Red Stylo Media is announcing the release of its newest title, The Poe Twisted Anthology, a collection of original comic stories and art inspired by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. The collection includes work from thirteen writers and artists collaborating on seven short graphic stories and eight vignettes. This anthology will be released both digitally and in print. Each of the individual stories is available for download at RedStylo.com, DriveThruComics.com and will also be available on Graphic.ly. The digital editions contain exclusive special features only available online and are $1.99 each. The printed anthology (full-color paperback, 90 pages) will be released August 21. Orders have begun online at https://redstylo.com/store/poe-twisted-only/pre-order-the-poe-twisted-anthology-print-release-august-21-2011/
In the introduction, anthology editor Enrica Jang writes that Poe Twisted “began as a challenge to a new crop of comics artists to take the characters or setting from a favorite Edgar Allan Poe story, twist them, and make something new.” Rather than merely adapting well-loved Poe stories or poems, Poe Twisted stands on its own as “[a]collection of horror and hilarity, touched by the dark genius of the master, and yet with many an ironic jab and poke at him too. A parody here, a sequel there, but all of the pieces mutated re-imaginings of Poe characters in new worlds. Or Poe worlds in new characters.”
Edited by Enrica Jang, “The Poe Twisted Anthology” includes the following comic short stories:
• “Absolution.” Writer Jason Ciaramella (2011 Eisner Award nominee for The Cape) and artist Enrique Savory, Jr., team up in this sad tale of a grieving father driven mad by one of his son’s Christmas toys. A tribute to Poe’s classic poem, “the Raven.”
• “Dead Man’s Hand.” College card-shark, Toby, thinks it’s just another frat-house Poker night. The stakes are high and Toby is all in when a devilish coed mysteriously appears and calls his bluff. Story and art by Phillip Jacobson.
• “Eldorado.” The sun sets on a three-hundred year quest for fabled riches and gold in this zombie Western, titled after the poem of the same name. Written by film director Sherezada Windham-Kent (Everything I Needed to Know About Zombies I Learned From the Movies, 2009) with art by animator/comics artist, Alex Cormack.
• “Zombie Cruise” by Marta Tanrikulu, with art by Mark Mullaney. Trouble—and plague—brew on the high seas in this bio-medical thriller, a twist on Poe’s short story, “The Oblong Box.”
• “The Tell Tale Cat.” Beat cops Lansdowne and Harrington collar more than they bargained for in this noire police adventure, written and drawn by Alex Cormack. The story is parody of events in Poe’s “The Black Cat” and “The Tell Tale Heart.”
• “The After Party” by Kyle Richey, art by Ben Frazier. Wesley Prince has credit cards, his father’s mansion all to himself, and enough drugs to kill a few hundred fellow classmates in this twisted spinoff of the phantasmagoric classic “Masque of the Red Death,”
• “The System of Doctor Canne and Professor Bulle” by Mark Mullaney. Have someone special for dinner in this story of a free-range asylum, a sequel to Poe’s tale of insanity run amok, “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether.”
POE TWISTED also includes a special collection of original comic vignettes:
• Artist Dirk Strangely (Graveyard Girl, Dirk Strangely’s Completely Inappropriate for Children Children’s Book) is inspired by the figure of Poe himself in two series of Gorey-esque portraits.
• Painter Andrew Jerz brings Poe spoofs to the big screen with a mini-collection of grindhouse movie posters: Lenore, Amonstrillado, and Careful Coffins for the Concerned Cataleptic.
• Illustrator Jason Strutz’s ironic print gallery re-imagines “The Tell Tale Heart,” “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”
For more information about The Poe Twisted Anthology and Red Stylo Media, visit https://www.redstylo.com. Also, find The Poe Twisted Anthology on Facebook at https://facebook.com/PoeTwisted
ABOUT RED STYLO MEDIA
Red Stylo Media is a publishing and consulting company based out of Cold Spring, NY. RSM specializes in comics and graphic novels. Enrica Jang, EIC.
