The Groovy Age of Horror

BLACKEST NIGHT: WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS?

2009-11-24T02:47:00.003-05:00

In my last Blackest Night post, about the (then) most recent batch of tie-in issues, after noting my disappointment with them, I said,

Any jaded fans inclined to pose the cynical question what I expected from tie-ins can just STFU. What I expected were strong, interesting stories that contribute something to the crossover experience.

By way of not asking what I expected, Sean T. Collins simply observed that the tie-ins I reviewed were "created with the more or less openly stated goal of goosing sales for their respective series." And in comments, Martin Wisse remarked:

Cynical it may be, but it is the reality of any crossover that the tie-in issues will suck. They usually interrupt the books own storylines for something the creative staff has no interest in and they can't really do anything interesting, as the mechanics of a crossover demand the big reveals and such do not take place in a tie-in...

Almost since Blackest Night began, I've noticed, puzzled over, and even tried to respond to a widespread, entrenched suspicion and hostility toward tie-ins on the part of much of online superhero fandom. Everyone seems to know tie-ins are just cash-grabs. Everyone knows how much they suck. Everyone can even explain to "newbies" like me why tie-ins have to suck. Nobody seems to expect any better of them. But then why are they still being published? Which is to say--knowing all that, with those expectations, who buys them anyway, and why?

Here's my excuse. After quite a few years out of the superhero comics loop, Blackest Night looked like a good chance to get reacquainted, and see whether things have gotten better in a genre I only gave up on reluctantly and with deep regret. It sounded like a big, fun event that would check a lot of the right boxes for me. Now, I'm not completely naive about crossover tie-ins. Way back when, I dropped Secret Wars II by the second or third issue in large part because of them. As I explain in some of the links above, though, I also refuse to accept that tie-ins must suck by their very nature. They hold a lot of potential, I think, for interesting non- or quasi-linear storytelling possibilities. They can contribute to crossovers in other ways. Where practically any element of a crossover's main story is concerned, tie-ins can open breathing room for emphasis, contrast, nuance, balance, texture, commentary . . . the only real limits are the creators' imaginations. So I pretty much committed to the full Blackest Night experience--to giving all of it a chance and checking out everything it had to offer. Since I prefer enjoying something to not enjoying it, I've tried to stay positive, despite naysayers and admittedly some disappointment. So that's why I'm buying the tie-ins.

And that brings us back to the questions of who else is buying these tie-ins, and why? Since I'm not aware of anyone besides myself approaching them with any optimism whatsoever, I can't imagine any good reason why anyone else would buy them.

Is it completism? I could sort of understand that, if the pessimism weren't so thoroughgoing. "Completism" makes sense, for example, when you know a creative team you don't care for will be filling in on your favorite series for a month or two. But if your default expectation is that every tie-in will inevitably suck in multiple ways and for multiple reasons, really, why keep buying them? That's like frequenting a restaurant that only serves shit sandwiches (and then bitching about how shitty they taste). Even completism breaks down as an excuse here. If that's your line, quit whining, because you're part of the fucking problem.

One answer has come up a lot in connection with this last week's crop of tie-ins, and I've been quite dismayed by it--those stupid rings. Just google "blackest night" and "for the ring," and you'll see what I'm talking about (for the record, I've said no thanks to all of them that would have come with the issues I purchased). Here's a fairly representative thread at Weekly Crisis. The message fans are sending, if I understand correctly, is that a crossover logo by itself no longer does the trick of getting them to shell out $3.99 for a comic they fully expect to suck, but if you toss in a crappy bit of plastic that a Cracker Jack box would be embarrassed to cough up, they'll happily fork over the cash. What fans are saying is, "Never mind good comics--give us cheap plastic doodads!" DC certainly seems to be doing just that in this current batch of tie-ins, including the part about never minding good comics. Well, who can blame them? Fans clearly have zero expectations for these issues, and buy them anyway.

If tie-ins suck, it's not because they have to. Someone is to blame. WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS? It's all these wankers paying premium prices for comics they don't want and don't expect to like, just for a few silly plastic rings.

Boris Karloff Blogathon: DIE, MONSTER, DIE!

2009-11-23T00:00:00.001-05:00

It's Boris Karloff's birthday, and that means the blog Frankensteinia is kicking off a weeklong blogathon to honor the man who gave us the most classic and iconic performance of the Monster. It sounds like tons of blogs will be participating, to celebrate not only Karloff's turn as the Frankenstein Monster, but many more facets of his life and work as well, so tune in to Frankensteinia regularly for updates.

To get things rolling here, Kimberly Lindbergs of the ever-awesome Cinebeats sent me a few sample pages from a comic in her collection--an adaptation of the groovy-vintage (1965) Karloff movie Die, Monster, Die!

Enjoy, Groovy Agers, enjoy:

More Karloff to come! Stay tuned, and stay groovy!

GAoH Sketchbook: Scott Brothers

2009-11-20T14:03:00.003-05:00

Damn, I have some awesome readers who know what I love! Thanks Scott! Check out his website here.

(Here's the Sketchbook flickr set, and here's how to contribute, if you're so inclined!)

GAoH Sketchbook: Ash Lamont

2009-11-18T17:49:00.003-05:00

I'm thrilled to post this brand new sketch from Ash Lamont (illustrator, animator of strangeness and doctor of balloon twisting)! Thanks, Ash!

(Here's the Sketchbook flickr set, and here's how to contribute, if you're so inclined!)

