Andrez Bergen's Blog

Onna Bugeisha, IF?ME,TSMG revisited and a Magpie anthology

I’ve thrown myself right back into a couple of projects in order to test out the waters of my new mental capabilities and keep me on my creative toes.

[image error]First up, I decided to reivent IF?Commix with a brand new moniker:IF?ME.

The ME stands for Media Empire. Heh. And first cab off the rank for IF?ME will be a split issue 1: Printed back-to-back are going to be Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat #1 (the revamped edition I ran through U.S. outfit Project-Nerd Publishing and Onna Bugeisha #1, which I’ve created in conjunction with mad artist Gareth Colliton.

 

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Charlie Atlas by Dan Watts

Sandwiched in between will be episode 1 of The Fenders, a sneak preview of our new superhero outfit with art by Dan Watts and lettering by Marie Mour. Sadly, both Gareth and Dan have been forced to step aside for further adventures. Labours of love do not pay the bills. However. I’ve been devilishly lucky to land Danny Zemp on The Fenders from now on, while artist Marcos Vergara – whom I previously worked with on the Black/White anthology (he also did the frontispiece pin-up in the Bullet Gal novel) is considering Onna Bugeisha.

Frantz Kantor and I are thankfully still on for Magpie, the title strip for an anthology ‘zine being put together in conjunction with Comicoz.

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Onna Bugeisha page by moi.

Ken Best is the current artist on two strips for that: the Blow-In and Crash Soirée

Stay tuned for more info…

PTSD-itis… or There and not quite back again.

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wolram e. deaps by Marcos Vergara

Today I’m doing exactly what I swore not to do anymore – (a) indulging in a spot more navel gazing and (b) admitting to a weakness of character I’d prefer to debunk or laugh off in the circumstances. But last year my body tried its steady best to kill me. It wasn’t North Korea after all.

I don’t know; I guess I got complacent. kind of like the Allies after WWI, thinking my physical self would always hold out. It was bullied, dependable. I think churning out  two novels in the course of 3 months at the beginning of 2016 pushed the poor chassis a tad too far, coupled with a comic book script for a new character 18 months in the mix, loaded with ups and downs, that still hasn’t seen resolution The old body threw a wobbly that took me to places I prefer not to return to. In moments of quiet musing, I do however swing back via those landscapes. Hence the advice from several people that I might be suffering a form of PTSD.

Yeah, alright, maybe.

I’m tempted to pull a Roy Batty and say here “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe…”

Instead Wolram E. Deaps from my own fiction – the novel One Hundred Years of Vicissitude – jumps closer to mind. Hence the admission that I might indeed be suffering from something akin to PTSD, just as a few people have suggested.

Wolram, however had in fact recently kicked the bucket. I’m not there yet and would prefer to steer clear of this abyss in future:

His summation?

“I have meagre proof, no framed-up certification, nothing to toss in a court of law as evidence of a rapid departure from the mortal coil. I recall a gun was involved, pressed up against my

skull, and a loud explosion followed. An ancient Chinese philosopher, whose bloody name escapes me, reckoned that ‘A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.’ This was prior to the advent of gunpowder, so I’m wondering what fluff the fellow would have churned out concerning a single bullet.

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ictor LLaszlo by storymancer

“Having proved my credentials—citing the crackpot savant while slinging in a footnote—allows me to get straight to the point.

There is no neat beginning with which to start things. And while debarkation here might be meaningful to the hoi polloi, so far as I was concerned?

Hardly.

My grand entrance in these parts elicited no dull, heavy, monotonous clang of a divine bell, let alone a jaunty toot-tooting of car horns. Festivities, it seemed, were off the agenda.

The climate? Well, this wasn’t balmy enough to postulate the outer suburbs of Hell, but Paradise remained well and truly lost, and one saw nary a pitchfork nor harp. I suppose a better address would be the place to find the Pearly Gates, while Saint Peter must have been gallivanting on French leave. A blessing, since I’m not one for preachy types.

Lacking, to my mind, was a suitable background score banged together by Chopin—though with Frédéric François out of the picture, it was the opportune setting for Victor Laszlo to shepherd a rousing rendition of ‘La Marseillaise….

