It’s been a week for announcements, hasn’t it? On Tuesday, I revealed StarWarp Concepts’ first licensed-comic project, the sci-fi miniseries Lester del Rey’s Time Ring, by the creative team of writer Steven A. Roman (that’s me!) and artist Eliseu Gouveia. Yesterday, I told you about Lorelei: Sweet Soul Music, a 48-page one-shot special (and another Roman/Gouveia collaboration) that’s also the first full-color adventure of our resident succubus.
And today? Yup, yet another announcement, this one sure to appeal to fans of good girl/bad girl art and comic-book crossovers!
Currently in the early planning stages from indie publishing house Boom Press—in association with StarWarp Concepts—is Lorelei/Sisterhood of the Mummy (or Sisterhood/Lorelei, we’re working out the details), a full-color one-shot special in which Lori teams up with a group of reanimated (and incredibly sexy) female mummies from around the globe to interfere with the machinations of the immortal sorceress Nagara—the Queen of Evil! As with all of Lori’s adventures, it’s written by Lorelei creator Steven A. Roman (that’s me!), with the script based on a plot by Roman and Sisterhood of the Mummy creator/writer and Boom Press publisher Richard Boom. An illustrator will be announced as the project progresses.
Lorelei Munro, for those of you unfamiliar with the character, is a succubus who was originally a human woman named Laurel Ashley O’Hara—until supernatural forces transformed her into an irresistible sexual demon. Now she uses her powers for good, draining the lives of evildoers while still coming to terms with this unusual life she never asked for. She got her start as the star of SWC’s first comic book series, back in the 1990s, and in the years since has reappeared in various projects, including the graphic novel Lorelei: Sects and the City, the horror anthology comic Lorelei Presents: House Macabre, and the digital-exclusive comic Lorelei: Genesis.
The Sisterhood of the Mummy is the creation of Richard Boom, owner of the European comic-art agency Boom Art Department and director of the news site Comics for Sinners (for which I used to do comic and graphic novel reviews). The Sisterhood is a group of formerly deceased, formerly mummified high priestesses from around the world who were revived in the 1920s. And in a nod to their past “lives” as mummies, the majority of the clothing they wear are the minimal remnants of the bandages in which they were wrapped.
(Did I mention that not only is Richard a fan of Lorelei, he also has a great love for 1990s “bad girl” comics, in which the female protagonists often wore little more than what the Sisterhood’s “costumes” consist of? Or that he’s the one who introduced me to the super-talented Eliseu Gouveia? No? Well, now you know—and as they used to say in the G.I. Joeanimated series, knowing is half the battle!)
Lori and the Sisterhood’s nemesis in the crossover is Nagana, Queen of Evil, who was first introduced in the pages of Fantastic Comics #22, published by Fox Comics in 1941. A high priestess of the goddess Isis in the time of Ancient Egypt, Nagana had no love for the deity she served and desired to possess powers of her own that would make her the equal of any god. Standing in her way, however, was the high priest Kalkor, and their initial clash led to them both being entombed as Isis’s temple collapsed around them. It wasn’t until the 1940s that the two enemies were unearthed, and from then on Nagana and Kalkor continued crossing paths—right up to the present, where Lori and the Sisterhood are drawn into the eternal conflict.
The intercompany project got its start last year when Richard e-mailed me to ask if I’d be interested in having Lori cross paths with his bandaged angels of vengeance. Well, on face value it sounded like a good fit, and the notion of Lori crossing over with somebody else’s characters—in the tradition of such awesome meetings as Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man, X-Men/Teen Titans, Vampirella/Lady Death, Archie Meets the Punisher, and Laurel and Hardy/The Three Stooges—definitely had its appeal, so I said, “Hell, yes! Let’s do this!”
Lorelei/Sisterhood of the Mummy will eventually be heading its way to Kickstarter for a fund-raising campaign that Richard will be running, with all the ancillary tchotchkes—variant covers, stickers, etc.—that he can dream up to entice backers. All that and an exciting comic book team-up—what more could you ask for?
Stay tuned for further information!
