Guns and Red Roses

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Zine
Title: Guns and Red Roses
Publisher: Anime House Press
Editor(s): Heather Bruton (art) and Marg Baskin (text)
Date(s): 1989-1991
Series?:
Medium: print zine
Size:
Genre:
Fandom: Eroica Yori Ai O Komete
Language: English
External Links:
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Guns and Red Roses is a mostly gen manga Eroica anthology. Two issues were published.

An age statement was required for purchase.

Issue 1

front cover of issue #1, Ni Mo Han
back cover of issue #1, Bonnie Reitz

Guns and Red Roses 1 was published in December 1989 and contains 176 pages.

Along with fiction, it contains background information on "Eroica" and other Yasuko Aoike manga; plus artwork, original manga and cartoons by Cyrissa Adamson, Pat Cash, Larry DeSouza, Nei Mo Han, April Lee, Bonnie Reitz, Colleen Winters, and V.M. Wyman. It has a color cover by Ni Mo Han.

Some of the art by TACS was repurposed in Tales of Eroica Coloring Book.

It was the winner of a 1990 Fan Q.

This zine required an age statement to purchase.

From the editorial:

The notion of doing a one-shot Eroica zine took root a year or so ago when Heather and I realized how easy it would be to dedicate half of each issue of our annual mixed anime fanzine, Anime House Presents, to stories from the series. To say the least, Eroica is massively popular.

Its prominence is easy to understand and well deserved. The series is stuffed to the brim with offbeat comedy, espionage adventure, and a cast of characters who are as irresistible as they are eccentric. Eroica's fandom extends from die-hard Slash fans to their extreme opposite numbers, attracting folks with all shades of opinion in between.

Summaries below are from the title page.

  • Hi There (AKA Editor's Corner) (4)
  • Eroica's World: Background Information by Marg Baskin (6)
  • Someone is Killing the Great NATO Agents of Europe by Nie Mo Han ("It began as a straightforward mission. But then everything goes awry, leaving the Major fighting for survival and Dorian facing one of the most difficult moments of his life.") (gen) (sequel: "Win, Place or Die" in Guns and Red Roses #2) (14)
  • Masque for Three by Barbara T ("When the Major accepts an invitation from Sophie Wolf to join her in Athens, he vows to relax. Then Eroica arrives on the scene.") (het) (Klaus/OFC) (39)
  • From Eroica with Love by TACS (manga format, slash: Dorian/Klaus) (reprinted as the first part of Tales of Eroica Coloring Book) (63)
  • A Piece of Tail by Janice Hornyak ("Dorian witnesses the Major's capture by KGB agents, and sets about arranging a rescue. the biggest hurdle may be talking the Major into the pink bunny suit...") (gen) (84)
  • Situation Normal by JoLynn Horvath ("Waiting fro an airplane at London's Heathrow airport, Dorian fights boredom by helping himself to some trinkets belonging to his fellow travelers. It's only when the shooting starts that he realizes that one of those trinkets could cost him his life.") (gen) (99)
  • Diamond by Karen Klinck ("After M.I. 6 agent Jack Bancoran arrests the Earl of Red Gloria as the prime suspect in a diamond heist, both the Earl and Maraich vanish.) (Eroica/Patalliro!, slash: Bancoran/Maraich, non-explicit) (172)
  • Further Reading: Other Manga by Y. Aoike, article by Nei Mo Han (172)
  • Anime House Wants You: Submission Guidelines (176)

Issue 2

front cover of issue #2, Heather Bruton
back cover of issue #2, Heather Bruton

Guns and Red Roses 2 was published in May 1991 and contains 158 pages.

The front and back covers are by Heather Bruton, with additional interior art by Bonnie Reitz, Joyce Norton, V.M. Wyman, Terrie Smith, and April Lee.

From the editorial:

Vicki nearly always gets relegated to the back of our fanzines, purely because her stories are so very long. This is entirely unfair. Her work deserves stage front- and-center. It's a perfect delight, filled with twisty plots, well-played characters, and loads of whimsy. Blythe Spirit takes two of anime's greatest thieves, Eroica and Lupin III, and plays them off against each other-first as opponents and then as allies--to the dismay of their adversaries and the entertainment of Vicki's readers.

JoLynn's two stories, fun romps both, were among the earliest pieces of anime fanfic we encountered. The Price utilizes elements of Dorian's lifestyle that are rarely seen in fanfic, from his zeppelin to a swarm of hangers-on who gradually faded from the manga. Lover of the Night drifts farther from the original series than we normally publish, but then can anything be too strange for Eroica? We enjoyed it, and we think you will, too.

Karen has written more Eroica fiction than anyone else we know. By now, she has two or three mutually exclusive timelines going, so we got to pick and choose something appropriate for inclusion here. Ashes in the Morning is a straightforward adventure tale, about a mission where it soon becomes impossible to distinguish friend from foe. Our thanks to Colette for Embassy Feint, which was the only "unsolicited" story to arrive on the doorstep this time around. Told entirely in dialogue, it has the flavor of a radio drama. She supplies the words, and leaves it to the reader's imagination to fill in the setting.

Finally, we present Heather's Win, Place or Die. Originally, she set out to write a sequel to Someone is Killing the Great NATO Agents of Europe (which appeared in issue #1), but the story developed a mind of its own and played games, instead, with the reunification of Germany and its effects on Klaus's life and future.

From the submissions guidelines:

duns and Sled Roses is a special edition, but we regularly publish a mixed-world anime fanzine,

Anime House Presents. For future issues of Anime House Presents, we need stories, art, manga, cartoons, and short, entertaining articles. The material may be based on any Japanese animation TV show, movie, OAV (original animation video) or manga (comic book). We favor Nippon Sunrise productions (Gundam. Dunbine. L'Gaim, Dragonar. etc.), SF adventure shows (from Acrobunch to Zillion), manga (Eroica, Deimos no Hanayome, lusty, Outlanders. etc.) and some oddball shows like Saint Seiya. Material derived from translations, such as Robotech, is also acceptable. All stories and manga should be original to the author, not translations of Japanese material. Fiction may be any length up to 40,000 words (longer by special arrangement). All stories must be independent and complete onto themselves.

World cross-overs and/or world warping is fine, if the story makes obvious sense or comes with some sort of rational explanation. Ie, if you want to write about Eroica's adventures in the Gundam world, for heaven's sake, tell us how he got there! Gay material is fine, so long as the original characters areg ay (as in Eroica, or Patalliro!). As with any other form of radical world-warping, Slash material will be considered only if the story stands up under its own weight. R-rated stories and art are welcome, so long as they emphasize erotic, sensual and/or romantic elements rather than sex for its own sake (a judgment call on the part of the editors).