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"I always needed-- craved-- the places beyond the darkest shadows... a labyrinth of tangled, intertwining webs trailing the dusty stone walls of the crypts to another world... An endless abandoned cemetery reaching into the deep black unknown where I stand at the rusted iron gates seemingly alone, listening to the rising of the steady rhythmic heartbeat pulsing beneath heavy earth, echoing all around me, chilling me, tickling my spine...." --Kim Elizabeth (In conversation... Interview with the Vampiress Part One)

We welcome you to the first of many
regular updates spotlighting the latest works
of author and poetess of the macabre,
Kim Elizabeth!

"She is the Princess of her species,
a Lady Godiva of the spirirt."

-Alexander Panas
Stage and Screen Actor

In this issue we'll talk to the editor of Kim Elizabeth's DARK WORLD, a new comic book masterpiece from Millennium Publications. Widely praised for adaptations of Anne Rice's The Witching Hour, H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu, and many other original horror, pulp, and fantasy titles, Millennium takes another step into the dark literary domain of Gothic heroines, vampire lovers and secluded cemeteries with Kim Elizabeth's DARK WORLD...

The Kim Elizabeth Fan Club caught up with Ghost Girl Graphix' John Habermas,
editor of Kim Elizabeth's exciting new comic book project from Millennium Publications.
Here's what he had to say:

DARK WORLD brings together some of the best artists in comics today (including Jae Lee, Colleen Doran, Daerick Gross and more) to illustrate the works of Kim Elizabeth, the mainstream press' most talented and sought-after modern horror poet!

That's right. DARK WORLD is a horror poetry anthology combining art and literature into a new depth filled comic book experience. DARK WORLD's fan favorite artists will present their hauntingly beautiful interpretations of Kim Elizabeth's most sensuous heroines-and most seductive foes. The artist brings you visual masterpieces; Kim Elizabeth brings you substance, and a mythology all her own.

A few years ago, Caliber Press caught my interest by publishing a series of illustrated epic poems, but P. Craig Russell's more recent adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's classic, "The Conqueror Worm" in Millennium's Asylum interested me even more because of its genre. I'm a big horror fan, and to me this combination of art and literature helps bring comics to a whole new level. But something was still missing-until I happened upon a copy of Acid Rain Studios' Naked Fangs #1 featuring a story by Kim Elizabeth, one of the most popular horror poets of today.

I've been a fan of Kim Elizabeth's writing for years, and after seeing her work in comics form, the idea for DARK WORLD suggested itself. I was thrilled to see this mainstream author delving into my favorite medium, and I just had to see more. She's the best horror poet in the business today, and right now I think comics could use a little poetry.

Lots of reasons. Good poems have power. In horror, they often capture the ideas and moods of short stories in more compact and intense forms. Let's face it, the biggest reason horror hasn't caught on in comics as well as it has in the mass market is quality. It's pretty rare to find good, short horror stories in comics. Many start with a decent premise, but fall apart in the execution. That won't happen with solid poems, and because they take up less space without sacrificing mood or atmosphere, more fit in every issue, along with more talented artists to illustrate them.

Many factors have made poetry popular again in recent years, including the rise of coffee houses that cater to much the same crowds as comic shops. There even seems to be a poem every few months in the Sandman letter column. The interest is there, but no one has taken advantage of it-until now.

I didn't want to just dig up "old" poetry either. Classics like "The Conqueror Worm" are great, but might have a harder time attracting modern audiences. First of all, most people have either already been exposed to these works, or have preconceived attitudes against reading such material (ie. "we don't want to read something that we had in school"). Even the more literature-minded readers, myself included, enjoy the classics, but see them as a voice of another generation. We want to see something new; something from today. Why buy a collection of poems we've already read (or already own in one form or another)?

I never had a tremendous interest in modern poetry until I encountered a few horror poets that hooked me immediately. Kim Elizabeth was the first. If you never liked poetry before, Kim Elizabeth will definitely change your mind. Her works are as sensuous as they are horrific, and filled with the most terrifyingly beautiful concepts you'll ever find. Don't expect flowery rambling. Kim Elizabeth's poems read like short, powerful stories that'll leave you out of breath-and sometimes even breathing heavy.

DARK WORLD is going to b