Cosplay Friday: Calypso

We celebrate the Halloween weekend with one of my favorite magical villains today. It's rare to see a character as rare as Spider-Man villain and voodoo priestess Calypso brought to vivid life through cosplay, but I would find it amazing to ever see it done as well as Jazs Lavonne does here.

As always, you can check out a lot more great Cosplay pictures over on the Tumblr. And while you are admiring some great cosplay here, don’t forget to check out some of the other great stuff on SuperPoweredFiction.com this week!

What's Up for October 27, 2017

What's Up is a simple post where I give you links to the books, comics, movies, games and/or music I have been enjoying as of late. Feel free to check them out if you would like to enjoy them as well or give your opinions of these works in the comments below (though do try to keep it spoiler free.)





Succubus Blues | Sheriff of Babylon | Spider-Man: Origin of the Hobgoblin |
Meet the Robinsons | Lana Del Rey: Lust for Life

I just made the list!

One thing I always do as I set out to write a new project, especially a novel length one, is a playlist of music to serve as inspiration for my writing. I usually frame this around the feeling of the novel, but with this new project, I'm specifically tailoring two playlists around each of the lead characters.

Soul singer Kehlani is not just a feature on the playlist, but
another source picture in my succubus image folder. 

I've kept no secret about my succubus co-lead of the new novel, so it will be her playlist I share with you here first. It's all conveniently framed up on Spotify for your enjoyment if you have your own succubus-based novel to write (which I'm sure you all do.) Alternately, give it a listen and maybe you'll find a few clues about the character of Aisha as she slowly takes shape in my head.

Succubi and sucky jobs

This image of Suicide Girl Ginary is currently
the placeholder image in my head for one of
the two leads in my November project.
Image copyright Suicide Girls.

It's been a strange couple of weeks. I've in the midst of my final days at my job of the last three years. It's one I have never been totally passionate about, but in recent months I have come to realize the culture of that employer was nothing but poisonous. Thankfully I had a second job in place that could easily become a full time job. Next week, I'll leave behind overnight shifts and the back and issues given me by concrete floors and move into a comfortable job at a local bookstore. While entering the retail field full time in November isn't the best idea ever, I look forward to the free time it will open as I start to rebuild my writing schedule.

As I mentioned previously, I'm setting up for NaNoWriMo right now. With the new job starting on Halloween, I'll have free time open just in time to get working on fifty thousand words for the month of November.

But the move to one job with far more satisfaction in it than two jobs with one being a soul-sucking miasma should free up a lot more time for everything. I hope to use the next month's novel as the springboard for regular writing projects. I have a few ideas already percolating for the days after the novel, but I'm taking baby steps right now.

Anyone interested in joining me for some novel writing in November, can become my writing buddy at the site. My screen name might even be a clue to an upcoming project I have in mind.

In the mean time, I'll be continuing to develop my female lead for the new book, a reluctant succubus in a world far too easy for her to find prey.

What are you currently doing to develop your novel before November? Let me know in the comments or on social media?

Great Art: Ramona Flowers by Bryan Lee O'Malley

We close the week with new-ish art by Scott Pilgrim and Seconds artist Bryan Lee O'Malley as he gives the world a new illustration of the always great Ramona Flowers.

As always, you can check out a lot more Great Art over on the Tumblr. And while you are admiring some great art here, don’t forget to check out some of the other great stuff on SuperPoweredFiction.com this week!

What's Up for October 20, 2017

What's Up is a simple post where I give you links to the books, comics, movies, games and/or music I have been enjoying as of late. Feel free to check them out if you would like to enjoy them as well or give your opinions of these works in the comments below (though do try to keep it spoiler free.)




Second Nature | Wonder Woman by George Perez | Star Wars: Kanan vol. 2 |
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 | Twenty One Pilots: Blurryface

That's My Jam 2: Guts Over Fear

That's My Jam is a simple concept. It's where I share the song most stuck in my head currently. It might be new, it might be old, it might be popular, it might be completely obscure. All are presented without commentary, but I invite everyone to share their opinions on the tracks in the comments.

Cosplay Friday: Morrigan

As I talked a bit about an upcoming project with succubus lore in play it made sense to me to share a great cosplay of Darkstalkers' Morrigan, probably the world's most famous succubus character. Cosplayer Kassandra Leigh brings her to life amazingly well with a spot on costume here.

