Nightmare

THE NIGHTMARE

Creator: John L. French

Cast of characters:

         The Nightmare aka Michael Shaw

         Police Lieutenant Jerome Easton

         Seamus Moran, leprechaun and owner of Moran’s tavern.

         Kaye Chandler, aka The Pink Reaper

         Nemesis, Goddess of Vengeance, aka Leda Troy

         Tyche, Goddess of Luck

         The Phoenix

         Parker Avery, adventurer and collector

         Wolf Hopkins, crime boss

         and assorted monsters, creatures, thugs and ne’er-do-wells

The Nightmare first appeared in The Devil of Harbor City but only as Michael Shaw, owner of an international private investigation agency. Shaw was called in by the police commissioner to assist Sgt. Frank Devlin in cleaning up the city. (Wolf Hopkins also makes an appearance).

The Nightmare’s next appearance was as an unnamed “dark avenger” in a flashback segment of “The Living Goddess,” a story in The Grey Monk: Souls on Fire.

The Nightmare first appeared as himself in “The Undead Killer,” a story in Wild Cat Books’s Zombies in Time and Space.

Michael Shaw was a bored millionaire when the murder of his chauffer’s daughter in a gang shootout caused him to don the black suit and mask to avenge her death. A chance remark to a surviving crook, “I’m your worst nightmare,” gave him his name. Since then, he’s joined the ranks of New York’s other dark clad vigilantes in meting out justice when the law fails. Unlike his better known contemporaries, the Nightmare fights not only crime and criminals but also supernatural menaces such as zombie hitmen, giant undead gorillas and the gods themselves.

In addition to the above the Nightmare has appeared in:

1) FROM THE SHADOWS (Dark Quest Books, 2012) in which he teams with Patrick Thomas’s characters Nemesis and the Pink Reaper.  Virginia E. Johnson has called FROM THE SHADOWS “the best new pulp I've read in years.”

2) “Wolf Hunt” TALES FROM THE PULPSIDE (Dark Quest Book, 2013). This story tells the tale of the Nightmare’s final encounter with gang boss Wolf Hopkins.

3) “A Plague on the Land” APOCALYPSE 13 (Padwolf Publishing, 2012). This story features the Nightmare teaming up with my character Bianca Jones to save mythic Ireland from a disastrous fate.

4) “After the Fall” HELLFIRE LOUNGE 2: RAT PACK REDUX (Marietta Publishing 2011). In this story, a giant ape falls from the top of the tallest building in the world but somehow revives. The Nightmare teams with Lieutenant Jerome Easton and tries to stop its rampage through the city.

As soon as enough stories have been written and published, Padwolf plans to publish a Nightmare collection.