Musical Interlude

2009-11-18T14:45:00.003-05:00

When I was young, my parents often listened to records in the evenings, and they usually didn't stop just because it was my bedtime. Songs by Simon and Garfunkel, Joan Baez, Cat Stevens, etc. were my lullabies--even the faster songs were beautiful and soothing. Among the most lulling of the albums was Colors of the Day by Judy Collins, which featured these two songs. Enjoy!

BLACKEST NIGHT: Diminishing Returns

2009-11-17T22:23:00.000-05:00

So the tie-in miniseries from the first half of the event wrapped up last month, and a fresh wave of tie-in miniseries for the second half begins next month--apparently, they'll be Flash, Wonder Woman, and JSA.

What we get this month and continuing into next month is a batch of tie-in issues in various ongoing series. What I have in hand so far are Doom Patrol, Booster Gold, and R.E.B.E.L.S. I'm sorry to say, I have a lot of problems with them. (Any jaded fans inclined to pose the cynical question what I expected from tie-ins can just STFU. What I expected were strong, interesting stories that contribute something to the crossover experience.)

These issues all begin with a couple pages of flashback infodump to catch new readers up on what the series is about, through the device of a Black Lantern ring "downloading" the memories of the most important dead character to be raised as a Black Lantern. That's fine as far as it goes--as a new reader, I appreciate "new reader friendliness"--but the third time in a row, it really seemed stale. We've still got JLA, Superman/Batman, Teen Titans, Adventure Comics, and Outsiders to go. All I can say is, I hope they don't trot this device out every frikkin' time.

My biggest beef with these issues is the point in the crossover at which they take place. It's actually hard for me to imagine a worse point for these stories to have any impact. They coincide with that brief span in Blackest Night #4 between Flash notifying all the other heroes that the Black Lanterns aren't really zombie versions of the people they care about, and the 100% point at which Nekron arises--which, even more significantly, is also the point in Green Lantern Corps #42 at which the Black Lanterns start behaving differently.

So immediately following the infodumps, we see the protagonists getting Flash's warning, and then they face the Black Lanterns, who are all still behaving exactly as they have in every issue prior to GLC 42, only nobody cares, because everyone now knows what the deal is, so they aren't even surprised, let alone scared by the Black Lanterns. More of the same with none of the punch--now there's a winning formula.

The Booster Gold issue got some positive reviews (comiXtreme, J. Caleb Mozzocco, CBR, Weekly Crisis), mainly because of the extended sequence where Booster revisits Ted Kord's funeral. I can see how Booster Gold and Blue Beetle fans would find that moving, but since I'm not one of them, I didn't.

Only the R.E.B.E.L.S. issue contributed anything to my enjoyment of the crossover. I liked the outer-space setting. The promise of cosmic and interplanetary action is part of what lured me into checking out Blackest Night, and this is one of the few tie-ins so far to deliver anything of the sort. That hasn't been too much of a problem up to now, since the more earthbound tie-in miniseries have nicely balanced the straight-up outer-spaciness of Green Lantern Corps and (starting with issue #45) Green Lantern. Now that we're getting a whole slew of tie-in issues, though, more outer-spaciness is called for to maintain an optimal balance.

That also made it possible to bring the Sinestro Corps into the picture, for the first time in a non-core title--a nice touch that makes this feel much more a part of what's going on with the event as a whole.

And then, of course, there's Vril Dox getting that Sinestro Corps ring. From this issue and the Green Lanterns, I've learned just enough about Vril and Sinestro to think that would make an interesting confrontation--and it would be a confrontation, given both of their egos. I hope it happens.

More tie-ins hit tomorrow. I'll probably post my thoughts before the weekend. Stay tuned, and stay groovy!

BLACKEST NIGHT: 100%

2009-11-16T21:13:00.000-05:00

If I've been mostly underwhelmed by the Blackest Night crossover in general up to now, Green Lantern Corps has struck me as by far the weakest and most disappointing of the titles--and that includes the tie-in minis. It has no characters I care about or relate to, just a bunch of GLs who aren't Hal Jordan (I mean, I'm not Geoff Johns or anything, but come on). That don't-give-a-fuck factor has only exacerbated my sense that Tomasi's writing here has been a rote slog through the formula that so obtrusively dominated the first half of the event. As for the art, Gleason's work has struck me as jarringly not-ready-for-prime-time, compared to what Reis and Mahnke achieved on the other core titles--again, even the tie-in minis had a lot more visual appeal.

Well, I'm glad I stuck with it, because the latest issue, GCL #42, the earliest-released issue of consequence in the second half of the event, delivers some of the strongest story beats and most affecting images of the crossover so far. I'm not alone in thinking that--other reviewers who have heaped such positive superlatives on it include both Ryan the Iowan and Kirk Warren at Weekly Crisis, Jesse Schedeen at IGN, and Rokk. Not everyone was so adulatory, of course. Timothy Callahan at CBR, Alex Evans at Weekly Comic Book Review, and Kiani at Coreburner had a number of criticisms. As for Tucker Stone . . . does that guy even like comics?

What I like about this issue is the way the Black Lanterns finally stop doing the exact same thing they've been doing every single issue of the event since the beginning, and start doing something different. At this point, any change of that sort counts for something. I know that sounds like a ridiculously low bar to clear, but the new line of attack turns out to be pretty cool--an all-out assault on the main Green Lantern battery. In both writing and art, this is rendered with a very nice blend of horror and superhero sci-fi. The image above of them converging on the battery is both haunting and spectacular. There have been a lot of nifty spreads in Blackest Night so far, but this is certainly among the best.

