Dirk Manning Tackles Macabre Romance With ‘Love Stories About Death,’ Live Now On Kickstarter
by Brendan M. Allen
“Seven stories that will tug at your heartstrings… and then tear them right out of your chest!”
This is how writer Dirk Manning described his latest graphic novel Love Stories About Death, which is currently running a fully funded Kickstarter campaign in partnership with publisher Source Point Press.
“Love Stories About Death collects seven stories that were originally written by me when I was publishing Nightmare World, but in these instances the stories were too big and complex to contain to the short-story format of that series,” says Manning, whose 20+ year bibliography also includes Tales of Mr. Rhee, Arn Anderson: My Life as the Enforcer, Homestead, and Write or Wrong: A Writer’s Guide to Creating Comics. “As a result, I embraced the 22-page one-shot approach with these stories and then put them aside for publication in their own separate sister-book to Nightmare World.”
This initially resulted in a double-sized flip-book containing two of the stories being released as Love Stories (to Die For) with Image Comics/Shadowline, before Manning then collected these two stories with three others as an original graphic novel titled Nightmare World presents: Love Stories (to Die For) with Devil’s Due in 2017.
Despite both the good fortune and prestige of the series being published by two high-profile publishers – including the latter resulting in the book also being featured on the NBC hit series Chicago Fire, Manning still was never fully content with the presentation of the series – until now.
“For starters, Love Stories About Death was always my preferred name for this series,” said Manning. “More importantly, this was the only creator-owned graphic novel I’ve ever published that was never offered in a limited edition hardcover format… which is why I suppose I’m perhaps overcompensating a bit now by offering a red leatherbound-style edition of the book with red gilded pages, a sewn-in red ribbon bookmark, and a double-signed bookplate… for starters.”
Through the Kickstarter campaign, Manning and Source Point Press are currently over 160% of their funding goal, which unlocked all these upgrades exclusively for Kickstarter backers.
This new “definitive” edition of the book contains the original five stories originally published in the now long out-of-print original edition of the book (a science fiction tale of doomed lovers, an overzealous guardian angel, a clash of Vikings versus vampires, an aging professional wrestler literally fighting for his life in front of a live audience, and a rural community stranded in a church surrounded by zombies) along with two additional full-length stories written alongside the first five that were never fully illustrated.
“I’m really excited that these two previously ‘lost” stories will finally be seeing the light of day,” Manning remarked, “as I feel they’re also among some of my strongest one-shot works. I Come From the Water, illustrated by comic book newcomer Chris Marchman, is a story about a young pirate pinning hopes of escape on a voracious mermaid, while Nothing Else Matters was illustrated by my longtime collaborator Austin McKinley and is a very emotionally investing cryptid romance story – kind of like a modern (and spicy) folktale.”
Along with Marchman and McKinley, other artists whose art is featured in the graphic novel include Owen Gieni (Rat Queens), Seth Damoose (Tales of Mr. Rhee), Rich Bonk (The Darkness), Howie Noel (Nightmare World), Anthony Peruzzo (Displaced Persons), Marianna Pescosta (Twiztid Haunted High-Ons), and Nei Ruffino (Grimm Fairy Tales).
The Kickstarter campaign for Love Stories About Death ends Friday, August 16th, and at that time the opportunity to get the red leatherbound edition of the book will end. A standard trade paperback edition will be available from Source Point Press mid-2025, but the Kickstarter campaign is the only way to obtain the deluxe limited edition. The leatherbound deluxe editions will be print-to-order and will not be made again.
Backer rewards for Love Stories About Death kick in at the $15 tier for a digital copy of the book. $25 will land backers a trade paperback copy. The leatherbound deluxe copies begin at the $45 backer tier. Various other reward tiers include Tuckerization (That’s right. Being written into a story as a bit part or cameo has a name, after sci-fi writer Wilson Tucker, who used to write his fans’ names into stories. There’s a thing you know now.) and T-Shirts. Check out the campaign at this link.