As always, you can check out a lot more great Cosplay pictures over on the Tumblr. And while you are admiring some great cosplay here, don’t forget to check out some of the other great stuff on SuperPoweredFiction.com this week!

What's Up for October 13, 2017

What's Up is a simple post where I give you links to the books, comics, movies, games and/or music I have been enjoying as of late. Feel free to check them out if you would like to enjoy them as well or give your opinions of these works in the comments below (though do try to keep it spoiler free.)

Chris Jericho: No is a Four Letter Word | All-Star Batman: Ends of the Earth | Karnak | Guardians | Twenty One Pilots: Blurryface

That's My Jam 1: Feel It Still

That's My Jam is a simple concept. It's where I share the song most stuck in my head currently. It might be new, it might be old, it might be popular, it might be completely obscure. All are presented without commentary, but I invite everyone to share their opinions on the tracks in the comments.

Prep in my step

As I wrap up edits on one project, I am also deep into preparation mode for my next personal writing project. National Novel Writing Month begins on November 1st and I plan on using it as motivation to start my next full length writing project.

While I have done a little bit of short story work in the last few weeks, I haven't taken the time to write anything of significant length since summer. But Nanowrimo offers me a chance to fix that and I will be hard at work on a new project, one that takes me out of my usual super wheel house. 

I'm sure I will speak about this project more as I start actually put word to screen, but this new work will be my first foray into urban fantasy, a genre with its own traits but one at the edge of super powered fiction already. It should come as no surprise that I have a supernatural tinted character created decades ago that I think would be a perfect fit for the genre, but the transition from aged super-concept to another genre offers a few challenges.

Setting has proved the easiest. I made the decision to set the first novel in my own neck of the woods. Eastern Iowa has a few weird bits of supernatural history. Coupled with a location most people outside the state don't realize is a city of a quarter million and I have a fascinating place to drop my leads. 

This is a great piece by Genzoman, but I blame Darkstalkers for the sudden
need to give every succubus wings.

From there I've been working on lore built around various secret societies and ancient fears. Succubi, incubi, Lilith, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Knights Templar are a few of the touchstones that will be featured in the upcoming work. While I plan to make the story my own, I also don't want to trounce all over standing legend. As a writer, I often get annoyed when someone uses a concept in name only. My goal is to introduce these concepts in a way both true to their "history" and interesting to new readers. That means research though, so I'm deep into that as I write this. 

Prep can become its own evil however, so I specifically opened a window of time for myself to do it in. I want to have a good idea where I'm going with the new novel ahead of November and what it will feature, though not enough that I cannot let the characters surprise me as they go. That is the joy of writing for me and I don't like the research to get in the way when I'm barreling through 50,000 words in thirty days. 

Great Art: Matt Wagner's Demon

Matt Wagner was a big name on the indies due to his work on Mage and Grendel, but his first mainstream work was on a four issue limited series for DC Comics starring the Demon Etrigan. It's a great work that virtually reinvents the character and sets up a years long run in an ongoing series about a year later. (Wagner sadly only worked on one issue of the later series.)

But Wagner created some fascinating art for the book, such as this fun splash page focused on the sudden split of Etrigan from his human host Jason Blood.

Image via the Daily Splash Page.

Missed the Boat 1: Red Wolf

Missed the Boat is a new series where I focus on criminally under-appreciated works, series canceled too soon or subjects otherwise outside the normal grain of typical superheroes.

I have a tendency when it comes to big two super-books to seek out the smaller books. Sometimes this means I get a trade of a complete "ongoing" series that only lasted six issues. And sometimes these are some of the best books Marvel or DC can offer.

Red Wolf by Nathan Edmondson and Dalibor Talijic is just such a book. Featuring a time (and dimension) lost Native American sheriff first introduced in Marvel 1872 (himself a reboot of both an old western character and a modern hero dating back to the 70s.) But this new Red Wolf is dropped into a modern city of Santa Rosa.

This great Dale Keown cover probably shouldn't
have been a variant. Regular cover artist Jeffrey
Veregge probably did little to help the book's chances.

The story could have been a traditional fish-out-of-water time travel tale, but the creators do an excellent job of building a mythology around the town and the character in the six issues they have. Edmondson clearly hoped for a much longer run with the character, but the swift cancellation of several post-Secret Wars titles took Red Wolf with it.

It's a shame too, as for the first time Marvel seemed to have a credible Native American hero.

Red Wolf: Man Out of Time comes cheap on Amazon, so don't pass up a chance to read this strange single trade of a great series and wonder with me what could have been.