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DRAMATIC FANTASY FICTION FEATURING CHARACTERS OF COLOR FROM STRANGER COMICS
Top Cow Talent Hunt Winner Joins Publisher In Bold Initiative

LOS ANGELES — Bucking the tradition of fantasy storytelling as a world without color, Stranger Comics is set to release Dusu: Path of the Ancient, a comic focusing on a tribe of Galemren, black elves who inhabit the fantasy world of Asunda. Having recently finished the children’s book I Am Mixed with Haitian born actress Garcelle Beauvais (Flight, NYPD Blue). Stranger head Sebastian A. Jones, illustrator James C. Webster, and layout artist Darrell May prove the diversity of their talent with this beautifully brutal book. Co-written by Jones and newcomer Christopher Garner, the book explores themes of race and identity in a genre that typically avoids such topics. Meanwhile, Webster has rendered the violence in such stylized detail, anyone familiar with his children’s illustrations may be doubtful it is the same stylus behind each work. Webster is currently finishing issue three and will turn in four issues, in total, with the first installment available April 17th for FREE download via iBooks, Kindle, and Nook. Links to each will be available HERE

At the same time, Stranger is announcing a series of prose e-books collectively called The Asunda Grimoires that will be launched by two-time Eisner-winning journalist and Top Cow Talent Hunt Winner Hannibal Tabu. The books will be full length novels but with chapters released in serialized installments with the intention of eventual collection. Releases will be biweekly beginning July 28th with Tabu’s Waso: Will to Power which will focus on one of the characters from Dusu.

Three additional prose series are currently planned for release in the weeks after Tabu’s launch. Two will come from the mind of Jones, the creator of Asunda who introduced readers to his world with The Untamed, a dark tale of revenge which is currently being adapted by Watchmen and Hellboy producer Lloyd Levin. Jones will take on Niobe, a half Galemren character from The Untamed, in a tale set years after the events of that book. He will concurrently write the tale of Skarlok, Niobe’s ally and lover and also the most deadly assassin on the face of Asunda.

The fourth entry in the Grimoires will come from Stranger editor Joshua Cozine and will introduce readers to Essessa, a character rooted in the history of Asunda who will have a dramatic impact on the world’s present.

Several short stories and teasers of Asunda Grimoire content are already available on the COMPANY’S WEBSITE, including a teaser of Niobe and a short series written by Tabu on a character named Fichiki.

ABOUT THE BOOKS

Dusu: Path of the Ancient is a rousing pulp adventure in the vein of Edgar Rice Burroughs, positing an orphaned human adopted by a tribe Galemren living in the lush jungles of Asunda’s Ujoa region. Despite having skin as dark as his “brethren,” Dusu is an outcast who must discover what destiny has in store for him, because while he is not Galemren, neither is he entirely human. He is on the Path to something more.

Set in the same Ujoan jungles, Tabu’s Waso: Will To Power takes place after the events of Dusu. Waso, Dusu’s “brother,” inherits leadership of the tribe due to tragedy. He must keep the survivors of his people alive in a world increasingly hostile to their traditional ways. Far too young for the responsibility but with the brashness and arrogance of youth, Waso sets out to restore and surpass his tribe’s former glory.

Niobe: Dawn Light is the dramatic journey of a girl on a path to discover her heritage in the underbelly of her enemy’s kingdom. First seen in Jones and Peter Bergting’s The Untamed as a young orphan girl, she was raised by a killer on a path of vengeance. In Dawn Light, Niobe is older and in new company. But Buxton Stonebeard is just as deadly as the unnamed killer who raised her, and the dwarf is on the edge of losing his mind.

Following Dawn Light, Jones will weave another player into the saga of Niobe, but with his own brutal tale, Skarlok: Two Hearts. First introduced in the comic Silver Blood, Skarlok is a ruthless assassin and the bane of humankind. Skarlok, King of the Silver Elves, has arrived in Asarra Bay. His quest: to enter a prison that has long held his people in captivity and to free the one enemy he has come to love…

A dark and bloody trail is left wherever she walks. Essessa is one of the first and most deadly of the Vorkas, the devil’s undead disciples, and she is on the hunt for a traitor and the young half elven girl he protects. But she was not always this way. Once, many centuries ago, Essessa was a warrior pure of spirit and body. In Essessa: Blue Veins, we will see how falling in love led to a fall from grace at the cost of two immortal souls.

