Comic-Con International is proud to announce the nominations for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards of 2013. The nominees, chosen by a blue-ribbon panel of judges, reflect the wide range of material being published in comics and graphic novel form today, from crime noir to autobiographical works to cartoon adventures. Three titles lead the 2013 list with 5 nominations each.
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Ditko Monsters – Gorgo!, stories drawn by Steve Ditko, written by Joe Gill, designed and edited by Craig Yoe. YoeBooks!/IDW Publishing. 224 pages, $34.99 retail hardcover.
I realize I’m jeopardizing my Geekcred here, but when I was a kid I never was much of a monster movie fan. After I got past James Whale and Ishirô Honda, it was pretty much “if you’ve seen one slimy green tail, you’ve seen them all.” Of course, this was prior to the proliferation of porno.
My pathetically mature attitude kept me away from Marvel’s monster comics prior to Fantastic Four #1 (the first one). That changed with Fin Fang Foom and Strange Tales Annual #1, and it changed with Steve Ditko’s Amazing Adult Fantasy. (Memo to self: define “adult.”) It became impossible to pass up any Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko effort, be it superhero or monster. Hell, I even bought Ditko’s Hogan’s Heroes adaptations.
So, like many Baby Boomer Doctor Strange fans, I first encountered Gorgo in the 1966 Charlton reprint Fantastic Giants. The giant lizard shared the cover with a big ol’ ape named Konga, a bizarre caricature of the artist, and the legend “A Steve Ditko Special! 64 pages!”
I’ve waited almost fifty years for Fantastic Giants #2, and thanks to my pal Craig Yoe, it finally arrived in the form of a 224 hardcover, Ditko Monsters – Gorgo! He reprints a ton of Ditko Gorgo stories shot from the source material but painstakingly restored and fronted by a wonderful and highly informative introduction by the editor.
These stories are fantastic fun, which is exactly what they should be. Mystery Science Theater 3000 could riff the Gorgo movies, and they did, but these comics stories co-star such notables as John F. Kennedy, Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev. Communism be damned; evidently, Castro and Khrushchev had licensing agents.
If I have one complaint, and it’s a minor one, the book could have used a table of contents and an index. Bitch, bitch, bitch.
So, you might ask, what happened to Konga? Where’s Ditko Monsters – Konga!? That would be next month. One good turn deserves another.
As a license, I have the utmost respect for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Since its comic debut in 1984, the property has been spun off into numerous animated incarnations, several movie franchises (both old and yet-to-come), and a bevy of merchandise unheard of unless you count Star Wars. And I have to give props where props are due: the IP as a whole has never been better. That being said? It could all go downhill very quickly. But I’ll get to that in a bit.
Let’s start at the top. Top of what I don’t know exactly. Let’s say comic books! IDW as of late has been deluging the market with TMNT titles. Ongoings, mini-series, epic crossovers, you name it. And while I’m sad to report that in my tenure as a fan I have yet to actually crack open a volume myself, it comes with great authority (a few of my good friends) that they are doing the characters justice. I will no doubt be jumping into the main book myself with issue #21. Per Comic Book Resources interview with Turtles’ Co-Creator Kevin Eastman, I was drawn into his description of bringing a level of reality (seriously) to the book with the titular teens having to learn new skills.
In so many words, Eastman was quick to note that the Turtles have generally been “ninja masters” and his intent is to remind us that the martial arts are an art form and artists never stop learning. It’s that kind of dedication in concept that sounds legitimately cool to me. Certainly cool enough to elicit a purchase once a month for the foreseeable future.
And what about the boob tube? Well, I’m happy to report that the current product being offered is now (thanks in large part to the CW canning Green Lantern TAS and Young Justice, grumble grumble), Nickelodeon’s relaunch of TMNT, is one of the best cartoons being offered today. won me over in less than a handful of episodes. The team behind it should be commended.
For many folks who don’t “get it,” the Turtles on the surface are merely a weapon and general personality trait. But the Bick show is smart to use those bullet points as inspirations. In the season that I’ve watched thus far, I’ve seen numerous attempts to flesh out each Turtle as an individual. Combine this with smart updates to many TMNT mainstays (Leatherhead, the Kraang, Shredder, etc.), and you get a cartoon that deftly plays to me as an adult while obviously targeting a whole new generation of kids. Compared to the hyper-Japanese-terribly-ported crap I’d seen trading spots with Spongebob? It’s a breath of fresh sewer air to me.