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“You might recall the suavely scarred, excessively honourable

Resistance leader, from the film Casablanca? Sadly, the man was nowhere. At times I found myself humming the melody, deprived of Laszlo’s guidance, but to be honest test pattern music would have sufficed. Alas, I was indulged with silence.

“Not for my ears the faintest chorus of cicadas, wild squawk of ravens, or a reassuring rumble of distant traffic. Tiresome Christian Vespers and their Muslim stand-in, adhān, remained mute, and there appeared to be too few little darlings to belt out for me ‘Oranges and Lemons’.

In the moments that I stopped humming as I hoofed it along, I heard scarcely a sound—a reminder of the hush that prevails with snow.

Hereabouts, we’re fleeced of the sight of pirouetting flakes, so I initially considered hearing loss was a by-product of the hop, skip and lunge, from life to a possible demise. A rival thought that I’d alternatively gone insane later crossed my mind, but let’s not go there now.

Although it was plain to see this domain went through the clockwork motions of day and night, and while the feel was more terra firma than Elysian Shangri-la, some aspects were awry. For one thing, the damned weather never committed.

Occasionally, the wind picked up or a light mist draped the horizon, but there was nought I could point to and declare, ‘I say, there’s the sun.’ I marked an absence of rainfall, thunder, or hail. I missed the rain. Where I came from, it used to pour down by the bucketload.

The sky was a canvas of flinty grey looking like it was painted with a bold brush and careless abandon.

At one time, I spotted a sign writer at work up there in the heavens. If I expected ‘Surrender Dorothy’, I was thwarted—the baffling word ‘Jihi’ slowly dissipated and became nothing.

No matter how far I went, the venue otherwise refused to change.

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Piecing together the puzzle of the past year

[image error]When I was a kid I watched a lot of murder mysteries with my parents, who were both fans of the genre. In this case we aren’t going to bird-dog the tried and trusted whodunnit since we know who did it – I let the cat out of the bag last entry. It was the North Koreans, since the butler scuttled off somewhere safe.

[image error]Much of the past year remains a mystery, however since I lost a large chunk and a significant part of my brain,as well as a few tshirts, last Christmas with my family, a book launch, and my daughter’s 11th birthday. So I’ve been steadily collecting all the bits and pieces of this puzzle, mostly from family and friends as well as hospital staff but this week stumbled across a document that changed everything for me and filled in most of the gaps: the Attending Physician’s Statement from when I was first admitted to Caulfield Hospital, completed by my favourite doctor Dan.

So, it seems like I arrived in Melbourne in August last year, on vacation, and went for a lengthy stroll with my best friend Brian (since we both dig walking) through Melbourne General Cemetery to Queen Victoria Market where we stopped for brunch – raw oysters, which became chief cause in my mind for what happened next: a migraine and nausea for a couple of days before I traveled down via public transport to my Mum’s place in Mornington and promptly passed out. Cue ambulance to Frankston Hospital, where I was found to have infective endocarditis of the heart (an infection of the endocardial surface of the heart) and a Vitamin K deficiency, and then transferred  to the Alfred for open heart surgery. Immediately before this was one of the rare occasions I came out of the medicated stupour – luckily since my wife and daughter had arrived from Japan., I then faced up to the toughest decision I’ve ever had ,when the docs offered me the options of a mechanical valve (which appealed to my dumb Terminator/Cybermen inclinations, but a lifetime of anticoagulant medicine, or a replacement valve taken from pig that would need replacing every year . Fortunately I think I was so doped up on morphine I passed out before making a decision – which then fell to Yoko and she made exactly the right call.

They simply cleaned the heart and repaired any damage. (I don’t know if “simply” is the right word, but the medical staff did a miraculous job). But next cab off the rank, in September (fortunately while still in hospital) was what the medicos called an intracranial brain haemorrhage, but most people call a stroke , and another operation, this time on the ol’ noggin, to slice and dice the affected part. Another magnificent job, I say. After that a spot of R&R in the Caulfield – mostly physio but also neuropsyche treatment from a bunch of the best medical staff I could ever have asked for.

