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.
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.
The zombiepocalypse comes to Canada
Today I’m pleased to present an interview with a Canadian zombie writer, a none-too-subtle reference to Julianne Snow, which should come as no surprise to those of you who follow her (@CdnZmbiRytr) on Twitter.

Julianne is in the midst of a marathon blog tour for her new novel, Days With the Undead, which brings her her to As you Were today.
Julianne was born in Toronto, Ont., where she still lives, and was the only girl in a family with four children.
She got her taste for horror early, watching Alien at age four with the rest of her family (her older siblings chickened out, but Julianne hung in till the end).
To read more, click here.
Zombies, werewolves and writing, oh my!
Things have been quiet here at As You Were this week, but that’s because I’ve been working on two interviews to bring you, both with writers of new monster tales.
To read more, click here.
Canadians don’t spook the same way Americans do
It’s always interesting to talk to writers about their craft, but it’s just as interesting to talk to editors — who are far less often interviewed about what goes into making a good book. So it was with great pleasure a few years ago that I talked to Nancy Kilpatrick and David Morrell, who put together the first horror anthology in the venerable Tesseracts series.
To read more, click here.



