Friend Chris Reed and I cut this promo ad for the Atomic Swan Zine Fest sponsored by If Ezine. If you're in Flint, come on out and support local writers!

Zine Fest

I'm afraid I have to phone in this week's post. Sorry, folks. I'm a little busy and blogging just isn't in me. And Mondays don't seem to be pushing any additional traffic my way, as of next week I'm going back to my old, preferred posting-on-Fridays schedule. Until then, zines!!!



And check out the Atomic Swan Zine Fest sponsored by If EZine on April 8th in downtown Flint!

Atomic Swan Zine Fest sponsored by If EZine

I've been doing zines for a very long time. I love them. Here I talk about the Atomic Swan Zine Fest sponsored by If EZine that I've been putting together for April 8, 2011 in a celebreation of storytelling and all things zine-y.

Enjoy.

New Zines and New Years

The new year brings a lot of new things my way. For one, I'll be making my attempt at blogging on Mondays. I've thought about this for some time - it seems like two years now that I've been considering it. So, here we are, Monday the 17th of January, and I'm blogging.

This week's blog post is all about zines. This August will mark the 8th anniversary of If EZine: The Free Online Magazine of Thrilling Speculative Fiction. I'm pretty proud to be able to say I'm still going strong with the old ezine.

I have a lot of zany zine-y stuff in my life already and much more awaits me in my near-future. For one, I've published my first book. Tales from the Ifreet is a collection of the serialized fiction that can be found in If EZine, plus one new story not published anywhere else. Tales from the Ifreet is now available. My good old cohort J. Ho not only did a beautiful job on the cover art (both front and back) but he recently blogged about it. You should check out his artwork. He's just about the finest illustrator I've ever come across (and I'm not saying that just because we're also old friends) and I'm incredibly happy with his rendering of Iffy the Ifreet, If EZine's mascot and horror host. Thanks, J. Ho.

Cover art by J. Ho

In addition to the book, If EZine and my movie company Atomic Swan Films are hosting the Atomic Swan Zine Fest sponsored by If EZine this April. It's Flint, Michigan's first real zine fest (as far as I know; feel free to correct me on this). We have quite a few zinesters and creative types excited to participate and attend this zine fest.

On the Origins of the Atomic Swan Zine Fest sponsored by If EZine: As I became more involved around Flint and started meeting more people, I've found there's a pretty big sub-culture of writers here. But there aren't many events in the area that I felt properly celebrated the art of telling tales and writing. The Skelebration of Scares is certainly a very good one (wherein local writers get together to read their scariest tales at Halloween), but has a certain emphasis on reading and performance and less on the actual formulation of words on the page. There's the blossoming Flint Comix Con, which is great, but has a definite emphasis on comics and visual art and not so much on writing (though they generously make room for writers; in fact, it was at the Flint Comix Con I met local writer, Skelebrations organizer and fellow shenanigans lover Chris Ringler). But, in general, there wasn't an event specifically celebrating the visceral act and art of writing and the DIY spirit of punk, science fiction and the pulpy, gritty, down-and-dirty doin'-it-my-own-damn-way art of zines. The DIY attitude is definitely prevalent in Flint, but no one seemed to be celebrating it outright, at least not in relation to writing.

In essence, I saw a need in Flint to have a zine fest. Not one to wait around for others (there's that DIY spirit again), I threw out some feelers, found out Ringler once produced zines, met Chris Reed who loves zines and came across a general resounding, "Um, yeah, you know what? Flint SHOULD have a zine fest" sort of reaction.

So I got off my ass, recruited Chris Reed into my zine army and we're setting off to war, as it were.

I'd like to take this moment to thank Reed, who graciously accepted when I asked if he would chair this event. In his own words, "I'll chair it like a la-z-boy." Haha. I knew Chris would be perfect to chair the event. Not only is he an entertaining Absurdist (both in person and through his writing), his love for zines is seconded only probably to my own.

The zine fest has gotten me back into the writing mode. I'm already working on my second zine in two days with plans for at least two more. Here's the cover of the first (this zine collects some of my more funny, asinine and worthless Tweets).



So, here we are: zines, zines, zines in 2011. If you're in the area on April 8th between 6pm and 9 pm, come to The Lunch Studio for the Atomic Swan Zine Fest and let's rock it hard.

