Borderlands Press, who’ve been publishing specialty books for collectors since 1989, announced their 8th Annual Writers Boot Camp, January 28th - 30th , 2011 in Towson, Maryland.

They call it “Boot Camp” for a reason. You won’t wandering through lonely forests, wondering what it means to be a writer for countless hours. This from the website:

You will be expected to log in many hours of intensive analysis and criticism from your peers and the four guest instructors who will be guiding you through all the major elements of writing fiction. You will be required to read (in advance) the submissions of your fellow workshop participants. (ALL OF THEM)

The weekend-long boot camp consists of lectures, round table critiques, readings of your work, Q&A panel discussion, and analysis of your work by the instructors. Instructors this year include Gary Braunbeck, Mort Castle, Ginjer Buchanan, Richard Chizmar, Douglas Clegg, Jack Ketchum, Elizabeth Massie, David Morrell, Thomas F. Monteleone, F. Paul Wilson, and Douglas E. Winter.

There will be two Sessions, Novel and Short Fiction, and each accepts only 16 to 20 participants, so be sure to get your application in early. Any and all genres are accepted; fee is $995.

Complete details are on the Borderlands Press website.

Here’s how it works. Barnes and Noble and Borders, the major bookstore chains, control the lion’s share of retail book sales… Let’s say that some chain has ordered 10,000 copies of a novel, sold 8000 copies, and returned 2000, a really excellent sell-through of 80%. So they order to net on the author’s next novel, meaning 8000 copies. And let’s even say they still have an 80% sell-through of 6400 books, so they order 6400 copies of the next book, and sell 5120…. You see where this mathematical regression is going, don’t you? Sooner or later right down the willy-hole to an unpublishablity that has nothing at all to do with the literary quality of a writer’s work, or the loyalty of a reasonable body of would-be readers, or even the passionate support of an editor below the very top of the corporate pyramid. Voila, the Death Spiral. And I too am in it.

Read the complete article at his blog, Norman Spinrad At Large.

As it happens, I stopped reading Asimov’s, which Dozois formerly edited, because I was coming across too many traditional plot-driven hard SF tales that are okay once in awhile, but, for my tastes, make for a kind of bland diet.  For largely the same reason, as well as for lack of time, I’ve become less obsessed with studying every iteration of The Year’s Best Science Fiction, though Wooster’s review may make me reconsider (even the ones he doesn’t like sound intriguing too me).  But as for whether genre magazines are the only home of short fiction that isn’t willfully obtuse in focusing on obsessions that matter only to a self-conscious elite (a charge frequently made of genre’s pulp forebears, funnily enough), I don’t know.

It’s been awhile since I’ve read much from the so-called literary magazines, and I probably haven’t read enough of them to know if this is more canard than truism.  I did use to get Glimmer Magazine, which, if I recall correctly, was the first place where I read anything by Junot Diaz, who wrote The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Depending on what you thought of that book may either prove or disprove Wooster’s point.

Classics Illustrated tackled the book shortly before Dr. Frederick Wertham got his dirty little hands on the comic business and did his best to keep the children of the world safe from twisted people just like himself. The Classics Illustrated adaptation was professionally produced, if somewhat anemic.

Marvel Comics would later reprint it in the 1970s with new cover art to make it appear consistent with Gene Colan’s magnificent portrayal of the character for Marvel’s long-running Tomb of Dracula title. Happily, a superior adaptation was brewing in Marvel’s companion magazine, Dracula Lives.

Roy Thomas and Dick Giordano teamed up to provide a faithful, elegant, and leisurely-paced adaptation of the Stoker novel as an ongoing feature in the black & white comic magazine.

Unfortunately, sales were not on their side and the title was cancelled. The one unpublished chapter they had completed turned up in the pages of another magazine title, Legion of Monsters, before it too was cancelled. Their masterful adaptation was left incomplete for nearly thirty years.

Marvel’s magazine division was a direct response to the success of Warren Publications such as Eerie, Creepy, and Vampirella.

It was Creepy that brought Fernando Fernandez’s stylish Spanish adaptation of Stoker’s novel to a larger audience worldwide. Fernandez’s art is far more sophisticated and accomplished than what is usually seen in the United States.

