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Goth Chick News: Outpost 13 – A Very Early Peek at a New Film from Pirate Pictures

Goth Chick News: Outpost 13 – A Very Early Peek at a New Film from Pirate Pictures

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image010Welcome to the Cool Kids Club; you’ve officially arrived.

How do I know?

Because uber-edgy indy film maker Wyatt Weed (Pirate Pictures) has decided that Black Gate is where he wants to leak a little insider information about his upcoming sci-fi release, Outpost 13.

I’ve seen an amazing secret clip which I can’t share just yet, but allow me to assure you that snotty posers would never be allowed this kind of access.

I begged, pleaded and finally promised Wyatt that I’d send him my personal copy of Black Gate 15 (hey John, you’re not going to charge me for a replacement copy are you?) and he agreed to sneak us a little information about the project, along with some production stills.

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Goth Chick News: Thirteen Questions for Victoria Cosner Love and Lorelei Shannon, Authors of Mad Madame Lalaurie

Goth Chick News: Thirteen Questions for Victoria Cosner Love and Lorelei Shannon, Authors of Mad Madame Lalaurie

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i-10484847-550I’ve been sitting here all day trying to figure out what a goth chick’s equivalent of “wishing on a star” is. Somehow “wishing on my voodoo doll” doesn’t sound right, “wishing on my crystal skull” makes me sound like some sort of twisted, California bunny-hugger, and wishing on my ankh makes me seem like a hopeless Hot Topics poser.

In any case, trust me when I say that wishes come true, whatever media you do it on.

A couple of weeks back I told you that my favorite New Orleans ghost story had finally been made the subject of a book, which I’d been wishing for so hard that during one Rum-drink soaked evening on Bourbon Street, I (think) I vowed to do it myself.

But earlier this year, along come authors and life-long partners-in-crime Victoria Cosner Love and Lorelei Shannon to finally give Madame Delphine LaLaurie and her sadistic house of horror the real literary treatment. I was already excited to finally get to the bottom of this oft-told-but-rarely-documented tale, but making the acquaintance of these two ladies was simply icing on the Death by Chocolate cake.

It is therefore my sincere pleasure to introduce you to two fellow Goth Chicks and the entirely entertaining historians behind the book Mad Madame LaLaurie…

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An Interview With Claude Lalumière, Part Two

An Interview With Claude Lalumière, Part Two

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Claude LalumièreHere’s Part Two of my interview with writer, critic, and editor Claude Lalumière. You can find Part One here. This time around, we discuss Claude’s influences, his work as an anthologist, his criticism, and his process as a writer. My great thanks to Claude for his generosity, thoughtfulness, and candor.

An Interview with Claude Lalumière, Part Two

Conducted and Transcribed by Matthew David Surridge

Your fiction shows the powerful influence of a number of different writers, and the fusion of those particular writers creates something strong and unusual. Could you write a bit about how you first encountered the work of people like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, J.G. Ballard, Ursula K. Le Guin, Lucius Shepard, Rachel Pollack, and Paul Di Filippo, and what those writers came to mean to you?

This is a question requiring an epic-length answer.

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Goth Chick News: Thirteen Questions for Horror Comic Creator Dirk Manning

Goth Chick News: Thirteen Questions for Horror Comic Creator Dirk Manning

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image0141Last Sunday I told you all about NIGHTMARE WORLD comics which I had the good fortune of discovering last month at the C2E2 show in Chicago.

I also learned from you that I wasn’t the only one scaring the crap out of myself as a kid by reading this sort of contraband content by flashlight; and from the emails I got, you lot have been sneaking around doing things you’ve been told not to for some time.

Which is why you are very welcome here.

And now, fortune pats me on the head for the third time this week in the form of an email from the man himself, NIGHTMARE WORLD creator Dirk Manning.

Moved by our mutual admiration of classic tales of terror and intrigued by the readers of Black Gate, to whom he had not previously been introduced, Mr. Manning agreed to brave the probing and in depth (insert lightning and thunder sound effects here) Thirteen Questions…

Are the restraints nice and snug? Then let’s begin.

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An Interview with Claude Lalumière, Part One

An Interview with Claude Lalumière, Part One

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Claude LalumièreClaude Lalumière‘s involvement with fantastika has taken many forms. He’s been a retailer, an editor of anthologies, and a critic. But lately he’s become best known for his fiction. Claude’s writing is most often a surreal and precise blending of fantasy, horror, science fiction, superhero adventure, and any other genre that seems handy and to the point. His first collection, Objects of Worship, was published by ChiZine Publications two years ago; now a new set of linked short stories, The Door to Lost Pages, is about to hit shelves.

I’ve known Claude for a long time, and was happy to take the opportunity of the publication of his new book to have an e-mail conversation with him about his writing, his past, and many other things. In this first part, he discusses his language, his time as a bookseller, his two books, and his ongoing web series Lost Myths, among many other things.

