I am currently seeking cover artists for The CM3 Library collector’s edition hardcover series. Submission guidelines are below.
COVER ART
I am looking to commission cover images in a variety of styles from horror to science-fiction to surrealism to erotica and everything in between. I am only interested in traditional art or digital paintings that are of professional quality. ABSOLUTELY NO AI-GENERATED OR AI-ENHANCED ARTWORK. I am also not interested in photography or photo-manipulations.
PAYMENT: $500-1000 (depending on complexity and popularity of the book)
Send a link to your online portfolio to cm3library@eraserheadpress.com. If I think you’re a good fit for the series I’ll email you back.
It might not be for a year or more before this one comes out, but for fans of the Warrior Wolf Women world I wanted to announce that I will in fact be writing the third book in the series. “Pippi of the Apocalypse” will explore the character of Pippi: the bratty self-centered evil little bitch from the first book. It will go back and forth between her life as a child growing up in the werewolf tribe and her life years after the events of Warrior Wolf Women, where she has to deal with raising a family in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. What I hope to achieve with this book is to turn Pippi into a likeable character without having to change her. She will still be the vile, malicious, bloodthirsty little shit that she was in the first novel, but I hope to show that she can be just as beautiful as she can be horrible. She is still human, after all.
Pippi is one of my favorite characters I’ve ever created. I think it’s because she was the first character I’ve ever written that came alive on the page. By that I mean I no longer felt in control of what she was doing in my story. She took on a life of her own. She was originally created just to be killed off early on in the story, but she just wouldn’t die. She went from being the character most likely to die first to a good source of conflict that proved useful to keep around to the main villain of the story to finally the main love interest. It was like she was changing roles in my story in order to survive.
In any case, this is a book I need to write, so it will be written. I really doubt I will do another book in this series, but I do have an idea for a fourth book called “Dog Destroyers of the Deadlands.” This one would bring the two sequels (Pippi of the Apocalypse and Barbarian Beast Bitches of the Badlands) together into one final story. But we’ll see. I’ll probably base my decision on reader feedback after Pippi of the Apocalypse has been out for a while.
For those of you who haven’t read them, here are the first two books in the series:
CHERUB – Adam-Troy Castro
THE DEVIL – Guy de Maupassant
THE BOOK – Margaret Irwin
THE MONKEY’S PAW – W.W. Jacobs
THE HOUND – H.P. Lovecraft
…THE BLACK CAT – Edgar Allan Poe
THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER – Stephen Vincent Benet
NELLTHU – Anthony Boucher
THE HOWLING MAN – Charles Beaumont
THE EXORCIST (excerpt) – William Peter Blatty
HELL – Richard Christian Matheson
VISITATION – David J. Schow
…BEST FRIENDS – Robert R. McCammon
INTO WHOSE HANDS – Karl Edward Wagner
PILGRIMS TO THE CATHEDRAL – Mark Arnold
THE BESPELLED – Kim Harrison
NON QUIS, SED QUID – Maggie Stiefvater
DEMON GIRL – Athena Villaverde
HE WAITS – K.H. Koehler
HAPPY HOUR – Laura Lee Bahr
…STAYING THE NIGHT – Amelia Beamer
DAISIES AND DEMONS – Mercedes M. Yardley
AND LOVE SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION – Livia Llewellyn
MOM – Bentley Little
20TH LEVEL CHAOTIC EVIL ROGUE SEEKS WHOLE WIDE WORLD TO CONQUER – Weston Ochse
CONSUELA HATES A VACUUM – Cody Goodfellow
OUR BLOOD IN ITS BLIND CIRCUIT – J. David Osborne
EMPTY CHURCH – James Steele
…ANGELOLOGY (excerpt) –Danielle Trussoni
THE CODA OF SOLOMON – Nick Mamatas
THE LAW OF RESONANCE – Zak Jarvis
STUPID FUCKING REASON TO SELL YOUR SOUL – Carlton Mellick III
HALT AND CATCH FIRE – Violet LeVoit
SCARS IN PROGRESS – Brian Hodge
THE UNICORN HUNTER – Alethea Kontis
OTHER PEOPLE – Neil Gaiman
If you haven’t heard the news on Monday, hardcore horror writers Brian Keene and J. F. Gonzalez have signed with Eraserhead Press’s cult horror imprint Deadite Press. The press will be re-releasing multiple books by these authors, starting with Urban Gothic by Brian Keene and the first two books of the Clickers series by J. F. Gonzales, Mark Williams, and Brian Keene.