Sadly, the English translation was not as skillfully handled with jarring typos, missing words, and awkward sentences somewhat lessening the impact of Fernandez’s work outside of his native Spain.

Roy Thomas and Mike Mignola would tackle the comic adaptation of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 film, Bram Stoker’s Dracula for Topps’ short-lived comics division.

For those unfamiliar with the film, the title is misleading. The result is more of a mix of the 1960s American vampire soap opera, Dark Shadows with ITV’s contemporaneous revisionist television adaptation of Stoker’s novel, with Denholm Elliott wearing eyeglasses straight out of swinging Carnaby Street (Gary Oldman’s vampire count just seemed even more alien for donning nearly identical eyewear a quarter of a century later in the Coppola film).

Happily, Roy Thomas wasn’t satisfied to let the nineties Hollywood remake stand as his final word on the character. Vertigo considered buying the rights to the existing chapters from Marvel and letting Thomas and Giordano complete their adaptation at last, but the plans fell through.

Ultimately, Marvel came round after they discovered quite unexpectedly that reprints of Tomb of Dracula were selling as well as or better than many of their current publications. The offer came for Thomas and Giordano to finish what they started three decades before.

Stoker’s Dracula, as the resulting limited series and graphic novel was titled, is still not quite as perfect as it might have been.

It is true that age had lessened Giordano’s abilities slightly. Like all artists, his style changed and did not quite match up to the earlier chapters completed in the 1970’s. The greatest weakness is the page constraint Marvel imposed on the duo in completing the book.

Thomas and Giordano confirm as much in their notes in the graphic novel. The leisurely pace of the original Dracula Lives chapters allowed for a faithful, measured adaptation. The change in pace midway through the story is jarring as the narrative rushes to a conclusion over the final hundred pages.

Dynamite Entertainment managed the seeming impossible in topping the Marvel adaptation by teaming writers Leah Moore and John Mark Reppion with artist Colton Worley to produce a stunning limited series and graphic novel, The Complete Dracula.

The trio had the advantage of crafting their adaptation over a period of two years as opposed to Thomas and Giordano’s three decades.

They were also able to balance the story’s pacing throughout and this gives them the advantage that Thomas and Giordano’s newly-completed version simply cannot match.

Of course, it is the artwork that matters most in any comic adaptation and Colton Worley delivers sumptuous, photo-realistic pages that manage to trump even Fernando Fernandez.

The art is truly breathtaking and cinematic in its scope. The reader feels they are finally viewing the perfect film adaptation of the Stoker classic.

As a bonus, Dynamite’s The Complete Dracula incorporates Stoker’s posthumously- published deleted chapter from an early draft of the novel, “Dracula’s Guest” as a prologue.

While purists balk when publishers do this with print versions, the story conforms to the novel’s continuity more often than it strays.

The novel itself is far from free of inconsistencies, which lends no credence to those scholars who would see the fragment banished for not being canonical.

Marvel continues to repackage Tomb of Dracula reprints in every possible format while failing to bottle lightning in their many attempts to revive the property. Most recently, they undertook the decision to color the Thomas-Giordano adaptation and reprint it as a limited series and forthcoming graphic novel.

This is an obvious response to the success of Dynamite’s rival full-color adaptation, but it is a solution that does the material no favors.

Giordano’s artwork was deliberately shaded for monochrome and like the Universal Horror classics of the 1930s and 1940s, the attempt to colorize what was intended to be seen in sharply contrasting shadows and streaks of light appears ordinary and robbed of all of the grace and beauty of the original work. Sadly, another missed opportunity from Marvel.

Future installments in this series will take an in-depth look at Marvel’s successes and failures with Stoker’s venerable vampire lord and Dark Horse’s noble, but unfulfilled attempt to emulate Marvel’s success a quarter of a century later by reuniting the creative team that elevated Tomb of Dracula to the pinnacle of comic storytelling and graphic art.

I love writing.  I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.
– James Michener

So you’re ready to embark on writing your new fantasy story, hopefully one that the folks at Black Gate will want to snatch up as soon as you type the words “The End” on it.