THE CREATORS SAY

“I’ve been a dungeon master and a role player, read Feist, Salvatore and Tolkien and a good few in between,” said Jones. “I am of mixed heritage, and in all my reading, aside from the Drow (who were, of course, almost entirely evil), I didn’t really feel that there was a strong representation of people, especially heroes, who looked like me, people who looked like my son or many of my friends. Part of my creative vision is a fantasy universe where that feeling doesn’t exist; a fantasy world that has the cultural diversity and authenticity of this world. Hopefully ALL readers will find something they can identify with in my world, but this isn’t a simple, feel good, one dimensional fairy tale of roses and airbrushed asses. It will remain honest, savage, beautiful and epic. It is – as we say – a vast and volatile world.”

Tabu agreed. “When I was playing text based MUD games in the 1990s, there was always so much surprise when other players would read my character description and realize that I was Black, like it was an oddity. I’ve worked with people like Stranger Comics, like Atlanta’s MV Media, and discovered not only other creative people who are interested in adventures and legendary tales involving people of color, but a good number of readers and fans too. I’m happy to have another opportunity to tell stories from my perspective, especially alongside talent like this.”

Cozine adds, “The world of Asunda and the people who inhabit it are indeed diverse and complex. I’ve been a part of the Asunda universe through games and comic development for six years, and I still feel like I’m discovering new parts of it and meeting new characters on almost a daily basis. But even a brutal and gritty world like Asunda needs one character that can strike fear into the hearts of its hardened inhabitants. And a complex hero like Niobe needs an equally complex adversary. Only Essessa could fill those needs. When killers whisper hushed tales around the fire, hers is the name they hesitate to speak. But as is often the case with such characters, there is a long descent from the light into the dark. I am very excited to bring her bloody flair to this visceral world, wrapped around the tragic story of her youth, a story that would forever change Asunda. It’s one that beckons to be heard, and I can’t wait for fans to sink their teeth into it.”

About Stranger Comics

Located in Los Angeles, Stranger Comics is an incubator and aggregator of content, developing and designing franchises for multi-media platforms. Its guiding philosophy is that of quality, and that the idea is king, and the story is sacred. From the vast and volatile fantasy world of Asunda to the literary climes of Lloyd Levin’s Foundry Comics and the wide-eyed whimsy of Stranger Kids, Stranger strives for excellence in production as well as presentation.

For more info or to connect with Stranger Comics, please visit:
www.strangercomics.com
www.facebook.com/StrangerComics
www.twitter.com/strangercomics

Image assets for Dusu: Path of the Ancient can be found at:
http://pinterest.com/strangercomics/dusu-path-of-the-ancient-1/

Image assets for The Asunda Grimoires can be found at:
http://pinterest.com/strangercomics/asunda-grimoires/

Image assets for I Am Mixed can be found at:
http://pinterest.com/strangercomics/the-i-am-series/

HIGHGATE Vorsha, Day 4

It had been many moons since she had seen him first, appearing as an angel of death in her lonely tavern, where killers had sought her ruin, both in mind and body. He had taught her many hard but necessary lessons. Now she had other teachers in her life. Two men that she loved equally, but with different wants, and both had taught her in ways unlike her first, the quiet unnamed Stranger who had followed a path of vengeance. Had she changed him? If so, to what end? While she was no stranger to violence, compassion and love were her weapons of choice, or perhaps that was merely the instinct granted her by a higher power. Still, they are hard weapons to master, and her life had been a hard-fought war since her birth upon the bloody banks of Western Shaves, near the great Ugoma. Vengeance was etched upon the Stranger’s blades of damnation and she had come to understand what that meant, what that felt like… the beauty in it. It was her greatest temptation. After all, could she love the father who had defiled her mother? Could she forgive the king who would seek the ruin of all? Even if he was merely a pawn in the game of the Gods, much like herself?

