It was while I was still making the rounds as a small-press-comic publisher that September 1992 saw me hop an Amtrak train and head upstate to the city of Utica for a one-day comic con.
The show, created by comics fan and small presser Bob Elinskas—publisher of the reviewzine Small Press Feedback and writer of the minicomic series The Adventures of Mister Mid-Nite—was launched in 1990 to help raise money for the American Diabetes Association, for which Bob had served as a youth advisor. I can’t remember if Bob had contacted me about attending as an exhibitor, or I’d reached out to him, but either way I’d packed a box with copies of the digest-size Lorelei and Troubleshooters, Incorporated comics, shoved a sketchpad, pencils, and markers in a bag, and set off to meet the upstate comic fans.
Back then, the convention didn’t have a name—as you can see from the flyer, it was just listed as the “3rd Annual Comic Book & Card Show,” and held in a high school gymnasium—but today it’s known by a much catchier name: Uticon.
When I attended it, the con had a real homey feel—in fact, on the night before the event Bob invited all the guests to his house for a home-cooked meal! (I think it was lasagna.) I remember it as a dining-room-table gathering mainly of fellow small pressers, with mainstream writer Tom Peyer from DC Comics (Sandman, Legion of Super-Heroes) being the “big” name at the meal.
I don’t remember making many sales the next day—certainly not enough to cover the round-trip Amtrak fare to and from Utica, and the hotel room—but I do remember having a good time there, and coming back feeling confident about my involvement in the comic creator community (holy alliteration!). I think by this time I’d already decided that SWC would be expanding to full-size comics; being at this show and getting positive feedback about Lorelei just confirmed on I was on the right track.
Over 30 years later, Uticon is still run by Bob, and still features a mix of indie/small press creators and mainstream comic veterans. With all the mega-pop-culture conventions out there loudly making noise, if you’re looking for a quieter, more relaxed con experience, maybe you should give Uticon a try.
Continuing the history of StarWarp Concepts, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.
Part 1 covered our earliest days, as a small-press publishing house that dealt in digest-size comics starring Lorelei and the supernatural superhero team Troubleshooters, Incorporated. In Part 2, we covered the premiere of Lorelei as a full-sized horror comic series that SWC released between 1993 and 1995—a series I ultimately canceled due to overwhelming production costs, just as the comic distributors market was collapsing due to Marvel Comics’ machinations (what timing!).
But although I put Lori on the shelf, that didn’t mean The ’Warp was entirely out of the game…
In 1995, before I stopped publishing Lorelei, I’d cut a deal with another company, Millennium Publications, to launch a full-color, four-issue miniseries that would take advantage of the “bad girl” comics currently in vogue. (Basically, “bad girl” comics were any that had a leading heroine who wore as little clothing as possible while acting like a total badass; see Vampirella, Lady Death, Shi, and the 1990s Catwoman for prime examples.)
Titled Heartstopper: Sorrow About To Fall, it would star an immortal, shape-changing monster hunter named Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin who spent her days as a freelance writer and her nights chasing the creatures of the night…although, this being a bad girl comic, her nocturnal activities in this particular story would involve her working as a stripper in a Times Square “gentlemen’s club”—strictly as research for an article, you understand.
Annie/Heartstopper had originally made her debut in the pages of NightCry #1, published in 1994 by Visual Anarchy, the indie house run by Joseph Monks, who had been the writing half of the creative team behind the popular horror series Cry for Dawn (the other half being, of course, artist Joseph Michael Linsner). Monks had been very interested in publishing Heartstopper, especially when I told him the name of the artist eager to be involved: Louis Small Jr. of Vampirella fame (and the artist for the covers of Lorelei #0 and #1).
NightCry #1 turned out to be a big deal, with a headlining Evil Ernie story by Brian Pulido and Leonardo Jimenez; a story of the homicidal bad girl Razor, by creator Everette Hartsoe and artist Ed McGuinness (yes, the same McGuinness currently drawing Spider-Man); and tales by Monks with art by Ken Meyer and Thomas O’Connor.