You’ve got your story idea, sitting there like a lump of Play-Doh that still conforms to the shape of the plastic container you just shook it out of.  You know, that perfect cylinder shape that is exciting to absolutely no one.

Time to start squishing and pulling and twisting. But where to begin, you ask? It all starts, of course, with your main character.

As we discussed earlier, most people tend to start a story with a person, in some sort of situation. But let’s just say you haven’t even gotten that far. You just have an average person, sitting in a white room. Nothing’s happening.

Let’s start by getting inside that character’s head. Which you can do most effectively by asking questions:

• What is the one thing he or she (or it — this is speculative fiction, you know) wants the most out of life?
• What’s the one thing your protagonist will do nearly anything for?
• Is it an object? Another person? A goal? An idea?

For the sake of illustration, let’s take the main character from the story Jay Lake and I concocted for Black Gate 14: Lena from “Devil on the Wind.”

Sort of a nasty piece of work, that Lena, eh? This is quite literally a woman who’s willing to die to increase her power — and in the first scene, she just does just that. This is her fifth suicide. Ah, fantasy fiction, where anything can happen. Welcome to the funhouse!

And because it’s first-person, we’re right there inside her head. We slowly get her backstory, and hopefully start to understand why she’s so consumed with the need for vengeance (her mother’s violent death plays a large role in Lena’s current bloodthirsty mindset).

So we have a character who craves power. Because you want conflict in your story to keep the reader hooked, think of something that would make Lena’s life miserable. Ask those questions.

How about being told what to do? Being given a lowly task? Having to embark on a journey with the nasty fellow named Rego, who saw her at her most vulnerable state? How ’bout all that?

So there’s your internal conflict — Lena has to work hard on their journey toward the distant Prince Falloe’s keep to not give in to her urge to kill Rego. She’s also trying to come to terms with her mother’s death and her own unsettling sense that she’s following in her mother’s footsteps.

The setting provides another series of external conflicts — because this is fantasy story set on another world, Jay and I got to call in all sorts of great creatures to menace Lena and Rego on their travels. In a way, the setting becomes a character as well (think of the island on LOST, for example) as it leaves refuse-spewing automatons and zombies and poisoned rivers in our hero’s path.

Now, my friends, we have a lovely mix of internal and external conflict — a character caught in a situation from which she desperately wants to break free (performing errands for her superior, unable to exact revenge on the man she despises), traveling through a violent world full of deadly creatures and double-crossing princes.

Sometimes a story focuses too much on the intricacies of the world-building, where you find yourself moving through a travelogue of the place, getting a guided tour — which can be great if you’re not trying to get your heart racing and your blood boiling.

Other stories may get caught too long inside the protagonist’s head, and nothing really happens as a result. They end up thinking overmuch, like Hamlet. To protag, or not to protag, that is the question…

Instead, as a writer, try to hit that sweet spot by mixing internal conflict, where you are following a character whose life is out of equilibrium and flailing for balance, with the harsh reality of a world that doesn’t care what happens to that person, and may even be actively trying to destroy him or her (or it!).

Think of it as two quests happening simultaneously — one on the inside, the other out in the physical world. You may even want to map out where the character’s internal state is at the start of the story, and how it changes as the plot progress all the way to the end. By the end of the story, what impact of the events of the story had on your protagonist. Has he/she/it been changed by it all? I certainly hope so!

And don’t forget to enjoy the act of creating those quests, just like Michener said in his quote, above. Listen for the “the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.” And don’t forget to resolve both of those quests (or else you risk tangling with your reader’s emotions)!

Keep working at it, and before you know it, you’ll get your story shaped into its final form, and it definitely won’t look like a tube of Play-Doh anymore.

Back in 1990 DC Comics launched WORLD WITHOUT END, a “mature readers” miniseries by Jamie Delano and John Higgins. It was everything comics have the potential to achieve…a psychic thought-bomb of words and pictures that blew my mind to bloody smithereens. Twenty years later it still leaves me in awe.