Finally, in thr first week of February,I got discharged and pretty much raced back to Tokyo to see my family, work out some odds and ends – and yeah, I do believe I’m almost there.

[image error]Obviously,I haven’t really had a chance to properly hawk my latest novel #BulletGal, which is based on the 15-issue comic book run I did. But sales of this – and actually all my books – are pretty crap to be honest. I’m thinking about doing another novel, but do wonder what the real point is aside from vanity. It’s exhausting and there are other things I should be focusing upon.

And realistically I doubt my publishers can afford to give me another cab off the rank at this rate – and who would blame them?

Anyway, cutting to the chase, if anyone is at all interested in taking a squiz, the book’s just $22 via #BookDepository, with no postage required, here.Otherwise, via US #Amazon it’s $10.95　and £9.98 through Amazon UK.

By the way, just so you know… the docs didn’t sit around taking mid-operation happy snaps so far as I know… Nah, I’m the unprofessional git who stole the images off the Net to add colour and freak myself out s bit. Is that morbid and disturbing? I guess it is a trifle. But I did draw the line at ones of poor other geezers with staples holding their scalps together, And hey, I was just treated to a contemporary labotomy and therefore cannot be blamed. Ack… :p

Now all this navel gazing’s out of the way I hope to return to regular service shortly…

I WAS POISONED BY A NORTH KOREAN ASSASSIN

There’s some headline-grabbing for you, without a shred of evidence to document same. ’tis balderdash, pure and simple.

Subber:Still, the truth – they say, comes in dreams That’s what Kafka, Lynch, Roy Orbison and Freud would have you believe. Well, it’s been somewhere around 7 months since my last post here, and for good reason – the book launches, Magpie meeting and DJ gig (see previous entry never eventuated, but not without trying, I swear.

So what happened?

Last year, in August, I flew from Tokyo to my birthplace in Melbourne, and promptly collapsed on my mum’s kitchen floor. The reason, we found later? A cardiac arrest caused by golden staph infection of the chest. How I got the staph remains a medical mystery -one that would give Miss Marple jitters but it resulted in open-heart surgery, followed by modern-day lobotomy:a stroke and associated brain surgery) and almost nine months of rehabilitation at hospital in Melbourne.

Anyway, while knocked out early on in ICU I had a particularly vivid dream in which the answer came to me: I’d been the victim of an assassination attempt by the North Korean government of Kim Jong -Un… something to do with outspoken remarks about that government at the high school where I worked. Anyhow, he deployed a shady agent who injected me with black fluid that, in my dream bloomed into the golden staph infection. Yowsers. Of course this was the stuff of nonsense. Even while dreaming I understood this. Once I awoke I shared the subconscious fiction immediately with my best friend and we guffawed over how silly it seemed.

P’raps more disturbing was the Alan Moore beard and disheveled look I embraced over subsequent weeks.

Assassination attempt or not, I spent the next eight months rehabilitating the left side of my body, and wayward facial hair follicles, pining for my family back in Japan while relearning how to walk, and totally missed the publication of eighth novel Bullet Gal.

I’m still not complrtely there – I seem to have lost some of my self-editing finesse along with walking speed.

Now, however, I’m thankfully repositioned in the creative saddle in the midst of loved ones back in Tokyo, working on a serialized comic book anthology called Magpie ‘zine with a horde of talented Australian artists.

Today I started scripting the next installment of Magpie and am itching to get back to that instead of waffling here…

IT’S GREAT TO BE BACK. …Kim’s minions be damned.

Melbourne next week, Onna Bugeisha, Magpie, Bullet Gal, the Little Nobody Machine gig, art, & interviews

This Monday, I’m heading home to Melbourne for a couple of weeks, mostly to see family and mates.

But I’ll also be there to launch the novel Black Sails, Disco Inferno, have a meeting with Comicoz and artists working on our upcoming joint-project Magpie zine, and to do the Little Nobody DJ/soundsystem thingy one final time at Machine club.

Funnily enough, I’ll also get to meet for the first time people with whom I’ve been doing a swag of projects: Nat Karmichael from Comicoz (Oi Oi Oi!), Frantz Kantor (Magpie; he also did the Black Sails cover), and Graeme Jackson (Crash Soirée).