Now this of course brings us around the scary bend, that, of course, being the 600 pound explosive elephant in the room, Michael Bay. From the first utterances of news about his desire to create another abomination out of my childhood pleasures, so was I joined by other shellheads in our trepidation. Bay’s Transformers sits in my mind as one of the worst examples of modern merchandise-driven cinema. And let me be clear: I don’t mind for a second that some movies are built for action figures and bedsheets. But Bay’s adaptation was kinetic to the point of nausea, and riddled with near-racist portrayals of shallow predictable characters. And for whatever reason? It had pot-humor, John Tutoro in an increasingly baffling performance, and more military porn than my copy of Stars, Stripes, and Tits 2: Cannons Ho.
It’s these factors that weigh heavy on our minds. Especially given what little news seems to dribble out from the babbling brook of Bay. The Turtles will be from space? Megan Fox will be April O’Neil? And the title will just be Ninja Turtles? Suffice to say, with all that’s being done right with the brand, it might just take one explosion-riddled movie flop to ruin it all. Follow me on this:
The Green Lantern movie sucked and toy departments got stuck with tons of stuff that didn’t sell. Green Lantern The Animated Series was canned, due in large part to the lack of merchandise sales. Now, if Ninja Turtles tanks, it could take with it the whole property. Obviously the current Nickelodeon cartoon and comic are going to be well into their sophomore years when the Bay feature hits. But nothing like a bad day at the matinee to curb a kid’s appetite for their favorite amphibians. How do I know? Because I gave up on the cartoon when TMNT 3 hit the multiplex. And it took 10+ years for me to forgive them.
Until Bay blows up my childhood again, I’ll be happy to enjoy my new found love of Leonardo, my rapture for Raphael, my doe-eyes for Donatello, and my mania over Michaelangelo. With a potent toon on the tube, and a comic in my buy pile… it’s a good day to be a Turtle.
SUNDAY: John Ostrander
MONDAY: Mindy Newell
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| Art: Paul Smith |
On their WonderCon panel, IDW Publishing announced the upcoming Rocketeer/Spirit crossover. Written by Mark Waid and illustrated by Paul Smith, the four-issue miniseries is called “Pulp Friction” and the first issue will premiere July, 2013.
This project marks the first time Will Eisner’s classic character The Spirit has appeared in new stories since DC Comics “Spirit” title ended in 2008.
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| Art: Dave Stevens |
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| Art: Will eisner |
Spring is sprung
The grass is riz
I wonder where the boidies is…
Ah. Spring.
No matter that if you live in the midwest there may be snow on the ground, and if there isn’t, there was recently. It is, dammit, spring! What you gonna believe, Skippy – your eyes or the calendar?
And to herald spring, here comes one of my favorite holidays – Easter. You know the story: humanity’s savior gets crucified, chills in a tomb for three days, comes out and starts a religion. If you’re into comparative mythology. you can find that similar things happened to earlier deities, including Adonis, Osiris, and Mithra. The myths, and their attendant holidays, celebrate something real – the emotions,including hope, that we desperate humans experience when the long gloom of winter goes away and life returns to the Earth. Our ancestors tended to give phenomena they didn’t understand names and identities. Maybe that tendency still exists in their descendants.
Do we feel that you can’t keep a good god down?
Then what about comic book characters? They seem to have difficulty staying dead, too. I have personally participated in the demise of four that I can immediately remember, all of whom popped out of the afterlife in one form or another, and they’re only a few entries in a rather long list that includes some of the biggies: Superman, Captain America, Robin the Boy/Teen Wonder version two. And then there are the lesser but still prominent characters, including Cap America’s young pal Bucky, Elektra, and one of my personal favorite supporting cast members, Batman’s butler Alfred. (Full disclosure: Alfred wasn’t really dead, only, you know, deadish. For two years.)