Delano is a gifted British comics writer who at the time was known best for writing DC’s HELLBLAZER title. Artist Higgins had done a lot of work for England’s 2000 A.D. and worked as colorist on Alan Moore’s landmark WATCHMEN series. When Karen Berger and her assistant editor Tom Peyer put Delano and Higgins together, they were mixing gasoline with fire. Delano and Higgins make these pages glow with volatile brilliance. I’m not being hyperbolic…this book was (and is) THAT good.

The first thing that catches the eye is Higgin’s painted artwork. Every single panel is a fully painted masterpiece, in all six issues. Higgins also painted the spectacular covers himself. Handing a virtuoso painter/storyteller like Higgins to a literary madman like Delano was a stroke of genius. Did I mention already that Karen Berger is a genius? She went on to form the legendary VERTIGO imprint a few short years later.

Delano’s concept was epic, a vast story set millions of years in the future, in a world that literally grew over the old one. A world made not of earth, stone, but of LIVING FLESH. Instead of seven seas, the “chemotion” churns with typhoons of acidic corrosion. The global continent is a colossal organism, dead and rotting at its edges, ripe with gangrene swamps and jagged mountains of bone; yet its center pulses with sunken rivers of lifeblood and hordes of bizarre living beings.

At the center of this seething world-organism lies BEDLAM: “That proud city, whose taut towers have bountifully reared and nurtured the parasitic multitudes through scuttling millennia of zealous growth.” Bedlam is a grotesquely beautiful mass of bone-carved towers inhabited by a race of male beings called Gess.

Everything female in Bedlam is suppressed and dominated here…but the moon rises over Bedlam, shining with a dangerous glow of femininity upon this hive of masculinity. The rigid structure of this society is being threatened by mutates, abominations led by a mysterious female presence called Rumour. Here’s the back cover copy from issue #1, “The Moon Also Rises,” which says it all:

“IN A FUTURE WORLD GROWN ENTIRELY OUT OF FLESH, THE ULTIMATE MAN AND THE ULTIMATE WOMAN FIGHT THE FINAL BATTLES OF THE SEX WAR–AND PUSH GHASTLY VIOLENCE AND CORRUPT SEXUALITY TO THEIR RIDICULOUS EXTREMES.”

That “Ultimate Man” comes along in issue #2. He is Brother Bones, a “genetic supercommando” sheathed in an ebony metallic armor. He is masculinity personified, a destroyer of flesh, a brutish warlord of unstoppable means. Brother Bones leads armies of the Gess in a war against the female presence that has been “poisoning” Bedlam. When he speaks, his dialogue is a collection of symbols and strangely altered letters that slows the reader down just enough to evoke the character’s towering inhumanity.

Rumor possesses powers of unrestrained procreation, and she breeds strange mutations in the outlands. She is a giver of life, sculptor and animator of the world’s raw flesh, and the decaying elders of Bedlam see her “children” as a threat to the ancient society. Their champion slaughters these new life forms mercilessly, but his ultimate goal is to eradicate Rumor herself. This unrestrained fecundity cannot be tolerated by the Gess–theirs is the power of the Male, seeking ever to conquer and annihilate the power of the Female.

Issue #3 focuses on the journey of the fleeing Rumour, who has evolved from witch-like crone into a beautiful young woman. She discovers the hidden depths of the World Without End, including relics of the ancient world, and a “strange lost society of women” called the Fams. Throughout the series, Delano’s poetic prose brings a fantastic synergy to Higgins’ masterful painted scenes. Here’s an example of Delano’s metaphorical lyricism at its best: “Sunset, moonrise, moonset, sunrise. This is the timeless cosmic reel. One chases as the other flees–each terrified by their opposing passions.” Shakespeare never said it better.

This comic is BEAUTIFUL, in every way. Even when it’s ugly, it’s gorgeous. Few people have ever written more fluid, evocative prose in a comic than Delano. Issue #4 tantalizes readers with the following back cover copy:

“WHILE THE SCARLOTS INITIATE RUMOUR INTO THE SECRETS OF CREATION, THE STEADY POUNDING OF TWENTY THOUSAND MARCHING FEET SHIVERS THROUGH THE NIGHTS AND DAYS OF THE WORLD WITHOUT END.”

