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The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Now On Sale!
Halloween is just three days away, and so the timing couldn’t be better for fans of the Spooky Season than right now for the release of our latest SWC Horror Bite: Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow!
The tale of schoolteacher Ichabod Crane’s terrifying encounter with the Headless Horseman has captivated readers since its first publication in 1820, in Irving’s collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
In the 200 years since, it’s become the quintessential Halloween story. It’s been the basis for countless movies, TV shows, comic books, and other pop-culture adaptations, but if you’ve never read the original source material, then do we have a great digital chapbook for you!
Here’s the back-cover copy to pique your interest:
Getting Ahead in This Town Can be Murder…
Sleepy Hollow, New York, appears to be the perfect peaceful location for newly arrived schoolteacher Ichabod Crane, whose nerves always seem a little on edge. The people are nice enough—with the exception of the town bully, Bram Bones—the meals they serve are even better, and most appealing of all is the beautiful Katrina Van Tassel, daughter of one of the town’s wealthiest families.
But lurking behind Sleepy Hollow’s peaceful setting is a terrifying secret: a murderer stalks the countryside—specifically, the ghost of a Hessian soldier whose head was blown off by a cannonball during the American Revolution. Ever since his grisly death, the dreaded Headless Horseman has been searching for a replacement…
…and Ichabod Crane’s noggin looks to be just the right size…
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a digital-exclusive chapbook available from the SWC webstore. Visit its product page for ordering information.
Posted in Classic Fiction, e-books, Halloween, Publishing
Tagged e-books, halloween, headless horseman, horror classics, ichabod crane, swc horror bites, the legend of sleepy hollow, washington irving
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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!
Posted in Comic Book Distributors, Comic Distributors, Digital Comics, e-books, e-tailers, Halloween
Tagged digital comic books, drivethru comics, e-books, e-tailers, halloween
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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!
Posted in Comic Books
Tagged chris malgrain, comic books, indyplanet, oniric comics, the formidables
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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.
Posted in Conventions
Tagged conventions, richard c. white, siouxperconline
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Time to Get Back to Publishing
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.
We 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!
Posted in Classic Fiction, e-books, Publishing
Tagged christmas, christmas horror, e-books, halloween, horror classics, john kendrick bangs, swc horror bites, the legend of sleepy hollow, the water ghost of harrow by hall, washington irving
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2020 Convention Season Not Quite Over Just Yet
In 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!
Actually, 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 Imagination. When 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.
Posted in Conventions
Tagged conventions, richard c. white, siouxperconline
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It’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day 2020!
Avast, 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.
Posted in Comic Books, Digital Comics, Events
Tagged chronicles of the sea dragon, comic books, digital comic books, international talk like a pirate day, pirate fantasy, richard c. white, the worlds of richard c. white
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StarWarp Spotlight On: Heartstopper
Welcome 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!
Sebastienne 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.
Plus, 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!
Posted in Comic Books, Digital Comics, heartstopper, Publishing, Sebastienne Mazarin
Tagged comic books, digital comic books, heartstopper, sebastienne mazarin, starwarp concepts backlist, starwarp spotlight
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Happy Buy a Book Day 2020!
Hot 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!
Posted in Holidays
Tagged holidays, national buy a book day
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