And why do I feel compelled to include a spear-carrier who died and stayed dead? We’re talking Larry Lance, the detective husband of the original Black Canary. We gave him a one panel funeral in Justice League of America, sent his widow off to another universe and sweet love with Green Arrow, and forgot about him. Maybe I’ve given Larry a paragraph as a service to serious trivia freaks.
But Larry wasn’t even a superheroes and superheroes who die are our subject, so back to them. DC Comics has recently killed two prominent costumed good guys and raised a bit of a stink in the doing. The (late) characters are (were?) yet another incarnation of Batman’s youthful sidekick, Robin, and, evidently, John Stewart, the African American Green Lantern. What’s notable about the Robin is that he is (was) the first of his ilk who was Batman’s biological son. John Stewart? The stakes are a bit higher: he was one of the earliest of comics’ superdoers who wasn’t a white guy and for a time, he was pretty much the only Green Lantern in the DC Universe. I’d say that as fictional beings go, he’ll be missed. (The Robin? No idea.)
But will John (and Robin?) stay deceased? Well, they’re not gods, not exactly (though they are first cousins to the mythological deities). Will they return? History may be nodding its head yes, but I’ll content myself with a shrug.
FRIDAY: Martha Thomases
SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman
Thanks to Steig Larson, there’s a perceived appetite for all things Swedish so some of the more stylish or interesting books and films are coming over here in drips and drabs. The most recent import is Easy Money, a film that benefits from a moral gravity underlying the crime tale. Adapted by director Daniel Espinosa from Jens Lapidus’ 2006 novel Snabba Cash, it tells the story of a student, JW (Joel Kinnaman), who falls for Sophie (Lisa Henni ), an heiress so turns to crime in order to keep up with her lavish lifestyle. You just know things are going to spiral out of control this point on so the key for the production is keeping us in plausible suspense and entertained. Sure enough, he crosses the Serbian mafia and gets embroiled with Jorge (Matias Padin Varela), a fugitive from the mob. It’s dark and violent and messy.
While released in Europe back in 2010, it came here last year courtesy of The Weinstein Company and was met with more yawns than praise. (After winning the bidding war for the remake rights, Warner Bros. turned it over to Zac Efron to produce and start, but we;’ll see what happens should this ever get made.) Still, the film was a box office smash in its home country and did well throughout Europe.
It has enough testosterone fuelling the opening sequences to hook jaded American audiences complete with violence, a prison break out and fast cars. Kinnaman, best known to audiences for his work in The Killing, is an appealing underdog we’re rooting for in the first third. You can see why he falls for the sexy blonde beauty Henni and why he might risk everything for her. Espinosa, though, careens from shot to shot and the narrative loses cohesion by the midway point and the audience stops caring by the time we get to the climax. There might be too many threads crying for attention for the director to properly service and more condensation might have been required.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KW0wFMQMvg&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
The core remains the conflicts and consequences of choices made by the main characters, all of whom are trying to get out from under crushing burdens, which makes this more than your typical crime noir.
This is a pretty bare bones DVD release from Starz/Anchor Bay with nary an interesting extra so the decision is up to you if the story is enough to spring for the disc.
While I was in NYC a couple of weekends ago, I ended up at a Gowanus Studios party out in Brooklyn (as you do), chatting with my friend Reilly Brown and some other excellent comics folks. In the middle of all this (all this being pizza and wine, la-di-la, because I’m too fancy for beer), I learned about Act-i-vate, which some of you may have heard of, but I sure hadn’t.
That’s one of the things I love about comics – even if you’ve been a fan for years, or know quite a bit about it, there’s always so much going on that you’re never going to reach the end of learning new stuff about comics – the art and the industry. (And also, if you’re me at least, the genre being so large means you don’t have to feel like a bad fan for not knowing everything about it; it’s hard!) So despite having interviewed Dean Haspiel, who was one of the founding members of Act-i-vate, since he’s moved to other projects now we had not discussed it, and I’d never heard of it.