She would not know until she saw his eyes, the off-colored mirrors of her own, which had marked her for death by his own decree. Her destiny, if it was to be fulfilled, would not embrace him with forgiveness but rather with ruin. Such had been decided so long ago on those dark red, storm-filled nights when The Untamed had come to claim her. The Stranger had saved her. The Stranger had damned her. The Stranger had torn open the phantom sores of fate and her bloody hate still seeped.

Skarlok Two Hearts and Buxton Stonebeard. Both would notice and neither would reprimand nor condone. They would support her, for although the Morkai’s love was trickier to catch than silver waters of Melvanorre in cupped hands, he cared for her deeply. Buxton, however, was a dwarf, and Macgrom were renowned for many things, but affection was not one of them. In fact, the very idea made him uncomfortable, she had come to realize. It was too much of responsibility. Yet he showed his honest love in his own gruff way without need or want. If the orphaned girl did not already know the detestable nature of her father, she would wish him to be like Buxton. At present, however, he looked nothing like the proud figure she was used to.

The cell was cold and the walls slickened black with old blood, splattered by the tearing and biting of flesh. She knew Skarlok would come for them, and secretly she counted the days, not just for freedom but for the childish hope of something more. Buxton was looking old. His unwashed pate was spotted with the dark green blood of the Grachukk Orc from the morning before. She did not tell him of the splotches, as it would put him in a foul mood, and she did not want to hear his grumbling. No, she would braid his long, gray beard in the fashion he liked and wait for the next idiot who wanted to challenge him. Skarlok was the coldest and deadliest assassin the world had even known, but Buxton, even without his axe, was the most brutal. She knew whoever one day ended his tormented life would die in the trying. He was just hard to kill. They were alone in the cell, and the usual screechings of torture echoed and touched her soul. With love. With hate. She had come to the city of Highgate and Buxton had followed her in her quest for her past. He would follow her until the end, she knew, which was a comfort, and a burden. They had parted ways with the Silver Elf the night before arriving, as Skarlok had no desire to enter. Not even for her, he said, which drew a true enough anger from the dwarf that ancient kin hatreds were almost tested. If ever they came to blows? She shivered and suppressed the thought, finishing Buxton’s last lock.

“Greetings, inmates,” came the sweetly voice of Sren Bochan. Sren was an ambitious guard. It was bound to get him killed, Niobe thought.

“Good evening, Sren,” she answered amicably enough.

“I have a proposition for you,” he replied. His excitement was seeping through.

“Your last one didn’t last long.”

“Of a different kind. It will last longer, and we will both be happier.” His arousal was obnoxious. “Is it that I understand you are a virgin? I am known for my gentle ways.”

The white wrath in Buxton’s eyes answered her earlier thought. Sren’s ambition was going to get him killed.

“Why don’t you enter?” said Niobe, trying to hide her disgust.

“Enter I shall,” he replied. “At midnight. The Dwarf can watch.”

He was going to die horribly.

Such is the ongoing debate on the lack of color in comics and kids books that we have decided
to attack the topic with passion. We took a good look at the subject last year, courtesy of Collectors
creator and Stranger alum, Eddie DeAngelini, in his Comics 101 blog, but I think it is worth
revisiting. Most folk seem to be at opposite ends of a multi-corner “spectrum”. We have
the terrified and absurdly politically correct, the angry and educated, the ignorant, the happily
ignorant, and the obtusely racist. To quote one of my favorite British comics, Al Murray, “the
point is this…”

Stories of all colors, shapes, and sizes need to be told – without preaching,
reaching or pretending.

So in the upcoming months we look forward to sharing with you an array of tales for the young,
the old, and the older. Our book, I Am Mixed (first in the I Am Book Series), is set for an in store release on August 7th and is available for digital download now. To download from Amazon Kindle now CLICK HERE and itunes CLICK HERE. This book will examine the issue of race, specifically of being multi-racial, from the perspective of children. We hope that you’ll find it enlightening. The follow up, I Am Living in 2 Homes, (for kids who deal with divorce) will be available later in the year. I am very honored to co-author the I Am books with actress Garcelle Beauvais, and also very proud of our amazing illustrator James C. Webster, who has created a magical world for our mixed twins to inhabit.

