Eric Shanower's Blog, page 2

Age of Bronze at Bodyvox

Tomorrow, Friday, June 7, I'll be exhibiting and selling my comics and graphic novels at Bodyvox Dance Center's Open Floor Pride Night in Portland, Oregon. It's free to attend. Come for the Makers' Market, where I'll have a booth, and stay for the performances. At Bodyvox, 1201 NW 17th Ave, Portland, OR 97210. Details at this link.

 

The Patchwork Girl of Oz

I've agreed to draw covers for a comics adaptation of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, the seventh Oz book in the series by L. Frank Baum. Sound like good news?

Here's the catch: the project will only happen if you support the Kickstarter campaign. The campaign is currently running and with 24 days to go, it's more than 10% funded. But The Patchwork Girl of Oz won't happen unless enough people want to see it. So click here to pledge your support:

The Patchwork Girl Of Oz : Book One by Andy Mangels — Kickstarter

The dedicated creative team includes:

Penciller - Anna-Maria Cool

Inker - Barb Kaalberg

Writer - Andy Mangels

Colorist - Roland Pilcz

Letterer - Kathryn S. Renta

Alternate covers by Alex Ross and Eric Shanower (that's me!)

Copyright © 2024 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Online Reading

Tonight, Friday, December 15, 2023, come listen to a reading of stories from the new anthology Winding Paths at 6:30 PM Pacific on Zoom. Wherever you are in the world, if you have an internet connection, you can attend this event.

I'll be reading a selection from my short story "Bored Stupid Demons" and several other authors of stories in Winding Paths will read from their works.

Here's the Zoom link info for you to join:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87078847408?pwd=b9Od4xvwQAU5Vaeks0Wwodn1s0PUeY.1

Meeting ID: 870 7884 7408
Passcode: 555024

Copyright © 2023 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Oz Connection Interview

Colin Ayres of The Oz Connection recently conducted a video interview with me. We talked about my book All Wound Up: The Making of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. 

During the forty-minute interview, I discuss some of the extensive research I conducted for the book. I also mention several aspects that make the book unique--including the first publication of L. Frank Baum's 1913 script for The Tik-Tok Man of Oz.

Watch the entire interview on The Oz Connection's Youtube channel at this link.

And if you want to order a copy of the book from the publisher, Hungry Tiger Press, so that I can autograph a copy for you, here's the place to order.

Copyright © 2023 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Cosmic Horror with Larry, Moe, and Curly

Cosmic Horror has been a thing this year for me. I don't know why. The projects I've done in 2023 involving cosmic horror have all been unrelated to each other.

Anyway, here's the latest: The Three Stooges vs. Cthulhu, issue #1 from American Mythology. I drew the cover for this mash-up of the Stooges and H. P. Lovecraft's iconic figure of terror from beyond.

I actually loved drawing this cover. The colorist did a decent job, too. Here's the link to order your copy from the publisher.

Copyright © 2023 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Winding Paths

So, the book launch for Winding Paths yesterday at Board Bard Games in Portland, Oregon, went well.
Really well. Seemed like everyone had a fun time.

Winding Paths, the playable short story anthology from Demagogue Press, will have another event--this time online, so that everyone, regardless of geography, can attend. More than a dozen authors included in the book will be reading selections of their stories online through Zoom, Friday, December 15, at 6:30 PM Pacific.

Every story in the book has some type of game in it--and the variety is surprising. Each story also contains an element of speculative fiction--fantasy, science fiction, magical realism, or other. I'll be the Zoom event on Friday to read from my story, "Bored Stupid Demons." I'll post the Zoom link on Wednesday, December 13.

I hope you can make it. Even if you can't, you can still experience the book itself, which is more than a group of short stories, but a gaming experience on its own, if that's the way you'd like to encounter it. The editors, Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito and Ken Hueler, have turned nearly every aspect of Winding Paths into a game or puzzle. Even the cover is a game--the ancient Mesopotamian Game of Ur--with rules and gamepieces included in the final pages of the book. Winding Paths is like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure on steroids. But if you just want to read the stories in a traditional manner, you can.

Can't wait to get your own copy of Winding Paths? Here's the link to order from the publisher.

Copyright © 2023 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Want to Play a Game?

Winding Paths, A Playable Reading Experience will be published by Demagogue Press on December 10, 2023. This book is much more than just an anthology of short stories. It's a game unto itself! Play along as you read Winding Paths for an enhanced experience.

Or just read the stories as you choose. Each story in this anthology features a game in its narrative. My story, "Boring Stupid Demons," features not one, but TWO games! It's the story of a guy who wants to become rich, so for help he summons a demon from Hell. The story starts out like most of this type of story starts, but then it turns the tropes on their heads. I hope you enjoy it.

It's up to each reader to experience Winding Paths in a new way. One bonus I especially like is the cover featuring the oldest game known--the Game of Ur. You can play the game yourself, right on the cover of the book. Playing tokens for you to cut out are included in the back of the book. (This means you should buy two copies--one to cut, one to keep pristine!)

The publisher, Demagogue Press, is accepting pre-publication orders for Winding Paths. Click here to order and to see the full list of contributing authors.