Simon Fraser remedied that for me at the party (it’s not a real party unless you stop someone in mid-sentence, drag them into an empty studio, and do an impromptu interview, dontchya know) . You might recognize Simon as the co-creator of Nikolai Dante, “a swashbuckling adventure story set amid dynastic intrigue in a future Russia,” or as an artist who’s drawn a number of Judge Dredd stories. He’s also the current “gatekeeper,” so-to-speak, for Act-i-vate, which just celebrated its seventh anniversary, and his enthusiasm for the webcomics collective is contagious. Read on to hear more about this cool group, what they do, and what they have to offer.
Tell me what Act-i-vate is about.
Act-i-vate is a webcomics collective of comic artists producing comics primarily for themselves and for each other. Most of the comic artists who are in Act-i-vate are professionals or semi-professional. We spend much of our time trying to make a living in the industry and working hard to keep ourselves professionally employed, but a lot of the time that means making compromises to publishers, to get the job done; to get work through the doors; to get the paycheck. Which is great. If you can do that, you’re doing well. And it implies you’ve got a great deal of professional ability.
However, Act-i-vate is all about doing your signature work – it’s about the thing you really want to do, that you’ve been suppressing for a long time [so that you can make a living]. As a working professional, you may be doing four pages a week if you’re lucky, or maybe five. If you work in the evening one night a week, you can maybe get an extra page in; and that’s basically the base of Act-i-vate, is that each week – or sometimes people do a couple pages a month – you do a page, and put it up on Act-i-vate, which is a community of artists, and we look at the work and comment on each others’ work.
So you critique it?
We critique it to a certain extent. It’s a social environment, so it’s also an encouraging environment. And it’s also a big deal that even if you’re not getting a paycheck for the work, you know somebody’s waiting for it, someone’s expecting it – that means it actually gets done. Because I know for my own sake, a paycheck is tremendously motivating, but knowing that people I respect are waiting to see my next page is a big deal. So that’s the primary purpose of Act-i-vate, knowing that you’re a part of the community – because a lot of times comic artists, we work in a vacuum, we work in one room somewhere isolated.
And in the seven years since it’s started, Act-i-vate has expanded like crazy. There are over fifty members now. We’ve got members in Britain, we’ve got members in Australia, we’ve got members all over America. It’s getting to enormous size.
How did Act-i-vate start?
It started with Dean Haspiel and Dan Goldman. Dean has moved on to other projects now; he’s not directly involved with Act-i-vate anymore. He wants to do other things, like Trip City, now, which was his next thing after Act-i-vate. But Act-i-vate still exists, and is still growing. We’ve put on about ten members in the last year and a half, and there’s more and more new material going on all the time. Because there’s just such an amazing amount of talent out there, and creators who have something to say, and something they want to do. And they want to do it on their own terms, so they don’t really want to go to a publisher initially. What they can do with Act-i-vate is do the work, and make the work they want it to be, and then, afterwards when it’s completed they take it to the publisher and say, “This is it. Fait accompli!”
So when you say signature work, are you talking about a signature style of art, or more like a creator-owned signature story or piece of work, or both?
It can be anything. That’s the other thing as well, is that a lot of the time you don’t get the chance to experiment with your style. For me, Act-i-vate was all about me writing, because I haven’t really had a chance to write that much. It’s not something I get paid to do. So it was all about me writing a story, which I drew, and I was very happy with it, and by the time it came out (it took me two years to do a hundred page graphic novel), I thought it was a very good calling card for me. I thought, “That’s the kind of thing which is mine, separate.” Because I spent the last fifteen years working on something I created, but it’s owned by a company. It’s corporate. And that basically becomes my calling card, but it’s not owned by me.
So did your comic then come out to the public? Once you got your graphic novel done, did you publish it commercially?
Yes. What happened is that I have a publisher in Britain, 2000 AD, who published Judge Dredd in the 2000 AD anthology; and I’d been working for them for fifteen, twenty years. So they basically said, “We really like what you’ve done on Act-i-vate. We could publish this as well.” So they published it in one of their magazines.
Did it have some commercial success?
It did very well. The fanbase really liked it, and I got paid for it, which is excellent. And the letterer and the colorist got paid, so that’s really nice for me, because I want everybody to get something out of this, apart from just doing the work. And from there, they [2000 AD] said, “Okay, do you want to do more?” And I said, “Yes!” So right now I’m trying to find, in between my other jobs, time to get back on to the sequel of that story; because I’m doing a trilogy of stories based on these characters. The first is called Lilly MacKenzie and the Mines of Charybdis. And the one I’m working on now is called Lilly MacKenzie and the Treasure of Paros.