Unfortunately, after delivering the first four pages of “Heartstopper,” Louis had to bail on the project due to the demands of better-paying mainstream work. Monks still wanted to publish what there was—they were done by a popular Vampirella artist, after all—but he insisted on having them inked. Louis didn’t have the time, and the inker that Monks eventually assigned was…let’s just say not the best fit. Louis, to put it mildly, was not pleased with the results.
The pages got published, of course, but there ended the project, and Heartstopper’s association with Visual Anarchy.
But then later that year, through my friendship with artist Delfin Barral, I was introduced to Uriel Caton, who’d done work for Eternity Comics in the late 1980s under the name “Uriel Antonio” (Ex-Mutants Annual #1, Starlight) and was currently working on a reboot of Starlight as The Outer Space Babes (hey, who needed subtlety during the Bad-Girl Era?) for indie house Silhouette Studios. As he was described on the back of the Vampirella trading card he drew for a 1995 set from Topps: “Uriel Caton: He’s a mystery man. Not widely known by the public, yet any number of of artists, including Buzz, Caesar and Steve Crespo cite this graduate of New York’s School of Art and Design as an inspiration for their own work.”
(For a bit of context, Buzz—real name: Aldrin Aw—Caesar Antomattei, and Steve Crespo were all Vampirella artists at Harris Comics at the time.)
Uriel and I discussed rebooting Heartstopper, junking Louis’s design and starting fresh. It didn’t take him long to come up with a new look, and we started the whole project over,
So, I put a proposal together for a four-issue miniseries and showed it around to some indie publishers, to see if anyone wanted to pick up what would be a proper, full-color bad-girl comic. No just-on-the-cover femme fatale this time—Annie would be front and center cover to cover doing seductively murderous bad-girl stuff. I’d learned my lesson with Lorelei!
And so Millennium Publications became the house that made me an offer, and sent me a contract. Once the paperwork had been settled, Uriel and I got to work—he drawing, me writing and hand-lettering—with help from colorist Dan Peters (he of small-press Troubleshooters, Incorporated artistic fame), and before you knew it, the first issue of the miniseries now titled Heartstopper: Sorrow About to Fall was complete and off to the printer.
But before it hit comic shops, in a setup that Hollywood refers to as a “backdoor pilot,” in which characters being considered for their own television series are introduced first in an established show—think Gary Seven in the Original Star Trek episode “Assignment Earth,” Mork from Ork (Robin Williams) in the Happy Days episode “My Favorite Orkan” that led to Mork & Mindy, and the organization Torchwood in Doctor Who—I had Annie debut in a cameo role in Lorelei #5 (the final issue published), drawn by Lori series artist David C. Matthews, as a lead-in to Millennium’s Heartstopper #1.
There were also discussions about them taking over the publishing chores on Lorelei, as well, if things worked out with the initial project. Again, things were looking up for SWC.
I should’ve known that good feeling wouldn’t last…
We finish out a week of announcements with yet more news of an upcoming project—except this one isn’t a comic book!
Coming this winter from indie publishing house Black Coat Press is the anthology Tales of the Shadowmen 20: Fin de Siecle (French for “end of century”), a collection of tales that span time and space, starring a trainload of public domain characters—and I was asked to contribute one of the stories!
In “Her Cheek’s Last Tinge, Her Eye’s Last Spark,” the bloodsucking Lord Ruthven—created in 1816 by Dr. John Polidori, the traveling physician of Lord Byron, in the novella “The Vampyre”—crosses paths with Isaac Laquedem, an immortal who’s perhaps better known as the mythical Wandering Jew, who made the mistake of taunting Jesus along the route to the Crucifixion and was cursed with eternal life.
(Laquedem, by the way, stars in the Black Coat Press novel The Wandering Jew’s Daughter, written by fantasy author Paul Féval (1816–1887) and originally published in 1864; the BCP edition features a translation and “adaptation” by SF author Brian Stableford. Lord Ruthven: The Vampire, which reprints Polidori’s story along with the screenplays for a pair of stage adaptations performed in the 1820s, is also available from BCP.)
The Tales of the Shadowmen series is edited by the husband-and-wife team of Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, who are also the publishers of Black Coat Press. I’ve known Jean-Marc since the late 1990s, when I was the editor in chief of ibooks, inc. and he was the agent for comic-art legend Jean Giraud, aka Moebius. Jean-Marc is also recognized worldwide as one of the great authorities on the British sci-fi series Doctor Who, and as a comic-book writer, most recently on Dynamite Comics’ Barbarella projects.
