The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, and Lorelei: Sects and the City—to provide an all-new cover illustration of Pan, her monster-hunting mentor, Annie, and Lorelei! Stay tuned for more details!

StarWarp Concepts to Attend NY’s Walker Stalker Con 2015

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walker-stalker-con posterThe latest edition of New York and New Jersey’s zombie-tastic Walker Stalker Con returns to New Jersey’s Meadowlands this December, and StarWarp Concepts will be making its debut appearance there!

A spin-off of the popular Walker Stalkers Podcast, this mega-con franchise—with stops in Atlanta, Boston, and other major cities—mainly celebrates the shambling pop-culture juggernaut known as The Walking Dead, but it’s also a gathering spot for horror fans of all types. And with Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 and Lorelei Presents: House Macabre released this year, it sounds like the perfect venue to introduce horror aficionados to the magic of SWC’s other titles. And wait’ll they find out that among the dangers Pan faces in Blood Reign is an attack by a zombie horde—only these ravenous monsters are addicted to sweets!

Walker Stalker Con takes place at the Meadowlands Exposition Center, in Secaucus, NJ, from Friday, December 4, to Sunday, December 6. As always, look for the distinctive Pandora Zwieback banner. For more information, including travel directions and ticket purchases, visit the Walker Stalker Con website. I won’t know the location of the SWC booth until we get closer to the event, but when I find out, so will you.

Hope to see you there!

Blood Reign: Queens Gazette Interviews Author Steven A. Roman

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Blood-Reign-FinalCvrStop the presses! The promotional tour for Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 continues this week in print and digital forms at the newspaper Queens Gazette, with an interview with author and Queens resident Steven A. Roman (that’s me). If you’re in the borough and pick up a copy of the paper (free at many outlets), you’ll find it in the column “Local-Express.” If you’re not a Queens resident, you can find the online version right here at the Gazette’s website.

Being interviewed by a Queens newspaper makes perfect sense: The ’Warp’s office (okay, our PO box) is located in Dave Zwieback’s Sunnyside neighborhood, close to the White Castle burger joint where Pan and her fellow Fiend Club members hang out; Dave’s museum, Renfield’s House of Horrors and Mystical Antiquities, is based in Long Island City, within steps of the UA Kaufman movie theater, Kaufman-Astoria Studios, and the Museum of the Moving Image (not to mention it’s just a few blocks from the offices of the Queens Gazette); and the car-chase scene in Blood Reign starts at the museum and ends up at an abandoned airfield in another neighborhood, College Point. For a dark-urban-fantasy adventure about Goth chicks, shape-shifting monster hunters, and vampire-clan shoot-outs, you can’t get more Queens-centric than that!

And in case you weren’t aware, over at my Goodreads author page I’ve activated the “Ask the Author” function. So if you’re a Goodreads member and you’ve got your own questions about The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Lorelei: Sects and the City, or any of the other projects I’ve written over the years, head over there now and ask away!

Blood Reign: Pandora Zwieback 2 E-book On Sale at Kobo

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Blood-Reign-FinalCvrThe Zwiebackian takeover of digital readers continues, because now you can find the ePub edition of Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2—my young adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel—at Kobo! Here’s the synopsis:

She was stabbed in the heart with an ancient mystical spear. Her mother was kidnapped by a band of vampires led by a fallen angel—their goal: unleashing hell on earth. And every living creature on the planet faces extinction at the hands of a race of biblical monsters. But for Pandora Zwieback, the worst may be yet to come.

In this terrifying next chapter of the story begun in the critically acclaimed novel Blood Feud, join the teenaged Goth adventuress as she discovers that death is only the beginning of her saga…

You’ll find Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 here for $2.99 at the Kobo Store. Order it today!

And don’t forget: the first Pandora Zwieback novel, Blood Feud, is still available from Kobo. Want to know how Pan begins her saga? Then purchase Blood Feud and Blood Reign and get started reading!

Blood Reign: Pandora Zwieback 2 E-book at Oyster Books

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Blood-Reign-FinalCvrE-book lovers, take note: you can now find the ePub edition of Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2—my young adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel—at digital subscription library Oyster Books! Here’s the synopsis:

She was stabbed in the heart with an ancient mystical spear. Her mother was kidnapped by a band of vampires led by a fallen angel—their goal: unleashing hell on earth. And every living creature on the planet faces extinction at the hands of a race of biblical monsters. But for Pandora Zwieback, the worst may be yet to come.

In this terrifying next chapter of the story begun in the critically acclaimed novel Blood Feud, join the teenaged Goth adventuress as she discovers that death is only the beginning of her saga…

You’ll find Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 here at Oyster. Add it to your subscription queue today!

And don’t forget: the first Pandora Zwieback novel, Blood Feud, is also available at Oyster. Want to know how Pan begins her saga? Then purchase Blood Feud and Blood Reign and get started reading!