Copyright © 2023 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Reading in Olympia

Reading tonight in Olympia, Washington. Cozy Cosmic Horror! 4-6 PM at Browsers Bookshop. I'll join a bunch of authors to read our stories from the new anthology published by Underland Press, The Cozy Cosmic.

Details at Bowsers Bookshop website, click here.

Copyright © 2023 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Reading Cozy Cosmic Horror

I'll be reading my work at the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, Oregon, tomorrow, Saturday, Oct 7, at 4 PM. Cody Goodfellow and John Skipp are also on the reading program. The readings at the Lovecraft festival are open to the public. Location: Sam's Hollywood Billiards, 1845 NE 41st Ave., Portland.

My reading is in conjunction with the publication of The Cozy Cosmic, the new anthology of cozy cosmic horror short stories from Underland Press. A bunch of other authors in The Cozy Cosmic will also be reading at the Lovecraft festival throughout the weekend. I understand that copies of The Cozy Cosmic will be for sale at the festival, debuting several days before official publication date.

For details about the Lovecraft festival, click here for the website.

Copyright © 2023 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Getting Cozy with Cosmic Horror

Cosmic horror that's cozy? Is such a concept possible? Thirty-three authors answer that question in a forthcoming anthology of cozy cosmic horror stories and verse from Underland Press, The Cozy Cosmic, edited by Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito and Mark Teppo.

I'm one of those thirty-three authors. You can read my short story "The Purple Emperor" in the book when it goes on sale October 10. Order before publication here.

"The Purple Emperor" follows an elderly female gardener into a world of seemingly endless bedrooms. Will she ever find a way out of this strange and eerie world? Perhaps, but only after she confronts the unexpected secret at the world's heart.

I'm perfectly content to read cozies, though I'd never set out to write one. Some cosmic horror I've enjoyed, some I haven't. The stories of H. P. Lovecraft, considered the premiere author of cosmic horror, often leave me unimpressed, though I enjoyed The Mountains of Madness and his short story "In the Walls of Eryx." My taste in horror runs more along the less-than-cosmic lines of work by William Hope Hodgson, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, and Bram Stoker. When it comes to cosmic horror, I prefer the book The King in Yellow by Lovecraft's predecessor Robert W. Chambers, considered by many to be proto-cosmic horror. 

In writing my story "The Purple Emperor," I tried to catch as much a hint of Chambers as I did of Lovecraft. I chose the title "The Purple Emperor" as a sort of play on words of The King in Yellow--then realized, after I'd finished the story, that Chambers himself wrote a story with an identical title, a story I'd heard years ago. However, the similarity seems to end there. Chambers's title refers to a type of butterfly, while my title refers to a type of rose. My idea to build a fantastical world of endless bedrooms owes a debt to Chambers's name. Bedrooms--chambers. Get it? Heavy-handed, I admit, but the story itself doesn't draw attention to the wordplay.

Order The Cozy Cosmic direct from Underland Press by clicking here. To whet your appetite, check out the table of contents:

John Shirley ~ "Death, in Two"

Tais Teng ~ "On Hearing the First Shoggoth in Spring"

Tyler Battaglia ~ "What the Sea Provides"

Ellis Bray ~ "My Grandmother’s Sacristy"

E. E. Marshall ~ "Right and Bright"

Devan Barlow ~ "Dinner, Overlooking the Sea"

Scotty Milder ~ "A Little God in Their Hands"

Maxwell I. Gold ~ "Great Cosmic Itch"

Remy Nakamura ~ "Wet Dreams in R’lyeh"

Andrew S. Fuller ~ "A Perfectly Fine Hobby"

Kiera Lesley ~ "Obsolescent"

Kurt Newton ~ "A Mournful Melancholia of Things Forever Lost"

J. B. Kish ~ "Lo-Fi Chocolate Cake"

Rajiv Moté ~ "Carrisa and Kevin Gaze into the Abyss"

Daniel David Froid ~ "In Another Distant Land, in a Luminescent Land"

Kate Ristau ~ "Shine"

Erik Grove ~ "Fuzzy Fuzzy Kitty Kitties"

William J. Connell ~ "Poe’s Guys Respond to Their Significant Others"

Paul Jessup ~ "The Museum of Endless Summer"

Ngô Bình Anh Khoa ~ "Through Life and Death, Forevermore"

Jonathan Wood ~ "Javapocalypse"

L. E. Daniels ~ "Final Cycle"

Ken Hueler ~ "The Unknowable Ones"

Tania Chen ~ "A Study of Metamorphosis Calamity"

Eric Shanower ~ "The Purple Emperor"

Kevin Wetmore ~ "A Child’s Christmas in Innsmouth"

Megan Lee Beals ~ "Splinterbone"

Corinne Hughes ~ "The Sheep Rancher’s Husband"

Shanna Germain ~ "A Napkin Upon Your Glass"

Simone Cooper ~ "Gnocchi"

Jessie Kwak ~ "Blood and Glitter"

Cody T Luff ~ "Den Mother"

R. Ostermeier ~ "The Dark Young"

Copyright © 2023 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.