Authors Electric

If you can't bear advertorial, then you'd better avert your gaze now ... because this month I am shamelessly promoting  GHOSTS ELECTRIC . This is the fabulous new spooktacular anthology from the Dark Sparks who are to be found lurking in the shadows cast by Authors Electric, and it is out now, in plenty of time for Halloween. (And in even better time for Christmas, another traditional time for the sort of story that gives you horripilations as you read by the gloomy light of a gibbous moon ...) It was never supposed to exist ... but the idea was spawned one dark and stormy night by Sue Price, who, like Mary Shelley, suggested that we try our hands at something a little bit seasonal. As it was Octoberish at the time, Halloween naturally sprang to mind ... But as I was already midway through rounding up the contributions for our annual fiction anthology Another Flash in the Pen , rather than being an...

Well here we are. We have finally reached the end of my countdown of metafictional comics, and it only took nine months to do it. Yes, there are children being born this month who were conceived on the day I began this outting. Hi kids! Y'all got some catching up to do. There have been some  sidetracks ,  meanderings , and just plain  random   laziness , admittedly, but we have at last gotten here. If you are like these kids, you may want to check out the previous list first: You could start with the honorable mentions , then move on to 5. Cerebus by Simms and Gerhard 4. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Moore and O'Neal 3. Sandman by Gaiman and various artists 2. Fables by Willingham and various artists And now.... 1. The Unwritten - Mike Carey (author) and Peter Gross (artist) On the surface,  The Unwritten seems like a conscious rip-off of both Harry Potter  and Neil Gaiman's comic  The Books of Magic . ...

The problem with writing a best seller is that then the pressure really is on to follow it up. Some authors do succeed: the seventh Harry Potter book reportedly had sales of 11 million during the first 24 hours, beating book six by 2 million sales. The series has come to an end, but eyes are once again on J K Rowling this month, with her first adult book due out on the 27 th.   Can’t say I’d like to be in her shoes as there are doubtless going to be a lot of people out there hoping to see her fail, and I suspect there will be a lot who run it down, regardless of its quality. Yes, trying to follow up a best seller must be a tough task. While Rowling has kept on writing and each of her books so far has outsold the previous one, some authors become literary one hit wonders - Wuthering Heights and Black Beauty spring to mind, although to be fair their authors had little chance for a second crack of the whip:   Anna Sewell died five months after publication of her masterp...