This isn’t my first contribution to BCPs’s popular anthology series, though. Tales of the Shadowmen 4: Lords of Terror(still available) includes my story “Night’s Children,” which has thief Irma Vep (from the 1915–16 French movie serial Les Vampyres) match wits with Count Graf Orlock from the classic German horror movie Nosferatu; it was later reprinted in BCP’s French-language collection L’Almanach des Vampires (The Almanac of Vampires), and then in the English-language The Vampire Almanac, Vol. 2. (That’s right: from English to French and back again. It’s a story with a lot of mileage!)
Tales of the Shadowmen 20: Fin de Siecle goes on sale in December. Stay tuned for more information!
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!
A mashup image of Sisterhood of the Mummy and Lorelei art (the latter by Bob Larkin)
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?
Yesterday, we announced a special comic miniseries currently in development for release in 2023 (our 30th Anniversary year); in fact, it’s SWC’s first licensed-comics project: the sci-fi miniseries Lester del Rey’s Time Ring, by the team of writer Steven A. Roman (that’s me!) and artist Eliseu “Zeu” Gouveia.
Well, today we have another exciting announcement: a comic project sure to appeal to fans of horror comics and good girl/bad girl art, starring SWC’s First Lady of Horror!
Planned as a Kickstarter campaign, Lorelei: Sweet Soul Music is an all-new, 48-page, full-color special in which our resident succubus, Lorelei, and her girlfriend (and third-generation monster hunter), Felicia Agincourt, attend a nostalgia concert starring a famous 1960s folk group and run into another succubus—only this one is from another planet and the distant future!
It’s written by Steven A. Roman (that’s me!) and illustrated and colored by Zeu; our previous collaborations include the SWC graphic novel Lorelei: Sects and the City, the SWC comic books The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0 and The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, and Piko Interactive/Virtual Comics’ The Legend of Calamity Jane: The Devil Herself.
The special also boasts three covers to choose from: the main cover by Zeu, and two variants—one by legendary Warren Publishing painter Bob Larkin (Vampirella, The Rook, Creepy, Eerie, Famous Monsters of Filmland), the other by fan favorite bad-girl artist supreme Louis Small Jr. (Vampirella, Vampirella Strikes, Vampirella/Lady Death). And keep an eye out for cameos by a few indie-comic heroes—and a very special guest appearance by a star from the days of Warren Publishing!
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 and the horror anthology comic Lorelei Presents: House Macabre.
Lorelei: Sweet Soul Music is also a sequel of sorts to a digital comic we’ll be releasing at the same time:
Lorelei Presents: Vampires of the Void will be a free, digital-only reprint of the Golden Age comic story that inspired the Lori special. In the 38th century, Earth is attacked by a race of interstellar warriors who live off the life force of human souls—basically, they’re succubi and incubi…in spaaace! And the only Earthman with any hope of stopping them is Captain Dave Kenton of the Star Patrol!
Originally published in Avon Periodicals’ Strange Worlds #4 in 1951, “Vampires of the Void” is the work of three legendary comics creators: writer Gardner Fox (Justice League of America, Green Lantern), penciler Wallace “Wally” Wood (Daredevil, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents), and inker Joe Orlando (Superman, Tales From the Crypt).
Stay tuned for further information. And stop by here at the SWC blog tomorrow for another thrilling Lorelei announcement!
Do you like comic books? Do you like science fiction? You do? How about science fiction comic books—with dinosaurs? Even better! Then do we have a fantastic project in the works that you’re sure to enjoy!
In a departure from our normal horror and dark fantasy offerings, I’m proud to announce that, a few months back, StarWarp Concepts signed a deal with indie fiction house Wildside Press to license one of its classic science fiction novels for development as a comic book adaptation. It’s SWC’s first-ever licensed-property project!
Originally written by legendary Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master Lester del Rey (1915–1993) and first published in 1966, Tunnel Through Time is a fondly remembered, fast-paced time-travel adventure. (LDR, in case you hadn’t figured it out already, was also the man behind Del Rey Books, the Ballantine Books sci-fi imprint that he launched in 1977 with his wife Judy-Lynn del Rey.)
