DriveThru’s 2020 Halloween Sale Is On!

It’s time to celebrate the Spooky season—with e-books and digital comics! E-book distributors DriveThru Comics and DriveThru Fiction—along with sister site DriveThru RPG—are currently running their annual Halloween sale, during which you can purchase thousands of horror-themed digital books and comics at special prices! It runs until November 1—and yes, you’ll need to set up an account (it’s free) to take advantage of this promotion. Included among the many participating publishers is StarWarp Concepts (of course), which means you can get the following titles at lower prices:

From the Stars…a Vampiress: An Unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures: the nonfiction comics history by Steven A. Roman(that’s me!), about the queen of the comic book bad girls, chronicling her “life” at her original home, Warren Publishing, from 1969 to 1983. Also included is a look at every Vampirella comic story from Warren, plus an examination of the 1975 movie that was never made by Hammer Studios.

Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1: the first of my young adult novels starring Pandora Zwieback,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 professional monster hunter 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. 

The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1: a 56-page, full-color comic special that 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).

Lorelei Presents: House Macabre: Lori’s first outing as the hostess of a horror comic anthology, in this one-shot special that contains four tales of horror, behind eye-catching cover art by fan-favorite artist Louis Small Jr.(Vampirella). 

Lorelei: Genesis: a collection of Lori’s first small-press-comics appearances from the early 1990s, written and drawn by yours truly.

Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings: a graphic novel about a group of supernatural-superheroes-for-hire taking on their first case, written by the husband-and-white team of Richard C. White (Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination) and Joni M. White, and illustrated by Reggie Golden and Randy Zimmerman.

Again, the Halloween sale runs through November 1 (the Day of the Dead!), so head over to the StarWarp Concepts publisher page at DriveThru Comics and start shopping!

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The Formidables 7 Now On Sale!

Hey, comic fans! The seventh (and penultimate) issue of The Formidables—the eight-part superhero series that I’ve been involved with as editor—is now on sale at online comics distributor IndyPlanet. 

Created by writer/artist Chris Malgrain (who also created the series Sideral: The Last Earthman, which I script) through his Oniric Comics company, the Formidables are a quintet of superheroes battling evil and bigotry in 1950s America.

Issue 5 began a new story arc with “The Truth Shall Set You Free,” in which the Formidables and the many other superheroes of the Oniric Universe encounter The Maker, a giant traveler from outer space who’s come to warn the Earth that evil forces have gathered to destroy the planet. In issue 6, they learned whether he was there to help…or to complicate matters. And now, the secret of the Maker and his connection to the alien forces is revealed—and the Formidables may not like what they hear!

The Formidables #7 is available for $3.99 in print and FREE as a digital download, so head over to its product page at IndyPlanet to order a copy. And while you’re at it, be sure to purchase The Formidables #1–6 (also available at IndyPlanet), so you can catch-up on all the fun!

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Author Richard C. White at SiouxperConline 2020

In-person genre conventions might be shutting down right and left or rescheduling for 2021, as life goes on in the current Age of Coronavirus, but a growing number of shows set up virtual counterparts to accommodate fans eager for some sort of convention experience, with San Diego Comic-Con, New York Comic Con, and Dragon Con being the three largest to make the switch.

This weekend, SiouxperCon—normally held at the Sioux Falls Convention Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota—opens its virtual doors to the public as SiouxperConline, and among its list of guests, artists, and vendors you’ll find SWC author Richard C. White, writer of the fantasies For a Few Gold Pieces Moreand Harbinger of Darkness, the noir-fantasy collection Chasing Danger: The Case Files of Theron Chase, and the nonfiction writers and gamers creative guide Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination.

So, head online this weekend, October 3–4, and check out Rich and the other creative attendees at SiouxperConline 2020! 

For more information, visit the SiouxperConline website.