This is the eternal battle of the sexes played out in a far-future world of sci-fi phantasmagoria. The Fams subjugate their males; the Gess subjugate their females. Where is the merging of the sexes, the glorious blending of flesh and spirit? Where’s the love, people??? You won’t find it in the WORLD WITHOUT END. Or will you?

As Brother Bones’ armies close in on the kingdom of the Fams, the decrepit rulers of Bedlam monitor from the city’s nerve center: “Adrenochrome are increasing. General glandular samplings show rapid vacillation. The cortex is growing in agitation. I’m monitoring neuron storms and erratic synaptic sequencing. Our messianic scourge has moved beyond control.” They’ve created a monster, now they have to live with his deeds. The world-flesh will never be the same.

Rumour’s protogenic powers create her most fearsome beast, a winged terror that carries the slaughter back to Bedlam: “Need I to feel the moon-tide pull my woman-blood. Need I to push my pain into the wounded flesh. Need I to birth a sleepmeat in true terror’s furious, flapping form.” Brother Bones will have to confront her, and the decisive confrontation–the straining climax–cannot be far away. The back copy on the final, mind-altering issue (#6) says it all:

“RUMOUR WIELDS HER FEMALE ENERGY AGAINST THE GENTICALLY-ENHANCED MISOGYNY OF BROTHER BONES IN ORDER TO SAVE THE WORLD WITHOUT END.”

How does this inevitable conflict finally end? I’ll never tell–no spoilers. Suffice it to say, you’ll be thoroughly satisfied and completely amazed.

WORLD WITHOUT END is a science fiction allegory mixed with fantasy adventure, told with style and skill that any comic creator has to envy. It’s a glorious, mad excursion into a world of erotic dreams and brutal nightmares. Jamie Delano’s power to evoke an entirely strange world ranks with that of sci-fi grandmaster Jack Vance. John Higgins’ stunning paints, his storytelling ability, his dynamic use of color to create surreal moods and absurd realities, it’s all the stuff of legend.

WORLD WITHOUT END has never been collected as far as I know, and that’s a damn shame. However, the good news is that you can still find VERY affordable back issues. I just checked and found all five issues at www.milehighcomics.com for about two bucks each. The covers, by the way, are hefty cardstock and the interior paper is slick and durable. My copies from ’90 are still in Near Mint condition despite several re-readings.

As a seminal classic of comics’ early Modern Age, this book deserves a hardcover–but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it. Just get your hands on it as soon as possible. You’ll thank me later.

(NOTE: An earlier version of this article appeared at THE PULSE in 2007)

As I may have mentioned once or twice at most, Ed Douglas and the gang gave me a sneak peek at their creation last week and as a fan of the drive-in-horror-movie genre, I can tell you The Dead Matter is quite an amazingly fun ride. If that’s not enough, the DVD comes packaged with two new Midnight Syndicate music creations; the original motion picture soundtrack and the Halloween Music Collection.

For me, it’s like Christmas Halloween in July…

And for those of you who may be entertaining the idea that I’m just a hopeless sycophant with an ongoing crush on a bunch of bad-boy musicians, PIFFLE I say to you! They’re not at all bad boys; they’re actually nice and highly articulate, and have a lot of really entertaining things to tell us about.

See for yourself in the interview below.

A conversation with Midnight Syndicate’s Ed Douglas

Conducted and transcribed by Sue Granquist July 28-29, 2010

Ed Douglas

GC: Congratulations! Today is the birthday of Midnight Syndicate’s movie The Dead Matter. What are you planning to do today?

ED:  Heading over to my local Hot Topic in Mentor Ohio for a signing with my fellow Cleveland cast and crew members. Chris Robichaud (who was in the original version), “Big Chuck” Schodowski (who was the Cleveland tv horror host that introduced me to horror films), Donna Williams, Dave “House” Greathouse (director of our music video “Dark Legacy”), Al Tuskes, Mike OIszewski, and Gary Jones (my right hand man throughout the entire process) will all be there. It’s a kind of celebration. I’m looking forward to it. We had some great screenings this past weekend. The movie is definitely resonating with a lot of people which makes me feel really good.

