This Week’s New Comics: February 27, 2013
This week’s list of new comics in stores is sponsored by Manhattan Comics and Comixology. Buy new comics now!
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Category: News
TALES OF THE WOLD NEWTON UNIVERSE RETURNS
New Pulp Author Win Scott Eckert shared the cover and table of contents for the upcoming TOC: Tales of the Wold Newton Universe by Philip José Farmer and Others.
Tales of the Wold Newton Universe
A collection of Wold Newton-inspired short stories by Farmerphiles, experts, and the Grand Master of SF himself.
I am pleased to announce that Titan Books has settled on the final Table of Contents for the Wold Newton Anthology, Tales of the Wold Newton Universe. The book collects, for the first time ever in one volume, Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton short stories, and also includes tales by other writers.
The Introduction by Win Scott Eckert (coauthor with Farmer of the Wold Newton novel The Evil in Pemberley House) and Christopher Paul Carey (coauthor with Farmer of the Khokarsa novel The Song of Kwasin) will provide an overview of Farmer’s Wold Newton Family and Mythos. In addition, Eckert and Carey will provide brief introductions to the stories themselves, explaining why each entry is a Wold Newton tale.
Tales of the Wold Newton Universe is available for preorder at Amazon, AmazonUK, and B&N. As with all the Farmer books from Titan, there will also be an eBook version.
Contents:
Introduction by Win Scott Eckert and Christopher Paul Carey
The Great Detective and Others
“The Problem of the Sore Bridge–Among Others” by Harry Manders Philip José Farmer
“A Scarletin Study” by Jonathan Swift Somers III Philip José Farmer
“The Doge Whose Barque Was Worse Than His Bight” by Jonathan Swift Somers III Philip José Farmer
Pulp Inspirations
“Skinburn” Philip José Farmer
“The Freshman” Philip José Farmer
“After King Kong Fell” Philip José Farmer
Wold Newton Prehistory: The Khokarsa Series
“Kwasin and the Bear God” Philip José Farmer and Christopher Paul Carey
Wold Newton Prehistory: John Gribardsun & Time’s Last Gift
“Into Time’s Abyss” John Allen Small
“The Last of the Guaranys” Octavio Aragão & Carlos Orsi
Wold Newton Origins / Secrets of the Nine
“The Wild Huntsman” Win Scott Eckert
THE WHITE ROCKET PODCAST WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
The White Rocket show heads to Sweden for this week’s episode, as comics editor/publisher/writer extraordinaire James Hickson joins Van to discuss Stieg Larsson‘s fantastic MILLENNIUM TRILOGY of crime fiction novels and (American and Swedish) movies: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, and THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST. It’s a computer-hacking, neo-nazi-whackin’ good time!
Available on iTunes or at http://www.whiterocketbooks.com or at http://whiterocket.podbean.com
Michael Davis: Selling Out
I’m on the West Coast, Mike Gold, ComicMix’s Editorial Director, is on the East Coast and that’s the reason there is a good chance this piece won’t even run today.
My articles run on Tuesday so I try and get them to Mike no later than Monday morning East Coast time. Most times Mike gets them over the weekend but this one will show up to Mr. Gold after 9 p.m. Monday evening because… I’ve got nothing.
I drew a complete blank as to what to write about this week. I kept thinking something would pop into my head but nothing did. So what follows is not in any way a well thought out essay, it’s simply a rant on an industry event and the actions of those clueless individuals who, well, are just clueless.
The San Diego Comic Con sold out in two hours this year…duh.
Every year the biggest pop culture event in the world gets bigger so that should not be news to anyone, but as always people take to the net to bitch about how they could not buy tickets or the only ticket they did could get was for Sunday.
All you people, who think your inability to attend Comic Con is somehow the fault of Comic Con, grow the fuck up. A couple of hundred thousand people got tickets and as always the event sold out.
You simply lucked out. How is that Comic Con’s fault?
Duh.
The same goes for people who get tickets but can’t find a hotel room. There are only so many hotels in San Diego and once those hotels are sold out, you are assed out.