Then, they pool their rings:

. . . to create a giant demonic construct that looks like something out of Urotsukidoji. It's like they're using black magic to conjure the thing:

This demon-construct then proceeds to rip the battery up from the ground:

Ha! SKRRRAAKKK! I love it. You know, this is exactly the sort of thing I tuned in to Blackest Night hoping to see. Since the "price of admission" stands now at a hundred bucks and counting, we'll need a lot more of this to add up to an entertainment experience worth that kind of investment, but hey, it could happen. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for more consistent payoffs like this from here on out, now that the story is actually developing.

Anyway, this moment is nicely foreshadowed by the Indigo Lantern's warning on the first page that the Star Sapphire battery has been destroyed. That also connects this event to one we've seen elsewhere--specifically, Green Lantern #46. For a crossover event like this that tries to manage multiple plotlines across numerous titles, some sense of big-picture cohesion is important, and an occasional line of expository dialogue to connect the dots can serve that purpose efficiently and effectively.

Things unfold pretty quickly, then, leading up to Kyle Rayner's Climactic Heroic Ultimate Sacrifice, in which he DIES, just so we're clear about that (oh, spoiler warning, by the way). For obvious reasons, this is the part that has most people talking. For myself, I enjoyed the build-up action, like fateful dominoes falling (i.e. a Red Lantern dumped into the midst of the Black Lanterns, Chaselon's intervention, Chaselon's internal battery getting ripped out), but the death itself made little impact on me, partly because the only thing I knew about Kyle Rayner coming into this was that he notoriously found his girlfriend in the refrigerator, and partly because it just smacked so much of a bullshit gimmick death soon to be undone. I mean, I went ahead and reveled in the melodrama of the moment, but it wasn't like this was any kind of gut-punch for me. dclebeau at read/RANT! devotes a whole post to a much more thoughtful take on this, from the point of view of a longtime Kyle Rayner fan.

Even with so many big beats crammed into this issue, it's still surprising to me that one early sequence has provoked no comment in any of the reviews I've read (even the negative ones). It certainly raised my eyebrows--and not in a good way. Yeah, I give this issue props for all the points above, but there was also something in it that really seemed uncalled-for. It starts here:

Wow. In its own way, that's one of the perviest panels I've ever seen, and I'm counting literally hardcore stuff like fumetti and hentai. And it gets worse. Kyle and Soranik actually share a tender moment in the course of this weirdly three-way, grotesque lesbian nonconsensual oral fisting cum-shot. That moment is ruined, however, when Black Lantern Jade answers the call to attack the GL battery, and flies into the air with Soranik's fist stuck in her mouth in a tastelessly suggestive sight-gag:

To free Soranik's fist, Kyle blasts Jade's head right off, but "it" (meaning, Jade's still-animate body) just keeps flying.

I know I cover some dicey stuff here at Groovy Age (hell, I'll cop to writing dicey stuff in my novel), but something about this leaves a particularly bad taste in my mouth. It's hard for me to isolate exactly which lines it crosses that make me so uncomfortable. I think, first of all, it's the way Jade can go from having such an intense expression on her face in that first panel to just switching off and behaving like an automaton that's completely indifferent to having a fist in her mouth as she flies away. I guess it reminds me too much of disturbing porn I've seen that looked abusive to the female performer but then ended with her smiling like it was all no big deal. I didn't buy it then, don't buy it here, and don't like the way this seems to follow that script (and yes, I know I'm implicating myself in this dynamic too by my acquaintance with such fare). Blasting Jade's head off, showing her still active, and referring to her sexualized headless body as "it" underline and drive home the dehumanization and misogyny. The light and casual tone of all this also rings very discordantly to me.

Bottom line: GLC #42 hits one of the highest, most exciting, and most visually stunning points in Blackest Night so far with the Black Lantern assault on the Green Lantern battery, but it also hits one of the lowest points so far (lower even than Gen's icky death in BN #3) in the execrable Jade scene. Here's hoping for much more like the former, and no more like the latter.

Happy Jason Day!

2009-11-13T08:45:00.002-05:00

I toldja the horror season didn't end with Halloween. ;-)

Anyway, we've all seen the movies, but Tomb It May Concern has reviewed some F13 comics. I'm swinging by a LCS today (to harvest the latest crop of Blackest Night stuff), so maybe I'll see what they have in the way of such fare.

Stay tuned, and stay groovy!

THE ANNIHILIST by Kenneth Robeson (Bantam 1968)

2009-11-12T04:46:00.012-05:00

• Originally published in Doc Savage Magazine, December 1934
• Reprinted by Bantam as DS # 31
• Lester Dent writing as Kenneth Robeson

Solid early Doc Savage adventure pitting the mighty Man of Bronze against “The Crime Annihilist” — an altruistic opponent punishing the criminals of New York City with sudden, agonizing death. (The Spider would approve!)

A prominent physician is gunned down gangland-style in his Manhattan office, but the killer doesn’t get very far. While escaping the hitman is suddenly wracked with violent, painful convulsions — his eyeballs almost popping out of his skull — and keels over dead. This terrible “Pop-eyed Death” begins striking down criminals across the city, seemingly at random, many of them just as they are about to commit acts of violence. Merely having murderous thoughts can bring on the first spasmodic symptoms.

