StarWarp Concepts Webstore Now Open

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Steven

Not a dream, not a hoax, not an imaginary story— the SWC webstore is waiting for your business! Now if you have trouble finding any of our titles, you can order them directly from us. Here’s what we’re offering:

Blood Feud, Carmilla, and The Bob Larkin Sketchbook: Print editions of all three of our 2011 titles are available. And since the sketchbook is an SWC exclusive not available in stores, the webstore’s the only place you’ll be able to get it, not counting when we sell it at conventions—but you’d rather have it now, wouldn’t you?

The official Pandora Zwieback T-shirt: Available in both men’s and women’s sizes, it’s the same devil-girl T that Pan wears on the cover of Blood Feud, and an essential piece of clothing for all stylish monster hunters.

The Blood Feud Art Print: Bob Larkin’s cover art for the first Pandora Zwieback novel is presented in full color on 11” x 17” cardstock, without text. Limited to 100 copies.

There’s also a bonus art book for sale: The Savage Art of Bob Larkin! We’re helping Bob straighten up his studio, so we’ve arranged to offer his personal copies of this 64-page, full-color collection of cover painting masterpieces, which was published by SQP Inc. in 2009. As a special treat, if you buy it together with The Bob Larkin Sketchbook, you get 15% off your order!

What’re you waiting for? Get shopping today!  😀

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“Pandora Zwieback” Cover Artist’s Online Gallery Launches

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Steven

This is fantastic news! Bob Larkin—the legendary artist whose work graces the covers of the Saga of Pandora Zwieback novels, as well as the pages of his own Bob Larkin Sketchbook—now has an online gallery, and it’s open for business!

Bob Larkin: The Illustrated Man was launched on January 6 by two of Bob’s biggest fans, Courtney Rogers and Scotty Phillips, and it showcases a wealth of painted covers, movie posters, and toy packaging that Bob has created during his long career.

From pulp hero Doc Savage to superheroes like the Hulk and the X-Men (even the Toxic Avenger!) and horror icons like Dracula, the Wolfman, and Godzilla, one look at the gallery and you’ll see why Bob has been such an inspiration to a generation of artists.

Just click on the logo above to get started, and prepare to be amazed!

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It’s Friday the 13th!

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Steven

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The Queen of Queens

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Steven

Well, this is a nice way to start off 2012—with further praise for Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1! This time it’s from D. W. Jones of the online horror magazine Blood Moon Rising:

“Roman brings horror to NYC and spins a tale that keeps the reader enthralled….  I recommend this book for all horror readers and especially to young girls.”

The fact that Blood Moon Rising’s offices are based in Queens, NY—Pan’s home borough—makes the positive reaction all the sweeter. I mean, who doesn’t love a monster-fightin’ hometown girl?

You can read the entire review—as well as a review of Carmilla, StarWarp Concepts’ first classic reprint (with illustrations by The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0 comic artist Eliseu Gouveia)—by clicking on the cover. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the magazine!

Blood Moon Rising is also the sponsor of The Institute of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction, a one-day gathering being held this March at the main branch of the Queens Public Library, which is located in Flushing—a neighborhood that is immune to all your petty, childish jokes about toilets, so don’t even bother!  😀  Click the link in the Events listings for more information on the show.

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Back to Business

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Steven

Happy New Year! Hope you folks had a restful holiday season these past few weeks, and thanks for joining us for what we hope will be an exciting 2012 (end-of-the-world prophecies notwithstanding).

While you were unwrapping presents, eating until you passed out from monumental sugar highs and tryptophan-laced turkeys, and keeping the family dog from noshing on Christmas-tree tinsel, the Krampus and a horde of ghoulish, undead elves were busy getting our house in order. Check it out:

E-books

At last, Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is available for your e-reader! And for the incredibly reasonable price of just $3.99! If you’ve been holding off from buying the print edition, or know someone who might be interested in giving Pan’s literary debut a read, then here’s where you’ll find it:

Amazon.com: Available at the Kindle Store.

Barnes & Noble: Available at the Nook Book Store.