You can solve both having a ticket and getting a hotel room by simply becoming a major playa in the industry or building your own hotel.
Crazy? Bad joke? Unrealistic? Stupid thing to say?
Not as stupid as blaming Comic Con or the city of San Diego for your lack of ticket or hotel because they sold the fuck out.
WEDNESDAY: Mike Gold
THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil
Game of Thrones Poster Series Announced by Mondo
Austin, TX— Monday, February 25, 2013 — Mondo, the collectible art division of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, is partnering with HBO’s Game of Thrones for a poster series and gallery event running March 8 – March 14, 2013. The gallery will be open to the public on March 8 from 7:00 – 10:00pm with regular hours to follow for the show’s duration. The Mondo Gallery is located at 4115 Guadalupe St. in Austin, TX.
Last year, Mondo and HBO’s Game of Thrones collaboration at San Diego Comic-Con was a huge success and this series takes that partnership to the next level with a wide range of spectacular original works and poster art from dozens of Mondo’s world renowned artists including Craig Drake, Daniel Danger, Jason Edmiston, Horkey, Jock, Phantom City Creative, JC Richard, and Ken Taylor. This special gallery event will also launch a Mondo poster series for the acclaimed HBO series, with 8 limited edition screen prints that will be available for purchase. The exhibit will feature the first two posters in the series along with original fine art. Following the gallery exhibit, two posters will be released digitally each week leading up to the Game of Thrones Season 3 premiere on March 31, 2013.
“Game of Thrones is a favorite of ours at Mondo. The gallery event is intended to honor the show’s attention to visual detail and the beautiful world that George R.R. Martin has imagined and series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have brought to life. After the success of our San Diego Comic-Con initiative with HBO in 2012, we thought this was a perfect fit. We hope the fans feel our work has done justice to the show,” says Mondo CEO Justin Ishmael.
The gallery event will also see the premiere of Brewery Ommegang’s new Game of Thrones beer where attendees, 21 and older, will be the first to taste the new beer. Launching in tandem with the season three debut on March 31, Iron Throne, a Blonde Ale, is the inaugural beer in the series and the result of a creative partnership between Ommegang and HBO. The collaboration is focused on developing unique beers that tie into themes and nuances of the medieval-like fantasy realm of Westeros. Iron Throne is a delicate, but piercing Golden Blonde Ale with Noble hops, a nod to having a Lannister currently on the Throne. The beer will be nationally available on draft and in 750ml bottles, for the suggested retail price of $8.50 per bottle, beginning in mid to late March and will be followed by the launch of additional beers.
REVIEW: The Terminator
In 1984, The Terminator was a relatively low budget ($6.5 million) action-adventure film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, hot off Conan and Linda Hamilton pre-Beauty and the Beast. Written by James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd, it was a fun little science fiction film of a potential future that needed to be avoided. Things blew up and Arnold stoically told a cop and the audience, “I’ll be back.” No one knew at the time that the film would trigger such an enthusiastic response, giving us sequels, comics, novels, and a television series. Suddenly, SkyNet, John Conner, Sarah Conner and the Terminator T-800 model would become a part of the social fabric of pop culture.
It also got Cameron sued by Harlan Ellison, who successfully argued that the story lifted a lot from the classic “Soldier” story penned for The Outer Limits.
Little wonder then, that when Blu-ray discs started showing up, it would be among the first from Sony in June 2006. Since then, it periodically gets dusted off, cleaned up, and rereleased, most recently in 2011. Now, 20th Century Home Entertainment assures us the latest edition, out now, is “the ultimate high-definition experience”.
Looking back, the film feels small, just as it did then, hinting at the apocalyptic future and tossing around concepts and elements that would be explored later. This was all about Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) traveling back in time from 2029 to find and protect Sarah Connor (Hamilton) from the android killing machine. We’re told the machines have taken control of the world and humanity is fighting for relevance and survival. Connor, a single waitress will give birth to mankind’s salvation. Also in the mix are police detectives Lt. Traxler and Det. Vukovich (Paul Winfield and Lance Henriksen, respectively), trying to stem the mayhem.