“I Am Mixed is an invaluable teaching tool that all children of all races can learn from.”
- Halle Berry

But such is the diversity of Webster’s talent that we will very shortly be offering another project of color, adeptly illustrated by Webster, but focusing on much more adult material. Dusu: Path of the Ancient is a 4 issue mini-series set in the fantasy world of Asunda that presents elves as you’ve never seen them before, bringing us into their world via a human raised amongst their kind. 3 issues are in the can, and you can expect #1 to be released digitally very soon with subsequent issues to be released monthly.

Our entire crew looks forward to sharing the work we’ve been doing with you. It promises to be an exciting strange year.

Historical newsstand photo from 1947.

ASARRA BAY Yemqu, Day 1

First day of the second month and the humans cannot contain their need for cavorting and breeding; worthless lives born in the backs of alleyways from nameless parents who will rot under the accursed sun drake. In spite his arrogance, Zunn brings out the worst in these short lived vermin. Their worship for him is a mockery born from a fear of the darkness. Nothing more.

The bay is preparing for a festival that celebrates the day the Lighthouse of Andarrie, a relic constructed from an age ago. It once was a beacon of light that streaked out along the dark ocean waters, guiding traders and fisherman home. It was a symbol of peace and harmony for all races, believed and built by a Quellyan cousin, who ended up having to flee from those who would pillage such ideals. Now, it is an excuse for whoring and other such sins.

I will give them a day to remember.

I pass a long corridor and hear the scream of a lone girl being drowned by the cackles of three men. They keep to the shadows hoping no one will see their depravity, but I do, for they rape in the realm of Magga, Queen of the Darkness. If it not for this, I would let them have the female. For she, like the light, is my enemy. Giver of life to the bane of my kin.

The first thug is on her when I approach, silent as the night, cleaving through this golden day. He is a head taller than the other two and just as wide. All three of them are pure Unglish scum, sailors who have traveled east to rape the Ujoan and Zaladorian coasts. His grunting and heaving suggest he will be finished in a handful of portly thrusts. I pull my beautiful black blade and in one arc behead the gyrating two playing with themselves. Crimson sprays over the fat man and girl. It’s then I let her see me, to taste a greater fear than that of her defiler. In me she sees a poisoned soul, and assumes I too will carve her with blade or manhood. How could she know, with her infantile mind, that I would not betray my queen, nor my love.

“You should have stepped into the light, human,” I say, giving in to the temptation of arousing more fear in the girl and man. I hammer the beastly man in the temple with the pommel of my dagger. He falls back revealing an erect, if not small, phallus. It is perhaps a small measure of comfort he was the only one.

“You’re Silver Elf… please, please don’t touch me,” she pleads.
“I would sooner die,” I assure her. “Do you know this man?”
She throws up over a cheap Termeshian dress, and then, “My husband.”
“And them?”
“His… brothers…” she wretches again.
“Why?”
“I laughed at him.”
“Man, desperation for validation, in such short time.”
“What are you going to do… with us?”
“You want him to live?”
“He is the father of my children… if nothing else.”
“There is little wonder your people are doomed, woman. I would end you both, but your stupidity furthers your downfall. It is there we are aligned, from worlds apart.”
“I… don’t understand.”
“It matters not.”
“Where will you go?”
“To slaughter those who would understand.”

I leap to the rooftops and make my way to the heart of the festival, above the teeming insects, where I will reap a bloody carnage amidst their day of celebration. A delicious rapture to bask in, before the harrowing begins.

[Editor's Note: If you enjoyed this entry, check out more of Skarlok's adventures over on Wowio]

Click here to check out the Legend of Morwhayle site.

Garcelle Beauvais authors new ‘I AM’ children’s book series via Stranger Kids, the Stranger Comics children’s division.