Punk Rock Rummage Sale 3-D!

I was going to take this last week off. As it turns out, I got the opportunity to take part in the Punk Rock Rummage Sale 3-D!



So I spent the last week making stuffs for this arts & crafts & punk show. I'll be selling the following digs (and more):

Beanie


Hand painted patch


Zine



Atomic Swan Films Liberty Spike Beanie


Come out and do some of your XMas shopping!

"A Child of Wonder"

“A Child of Wonder” - A Preview of the Editorial from Issue #12 of If - E - Zine(tm)

It is difficult for me to believe I’ve been publishing If – E – Zine™ for five years now. In those five years I’ve moved three times (including once across the country), watched two Olympics (just witnessed Michael Phelps win his seventh gold and heard he had already won his eighth), watched nearly every game of a World Cup, been best man in two weddings, congratulated three friends on becoming fathers, watched my country re-elect an idiot, went from paying $2 to nearly $5 for a gallon of gas, read more books and watched more movies than I care to admit, got glasses, caught the biggest bass of my life (17-½”; 6.5 lbs.), written a novel, been to two Wrestlemanias, tasted alcohol for the first time, enjoyed several fine cigars, went through treatment for Hepatitis C, hunted for the first time in my life, grew my first tomatoes, attended every event of a local Golden Gloves championship, mowed my first lawn, watched with the world as New Orleans was flooded, went to New Orleans, went to Disneyworld, reconnected with old friends I’ve not seen in a decade or more, watched Sri Lanka nearly get washed away into the sea, said farewell to Arthur C. Clark and Kurt Vonnegut, watched the Giants upset the Pats (and cheered!), watched my Angels win the World Series without me, been rejected by countless publishers and magazines, went from lower-middle class to steeped in poverty and surrounded by neighborhood violence, made new friends, been scared to say what I really thought lest my country invade my home, rowed a boat, practiced yoga, watched Los Angeles burn (some more), learned to crochet, blogged, and ate and slept and done horribly boring domestic things since I published that first issue in August, 2003.

It sounds like I’ve done a lot in five years. I guess I have. But in many ways my life has been quite pedestrian. Through it all has been my little ezine.

If – E – Zine was started so I could practice my writing, to cut my teeth in hopes of making jagged edges into finely pointed fangs.

If – E – Zine was started so I could promote myself without the aide of an agent or PR specialist.

If – E – Zine was started so I could have fun working on it between larger projects, to break up the heaviness elsewhere in life. I think the idea of having fun, of fulfilling my inner geek, of celebrating the things I love speaks to any success the ezine has had these first five years. At the core of If – E – Zine is a fan of science fiction, of horror and of Halloween. A fan that loves the material and history of zines as well as all things speculative, all things filling the world outside human boundaries and the science that pushes at those boundaries; a fan of all things creepy and brimming with wonder.

Wait a minute… creepy? Science fiction? Indeed! For what greater horror-maker is there but science? Perhaps religion? Exorcists and mad scientists abound in horror stories because they bring with them the authority of their respective fields, fields that fill our lives to give us purpose and reason… and a horrifying tale backed by purpose and reason is far more plausible, far more horrifying.

No matter where I go, no matter what I do with my life I will always be that boy growing up in Long Beach, California; watching classic movies on the Family Film Festival hosted by Tom Hatten on KTLA; venturing into books with Gumby; entering the Land of Frooze; enjoying a slice of chocolate cream pie at Millie’s on Redondo; playing in the schoolyard of Horace Mann Elementary.

As I sit here writing this on a yellow legal pad while watching some horror movie on TV just the way I wrote my first story on a yellow legal pad at age eight while watching the annual Twilight Zone marathon, I know I am still that little boy.

If – E – Zine and I are children of wonder.

Thank you for five wonder-filled years.

I’ll get to work on the next five years as soon as I can.

"Hunter of the Dead" -- Vikings vs Zombies!!!

Today's post comes once more from the webpages of If - E - Zine(tm) Issue Number 9. I offer you the first two pages of "Hunter of the Dead" in which Urdgar, a Viking, finds himself suddenly thrust into a zombie-filled apocalyptic world! This is part one of two. Watch for part two next Friday! Enjoy!


“Hunter of the Dead”
© 2007 by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved.