Sounds good! Now, when you say the letterist and the colorist got paid, are those people you picked up after you had developed it on your own?
Well, I have a very close working relationship with my colorist, Gary Caldwell, who’s wonderful. He’s tremendous; he does all my work in 2000 AD. We have a very close relationship; we fire stuff back and forth all the time. We kind of don’t have to speak to each other that much to know what we want. So Gary very generously agreed to color the thing for free, right from the start, when it was being done on Act-i-vate, and when money eventually came along, I said, “He’s got 25% of it, that’s what he owns.” Any money I get from this, he gets 25%, and that’s worked out very well for all of us.
The letterer came on when it was printed, because I lettered it originally and my lettering is kind of crap. A guy called Simon Bowland, who does lettering for 2000 AD, did a beautiful job re-lettering it. He then graciously let me use his lettering for my edition of it – I’ve done a little self-published edition of it and I’m looking for an American publisher for the collected trilogy when that eventually comes out. But I’m not going to rush that. I’m going to do my second part as I feel comfortable doing it, and then I’ll approach somebody and see if they’re interested in a third part.
As a professional versus a newer artist, are you welcomed if you’re not as known, or is it mostly when you have some professional credentials already? How does that work?
It’s all based on the quality of the work. If you come to me and I’ve never heard of your name and I see something that’s brilliant, that really knocks my socks off; then yes, absolutely [you are welcomed].
So is it a moderated community?
It’s entirely moderated. I mean, basically, you’ve got to get past me. I’m the gatekeeper. We used to have a more democratic process; we used to vote on things. But that became so conflicted and so complicated.
It is a professional community. We keep the standard very high, which means that we don’t accept very many people, but the standard of things that people have submitted is incredibly high, frankly. This is New York, and there’s so much talent around. And it’s people who really want to do something of their own, and they want to do it among people they respect. That’s a big deal, I mean, I feel tremendously enthused by the fact that the people who are working on Act-i-vate are so good, and they’re doing such different things. Some of it, if you go on the site, you can’t easily see as commercial; but it’s got its own thing going on there. They’re really trying something different and new and exciting.
I think the market will catch up with this. Right now the American comic market is in this tremendous period of expansion. It’s very low-level and there’s kind of not much money in it, but there’s tremendous amounts of material being generated the last couple of years. It’s very, very exciting. And I think the material on Act-i-vate is finding its audience online, and it will find its audience in print; it will find its audience in different media and other ways, and that’s great.
As someone who’s been around Act-i-vate for some time, have you seen others get something commercial through their work on Act-i-vate? Can you give examples?
Oh yes. Kevin Colden – his book Fishtown was done on Act-i-vate. He actually applied for a Xeric Grant to do the book as a small press thing, and he got offered it; but he said, “I would rather put it on Act-i-vate.” Which is a big measure of faith to us. And he put it on Act-i-vate and he got a lot of attention for it – it’s about a real event which happened in Philadelphia. And he then took it to IDW and IDW made a beautiful book of it. And he got nominated for an Eisner Award for that.
Roger Langridge has a comic on Act-i-vate, and that went to one of the publishers. There’s also Warren Pleece. He’s one of the Pleece brothers, who, when I was starting out in comics in Britain, were basically our Hernandez brothers; Warren and Gary Pleece. They just put out a compilation of their old work, The Great Unwashed, through Escape Books in America. It’s a fantastic book. It’s so…it’s like listening to that Kinks song. It’s got that kind of weird downbeat aesthetic, like The Smiths or something, and that’s very characteristic of them. And they do this beautiful story on Act-i-vate called Montague Terrace, which is also like that – and that’s coming out through Jonathan Cape in London this year.