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Time to Get Back to Publishing

Steel-Plant-Workers

The coronavirus pandemic certainly did a job on the publishing industry this year, forcing massive changes in scheduling as work-from-home changes emptied out offices and books meant to come out in the spring and summer had to be moved to the fall or even next year.

vampiress_LG_CoverWe experienced a bit of that at ’Warp Central, too, with the scheduling of new titles. It was just after the February release of my nonfiction comics history, From the Stars…a Vampiress: An Unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures, that the industry got knocked off-balance by the virus, which resulted in such things as reviewers abandoning copies they’d received as they scrambled to exit their offices for who knows how long (so there went any chance of reviews from sites like Sci-Fi Bulletin, and magazines like Horrorhound and—most prestigious of all—Starburst). With reviewers unavailable and no conventions to attend to help spread the word about SWC, maybe it would just be better to bump things over to 2021 like the big kids have done and see if that year sucks any less (at this stage, it wouldn’t take much to achieve).

With Halloween close at hand, we start in October with a new entry in our SWC Horror Bites line of classic stories: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving. First published in 1820, in the Irving short story collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., the tale of schoolteacher Ichabod Crane, socialite Katrina Van Tassel, town bully Brom Bones, and the ghostly Hessian soldier who constantly rides in search of a replacement noggin is known around the world and is considered one of the quintessential stories to get you in the right mood for Halloween. It’s inspired countless movies, TV shows, cartoons, comic books, and novels—and this year it celebrates its 200th anniversary! So we’ll be doing a week of Sleepy Hollow–related posts starting next week as a sort of countdown to its release on October 13 (not a Friday, but still spooky enough), in which I’ll review some of that pop-culture stuff.

Also in October, we’ll be doing Vampirella Week, delayed from earlier this year (stupid virus!) and rescheduled for October 26. As in-depth as From the Stars…a Vampiress is, there were things—like artwork and behind-the-scenes factoids—that I didn’t have room for in the book, so swing on by to check it all out as we count down to Halloween with the queen of comics’ bad girls!

Then for December, our first-ever yuletide offering is another SWC Horror Bite: The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall, by John Kendrick Bangs. Originally published in 1891, it’s the tale of the Oglethorpe family, which for generations has been haunted by a lady ghost who shows up every year at Christmastime to scare them—well, more like annoy them—and drench their expensive furniture in water. But the latest Oglethorpse, the current owner of Harrowby Hall, has a plan in mind that should make future Christmases ghost-free…

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow goes on sale October 13. The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall goes on sale December 8. Stay tuned for further information!

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2020 Convention Season Not Quite Over Just Yet

SiouxperCon-free-adIn the Age of Coronavirus, one of the hardest hit businesses this year is the convention industry, which first and foremost depends on social gathering in order to make money, and the more people you can squeeze into an exhibition hall the better. But with a global pandemic in full effect, a majority of con organizers have taken the safer approach of either canceling their shows this year, in the hopes that the health situation will improve in 2021, or have taken them online. San Diego Comic Con, Dragon Con, and New York Comic Con are just three of a growing number of shows that set up virtual counterparts to accommodate fans eager for some sort of convention experience.

So it is with this year’s SiouxperCon. Normally held at the Sioux Falls Convention Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, show runners have elected to shift the festivities over to the World Wide Web for 2020—and honestly, that works to SWC’s advantage. Given the expenses that would normally be involved in attending such an event—round-trip airfare, round-trip shipping of products, hotel rooms and other costs—SiouxperCon is normally a show we wouldn’t be able to go to. But by going virtual, they’ve made it possible for us to “be” there!

Rich-New-PicActually, it’s not as much “us” as one of our authors: Richard C. White, writer of the fantasies For a Few Gold Pieces More and Harbinger of Darkness, the noir-fantasy collection Chasing Danger: The Case Files of Theron Chase, and the nonfiction writers and gamers creative guide Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your ImaginationWhen I learned of SiouxperConline and that one of its major focuses is on gaming, it made all kinds of sense to me that in place of an SWC virtual vendor booth, I’d set it up so that Rich could be “in attendance” since he’s so good at promoting his books—especially Terra Incognito—and singing the praises of their awesome publisher!

So, on October 3–4, you’ll find Rich among the online attendees at SiouxperConline 2020. For more information on its guests, panels, and other attractions, visit the SiouxperConline website.

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It’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day 2020!

seadragon_lrg_cov_revAvast, ye curs, whether you’re a fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise, or classic films like Captain Blood, The Crimson Pirate, and The Sea Hawk, it’s time again to celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day—especially since StarWarp Concepts has its own pirate-fantasy comic for you to enjoy!

