Thursday, March 29, 9:00 P.M., Panel: Why We Love Lovecraft: His works are more popular now than ever. Come hear why we love the grandfather of horror! (Peter Cannon, Bobbie B. Wilcox, Eric Swedin, James Chambers, Ross E. Lockhart)

Friday, March 30, 4:00 P.M., Reading.

And I’ll be showing off copies of The Dead Bear Witness, hot of the presses from Dark Quest Books, as well as The Engines of Sacrifice, published by Dark Regions Press.

• Zombies Are the New Vampires, Sat 12:00 – 1:00, Westchester Ballroom A2

• What’s Hot – Graphic Novels, Sat 5:00 – 6:00, Westchester Ballroom A2

• Reading: James Chambers(M), Sat 6:30 – 7:00, Bartell

• What’s Hot – Webcomics, Sun 10:00 – 11:00, Westchester Ballroom A2

Art by Glen Ostrander; Design by Christopher Mills

I’m excited to announce that my zombie novella, The Dead Bear Witness, is now available from Dullahan Press, an imprint of Dark Quest Books!

This is volume one of the four-volume Corpse Fauna series, which will complete a story cycle which I began writing in 1997. Although some of the Corpse Fauna stories were previously published, these new editions will present them in revised and greatly expanded versions with new stories to be published for the first time.

“The Dead Bear Witness” was the first to see print, in the 2004 anthology The Dead Walk published by Die Monster Die Books. It has been expanded to more than double its orignal length with a considerably richer story and deeper characterization. Also include in Volume One is the new story “Birch’s Refugees,” a 13,000-word piece that sheds new light one two of Corpse Fauna’s most important characters, Birch and the Red Man.

My intent with Corpse Fauna is to finally fulfill the potential I saw when I first wrote about Cornell and Della and a world where the dead come back to life.

A chronicle of survival in a world of the living dead. There is no Heaven or Hell; there is only blood and the dust of flesh.

True, it seems like zombie books (and movies, and television shows, and comics…) are a dime a dozen these days. But Corpse Fauna brings something unique to the genre in its characters, settings, social commentary, and the horrifying nature of its walking dead. A bullet to the head isn’t enough to stop the Corpse Fauna dead, and these corpses possess a strange and terrifying feature hinted at on the cover.

For more information, visit the Corpse Fauna page. In the coming weeks, I’ll be posting more about the series, including story excerpts and updates on the next volumes.

First up, Dark Regions Press, publisher of Resurrection House and The Engines of Sacrifice, has recently launched a revamped, redesigned website, complete with a new company logo. The new site looks great and is very easy to navigate. Drop by and check it out. Meanwhile, DRP is also running a free horror books raffle. Sign up for the DRP newsletter to enter.

Second, it’s that time of year again, the time for lunacy with the Lunarians at… Lunacon! Held once again the Escher Hilton (not it’s real name) in scenic Rye Brook, New York, Lunacon will take place on March 16-18. I’ll be attending and posting my programming schedule here as soon as I have it. Also in attendance will be my frequent partners in crime: Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Mike McPhail, Russ Colchamiro, and Patrick Thomas.

Self-appointed expert on strange pulp and literature, Timothy L. Mayer has reviewed The Domino Lady: Sex as a Weapon on his blog. After a quick recap of DL’s pulp history, he goes onto say lots of nice things about the book and its authors, including this about my contribution: The best story in the collection is “The Devil, You Know” by James Chambers. Not only does Chambers give us a Chinese-American diamond fence named Lee who dresses and talks like a cowboy, but he has The Domino Lady captured by a band of Satanists. Taken to a yacht off the coast, the Domino Lady is recruited by their sinister leader and forced to watch obscene rituals. It has all the sleaze factor you might expect from the shudder pulps, including a naked Amazon whipping men to death. Off course, The Domino Lady is a little too smart for her captors.

Drop by Z-7 Headquarters to read the full review and check out the rest of Timothy’s blog, which is full of great posts about pulp fiction both classic and new. The Domino Lady: Sex as a Weapon, published by Moonstone Books in 2009, is available on Amazon.

Sat 11:00 AM in Plaza III (Three) (1 hour)
CREATING YOUR COMIC
(871)

[Panelists: Robert Kauffmann (mod), Phil Kahn, Brian Koscienski, James Chambers]

You have an idea for a comic? Great, but now what?  We’ll discuss online vs. print publishing, revenue sources, getting started, and keeping your comic going

Sat
2:00 PM in Plaza II (Two) (1 hour)
COMICS: THE ART OF SEQUENTIAL STORYTELLING
(869)

[Panelists: James Chambers (mod), Phil Kahn, Brian Koscienski, J. Andrew World, Ahlen Moin]

A discussion of how to use art and dialogue to tell your story, panel by panel

Sat 8:00 PM in
Crystal Ballroom Two (1 hour)
THE EVOLUTION OF DRACULA SINCE BRAM STOKER
(824)

[Panelists: Alison Campbell-Wise (mod), Carole Buggé, Jonathan Maberry, Stephanie Burke, James Chambers, Roman Ranieri]

You can’t keep a good vampire down for the count. He’s been staked, exposed to sunlight, drowned, dissolved, etc. countless times, but he’s still with us. He has, however, changed considerably over the years. Did you know that Bram Stoker’s creation actually appears in broad daylight at least twice, suffering no ill effects? That he begins as an old man who gets younger? That he has charnel breath? Let’s explore the ways this character has evolved, and the stages has gone through.

Sat 10:00 PM in Plaza III (Three) (1 hour)
WHAT MAKES H.P. LOVECRAFT UNSTOPPABLE? (826)

[Panelists: John Ashmead (mod), James Chambers, Chris Pisano, Darrell Schweitzer, Eric Avedissian, Roman Ranieri]

Great writers, we contend, are the ones the critics cannot stop. Major critics, notably Edmund Wilson, tried, but to no avail. Today Lovecraft is famous world-wide.  Yet when he died in 1937, his only published book was a wretchedly amateur production which had barely sold a hundred copies.  What made the difference?  Was it all those role-playing games and plush Cthulhu toys? The movies? Or something inherent in the texts

They’re sometimes wise, often grumpy, and they covet gold in the form of good writing. They like to sleep a lot too, under mountains of manuscripts, but once you get them going, they’ll torch villages to make sure every last mixed metaphor, split infinitive, and threadbare cliche is scorched to ash. Therefore it strikes me as most appropriate that the editors of Dragon’s Lure have garnered a nomination for Best Anthology at the 2012 EPIC Awards. My story, “He Who Burns,” appears in the book, introducting Max Toth, forensic alchemist of New Alexandria. And here’s the official announcement:

Dark Quest Books and Editors Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Jennifer Ross, and Jeffrey Lyman are proud to announce that Dragon’s Lure has been selected as a finalist for the 2012 EPIC Award for Best Anthology. Dragon’s Lure is a multi-author anthology with contributions by:  John Grant, Vonnie Winslow Crist, Patrick Thomas, James Chambers, Misty Massey, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Mike Penncavage, CE Murphy, Hildy Silverman, Bernie Mojzes, Randy Farran, CJ Henderson, Claire Stephens McMurray, Robert E. Waters, DC Wilson, Jean Marie Ward, Keith RA DeCandido, Anna Yardney, Jeffrey Lyman, James Daniel Ross, and David B. Coe.