Bob Larkin at New York Comic Con 2014

SWC_Larkin_SketchbookNew York Comic Con 2014 starts today, October 9th, and runs through Sunday, October 12th. And although the StarWarp Concepts crew won’t be attending (we’ll be at the Collingswood Book Festival on Saturday), Bob Larkin—cover painter of my Saga of Pandora Zwieback novel Blood Feud, and featured artist of his own Bob Larkin Sketchbook—will be tucked behind Table C4 in Artists Alley, signing autographs, taking commissions, and selling prints of his well-known cover paintings for Marvel Comics, Bantam Books, and other publishers. If you can’t remember the number, you’ll probably have to look no farther than the growing line of Doc Savage and Dazzler fans at his table.

New York Comic Con is being held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, on Manhattan’s West Side. For more information, head over to the NYCC site.

By the way, have you purchased a copy of The Bob Larkin Sketchbook yet? If not, you’re missing out on spectacular pencil drawings of Doc Savage, Spider-Man, Batman, the X-Men, and other subjects, and features a special, full-color cover drawing of a certain Goth adventuress. It’s 24 pages of artistic goodness, available exclusively from the StarWarp Concepts webstore. Visit the Bob Larkin Sketchbook product page at StarWarp Concepts for all the ordering information, as well as sample pages.

New York Comic Con 2012: Report From the Battleground

New York Comic Con, held on October 11–14, was just crazy: 116,000 attendees! Cosplayers! Video games! Daleks! Oh, and even the occasional comic book or two.  😀 For all the details, head on over to the StarWarp Concepts blog for a 5-part report on my experiences at the show. It’s loaded with so many pictures you’ll think you’re one of the con-goers!  😉

Thanks to everyone—Pan-atics new and old—who stopped by the StarWarp Concepts booth to chat about my favorite Goth adventuress. There are some big plans in store for Pan in the coming year, and I hope you’ll continue to join in on the fun.

See you at NYCC 2013!

 

Welcome, New York Comic Con Fans!

Thanks for stopping by, and for your interest in Goth adventuress Pandora Zwieback.

If you’re here because you spoke with me at the StarWarp Concepts booth, then go ahead and download the Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0 e-comic that I showed you; just click on the cover you see to the left and save it as a PDF. Not only is it an introduction to Pan and her world, hosted by Pan herself, but it contains two sample chapters from her first novel, Blood Feud. Give it a read.

If you like what you’ve read in the comic, head on over to the first annual StarWarp Concepts Book Festival to purchase a print copy of Blood Feud, for the same price you would have paid at NYCC (plus postage). And the e-book edition—available in Epub, PDF, and .prc (Kindle compatible) formats—is just $1.99, marked down from its regular $3.99 price tag. But hurry—the festival starts today, but the discounts end on Monday, October 15!

Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is the critically acclaimed story of a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s spent the last decade being treated for mental health problems because she can see monsters. It’s only after she meets a shape-shifting monster hunter named Sebastienne Mazarin that Pan discovers she’s never been ill—her so-called “monstervision” is actually a supernatural gift that allows her to see into Gothopolis, the not-so-mythical shadow world that exists right alongside the human world. But before Annie can explain further, Pan and her parents are drawn into a conflict between warring vampire clans that are searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father.

And don’t forget to Like the Pandora Zwieback page on Facebook, so you can keep up-to-date with all the Pan-related news; that link’s also in the sidebar.

StarWarp Concepts Book Festival Kicks Off Tomorrow!

For all you worldwide StarWarp Concepts fans and Pan-atics unable to attend this week’s New York Comic Con—and even for those of you who are attending—there’s no reason you can’t have a convention experience of your own by attending the first StarWarp Concepts Book Festival, a special online show being held at the SWC Web site.

The festival runs from tomorrow through Monday, October 15, with discounts on all our titles—both print and digital. All sales are conducted through Paypal—but not to worry if you don’t have an account because Paypal accepts credit cards. That means there’s no excuse for you to not purchase our fantastic products.  😉

But that’s not all! A convention’s not really a convention without attendee badges, and the SWC book fest is no exception. Just print out the card, sign it, cut it out and put it in a lanyard (if you’ve got one handy), and bingo—instant con badge.

So come join us tomorrow for all the excitement, and we’ll see you at the con!