The assassinated physician was a colleague of the bronze man, at times working at Doc’s secret upstate “Crime College” — where criminals captured by Doc and his men are taken to have their anti-social tendencies wiped away via surgery and drugs. This heavily-guarded clinic is Doc’s biggest secret; he’s keenly aware that what he’s doing there is totally beyond the law and that its revelation to the public would be a disaster. (He also firmly believes that it’s for the good of society.) Somehow the mysterious gang leader known only as Boke has found out too much about the college and is trying to learn more, chiefly its location. But Boke has his own troubles — one by one his lieutenants are being struck down by the Pop-eyed Death. So he moves to force Doc Savage to uncover the identity of the Crime Annihilist and stop the plague that’s killing his men. All the while NYC’s toughest cop, Inspector “Hardboiled” Humbolt, is dogging Doc’s steps, convinced that Doc himself is the Crime Annihilist...

This one’s pretty violent for a Doc Savage story, replete with torture and a high body count. There aren’t any exotic locations — it all goes down in New York state — and the science behind the Crime Annihilist’s death wave is pure hooey, but Dent keeps things zipping along nicely, with plenty of action. There are two masterminds to unveil instead of the usual one (Boke and the Annihilist), and I actually failed to guess the identity of either. (A rare occurrence with these books.)

Grade: B

Name that stunt-gone-wrong?

2009-11-11T13:35:00.002-05:00

I feel morbid for asking this, but it's writing-research-related: what are some escape-artist stunts that went wrong and the performer suffered injury as a result? There's one in particular that made an impression on me, where it was (I think) a female celebrity rather than a professional escape artist, and the box she was trying to get out of ignited or exploded or something . . . ?

GAoH Sketchbook: Doruk Golcu

2009-11-07T09:23:00.002-05:00

Doruk Golcu, a regular and insightful commenter to Groovy Age for some time now, sends in this groovy contribution to the sketchbook. Thanks Doruk!

(Here's the Sketchbook flickr set, and here's how to contribute, if you're so inclined!)

What's Groovy

2009-11-05T09:55:00.000-05:00

David Wahl, who generously sponsored the Flickr Pro account that made it possible for me to post these huge and awesome cover scan gallery sets, also kindly invited me to contribute a guest-post to the group-blog he writes for, Monkey Goggles. I have, and it is up: Horror After Halloween. The premise, in a nutshell, is that Halloween doesn't end the season for supernatural mischief and frights (the long dark European winter, culminating in Christmas-time, right up through Twelfth Night), but only gets it started.

In other blog-crossover news, I'll be joining the Boris Karloff blogathon later this month, hosted by the ever-excellent Frankensteinia!

I really enjoyed my interview with Night Business comics creator Benjamin Marra, and now, via Sean, here's another rip-snorter of an interview he did recently with Vice. Imagine the smile on my face when Benjamin started holding forth on Blackest Night!

Speaking of Blackest Night, Kirk Warren's review of #4 at Weekly Crisis makes a point I wish I'd thought to make in my midterm progress report:

After seeing the black rings charging up for the past several issues and dozen or so tie-ins, it was disappointing to see the 100% charge amount to a black lantern popping out of the ground and Nekron materializing out of the ground. I was expecting him to tear open reality like in previous stories with the souls of the dead screaming out behind him and seeing the heroes in absolute despair as death came for them. It amounted to an audiance of one with the Flash and Nekron wasn't even giant-sized like he used to be. I like the new look Reis designed, but there was no presence to him. It's like "oh, another zombie guy, joy" type of feeling.

Granted, Kyle's response in the panel above isn't exactly the kind of horror reaction shot I've been calling for, but it easily could have been, and an Ivan Reis Blackest Night-ified version of the rip in reality could very well have lent itself to a truly stunning horror moment.

Motherfuck it!!! I just checked my e-mail in another tab, and see that I've been hit with a flurry of spam comments that bypassed word verification. I hate moderating comments, but for now I guess I'm going to have to go with that. Sorry, Groovy Agers. I'll drop moderation after a while, once I feel it's relatively safe. It's just that last time I got hit with a small batch of spam like this, I shortly thereafter got hit with a HUGE batch all through my archives, and I don't want to deal with that again.

Well, I hate to end on that un-groovy note; here's some groovy Ade Salmon Quartermass art to cleanse the palate. Have a groovy day!

BLACKEST NIGHT: Midpoint

2009-11-02T21:18:00.001-05:00

So now we're halfway through Blackest Night, and have everything in hand that was on the original checklist, which only covered the event to this midpoint (is there a new official checklist for the next half?--I'd sure like to see one). Looking back over that list, and at the stack of comics corresponding to it, what's most astounding to me is how little ground it's actually covered, story-wise.

We're no doubt meant to experience Nekron's appearance at the end of BN #4 as the grand culmination of the event to this point, but I didn't, and apparently neither did many other reviewers I've read. I've seen a fair amount of grousing about how the Big Reveal was spoiled months ago, but I don't think that has anything to do with it. It really doesn't matter whether they successfully kept Nekron under wraps until now, or called the event Nekron Night from the beginning.

The problem is that the story feels like it's been marking time until his appearance, rather than building up to it. None of the preceding action rises; it only dramatizes and demonstrates the basic situation established in BN #1. That situation is, Black Lanterns rise and kill people! Writer Geoff Johns could have built in some plot-beats--if nothing else, he could have given the Black Lanterns a few more plot coupons to collect before they could raise their master Nekron. But no--all they had to do was power up to 100%, and they could only do that by killing people. Since Black Lanterns killing people was the original situation, that situation remained static, and no matter how much spectacular violence unfolded on the page, the story budged not an inch. Nekron's appearance, then, doesn't come off as an ominous climax so much as a long-overdue lurch out of a rut.