We have Darryl Cunningham, who has become something of a celebrity recently. He’s done Psychiatric Tales, Books 1 & 2; he actually works in a psychiatric hospital, and Psychiatric Tales is really good, fascinating stuff. Darryl’s thing is basically that people don’t really understand what a lot of these mental illnesses are, and how they function or manifest themselves. He spends a lot of time with these people, so he basically took it upon himself to explain a lot of these common mental illnesses. And he did it in such an elegant way; because Darryl’s a beautiful cartoonist. It came out through Blank Slate in the UK and Bloomsbury in the US.
He’s done a new book called Science Tales, through Abrams, which is all about debunking science myths. So like the fake moon landing and all of that. There was a really horrible story a while back about a guy called Andrew Wakefield, who basically said that the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine caused autism, which was quite shocking; and he was promoting this theory and scared a lot of parents from vaccinating their children. A lot of celebrities got involved, like Jenny McCarthy, and she started promoting this, and she’s still promoting it, even though Wakefield has been discredited entirely, and medical journals have basically come out and said, “this is absolute nonsense, it’s complete charlatanry.” But he was basically using it to promote himself. As a result now, some kids are not getting vaccinated for these things, which is very, very serious. If kids get these diseases when they’re children, it can affect the rest of their lives. Darryl did a story about that, which is brilliant. And he’s basically dealing with all the big mythologies.
He’s doing a story about Ayn Rand right now, on his website; he’s a great debunker. Ayn Rand is fascinating; I think he came down on the side that he felt sorry for her, because she had such a horrible life, and it was just depressing. She was obviously an uncompromising character; for the era, it’s remarkable that such a person as that existed.
What would your advice be for an artist who wants to be involved in Act-i-vate, and do you have some advice you’d like to share with the people who are still looking to become professionals, or more recognized as such?
At Act-i-vate we’re interested in seeing anything that’s unique and individual. We tend not to go for the more established genres like fantasy and science fiction; and not superheroes, because that’s well-represented. The other thing about Act-i-vate is that this is our thing, and we’re very happy with it, and we sometimes get new members, and that’s fine; but [running a webcomics collective is] relatively easy to do. I mean, we’ve survived for seven years. It doesn’t cost much to make a webcomics collective. All it really requires is a bit of effort, and a bit of going out there and finding people. And if you have an idea and you have something you want to do – we encourage people not just to apply to Act-i-vate, but set up their own collectives.
I think we all have our own points of view, and Act-i-vate has a very specific point of view of its own, and I think we’d like to see more people coming out with their own things, and different things. The more we have the better; the stronger the community of independent webcomics is. We haven’t really concentrated on making money out of Act-i-vate; because that’s not really what we do. We’re not a publisher; but we encourage; we’re trying to help our authors to get their work done. Because a lot of these things don’t make that much money. There’s money in digital comics to a certain degree, but it’s microscopic in comparison to what a good print book can get. I think what we’re trying to do is encourage good-quality work. When that happens, hopefully the audiences will come find it. Which I think is happening.
For example, we have a really good comic recently called Pregnant Butch, which is about a lesbian couple having a baby, which is hysterical; it’s so good. It’s by A.K. Summers, out in Rhode Island, and this is her first comic. She’s fabulous; she has such a great sense of humor, and such an innovative way of storytelling. And she’s not afraid of the darkness and the fear; because it can be terrifying, what’s happening. The fun thing, what I love, is the fact that she found an entirely new audience for her work and she had people commenting on her story who had never come to Act-i-vate before. She had established people who are interested in the subject, and also people who came in from outside who had never considered reading a comic about pregnant lesbians. And the fact is, it’s such a wonderful comic, it didn’t matter.
So to sum up, Act-i-vate is for people who want to, not just “get into the market and make money,” but who want to do their own thing, get encouragement on their work and comments, and have a community.
Yes. It’s about doing good comics. We’re all about good comics. I mean, there are lots of other aspects of comics and making a living and so forth, which we can help with, and we’re always available as colleagues to help with that.
Most of that tends to orbit around this studio complex here; there are a lot of Act-i-vate people in here. Act-i-vate is based in New York, and it tends to be Brooklyn-centric. But we reach out; we’re trying to get as wide a reach as possible. I’d like to get people from the West Coast, as well. We’ve got some people in D.C. Sam & Lilah is one of our strips on Act-i-vate, and the writer of that is in D.C. That’s Jim Dougan, who’s a big DC United fan and I think has had some press with them. So we’ve got people from all over, and we want to continue with that.
