Heavy Metal Pulp Debuts
Heavy Metal magazine and Tor Books are joining together to produce a line of books combining noir fiction and fantastic/SF art.
Heavy Metal Pulp aims to partner the top illustrators and designers from Heavy Metal with today’s most talented science fiction writers to create a new series with a 21st century edge, blending the sensuous artistic style and graphic imagery of the iconic fantasy magazine with classic noir storytelling.
Their first foray, Pleasure Model, penned by Christopher Rowley, is out this week.
PLEASURE MODEL stars down-and-out police detective Rook, who gets his break when he’s assigned to a bizarre and vicious murder case. The clues are colder than the corpse and the case looks like it’ll remain unsolved—until an eyewitness is discovered. But the witness is an illegal gene-grown human with no emotion or empathy—Plesur’s only purpose is to provide satisfaction to her owner, in any way. When the murderer targets Plesur in order to eliminate the one witness, Rook takes her into hiding to protect her. Thus begins a descent into the dark world of exotic pleasure bots and their illicit international buyers and manufacturers as Rook frantically looks for clues. But is Rook falling under Plesur’s spell . . . ?
Around the Web: Millar’s Nemesis, The Beat Moves, and More
- Marvel’s giving us a chance to peruse the first six pages of Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s (both of Civil War fame) next project (due to release 3/3/10) here. This being a Millar book from the publisher’s Icon imprint, you’d be correct in assuming the guy in the chair’s fate ain’t pretty.
CIVIL WAR? Nothing. KICK-ASS? A warmup. What if the smartest, toughest costumed bad ass in the world was totally evil? Meet Nemesis. He’s systematically been destroying the lives of every police chief in Asia, and he’s now set his sights on Washington, DC. Between you and me, the police don’t have a chance. Do not miss the book that EVERYONE will be talking about by the creative team that made CIVIL WAR the biggest book of the decade.
- Heidi MacDonald’s superlative comics culture blog The Beat has moved!!! And what a snazzy logo:
THE BEAT, now in its sixth year, is dedicated to providing the timeliest and most pertinent news and information about comics, the people who make them, the readers who love them and the world that shapes them.
HEIDI MacDONALD is an award-winning writer and editor and a veteran entertainment industry journalist. As an editor she has worked for Disney, Warner Bros., and Fox, among many others.
- “I hope I look like God.” -Anthony Hopkins on playing Odin in the now-in-production Thor film directed by Kenneth Branagh. More at Sci-Fi Wire.
- VGrevolution reviews Star Trek Online…
- …and MTV Splash Page’s Rick Marshall reviews the new Planet Hulk DVD favorably.
And to finish off your meal you can wash it down with this from Warren Ellis regarding Iran’s launch into orbit of an experimental capsule containing live animals:
Ahmadinejad may be an evil prick, but his black, kinky sense of humour is undeniable. Obama just cut the nuts off NASA, and Iran (it claims) puts a capsule in orbit.
CIVIL WAR? Nothing. KICK-ASS? A warmup. What if the smartest, toughest costumed bad ass in the world was totally evil? Meet Nemesis. He’s systematically been destroying the lives of every police chief in Asia, and he’s now set his sights on Washington, DC. Between you and me, the police don’t have a chance. Do not miss the book that EVERYONE will be talking about by the creative team that made CIVIL WAR the biggest book of the decade.