Necropolitan Press

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Necropolitan Press
NecropolitanPressLogo.png
Status Defunct in 2001, re-started in 2008
Founded 1993 (1993)
Founder Jeffrey Thomas
Country of originFlag of the United States.svg  United States
Headquarters location Westborough, Massachusetts & New Paltz, New York
Distribution Worldwide
Publication types Limited edition books and magazines
Fiction genres Horror, Science fiction, Dark Fantasy, the Unclassifiable
Official website Necropolitan-Press.com

Necropolitan Press, founded in 1993 by editor and author Jeffrey Thomas, is an independent publisher in the genres of horror, science-fiction, dark fantasy, and "the Unclassifiable." Necropolitan Press ceased producing new releases in 2001. [1]

An author is the creator or originator of any written work such as a book or play, and is also considered a writer. More broadly defined, an author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility for what was created.

Jeffrey Thomas is a prolific writer of science fiction and horror, best known for his stories set in the nightmarish future city called Punktown, such as the novel Deadstock and the collection Punktown, from which a story was reprinted in St. Martin's The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror #14. His fiction has also been reprinted in Daw's The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII, The Year's Best Fantastic Fiction and Quick Chills II: The Best Horror Fiction from the Specialty Press. He has been a 2003 finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Monstrocity, and a 2008 finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Deadstock.

Small press publisher with low annual sales revenue and/or few titles

A small press is a publisher with annual sales below a certain level or below a certain number of titles published. The terms "indie publisher" and "independent press" and others are sometimes used interchangeably.

Contents

In March 2008, it was announced that Necropolitan Press would be resuming a publication schedule, beginning with Paul G. Tremblay's The Harlequin & The Train novella. [1] [2]

Paul G. Tremblay is an American author and editor of contemporary horror, dark fantasy, and science fiction. He is also a juror for the Shirley Jackson Awards.

History

Jeffrey Thomas founded Necropolitan Press in 1993 in reaction to his discovery of the then-flourishing small press, causing him to become so enthused with the idea that he "developed the desire to produce some publication or other" of his own. [1] [3] Thomas chose the name for his publishing imprint due to the sound of it — fond of the similarity to the word Metropolitan but with a horrific bent. [4] At the time, Thomas worked as a paste up artist in a print shop, allowing him to create the Necropolitan Press releases during his breaks by using a "light table to paste up the pages the old fashioned way, with an exacto knife and wax." [1]

Metropolitan area region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated but economically-linked surroundings

A metropolitan area, sometimes referred to as a metro area or commuter belt, is a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories, sharing industry, infrastructure, and housing. A metro area usually comprises multiple jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships, boroughs, cities, towns, exurbs, suburbs, counties, districts, states, and even nations like the eurodistricts. As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions. Metropolitan areas include one or more urban areas, as well as satellite cities, towns and intervening rural areas that are socioeconomically tied to the urban core, typically measured by commuting patterns. In the United States, the concept of the metropolitan statistical area has gained prominence.

Paste up

Paste up is a method of creating or laying out publication pages that predates the use of the now-standard computerized page design desktop publishing programs. Completed, or camera-ready, pages are known as mechanicals or mechanical art. In the offset lithography process, the mechanicals would be photographed with a stat camera to create a same-size film negative for each printing plate required.

Light table A light table is a viewing device that is illuminated from below through a translucent cover.

A light table is a viewing device that is used to review photographic film or artwork placed on top of it. A horizontal form of a self-standing lightbox, it provides even illumination of the subject from below through a translucent cover and fluorescent lights that emit little heat.

The initial publication from Necropolitan Press was The End magazine, which ran for four issues under the imprint with a fifth issue being released as a co-production with artist Jon C. Gernon's Zero Publishing. Throughout its run, this fiction anthology zine received newsstand distribution in addition to catalog sales, the internet — at the time — not being a viable distribution alternative. In 1995, Thomas would begin releasing single author and anthology chapbooks, starting with his own collection The Bones of the Old Ones and Other Lovecraftian Tales and averaging one non-magazine release per year. [1] Necropolitan Press releases maintained low print runs; Jeff VanderMeer's The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris, by Duncan Shriek, for instance, was produced in a 300-copy edition. [5]

Zine a small circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images usually reproduced via photocopier

A zine is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via photocopier. Zines are either the product of a single person, or of a very small group and are popularly photocopied into physical prints for circulation. A fanzine is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest. The term was coined in an October 1940 science fiction fanzine by Russ Chauvenet and popularized within science fiction fandom, entering the Oxford English Dictionary in 1949.