DriveThru Fiction: PDF edition available at the StarWarp Concepts store.

Smashwords: Apple iPad-, Kindle-, Kobo-, Nook-, Palm-, and Sony Reader–compatible files available at the StarWarp Concepts store.

Critical Acclaim

Yet another positive review for Blood Feud, this time courtesy of reviewer Melissa Voelker at HorrorNews.net:

“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.”

Read the entire review by clicking on the HorrorNews link above.

The SWC 2012 Catalog

The final version of The ’Warp’s publishing list for the entire year is now available for download. Go read it—you might find a surprise or two in there!

Author Info

SWC’s resident idea factory Steve Roman (that’s me!) now has his/my own Author Page at Amazon.com. The Saga of Pandora Zwieback is just my latest project; the Author Page is where you’ll find all the others listed and for sale (if available). Zombies, superheroes, Doctor Who, Final Destination—is there nothing cool that I haven’t written?  😉

And there’s more to come. Standby for action—we’re just getting started!

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E-bookapalooza!

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Steven

The holidays are here, so what better time to curl up with your favorite e-reader and catch up on the doings of Goth adventuress Pandora Zwieback in her first novel?

Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is available right now at the following e-tailers, for the quite reasonable price of $3.99:

•  (Nook Book)

 

 

 

•  (.mobi, ePub, PDF, RTF, Palm; .mobi, BTW, means it’s Kindle compatible)

 

•  (PDF)

 

 

Also available at DriveThru Fiction: J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 19th-century vampiress novella, Carmilla—illustrated by Pandora Zwieback comic artist Eliseu Gouveia, and on sale for just $2.99.

Just click on the logos and start your last-minute shopping!

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How About a Nice Shiny Apple, Dearie?

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Steven

Grimm. Once Upon a Time. Beauty and the Beast. Cinderella. Jack the Giant Killer. Sleeping Beauty. Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (seriously!).

See a pattern forming there? Yup, fairy tales have never been more popular in Hollywood than they are right now—those are all TV shows and movies currently in production or preproduction. And before that you had the Twilight-y Red Riding Hood. Fairy tales are the new black! The new vampires! People can’t seem to get enough of them… which is good, because 2012 has two film adaptations of Snow White on the way.


First out of the gate will be Mirror, Mirror, from director Tarsem Singh (Immortals, The Cell). It stars Lily Collins as Snow White, Julia Roberts as the evil queen, and Nathan Lane as… somebody. Not one of the Seven Dwarfs, I’m pretty sure. Then again, those dwarfs in the picture don’t seem especially fairy tale-y to me—could this actually be some kind of sequel to Time Bandits?  😉

Then you’ve got Snow White and the Huntsman, starring Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, and Charlize Theron as the evil queen. I gotta say, that is one mopey-looking Snow White. But, hey! It’s Thor and the vampire girl versus Aeon Flux—when does low-budget movie studio The Asylum make a mockbuster out of that?

Anyway, you’re probably wondering what all this has to do with The ’Warp. Well, it has everything to do with The ’Warp, because in February 2012 we’ll be releasing our first e-book-only title: Snow White—and just in time to also celebrate the first publication of her tale in the Brothers Grimm’s 1812 collection, Children’s and Household Tales!

Behind that spectacular cover design by our own Mat Postawa, you’ll find not just the timeless story of a young girl preyed upon by her insanely jealous stepmother (I mean, really insane—she start out wanting to eat Snow’s heart!), but also a collection of rare full-color illustrations that were first printed in 1883.

Snow White is the latest addition to our illustrated classics library, joining J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Edgar Rice Burroughs’s A Princess of Mars on the shelves. This time, however, there won’t be a print version—Snow White will be strictly a PDF e-book available through our store at DriveThru Fiction.com. I’ll have more details for you as we get closer to the publication date.

Mirror, Mirror opens March 16, 2012. Snow White and the Huntsman opens June 1, 2012.

Snow White, the special StarWarp Concepts e-book, hits the Internet on February 21, 2012 for the low, low price of just $1.99.

Come celebrate Snow’s 200th Anniversary with us, and then go out and see her movies!