Keene is not only one of the coolest fucking writers out there in horror, he has also been one of the biggest supporters of my work and bizarro fiction in general for the past decade, so I’m really excited to see him working with Deadite Press. As many of you know, I design all the covers for Deadite (including the ones pictured above) and with these upcoming releases I hope to give these writers the badass presentation their work rightly deserves.
When there’s no more meat in hell,
the vegans will walk the earth.
If you are a zombie fan or a vegan you need to check out this book. Published by Deadite Press, the cult horror imprint of Eraserhead Press. I urged “punk horror” author David Agranoff to write this book because I thought it was a book that needed to be written. No one in the world could have written this book but David. I’m not a vegan, but you don’t have to be a vegan to like this. It’s just a good horror comedy that pokes fun at hipsters, Portlanders, juggalos, zombie fans, and even some aspects vegan culture. Oh, and it also pokes fun at the whole “with zombies” trend in literature that started with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The main character works at a zombie publishing house and is copyediting the next big zombie mash-up: Of Mice and Men and Zombies.
“Like Shaun of the Dead with vegans and hipsters. A hilarious zombie comedy. I loved it!” – Carlton Mellick III
“Destined to become a favorite among zombie fans and vegans alike.” – Gina Ranalli, author of Praise the Dead
“This witty novel celebrates everything I love about vegan Portland and kills everything I hate!” – Jess of Portland’s Get Sconed vegan blog.
Presenting Stress Free Food! Animal suffering is a thing of the past. Hipsters can now enjoy bacon without guilt. Thanks to a new miracle drug the cute little pig no longer feels a thing as she is led to the slaughter. The only problem? Once the drug enters the food supply anyone who eats it is infected. From fast food burgers to free-range organic eggs, eating animal products turns people into shambling brain-dead zombies. Not even vegetarians are safe!
In Portland, Oregon, vegans, freegans, abolitionists, hardliners and raw fooders have holed up in Food Fight, one of the country’s premier vegan grocery stores at the vegan mini-mall. There they must prepare for their final battle to take back the city from the hordes of roaming undead. Will vegans filet the flesh-eaters or will they become zombie chow?
When there’s no more meat in hell, the vegans will walk the earth.
The masterful bizarro author D. Harlan Wilson will be editing a bizarro issue of The Pedestal Magazine. Here are the submission guidelines:
The Pedestal Magazine invites submissions for a special issue of Bizarro fiction to be edited by D. Harlan Wilson. Flash fiction between 250-1000 words will be considered. Loosely speaking, “Bizarro” is an umbrella term encompassing different kinds of weird, absurd, horrific, uncanny, and/or grotesque speculative fiction. Literary and experimental forms are strongly encouraged. Do not submit work that is simply weird for weird’s sake; also avoid toilet humor and boyish antics. We are looking for purposeful Bizarro that is dynamically written and thought-provoking. Payment for accepted stories will be $.08 per word. No reprints. Submission period will run from April 28-June 14. All submissions will be received via the submission form provided on The Pedestal Magazine website: http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com.
Jordan Krall is a bizarro author who happens to be obsessed with the spaghetti western genre of film. When Eraserhead Press asked him to write a bizarro novel with a spaghetti western theme he jumped all over that. His work has always been crazy and one of a kind, but Fistful of feet is something special. I think it’s because his passion for spaghetti westerns really comes through in this book. People have said that it is not only one of the best weird westerns out there, but also one of the best bizarro books of last year (or perhaps even all time).
You owe it to yourself to check out this book. Here are some reasons why: Cthulhu-worshipping Indians, a woman with four feet, a Giallo-esque serial killer, a crazed gunman who is obsessed with sucking on candy, Syphilis-ridden mutants, ass juice, burping pistols, sexually transmitted tattoos, and a house devoted to the freakiest fetishes.
I’m looking for stories for an upcoming bizarro Christmas-themed anthology called “Christmas on Crack.”
What I’m looking for: very weird children’s Christmas stories for adults. I’m especially looking for fucked up versions of classic Christmas stories like Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Twas the Night Before Christmas, a Christmas Carol, etc, but something completely original would also be welcome. I want these stories to be funny, imaginative, surreal, trashy, clever, and not at all appropriate for children. Think of Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas meets Lloyd Kaufman’s Poultrygeist. The weirder the better, the trashier the better, the funnier the better. Surprise me.