As an aside, one extremely disappointing consequence of this approach has been the total squandering of Black Hand, whose (re-)introduction in Green Lantern #43 impressed me tremendously and gave me high hopes for the event. I expected to see a lot more of him actually doing scary stuff to prepare the way for the Big Bad, acting the part of an unholy John the Baptist, but since Nekron's rise hinged on nothing more than Black Lanterns slaughtering enough people to power up to 100%, there really wasn't anything for him to do except wait for them to accomplish that. Will he take a more active part now? It's hard to see how or why he would, except for the fact that he couldn't possibly play a less active part.

Exacerbating my impression of a static plot has been the response of the heroes, which to this point has been strictly defensive and disorganized. We now have Flash rallying the troops on Earth, and Hal Jordan offworld trying to put together a coalition of the color corps, but again, my feeling is that we've just been marking time until this turning point could neatly (I might even say mechanically) coincide with Nekron's rise and the transition to the latter half of the event.

As for the tie-in miniseries (I've discussed Batman and Superman, and would make essentially the same arguments on behalf of Titans now that I've read it), most of the criticisms that could be leveled against them are really the main story's fault. Sean Collins has said of the tie-ins, "they're basically like the 'here's what's going on with so-and-so' sequences we've seen in the main miniseries, only extracted and expanded," and I'd agree. They track the main story quite faithfully--the problem is, it's just been sitting there. I've seen a lot of complaints that they're just more of the same of what we see in the main title, but all we've seen in the main title has been more of the same of itself. That's not to say I don't think they contribute anything--as I mention in the post linked above, they genuinely help the event feel bigger. Perhaps even more significantly, when Green Lantern abruptly switches focus to the War of Light in outer space, they help anchor the horror mood that could have been dissipated by all those pretty colors of the spectrum. Why not just go ahead and say it?--Tomasi, Robinson, and Krul did a much better job on the horror end of things than Johns has, so far. He doesn't seem to have the interest or instincts for it.

While I'm picking on Johns, I know much of the whole point of superheroes is that they're awesome, but really, come on. J. Caleb Mozzocco:

When I first noticed Geoff Johns’ tendency to lionize the character of Hal Jordan, it was kind of eye-rolling (No way he punches Batman out like he did in Rebirth!) Then it got pretty annoying. Then it got kind of hilarious. Now I think it may be moving beyond hilarious and into embarrassing.

Tucker Stone more simply and scathingly characterizes this tendency as "jacking off into a longbox," and Cal Cleary just calls it "Halwankery." "Fansturbation" might be a more apt term in this case (has that been coined yet?--I just made it up, but I'm sure I can't be the first), since Johns directs plenty of it at Barry Allen, too. Whatever you call it, it reached a revolting new intensity in BN #4, and I wish Johns would just stop it.

I hate to put it this way, but I'm afraid the best thing I can say for Johns's writing so far is that it gives artists Reis and Mahnke tons of cool shit to draw. And they magnificently rise to the occasion. Props to the whole art team, for that matter--way back in this post, I remarked how eye-popping the coloring was, and that's worth reiterating here. Seriously, if the art weren't so strong, I probably would have ditched the event by now.

But I'm still here, and now that we're over the hump, hopefully the worst is behind us and stuff will really start to happen.

Storie Viola N. 27: Impulso Vitale (Lifeforce), Published in January 1988

2009-11-02T13:16:00.004-05:00

What in the world is this, why is a black cloud killing this nice, old horror writer?

And why is this rape demon attacking a girls' boarding school?

Why, oh why, is this garbage truck collecting more than just garbage?

And how come this zombie is chopping wood?

Oh, it wants to stop this bus. But why?

OH NOOOOOOO!

Anyway, why is a giant gorilla chasing these two?

And why does it suddenly disappear?

Well, I'll tell you why: remember the cloud that killed the horror writer? It was lifeforce-charged dust from a freshly-landed meteor and gave life to all the horror stories he had in his mind before fading away; the gorilla story was something he had begun to develop only minutes before his death, thus the ape's attack ceased so abruptly. A happy ending, for once :-)

This was my final Storie Viola post, by the way. Many good stories were left unposted because they were too complicated to compress into a small synopsis, and some stories just sucked, but all twenty-eight will always have a special place in my heart, as it wasn't exactly easy collecting the whole set. Storie Viola has also one supplement, and I'll leave you with a scan of its cover:

Minicomics: WEREWOLF!

2009-10-31T17:13:00.002-04:00

What a nifty treat for Halloween! My experience with minicomics is fairly limited (mainly to Denis St. John's and Josh Simmons's work), but the more I see, the more I like. There's really nothing like a little handcrafted touch to make a minicomic something special, and it makes me smile that the cover's hand-painted moon actually glows in the dark!

Four main pieces comprise this anthology:

"Showdown!" by Nick Patten

"Awwwwwww Wolf-Out!" by Betsey Swardlick

"Untitled" by Penina Gal

"Darcy Cheyne, Chapter One" by Joshua Rosen

Plus a single page each by José-Luis Olivares and Jon Chad. They're all quite short, so I haven't much to say that the sample images above don't say for themselves. All in all, a fun little package!

It can be ordered online through Penina's shop--presumably also if you get in touch with any of the others, though I didn't find a setup for taking orders at their sites.

Happy Halloween, Groovy Agers!

Fail

2009-10-31T16:58:00.000-04:00

Jaakko here. I know I said I'd give you a full week of fumetti posts, but due to circumstances that's not going to happen, I'm just too busy this weekend. On monday I'll give you my final Storie Viola post, though, so look forward to it. And after that I'll return to my normal pace, giving you only bi-monthly coverage of fumetti, primarily Oltretomba Nuova Serie, the best Italian supernatural horror series ever. So grab your crucifixes and make sweet love to Jesus while you can, because demons are coming and they want your ass!