Los Angeles, CA (May 21, 2012)- Actress Garcelle Beauvais, currently starring on the TNT series FRANKLIN & BASH, has partnered with the publishing company Stranger Comics to launch the “I AM” children’s book series via their children’s publishing division. Between her life experience as a mother, and research when discussing children’s issues with doctors, therapists, friends and family, Beauvais’ books will address identity issues relevant to many children today. The first book, “I AM MIXED”, focuses on brother and sister Jay and Nia, and explores the thoughts and emotions shared between siblings of mixed ethnicities. The book is due out this fall. The second book in the series, “I AM LIVING IN 2 HOMES”, deals with children of divorce and is currently in pre-production. The third installment, “I AM A TWIN”, focuses on the bonds twins share and will begin production shortly.

As an incubator and aggregator of content, Stranger Comics develops and designs franchises for multi-media platforms. Stranger Kids, the children’s division of the publishing company, partnered with Beauvais in part because they wanted to announce to the world their message of healing and celebration of diversity. Stranger Comics President and co-author of the “I AM” series, Sebastian A. Jones remarks, “Working with Garcelle has been a dream collaboration. Her ideas are progressive, artistic and educational, and we couldn’t be more happy or honored to be publishing Garcelle’s much needed vision.”

Garcelle Beauvais shares of the partnership, “I chose Stranger Comics because I knew they would share my same passion for these books. I didn’t want to go with a corporate publisher where I wouldn’t have control of the characters or the illustrations. I completely trust Stranger with this series. The company is growing so fast and I’m proud to be a part of their journey.”

All three books in the series that are scheduled for release, will be illustrated by James Cory Webster, an exclusive artist with Stranger Comics, and a relative newcomer to children’s books. The results speak for themselves, with a book that is visually pleasing while both entertaining and educational. As Halle Berry notes in the forward for the book, “I AM MIXED is an invaluable teaching tool that all children of all races can learn from.”

Find more information on the book series at: http://www.strangercomics.com/i-am-mixed/.

For media inquiries regarding the ‘I AM’ book series and Garcelle Beauvais, please contact Mona Loring of MLC PR at contact@monaloring.com. For media inquiries regarding Stranger Comics and Stranger Kids, please contact Joshua Cozine at joshua@strangercomics.com.

About Garcelle Beauvais

Best known for her roles on both the big and small screens, Haitian-born actress Garcelle Beauvais immigrated to the United States at the age of seven with her mother and sisters, and has since charmed audiences with her dramatic and comedic abilities. Since the summer of 2011, Garcelle has been co-starring alongside Breckin Meyer and Mark-Paul Gosselaar as ‘Hanna Linden’ in the TNT legal drama “Franklin & Bash.” Some of Garcelle’s past works included roles in “The Jamie Foxx Show”, four seasons on the highly rated Emmy© Award-winning series “NYPD Blue”, the Film Independent Award-nominated “American Gun,” with Forrest Whitaker and Donald Sutherland, “Women in Trouble” with Simon Baker and Josh Brolin, “Barbershop 2: Back in Business,” with Queen Latifah and “Bad Company,” opposite Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins.

About Stranger Comics

Stranger Comics is an incubator and aggregator of content, developing and designing franchises for multi-media platforms. Its guiding philosophy is that of quality, and that the idea is king, and the story is sacred. From the vast and volatile fantasy world of Asunda, the literary climes of Lloyd Levin’s Foundry Comics, and the wide-eyed whimsy of Stranger Kids, Stranger strives for excellence in production as well as presentation.
Stranger titles in production include The Portent by Peter Bergting (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), Quincey Morris by Steve Katz (Shadow of the Vampire), Escape Velocity by Andrew Cosby (Eureka) and the Stranger Kids’ property Bronson Beak by Ken Locsmandi (Piñata) & Martin Olsen (Phineas and Ferb). The Untamed, which was option by Lloyd Levin (Watchmen, Hellboy, Tomb Raider), initiated the relationship that would see Lloyd forming Foundry Comics under the Stranger banner.