Note: I would prefer if the stories were told in a narrative style similar to that of a children’s story. Think of The Faggiest Vampire meets Sausagey Santa. That’s the kind of thing I want to see, but better. But a good story is a good story no matter what style it’s written in.
Length: I’d like stories that are 3,000-12,000 words long.
How to submit: I actually don’t want you to write anything until after you contact me. Pitch me an idea for your story first. That way if I’m not interested then you don’t have to go through the trouble of writing it. I am only going to respond to story ideas that interest me, so if you never hear back from me it probably means that I think your story ideas are completely lame and you shouldn’t have even bothered to try. Well, either that or other pitches better caught my attention.
Send an idea (or three) for a bizarro Christmas story you’d like to write for me to: carltonmellick3@yahoo.com.
Deadline: I will be taking pitches until May 15th 2010 or sooner if I find enough ideas that I like.
Posted in Publishing on July 28, 2009 by carltonmellick
Bizarro has expanded to the German language, with Black Hard Press. The first German publisher of bizarro fiction. They will be publishing German language bizarro books and hopefully developing a German bizarro fiction scene. If you are a bizarro writer living in Germany definitely check them out.
"Carlton Mellick III has the craziest book titles... and the kinkiest fans!"
—Christopher Moore
"Carlton Mellick III is one of bizarro fiction's most talented practitioners, a virtuoso of the surreal, science fictional tale."
—Cory Doctorow
CARLTON MELLICK III is the Wonderland Book Award-winning author of over 45 novels, including Quicksand House, Bio Melt, Cuddly Holocaust and Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland. In 2013, he was named one of the top 20 science-fiction writers under the age of 40 by The Guardian UK. His work has appeared in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, The Best Bizarro Fiction of the Decade, and Vice Magazine.
Featured Titles
Apeship
Six people are stranded at sea on a derelict cruise ship filled with immortal cannibal mutants.
Splatterpunk satire.
Full Metal Octopus
A fairy and an octomaid go on the run from the elf yakuza.
Pulpy and sexual.
The Bad Box
A class of fifth grade students find themselves at the mercy of a malicious godlike teacher.
Dark and absurd.
Snuggle Club
A short horror comedy that takes the art of communal snuggling to a whole new extreme.
Awkward and creepy.
Mouse Trap
A group of school children try to survive an alien invasion within an abandoned amusement park.
Dark and pulpy.
The Boy with the Chainsaw Heart
A Bio-Mech pilot drafted into Hell’s army must fight his way through a surreal afterlife in order to save his wife from slavery.
Dark and pulpy.
Neverday
The story of what happens to society after everyone in the world gets trapped in a never-ending time loop.
Dark and dystopian.
Stacking Doll
The story of a man who falls in love with a Russian nesting doll.
Dark and surreal.
Parasite MIlk
A travel show producer is infected with deadly sexually transmitted parasites after visiting a brothel on an alien planet.
Body horror science-fiction comedy.
The Big Meat
A kaiju tribute novel that explores the surreal aftermath of a giant monster attack.
Dark and gritty.
Spider Bunny
A group of college kids get trapped inside a deranged children’s cereal commercial from the 1980’s.
Creepy and absurd.
Exercise Bike
The story of a man who transformed himself into a human exercise bike and the woman who is forced to ride him.
Absurd body horror.
The Terrible Thing That Happens
In a post-apocalypse world, a small community of scavengers must survive by looting a grocery store that’s stuck in a time loop.
Dark and surreal.
Bio Melt
Within a toxic wasteland, six strangers find themselves trapped in an abandoned hotel, surrounded by a mysterious black ooze.
Dark and surreal.
ClownFellas
Six interconnected novellas revolving around the Bozo clown crime family
Surreal and Pulpy.
Sweet Story
A children’s book gone horribly wrong.
Dark humor.
The Tick People
In a city where people live like parasites on the back of a giant animal, a professional sadness-maker discovers that his soul mate is a hideous mutant.
Dark and surreal.
Hungry Bug
In a world where magic exists, spell-casting has become a serious addiction.
Gritty and pulpy.
Clusterfuck
A bunch of douchebag frat boys get trapped in a cave with subterranean cannibal mutants and try to survive not by using their wits but by following the bro code.
Comical and violent.
Quicksand House
Two children who have never met their parents before, even though they live in the same house with them, must fight for survival once their nursery becomes uninhabitable.
Dark and Dystopian.
Village of the Mermaids
An eccentric doctor travels to an isolated village of carnivorous mermaids to investigate a new disease spreading through the herd of human livestock.
Dark and Dystopian.