“It was a time of Vikings. The bitter breath of Frost Giants bedeviled the landscape. On the horizon came the shambling hordes of the dead.”
- From the Tales of Ugarth

A quiet snow fell upon the small collection of huts. Haffdann and Ovbjorn, dressed in furs, busily loaded provisions onto the longboat.
“Ya think Ordak will be out soon?” Ovbjorn’s baritone boomed even as a whisper.
“Give him way,” Haffdann said. “His wife has taken ill. Let him tend to her. We can load this alone.”

“We need more hands. Our men number too few. We’ve not even enough men for the oars.”

“With this air? Feel it. A storm comes and Thor rides with it just beyond our range. We’ll not need oars so long as our hempsails hold.”

A figure exited a small hut some distance away.

“Quiet,” said Haffdann. “Ordak comes now.”

Ordak was a tall man, though not taller than the hardy lot of men he called upon for heritage. The snow packed, crunching beneath his massive feet. His mane was long, brown and like a bear’s. Where man ended draped furs began was unclear. His eyes were emeralds and his skin pale leathers. He showed some youth, though the girth of age was filling him at the waist and cheek.

His voice was like a wolf’s, husky and growling. “What’s the wind tell you, Haffdann?”

“Our viking will be met by Thor.”

“We ride with Thor,” Ordak repeated.

“How’s your woman?” Haffdann asked softly.

Ordak eyed him but said nothing.

More figures moved through the shadows of night. At first three, then ten. Ovbjorn saw them first.

“Ya think our lousy oarsmen are comin’ to help?” he asked.

“Maybe Sigurd drank them stupid and has convinced them all to an early start,” Ovbjorn said. Ordak and Haffdann laughed.

A scream came to them as a banshee’s wail in the night.

“Fredierike!” Ordak yelled compulsively. His muscles tensed, launching him from the longboat and onto the soft snowy sands of the shore. His thick thighs contracted and stretched. He ran towards his hut, Ovbjorn and Haffdann trailing behind.

Another scream, this time from another hut and male. Ordak slowed in confusion before pressing on towards his woman.

He called for his wife once more. More screams filled the night.

“Raiders!” called Ovbjorn, but Ordak was as a hawk. No shape, no form, no shadow filled his vision. Only thoughts of his woman remained. His feet dug at the snow. His muscles churned. Death was on the air, in his nose as his world went red with horror and rage.

He plowed into the hut. There he found three men naked and pale as if with illness tearing flesh from his crying, dying mate. She screamed with frenzy and fear.
He paused in horror, cursed, “By the gods!”, then his muscles rippled beneath flesh, springing him through the air. He snatched one of the pale offenders tight by the head with both hands. One hand came away full of wispy, dry hair. Unthinking, he cocked his enemy’s head back with his still clutching hand and delivered a heavy blow with his fist, hair still in his hand. The man’s jaw broke with a snap and Ordak pushed him away.

The other two pale men looked up, blood spilling and spraying from their mouths. Their eyes were pure yellow with mad black tentacles spearing towards a pupilless center. Their flesh hung loosely from their bodies.

“By the gods,” Ordak cursed once more under his breath. “By what madness hast thou spawned?”

They were on him, each grabbing an arm. Dirty, gray nails dug into his forearm. Ordak whipped about until one fell crashing away. Ordak grabbed the other by the chin and forehead, twisting until its neck popped once, twice, thrice before throwing the creature against a wall of the hut.

Ordak stood over his bloody wife. Crimson bubbles gurgled from her mouth and an open wound at her neck. Her breath wheezed once, twice then faded. Ordak felt some sense of her hover in the air nearby. When the feeling faded, something faded from Ordak’s own heart.

A small shuffling of feet whipped Ordak’s head round. The three inhuman yet human-looking creatures were moving to stand once more.

“How is this possible?” Ordak cried. He leapt from bedside to the fire beside which lay his hatchet. He it up and it slipped into a position of comfort on its own as he yelled, “I’ll rend you with my steel!”

He became a dervish of bladed wind, a wintry whorl of biting death. The hatchet, spinning, lopped off a piece of one creature’s skull. It kept coming after Ordak.
Ordak screamed, swinging, cleaving off the arm of another. It kept coming.

Changing tactics, Ordak swung low to cut the leg off the third creature at the knee. It toppled and had to crawl using it’s hand and one remaining leg, but it kept coming.

