Wild Stars Comics Giveaway! [Aug 23 – 30th]

With Wild Stars V: The Artomique Paradigm coming to a close next month in the Fall issue of Cirsova Magazine, we’re thrilled to be able to run this promotion in concert with Michael Tierney!

We’re giving away a complete set of the 2000s Wild Stars Comics! We’re also giving away a rare copy of the Across the Distance Wild Stars Art Portfolio.

In the 1970s, Michael Tierney wrote a series of novels that formed the Wild Stars universe: Wild Stars Rising in 1976 (a different novel from Wild Stars 4: Wild Star Rising), Moonshadow in 1977/78, and First Marker in 1978 (later adapted into the graphic novel Wild Stars 1: The Book of Circles), which were the first uses of the trademarked term of Wild Stars.    In 1978, Michael released a portfolio illustrating scenes from these novels and his then-recently released magazine, The Multiversal Scribe . Each print was individually signed with matching numbers, with three plates illustrated by Michael Tierney and three plates illustrated by Bruce Conklin.

One of Bruce’s plates featured the first appearance of Phaedra.
One of Michael plates featured the first appearance of Eagal Ir Radin.
While Phaedra has since appeared in the comics and novels, Eagal Ir Radin will make his first series appearance in 2022 when Cirsova Magazine begins serialization of Wild Stars 6: Orphan of the Shadowy Moons (originally the 1977/78 Moonshadow novel).

To enter, send an email to: Cirsova at yahoo dot com

Subjectline: Wild Stars Giveaway

In the body of the email, include the answers to the following Wild Stars trivia question:

1. In Wild Stars 4, Part 2, what is the Lantern Star?
    A. A lodestar
    B. A pair of stars in very tight orbit.
    C. A stellar signpost used by Roy Kirk’s grandfather.
    D. All of the above.

2. In Wild Stars 4, Part 2, what is the the E=MC2 trigger used for?
    A. Assassination.
    B. Manufacturing beer.
    C. Launching a starship.
    D. All of the above.

3. In Wild Stars Volume One: The Book of Circles–Recalibrated, what was the identity of the telepathic armored warrior?
    A. A time traveling First Marker.
    B. A time traveling Ancient Warrior.
    C. A time traveling agent selling auto warranties.
    D. None of the above.

For the Across the Distance portfolio:
   
4. Who is Eagal Ir Radin?   

A. The Ancient Warrior.
    B. The Ancient Warrior’s father.
    C. The Ancient Warrior’s adoptive father.
    D. The immortal known as God Father.

All Entries must be received by 8 PM CST August 30th! Entries with the most correct answers for Questions 1-3 will be entered for the drawing to win a complete set of Wild Stars Comics. Entries with correct answers for Question 4 will be entered for the drawing to win a copy of the Across the Distance Portfolio.

Be sure to visit http://thewildstars.com/ and https://cirsova.wordpress.com/wildstars/ for more about The Wild Stars!

Cirsova Fall 2021 Issue Out September 15th!

Cover by Raven Monroe
[Left to right, Red Queen from The Artomique Paradigm, Tanree from Badaxe, and Kat from Mongoose and Meerkat]

The Cirsova Fall 2021 Issue is available for preorder now!

• Amazon: Paperback
• Aerio: Paperback
• eBook [Coming Soon]
• Hardcover [Coming Soon]

This fantastic issue features the conclusions of both Wild Stars VI: The Artomique Paradigm and Badaxe! Also, another illustrated adventure of Mongoose and Meerkat from Jim Breyfogle.

We wanted to do something special for this issue, we featured two heroines and a villain from our serials. Huge thanks to Raven Monroe who took out the time from working on Cookies n Scream to step in and deliver this gorgeous cover for us on short notice!

The Artomique Paradigm (Part 3 of 3)

By MICHAEL TIERNEY

Achilles “Whip” Hister is dead! The Galactic summit has turned into a massacre, and the Artomiques are ready to unleash their ultimate weapon: dreadnoughts based on the Space Shark Erlik created! Can anyone, or anything, stop them?!