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When the (Internet) Radio Is on

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Steven

Last Thursday I appeared on the Scifi Diner podcast to promote Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1, but that’s not all we discussed! It turned into an hour-long, freewheeling conversation that spanned my writing and editing careers, my fanboyish obsession with Doctor Who, the state of young adult fiction, praise for Pandora Zwieback artists Eliseu Gouveia and Bob Larkin, and even a plug or two for some StarWarp Concepts releases.

A big shout-out to hosts Scott Hertzog and Miles McLoughlin for allowing me to ramble on as much as I did, but once they got me started on a topic it was hard to shut up.  😀

Grab yourself a snack and a favorite beverage, then click on the Scifi Diner logo to head over to the show’s site and download the new episode. It’s a Pan-tastic interview!

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Fear of an Angry Red Planet

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Steven

“Here’s the real truth of it. I’d already changed it from A Princess Of Mars to John Carter Of Mars. I don’t like to get fixated on it, but I changed Princess Of Mars… because not a single boy would go.”

That’s John Carter movie director Andrew Stanton, in an interview at the site Bleeding Cool, as to why the title of the upcoming Disney adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s first “Mars” novel suffered a Hollywood princessectomy. He goes on to state that the title was shortened even further because “no girl would go to see John Carter Of Mars.”

 

Really?

Well, that’s just depressing, but not exactly unexpected. It’s the kind of head-scratching logic that always seems to be prevalent in Movieland. To be fair, Princess wasn’t the original title for John Carter’s first adventure, anyway—as a six-part serialized story that ran in All-Story Magazine back in 1912, it was called Under the Moons of Mars. It became A Princess of Mars when it was published in book form in 1917; the title refers to Dejah Thoris, princess of the Martian city-state of Helium—and John Carter’s love interest.

However, instead of going with a generic movie title that tells you absolutely nothing about the story, the folks at Disney should have focused their energies on making the public aware of the franchise’s history—you would not believe how many online message boards are filled with people who think John Carter is just some pastiche of Avatar and The Phantom Menace! (The recently released trailer, unfortunately, doesn’t help dispel that notion.) If anything, Burroughs’s Mars series influenced them.

You know what, though? We here at The ’Warp aren’t afraid of boys who think that princesses are stupid, or girls who regard trips to Mars as icky—we’re made of stronger stuff. And so is our readership! That’s why we’re publishing our own edition of A Princess of Mars, with no title changes whatsoever!

Just take a look at that cover by photographer Marc Witz and designer Mat Postawa (with a little help from a Mars photo courtesy of NASA). Nice, huh? And that’s not all you’ll find that’s new in this edition. Along with an introduction by John Carter of Mars aficionado John Gosling, there are six fantastic black-and-white illustrations by Eliseu Gouveia, the gifted artist whose art graces our previous classic reprint, Carmilla, as well as the Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0 introductory comic.

John Carter opens in movie theaters on March 9, 2012. StarWarp Concepts’ edition of A Princess of Mars hits bookstores (and the SWC shop) in February 2012—which also happens to be the book’s 100th Anniversary. Come celebrate this literary milestone with us!

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On the (Internet) Radio

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Steven

Sorry about the lack of updates around here these past couple of weeks, but have no fear—the Hype Hearse is back on the road! First stop:

This past weekend I had the pleasure of appearing on the podcast Sci-Fi Saturday Night to promote Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 and, despite all my uhh-ing (Gah! I hate doing that!) as I stumbled through the conversation, I had a good time. Learn the history of Gothopolis, and the secret influence behind the Pan series, then howl with laughter as I recount my brief misadventure trying out as a Batman Adventures artist for DC Comics. Good times, good times…

Just click on the logo above to head over to the show and give it a listen.

But that’s not my only appearance this month! On Thursday I’ll be interviewed by the folks at Sci-Fi Diner Podcast, and there are Q&A’s in the works for Reading Bites—the blog for the book-review site Monster Librarian—and Books of the Dead Press, the publisher of Best New Zombie Tales 2, an anthology to which I contributed. I’ll let you know when those interviews run—and whether more are coming!

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