In case you’re wondering what they will be all about, here’s a teaser banner:

The magazine is a collaborative project shared between Comicoz and IF? Commix, with #1 due out later this year in Australia.

Charlie Atlas by Dan Watts

We’ve got on board a horde of talented local collaborators — including Dan Watts (of Bipp and Trax Intergalactic Realestate fame) and Marie Mour (lettering) joining me on a Heropa-based group called The Fenders.

Onna by Gareth Colliton

We’ll also be serializing my 2013 novel Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?, we’re rejigging Magpie, Crash Soirée and the new Bullet Gal will make their debuts, and there’ll be other features like the Onna Bugeisha strip I’m doing with Gareth Colliton (Tales to Admonish).

Otherwise, look out for work by Cristian Roux, Ken Best, and others to be confirmed.

Music-wise, I get to play @ Machine at My Aeon in Brunswick on Saturday August 27.

I’ll be supporting Mexican techno deity Luis Flores plus super-cool locals Andrew Till, Lateral, Kiti, Sundelin and Dave Mummery; full details are here.

I’ll additionally be getting to giveaway copies of my new Little Nobody 2 x 12″ vinyl release This is Tokio, thanks to My Own Jupiter.

In other news, I already mentioned my 7th novel Bullet Gal will be published via Roundfire Books in the UK on November 25.

Pre-order is now available from The Book Depository, with 10% discount & free international postage; it’s US$11.73 — which is considerably less than half the price of a pack of cigarettes in Melbourne these days.

Meanwhile, the Kindle version of Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?, which is in fact the standalone sequel to Bullet Gal and essential to explain out the creative sandbox in which all the Magpie characters play, is just 99¢ till the end of August at Amazon USA, Amazon UK, and Amazon Australia.

This week I got interviewed by Nevada McPherson @ Graphic Policy — mostly about Bullet Gal, but also Black Sails, Disco Inferno and ‪‎comics‬, ‪noir‬ & ‪sci-fi‬ in general.

The Blow-In by Dan Watts

I also just did a long interview with Mike Phillips @ Sequart Research & Literacy Organization about the novels (esp. Bullet Gal), comic books, and sequential influences/loves — think Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, Tarpé Mills, Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, Emma Ríos, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Katsuhiro Otomo, Kazuo Umezu, 2000 AD, Batman, Criminal, Tank Girl, etc — and the new Magpie anthology zine we’re putting together…

Thanks, mates; this kind of support is always appreciated.

Anyway — more news when I get back from Oz!

 

 

15 Years in Japan, the Bullet Gal novel is Here, and a few Influences

photo by jodi cobb

Today marks my fifteenth year in Japan; the Tokyo anniversary is tomorrow, as I initially arrived in Osaka and stayed overnight there. Who would’ve figured this on July 26, 2001, when I left Melbourne deathly early in the a.m. — and my plan for Japan was just six months?

Since we’re talking up Japan, I want to briefly slip back into the territory of second novel One Hundred Years of Vicissitude (2012), which was my homage to the recent century of Japanese history, and the incredible culture and people here — mostly written straight after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

I’m currently re-reading the thing, and I do believe it’s one of the better books I’ve written. Which isn’t saying much since I’m thoroughly biased and unworthy to critique my own work — yet still.

There was a remarkable image by photographer Jodi Cobb (above) that was one of the key visual influences during the developmental stage of One Hundred Years of Vicissitude — especially identical twin geisha Kohana and Tomeko; at one stage I talked with Jodi and National Geographic about using it for the cover, but the costs were prohibitive, and I’d by then discovered Julian Hebbrect‘s stunning picture (see right).

Still, I do look at this picture now and seem them together.

Another major influence on the novel was Satoshi Kon‘s 2001 film Millennium Actress — which to my mind is one of the greatest pieces of anime cinema. If you haven’t seen it yet, you must.

I love the representation of central character Chiyoko Fujiwara, who’s loosely based on past real-life actresses Setsuko Hara, Hibari Misora and Hideko Takamine.

The animation, design and story are innovative and mesmerizing, while the score by regular Kon composer Susumu Hirasawa remains his most memorable.

