Slippery Slope Time!

I have been amused at the little tantrums and fits of the politically correct crowd. But of course they peck at the low-hanging fruit.

Recently the World Fantasy Awards committee voted to remove the image of the formerly highly respected fantasist Howard Philips Lovecraft from that award. Because of the puking whining of a disjointed elite within that part of literary fandom.

This is a problem. Where does it end? I know people who want us to blast the President faces off of Mount Rushmore. Do we hand them the dynamite?

Now, I pose to this same disgusting crowd of crowing idiots:

There is an award in comics named for, and in honor of Will Eisner. He was a racist. He was also a brilliant artist who did more than almost anyone else to promote sequential art. He also created this:

Art by the racist, Will Eisner. (See his signature there? Huh? See it?")

So I ask them...are you going to agitate for the removal of the Eisner Awards?

Huh? Are you?

Recent commentary by ST Joshi.

At Last: A Confederacy of Horrors.

Years ago a publisher got in touch with me, asking to do a collection of my short fiction. So I assembled such; editing and proofreading was completed. And then...the publisher lost air and went belly up.

Thereafter I set about trying to find a new home for it. Various publishers showed interest. Finally, one made an offer of publication. Time passed...and they vanished.

Off to the markets yet again. I passed the collection around from place to place, a publisher wanted to do the project, letters were exchanged, an agreement was reached and...yeah, they croaked. Todt. Kaput.

A couple of years ago a new publisher asked to see the manuscript. The editor in chief liked what he saw and sent me a contract (I actually still have that contract here, with me). And then...yep...outfit croaked. Dead eyes starin' at th' moon.

Then, last year, I heard from ST Joshi who is editing short story collections and such for several outfits. He asked to see the book. Stories were plucked out. Some stories were added. We arrived at a collection that contains about 85,000 words, some of it ancient reprints, some of it of more recent origin, and some of it wholly new.

This book has killt four publishers so far. Unless the jinx is permanent, A CONFEDERACY OF HORRORS will see the light of print in 2014 from Hippocampus Press. Not some self-published ebook. But actual, hold-the-paper-book-in-yer-hands print. A real book. The only kind of book for me.

The original cover art here was done by the late Harry Fassl. This artwork is unavailable, so new art will have to be commissioned by the publisher, Hippocampus Press.