Fiction any story or setting that is derived from imagination, can be conveyed through any medium (films, books, audio plays, games, etc.)

Fiction broadly refers to any narrative that is derived from the imagination — in other words, not based strictly on history or fact. It can also refer, more narrowly, to narratives written only in prose, and is often used as a synonym for the novel. In cinema it corresponds to narrative film in opposition to documentary as far as novel to feature film and short story to short film.

In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, anthology is used to categorize collections of shorter works such as short stories and short novels, by different authors, each featuring unrelated casts of characters and settings, and usually collected into a single volume for publication.

Necropolitan Press ceased producing new releases in 2001, the reasons being the press's financial drain on Thomas and the desire of Thomas to focus on his own work. [3] [6] Thomas would later lament this decision, stating that he "always had a great enthusiasm for publishing, [and that he] found it extremely rewarding to bring the work of other authors to the hands of readers eager for something a little out of the ordinary." [1]

In December 2007, Thomas mentioned in an interview that Necropolitan Press may be resurrected with the help of Nick Curtis, whose involvement would alleviate the previous financial and time-related strains the venture placed on Thomas. [6] Curtis was an enthusiast of Thomas's work who had created and maintained an official website for Thomas (including a blog and forum), all of which had revealed to Thomas "his [Curtis's] innovative approach to graphic design." According to Thomas, Curtis proposed the resurrection of Necropolitan Press. Officially, Thomas holds the position of “Publisher/Editorial Director” while Curtis is termed the "Assistant Publisher/Design Director." [1]

Website set of related web pages served from a single web domain

A website or Web site is a collection of related network web resources, such as web pages, multimedia content, which are typically identified with a common domain name, and published on at least one web server. Notable examples are wikipedia.org, google.com, and amazon.com.

A blog is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page. Until 2009, blogs were usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject or topic. In the 2010s, "multi-author blogs" (MABs) emerged, featuring the writing of multiple authors and sometimes professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, advocacy groups, and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other "microblogging" systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into the news media. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Internet forum online discussion site

An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporarily archived. Also, depending on the access level of a user or the forum set-up, a posted message might need to be approved by a moderator before it becomes publicly visible.

Leading up to the resurrection, Thomas had "been talking to some very talented authors in regard to potential new projects." [6] In March 2008, prior to the official announcement of the publishing imprint's return, Paul G. Tremblay mentioned that his forthcoming novella The Harlequin & The Train would be released on Necropolitan Press. [2] In April 2008, Thomas made the official announcement of the press's return and of the forthcoming novella. [1]

Magazines published

The first project published by Necropolitan Press was The End magazine, which ran five issues at the rate of one a year starting in 1993. The fifth and final issue was produced in cooperation with New York-based artist Jon C. Gernon's Zero Publishing imprint, the Necropolitan Press designation used to denote editor Jeffrey Thomas's work on the title. [1] [7] [8]

Works published

2008+

The following is a list of all the Necropolitan Press anthology and single author collection titles announced/printed since the relaunch of the imprint in 2008.

Title Author Year Length ISBN
The Harlequin & the Train Paul G. Tremblay June 2009155 pp ISBN   978-0-9818320-0-5
Limited to 400 trade paperback copies. An expanded edition of the short story bearing the same name. 