Too Many Mangos

By JIM BREYFOGLE

Foes pursue the Mongoose and Meerkat in the frigid north, seeking to prevent retrieval of a magic trinket for a client! One of the bandits…appears to be Mangos!?

The Black Skull

By REV. JOE KELLY

A strange and forbidding artifact has wended its way to an abbey! What is the black skull, and what strange powers might this grotesque and evil object possess?!

We Have Always Been Beasts

By S.H. Mansouri

An evil rain falls on the cursed children of Grewal… Brothers hope that they can end the rains that have corrupted and deformed them by ending their father’s life!

Dead Neighbor

By DAVID SKINNER

Armed with his only wits and his experimental Existential Motion Detection Device, a man is determined to discover exactly what has become of his neighbor!

The Light of Reason

By TEEL JAMES GLENN

Jack Stone and his mentor, Doctor Argent, have finally tracked down the vampire lord, Count Mendoza! But will they be able to vanquish the cornered monster?!

Locker No. 249

By JAMES LAM

A new student has just been assigned a locker next to that of a boy whose mysterious disappearance is connected to rumors of a Chinese mummy’s curse!

Remorsels

By LOUISE SORENSEN

Ghosts of animals appear as if by magic in paintings! The phenomenon is a strange blessing… Until a butcher begins supplying choice cuts of mystery meat to the artist!

BADAXE^TM

By

PAUL O’CONNOR – WRITER

KENT BURLES – PENCILLER

JAMES BALDWIN – INKS

BARB KAALBERG – TONES

PAT BROSSEAU – LETTERS

MITCH FOUST – COVER PAINTING

MICHAEL TIERNEY – DIGITAL RESTORATION

The Cosmic Courtship Available Through Retail

Mary Faust, a brilliant scientist, has developed a machine that can allow the conscious human soul to explore the cosmos! Her promising young assistant Miriam Mayne has accidentally transferred her consciousness to Saturn, where she falls under the enchantment of an evil sorcerer! Jack Paladin, her love, sets out after her on a thrilling celestial journey to the ringed planet! Swashbuckling adventure and high romance await in Julian Hawthorne’s The Cosmic Courtship!

The Cosmic Courtship is now available through Retail!

All formats are available at Cirsova’s Aerio Store and on Amazon!

Pocketbook – This is a no-frills budget release of The Cosmic Courtship. It ONLY includes the novel itself and none of the bonus content we included in other formats. Be aware that it features small print so as to reduce page count and offer an economical alternative to the other formats. Not recommended for older readers or readers with eye-strain issues!

Trade Paperback – This is the standard format edition of Cirsova’s presentation of The Cosmic Courtship. It contains the novel plus all bonus content. Note that the font in this edition is a much larger and a cozier read.

Hardcover – This is essentially the same as the Trade edition, except in hardcover with a lovely dust jacket.

Magazine – This version is presented in a format similar to Cirsova Magazine, with large print and double columns at an 8.5 x 11 trim size. In some ways, this format may be the ideal way to appreciate the facsimile reprinting of “Scenes from Hawthorne’s Romance” that was included as bonus content. Some of the bonus content was shifted around to fit the magazine format better, but everything is here!

eBook – The content of the eBook is pretty much the same as the Trade/Hardcover/Magazine. You really won’t be missing out on anything except for the part where you have an actual book in your hands.

Miss Out on The Cosmic Courtship Kickstarter?

The books are available for retail pre-order now through our Aerio store!

The metadata is slowly populating to Amazon, but not all versions are available for pre-order yet.

Remember: the pocket-paperback edition is a no-frills printing of The Cosmic Courtship and nothing else. The Trade, Magazine, and Hardcover formats, however, all contain additional bonus content, including foreword, biographical content, a facsimile reprint of Scenes of Hawthorne’s Romances, and more!

Right now, only the pocket-book edition is available on Amazon for order.

But ALL versions are available right now through the Aerio store.

You might find something else you like while you’re there!

And I know I’ve been saying this a LOT lately, but please take a look at Jim Breyfogle’s The Paths of Cormanor! We’re offering some sweet add-ons, including the Audiobook of Tales of the Mongoose and Meerkat: Pursuit Without Asking for only $10!