I read that The Dead Matter is actually a remake of an earlier Ed Douglas creation. Can you tell us about the story’s evolution?

We shot a version of this film back in 1995. It was my first project out of college. Only thing is that we only had $2000 and back then that didn’t get you much. We had to use a S-VHS camera which really made the production quality kind of tough. But the goal was always to remake the film someday. After we had completed the film, I started Midnight Syndicate as a way of combining my love of music and film. Over the years Midnight Syndicate grew and filmmakers started contacting us about licensing our music in their films. That brought me back into the filmmaking circles culminating with Robert Kurtzman moving back to Ohio and asking me to score The Rage. When I was on the set of The Rage and saw firsthand how Bob and Gary ran their shows I knew they were the perfect partners and missing link to the remake of The Dead Matter. In 2006 I approached Bob about co-producing the film, he read the script, liked what he saw, and the rest is history. As far as the story of the film, co-writer Tony Demci and myself (we co-wrote the original too) had a lot of years to decide what we liked and didn’t like about the 1995 version. It made for an infinitely better script this time around.

Still from the music video

I definitely sensed a throwback to the classic drive-in horror movies of the 1950’s. What movies inspired you to write The Dead Matter?

“Night of the Living Dead,” EC Comics, Hammer Horror films, and Dungeons & Dragons; the same things that inspire my work in Midnight Syndicate. Those were my influences in developing the production concept and the basic story (which is the same in both versions). The script really is a collaboration though and a lot of this new one especially was Tony’s creation. We share a lot of influences but also bring our own experiences to the table. I think that made for a better script than if either of us had done it on our own.

How did you meet co-producers Robert Kutzman (From Dusk Till Dawn) and Gary Jones, (Xena) and was it difficult to put your “child” in someone else’s hands?
 
I met both of them on, “The Rage” project. We hit it off right away. It wasn’t that difficult handing over my child as I still had one of those “springy things” you attach to your kids wrist to keep them attached when your at the mall or amusement park… it’s kind of late as I’m writing this… what I’m trying to say is that I still got the final say on things. However, filmmaking is such a huge team effort that the end product is truly one massive collaboration. I had a tremendous Line Producer in Gary Jones and Assistant Director in Phil Garrett. They took my vision and helped make it a reality.

Did you have input into the casting decisions?
 
I handled all of the casting as that’s a process I really enjoy and have some experience in. There were actors like Jim O’Rear, Tom Savini, Big Chuck, Christopher Robichaud, Jason Carter, and Dick Dyszel that I had on my wish list before we even started the casting process. It was great we were able to get all of them.

I’m pretty sure I saw you in a couple of cameo roles. What part of making The Dead Matter was the most fun?

Production was a fairly stressful experience. I was a first-time director, working within a very limited timeframe and budget. We had a lot of exterior locations and the weather didn’t cooperate with us at all. In fact, the whole city flooded in the middle of production. That added a ton of pressure to the entire shoot. But the cast and crew hung in as a team and really delivered. Hanging out with them after filming wrapped each day are some of my best memories. As far as the entire experience though, we had a screening in Chardon this past week. Sitting in the back of the theatre and hearing people laugh, jump, gasp, even hearing them clap for some of the actors… seeing people being entertained for an hour and a half, and seeing my fellow cast and crew members smiling. That was the most fun I’ve had throughout this process.

In the past we’ve discussed today’s horror movies being too much about gore and shock value, and your desire to make this movie a good “old fashioned” horror flick. Do you feel you hit that sweet spot with The Dead Matter?
 
I hope so. I don’t think of The Dead Matter as a scary film. It’s supernatural, fantasy-based horror (just like Midnight Syndicate’s music). I think it has it’s place in the horror world, just not in the same category as something like a Saw or Dead Girl (which are very effective films). We use the old horror films as a starting point… and then try and turn things up with some modern twists. That seems to be resonating with certain audience members and horror fans. It seems to also be appealing to people who aren’t typical horror movie fans … which is cool. We have a touch of dark humor injected in there as well, that audiences seem to be enjoying.