Planned as a Kickstarter campaign and now moderately retitled to avoid any confusion with the classic TV series The Time Tunnel (and other books with the same or similar Tunnel Through Time title that have been published in the decades since), Lester del Rey’s Time Ring is the story of Bobbi Miller, a seventeen-year-old cosplayer and comics fan whose scientist father, Sam, has created the Time Ring, an experimental time machine. When Dr. Tom Thornhill, the well-respected paleontologist father of her best friend, science nerd and fellow comic fan Pete, goes missing during a visit to the Cretaceous Period (80 million years ago), Pete and Bobbi step through the Time Ring to search for him. But the dangers they face—including some very hungry dinosaurs looking to eat them—threaten to make this the deadliest field trip the teens have ever gone on!
Lester del Rey’s Time Ring will be a four-issue comic book miniseries adaptation by writer Steven A. Roman (that’s me!) and artist/colorist Eliseu Gouveia; our previous collaborations include the SWC graphic novel Lorelei: Sects and the City, the SWC comic books The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0 and The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, and Piko Interactive/Virtual Comics’ upcoming The Legend of Calamity Jane: The Devil Herself.
Variant covers—all the rage these days for crowdfunded comics—are being considered. We’ll let you know who’s signed on to contribute when we have more details.
Acting as consulting editor on the adaptation is acclaimed science fiction and fantasy author—and Wildside Press president/publisher—John Gregory Betancourt (The Things from Another World, Roger Zelazny’s Dawn of Amber, Star Trek: The Next Generation: Double Helix, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Devil in the Sky, Star Trek: Voyager: Incident at Arbuk).
And thanks go out to literary agent Vaughne Hansen of the Virginia Kidd Agency for working out the licensing deal, and for her enthusiastic participation in the approvals process.
Hey, comic fans! With 2023 being StarWarp Concepts’ 30th Anniversary year, and this past weekend marking our annual celebration of Free Comic Book Day, the time is perfect to announce that we’ve got three special comic projects currently in development: two involving our resident soul-stealing succubus, Lorelei, and one that marks our first licensed publishing deal.
The Lorelei projects are extra special to us here at ’Warp Central because it was her comic book adventures that helped launch the company, first in small press form in 1989, and then as a full-size comic in 1993. This time, Lori will not only star in her first full-color one-shot, but then she’ll be co-starring for the first time in a cross-company team-up! Holy Batman/Spawn!
As for the other special event… Well, if you like science fiction and dinosaurs, plus the work of the creative team of writer Steven A. Roman (that’s me!) and artist Eliseu Gouveia—whose collaborations include SWC’s Lorelei: Sects and the City, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0, and The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, as well as the upcoming Piko Interactive/Virtual Comics one-shot Western, The Legend of Calamity Jane: The Devil Herself—then you’ll want to see what we do with yet another licensed property!
Be sure to check back here tomorrow for the first announcement!
Today is Free Comic Book Day around the world: that annual event celebrated on the first Saturday in May, and usually timed to coincide with the release of Marvel Studios’ latets movie—as is the case with the super space actioner Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, the concluding adventure in the Guardians Trilogy (plus the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, on Disney+) and the Marvel Universe swansong of writer/director James Gunn, who’s now in charge of guiding the superfolk of the DC Cinematic Universe to hopefully the same level of success he achieved with their properties The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker. (I just saw Guardians 3, by the way—it’s really good!)
Free Comic Book Day is when publishers make available free print and/or digital comics for comic fans (but not free, of course, to the retailers who ordered all those comics to hand out), and we here at ’Warp Central are no different—you can download the following titles right here and now:
Heroines & Heroes: A collection of comic stories and pinups all drawn by Steven A. Roman (that’s me!), dating back to my days in the early 1990s small-press movement—that age of dinosaurs in which creators like me used to make our comics by printing them out on photocopiers and then stapling them by hand. In H&H you’ll find mainstream heroes and small-press heroines, and even a couple of anthropomorphic bikers. Leading off is “V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N (in the Summertime),” a three-page Wonder Woman vs. Harley Quinn story that I wrote and drew in the late ’90s as a sample for a DC Comics editor who thought I’d be a good fit for their Batman: The Animated Series comic (it didn’t work out). The WW/Harley matchup is followed by an adventure of small-presser Jeff Wood’s rabbit-eared superspy, Snowbuni; three pages from the long-canceled indie comic Motorbike Puppies; and an adventure of the indie superheroine The Blonde Avenger.