The film is definitely a product of the early 1980s as seen in the wardrobe and hair styles, but that makes it all the more charming in some ways, when 2029 seemed so awfully far away.
The Terminator‘s transfer compared with the 2006 release shows that a fine improvement with better contrast and black levels so the film’s visual clarity is superior. The film, surprisingly, was shot with a mono track so only so much can be done to improve what was there so Cameron went back and remixed it later. And it is that soundtrack in DTS-HD MA 5.1 that we find yet again.
Included on the disc are special features matching the 2006 release: Deleted Scenes, the short piece on Creating The Terminator: Visual Effects & Music, and Terminator: A Retrospective. The fun pieces that were included in the 2001 DVD version, such as the Other Voices documentary, remain AWOL, meaning this is not quite “ultimate’ at all. Still, if you don’t have it in your library or have not seen this in a while, the new edition is well worth your time.
LOOKS LIKE WE’VE GOT A MYSTERY ON OUR HANDS-THE ALL PULP PRINT BESTSELLER LIST FOR FEBRUARY 25, 2013!
Welcome to the February 25, 2013 installment of All Pulp’s New Pulp Best Seller List, originally created by Barry Reese! Before we get to what you’re all waiting for, here are the rules by which this little list comes together.
1) This list only tracks sales through AMAZON. It does not keep track of sales through Barnes and Noble, face-to-face or anything else!
2)
This list only tracks PRINT sales. Exactly how Amazon calculates these things is mostly a trade secret and they vary wildly from day to day. If we checked this tomorrow, the list could be very different. This list reflects sales ranks as of Monday morning February 25, 2013.
3) In order to keep the focus on new releases, eligible works must have been published within the last three months. So, since this list is being done on February 25, 2013, we are only looking at books published since November 25, 2012. Please keep that in mind before complaining that Title X is not listed. Also, keep in mind that for the most part, we are tracking sales from smaller and mid level press publishers who actively publish New Pulp material. We won’t generally track sales from Simon and Schuster or places like that — they have the New York Times Bestseller List for that. If one of the major publishers starts doing The Shadow or something, we’ll track that, but some publishers will not be listed here in order to keep the focus on the publishers actively working toproduce and promote New Pulp.
4)
Like the name suggests, we’re tracking “New” pulp —not sales rankings for reprints of classic material. In order for something to qualify for this list, it has to be at least 50% new material that has not been printed in book form before.
5) We are human. If you are aware of a title that should be listed below (keeping in mind all the rules above), please let us know and we will make sure to remedy the situation.
6) This information is garnered mostly from All Pulp, New Pulp, the Pulp Factory mailing list and a few other sites. If you think we might miss your release, let us know in advance — drop All Pulp a line and tell us when it’s beingreleased.
Without further ado, here’s the completely and totally unofficial New Pulp bestseller list as of right now (title, then publisher, then release date, then sales rank):
1) The Detective, The Woman, and the Winking Tree by Amy Thomas (MX Publishing, January 22, 2013) – 41,325
2) The City of Smoke and Mirrors by Nick C. Piers (Pro Se Productions, February 22, 2013 ) 54,207
3) Pro Se Presents 15 by Various (Pro Se Productions, November 29, 2012)– 137,513
4) Sherlock Holmes and Young Winston: The Deadwood Stage by Mike Hogan (MX Publishing, December 10, 2012) – 157,093
5) Sherlock Holmes and Young Winston: The Jubilee Plot by Mike Hogan (MX Publishing, February 18, 2013) – 166,834
6) Danger in Cat World by Nina Post (Curiosity Quills Press, February 4, 2013) – 300,843
7) Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, Volume 4 by Various (Airship 27, January 19, 2012) – 306,066
8) Monster Earth by Various (Mechanoid Press, January 18, 2013) -314,218
9) Pro Se Presents 17 by Various (Pro Se Productions, February 21, 2013) -401,712
10) Ghost Boy by Various (Airship 27 Productions,) -479,640
Just missing the list were: Prohibition by Terrence McCauley (Airship 27 Productions, December 15, 2012) 548,568, Fourteen Western Stories by Lloyd Fonvielle (Lloyd Fonvielle, January 23, 2013) – 586,078, and The Cestus Concern by Mat Nastos (Nifty Entertainment, January 4, 2013) – 690,460.
