#simon berman

[strixpublishing-blog]

When last I blogged on this hallowed page, Aeryn had invited me to promote my then-current project The Book of Starry Wisdom. I know for a fact a number of Rejectomancy readers backed the Kickstart…

Aeryn Rudel’s Rejectomancy blog features an interview with Strix Publishing owner, Simon Berman, about the Problem Glyphs art book. This interview also includes the first excerpt from creator Eliza Gauger’s introduction to the book.

[a-love-letter-to-atrocity]

Eliza Gauger:

oh shit we'll both have red hair

fucking dope

Simon Berman:

does that give us a CHA bonus

Eliza Gauger:

its like we're the quantum twins for bioshock infinite, only shitty and mean

Simon Berman:

true

[a-love-letter-to-atrocity]

Station Identification - January 2014

Recently, many of you seem to have become confused and ended up following my blog due to my posts about Dungeons & Dragons and existential despair. So, for the benefit of anyone new here's a bit about me.

My name is Simon Berman and I am a professional writer and marketing coordinator at www.privateerpress.com where I work on the award winning miniatures war games WARMACHINE and HORDES, as well as the Iron Kingdoms Full Metal Fantasy Roleplaying Game.

In my spare time I am one of the writers and principal motivators behind Unhallowed Metropolis, the gasmask chic role-playing game of neo-Victorian horror.

In addition to writing and marketing tabletop games, I’ve recently begun to explore writing comic books. Along with my co-creator, Eliza Gauger, I am neck deep in a pile of doommetalouterspacesatan weirdness known as Black Hole Wizard. We are close to releasing our first issue which makes this a predictably exhilarating and terrifying time for us.

I am also working on a smaller graphic novel titled WYCHCULT, with illustrator Trista Musco, as well as an ambitious photo-comic with photographer Angel Ceballos. 

Black Hole Wizard and my other upcoming comics projects are my primary creative passions outside of my dayjob at Privateer Press, so expect to hear an awful lot about those on here when I can be bothered to post something that isn’t a reblog of depressing political commentary, pictures of Satan, or dick jokes.

I am also a big nerd for music. I have been on a serious doom metal and 70s space rock kick due to their relevance to Black Hole Wizard, a project which was born of musical influences and my own growing disdain for the sanitized bounds of contemporary scifi and fantasy. But have otherwise been drowning myself in a lot of weird, droning, and sad stuff from bands like Chelsea Wolfe, True Widow, and Burial.

Predictably, I am also into lots of other weird shit like indie RPGs and other nerd crap. I have Serious Opinions about these things, but professionally must keep my mouth shut on the internet and not share too much.

If you are desperate to see more of the mundane trivialities of my life you can find me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/berman.simon) and Twitter (@godsawayonbsns).

See you all in Hell.

[3liza]

qutaybah of Black Hole Wizard

[blackholewizard]

Candid shots from Eliza and Simon's photoshoot with noted music photographer, Angel Ceballos. www.robotangel.com 

[3liza]

Black Hole Wizard emotive worksheet #2, featuring an early run at a design for an important future character and a suite of different hair/beard/headphone options, although we're pretty set on the ammonite earcups at this point, it being a happy medium between something dumb that Simon "suggested" and my other, much better idea.

I'm developing serious affection for this character, to be perfectly honest.  I mean let's bypass for a minute that he's finely crafted to my own personal dogwhistle specifications, with a few exceptions (that beard, for example, is just silly) and talk about how drawing the same face over and over again with the intent to create something real is a kind of prayer wheel process with its own tooth-gritting exultation.

here's the reference image i took of myself for the "fizzled spell".

[blackholewizard]

Our new logo, by Ed Bourelle.

[blackholewizard]

If you’ve had the misfortune of following the social media ravings of writer, Simon Berman or artist, Eliza Gauger over the past few months, you may well be asking yourself, “What the hell is Black Hole Wizard and what is wrong with these people?” We will attempt to answer the first question; the second would require a lot more time than we have right now.

Black Hole Wizard is a comic book intended as an excuse for us to explore the weirder recesses of science fiction and fantasy, the droning soundscapes of doom metal, and the new aesthetics of 21st Century occultism. It’s our hope to take these elements and meld them into a compelling attempt at recapturing the spirit of mid-century speculative fiction. 

Simon Berman is a staff writer at Privateer Press where he works on their award winning tabletop games WARMACHINE, HORDES, and the Iron Kingdoms Full Metal Fantasy Roleplaying Game. He’s also written and directed a number of projects for Unhallowed Metropolis, the gas-mask chic role-playing game of Neo-Victorian horror.         

Eliza Gauger is a decade-deep veteran of freelance illustrating and fine art, starting her career on the quaintly-infamous Book of Erotic Fantasy and clawing her way up through assignments with Legend of the Five Rings, Unhallowed Metropolis, Conclave Journal, the Proof newspaper, storyboard and graphic design on projects with Jhonen Vasquez, and gallery shows in Munich, Berlin, New York, and Seattle. Her most recent project was DEEP MAP PILOTS with Warren Ellis, a series of illustrated sci-fi vignettes.

We’re currently hashing out the first of our initial six issue story line but we’ll have more to share soon. We hope you’ll join us and our new acquaintance, Qutaybah of El’anscopé, the Black Hole Wizard, on this psychedelic journey into the Void.