The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0: A full-color introduction to the young adult novel series of the same name, hosted by Pan herself. Pan is a 16-year-old New York City Goth who’s not only a horror fangirl but someone with the rare ability to see the for-real monsters that regular humans can’t (she calls it her “monstervision”), and with the help of a 400-year-old, shape-shifting monster hunter named Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin, she’s learning how to protect her family, her friends, and the world from the supernatural dangers out there—and maybe even have some fun while doing it. This 16-page comic features a seven-page story written by me, with art and color by Eliseu Gouveia (The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, Carmilla, A Princess of Mars, Lorelei: Sects and the City), and includes two sample chapters from Blood Feud, the first Pan novel.
Heartstopper: The Legend of La Bella Tenebrosa #1–3: Before she became Pan’s monster-hunting mentor, Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin made her debut in this short-lived, 1990s Mature Readers series from Millennium Publications. A nefarious heavy metal band has arrived in New York City, and its lead singer is more than just a sex magnet for his female fans—he’s a soul-stealing incubus! Will Annie put an end to his plans for worldwide chaos, or fall prey to his supernatural charms? Written by me (of course), issue 1 is drawn by Pan and Annie co-creatorUriel Caton (JSA Annual) and inker Alan Larsen (Femforce), and colored by Dan Peters; issue 2 is penciled by Uriel, Holly Golightly (School Bites), and David C. Matthews (Lorelei), inked by Larsen, and colored by Zeea Adams; and issue 3 is penciled by Holly, with four pages of inks by “Chainsaw” Chuck Majewski (Harvey Kurtzman’s New Two-Fisted Tales).
As a special bonus, issue 3 includes a brief look at the never-published Heartstopper/Trollords, a crossover special that would have had Annie meet Harry, Larry, and Jerry, the Three Stooges–inspired trolls created by Scott Beaderstadt and Paul Fricke for their popular comic series of the 1980s. H/T was to be written by me with pencils by Holly and Scott and inks by Bill Lavin (Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings), but unfortunately it just never got past the starting gate.
(Warning: Heartstopper is designated a “Mature Readers” comic for violent scenes and some sexual innuendo, so younger Panatics should avoid it.)
All these comics are available for free download right now, so visit their respective product pages for more information, including sample art.
In case you were unaware of it, tomorrow marks the annual celebration of National Bombshells’ Day, which, according to the National Day Calendar, was launched by a well-known lingerie company:
“Victoria’s Secret created Bombshells’ Day as a day for women to celebrate themselves and their best friends with numerous in-store activities and surprises for customers. The registrar at National Day Calendar proclaimed National Bombshells’ Day in March 2015 to be held annually on the first Saturday in May.”
Well, if bombshells are your thing, then might I suggest that you check out two of StarWarp Concepts’ leading—and sometimes lethal—ladies, and one very special guest…
Lorelei is a soul-stealing succubus, and SWC’s First Lady of Horror, having made her small-press-comic debut all the way back in 1989. She currently stars in three critically acclaimed titles:
Lorelei: Sects and the City is a Mature Readers graphic novel in which Lori battles a cult of Elder God worshipers attempting to unleash hell on Earth. Basically a love letter to 1970s horror comics like Vampirella, Tomb of Dracula, and “Satana, the Devil’s Daughter,” it’s written by yours truly, Steven A. Roman (From the Stars…a Vampiress: An Unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures, X-Men: The Chaos Engine Trilogy), and illustrated by Eliseu Gouveia (The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual, Lady Death), Steve Geiger (Web of Spider-Man, Incredible Hulk), and Neil Vokes (Tom Holland’s Fright Night, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark). It also features art by a trio of comic-art legends: a cover painting by Esteban Maroto (Vampirella, Zatanna, Lady Rawhide), a frontispiece by original Vampirella artist Tom Sutton (Ghost Rider, Man-Thing, Werewolf by Night), and a one-page history of succubi illustrated by Ernie Colon (Vampirella, The Grim Ghost).