FROSTBITE: Interview with author David Wellington

2009-10-30T18:08:00.001-04:00

You could hardly do better this Halloween than treat yourself to Frostbite (Three Rivers 2009), David Wellington's latest, a werewolf novel I highly recommend. But if you miss the Halloween "deadline," don't worry--we're on the way to winter, and this would make for perfect reading on a cold, dark, winter night.

I've covered everything Wellington's published so far, and had a lot of cool conversations with him (find all of that here), and fortunately he just keeps publishing more stuff, and is always up for another round of Q&A. Here's our latest!

1. Never mind your Marvel Zombies issue, let's talk about Blackest Night! Seriously, are you following Blackest Night? Because I am, and if you are, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about it.

I guess we'd better talk about your comic, though--specifically, Marvel Zombies Return #2, the Iron Man issue. From the interview at the Marvel website, it's not clear to me whether you picked Iron Man or were assigned him, and beyond that, it's a little vague what kind of balance was struck between creative freedom and editorial guidance. Did you write full-on page/panel breakdowns and everything? What do you know about writing comics now that you didn't before this project? Did the experience stretch your brain in ways that will improve your prose fiction? You've said before, "My action scenes play out in my head, I just imagine a really cool scene from an (imaginary) movie and then I describe it on the page"; did working on comics affect the way you visualize? Finally, did this inspire you to start writing any other comics scripts--either adaptations of your prose material or perhaps something new for an original graphic novel?

I haven't had a chance to even look at Blackest Night--I've been writing like a machine for the last six months, and have two more months to go. The latest BPRD collection and the first volume of Savage Sword of Conan reprints are staring at me from across the room right now, daring me to pick them up, but I don't have time! It's frustrating, but at the same time, I can't complain about having so much work when so many people are struggling to get any, right now.

As for Marvel Zombies Return #2--I was assigned the Iron Man issue, but it's the one I would have picked anyway, given the choice. I liked Iron Man a lot when I was a kid. I always liked the heroes who actually had to think their way out of their problems--Mr. Fantastic and Batman were two other favorites, for that reason. Tony Stark can fly and shoot raygun beams out of his hands and chest, but to me he's much more an inventor than a fighter--a guy who can build pretty much anything, but is always struggling to figure out how you build your way out of alcoholism, or a world littered with weapons of mass destruction.

As for writing it--I wrote a full script, with panel breakdowns and everything. There was a lot more editorial oversight than I'm used to--when I write a book I work with one editor, not a team of them, and it's up to me how to implement the notes I get back. I didn't mind much, however, because other than a few unpublished scripts I'd never written a comic before and the editorial notes were very helpful in teaching me how to write for this new medium. I've always been a visual writer, and I have a very strong discipline when it comes to plotting and storytelling, so those things weren't really problems, but I had to get used to a very strict pacing. There was a ton of stuff that had to be shoehorned into this script, which meant cutting a lot of stuff I really liked. But I think the final product turned out great. I'd love to write more comics--when I get some time to do so. Hopefully this will just be the first of many.

2. In promotion of Frostbite, your latest novel, you've partnered with DailyLit to give away 30 short stories over 30 days, via e-mail subscription. Honestly, with very few exceptions, short fiction (in any medium--I've made the same complaint about comics) just doesn't much appeal to me. I so much prefer novels, and even better, series of novels, as generally meatier, more engaging, and more satisfying. Since you're obviously perfectly capable of cranking out excellent novels and series at an impressively brisk pace, why bother with the short stuff?--by which I mean, couldn't a lot of the most worthwhile kernels of ideas in your short stories be incorporated or expanded into something longer, where you could explore them at greater length and make them even more resonant? Do you feel that a writer "should" be able to write both long and short, and if so, why? How similar or different for you is the experience of writing short vs. long? Do you think your novel writing would suffer if you stopped writing short stories for whatever reason? It's fair to say each novel you've published has significantly raised your stature and increased your audience, yes?--what has been your experience professionally publishing short stories, and how have they contributed to your career? Any plans for a collection?

Jeez, that's a lot of questions. The answer to most of them is "no." Writers don't have to master the short story to be able to write good novels. Some writers are better at one form, some are better at the other, and that's fine. I don't think my novels would suffer if I never wrote another short. Short stories don't make you any money, they don't give you any prestige, and they don't contribute anything to your career (though they used to). So... why do it? That's the tough one.

The short story and the novel are completely different art forms. It's like the difference between drawing and painting--it's not just a question of scope, it really requires a completely different technique. When I started writing all these short stories I didn't get that. I had a bunch of novel-length projects in my head that I knew I would never have time to actually write. I figured with a little hand-waving, I could just write the last chapter of each of those books and have a satisfying story. That didn't work so well. It was a lot of fun learning why, and that's reason enough to do them, I think.

A good short story is like a good joke. It may not have a ton of detail, but everything important is in there. You don't need three hundred pages of characterization to know why the chicken crossed the road. The three hundred pages of backstory would not make the chicken more interesting, or further illuminate the punchline. So I think a good short story is worth writing short, for the same reason. The power of the short is not in the resonance, or the depth, or the world-building. It's the purest possible distillation of plot for plot's sake. I love a good plot. That's another reason.

The third, and probably the most sincere reason, is that I grew up reading short stories. The pulp writers who are my main inspirations and influences--Howard, Lovecraft, Leiber, Moorcock, even Fitzgerald, all made their living writing short stories. Would they have preferred to write novels? Maybe, some of them. But they primarily wrote short stories and they were all amazing at it. So I still think of short stories as the most primal form of what I do.