The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special is a one-shot digital comic created and written by Richard C. White, author of the fantasy-adventure collection For a Few Gold Pieces More, the fantasy novel Harbinger of Darkness, the noir-fantasy collection Chasing Danger: The Case Files of Theron Chase, the writer’s guide Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination, and the supernatural-superheroes graphic novel Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings.

The story involves Captain Aheera, a swashbuckling privateer who commands the Sea Dragon, a ship-for-hire whose job is to attack enemy shipping and whose crew is a mixture of humans and fantasy types, including the elven first mate, Safir. On this particular mission, however, matters swiftly become far more complicated than Asheera expected, and has him wondering if he’ll be able to pull his crew out of danger—and whether he charged nearly enough when he agreed to this latest job…

Drawn by Bill Bryan (artist of Caliber Press’ Dark Oz and DC Comics’ House of Mystery), and featuring cover art and color by Eliseu Gouveia (Lorelei: Sects and the City, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual#1), it’s 48 pages of high-seas adventure—for just 99¢!

“There seems to be a fair amount of deviousness amongst the crew of the Sea Dragon, but I was greatly pleased to see the heroes using their smarts as well as their swords. Lots of high adventure and old-school artwork make this a fun read for those of us that grew up on Sinbad movies.”Nth Degree

Visit the Chronicles of the Sea Dragon product page for more information, including sample pages.

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StarWarp Spotlight On: Heartstopper

heartstopper_lg_cover_2013Welcome back to StarWarp Spotlight, a series of posts that runs each week to shine a spotlight on one of our titles, as a reminder of the awesome books and comics we publish and to introduce new SWC fans to our backlist. True, we normally run this feature on Mondays, but what with yesterday being Labor Day—a national holiday in the United States—and National Buy a Book Day, we decided to bump the installment over to today.

And speaking of today, with this installment we wrap-up the Spotlight feature with a look at a 1990s “bad girl” comic that helped inspire the creation of our Saga of Pandora Zwieback series…

Hearstopper: The Legend of La Bella Tenebrosa is a free three-issue digital-exclusive miniseries originally published in 1994, during the height of what became known as comics’ “Bad Girl Era,” in which every publisher scrambled to put out a series that featured a sexy heroine who was such a total badass that she could crush evildoers with ease—and do it while wearing as little clothing as possible! Lady Death, Shi, Elektra, Hellina, Mantra, Witchblade, Razor—Heartstopper not only had a lot of company on the racks of your local comic shop, its first issue even outsold Vampirella that same month!

heartstopper2_lg_cover_2013Sebastienne Mazarin—an immortal, monster-hunting shape-shifter who would go on to become Pandora Zwieback’s supernatural mentor, starting in the young-adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1—made her debut in this short-lived Mature Readers series from Millennium Publications. (FYI, “La Bella Tenebrosa” in the Olde Tongue of monsterdom means “the beautiful dark one.”) In Heartstopper, a nefarious heavy metal band has arrived in New York City, and its lead singer, Coum 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 Steven A. Roman (that’s me!), with pencils by co-creator Uriel Caton (JSA Annual 2000), Holly Golightly (Vampfire), and David C. Matthews (Satin Steele), inks by Alan Larsen (Femforce) and “Chainsaw” Chuck Majewski (Harvey Kurtzman’s New Two-Fisted Tales), and colors by Dan Peters and Zeea Adams, this full-color miniseries offers a rare look into Annie’s past.

heartstopper_three_lg_coverPlus, issue 3 contains a glimpse at the planned-but-never-completed crossover special Heartstopper/Trollords, in which Annie was going to meet Harry, Larry, and Jerry—a trio of Three Stooges–inspired trolls who starred in a very popular comic series at the time.

Heartstopper: The Legend of La Bella Tenebrosa #1–3 are available for free as digital exclusives. Visit their product page for ordering information and sample pages.

And so, we’ve reached the end of StarWarp Spotlight—for 2020, that is! This was a fun, easy way of promoting our backlist—in fact, I’m thinking of making this an annual event. As a publishing company, it’s always a good thing to make folks aware of your backlist, especially as your number of titles continues to grow, because you never know what’ll catch the eye of a potential reader.

