The Unboxening
Unboxing some new books plus new comics on the way!
Hey gang,
I was planning another AI piece for this week, but there’s too much miscellaneous writing news for me to share, so I’ll save that for another time. Last week was pretty unpleasant, if you’ve been following the news, so how about an escape into the land of books and comics?
Bloody Waters and Shadowmancy
Last week I received a box of copies of the new Outland editions of my occult rock’n’roll novel, Bloody Waters, and my magic school horror, Shadowmancy. I know they’ve been out for a couple of months now, but it is always gratifying to hold the finished product in your hands. That new book smell! I love it. These two are handsome volumes. The covers are bright and the interior design is gorgeous. They have been given a light edit and adapted to American English and if you’re curious about these books I’d love it if you would check them out.
They look so good I made an unboxing video, which you can see here: https://youtube.com/shorts/_20KLtpAGwU
The Phantom
I wrote an official story about the Ghost Who Walks! It’s a two-parter, illustrated by the magnificent and mysterious artist known only as K, and the first part will be out in the next issue from Frew Publications, which I believe will be issue #1956. If you are in Australia you should be able to see it in newsagents next week or the week following. I think it’s also available onloine from the Frew website.
My story, “Pinstripe Wizards”, is set in the 1970s. Kit and Diana must foil a terrorist attack while attending a rock concert. (Yes, I know. I pitched the story 6 years ago, so the timing is entirely coincidental.)
I’ll share some more art and a link when I see the cover.
Frankenstein Monstrance
Monstrance #2 is well underway and Tam is cranking some beautiful pages, so I thought I would share a panel with you. In this issue we introduce the rest of the principle cast for the series: Alpha, Englebert, Jackie Sharps, and… this semi-handsome guy:
His name is Benno and he is the web designer for an outlaw biker gang. I can’t wait for you creeps to meet him. Issue #2 is looking like another 24 page blowout, with even more evil super-science, more action, and more banter per square centimeter of page space than issue #1. Look for it in stores late in 2024. (It’ll be worth the wait!)
More Frankenstein
A Vindication of Monsters, edited by Claire Fitzpatrick, is now generally available. This is a non fiction book of writing generally related to Mary Shelley or her masterwork. It includes my essay, “Frankenstein’s LLM”, which describes how Large Language Models like ChatGPT work in reference to Mary Shelley’s creation. The book includes work by the likes of Nancy holder, Lee Murray, Octavia Cade, Robert Hood and Lucy Sussex. If that’s not enough, it has a preface by Sara Karloff, an introduction by Lisa Morton, and a foreword by Leslie Klinger—so you know it’s going to be good.
Cannibals are Coming
My cannibal space opera graphic novel, Gourmand Go, is coming to Kickstarter very soon now. It’s a science fiction/horror/comedy about the crew of a tramp freighter that cruises the galaxy, looking for tasty aliens to eat.
I will talk a lot more about this next in next week’s post (brace yourselves), which I think will be on the first day that the campaign is live. I’m also planning to keep a diary of the whole Kickstarter experience, which I will roll into my weekly Substack posts. The campaign will run for three weeks but I will be attempting to keep to my regular schedule through it.
If you’re reading this you are one of my most loyal readers and I’d like to show you a preview of the campaign. It’s still a bit rough around the edges—I haven’t worked out most of the shipping yet, for example—but I’d very much appreciate any feedback you might have on it before we go live. You can leave comments on the page or reply directly to this email. Anything at all—I’d love to hear what you think. Please hit the button if you’d like a sneak peak.
That’s it for this week. Next week it’s feeding time—you won’t want to miss it!
Franksly yours,
— Jason