Undead Love Song (by John Anealio)

With a heads up, the song is a bit... "salty" ;)



John Anealio's tribute to Rigor Amortis, with a special nod to Steven Scearce's story, Second Sunday in September. It was a pleasure to create the art work for this, Thank you John.

Ode to Erika and Jaym (Rigor Amortis Re-Released!)

In case you haven't heard yet. Rigor Amortis is being re-released! Go, right now, and read Paul Goat Allen's review for Barnes and Noble. Here's an excerpt:

"...this anthology will amass a cult following almost instantly – I’ll guarantee it. Anyone who is into “dark erotica” should seek out and read this deeply disturbing and relentlessly sexy anthology immediately..."

To commemorate the re-release, John Anealio wrote up a dirty undead ditty then he and fellow Functional Nerd Patrick Hester invited several of the Rigor Amortis contributors (Steven Scearce, Andrew Penn-Romine, John Nakamura Remy, and I) to join them for a podcast.

That was a tremendous amount of fun. As is usually the case, when all is said and done and the recorders are turned off, then you remember all of the things you wanted to say but forgot to.

Therefore, a few tender thoughts about it all and the beginning that Rigor Amortis represented for me. It was my first time working with editors Erika Holt and Jaym Gates, as well as being one of my first real gigs as an illustrator. Erika and Jaym cheered, coached, encouraged, supported and gave incredible feedback as I grew into the process.

Then, after Rigor Amortis, Erika and Jaym put their brilliant heads together again and created Broken Time Blues. When it came time to get cover art for the book, they took a chance on me. Specifically, they went to the publishers and asked THEM to take a chance on me. Then they cheered, coached, encouraged, supported and gave incredible feedback as I grew into that particular process.

It has been an auspicious beginning that has led to many many other wonderful beginnings.

Thank you, Erika and Jaym. For being so full of awesome.

Broken Time Blues, (internal illustrations by Evan Jensen and I):






The Rigor Amortis trailer featuring illustrations by Miranda Jean and I (cover by Robert “Nix” Nixon)

World Horror Con (a collection of sharpie tattoos)

This post is way over due. Life was busy. But now I have a moment to breath, so here you go.

I went to the World Horror Convention back in May!! Here is Andy's write up (which I found very inspiring), Andy's set of photos, Steve's set of photos, Bear's set of photos, and John's set of photos, documenting the event. (I used to be good at photo-documenting... but not so much anymore.)

Oh... and I was in the art show! Here are some photos John's took regarding that. :)

There is so much I *should* say about the whole experience. But mostly... I got a chance to take my sharpy out and put some tattoos on a few friends. That_was_awesome.

Here's a glimpse of some of them, thanks to the photography of Andy and John:











And then Andy drew one on me! (I am seriously considering getting it made permanent.)

promoting un-dead love

November was whirlwind back-to-back Rigor Amortis promotional events. Crazy, exhausting, and so very fun. Just had to share the highlights:

Andrew Penn Romine and John Nakamura Remy drove to Tucson to join me at Tucson's Comic Con.

John took a bit of video of us setting up:


He also was the only one of us to photo-document the event. (thanks John!)
(BTW... we sold EVERY book we brought,)

The day after the Comic Con we did a Rigor Amortis reading at the coolest little Coffee shop= Revolutionary Grounds. (Zombie erotica at a Marxist Coffee shop? Yes indeed :D).

Tucson Weekly showed up to record the reading: Yep, here is John and Andy saying things like 'penis' and 'vuvla' (and a whole lot more) ON VIDEO!

John:


Andy:


The next weekend I headed to LA, to join the Rigor Amortis group signing books at Dark Delicacies. It was awesome to finally meet fellow Rigor Amortis contributors Kaolin Fire, Lucia Starky, and Pete "Patch" Alberti, as well as online writer friends Adam Israel, Jenn Reese, and Chris East (AND just pure amazing folks Carol Penn-Romine, and Isaac.) (/whew!\)

Blessed Carol documented that event. (Did we really break your camera? Sry!)

Then I came home and prepped for a 109 mile bike ride. That's why it's taken so long to get this up :P

Here and here are Andy's blog posts on the subject (in case I missed anything).
Go team Rigor Amortis! Woot :)

Rigor Amortis Rising

Seriously... "SQUEEEEE!!!"
Remember that zombie erotica book I decided to get involved with so many months ago? Well, Yesterday was the official Launch of Rigor Amortis and thanks to the hard work of Erika Holt and Jaym Gates at creating some buzz about the book, within just a few hours it had risen to #30 on Amazon's Horror list! (Just above Pride and Predjudice and Zombies, just beneath Bram Stokers Dracula.)

(As I write this, it is sitting at #52, just underneath Stephen King's The Waist Lands & Stephanie Meyer's Eclipse, just above Seth Grahame-Smith's Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.)

BTW, Bitten By Books hosted a release party and Jaym had this to say about us artists:

"Each section has a beautiful, full-page illustration from artist Galen Dara. More illustrations fill the book, the surreal, grotesquely-beautiful things from Galen Dara’s pen, and the dark, strong art from Miranda Jean. Rigor Amortis wouldn’t half of what it is without the hard work of our artists."

Gotta love those who appreciate the arts :)
(Oh! thrilled and flattered that a print of one of my illustrations is the take-home prize for the winner of the Zombie Recipe contest. More info here.)

It's been a serious fun ride and this whole week is Zombie Week, dedicated to continuing the buzz on facebook and twitter. Join the Rigor Amortis Facebook group, and/or follow the twitter hashtag #rigoramortis or #zombieweek for more updates, story-line teasers, plus me and Miranda tweeting illustrations.
Oh.. and go buy the book!! :)

just for kicks.. here's the trailer, featuring artwork by Miranda and myself:

rigoramortis

zombie erotica anyone?
heheh, eeeEEEEwwwww!!!!!

I'm Doing some illustrations along that line, but here's my conflict: to lean more explicit R-rated gore/sex? Or lean more towards pg-13 dark humor.

Probably a nice middle ground between the two will suffice. I'll have to a bit of drawing around that question.

And now, a few of my undead love roughs:
(and yes, I suck at text. I know)



(Just for kicks, here's a sampling of various ways Zombie Jesus has been done. I'll start there for inspiration.)