So get ready for StarWarp Spotlight 2021, and stay tuned for more information on it!

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Happy Buy a Book Day 2020!

National-Buy-a-Book-DayHot on the heels of yesterday’s National Read a Book Day, today is National Buy a Book Day, which, according to the calendar site Happy Days 365, “was formed in 2012 to educate people about the significance of books to our culture and civilization as a whole.” But wouldn’t it make more sense to have the holidays switched, so you buy a book and then read it?

Anyway, we like to think our books are significant in relation to civilization’s continued existence—I mean, have you seen the outstanding reviews we’ve amassed?—so how can you celebrate this special occasion? Well, we recommend purchasing at least one of our amazing titles!

The best way to do that is by taking a look at our StarWarp Spotlight blog-post series, in which we’ve been shining a spotlight on each of our horror, dark urban fantasy, fantasy adventure, and nonfiction books, not to mention our comic books and graphic novels.

From the writers/gamers reference book Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination and the comic-book history From the Stars…a Vampiress: An Unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures to the Lovecraftian thrills of Lorelei: Sects and the City and the swashbuckling sci-fi adventure A Princess of Mars, StarWarp Concepts has a book that makes every day perfect for Buy a Book Day!

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Happy Read a Book Day 2020!

Today is National Read a Book Day, which is celebrated in the United States every September 6th since…well, nobody seems to know precisely when this “holiday” began, or who started it, but it’s a celebration of reading, so it’s all good, right? And if you’re looking for a book to enjoy on this special day, then you’ve come to the right place!

If you’ve been following our weekly StarWarp Spotlight blog-post series—in which we’ve been shining a spotlight on each of our awesome titles—then you’re no doubt aware of what we have to offer fans of horror, dark urban fantasy, fantasy adventure, and comic books and graphic novels. If not, here are some highlights:

Dark Urban Fantasy
Blood FeudBlood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is my young adult novel that’s perfect for lovers of dark urban fantasy.It introduces readers to Pandora Zwieback, 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 professional monster hunter 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. In Blood Feud, Pan, her parents and friends, and Annie 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.

Chasing-Danger_large_book_coverChasing Danger: The Case Files of Theron Chase, by bestselling fantasy author Richard C. White (Gauntlet: Dark Legacy: Paths of Evil, The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special),is a pulp-fiction-styled collection of noir-fantasy novellas starring a private eye working the supernatural beat in the city of Calasia. From a sexy chanteuse who literally turns into a beast when the moon is full to a string of pearls that kills its owners, and from the ghost of a dead woman seeking justice to the Grim Reaper’s little girl seeking her stolen chicken, Theron Chase certainly has his hands full—of danger, death, and dames!

harbinger_large_book_cover2017Fantasy Adventure
Harbinger of Darkness: Rich White’s first original novel for SWC stars a thief named Perrin who steals an extremely valuable—and magical—gem from the evil king ruling her home country. With thugs and fellow thieves and the king’s assassins hot on her trail, Perrin finds just staying alive is becoming a full-time occupation, which directly conflict with her secret life—and identity—as a humble bookseller’s daughter. It’s sword-swinging adventure at its finest!

pieces_gold_large_book_cover2017For a Few Gold Pieces More: This collection of ten critically acclaimed short stories by author Richard C. White stars a Rogue With No Name who travels a world of epic-fantasy adventure, looking for treasure—and revenge against the woman who sent him to prison for a crime he didn’t commit (but she did). Think Lord of the Rings meets the “spaghetti Westerns” of director Sergio Leone (A Fistful of Dollars; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), with a healthy dose of monsters, magic, and swordplay mixed in.

SWC Classics
CarmillaCarmilla is J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 19th-century classic vampiric tale of love gone wrong. Laura is so desperate for a friend that when a young woman named Carmilla practically turns up on the doorstep of the castle owned by Laura’s father, she thinks her prayers for companionship have been answered. But as she comes to realize, Carmilla isn’t as interested in making friends as she is in spilling blood. Regarded as the one of the earliest female vampire tales—if not the first—Carmilla was an influence on author Bram Stoker in the creation of the vampire brides in his seminal novel, Dracula, and remains a popular character in fiction to this day. Our edition contains six original illustrations done especially for StarWarp Concepts by the super-talented Eliseu Gouveia.

