Authors put the bite on vampires and their ways
We’ve all heard enough about vampires recently.
Everyone knows they look like frumpy old ladies, overjoyed that an aging population means they fit in nowadays. Or that they keep humans penned up as food, and having sex with a human is tantamount to bestiality. Or that when a vampire slayer starts killing them off, they go right to the police.
Wait, this isn’t sounding too much like Twilight or True Blood — but they’re some of the ideas introduced in the new Canadian anthology Evolve, edited by Nancy Kilpatrick.
The Montreal-based Kilpatrick is no stranger to the genre, having written numerous dark fantasy and horror novels herself. She previously edited the erotic vampire collection Love Bites, and co-edited Edge’s horror anthology Tesseracts 13.
Tesseracts 13 was the first horror title published by Edge, a predominantly sci-fi and fantasy publisher in Calgary. The success of that book prompted this new all-vampire anthology.
To read more, click here.
She did it — now she needs to hang on
Well, many of us predicted it: Rachel Deering managed to get to $20,000 in pledges for her Kickstarter campaign to fund the remaining five issues of her “lesbian werewolf epic,” Anathema. A huge and hearty congratulations to her.
Now comes the hard part. I don’t mean the writing, lettering and publishing, which Rachel will undertake (though the publishing duties have now been picked up by Comix Tribe — a huge coup for Rachel). No, the challenge now is to ensure the total stays above that mark until the campaign closes on April 30. If any pledges are reduced, bringing the total below $20,000, none of the money is collected.
That’s already happened once — for a very understandable reason. One prospective donor who had pledged $1,000 reduced it to $45 upon learning he would soon have a baby to support. Great news for the donor, on which Rachel and other pledgers offered congratulations; but a snag in the fundraising all the same.
To read more, click here.
Werewolf Wednesday: Underworld
I had no idea when I first wrote about Underworld during a stint as movie reviewer for Uptown Magazine that the movie would spawn a four-movie franchise, the latest of which, Underworld: Awakening, hit theatres in March this year.
I’m afraid I never got past the sequel. This first instalment had its moments (few and far between) but the second, despite Derek Jacobi doing his best Hunt For Red October riff as a sub captain hunting paranormals (if you’re saying “huh?” I say: exactly), was a hot mess. And that’s kind of unfair to words denoting temperature and chaos.
To read more, click here.
If you think comic books are expensive, try publishing one
Creating your own comic book series can be an all-or-nothing endeavour. Just ask Rachel Deering, the woman behind Anathema.
Telling the story of Mercy Barlowe, a woman whose lover, Sarah, is burnt at the stake for being a lesbian, the first issue shows us how Mercy seeks out supernatural help to rescue Sarah’s soul from a sinister cult. (You can read the As You Were interview with Rachel on her career and her own experience with homophobia here.)
To read more, click here.
Guest post: Armand Rosamilia, author of Dying Days 2
Today I’m very pleased to host the second blog tour to stop by As You Were, and it happens to be from another zombie writer, Armand Rosamilia. Don’t try to pigeonhole him to flesh-eating undead, though.
While he’s currently on tour supporting his new zombie novel Dying Days 2, Armand is also the founder of horror publisher Carnifex Press and a prolific horror author in his own right.
He is also, however, a huge expert in another field: heavy metal. Armand has also written a series of non-fiction titles chronicling the exploits of the women in heavy metal. If the only ones you knew about were Lita Ford, Vixen, and Doro Pesch, read on…
To read more, click here.
Werewolf Wednesday: Tunes to wolf out to
As I work on my own interminable werewolf work-in-progress, I think often of what would be on its official soundtrack. This is one of those tricks authors use to avoid writing. We call it brainstorming, or world-building, or visualizing. But it’s not.
To read more, click here.
Coming soon: Werewolf tunes and Metal Queens
Hoo boy, it’s going to be a busy week here at As You Were. We will of course be celebrating Werewolf Wednesday on said day, but we have another guest post coming up, this time courtesy of prolific horror writer and editor (and metal fan) Armand Rosamilia.
On Wednesday, we’ll be looking at the top werewolf tunes out there. Yes, I know you all have your opinions and will be full of outrage that I gave your favourite short shrift.
Don’t worry, you can have your say, too! I’ll be posting my first-ever poll on Wednesday, so you can weigh in and vote (and, if I’ve done it correctly, add your own favourite) for the best werewolf song.
Despite what you might think, I was able to pull together a list BEYOND Ozzy’s “Bark At the Moon” — and turned up some selections that may surprise you.
Then, without even blinking, Thursday will feature Armand’s guest post as part of his Dying Days zombie blog tour. But since he knows of As You Were’s affinity for the heavier side of music, he’ll be devoting his post to the known and lesser-known hard-working women in metal, which is the subject of another of his book series, Metal Queens. Not enough, you say? Well Armand will also be giving away two ebook volumes of Metal Queens as part of the post — making this the first giveaway ever on As You Were. It’s a week of firsts!
So: don’t forget to stop back on Wednesday for some great (and diverse) lycanthropic music, and then return Thursday for some metal madness. Metal horns: \m/
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Norse code
ONE of the reasons Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were able to cast ancient Norse gods as modern comic-book superheroes was that they were comparatively unknown, Richard Wagner and the names of our weekdays notwithstanding. Here, then, are a few terms so you can tell your Asgard from a Hel in the ground.
To read more, click here.
Werewolf Wednesday: Grant Gould’s The Wolves of Odin
I had the opportunity to interview comic book writer and artist Grant Gould a few years ago about his labour of love, The Wolves of Odin. Since then, he’s continued it as a webcomic and worked on a sequel volume, Marauders of Midgard. I thought I’d post this 2009 interview ahead of Grant’s upcoming appearance at C2E2, the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo.
Grant will be in Artist Alley at table H9, where he will have his artwork for sale. He’ll also be doing custom sketches during the show, so if you’re interested, visit him at his table and sign up early, as spots may fill up fast. (By the way, also attending is last week’s Werewolf Wednesday interviewee, Rachel Deering. Visit her at booth 719.)
In the meantime, if you haven’t read The Wolves of Odin, here’s what you need to know: Vikings. Werewolves. It’s all good.
To read more, click here.
Werewolf Wednesday: Rachel Deering’s Anathema
Welcome to a new feature here at As You Were: Werewolf Wednesday. In which we reserve a day for that greatest of monsters, often overlooked thanks to shambling zombies and flawless vampires. Our first feature in the series is with independent comic book writer and letterer Rachel Deering.
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If you’re tired of garden-variety werewolves, comic creator Rachel Deering has a new one for you: a lesbian shapeshifter out for revenge against religious zealots and fighting members of a sinister cult for her lover’s soul.
Rachel, 29, was born and raised in a small town in northeastern Kentucky. Her passion for comics took root at age seven, when one of her uncles gave her his old collection, and horror was front and centre. It was love at first sight.
“It wasn’t a very large collection, maybe ten or twelve magazines,” she says, “but they were all quality.” Among the titles were genre staples such as Heavy Metal, Creepy, and Tales from the Crypt.
“Not exactly light reading, especially for one so young as me. I read every single issue until the pages were falling apart.”
To read more, click here.
