Flashback: Comic-Con San Diego 2006

Last July Comic-Con International topped the record books with 114,000 individual attendees through the doors (not counting the 9,000 or so exhibitors and their staff!). Gold Eagle was there, sharing a booth with sister companies Luna Books and Silhouette Books. We were amazed at the reach that Comic-Con has with it's fans, growing from a comics convention to a full-blown celebration of pop culture. We gave away free books to get the word out about our novels and got to meet many diehard fans young and old. A few free copies of the first Rogue Angel book got into the hands of folks, though we still don't know where the shipment of 1000 copies we planned to give away went to. We figure that some tropical island somewhere has a pile of boxes on it's beach right now. Plans are underway to return to Comic-Con this summer, so watch this space for details as they become available!


This dude didn't want us to change a thing about Deathlands. We promised we wouldn't as long as he wouldn't hurt us.


Fans grabbing samples at our booth.


These kids came back to our booth every day hoping the Rogue Angel books would ship in. We made it up to them by giving them an author-signed copy of Luna's Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder. This photo was taken two seconds before the brother and sister on the left started wrestling for it.


Art Director Blake Morrow with Wonder Woman and Supergirl.


The extra-cool SciFi channel booth.


This teen gets a taste of one of our few copies of Rogue Angel.


Marketing gurus Emily Martin and Farah Mullick with a Red Stormtrooper.


We found out that books with sharks on the cover are crowd-pleasers.


Taken down by Superman.

Annja's MySpace Page

Do you still check in to your MySpace page? Then add Rogue Angel's Annja Creed to your friends. You'll get notices on upcoming books, clues to storylines in her photo section, and get to read her blog (if she ever stops adventuring long enough to update it).
Check her out now at www.myspace.com/annja_creed.

Aftermath

Still in stores, Aftermath, a trade paperback edition collecting Deathlands: The Mars Arena and Outlanders: Iceblood.

Deathlands: The Mars Arena
Just after the second millennium began, a nuclear firestorm changed the face of the Earth forever. Roaming the devastated landscape of the new America, now known as Deathlands, a small group of men and women who are trying deperately to escape this brutal and lawless world where violence is a means to survival — and power.
In the harsh territory near the Western badlands, Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists embark on a search for the wreck of a crashed space station. But in the ruins of Las Vegas, Ryan becomes the hostage in a bitter conflict between warring barons, and realizes that even his best effort is a huge gamble, with his son's life at stake.

Outlanders: Iceblood
More than two hundred years after a nuclear holocaust all but vaporized America, a new order evolved from the Deathlands to inflict its rule on the fortified cities beyond whos walls are the newly christened Outlands.
Deep in Cerberus redoubt, Kane, a renegade magistrate from the united baronies experiences a shocking mind probe. It imprints him to the other side of the world, with the archivist Brigid and brother-in-arms Grant.
In the heart of Tibet, Kane and his Outlander companions pursue a legend, only to discover they are not alone in their search for the Chintamani Stone. The ancient relic has the power to conduct the final assault on the Earth's destiny... or to destroy the destroyers.

The Executioner 340: Splinter Cell

With all of our flashbacks on Executioner covers lately, we thought we'd spotlight the newest addition to the series coming out next month: The Executioner 340: Splinter Cell!

The back cover reads: Avenue of Attack!
The disappearance of a tourist in Amsterdam is attributed to a rise in kidnappings of Westerners by terrorists. But those inside U.S. Intelligence know better. The hostage is a top American nuclear expert. When the scientist’s brother, a former Army Ranger, is set to go it alone for a full-throttle rescue, the Oval Office puts Mack Bolan in charge. But the odds of extracting the man from enemy hands are next to impossible and getting worse. Low on hard intel, the Executioner and his highly trained companion must rely on a CIA informant to lead them into the heart of one of the most dangerous terrorist cells on the planet before any worstcase scenarios can erupt.

Available everywhere March 2007.

Deathlands: Homeward Bound on SciFi channel

The SciFi Channel recently re-aired their 2003 original tv movie DEATHLANDS: HOMEWARD BOUND. Love it or hate it, it's a surreal experience to see Vincent Spano and Traci Lords (yep- THAT Traci Lords) as our characters on-screen. We'd love to see a reworked weekly Deathlands tv series, ourselves. Anyone else?

Hal Erickson from All Movie Guide covered the original premiere with this: A feature-length pilot for a possible cable TV series, Deathlands: Homeward Bound was inspired by a series of novels and audio-books written by James Axler (actually a joint pseudonym, shared by several prominent science-fiction authors). Sort of a "Mad Max Meets the A-Team," the film is set in a post-apocalyptic future, where crime and destruction is the norm and law-and-order is in the hands of a few courageous mavericks. Vincent Spano stars as justice-fighter Ryan Cawdor, who travels the scorched countryside in his "SecWag," or military security wagon. Cawdor's hearty band of cohorts include his half-mutant girl, an angry Albino teenager, and a geeky weapons specialist called the Armorer. Not surprisingly, the original "Deathlands" book series was incredibly popular with long-distance truck drivers, presumably the audience to whom this ultra-macho thriller is geared.

Valentine's Day Flashback: Mack Bolan and Tough Love

Executioner fans remember February 1984 well: when Mack lost the love of his life, April Rose, in Executioner 62: Day of Mourning. But not to worry. Fan Paul A. created this fictional cover below to bring the love back for Mack.



A nice reminder of the ups and downs of love for this V Day.