With a lifting boot, Ordak kicked at the legless one and sent it flying into a wall. The hut shook with the clangor and blast.

Each time Ordak swung he hit.

The creatures barely bled, screamed none and kept coming.

“Demon spawns of Hel!” Ordak screamed and chopped, chopped and screamed until only bits and pieces of fleshy-splattered ichor covered the walls and the floor of the hut.


Watch for Part Two next Friday!

"A Bit of Chocolate" - Complete Full Short Story!

Today's post is once more from If - E - Zine(tm) Issue Number 9, this year's Special Halloween Edition. This is the full short story. Enjoy!

“A Bit of Chocolate”
© 2007 by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved.

The small bit of chocolate was a perfect sphere wrapped in foil. Donal held it lightly between his finger and thumb, rolling it so as not to apply too much of his body’s heat to any one point and melt the contents.

The chocolate became a star became a world drifting in darkness. Donal sat at the port of a spacecraft, watching.

“Donal,” the voice was mechanically filtered. “Donal. Stop daydreaming. Get to work.”
Donal heard nothing.

In another part of the ship Captain Barris and his first mate, Evelyn Trudeau, watched Donal through security monitors.

“He’s gone again,” said Trudeau.

“For crying out loud,” Captain Barris exhaled in defeat.

“It’s not Donal’s fault. The space sensitive are subject to Space Fever.”

“I know, I know.” Captain Barris depressed a button and spoke through the comlink again. “Donal. Donal. Stop daydreaming, Donal. Donal? Are you with us?”

* * * * *

Captain Barris and Trudeau were floating in a meeting room of a space station with Dr. Iizuka.

“It’s not Donal’s fault,” said Dr. Iizuka. “Some level of stress is bound to affect everyone that comes into space. Even you, Barris. Your levels of excitement and enthusiasm, though typically not viewed as traditional stress, releases chemicals into your body that elevates your heart rate, your blood pressure, your breathing rate, a lot of things. Prolonged exposure to such elevated levels of stress will cause a certain level of wear. Endurance and metal adaptability is key to space existence.

“We try to get people who basically view space travel as a job. There’s no excitement to that which is viewed as routine, no stress. The people we look for are those that see space travel as just another day. The problem is that still relatively few people have actually ventured into space.”

“If I’ve such high levels of excitement and stress, then why keep me around?” Captain Barris asked.

“Because you’re good as a leader and perform consistently in high-stress situations. You have a good deal of endurance and adaptability.”

“What about Donal?” Trudeau asked.

“He’s just another one that couldn’t take deep space.”

“But he did well enough getting to the station.”

“Yes, but here at the station though we may be floating about in weightlessness we are still under the influence of the earth’s gravity, we are still subject in small, subtle ways to our home planet. Here we are in orbit and still attached by an unseen umbilical cord.

“But out there, in deep space, the connection diminishes. We’re all as children taking its first steps: shaky and nervous and capable of falling flat on our faces.
“Again, it’s not Donal’s fault.”

“But he’s the third mathematician that’s gone off on us like this,” Captain Barris said. “And the seventh crew member in total. There has to be a fault somewhere and I’m beginning to think it’s not all physiological.”

“How do you mean?” asked Dr. Iizuka.

“If more than one person is experiencing problems, than its cause is likely to be some common aspect of our humanity. We may each have different backgrounds but we all go through the same rigorous training which means our training is in some way deficient in that its not catching and filtering out whatever is causing us problems once we get into deep space. Our training is not screening for something.”

“But what?” asked Trudeau. “We go through some of the toughest training on earth and in space.”

“It has to be something we don’t yet know about,” Captain Barris answered.

“From what Donal told me he was having trouble identifying an object he was looking at. I think he might have been hallucinating. He says he doesn’t remember you calling to him. He was essentially catatonic which leads me to believe he may be suffering from some sort of schizoaffective disorder. In fact, all of the people that have suffered from ‘Space Fever’ have displayed similar symptoms.”

“Why doesn’t our training screen for such a thing?” asked Trudeau.

“It’s not that easy. While all the elements may be preset within a person, there must be a triggering event for the disorder to manifest itself.”

“The triggering event is then somewhere within the deep space screening,” suggested Trudeau.

“It would seem,” confirmed Dr. Iizuka.