By the way, is the catering on movie sets as good as we’ve heard?
 
Good food and solid craft services are really important on any shoot. Deb, our caterer, was great. She didn’t have a ton of money to work with but used her creativity and really put together some good meals. We had quite a few tasty barbeques, a lot of times with a horde of zombies - which was excellent.

Did you film in any locations people would recognize? I could swear the apartment building was the Erebus Haunted House in Pontiac, MI.

Well we shot in the Mansfield Reformatory which is where they shot Shawshank Redemption, and Air Force One. Ed is a friend of mine through Syndicate so I know the haunt you are referencing (and agree) but it was actually the Bissman Building in Mansfield (where they shot a scene in Shawshank as well). It’s a very old building that used to be a grocery warehouse and is reputedly haunted. A lot of our crew wouldn’t stay there at night alone. Perfect location. We got so much use out of the space and the owner Ben Bissman (the building has been in his family for generations) is a great guy who really helped our production out.

The two CDs of music included with the movie are really special in their own right (loved the sound track album by the way!). How did you choose the other artists who participated such as Lazy Lane and Destini Beard?

Lazy Lane’s music just fit. I love their sound and had “Graveyard” pegged as my bar scene music before I even started filming. “Girl Upstairs” is another one of my favorite tracks by them. I was just playing around with it a bit during the bedroom scene while scoring and it worked so I kept it.

Ed shooting The Dead Matter music video

Destini actually contacted us a year or two ago with this song she did where she sang lyrics over top of our music. The minute I heard it, I knew it would be a great addition to the soundtrack - that lead to the 6-song EP we just released with her called “The Dark Masquerade.” (GC: Got an early listen to this as well and LOVED it!)

I was a fan of Jerry’s version of “Shadows,” and Pat’s version of “Graveyard” since the first time I heard them. I felt the soundtrack would be a perfect opportunity to share them with folks. The Cleveland metal act Eternal Legacy wrote a song called “The Dead Matter” based on the movie that incorporated sound bytes from the movie in it. I loved the track immediately - what’s more they made a wicked music video that will be up on our site soon. hipNostic is actually my cousin’s band (one of those people who inspired me to pursue music). I always loved that track and think it’s perfect heavy metal “horror movie end credits” music.

The readers will be excited to hear about the many upcoming screenings of The Dead Matter all over the US (see the schedule of events here). What can fans looks forward when they come out to view The Dead Matter on the big screen?

We’ve got Q&As planned at all our events and cast signings at most of them. We just did one in Columbus this past weekend and it was a blast. A lot of good questions, a lot of laughs. At DragonCon this year, Gavin and I are doing our first ever Midnight Syndicate Panel where we go through the history of the band and take questions. That should be interesting. We’ll also have a screening with Q&A there too. I hope people will stop by if they are going to be at these conventions or in the area

Now that you’re part of the Hollywood crowd, will there be more forays into film in the future and will we now have to start talking to “your people” to get an interview?
 
I’m going to think about that and have my assistant’s assistant get back to you on that real soon. OK? Great. Thanks so much… Seriously though, Black Gate rocks and has been a long time supporter of Midnight Syndicate. We really appreciate that. And yes.. there will be more forays into film, absolutely.

What’s coming next from Midnight Syndicate?
 
We are talking about the next disc and we are seriously discussing the possibility of a live multimedia Midnight Syndicate concert for early 2011. We should have some announcements soon. For now though it’s The Dead Matter 24/7!

Thanks Ed! And yes, I’ll stop reading angst-y poetry into your office answering machine… for now.

What’s a Blogathon?  We’ll let Shira explain it, as she’s so much cooler than us:

I’ll be posting short fiction and poetry, composed spontaneously, every half hour for 24 hours. That’s 49 pieces of story, automatic for the people. I’m also running an auction of wonderful stuff donated by wonderful people; each post will have a link to an auction item, and the story therein will be inspired by said auction item. (Auction will run July 26-August 2.) Yeah. Other people just post “I am so tired” for hours. I do Blogathon backwards and in heels. Because it wasn’t hard enough?

