Editor Lou Anders is a busy guy. Lately, he’s been doing the internet rounds for not one but two recently released anthologies. The first, Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery, co-edited with Jonathan Strahan, includes stories by the likes of Gene Wolfe, Steven Erickson, and Scott Lynch, as well as former guests to this blog James Enge, Glen Cook, Michael Moorcock and Joe Abercrombie (How’s that for a partial line-up?!). The second, Masked, is a collection of original superhero fiction that, like Swords & Dark Magic before it, has been receiving a fair amount of positive buzz. And what I’ve found particularly pleasing about the initial feedback is that, so far, the anthology has appealed to both comic fans and neophytes alike. I think that says as much about the quality of the stories as it does Lou’s ability to assemble and guide some very talented people. Though I suppose it should come as no surprise given that Lou, who is the editorial director of the SF&F imprint PYR Books, is a four time Hugo Award nominee for Best Editor and a Chelsea Award Winning Art Director. He’s also been nominated for the PKD and WFC Awards and presently has nine anthologies to his credit.
I invited Lou to come by, give us an intro to Masked, and offer a little insight into what led him to put together this unique anthology. Lou offered up the following thoughts…
Hello wonderful fans of Joe. It’s good to be back on this blog. As I sit here, very slowly nursing a Newcastle (“for inspiration”), I’m trying to think what I can say about Masked that is different from what I’ve already said. I’ve been thrilled–and deeply grateful–for the amount of attention Masked has been getting since it debuted. There was almost no pre-buzz on this anthology, and I was worried it was going to be missed, that it would be passed over by SF&F fans and never noticed by comic fans who didn’t venture into SF&F shelves. But from the moment it debuted–at the San Diego Comic Con no less–the interweebs have been quite vocal about it, with multiple new reviews showing up every day and a lot of requests for interviews (one from the Wall Street Journal’s blog, no less). We’ve had a couple producers call requesting copies, done a “soundtrack” feature on largehearted boy, and been praised very enthusiastically on io9. I think that the anthology is really striking a chord with people, and that I was more right than I knew when I wrote in the intro that superheroes were coming into their own in a way they never had before. Not that sophisticated storytelling was anything new for the genre–it’s been around a quarter century since The Dark Knight Returns debuted–but the mainstream acceptance of superheroes has never been higher, as evidenced by the critical-and-box office success of films like The Dark Knight. I’ve been reading comic books since I could read (I have Batman and Detective comics going back to the 50s, though FYI I wasn’t around when they came out), and I think that’s part of it–that the generation that grew up on geek culture is now calling the shots in entertainment as well as being catered to by that entertainment. There have been many attempts to do superheroes in prose over the years (I have the The Further Adventures of the Joker anthology lying around somewhere), but a lot of them have been done in the spirit of camp, outsiders poking fun at the genre, or taking a post-modern, ironic spin on it. I didn’t want to do superheroes with a wink and a nudge. Rather, I wanted Masked to be the kind of book that current readers of DC/Vertigo, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image, et al. would recognize and appreciate, and for that, I turned to the people who actually write comics, plus a few award-winning SF&F author, and one television producer (whose first-ever prose story is so staggeringly good that it will be a sin against god, the future, and the English language itself if he never writes another). And I think that’s the real reason that Masked is getting the attention it is. The calibre of the contributors and the level of talent they bring to its pages. I’m just the guy who cajoled them all into one volume, they did all the heavy lifting. And for that, I’m really, truly grateful. Because they are a super bunch.
And, to cap it off, yet another Masked review: http://superheronovels.com/2010/08/06/welcome-to-the-new-golden-age/
For more of Lou, head on over to www.louanders.com
Another pic from Stargate: Universe season one that hints at things to come in season two…
And continuing our trip down memory lane, we turn to the Atlantis archives…
Well, I should have four solid acts of my script, The Hunt, completed by the time I head back into the office on Monday. Since I’ll be on set for most of the week, surveying the action on episode #9, Visitation, I’ll have plenty of time to re-read, polish, and forge ahead into that fifth and final act. I like what I have so far and I’ve always been partial to these types of stories with various intersecting throughlines running on parallel thematic narratives. It also offers some wonderful insight into a number of different characters (even a few you wouldn’t expect!). The location shoot should be tons of fun…
Leave a Reply