Although Sherlock Holmes is still consistentlyholding his own on the list, the numbers shown by other books on the list show that sales have not been as soft as in previous weeks, the top ten books all under 500,000 in the Amazon Rankings.
Pro Se Productions returns to the list, making a strong showing with Nick Piers’ debut novel as well as its latest issue of Pro Se Presents coming in at #8. More interesting, however, is the fact that Pro Se Presents comes screaming into the top 3 in its last week of eligibility.
Another interesting aspect of the list, and this may simply be coincidence, but eight of the ten books on the list deal with Detectives and mysteries in some sense. Not enough to call it a trend, but this week crime solvers definitely win out.
This week, Pro Se and MX Publishing share the Publisher lead with three titles in the list, with Airship 27 Productions listing two. Mechanoid Press and Curiosity Quills Press each make the top 10 with one title. And, if you have a grain of salt lying around, take it with this list.
Gender Through Comic Books | Canvas Network
Ball State University offers “Gender Through Comics: A Super MOOC”, a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in Spring that examines how comic books can be used to explore questions of gender identity, stereotypes, and roles.:
AUTHOR’S DEBUT NOVEL FEATURING WORLD’S WEIRDEST HARD BOILED PI -NOW AVAILABLE FROM PRO SE!
Pro Se Productions, a company specializing in New Pulp and Genre Fiction, once more walks the cutting edge of storytelling with the debut novel of author Nick C. Piers featuring the first adventure of New Pulp’s wildest, weirdest Private Eye ever to don a fedora! THE CITY OF SMOKE AND MIRRORS: AN ARMADILLO MYSTERY!
Dilbert Pinkerton’s not the greatest private detective, but he’s good at sniffing out clues. Of course, it’s hard to take a five-foot-nothing mutant armadillo in a trench coat and fedora seriously. He sticks his snout where it doesn’t belong far too often while digging for the truth.
So when some rich dame asks him to steal – ahem, retrieve – a pearl necklace from her ex-husband, Dill almost reconsiders. Until, that is, she offers him far too much money that he can’t refuse. Now, Dill heads to Nevermore Bay, home of The Buzzard.
Most in Nevermore Bay think The Buzzard is just a myth created by the local police force. Whether that’s true or not, Dill can’t help but be curious by the mystery. When he runs afoul with this fowl, though, things go to hell and fast. Not only are the police after him, but Dill must also contend with some of The Buzzard’s rogues, mobster Don Komodo and his goon squad, and even The Buzzard himself.
With everyone in the city against him, what hope does Dill have just to get out of there with his carapace intact?
“This idea,” stated Tommy Hancock, Partner in and Editor in Chief of Pro Se Productions, “is everything New Pulp should be, even though its leading man is a mutant armadillo! It is fun, larger than life, over the top action and adventure, with tips of multiple hats to comic books, hard boiled crime stories, and more! Nick brings a ridiculously vibrant life to Dill and everyone else that walks through these pages! Get your Dillo on now with this first great adventure of many!”
THE CITY OF SMOKE AND MIRRORS by Nick C. Piers featuring Cover Art by Chris Sheehan and Logo and Design by Sean E. Ali is available directly from Pro Se’s Createspace store at https://www.createspace.com/4183031 and at Amazon at https://www.createspace.com/4183031 for $15.00!
Also available for $2.99 at Amazon on the Kindle, at Barnes and Noble for the Nook, and in various formats at www.smashwords.com!
Pro Se Productions- www.prosepulp.com!
Bundle of Holding Offers Readers Bargains and Bonuses
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.