Announcing the StarWarp Concepts Book Festival!

New York Comic Con is just a few days away (October 11, in fact), and here at ’Warp Central we know that not everyone can make it to the show to purchase our fantastic products at special discounts. So after much ruminating on the matter, we came up with a solution: why not hold a convention of our own, right at the SWC Web site?

The first-ever StarWarp Concepts Book Festival will open its Web-doors on Thursday, October 11, 2012 and run through Monday, October 15 (to coincide with the four-day New York Comic Con, plus one extra day). With the exception of the Official Pandora Zwieback T-shirt (which retains its original price) we’ll be offering our print titles at the same discounts you would get if you bought them from us in-person (plus postage), and marking down the prices on all e-books. For example:

Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1

Print: $14.95  $10.00 (plus postage)

E-book: $3.99  $1.99 • available in .pcr (Kindle compatible), Epub, and PDF formats

Lorelei: Sects and the City

Print: $12.95  $10.00 (plus postage)

E-book: $5.99  $3.99 • available in PDF format

Carmilla

Print: $10.95  $5.00 (plus postage)

E-book: $2.99  $1.00 • available in PDF format

Snow White

E-book: $1.99  99¢ • available in PDF format

Sounds good, right? All sales will be processed via the StarWarp Concepts webstore; payments are handled through Paypal. But if you don’t have (or want) a Paypal account, don’t worry—they accept credit cards, just like any online retailer.

The con is also open to those folks who did see us at NYCC but didn’t have the cash on hand to pick up one of our wonderful books or T-shirts (that artists alley can strip a wallet bare!). That’s the reason behind the one-day-past-NYCC extension: to give them the opportunity to pick up online what they couldn’t at the show. We hope everyone will take advantage of it.

Blood Reign: The Bad News and the Good News

“You want this, don’t you? The hate is swelling in you now…”

First off, loyal Pan-atics, I have to pass along the bad news: Despite my best efforts, Blood Reign, the second Pandora Zwieback novel, won’t be making its October 9 release date. Despite my best efforts to publish a book I’d be happy with (and you’d be happy with, as well) it’s not quite where I want it to be. And since I’m a stickler for perfection I just can’t let it go out. Not right now. Sorry. As TV host Craig Ferguson says, “I look forward to your angry letters.”

However, there is some good news. In order to take the sting out of not having Pan’s latest adventure on hand, StarWarp Concepts is making the following publications available—for free:

Blood Oath: A short story that you’ll be able to download as a PDF from the Pandora Zwieback Web site. Set between the events of Blood Feud and Blood Reign, it explains what became of House Karnstein’s vampiric strike-team leader Jenessa Branislav after she and her soldiers learned firsthand how foolish it is to attack monster hunter Sebastienne Mazarin in her home. And since Jenessa returns to complicate Annie’s life in the pages of Blood Reign, you’ll definitely want to check out this brand-new addition to Pan’s saga. The story will go live on October 11.

(By the way, what you see here is a dummy cover for the story that I cobbled together. Trust me, the final version by a professional designer will look much better.)  😀

Blood Reign—Special Sneak Preview: If you bought a copy of Blood Feud in the past year-plus and you’re attending next week’s New York Comic Con, come to the StarWarp Concepts booth (#2139) and receive this special printing of Blood Reign’s unedited first chapter, in its entirety. And yes, that cover art is a brand-new illustration by Eliseu Gouveia, artist of the still-free downloadable comic The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0.

Curious about what happened to Pan after Blood Feud’s shocking cliffhanger? Of course you are! Well, this is the place to find out until the novel goes on sale. Supplies will be limited (because I honestly know exactly how many copies of Feud have been sold to date), so get your copy while you can. (More than likely this preview will also appear as a PDF on the Pandora Zwieback site, after the convention and until the book goes on sale, so that Pan’s worldwide fans can join in on the excitement.)

Also for NYCC attendees, The ’Warp be making this one-time offer: If you’re willing to pay us what you would have spent at the show for a copy of Blood Reign, and give us your mailing address, we’ll send you an autographed copy of the book as soon as it’s available, with no extra charges. Think of it as a preorder…on a very late book.