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Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for Artist and Dark Beauty Editor Topher Adam

Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for Artist and Dark Beauty Editor Topher Adam

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darkbeautyYes, even Goth Chicks sleep with something under their pillows.

It started with a Deady Bear, then a vintage Rocky Horror Picture Show t-shirt and then a Living Dead Doll. But until now, it had never been a magazine.

About a month ago, I became acquainted with Dark Beauty and fell instantly in love. Not in a Johnny-Depp-as-Jack-Sparrow kind of way, but in a David-Bowie-in-jodhpurs-with-a-riding-crop-in-Labyrinth kind of way.

In other words, hopelessly.

A little digging led me to artist extraordinaire and Editor and Chief, Topher Adam who is well on his way to making my “Top 10 Most Interesting of the Underground” for 2011. Ever dreamed of seeing yourself as your favorite literary or movie character? Have a vision of yourself as Tolkien’s Elf King or as the Green Lantern? Topher is here to make your personal fantasy visions come true.

So pull up a leather chair and meet Mr Topher Adam.…

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An Interview with Author Bradley Beaulieu

An Interview with Author Bradley Beaulieu

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bradleybeaulieuI’m pleased to interview my great friend and writer buddy, Brad Beaulieu. We’ll be discussing his new novel, The Winds of Khalakovo, Book One of The Lays of Anuskaya, which comes out the first of April 2011 from Nightshade Books as a trade paperback and as an eBook. Winds is a sweeping epic fantasy with a Czarist Russian and Persian feel, a unique combination to be sure. I’m so proud of Brad’s accomplishment with the world building and the story. I’ve been involved with this novel for several years now, and have had a part in the revisions, so I’ve seen it go from an awesome book with an amazing concept to a truly exceptional one with a fully fleshed-out world.

Brad has had his short stories published in the most prestigious speculative fiction publications including Realms of Fantasy, The Intergalactic Medicine Show, Writers of the Future, and several anthologies from DAW Books. He’s also the father of two and the husband to a wonderful woman, Joanne. They live in Wisconsin and besides being an excellent writer, Brad is an amazing cook.

Now on to the interview…

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Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for Special Effects Artist Brian Demski

Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for Special Effects Artist Brian Demski

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image0062Let’s be honest. A skull in a bell jar with an eyeball hanging off of it would attract anyone’s attention, so you can’t say it’s just me.

Special effects artist Brian Demski’s booth at the Haunted Attractions Show in St. Louis may have just as well grabbed my wrist in a boney hand for the hard left it caused me to take; out of an aisle of more latex body parts and straight into a Victorian Steampunk nightmare.

Over the next hour Brian talked me through his many skeleton-filled art pieces, molded by his own hands (directly from samples of the real thing, I might add).

The results are mesmerizing, disturbing and sure-fire conversation starters.

When I also learned that his “day job” was as a Hollywood special-effects creator, I knew I had to find out more.

So, may I introduce you to Mr. Brian Demski and his beautifully creative yet somewhat twisted imagination.

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Philosopher of Gor

Philosopher of Gor

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This was the most family friendly cover I could find.io9 has an interview with the author of the Gor novels, John Norman — a.k.a. John Lange, PhD and professor of philosophy at Queens College CUNY. Who knew?

Lange responds at length on Nietzsche:

In Nietzsche, the expression is ‘Übermensch’, which might be translated variously. A common translation today would be ‘Overman’. It might also be understood as a higher person, a superior person, an ideal as to what a human being might be, a comprehensible ideal toward which a human being might aspire, and such.

I confess I’ve never read any of the Gor books, although I’m certainly aware of their notorious sexy-time reputation. And, even putting that aside, the interviewer’s statement that “people frequently describe Gor as a Nietzschean society” doesn’t entice me to read them anytime soon since Nietzsche is so clearly misunderstood in popular culture. Yet while I disagree slightly with Lange’s interpretation of the Ubermensch (the reason why “The word is always used in the singular, never as though there could be more than one,” is not because there can only be one Highlander, but because Nietzsche realized the transformation was an individual experience, not a collective one, similar to the Buddhist idea of enlightenment), I think he provides a fine explanation of Friedrich’s world-view, which had nothing to do with master races and rippling pecs but rather with internal epiphanies and ideals.

Sword-and-sorcery has always been a perfect vehicle for existentialist themes. Here’s hoping, to paraphrase the interviewer, that Nietzsche becomes more popular not only among young philosophers and post-modern theorists but among fantasy writers as well. Just with fewer whips and chains.

Tanith Lee’s “The God Orkrem” & Interview at Fantasy

Tanith Lee’s “The God Orkrem” & Interview at Fantasy

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tanithlee1It’s a great week for lovers of fantasy fiction!

A brand-new Tanith Lee story, “The God Orkrem” has just been posted for free reading at FANTASY Magazine: http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/new/new-fiction/the-god-orkrem/

Also a special treat for Lee fans is the brand-new interview: www.fantasy-magazine.com/new/new-nonfiction/author-spotlight-tanith-lee-2/