Inferno!

Last updated

Inferno! (originally Carnage) was a bi-monthly magazine published from 1997 to 2004 by Games Workshop's publishing division, Black Library, which was initially just the name of the team brought together to work on Inferno!. [1]

Contents

It presented fiction, artwork, and comics set in the fictional universe's of Games Workshop's fantasy and science fiction games. These initially included Warhammer Fantasy Battle , Warhammer 40,000 , and Necromunda , and later added the Mordheim and Gorkamorka settings.

Publication

Rick Priestley and Andy Jones of Warhammer, and author Marc Gascoigne, developed the idea for the Black Library which produced the magazine Inferno! as a result beginning in July 1997. [2]

Inferno! was launched with a trial "issue zero" as a section in the Games Workshop house magazine White Dwarf (issue 210).

Issue 1 of the actual magazine was launched shortly afterwards under the editorship of Games Workshop staffer Andy Jones. The magazine settled into a standard format of two fantasy and two science fiction stories per issue, with ancillary features such as standalone artwork, comics, cutaway diagrams of fictional machines from the stories, maps of fictional battles, and mocked-up books, dossiers, or correspondence by characters in the settings. With the exception of one early comic series, Inferno! published individual, complete stories, not serials.

Creators

Inferno! had a policy of accepting unsolicited submissions and publishing new authors. Many writers who went on to publish novels for Black Library, such as C.L. Werner and Ben Counter, began their professional writing careers with short stories in Inferno! The magazine also published stories by established science fiction authors such as Barrington J. Bayley and Brian Stableford.

Warhammer Monthly

The success of Inferno!, along with the lessons learned and the contacts made during its early days, led to a spin-off comic, Warhammer Monthly . This produced longer comic stories in an anthology format common in British comics like 2000 AD (with whom it shared a lot of creators). As Marc Gascoigne puts it "It became obvious very quickly that the occasional comic strip in Inferno! along with the short stories was OK, but very soon what we needed to do was a proper comic, so about a year after Inferno! kicked in, Warhammer Monthly made its debut." [1]

Novels

Black Library's novel range also started life in Inferno!, "we had stories that were immediately thought of, at least internally by us, as pilots, tasters for a novel range" [1]

Cancellation

Inferno! was cancelled in November 2004 after publishing 46 issues.

Relaunch

In 2018, Black Library relaunched Inferno! as a quarterly anthology series. The new Inferno! runs 300-400 pages and features serial and one-off short stories from both veteran Black Library authors and new writers. Each new volume has been accompanied by a limited time reprinting of issues of the original magazine: Issues 1–5 with Volume 1, 6–10 with Volume 2, 11–15 with Volume 3, and 16–25 with volume 4.

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 10th anniversary interview Archived 2007-08-17 at the Wayback Machine , with Marc Gascoigne
  2. ↑ Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. p. 50. ISBN   978-1-907702-58-7.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan Abnett</span> British comic book writer and novelist

Daniel P. Abnett is an English comic book writer and novelist. He has been a frequent collaborator with fellow writer Andy Lanning, and is known for his work on books for both Marvel Comics, and their UK imprint, Marvel UK, since the 1990s, and also 2000 AD. He has also contributed to DC Comics titles, and his Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 novels and graphic novels for Games Workshop's Black Library now run to several dozen titles and have sold over two million copies. In 2009 he released his first original fiction novels through Angry Robot books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Library</span> British publishing company

The Black Library is a division of Games Workshop which is devoted to publishing novels and audiobooks set in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Warhammer Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000 fictional universes. Some of Black Library's best known titles include the Gaunt's Ghosts and Eisenhorn series of novels by Dan Abnett and the Gotrek and Felix series by William King and Nathan Long.

<i>Weird Fantasy</i> Dark fantasy and science fiction anthology comic

Weird Fantasy is an American dark fantasy and science fiction anthology comic that was part of the EC Comics line in the early 1950s. The companion comic for Weird Fantasy was Weird Science. Over a four-year span, Weird Fantasy ran for 22 issues, ending with the November–December 1953 issue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jess Nevins</span> American author

Jess Nevins is an American author and research librarian best known for annotated guides and encyclopedias covering Victoriana, comic books, genre fiction and pulp fiction. Among Nevin's books are Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana,Horror Fiction in the 20th Century and Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes. He has been a recipient and finalist for a number of honors, including the World Fantasy, Sidewise, and Locus Awards.

Val Mayerik is an American comic book and commercial artist, best known as co-creator of the satiric character Howard the Duck for Marvel Comics.

Warhammer Monthly was a comics anthology published by Games Workshop's publishing arm, Black Library, from March 1998 to December 2004, running to 86 issues in total. The final two issues were published bi-monthly under the name Warhammer Comic. It featured stories set within the fictional universe of Games Workshop's miniature wargames Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, amongst others.

Simon Jowett is a British author and scriptwriter.

Marc Gascoigne is a British author and editor. He is the editor, author or co-author of more than fifty books and gaming related titles, including Fighting Fantasy books, Shadowrun novels and adventures, Earthdawn novels and adventures, the original Games Workshop Judge Dredd roleplaying game, and material for Paranoia, Call of Cthulhu and many others listed below.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rick Priestley</span> British miniature wargame designer

Rick Priestley is a British game designer and author mainly known as the creator of Warhammer miniature wargame.

Alexander Michael Stewart is a British writer. His best known work is fiction written under the pseudonym Sandy Mitchell—Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 novels, including the Ciaphas Cain series.

Warhammer 40,000 comics are spin-offs and tie-ins based in the Warhammer 40,000 fictional universe. Over the years these have been published by different sources. Originally appearing in Inferno! and Warhammer Monthly, the initial series of stories have been released as trade paperbacks by Black Library, who have also released original graphic novels and shorter prestige format comics.

Nick Percival is a British graphic artist and graphic novelist primarily known for his published comic book, concept artwork and career in computer animation directing.

Angry Robot is a British-based publishing house dedicated to producing modern adult science fiction and fantasy, or as they call it “SF, F and WTF?!?”. The Nottingham-based company first released books in the UK in 2009, and since September 2010 has simultaneously been publishing its titles in the US as well, as a distributed client of Random House. All titles are released as paperbacks and eBooks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of science fiction</span> Overview of and topical guide to science fiction

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to science fiction:

Kev Hopgood is a British comic artist who has been drawing comic books since 1984. He specialises in artwork for science fiction and fantasy comics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daryl Gregory</span> American science fiction, fantasy and comic book author

Daryl Gregory is an American science fiction, fantasy and comic book author. Gregory is a 1988 alumnus of the Michigan State University Clarion science fiction workshop, and won the 2009 Crawford Award for his novel Pandemonium.

Jonathan Green is a freelance writer. He has written for various science fiction and fantasy franchises, including Doctor Who, Fighting Fantasy, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Games Workshop's Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 game universes.

Andy Jones is a game designer who has worked primarily on wargames and board games.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.