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Preview Of Douglas Clegg’s Hotly Anticipated ‘Neverland’!

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Douglas Clegg has been referred to as the Godfather of the ‘E-Book’ movement having made a name for himself in with his E-Published serial titled ‘NAOMI’ that garnered him high praise among readers and critics alike. Since then he has written several horror classics such as “THE MACHINERY OF NIGHT”, “ISIS”, “BASTARD SON”, “THE NIGHTMARE CHRONICLES”, and many others earning himself a Bram Stoker and Shocker award along the way. Now Doug is at it again as he looks to release his newest story ‘NEVERLAND’ this April. Read on for the skinny.

Here’s The Full Press Release,

“Douglas Clegg, New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Guild Award, and the Shocker Award, returns this April with NEVERLAND (A Vanguard Press trade paperback original; on-sale: April 13, 2010; $15.95), a southern gothic tale of family secrets and childhood games gone awry.

Advance buzz is already building about NEVERLAND, with authors such as Bentley Little comparing it to the beloved novel To Kill a Mockingbird “as a classic modern novel that illuminates the human condition through the eyes of a child,” and New York Times bestselling author F. Paul Wilson hailing NEVERLAND as “a powerful and thrilling tale, Douglas Clegg’s best novel yet.”

Clegg, drawing on some of the events from his own life and a long-ago visit to an island much like Gull Island, brings us the story of a family vacation gone terribly wrong, a novel about the lies adults tell and the destruction they wreak on the innocents around them.

Says Clegg of writing NEVERLAND: “This novel, my favorite of anything I’ve written, is about absolute innocence embracing the wildness—and darkness—of the imagination. I was able to explore the destructive nature of family secrets, and how children sometimes create rituals of power as an escape from the world their parents have made.”

But imaginative games are not always innocent . . . and when Beau travels to the Retreat, his grandmother’s forbidding home on Gull Island off the Georgia coast line, resigned to a boring family vacation, he finds that his cousin, Sumter, has other plans.

Sumter has found a run-down shack hidden in the woods, a place “where you ain’t supposed to go,” a place forbidden to them that smells of socks, dead sea creatures—and dread; Sumter christens it Neverland.

Fascinated and terrified by Neverland but thrilled to have made a secret life for themselves in a shack full of old Playboys, smuggled beers, and forbidden words, Sumter and his cousins create a hallucinatory world of dark fantasy, a world ruled by a god of shadows, who Sumter calls “Lucy.”

But the shack is the key to a terrible secret, and the world the children create away from their parents, bound to each other by blood oaths, is anything but innocent. As tensions build at the Retreat and the adults start on their gin and tonics earlier each day, Sumter’s games begin to invoke a nightmarish presence that cannot be contained within the bounds of imagination any longer . . .

Featuring stunning interior illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne, illustrator of Stephen King’s Secretary of Dreams, NEVERLAND brings to mind author greats such as Ray Bradbury, Thomas Tryon, Truman Capote, and Tennessee Williams as Clegg explores the darkness of man’s soul while giving us surprising glimpses into the complexities of the human heart…”

Keep it locked here at Bloody-Disgusting as we bring you exclusive content from Doug regarding the upcoming project as well as our review and my one-on-one interview with the author!

Comics

‘Witchblade’ is Getting Resurrected This Summer in New Comic Series from Top Cow and Image Comics

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Witchblade cover

Witchblade, the popular comic series that initially ran from 1995 to 2015 and launched a TV series, is getting resurrected in a new comic series from Top Cow and Image Comics. It’s set to unleash heavy metal, black magic and blood this summer.

Look for the new Witchblade series to launch on July 17, 2024.

In Witchblade #1, “New York City Police Detective Sara Pezzini’s life was forever fractured by her father’s murder. Cold, cunning, and hellbent on revenge, Sara now stalks a vicious criminal cabal beneath the city, where an ancient power collides and transforms her into something wild, magnificent, and beyond her darkest imaginings. How will Sara use this ancient power, or will she be consumed by it?”

The series is penned by NYT Best-Selling writer Marguerite Bennett (AnimosityBatwomanDC Bombshells) and visualized by artist Giuseppe Cafaro (Suicide SquadPower RangersRed Sonja). The creative duo is working with original co-creator Marc Silvestri, who is the CEO of Top Cow Productions Inc. and one of the founders of Image Comics. They are set to reintroduce the series to Witchblade’s enduring fans with “a reimagined origin with contemporary takes on familiar characters and new story arcs that will hook new readers and rekindle the energy and excitement that fueled the 90’s Image Revolution that shaped generations of top creators.”

Bennett said in a statement, “The ability to tell a ferocious story full of monsters, sexuality, vision, and history was irresistible.” She adds, “Our saga is sleek, vicious, ferocious, and has a lot to say about power in the 21st century and will be the first time that we are stopping the roller coaster to let more people on. I’ve loved Witchblade since I was a child, and there is truly no other heroine like Sara with such an iconic legacy and such a rich, brutal relationship to her own body.”

“The Witchblade universe is being modernized to reflect how Marguerite beautifully explores the extreme sides of Sara through memories, her personal thoughts, like desire and hunger, in her solitude and when she is possessed by the Witchblade. So, I had to visually intersect a noir True Detective-like world with a supernatural, horror world that is a fantastic mix between Berserk and Zodiac,” Cafaro stated.

Marc Silvestri notes, “This is brand new mythology around Sara, and I can’t wait for you to fall in love with her and all the twists and turns. Discover Witchblade reimagined this summer, and join us as we bring all the fun of the 90s to the modern age and see how exciting comics can be. I can’t wait for you to read this new series.”

Witchblade#1 will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, July 17th, for $4.99 for 48 pages. And it’ll come with multiple cover variants.

  • Cover A: Marc Silvestri and Arif Prianto (Full Color)

  • Cover B: Giuseppe Cafaro and Arif Prianto (Full Color)

  • Cover C: Blank Sketch Cover

  • Cover D (1/10): Dani and Brad Simpson (Full Color)

  • Cover E (1/25): Marc Silvestri and Arif Prianto, Virgin Cover (Full Color)

  • Cover F (1/50): J.Scott Campbell (Full Color)

  • Cover G (1/100): Bill Sienkiewicz. (Full Color)

  • Cover H (1/250): Line art by Marc. Virgin Cover, Inks (B/W)

Witchblade #1 will also be available across many digital platforms, including Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Play.

Witchblade comic panel Witchblade #1 cover image

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