Blood Reign: Pandora Zwieback 2 E-book Now at Scribd

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Blood-Reign-FinalCvrHey, e-book lovers, you can now find the ePub edition of Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2—my young adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel—at digital subscription library Scribd! Here’s the synopsis:

She was stabbed in the heart with an ancient mystical spear. Her mother was kidnapped by a band of vampires led by a fallen angel—their goal: unleashing hell on earth. And every living creature on the planet faces extinction at the hands of a race of biblical monsters. But for Pandora Zwieback, the worst may be yet to come.

In this terrifying next chapter of the story begun in the critically acclaimed novel Blood Feud, join the teenaged Goth adventuress as she discovers that death is only the beginning of her saga…

You’ll find Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 here at Scribd. Add it to your subscription queue today!

And don’t forget: the first Pandora Zwieback novel, Blood Feud, is also available at Scribd. Want to know how Pan begins her saga? Then order Blood Feud and Blood Reign and get started reading!

Pandora Zwieback: The Evolution of a Series’ Covers

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Last week, I covered the importance of having an editor involved in the creative process of writing a book’s manuscript, in a trio of posts found here, here, and here. But that’s just one part of what’s involved in putting together a novel for publication. Today, we start talking cover design.

Good stories are always essential, but from a sales point of view, one of the most important aspects of publishing is the cover. It’s the first thing a potential reader is going to see in a brick-and-mortar bookstore (unless it’s displayed spine-out on their shelves) or at an online retailer’s site, so it’s absolutely imperative that the cover be as eye-catching and intriguing as possible. The vast majority of small-press and self-published books often fail in that regard, choosing the laziest, most god-awful type-and-image designs they can throw together: photographs or paintings (or worse, silhouetted figures) that have nothing to do with the story; lettering taken straight from their computer’s font libraries; titles that are too long, or extremely pretentious, or head-scratchingly vague. (Truth be told, I’ve seen my fair share of books released by mainstream publishers that take the same approach.)

So in 2010, when it was time to transform StarWarp Concepts from a comic publisher to a book house, I knew that Job Two would involve using professional artists and designers to provide eye-catching covers (Job One was having quality stories to publish; can’t have the second without the first). The first person I approached was Bob Larkin, whose amazing cover paintings for Marvel Comics (Dazzler, Haunt of Horror, Vampire Tales, The Hulk!, Savage Sword of Conan the Barbarian, Crazy) and Bantam Books’ Doc Savage pulp-fiction reprints had created a fan base that included such luminaries as Alex Ross, Joe Jusko, John Romita Sr., Jim Steranko, and Larry Hama. I’ve been a fan myself, all the way back to the ’70s, and was thrilled when, in 2000, he agreed to paint the covers for my X-Men: The Chaos Engine Trilogy novels—and overjoyed when he did three cover paintings for SWC’s succubus character, Lorelei. This time, however, I wanted him to paint the covers for a series about a certain teenaged Goth chick.

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Explaining the gothy nature of Pan took a bit of doing, since it’s outside the range of anything Bob had ever painted before, but he had two advantages going in to the project: Pan had already been designed by my creative partner, Uriel Caton; and Bob has an extensive history of painting horror-related images, from monster magazine covers for Marvel and Warren Publishing to monster movie posters for New Line Cinema, United Artists, and Troma Films (among other studios)—Piranha, Night of the Creeps, Humanoids From the Deep, and The Toxic Avenger II are just some of the poster images he’s created.

But why use painted covers? you ask. Why not go with a photograph of a model dressed as Pan? That’s what all the major publishers would do. And that’s the problem, because when all the major publishers do the same thing, they create a uniform look for an entire genre of books that’s extremely generic and boring. (To get an idea of what I’m talking about, check out this post about photo covers that I wrote back in 2011.) I wanted Bob Larkin originals for Pan’s series, and that’s exactly what I was gonna get. All I needed to get the process started was to show Bob what I had in mind…

Next: Creating the cover for Blood Feud, the first novel in Pan’s saga.

Blood Reign: Pandora Zwieback 2 E-book On Sale at iTunes

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Blood-Reign-FinalCvrHey, e-book lovers, now you can purcahse the ePub edition of Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2—my young adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel—at Apple’s iBookstore! Here’s the synopsis:

She was stabbed in the heart with an ancient mystical spear. Her mother was kidnapped by a band of vampires led by a fallen angel—their goal: unleashing hell on earth. And every living creature on the planet faces extinction at the hands of a race of biblical monsters. But for Pandora Zwieback, the worst may be yet to come.

In this terrifying next chapter of the story begun in the critically acclaimed novel Blood Feud, join the teenaged Goth adventuress as she discovers that death is only the beginning of her saga…

You’ll find Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 here at iTunes. Order it today!

And don’t forget: the first Pandora Zwieback novel, Blood Feud, is still available from iTunes. Want to know how Pan begins her saga? Then purchase Blood Feud and Blood Reign and get started reading!