Anyway, without these things One Hundred Years of Vicissitude would not exist in the form it is, and the paperback version is selling on Amazon these days for just $7.58.

Otherwise, yesterday I received author copies of my seventh novel — Bullet Gal.

See the happy-snap below. I think it looks bloody beautiful. Hats off to Dominic, Maria, Stuart, Nick, and the rest of the JHP Fiction team.

This is not out until November via Roundfire Books, although pre-order is now available @ Amazon.

Oh, and Bullet Gal is the stand-alone prequel to my earlier novel Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? — which actually came out in sequence after One Hundred Years of Vicissitude in 2013.

It’s a 474-page tome, the longest I’ve written, with 35 illustrations. This is an homage to golden and silver age comic books, along with noir, pulp, and science fiction. Think major influences being Jack Kirby, art deco, and Raymond Chandler.

This is the original (discarded) front cover design for Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? by Mexican artist Rodolfo Reyes; a faded-out version was used on the back. Why?

Because the replacement image worked even better, I think, once all the text was laid atop. This original works best untarnished.

Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? is currently selling for just 99¢ or 99p for the Kindle version via Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada, and Amazon Australia.

Now to go and have some saké to celebrate the big 15!

Is There Really An Aussie Indie Comics Explosion? + Bullet Gal reviews & op-eds + Kindle discount

So tomorrow night (Friday 22 July) there’s a panel on at San Diego Comic Con presented by some mates of mine from Australia.

It deals with the apparent renaissance right now in Australian independent comic books — and, as a bit of camaraderie, I took it upon myself to interview 18 creators inside a 3-day period (including editing and writing) for a lengthy piece over at Bleeding Cool.

I’d like to say a word of thanks to Rich at Bleeding Cool for running with the piece (honestly, you don’t find that support from most Australian media), along with the creators who participated: Gary Chaloner, Matt Kyme, Cristian Roux, Fil Barlow, Tim McEwen, Helen Maier, Stu Campbell, Skye Ogden, Darren Koziol, Nat Karmichael, Frantz Kantor, Antoinette Rydyr, Daniel Watts, Jason Franks, Mark Hobby, Chris Wahl, Graeme Jackson, and Steve Carter.

I also created a “repository” of all these people’s original feedback here, which is perhaps further enlightening still.

Otherwise, my next novel Bullet Gal — which is being published by Roundfire Books in November — is already out for review, and is on Amazon for pre-order.

Just today it scored two luv’ly reviews.

The first, from Carol Days at Cultured Vultures, read this: “This is an adaption that not only extends on the characters’ depth but also gives the readers a more humane look into Heropa itself, and the ‘phonies’ living in it… If you’re a fan of the genre noir, superheroes and self-aware meta, then Bullet Gal must be on your next purchase list.”

Over on PopCultHQ, Amanda the Brainy Librarian wrote: “Andrez Bergen captures the film noir essence while keeping a steady flow of humor and intrigue. I was immersed into the world of Heropa and quickly found myself yearning to hear more from my new favorite anti-heroine, Bullet Gal!”

Earlier this week, Barry Huddleston of Attention Earthlings! finished the book and said: “Damn, that was a good read. It was as if Andrez Bergen wrote a book just to entertain me. Bullet Gal is a collection of everything I like wrapped up in a tortilla.”

Last week I got interviewed in the Melbourne Observer newspaper, thanks to Cheryl Threadgold, about the book. Cheryl knows her comics & noir — which helps!

I’ve also done a couple of silly op-ed pieces, which anyone who knows me would realize I have a blast writing.

Over on Dan Wright’s Pandragon blog I in compared Mitzi with a drink. Yes, she’s a Luis Buñuel surrealist martini. A martini, because of its attractions in hardboiled literature and cinema as well as James Bond. The surrealist thing thanks to that movement’s fixation on dreams, and its roots in the subversive putsch of dada beforehand…

On Fully Booked, I compare noir with tap water. Seriously.

There is now also a Bullet Gal novel specific website, jam-packed with loads of information tidbits, references, influences, old comics and films – blah, blah, blah.

Finally, my 2013 novel Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? — which Bullet Gal is actually a prequel to — has an Amazon Kindle special right now.

