The Black Centipede
Creator: Chuck Miller
Characters
The Black Centipede (no secret
identity)
Lieutenant Stan Bartowski, head of the
City of Zenith Police Department's Unusual Crimes Division
William Randolph Hearst, newspaper
magnate
Percival Doiley, reporter and head
writer for "Tales of the Black Centipede" magazine
The Stiff and Baron Samedi, lords of
organized crime in Zenith
Amelia Earhart, aviatrix
Mary Jane Gallows, arch-enemy and best
friend
The mysterious BLACK CENTIPEDE was a
young man named William ---------, who lived with his parents in the town of
Fall River, Massachusetts. William was a strange, precocious child, preoccupied
with accounts of crime and the occult. In his early teens, he formed a
friendship with H.P. Lovecraft.
In 1927, William met Fall River's most
infamous resident, Lizzie Borden, who was being stalked by Bloody Mary Jane
Gallows, the tulpa Lizzie had created in 1892 to kill her father and
step-mother. Bloody Mary Jane first seduced, then made a murderous attack on William.
He survived and was physically restored by a mysterious giant centipede, but
not before Mary Jane brutally murdered her "mother," Lizzie Borden.
William knew that his life in Fall
River had come to an end. He had been given a glimpse of a larger world of
magic and dark power, and dedicated his life to uncovering the secret workings
of the world and the truth about the black centipede that had saved him. He
moved to the city of Zenith, and went to work for his grandfather, a notorious
political machine boss and gangster, earning enough independence-- and money--
to pursue arcane studies around the world.
In 1933, while investigating a shadowy
crime lord called Doctor Almanac,William donned a mask and publicly assumed the
mantle of the Black Centipede. He soon ran afoul of the law. As a result of a
disastrous raid on Almanac's headquarters, he found himself wanted for murder
and arson.
Newspaper magnate William Randolph
Hearst stepped in, offering to rehabilitate the Centipede's public image. Thanks
to favorable press in all the Hearst papers nationwide, generous bribes to city
officials in Zenith, and a staged incident in which the Centipede apparently
saved President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt from assassination, our hero
went from wanted vigilante to national treasure. "Tales of the Black
Centipede," a pulp adventure magazine published by Hearst, became an
immediate sensation, featuring fictionalized or completely fabricated accounts
of the Centipede's exploits written by a young reporter named Percival Doiley.
In 1933, the Centipede formed a
friendship and occasional partnership with Amelia Earhart. He has faced deadly
opponents like the Rev. Dr. Theobald Schadelhaus, Adrian Countenance, Jack the
Ripper, the White Centipede, and Professor James Moriarty, Lord of the
Vampires. Among his many friends and associates are Frank Nitti, Detective
Lieutenant Stan Bartowski, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Bela Lugosi and H. P.
Lovecraft.
The Centipede, now 101 years old (and
still active), has begun to release his memoirs. He narrates his adventures in
a witty, snarky, acerbic, and darkly humorous first-person style, revealing the
shocking truths that have been buried beneath layers of fiction and fabrication
for more than 80 years.
NOVELS:
1) Creeping Dawn: The Rise of the Black
Centipede, Pro Se Press, 2011
2) Blood of the Centipede, Pro Se
Press, 2012
3) Black Centipede Confidential, Pro Se
Press, 2013 (forthcoming)
SHORT STORIES:
1) "The Plague's the Thing,"
Pro Se Presents, February 2013
2) "Funeral for a Fiend," Pro
Se Presents, March 2012
3) "The Abominable Myra Linsky
Rises Again," a Doctor Unknown Junior Adventure, Pro Se Presents, August
2012
OTHER:
1) The Return of Doctor Reverso, Black
Centipede Press web serial, 2013
Chuck Miller on Amazon:
Black Centipede Press Online:
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