1995-2001

The following is a list of all the Necropolitan Press anthology and single author collection titles printed during the initial years of the company. One additional title was announced, The Terrible Woman and Other Erotic Horrors by Scott Thomas, but this was withdrawn from the publishing schedule on May 5, 2001 — the intended contents were later released in Nether: Improper Bedtime Stories as well as Shadows Of Flesh, both released by Delirium Books in 2004. [8] [9]

Title Author Year Length
The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris, by Duncan Shriek Jeff VanderMeer November 199984 pp
A tour guide through the dream city of Ambergris, presented as an actual "artifact" from Ambergris, builds upon the world introduced in Dradin, In Love: A Tale of Elsewhen & Otherwhere (Buzzcity Press, 1996). This chapbook was listed as one of the Books of the Year by acclaimed British author Brian Stableford in Vector , the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association. 
Terata: Anomalies of Literature Jeffrey Thomas, ed.199864 pp
A collection of horror and dark fantasy short fiction and poetry. Included the following authors: Deidrea Cox, James Doig, Todd H.C. Fischer, Valerie Hardin, Rod Heather, Jason Kuhl, Kurt Newton, David Rogers, Norman Rudnick, Robert Sagirs, Douglas M. Stokes, Mary Winters, MB. Wolf, and Thomas Zimmerman. Featuring artwork by: Jon C. Gernon, Jeffrey Thomas, Robert Thomas, and Curtis Wilcox. One of Kurt Newton's contributions received an Honorable Mention in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. 
Tales Of Sesqua Valley W. H. Pugmire August 199766 pp
A collection of the dark fantasy and Lovecraftian horror by the widely-respected weird story-teller W. H. Pugmire. A second printing of the book was made, the sole difference being the cover stock: the first printing had a glossy white cover while the second printing had grainy gray cardstock cover. 
A Vampire Bestiary Jeffrey Thomas, ed.199664 pp
A volume of seven unique and unexpected takes on the vampire tale... from the erotic to the gothic, from science-fiction to the Lovecraftian (Nyarlathotep as vampire). Included the following authors: James Ambuehl, Jeff Dennis, Joanne S. Kanarkiewicz, J. M. Rozanski, W. H. Pugmire, Margaret Smith, and Scott Thomas. Featuring artwork by: Lynn Aude, Doug Ferrin, Jon C. Gernon, Jeffrey Thomas, Scott Thomas, and Curtis Wilcox. Scott Thomas contribution received a recommendation from the Bram Stoker Awards. 
The Bones of the Old Ones and Other Lovecraftian Tales Jeffrey Thomas 199570 pp (first printing)
A collection of Lovecraft-inspired fiction and poetry. In January 1999, a second printing was offered that included four additional pages of artwork. The first printing had a glossy white cover while the second printing had a green cardstock cover. Three stories and one poem from this collection received Honorable Mentions in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Ninth Annual Collection. 

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Thomas, Jeffrey (2008-04-22). "Paul G. Tremblay & the return of Necropolitan Press!". Punktalk. Retrieved Apr 24, 2008.
  2. 1 2 Tremblay, Paul G. (2008-03-24). "The Harlequin and the Train: A Novella (coming relatively soon!)". Are You Sure You Want to Read This???. Retrieved Apr 16, 2008.
  3. 1 2 Thomas, Jeffrey. "Mr. Punktown — Jeffrey Thomas Interview". The Zone — The Last Word in Science Fiction Magazines Online. Retrieved Apr 23, 2008.
  4. Thomas, Jeffrey (2000-07-13). "Punktown, short stories by Jeffrey Thomas". Business On The World Wide Web: Where "Word Of Keystroke" Begins. Retrieved Apr 23, 2008.
  5. VanderMeer, Jeff (2004-04-06). "City of Saints and Madmen: The Untold Story, Part 1". The Agony Column Book Reviews and Commentary. Retrieved Apr 24, 2008.
  6. 1 2 3 Thomas, Jeffrey (2007-12-08). "Interview with Jeffrey Thomas". SciFiRama — For Science Fiction Lovers. Retrieved Apr 23, 2008.
  7. Thomas, Jeffrey. "History". Necropolitan Press. Retrieved Feb 8, 2008.
  8. 1 2 Thomas, Jeffrey. "The Necropolitan Press / Jeffrey Thomas Web Page". Archived from the original on 2009-07-30. Retrieved Apr 18, 2008.
  9. Thomas, Jeffrey. "Publications: The Terrible Woman and Other Erotic Horrors". Necropolitan Press. Retrieved Apr 18, 2008.