Salimba 25th anniversary edition cover (work in progress)
Coming from About Comics in October is Salimba, our complete 25th anniversary collection of the stories about a mysterious, magical, alluring jungle woman. Written by Thundercats and Silverhawks animation writer Stephen Perry and drawn by eight-time Eisner Award winner Paul Chadwick, these imaginative adventure tales depict a world inhabited by immortal pirates, worm boys, and zombie apes. Yes, you read that right – zombie apes! What more could you ask for?
Well, if you want something more, we’ve got a brand new Salimba story! “Baby”, a dark tale of drug addiction and the child left behind, was Perry’s last completed story before his recent tragic demise. This 10,000 word prose story will be published with two new illustrations by the legendary Steve Bissette, Perry’s long-time friend and collaborator on some of his most beloved work.
For our first time, About Comics is going with a recycled paper for the pages of this book – because we think Salimba would want it that way! (Don’t expect this to be the last time, either.) And even with this, we’re keeping the price of the book down to an affordable $9.99 US.
The Salimba tales were originally intended for Pacific Presents, a short-lived anthology title best remembered for running early appearances of Dave Stevens’s “The Rocketeer”. Pacific dissolved before they saw print, and the stories were published in issues by Blackthorne Publishing and then collected. Blackthorne has been gone from the scene, and these stories (“Pirate’s Heart”, “Worm Boy Heaven”, and the three-part “The Well of Night”) out of print, for decades.
Panel from "Pirate's Heart" by Stephen Perry, Paul Chadwick, Tom Palmer. Click for full page.
In Perry’s later days, the comics charity The Hero Initiative provided him with vital help, getting him money for his living and medical expenses. In recognition of that, we’re helping The Hero Initiative in two ways. Steve Bissette is giving the original art for his illustrations, and we’re donating 10% of the book’s print run to the Hero Initiative for their fundraising uses. Here’s the thing – the size of our print run is based on the amount of preorders we get, so the more copies that retailers order, the more we will give to the Hero Initiative. The best thing that you can do is to go to your retailer now and let them know that you want Salimba when it ships in October.
Salimba is a trademark of About Comics.
Damn! I really want that comic book…