Edgar Allan Poe: The Master of the Macabre
Pocket Portraits series
Hardcover | Kindle Edition | Audiobook
Written by Levi Lionel Leland; illustrated by Kim Arrington
Publisher: Adams Media
Release Date: September 23, 2025

It was 176 years ago today that Edgar Allan Poe died under mysterious circumstances, with his reported last words being “Lord help my poor soul.” And a poor soul he was. Though Poe is now a household name whose works are world renown, during his own lifetime he lived a difficult, impoverished existence, constantly struggling to earn a living and make a name for himself as a writer. What little success he did manage to achieve was often undercut by either his rivals or his own self-destructive ways. Even after death, he was the victim of defamation, which led to many misconceptions about the man that are still held til this day. Yet it was after his passing that chilling short stories like “The Black Cat,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum,” as well as the poem “The Raven,” became ingrained in our pop culture, rightfully securing his legacy as the “Master of Macabre.”

In Edgar Allan Poe: The Master of the Macabre, the first entry in Adams Media’s Pocket Portraits series, author Levi Lionel Leland not only provides a concise biography of Poe, but also sets out to debunk some of those enduring rumors surrounding the great poet.

The Raven’s Tale
Hardcover | Kindle
By Cat Winters
Publisher: Amulet Books | Abrams Books
Release date: April 16, 2019

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most famous and influential writers of our time, thanks to his numerous tales of the macabre. But before the orphaned Poe became a household name and pop culture icon, he spent his early life as a ward of the Allans, an affluent Virginian family. While his foster father, John Allan, a successful tobacco merchant, wanted him to follow in his footsteps in business, young Edgar longed instead to be a writer. The Raven’s Tale takes these facts about Poe’s life and weaves a story about the author at 17 as he struggles with his disapproving “Pa,” his intense first year in college, and his inner conflict with his muse.

This month, COMET TV, which streams free sci-fi and horror movies and television shows, is offering a bunch of new selections in movies and television series, including The Craft, Labyrinth, Bubba Ho-Tep, and much more. Plus, in honor of Edgar Allan Poe‘s birthday, there will be Poe-themed movie double features all month.

Check out the programming guide for new offerings for January 2018 here below.

Below you’ll find the solicitations information and cover artwork for all of Action Lab Entertainment comic book titles that were released on April 6, 2016.

The Raven and the Red Death
One-Shot
Written by Richard Corben
Illustrated by Richard Corben
Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot
Cover by Richard Corben
Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: October 30, 2013
Cover Price: $3.99

Readers like Edgar Allan Poe’s work for the way it makes them feel; for how it sucks them into his worlds and sneakily crawls under their skin. Poe’s tales and poetry — including both The Raven and The Mask of the Red Death — settle slowly and move along naturally, allowing mystery, wonder and thrill to develop in one’s mind before the real horror appears.

Dark Horse’s site describes Richard Corben‘s adaptation for Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven and The Red Death as “terrifying.” The only issue is, they aren’t scary. Corben utilizes his recurring character of “Mag the Hag” as a traveler who ends up looping through or walking in on the stories. Before I researched who Mag was, my only introduction to her was on the cover page (very nicely drawn by Corben) and on page one of the comic, where she interrupts the narrator’s musings in The Raven with the cheeky line: “The weather has put young Arnold in a melancholy mood, leading him to grimly narrate his own evening in verse.” Now, in casual conversation, this might be a humorous detail to note about The Raven, but in terms of the story, it disrupts any possibility of the reader getting involved or spooked at all.