“So it could be physiological, after all?” asked Captain Barris.

“It could be a lot of things,” Dr. Iizuka said.

“What I was getting at earlier,” said Captain Barris, “is that it could be something within our society. Something so obvious that we’ve not thought about it.

“It’s been nearly a century since the first manned space flight. And just now we’re gathering a team for Mars. Why would it take so long for us to be reaching out to our neighbor? Technology doesn’t develop that slowly unless it’s stifled with a lack of interest or funding. The private sector didn’t get involved until cash prizes were involved, then the private sector even spent more money than the prizes were worth.

“That only suggests money wasn’t a motivator. That leaves a lack of interest. Humanity simply isn’t interested in space exploration or advancing itself.

“Dr. Iizuka, you mentioned an ‘unseen umbilical’. Maybe you weren’t far off. Maybe when we feel gravity slip from us we snap, pardon the expression. We’re all birds leaving the nest. Some fly, others fall and die.”

“That’s quite a bit of speculation,” said Trudeau.

“Maybe,’ said Dr. Iizuka, “but we have to entertain every idea until we come up with solid evidence.”

Captain Barris shook his head. “They’re so damned concerned about the politics of the day. I’m glad we’re up here and away from it all.”

“Is that why you became an astronaut, Captain?” Dr. Iizuka asked.

“Actually,” Captain Barris stammered a bit before he decided to be honest, “Yeah.”

* * * * *

Captain Barris rolled his eyes in boredom.

“Seems we’ve lost another one,” Trudeau said.

He watched as another prospective astronaut lolled his head about, unresponsive. Captain Barris closed his eyes. His eyelids exploded with a field of colors before his pupils. Blues and greens and reds swirled themselves into tiny spots before his eyes. For a moment he thought they looked like small foil-wrapped chocolates.

A Special Announcement About the Future

Hey folks,

I hope this post finds all of you well. I'm a bit busy and wanted to share with everyone my plans for the future.

As you may or may not know I am the founder and proprietor of Black Swans with Atom Bombs Publishing, hereafter referred to as BSWAB. In January I published my first paper zine, called "Bleeding from the Nose, Twisting in the Wind", under the BSWAB label. In the near future I will be publishing more paper zines.


Among my many constant concerns is streamlining the presentation of my work for ease of consumption and enjoyment for my audience. As a result, virtually everything I do henceforth shall be under the BSWAB label.

Starting in August I will be revamping a few things in the hope of streamlining my material and presentation.

In August I will be re-launching TheLordShen.com (my site) with a whole new design and some added content. I hope you all will return in the future to check it out.

Also in August I will be re-launching this blog with a new design. It will still be my official blog, but with more focus.

"Sketches of Cool" will become "Atomic Swan Serials". Seeing the amount of response I received via email and comments (which, again, I thank all of you for) to the fairy tale "The Children of Gods" I have decided that the major purpose of this blog should be to present serialized stories to my loyal fans and friends. I still may throw in a rant or a poem or a news piece here and there, but this blog's focus will be serialized tales.

Nothing is currently set in stone as to what my first offering of a serialized tale will be, but the most immediate idea I have includes multiple kaiju (giant monsters like Godzilla).


In September I will be publishing the first Atomic Swan paper zine under the BSWAB label. The first issue will contain some of my journal entries, fiction and poetry all concerning my battles with Hepatitis C.


Then in October I will be presenting my annual Halloween edition of my e-zine If - E - Zine(tm): The Free Online Magazine of Thrilling Speculative Fiction! This will be the first ever MONSTER ISSUE, meaning that not only will there be about twice as many stories (I usually average 2 or 3 stories per e-zine, so this MONSTER ISSUE will have 4 or 5 stories) but there will also be at least one tale with a monster as its main focus. In fact, I think I may steal the idea of "one monster per episode" from the original Outer Limits television series and require the e-zine to feature not only some elements of science fiction, but at least one story with a monster. What do you think? Let me know!

The e-zine will also be published for the first time under the BSWAB label this October.

My plate is full, to say the least. Wish me luck and please check back for updates and leave comments should the mood strike you. Also please be sure to check out the e-zine's MySpace profile and request an add if you have a profile, too!


Thanks again to everyone for the loyal readership and let's hope things only get more exciting from here on in.


~ charles