Here it is, my first magazine cover for Astonishing Adventures Magazine. You can read it all here for FREE!

Doesn't it look pretty? Inside I have a magazine article about toga porn- all about trashy swords n' sandals paperback covers from the '50s, '60s and '70s- and four black and white illustrations for an urban vampire story by Katherine Tomlinson and a steampunk adventure by Chris Dabnor. Check it out- and soon all this pulpy goodness will be available to own through Amazon!

More about the cover, which I call "The Empress and the Gladiator":

Since it accompanies my review of the history of "Toga porn," it features the magazine's mascot, Scarlet, dressed as an empress, with a buff gladiator wielding a bloody sword before her.

Everything was kept intentionally inaccurate and Hollywood-ish, and I looked at a lot of Frazetta while painting this, because I wanted to make it more painterly than my other work. I also ended up looking at a lot of Peter Lely, the Restoration-era portraitist, because no one does sleepy-eyed, pale-skinned and morally dubious women better than he. Scarlet's costume was inspired partially by Claudette Colbert's outfit in "The Sign of the Cross" (1932) and by Anneka di Lorenzo in "Messalina, Messalina" from 1977.

I've been getting back into ancient Roman stuff lately, as a friend of mine (who used to write for La Femme Nikita- w00t!) has been encouraging me to write this novel about Cicero and Clodia, an idea I've been discussing for a while (more information here). It's been a bit hard, since I'm trying to avoid a Certain TV Show- One Which Shall Remain Unnamed- since I dislike it intensely, for various reasons I don't want to get into in this post. However, with much valiant effort I have been able to resuscitate my interest in Roman crap, which was the love of my life when I was in high school.

And so I'd like to share a few examples of a genre which I call "toga porn," which I read by the truckload when I was 15.

( Click for togas )