I’ll keep you updated on the book’s progress, but at this point I’m not going to announce a definite publication date. I will, say, though, that when it’s done it means I’m happy with the results. And then I’ll have to immediately jump on the next Pan novel, the werewolf-centric Stalkers, so this problem never happens again.

I appreciate your loyalty and your understanding. And if you do plan on stopping by the SWC booth, please leave your pitchforks and torches at home—the con rules prohibit weapons and open flames.  😉

Convention News

The Baltimore Comic-Con might be in our rearview mirror, but that doesn’t mean the Fall 2012 convention season is over for StarWarp Concepts—no, sir!

Head over to the StarWarp Concepts blog right now and read all about my first trip to Baltimore’s highly acclaimed, comics-centered gathering, where I met some old fans and Pan gained a few new ones! You’ll find it here.

Next up is the Brooklyn Book Festival, being held this coming Sunday, September 23, at Brooklyn Borough Hall Plaza. I’ll have more information on The ’Warp’s appearance at that show on Friday.

Then on October 11 we’ll be plunging headfirst into that apocalyptic battleground called Thunderdome—although you probably know it as the New York Comic Con!

Booth 2139 (hall 3C) at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center will be our home away from home for the weekend, and we hope you’ll stop by to say hello (and buy our great books, of course!). I’ll have more info in the coming weeks on what we’ve got planned.

Hope to see you there!

Zwieback: The Recommended Cure for Sparkly-Emo-Vampire Fiction

What better way to celebrate this post–New York Comic Con 2011 week than with more great reactions to the arrival of our favorite Goth girl on the monster-hunting scene?

First off, the prestigious Midwest Book Review has posted their review for Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1:

Blood Feud is a fun and very much recommended read that shouldn’t be overlooked.”

Read the entire review here.

Then, over at the pop-culture site The Sexy Armpit, journalist Jay Amabile gives his thoughts about the Pan Zwieback introductory comic that he picked up at the StarWarp Concepts booth, during Comic Con:

“Cooler than Buffy, tougher than the emo wimps in Twilight, Pandora is a teenage goth girl fighting off ghouls and monsters in New York City.”

Read the rest of his super-positive recommendation of Pan in part 1 of his NYCC 2011 report.

Cry Havoc!

New York Comic Con 2011—being held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center here in New York City—is this week, October 13–16. I’ll be manning the StarWarp Concepts location: BOOTH 2539 in the Small Press Publishers Area.

Helping me out at the booth (as he did last year) will be my good friend Richard C. White—bestselling author of the fantasy novel Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, Book 1: Paths of Evil and the e-book Star Trek: Echoes of Coventry.

We’re located in Level 3, Hall 3A, near Artists Alley—and against the wall of the construction area that’s slowly been moving across the building since last year. Those of you who attended the 2010 show may remember that the construction site breaks the show’s main exhibition hall into two parts: the larger, more mainstream exhibitors on one side, the smaller publishers on the other. So please don’t forget that we’re on the other side of that wall!

Here’s a map so it’ll be easier to find us:

 

On sale will be:

• Copies of BLOOD FEUD: THE SAGA OF PANDORA ZWIEBACK, Book 1, CARMILLA, and THE BOB LARKIN SKETCHBOOK

11″ x 17″ full-color prints of Bob Larkin’s cover art for Blood Feud. It’s a limited-edition print, though, so be sure to pick up one while supplies last.

 

 

 

 

THE OFFICIAL PANDORA ZWIEBACK T-SHIRT! Now you can dress like our favorite Goth girl, and proudly show off your monster-hunting skills while wearing the same T that Pan models on the cover of Blood Feud. The shirt makes its debut at NYCC; after the con, it’ll be available exclusively through the StarWarp Concepts webstore.

 

I’ll also be handing out free print copies of the Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0 promotional comic book and Pandora Zwieback bookmarks—while supplies last, of course. (And that comic supply is getting pretty thin.)

And wait until you see the one-of-a-kind, not-for-sale Pan Zwieback leather jacket that we’ll have on display—painted by Bob, who’ll be on hand Saturday to sign the sketchbook and prints, as well as copies of his much-sought-after art book, The Savage Art of Bob Larkin.

You’ll find it all at booth 2539—just look for the Pandora Zwieback and StarWarp Concepts banners. So spread the word:

Of course, that depends on whether I can still get Hell a ticket this close to the show…