I'd very much like to collect these and print them. That's not up to me, though. So we'll see.

3. And now we come to the main event--Frostbite! I thought you made two really interesting choices about the nature of your werewolves. The first is the mode of transformation. I've mentioned before that I think it's a mistake to focus too heavily on the flesh-and-bone physical aspects of it, and I like that you took your own approach in a different direction. Second, explaining why they're so much more incredibly fearsome than normal present-day wolves by tracing their origins to prehistory and basing them on dire wolves--essentially the "dinosaur" version of a wolf--definitely made me smile. Can you walk me through the design-process by which you arrived at these conceptualizations, including alternatives you considered but ultimately rejected?

Classic werewolf stories always have one problem, which is that they take forever to get going. You have a conflict that only happens once every twenty-eight days. That had to go right away--there was no way I was going to have my characters just sit around for weeks on end waiting for something to happen. So I knew my werewolves had to change every day. Every time the moon came up. That makes their lives a lot harder--which is a good thing for a horror story. Then there's the problem of the transformation. A werewolf sees the moon. He looks at his love interest and says, "it's too late!" Then the love interest stands there for five minutes while he basically explodes and turns into a wolf. The love interest doesn't run away. He or she stands there and watches it happen. Why? Even if they know what's going to happen, they stand there and wait. Forget it! My transformations had to happen in the blink of an eye. There had to be very little warning, and absolutely nothing you could do to help yourself when the time came. So there's no snout-lengthening, fingers-into-claws stuff, just a flash of light and holy crap! It's a wolf!

I found another problem when I started doing research on wolves. Wolves are nice. They're essentially big dogs. No, you don't want to pet them. And yes, they can kill you if you force them to. But wolves never attack human beings if they can't help it. That's not because they're noble spirits or old souls or anything like that--it's because they're too smart. They never attack anything that can fight back. The main diet of a timber wolf is the field mouse, believe it or not. Even when they take on a caribou that's five times their size, they do it in packs, and they go after the sick or old caribou, and they do it through a process called "testing"--they run at the caribou, then run away, run at it, run away, until they're sure it's not going to just kick their heads in. Most people get this now. Most people don't think of wolves as being that scary, honestly, not in the 21st century. The ones that do want to shoot them from airplanes, and those weren't the kind of people I wanted to write a book for. So I needed a kind of wolf that was still scary. A kind that people weren't airbrushing on t-shirts. The dire wolf, which went extinct ten thousand years ago, was perfect for the task. It had huge, huge teeth, and it was bigger than a wolf--this is not the neighborhood dog gone feral--and it took down mastodons, it was so tough.

4. One thing that impressed me was the way you conveyed the inner lives of the werewolves through their movement and behavior. Whether it's the cock of an ear or the change of gait on moving from a forest to open ground, you really nailed a lot of expressive details that rang true. Knowing your penchant for research, I'd love to hear how you dug in on that and what references proved most helpful. Your author bio mentions that you have a dog, and in fact the novel is dedicated to her (I'm assuming that's the Mary you mean)--did you have her at the time you originally wrote Frostbite, and if so, is there anything of her in it?

Now, the inner monologue with repeated words and such didn't strike me as quite so successful. I'm usually of the opinion that a talented-enough writer can sell just about anything, but rendering "authentically" animal thoughts in human language seems about as close to a sure-lose game as I can imagine. Given how well describing their behavior works, was this really necessary, even when you wanted to go deep into werewolf Chey's (third person) point of view? Why did you come at it this way, what challenges and pitfalls were you dealing with, and how happy are you with the finished result?

Yeah, the novel is dedicated to my dog Mary--a twenty-pound wheaten terrier who is probably the sweetest living thing on the planet. She's not likely to rip out anybody's throat, anytime soon. But the wolf is still in there. The werewolf myth is about being afraid of the animal inside the human being, the creature we can't shake. If you really get to know a dog, you get that's true for them as well. They have all the instincts, all the pack behaviors and the rigid social codes, still intact, and they're ready to put them into action at any time. One of the saddest things--for me--about owning a dog is that you have to teach them to overcome their essential nature. Everything they think is right, or obvious, is instead wrong and has to be fought against. No, you can't mark your territory, because that means peeing on the rug. No, you can't attack other dogs, even in play mode (which is never fatal, but can get bloody), because that means the police will take you away. They don't have the kind of brains that let them make sense of why these things are wrong, but they curb their behavior anyway, and they do it for love. That's heartbreaking to me. Now take all those same feelings, but make it so you can't--ever--win the fight. You're going to pee all over the rug and you can't help it, and the person you love is going to be really upset, but there's nothing you can do. Even worse, you can't explain to them--at all--why you had to do it. That is exactly where the horror of the werewolf myth comes in. The need to control yourself and the total inability to do so.

As for the werewolf thoughts... well, I wanted to convey verbally the very rhythmic thought process of a wolf. Wolves--dogs--etc. don't think in straight lines. Their attention is always moving, and their emotions are always covalent, that is, they're always feeling multiple things at the same time. That's a very difficult concept for human beings to grasp, and I thought I could render it in language. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe I'll cut back on that for the sequel.