For a short time it’s selling for just $0.99.

Usually it’s $7.83. So, if you’re keen and like things digital, this is a 473-page tome with 25 illustrations, available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, or Amazon Australia for under a buck.

 

 

Bullet Gal release date & full cover art, plus Black Sails reviews & interviews

Thanks to Roundfire Books, this week I received the final wraparound cover art for the Bullet Gal novel, plus a confirmed publication date (November 25). The synopsis has also been wrapped, and it reads thus:

Teenage gunsel-cum-aspiring-hero Mitzi (last name unknown) breezes into Heropa with twin 9 mm pistols blazing – only to be targeted for recruitment, betrayal and assassination. French femmes fatale, an out-of-touch super-powered elite, and one hell of an underlying mystery, figure heavily in this fusion neo-noir, science-fiction dystopia. Interweaving the scrappy one-liners is a story much more than the sum of its parts, concerning questions about grand creative process.

Basically, it incorporates the artwork I did for #4 of the Bullet Gal comic book series, but has been taken so much further by Nick of Design Deluxe.

So, yeah, I seriously dig this and am so happy with the finished product.

Still, that’s over 4 months away. In the meantime we’re still slogging away with Black Sails, Disco Inferno, which dropped last month.

It received a wonderful review from Steven Alloway of Fanbase Press, who read the source-material comic (Trista & Holt) and brushed up on the medieval legend of Tristan and Iseult.

There are great critiques by Karen @ AustCrimeFiction, Matthew Lovitt @ Cultured Vultures, and Dan Leicht, and the cool cats at Criminal Element allowed me to do a write-up about the process behind adapting the comic book series into a novel – and what it’s all about.

The novel is available now from places like Amazon.

Another project I’ve started work on, an IF? Commix thing in conjunction with Nat Karmichael at Comicoz in Australia – and a bunch of talented Aussie artists – is a new comic book anthology zine based around a character I created with Frantz Kantor called Magpie.

She’s currently being serialized through Oi Oi Oi!, but this venture will see our gal accompanied by a bevy of related ‘heroes’ such as Onna Bugeisha, The Fenders and Crash Soirée, again heavily influenced by noir – but also pushing artistic perimetres and a sense of mirth (we hope!).

There’s also a draw-off competition for Magpie being held via her Facebook page, which ends on July 31.

Received from Steve Carter and Antoinette Rydyr of S.C.A.R? This mad beauty (above) – ta, mates!

Finally, over at our American mates Project-Nerd Publishing, who licensed my Bullet Gal and Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat comics, they’ve run this week a series of up-close-and-personal Q&As with the creators involved, including me, Graeme Jackson, Matt Kyme, Paul Bedford, and Galo Gutierrez.

Buzz about Black Sails, Disco Inferno — and a giveaway

Over the past couple of days, we’ve been hit by some absolutely sensational feedback to and media support for the new novel, which I couldn’t resist sharing here (sorry) before unveiling a Goodreads paperback freebie we’ve arranged — see below — which ends on July 24.

I can’t thank these readers enough for the simple act of swinging past the fly page, let alone for ploughing through the other 280-odd pages. The fact that they dug what they uncovered, and wrote about this, is something I still feel extraordinary and generous six books later.

First cab off the rank is Karen Chisholm at AustCrimeFiction, who wrote:

“Of all the things that Black Sails does well, it absolutely excels at character… Around the two main characters there’s a wonderfully elaborate cast of good and bad and the slightly misunderstood. I was expecting this to be good. It exceeded good by a very big measure.”

David Prestidge of Crime Fiction Lover assessed, “Medieval legends as an inspiration for crime fiction? Why not! Painters and musicians have been entranced by the 12th century story of Tristan and Isolde, and now Bergen retells the timeless tale within the frame of a 1970s dystopian world of disco music, drugs, violence, betrayal and casual sex. Corrupt coppers and flying bullets will delight fans of both the pulp and noir sub-genres. Bergen’s twisted vision was also evident in last year’s graphic novel Bullet Gal. His latest is out now.”

Over at Cultured Vultures, Matthew Lovitt felt that:

“It’s a complete trainwreck.