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Thanks very much to Simon for this great interview! I have to confess that since learning about the site, I’ve spent more than a few minutes (eep!) reading some of the comics, and they really are excellent. So check out Act-i-vate for some new reading material, and if you’re a creator looking to get some support, encouragement, and comments from other pros as you work on your own project, consider getting in touch with Simon and submitting some work!
Oh, and until next week: Servo Lectio!
TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis
WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold
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| David Wood |
New Pulp Author David Wood announced his forthcoming novel, Freedom.
From David’s Facebook page:
Okay, it’s Monday somewhere, so time for the big announcement:
Have you ever wanted to hear the story of how Dane and Bones met, how their friendship formed, and what sorts of adventures they stumbled into during their early years? I’m pleased to announce FREEDOM- book one of the forthcoming “Dane and Bones Origins” series. Co-authored by Sean Sweeney (author of the “Agent” series,) FREEDOM tells the story of Dane and Bones’ first adventure: a mystery dating back to the founding of our nation.
Don’t miss it!
Learn more about David Wood and The Dane Maddock novel series at http://davidwoodweb.com.
One of the new methods authors are using to reach readers is bundling their works so readers get a set of novels to read at a discounted price. The latest such digital initiative comes from Bundle of Holding, which is offering six novels of fantasy and science fiction. The brains behind the bundle include Matt Forbeck (Brave New World), Chuck Wendig (Hunter: The Vigil), Jenna Moran (Nobilis, Exalted), Stephen D. Sullivan (D&D/AD&D, Chill), Rafael Chandler (Scorn, Spite), Sarah Newton (Mindjammer, Legends of Anglerre), Derek Pearcy (In Nomine), and Aaron Rosenberg (Asylum, Spookshow).
What makes them a unique set of authors? They are all noted game designers who have since added exciting fiction to their credits. “As game designers, we’ve all spent years building worlds and adventures and characters for other people to play in and with,” said Forbeck, who writes the Magic: The Gathering comic for IDW as well. “That’s just one chunk of spinning a fantastic tale, of course, but you’d be hard-pressed to find any group better at it. With the Bundle of Holding, you get to pay what you want to read what happens when writers with that rare skill set cut loose in worlds they’ve built for themselves.” Forbeck’s contribution to the bundle — Hard Times in Dragon City — is one of the bonus books that patrons receive if they pitch in more than the up-to-date average. It’s a fantasy noir murder mystery novel set in a mountain city surrounded by zombies and ruled over by a dragon emperor who offers the citizens his protection for their fealty.
“It’s a natural evolution,” Rosenberg explained. “Game designers are worldbuilders and storytellers, except in our games we set everything up so the gamemasters and the players can create the stories. Most of us have our own stories to tell too, though, and we do that in our individual game campaigns but sometimes we branch out into fiction, where we can tell stories to a much wider audience than a single game group.” His offering for the bundle, The Birth of the Dread Remora, is a dashing space-opera reminiscent of the old Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and Lensman books. “It’s a genre I’ve always loved,” he said, “and one I was really excited to write.”
Bundle of Holding also offers an added twist. Readers have the option of paying the talent the money or it could be donated to either Reading is Fundamental or Child’s Play, both excellent charities dedicated to improving childrens’ lives through games and reading. Readers could also split their payment between the consortium and the charities so everyone benefits.
Another unique touch is that the reader sets the price. They could offer up as much or as little as they want but if the offer exceeds the average, currently $16.08, the reader’s bundle would include two additional bonus books. With nearly seven dozen sold, the writers behind this initiative are jazzed.
The books being offered include Fable of the Swan, Hexcommunicated, Hero Worship, Birth of the Dread Remora, Irregular Creatures, Tournament of Death, with the bonus books being Hard Times in Dragon City and Mindjammer. All told, purchasing these one by one for the Kindle would cost almost $23, but by setting your own price there’s sure to be substantial savings. Additionally, the books will come free of DRM, providing increased flexibility in where these can be read.
There are just over two weeks left on this unique promotion.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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