King_Kong_LG_CoverKing Kong is our e-book-exclusive Illustrated Classics edition of the 1932 novelization of the renowned motion picture. Written by Delos W. Lovelace, based on the story by Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper and the screenplay by James A. Creelman and Ruth Rose, the SWC edition of King Kong features scenes that didn’t appear in the final cut of the film—including the notorious “spider pit” sequence in which Kong’s human pursuers are attacked by horrific arachnids and insects. What makes our version special is that it contains six exclusive, original black-and-white illustrations by comics artist Paul Tuma, whose pulp-influenced style has appeared in the pages of The Twilight Avenger, Flare, and Dan Turner: Hollywood Detective.

Nonfiction
vampiress_LG_CoverFrom the Stars…a Vampiress: An Unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures is Steven A. Roman’s nonfiction history of the queen of the comic book bad girls. In its pages you’ll find a breakdown of every Vampirella story that appeared during her Warren Publishing days from July 1969 to December 1982 (plus a list of the modern-day books that reprinted them); a checklist of every Warren Era appearance she made; a look at the six-book novelization series written by sci-fi and pulp-adventure author Ron Goulart and published by Warner Books in the 1970s; an examination of the awful 1996 movie that starred Talisa Soto of the Mortal Kombat movies as Vampi and featured a scenery-gulping performance from rock-god Roger Daltrey as Dracula; and a pretty extensive look at the history of Hammer Films’ Vampirella movie, announced in 1975 with model/actress Barbara Leigh and Hammer legend Peter Cushing as its stars, but which was never produced. Plus little-seen photos and other material pulled straight from the vaults of the Ackermonster by the Official Vampirella Historian, Sean Fernald, who also wrote the foreword. If you’re a Vampi fan, this will definitely be a book you need to pick up!

terra_ingoc_lg_coverTerra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination is our popular how-to book for writers and gamers in which bestselling fantasy author Richard C. White (Gauntlet: Dark Legacy: Paths of Evil, The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special, Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings) takes you through the step-by-step process of constructing a world for your characters, from societies and governments to currency and religion. Included is an interview with New York Times bestselling author Tracy Hickman (Dragonlance) that discusses his methods of world building, as well as his creative experiences during his time as a designer for gaming company TSR, the original home of Dungeons & Dragons.

Blood Feud, Chasing Danger, For a Few Gold Pieces More, Harbinger of Darkness, Carmilla, From the Stars…a Vampiress, and Terra Incognito are available in print and digital formats; King Kong is a digital exclusive. Visit their respective product pages for ordering information.

Happy reading!

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StarWarp Spotlight On: Heroines and Heroes

heroines_large_coverWelcome back to StarWarp Spotlight, a series of posts that runs each Monday to shine a spotlight on one of our titles, as a reminder of the awesome books and comics we publish and to introduce new SWC fans to our backlist.

This week, we look at a free digital-exclusive comic that features stories and art by yours truly…

Heroines and Heroes is a collection of comic stories and pinups all drawn by 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. Classic Harley Quinn story that I wrote 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 Seriescomic (it didn’t work out). If you enjoyed Wonder Woman, or are a fan of Harley’s appearances in her recent animated series as well as the movies Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey (and the Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)—plus the upcoming The Suicide Squad—then see what happens when they cross paths!

It’s followed by:

  • Dirty Laundry”: an eight-page adventure I wrote starring small-presser Jeff Wood’s rabbit-eared superspy, Snowbuni
  • Motorbike Puppies: three pages that I drew (but didn’t write) from an extremely short-lived (as in, all of two issues) 1990s indie comic about an anthropomorphic group of dog-headed bikers that was published by a company called Dark Zulu Lies
  • I Was a Super-Powered Vampire Slayer!”: a four-page adventure I wrote of the indie superheroine The Blonde Avenger, who starred in a series of comics in the 1990s published by and starring spokesmodel Cindy Johns. In this story, BA attends a comic book convention and runs into what she thinks is a vampire preying on the fanboys!

Heroines and Heroes is available as a free digital exclusive. Visit its product page for ordering information and sample pages.

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