Lots of interesting news regarding our brothers in swords and souls recently. Along with fellow blogger Deuce, I’ve long maintained that exploration and appreciation of settings beyond the stale “Medieval Europe” standard for so many fantasy worlds is a great way to bring freshness and excitement to the fantasy genre, and the rich, exotic history and cultures of Africa makes for ideal inspiration. First-Spear of Sword-and-Soul Charles R. Saunders is preeminent among those authors who embraced this, and through his site, he names some others deserving of our attention.

First of all, in the recommended reading section, he writes about Alex Bledsoe’s Blood Groove, suggested to him by our own Steve Tompkins. I’d like to make special mention of the delicious double-entendre of the title, which Saunders also notices: evocative not only of the sanguinary channels of Aztecan altars, but of the more rhythmic association. The inclusion of a Blacula poster only sweetens the deal: I always was a sucker for blaxploitation–sorry, sorry, I guess it really is hard to avoid puns when vampires are involved.

Second is a more sobering piece, a tribute to fallen comrade Janet Fox. I’ve only read one Fox tale, “Morrien’s Bitch,” which was her contribution to Jessica Amanda Salmondson’s essential anthology Amazons! I purchased Amazons! not just because I greatly relish stories of women warriors, but because it had a Dossouye yarn. Saunders was one of only two male authors to have stories included, and this was one of many occasions where he and Fox were “anthology buddies.” I think I’ll dig out my copy of Amazons! and give “Morrien’s Bitch” another read.

Rounding out the news is a lengthy and comprehensive interview with Winston Blakely, a comic artist and writer whose Immortal Fantasy looks to be another fascinating entry into the Sword-and-Sorcery graphic novel library. Inspired by E. E. Smith, Michael Moorcock, Robert E. Howard, EC Comics and others, Blakely likens Immortal Fantasy to Heavy Metal in a graphic novel format. Reading about some of the characters — the shape-shifting alien king Kotas the Dragon, Pozitron the techno-warrior — my interest is already piqued.

In addition to his association with Saunders (who graces Immortal Fantasy with an introduction), Blakely has done work for another Sword-and-Soul spear-bearer: Milton S. Davis, providing art for his Meji and Changa milieus, with examples of his work shown here. Wanting to find out more about Blakely, I posed a few questions.

On his friend Charles R. Saunders:

Charles is someone that I’ve admired for a long time, ever since I found out about Imaro. I struck up a friendship with him online when I joined this site called BlackScienceFictionSociety.com. I asked him if I could do my interpretation of Imaro and he told me to go for it.

Of course, it was pleasure to find out that he enjoyed the piece that I did. After that I started sharing my upcoming projects with him and then I inquire if Charles would do an introduction to my anthology–Immortal Fantasy. Fortunately for me, he thought it was a great idea and we even discuss the inclusion of an interview about me on his site. I’m still sending him samples of my work, since I plan on another title after Immortal Fantasy which would have an African based woman warrior and other characters that I’m fleshing out before I begin to put them to paper.

On his Brooklyn upbringing, and how his work as a teacher contributed to his art and writing:

Growing up in 2 to 3 family house in Brooklyn is memory that I treasure always. We had a beautiful backyard and I use to ride my bicycle pretending it was a horse as I played Zorro and ate grapes of the vineyard we had. My imagination was always active and being a teacher did not affect it at all. To entertain and teach art appreciation I did drawings of Mortal Kombat heroes for my students to color and briefly show how I constructed the figures. At the same time I was working at Valiant Comics and got free books to offer them if they behave themselves in my class. It was a good bribe.

Interesting enough, plenty of comics and graphic novels were available as Valiant had an comic book exchange program with Marvel, DC and Image, plus any other independent comic publisher. Needless to say, I had a field day with this and remember it well.

On the future, and possible and desired collaborations:

It’s a pipe dream of mine to collaborate with Steve Ditko and Jim Starlin. I admired them both. Seeing Starlin do Adam Warlock and Thanos inspired me to create some of the characters that are in Immortal Fantasy. Ditko helped established my sense of storytelling from his amazing Spider-Man art and the mysterious Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts. I do like Alan Moore, Michael Moorcock as writers, but I was hoping that maybe someday Charles would  come up with a character that I could collaborate with him on. Hey, you never know.

Immortal Fantasy is out now, with details on how to order it here.