An awesomely magical trainwreck.”

(In a good way!).

Criminal Element kindly ran with an excerpt chapter of the book yesterday, and I got to gasbag to my heart’s content (well, almost) over at Omnimystery News — ta, mates!

So, yep, it’s been great tidings all round, except one area.

Sad to say, reported book sales are still not quite reflecting the critical feedback… again.

We’ll see how it all goes eventually (these are early days yet), but fingers crossed all the same. I won’t be crossing chopsticks anytime soon! And if you are one of those fine people who actually have bought Black Sails, Disco Inferno — thank you.

Anyway, here’s the giveaway:

Goodreads Book Giveaway


Black Sails, Disco Inferno
by Andrez Bergen

Giveaway ends July 24, 2016.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

 

Onna Bugeisha, Bullet Gal, Magpie, Crash & Black Sails, Disco Inferno

This week, I started work on a new comic book series named Onna Bugeisha, which is in fact based on one of the core-members of super hero team the Fenders in Magpie.

‘Onna Bugeisha’ (女武芸者) is the name given to real-life historical female warriors belonging to the Japanese nobility, such as Tomoe Gozen (巴 御前) in the late 12th century.

Susan Spann wrote at Murder is Everywhere that, “The term ‘female samurai’ isn’t exactly correct, because all women born to samurai families were considered samurai – whether or not they wore swords and rode into battle like a man. Women in samurai households were usually literate and received at least minimal training in hand to hand combat, often with the naginata, a type of Japanese halberd” – also called the ko-naginata [小薙刀], a pole-like spear/blade.

The Onna Bugeisha archetype is not exactly new to fiction, but with this series we’re pitching a pastiche of both traditional Japan culture and Wonder Woman.

I think the lo-res graphic above gives some idea of what to expect.

And I do say “we’re”, as I’m working with fellow Australian artist Gareth Colliton, who I previously collaborated with in Tales to Admonish (see to the right).

Anyway, more info soonish, or keep an eye on the Facebook page here.

Meanwhile, episode 2 of Magpie by myself and artist Frantz Kantor is out over the next week in better newsagencies across Australia, inside Oi Oi Oi! #8… with Maggie herself gracing the cover.

Frantz and I are close to nipping episode 3 in the bud (her origin tale), and may have further news to share in coming months.

You can find out more at Comicoz.

Books-wise, Black Sails, Disco Inferno has now been available for about 2 weeks, and is doing seriously well, especially in terms of critical response.

We’ve also had nice support from Elizabeth A. White, Bleeding Cool, Pulp Pusher, Meta-Punk, Spartantown, Comic Bastards and Digital Riot, some wonderful readers who shared their thoughts, and our kids – like Cocoa below!

Fellow writer Renee had the fun idea of including a bookmark and limited edition Rosie Killjoy key-chain (featuring Trista as depicted in the comic) with her sales.

And I wrote about the hack world-building going on in most of my novels and comics, which Cultured Vultures kindly indulged and published.

We have more propaganda bombs in the pipeline – these things are necessary, I swear, but also fun.

Finally, two other projects currently in the works, which are pretty much on the fast-track to unveiling.

I’ve talked previously about Crash Soirée, the comic series I’m doing with Aussie artist Graeme Jackson.

It’s set in the same world as Magpie and Onna Bugeisha (kind of!), as well as my 2013 novel Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?, and the 12-issue comic book series I did across 2014-15 called Bullet Gal.

Although stand-alones, they do all interconnect, and dots can be joined between them.

Hence, the commingling of Crash and Bullet Gal (plus Heropa newspaper, the Port Phillip Patriot) in this pretty damned superb mock-up newspaper clipping by Graeme.

The article therein relates to both Crash Soirée (in a major way) and a seemingly random incident early on in Bullet Gal.

Which brings me to the final piece of news, reported last entry – namely, that Bullet Gal has now been novelized and accepted for publication later this year via Roundfire Fiction in the UK.

In case you missed it, here’s the mock-up front cover art for that baby.

Snatched from the cover of #4 of the comic run, and beautifully adapted by Nick @ Roundfire.

Ta, mate.