Cuddly Holocaust
A tale of survival set in a world where most of the human race has been exterminated by vicious stuffed animals.
Apocalyptic and brutal.
Kill Ball
A slasher thriller set in a city where everyone lives in plastic bubbles.
Dystopian and surreal.
Tumor Fruit
Seven castaways stranded on a bizarre deserted island must go to extremes in order to survive.
Surreal and disturbing.
The Handsome Squirm
It’s Franz Kafka’s The Trial meets an erotic horror version of The Blob when a man is forced by law to marry an alien woman who devours her mates.
Absurd and dystopian.
Armadillo Fists
Set in a world where people drive mechanical dinosaurs instead of cars, a female boxer with armadillo hands is on the run from deranged mobsters.
Pulpy and fun.
I Knocked Up Satan’s Daughter
A parody of romantic comedies about a man who finds himself engaged to a succubus who’s pregnant with his child.
Light and satirical.
The Morbidly Obese Ninja
A 700 pound killing machine must go against his corporate employers in order to save a terminal child.
Pulpy and fun.
Crab Town
A bizarre bank heist set in a radioactive post-nuke ghetto.
Dystopian and relevant.
Zombies and Shit
It’s Battle Royale meets Return of the Living dead in a fight to the death game of survival where twenty contestants are put against each other in the middle of the zombie wasteland.
Apocalyptic, pulpy, and epic.
Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland
A Wonderland Book Award-winning novel about a three-armed man who finds himself in the middle of a war between a gang of road warrior werewolves and mutants from a dystopian version of McDonaldland.
Apocalyptic, pulpy, and epic.
The Cannibals of Candyland
A man finds himself imprisoned in an under ground world populated by child-eating mutants made of candy.
Erotic and horrific.
A parody of cabin in the woods horror stories where the victims turn out to be far more deranged than the mutant killers who hunt them.
Campy and fucked up.
The Egg Man
It is a survival of the fittest world where humans reproduce like insects, children are the property of corporations, and having a ten-foot tall brain is a grotesque sexual fetish.
Dark, dystopian, and ugly.
Cybernetrix
A dark and bizarre parody of the movie Tron where a game world and our world bleed together into one reality.
Pulpy and awesome.
The Faggiest Vampire
A bizarro children’s book about two vampire rivals competing in a mustache contest to determine which one is the faggiest.
Cute and relevant.
The Ultra Fuckers
A landscaper and a trio of Japanese punks find themselves stranded in a suburban gated community that seems to go on forever.
Nightmarish and absurd.
Adolf in Wonderland
Nazis from an alternate world of absolute perfection go down the rabbit hole into a dark surreal world of chaos and imperfection.
Absurd and horrific.
Sausagey Santa
A bizarro Christmas story… filled with sex and violence.
Satirical and pulpy.
The Haunted Vagina
It’s difficult to love a woman whose vagina is a gateway to the world of the dead.
Satirical and absurd.
Praise for Carlton Mellick III
"If you like satires which are highly imaginative, subversive, gory, funny as hell and completely surreal CM3 may be your literary messiah."
—Ricardo Gonzalez Del Valle
"CM3 is the most imaginative writer since Lethem and Vonnegut. Different, and absolutely thought provoking..."
—Daniel McCreary
"Carlton Mellick creates fascinating and intricate worlds out of meat, slime, sexuality, wire, and the kind of nightmares that make you laugh when you wake up."
—Jemiah Jefferson
"Brilliant writing that oozes into your skull and melts your brain like a box of a zillion crayons."
—Idiot Alien Thought Creature
"His books are from another universe."
—Cameron Pierce
"Mellick is smarter than the dumbness he tries to coat his writing in; you feel like you're reading a comic or watching MTV - but that underneath there is something deeper and smarter than the cartoonish presentation before your eyes."
—Euchrid
"Through childlike narration Mr. Mellick can present to his reader some of the most curious and knee-slapingly hysterical blaspheme."
—Ian David McGowen
"There is depth behind his simplistic prose, and humor all around it. What at first seems unsophisticated quickly becomes a firm identity to the characters, and you realize the intelligence behind the naivety. Yes, it's all on purpose, and you've just been had!"
—Schtinky
"Mellick has definitely joined the ranks of the bizarre literary geniuses such as Burroughs, Philip K. Dick, and Vonnegut."
—Charles Glover
"Mellick's imagination is boundless, and his writing truly shows this. His characters, plot, and writing style are original, enjoyable, and inspiring."
Carlton Mellick III 