Frazetta Inspires Outlanders Cover

Here's a portion of the upcoming cover for Outlanders #43: Dark Goddess.



Art Director Bill Laughton was inspired by his favorite old school fantasy painter, Frank Frazetta, when working on the cover with artist Cliff Nielson and author Mark Ellis. Frazetta's painting, "The Egyptian Queen", is shown below.



Frazetta was also a comic book/strip artist, working on The Shining Knight, Buck Rogers, L'il Abner and Playboy's Little Annie Fanny among others. Outlanders #43: Dark Goddess will be in stores November 2007.

Flashback: Executioner #61

How badass is Mack Bolan? Badass enough to take out the bad guys using an elephant as an environmentally-friendly covert vechicle. Bullet stampede! Published January, 1984.

Tim Bradstreet Named New Rogue Angel Cover Artist

It's official: Artist Tim Bradstreet is our new regular cover artist for the Rogue Angel series. We recently brought Tim and our Rogue Angel cover model, Chrisanne Baitis, (best known to reality-TV obsessives as a former contestant on The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency) to Toronto for a day-long photo shoot with photographer Michael Alberstat. These photos will provide the base for Bradstreet's photo-realistic art for future covers. Bradstreet recently created covers for Gold Eagle's Jake Strait reprints, being published throughout 2007.

Tim's first Rogue Angel cover will be for Rogue Angel: Warrior Spirit (book 9), on sale November 2007. Watch for more coverage of the megashoot here on the blog in future posts, as well as some previews of the covers themselves.

Rogue Angel Fan Art

Illustrator Braden D. Lamb sent us his vision of Rogue Angel Annja Creed after we met him at 2006's Comic-Con International in San Diego last summer.

The Deathlands/Outlanders Web Survival Guide

Find yourself needing your questions answered concerning the rich history of Deathlands and/or Outlanders? The folks at jamesaxler.com have created and housed the most comprehensive and organized source of information online that we know of, The Deathlands/Outlanders Web survival guide. Check it out.

Flashback: The Executioner #1

Here's the cover of the first Executioner book, published in 1969, featuring action hero Mack Bolan. An interesting pop culture fact: In the 1970s, Marvel Comics based their anti-hero The Punisher on Don Pendleton's Bolan character. Both were Vietnam War veterans who had their families murdered by the mafia and were driven to seek revenge. Additionally, the "War Journal", battle van and weaponry were all used in The Executioner series before the Punisher was created. Thanks, Wikipedia!



Check out the mackbolan.com fansite for almost 40 years of collected Executioner book covers.

Tim Bradstreet Covers Gold Eagle

Artist Tim Bradstreet's first Gold Eagle cover is out in stores now- Avenging Angel, the first of four books in the republished Jake Strait series. Tim's gritty film noir street style is a perfect match for the tone set by writer Frank Rich.

Here's the synopsis:
Inner-city Hell... Circa 2031 The city rises like an evil vision from its surroundings...the heavily guarded suburbs, the garrisoned farmlands. Life is sweeter in the fortified elite Hill section where the privileged few live, but elsewhere the city makes its own rules for life and death. Even in this ruthless, anything-goes world, Jake Strait has his limits—a line that he won’t cross willingly. He won’t do political jobs. But when a rich, pampered couple from the Hill sets him up, he is drawn into a plot that plans to drench the city with blood. Against his will, Jake Strait becomes the favorite son of a people's revolution— and there's hell to pay.

And here's an online review of the book by Michael Goodwin:
"Frank Rich's debut novel of this resusitated series is much more than what me and my wife thought it would be. Much more.
I don't know why we didn't catch this back in it's debut year, (sometime in the early 90's), the new revision is richer in cover design, something along the lines of Punisher-meets-Deathlands. Or Punisher-meets-Micky Spillane-in postholocaust world. It is truly unique and original. Frank Rich's prose sometimes was humorous, dark and gritty, but lyrical at times that would take these readers aback with surprise. Never dull with rich characterization and high-octane action/adventure, Jake Strait is a colorful character that grows as the novel progresses. Book #1 here starts out in the year 2031 where America has been taken over by a new regime called - The Party. This dark new world order is covert, attempting to shape the states to their own dark designs. Jake Stait is something between a detective and a mercenary, and much more. The kids are scared of him and call his kind bogeymen. He takes on eveything except for political jobs. But in this novel, Jake slowly becomes embroiled within a plot that twists and turns until the very end - and Jake unwittingly finds himself becoming a leader of a resistance group. If you like your novels filled with action and intrigue, mixed with various rich characters and a dark mystery, then this fantastic newly-arisen series is for you. My wife and I are new fans of this wonderful author, and look very much forward to Book #2: The Devil Knocks coming in April."

Watch for more Bradstreet-related news coming soon.

Rogue Angel: Destiny Available in Audio Book format

Our friends at GraphicAudio have just released Rogue Angel: Destiny (book 1) in audio book format- and we think it rocks! Their mix of voice actors, sound effects and music makes for a brand new experience. Check out a free 10 minute excerpt online here. It's really cool to hear the way they handle the fight scene between Annja and Garin in her Brooklyn loft.

GraphicAudio also creates audio book versions of our Deathlands, Executioner, Mack Bolan, Stony Man and Outlanders series.

Outlanders Shout-Out on Rogue Angel 4 Cover

A few eagle-eyed fans have already commented on this recent cover art easter egg. On the cover of Rogue Angel: The Chosen (book 4 in the ongoing series) Annja's belt is made up of the repreated Outlanders icon.