Lorelei Presents: House Macabre is Lori’s first outing as the hostess of a horror comic anthology, introducing the four tales of terror you’ll find behind the eye-catching cover art by fan-favorite artist Louis Small Jr. (Vampirella, Vampirella Strikes).
• “The Old, Dark Manse” is written by me and illustrated by Uriel Caton (JSA Annual, The Ex-Mutants, Heartstopper: The Legend of La Bella Tenebrosa) and “Chainsaw” Chuck Majewski (Harvey Kurtzman’s New Two-Fisted Tales), and has Lori welcoming readers to this special.
• “All in Color for a Crime” is another tale from me, with art by Lou Manna (T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Young All-Stars). Two comic book collectors clash over a rare back issue—and only one of them will be adding it to their long boxes!
• “The Basilisk,” from me and artist John Pierard (Graphic Classics: Horror Classics, My Teacher Fried My Brains), is a “Lori’s Feary Tale” that examines the history of a supernatural creature that’s a cross between a deadly snake and a…chicken?!
• Wrapping up the special is “Requiem for Bravo 6,” by New York Times bestselling author and comic writer Dwight Jon Zimmerman (She-Hulk Epic Collection: The Cosmic Squish Principle) and artist Juan Carlos Abraldes Rendo (Bloke’s Terrible Tomb of Terror). A special-ops team goes on a life-or-death mission…but will they be prepared for what awaits them at mission’s end?
And Lorelei: Genesis is a 24-page, one-shot digital-exclusive comic that collects the original small-press Lori stories that I wrote and drew back in the late eighties and early nineties. Behind a brand-new cover drawing by yours truly (and colored by Eliseu Gouveia), you’ll find a pair of stories: “Lorelei” is an 8-pager from 1991 in which Lori journeys through the streets of New York on an important mission: to pick up her dry-cleaning! It’s followed by “In the Midnight Hour,” the 1989 story that introduced horror-comic fans to our favorite redheaded succubus, who steps in to rescue a couple being menaced by a street gang. If you’re curious about Lori’s early days as a horror heroine, then be sure to order yourself a copy from our webstore—it’s available at the low, low price of just 99¢!
Sebastienne Mazarin is an immortal, monster-hunting mentor who currently appears in my Saga of Pandora Zwieback novels, mentoring a teenaged Goth chick on the finer points of handling the creatures of the night. But before she became Pan’s monster-hunting mentor, Sebastienne Mazarin made her debut in a short-lived, 1990s Mature Readers series that you can download for free from our webstore:
Heartstopper: The Legend of La Bella Tenebrosa #1–3: The nefarious heavy metal band Hellfire has arrived in New York City, and its lead singer, Corum de Sade, is more than just a sex magnet for his female fans—he’s an incubus! Will Annie put an end to his plans for worldwide chaos, or fall prey to his supernatural charms? Written by me (of course), issue 1 is drawn by Pan and Annie co-creator Uriel Caton (JSA Annual) and inker Alan Larsen (Femforce); issue 2 is penciled by Uriel, Holly Golightly (School Bites), and David C. Matthews (Satin Steele) and inked by Larsen. Issue 3 (which Millennium never published) is penciled by Holly, with four pages of inks by “Chainsaw” Chuck Majewski (Harvey Kurtzman’s New Two-Fisted Tales).
As a special bonus, issue 3 includes a short preview of the also-never-published Heartstopper/Trollords, a proposed one-shot special that would have had Annie meet Harry, Larry, and Jerry, the Three Stooges–inspired trolls created by Scott Beaderstadt and Paul Fricke, written by me with pencils by Holly and Scott and inks by Bill Lavin (Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings).
(Warning: Heartstopper is designated a “Mature Readers” comic for violent scenes and some sexual innuendo, so younger Panatics should avoid it.)