New! Misha Burnett’s Bad Dreams and Broken Hearts: The Case Files of Erik Rugar

It’s new to Cirsova, and if you haven’t read it, it’s new to you!

We’ve recently acquired the rights to Misha Burnett’s Urban Fantasy Detective Thriller, Bad Dreams and Broken Hearts: The Case Files of Erik Rugar, from Lagrange Publishing. Lagrange is currently winding down their operations, so we’ve worked with Lagrange and Misha to ensure that the title stays in print. A second printing of the paperback edition from Cirsova Publishing and re-release of the ebook version will be out tomorrow!

eBook – [Amazon]

Paperback – [Amazon]

Paperback – [Aerio]

Also, don’t forget that we also have Misha Burnett’s Endless Summer available now in multiple formats!

Hardcover

Paperback

Ebook

Audiobook

Saline County Comic Expo + Other News

…was a lot of fun for us! It was actually one of our best con showings yet. We managed to sell a handful of books and magazines and I spent less on swag than I made in sales.

Selling NFTs at a con

Our best sellers? Schuyler Hernstrom books that we didn’t actually publish.

Considering that most people go blank-faced when they realize that the books you’re selling are not comics at a comic con, we did fantastic.

I’m probably going to dump all of my old back-stock at Central AR Goodwill just to get it off of my shelves. Back issues have done especially poorly; most folks pick up the newest ones [which is hard because our newest issue has two part twos of ongoing series]. So, for the Little Rock Comic Con in September, we’ll be starting fresh with just the most recent stuff + the Tarzan book.

Open Submissions

Okay, this is a reminder, open submissions begin August 1st and will end August 7th. Get writing! If you want to get an idea of what we’re looking for, we did a post here, and, of course, please read the Submission Guidelines!

Interior Advertisements for Fall and Winter

We’re accepting advertisements for the interiors of the Fall and Winter issues! Fall will include the conclusions of both Wild Stars and Badaxe; Winter will feature a cover story by Kamen America writer Mark Pellegrini. Details about our ad specs can be found here.

Michael on The LCS Guys

As some of you may know, Michael is a regular on Critical Blast’s show, The LCS guys. In this episode, he talks some not only about his Wild Stars work with Cirsova and his plans for the future of the series but also his new Robert E. Howard project that’s on the horizon.

If you want to catch up on all of Michael’s Wild Stars adventures, the best way to do so is through The Wild Stars 35th Anniversary Omnibus, which will get you the original Book of Circles graphic novel, the Force Majeure comic/novel hybrid, plus Time Warmageddon and Wild Star Rising. We’re serializing Wild Stars V: The Artomique Paradigm this year [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 is forthcoming]

The Paths of Cormanor

Jim Breyfogle’s The Paths of Cormanor will be launching soon on Kickstarter!

The Cosmic Courtship

We’ve finally been able to put in the full order for The Cosmic Courtship, so that will be arriving soon for us to begin fulfilling! Yay!

More news and details on all of this soon…

What Will Cirsova Be Looking For In August?

Our August 1-7 submission window is coming up fast, and one of the questions we get a lot is “what are you looking for?”

Well, a lot of general suggestions can be found on our Submissions Guidelines page. But for more specific stuff…

Well, I know it’s probably not a great habit as an editor, but I generally like seeing content similar to whatever it is has me excited at the moment. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a lot of time to read the pulps because I’ve been so busy with this Julian Hawthorne project [which has even more exciting new stuff to come once The Cosmic Courtship is out the door]. In what free time to read I have, I’ve been reading a lot of older comic books. So, maybe take some inspiration from a few of these:

Of course, it never hurts to have actually read some Cirsova to get an idea of the kind of stories we typically buy. My recommendations would be either Volume 1, Issue 4, or the Fall Special #1, because these both showcase the breadth of fiction we typically purchase.

Sexy Fantastic: Swords & Shadows

As some of you may or may not know, our friend and contributor Robert Zoltan has been working on and publishing a new SFF publication, Sexy Fantastic, for folks into retro-pulp bodice rippers [think the sort of Andrew J. Offutt stories he published under his own name].