Man, that’s impressive. I get tired just writing about it.  In fact, I think I’m going to go lie down.

More details are available at Shira’s blog, Scheherazade in Blue Jeans. Check it out, and help support a good cause.

Author photo by C.S.E. Cooney.

Wonder how long it will be before the interns realize there is mayonnaise in their sunscreen bottles? Oh well…

Back here in the 70-degree underground bunker that is the Goth Chick offices, I’m putting the finishing touches on tomorrow’s interview with Ed Douglas about this long anticipated gothic flick while listening to Midnight Syndicate’s 13^th anniversary CD The Halloween Music Collection. Oh the bliss!

Tomorrow’s the big day! Stay tuned!

When I first opened the very thick envelope from Kansas City, I thought that Dave had messed up and sent me a Black Gate anthology… Full-color glossy perfect-bound wraparound cover on 380-plus pages containing not one, but three novellas, and sixteen stories. Plus poems, book and game review columns, letters, editorial and a comic strip — and handsomely illustrated throughout. I was poleaxed, banjaxed, gobsmacked and just plain overwhelmed. For those of you who bewail the terminal illness of the publishing industry, the loss of the midlist, the paring down of the professional story market and the death of the illustrated magazine, ease up. I’ve seen more professional-quality short stories in the last month in my mailbox, half of them in this magazine, than I had in the previous six months.

He draws special attention to “The Hangman’s Daughter” by Chris Braak:

Cresy has a problem. Night after night, she wakes from a dream of suffocating (as many children do) — but one particular night she thinks she saw something sitting on her chest and drawing the breath from her lungs. In these dreadful dreams she is paralyzed and can only wait for the dream to end so that she may draw a full breath again. Then, questioning the boys she plays with, she finds that all the children of Corsay have this problem. “Everyone gets those. It’s the bogeymen,” says Ally. How Cresy finds her personal center and gains the strength to face her nightmares face on (and what she finds when she does) is the crux of the story. A nice little tale of personal growth set in a less-than-usual fantasy world.

And “Devil on the Wind” by Michael Jasper and Jay Lake:

A tale of blood, pain, magic and the costs of being powerful. Lena is one of the Redeviled, a Killaster witch in the land’s most powerful eight-of-power. Lena has just undergone her fifth suicide — a method by which the Redeviled gain more power. The Killaster Witches, led by Black Mattieu, have just received what should have been tribute from one of the lords.. two copper coins — a major insult, and one which will not be allowed to pass unnoticed… Lena is sent to show the prince the error of his ways. This is one of my favorite stories of the issue…  Lake and Jasper are two of the very few fantasy writers who seem to understand that power demands a price. She and her fellow wizards pay a price with their very flesh and blood, pain and sacrifice.

He also feels that “Red Hell” by Renee Stern

could be, with very few modifications, an alternate-world science fiction story instead of fantasy. It’s so well written, however, that it works either way… Kellen is press-ganged into Red Hill (called “Red Hell” by the natives)… Despite his gnawing hunger, Kellen works hard to fulfill the contract — only to have Soiberon accuse him of theft at the end of the day rather than pay him. Soiberon allows Kellen to “coerce” him into giving Kellen a magic ring that will hide his indenture tattoo; Kellen thinks this will help him escape from Red Hell by helping him hide in the hold of one of the airships. During that attempted escape, Kellen learns that not all magic is what it’s cracked up to be, and that desperate people you work with are not necessarily your friends… I liked this story a lot!

And he enjoyed “On a Pale Horse” by Sylvia Volk:

A departure from all this traditional fantasy — it is an Arabian fantasy about a young Bedouin (“Bedu”) woman named Salsabil (after a fountain in Paradise) — who is in charge of a horse by the same name. She… comes to her father and tells him of a white stallion that has been courting the mare; a stallion that is perfect in every respect save one— it has a horn on its forehead. It is then that Ibrahim knows his daughter is mad. But before he can do anything about it, the raiders from the north attack… here is no vague middle-ages fantasy world, but a well-realized Arabian analogue full of characters one can understand and empathize with, and also full of action and adventure.

You can find the complete review here.