Last but not least, Vampirellais best known to comic book fans around the world as the half-naked vampire from outer space—created by comics publisher James Warren and writer/editor Forrest J Ackerman, and currently published by Dynamite Entertainment—who fights monsters while wearing nothing but a one-piece swimsuit and a pair of go-go boots. If you’re a new fan of hers, someone interested in learning about her background, or a longtime fan, we have a book that’s perfect for you:
From the Stars…a Vampiress: An Unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures, by Steven A. Roman, is a nonfiction book—not a comic—and a history of Vampirella that takes an extensive look at her early days, from the debut of her series in 1969 to the death of Warren Publishing in 1983. I provide an in-depth guide to all her Warren stories, a checklist of all her Warren appearances (plus the publications from Harris Comics and Dynamite Entertainment that reprinted her Warren adventures), an overview of the six novelizations by pulp sci-fi author Ron Goulart that were published in the 1970s by Warner Books, and most important of all, what may be the first time anyone has actually told, in chronological order, the story behind the rise and fall of Hammer Films’ proposed Vampi movie of the 1970s that was meant to star actress/model Barbara Leigh and horror icon Peter Cushing.
It also includes my look at the awful 1996 direct-to-cable-TV movie that was made, starring Talisa Soto and Roger Daltrey; a peek at Peter Cushing’s personal copy of the ’70s Vampirella screenplay; a foreword by Official Vampirella Historian Sean Fernald, a frontispiece by Warren artist Bob Larkin, and photographs from the personal archives of Forrest J Ackerman.
Lorelei: Sects and the City, Lorelei Presents: House Macabre, and From the Stars…a Vampiress are available in print and digital formats. Lorelei: Genesis is a digital exclusive. Heartstopper is a free digital exclusive. Visit their respective product pages for ordering information.
My second convention appearance as a small-press publisher/creator was in June 1992, when Troubleshooters, Incorporated artist Dan Peters and I set up shop in artists’ alley at Great Eastern Convention’s New York Comic Book Convention (not to be confused with New York Comic Con, which debuted in 2006), held at the Ramada Hotel…which used to be the Penta Hotel when I did the Great Eastern Convention in 1991…which used to be the Hotel Pennsylvania in the decades before that…which ultimately reverted back to the Hotel Pennsylvania before its closure in 2022 (it’s a long story).
Dan Peters (l.) and I at NYCBC ’92. Photo by Johnny Araujo.
The StarWarp display at NYCBC ’92. Photo by Johnny Araujo.
This time, as you can see in these pictures, I was really playing the part of an Important Comic Book Publisher: a full display behind us, showcasing the digest-size comics available (See the black wings? It was actually a discarded “book dump” display for the 1989 Batman novelization that I’d rescued from the trash outside a Borders bookstore); pinups and sketches galore; and the first-ever (and only, to date) Lorelei T-shirt. I even wore a jacket and a tie (and occasionally a fedora)!
Dan and I hawked the comics all weekend, chatted with comic fans, and even conducted reviews of artist portfolios. The jacket and tie, it appeared, made folks think I was more of a comics veteran than I really was…
There were many other comic creators there, of course. Sitting directly across the aisle from us were a couple guys trying to get folks interested in their black-and-white horror comic from Eternity Comics, about some headbanger who looked like a zombie version of heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio and whose pale-skinned, white-haired girlfriend wore nothing but a bikini and a black cape.
And thus began the legend of writer Brian Pulido, artist Steven Hughes, and their creations Evil Ernie and Lady Death…
I chatted a bit with Pulido, who was finding it a bit of a struggle to get people interested—a situation that would, of course, change dramatically for him and comics in general just a few months later, when the Bad Girl Era began, ushered in by Harris Comics’ relaunch of Vampirella, the queen of the half-naked comic femmes fatale.
Well, I was interested, so I bought a copy of Evil Ernie #1, along with the one bit of merchandise they had: handmade reproductions of Smiley, the evil, sentient, smiley-faced button that Ernie wore on his leather jacket, The repros were so new that Pulido had to write a copyright notice on the back of each, with a silver-paint marker. I actually wore it on my coat later that winter, but eventually stopped doing so when I realized how fragile it was (I’ve wound up gluing the arm bones back on a number of times over the years).
By the time the con wrapped up, I’d sold some comics and sketches, Dan had sold some sketches, and I’d discovered that people had started to take notice of the small-press horror publisher with the science-fictiony name. Things were looking up!
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