Robert will be doing a Kickstarter to raise additional funds for this project soon [July 1], and are accepting submissions through 15th of June.

Looking for superb heroic fantasy/sword and sorcery stories for Issue 4 of Sexy Fantastic magazine: Swords & Shadows! The fiction in the first three issues has been of incredibly high quality, and we seek to maintain that standard. Sexy Fantastic prefers mystery, strangeness, eroticism and atmosphere over violence. Note: this is not an erotica magazine; it simply does not censor stories for sexual content and treats sex as a normal part of life. $100 payment. 3K-10K word length. Deadline June 15th. See guidelines for tips and detailed submission instructions. https://sexyfantasticmagazine.com/fictionsubmissions/

If you have a story that you’ve been holding onto for us, give Robert’s mag a shot first, especially if it contains erotic themes and content. Right now, it’s looking like we won’t be able to take submissions until July, maybe August, so don’t hold anything back on our account! Send Robert your best!

Advanced Review of The Cosmic Courtship + Cirsova Publishing Featured in Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

The Pulp Archivist recently posted a fantastic review of Julian Hawthorne’s The Cosmic Courtship. We sent out a handful of ARCs to assorted pulp scholars and historians, and Nathan’s one of the first who has his thoughts up. We also had the privilege of speaking with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette about project; they did a write-up for the Sunday edition [alas, bumped back a week by the editor and so unable to run before pre-orders closed!]

I really hope that in the future we’ll see even more discussion on the younger Hawthorne and his works. Since embarking on this project, I’ve had the pleasure to read quite a handful of his writings: The Golden Fleece, Six Cent Sam’s, The Cosmic Courtship, Absolute Evil, A Goth From Boston, and Sara Was Judith, and I can’t help but feel like we’ve stumbled upon a forgotten but significant missing link in the history of early Weird Fiction. Julian bridges the gap between the high gothic era, writing throughout the gilded age, and the early golden age of pulps.

Just how influential was he on early writers of Weird Fiction? How influential were other early writers of Weird Fiction on him? In his final novel from 1920, he describes a cult of lads at Harvard who refer to themselves as “Dagons” and proceeds with a litany of old and exotic tomes kept on their shelves in what most would immediately recognize and refer to as “Lovecraftian” in manner and style. Hawthorne had a keen interest in the metaphysical and where it clashed with rapidly advancing sciences and medicines–the very core, some scholars would say, of Lovecraft’s brand of cosmic horror.

Right now, it would be very difficult to say or do more than just speculate on his significance. What we do know is that he was incredibly prolific and at one time fairly well-regarded. Indeed, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is on record stating his preference for Julian over Nathaniel. While we can’t really make any broad declarations as to his significance or lasting influences, I do believe that this project and our next one going forward will have laid the foundations to re-evaluate the significance of Julian Hawthorne’s writing and influence in our contemporary context.

We aim to have The Cosmic Courtship out the door by August at the latest. Retailers should have them before the end of the year. If you’re looking for other ways to support Cirsova publishing, look no further than Amazon, where you’ll be able to find all of our titles just by searching for “Cirsova.”

New Anthology Project Edited by Misha Burnett

Misha Burnett has recently announced a new anthology project through Cedar Sanderson’s new Sanderley Studios imprint which he will act as editor for.

The focus of the anthology will be stories for young readers. I’m guessing and hoping this means classic boys adventure in the vein of RL Stevenson with some rip-roaring swashbuckling of Dumas and relatable levity of Twain. And maybe the princesses and aliens of Burroughs and Kline.

Submissions are looking for stories that will appeal to both teen boys and girls.

I am looking for exciting adventure stories that showcase (but not preach) virtues, suitable for boys and girls in their teens.

Submissions open on Mar 15th and will run until May 15th.

The ideal story would be between 5,000 and 10,000 words and be action oriented. All genres considered, but exotic settings preferred–Science Fiction and Fantasy, but also Wilderness Survival and Historical Fiction.

For details, see the post on Misha’s website!

Also, be sure to check out Misha Burnett’s Endless Summer, out now in print, ebook, and audiobook!