5. I was first surprised, then confused, by Bannerman Clark's presence in Frostbite, after seeing "him" in Monster Nation. There's a wikipedia article (which spells his last name with an e on the end?) that attempts to offer some clarification, but I thought I'd better go straight to the source. If you've explained all this in detail elsewhere, I'll be happy with a link (sorry--I looked but didn't find it on my own). If you'd prefer to leave the whole thing ambiguous, that's cool, too. Actually, I'm not even so much interested in the character of Bannerman as I am in the implications for a "shared world" between all your big monster sagas. My impression, which the wiki entry seems to confirm, is that you deliberately introduced some clear and pointed discontinuities to establish this as a different version of the character in an alternate and discontinuous story universe. If that's the case, I wonder why you'd close off the shared-world possibility, when it would be just as easy to leave it open, even if you never actually decided to realize it. I wonder because a "David Wellington's World of Darkness" (or whatever) would seem to offer ridiculously fun story possibilities, would allow you to build on everything you've worked so hard to build already, and FANS EAT THAT SHIT UP!!! Well, I'll just let you address that or not, as you please.

I never rule anything out. Yeah, I'd love to see (werewolf) Cheyenne Clark and (vampire hunter) Laura Caxton team up to fight zombies. Who wouldn't want to see that? Right now they're all in separate universes. But there are so many ways to do a crossover... to be totally honest, that was my intention originally. I set the Laura Caxton books five years before the Monster Island books, so that given the opportunity, I could have Laura be a character in the Monster Island universe. Her friends the Polders (basically Amish witches) already made a guest appearance in Monster Planet. But my editor at the time didn't like the idea--the zombie books were with a different publisher, for one thing.

There's also the question of how do you keep that from being silly. Monster Mashes are deliriously fun--like Night Falls on a Fairy Tale, for instance. But sustained horror works best when there's only one big bad threat. Otherwise, you run the risk of creating a situation your characters could not realistically survive for five minutes, and then what do you do?

Bannerman Clark (no E) was one of my favorite characters, and one of the very few to actually get a happy ending. In the Frostbite Universe (I should really trademark that), he did in fact run into zombies--and solved the problem then and there. Don't ask me how--I haven't written that book yet. Somehow he contained the zombies to the prison in Colorado. No more zombies, and he got to retire and own a horse farm. I really want to leave him with that happiness.

6. On your plate now is the sequel to Frostbite-- and after that, perhaps another installment in the vampire series? Is the vampire series evolving into a sort of backbone-franchise that could span and to some extent define your whole career? There certainly seems to be an expectation that after you finish up with werewolves (for the time being, at least), you'll move on to do another multi-part take on another big monster type--if you're even looking that far ahead, is that how you're thinking about it, and do you have something definite in mind? I've noticed Frankenstein coming up more and more in your interviews; you've given reasons for not going there, but my impression is that you're gradually coming around to it. Why not just do it? You really couldn't write a Frankenstein story that wouldn't get you slapped with a cease-and-desist from Universal?!? You really wouldn't write something you really wanted to just because of Max Brooks, Twilight, and Dean Koontz?!? Are there any interesting near-future side-projects like the Marvel Zombies issue you'd like to announce?

I definitely intend to write at least one more vampire book. There's part of me that wants to end that series on a strong note. 23 Hours was brutal, both for Laura Caxton and for me as a writer. It meant some really nasty research (a lot of which I couldn't use because it made my vampires look like wimps, compared to what actually happens in an American prison) and putting a character I'm genuinely fond of through some changes that even a vampire hunter should never have to endure. I think I can give Laura the resolution she needs (whether she survives it or not) in one book. I'm not a big fan of series that just go on forever. Eventually the author loses interest, or dies, or whatever, and it just sort of peters out. I prefer big flashy conclusions, epochal events that end the story with as much excitement as it began.

As for Frankenstein's monster (I find Dr. Frankenstein less interesting--the guy had no guts at all), I still want to write that book. But one of the main obstacles is me. I don't know if I'm a good enough writer to pull that story off... yet. I'm still learning so much from every book I write. If I'm going to take on my Favorite Monster of All Time, I want to be at the very top of my game.

As for what I do have planned, I'm actually thinking it might not be horror... which I know will bug some of my fans. But I can write other stuff. I trained for years to write science fiction, fantasy, mystery, etc. It just happened that my first published novel was a horror novel, so that's where I got pigeonholed.

7. All right, David, anything else you'd like to add? How's Halloween shaping up for you this year? Thanks for answering my questions!

Halloween is going to be awesome this year. Lots of parties, lots of events, lots of friends. Thanks so much, Curt--and have a great Halloween yourself!

Vampirissimo N. 69: L'abominevole Ciurma (The Abominable Crew), Published in September 1980

2009-10-30T13:03:00.004-04:00

Once upon a time in Ancient Egypt there lived a Pharao's daughter called Ftatatitah, who had magic powers and could rule over all unborn life.

In 1880 she wakes up as a mummy aboard Vultur, a ship commanded by Captain Olaf, and comes across an interesting protein stain.

It's the semen of a young Peeping Tom, and Ftatatitah immediately uses it to conjure up a monstrous version of him.

There's also a lot of vermin eggs in the ship's pantry, thus Ftatatitah is soon able to raise a whole army of sinful monsters. (Hmmm, one of them looks kinda familiar...)

She kills almost the whole crew...

...but when she finds out that the time of Pharaos is already over, she decides to torch the ship and herself with it. The End.

Halloween art and illustration

2009-10-30T09:22:00.003-04:00

Wow, check out Shane Oakley's Sketches of the 31st Kind! Then, in this post, he points to a number of his favorite horror cartoonists and illustrators--a nice mix for me of new discoveries and old favorites. Among the latter, Richard Sala has some sweet Halloween stuff up here and here at his blog.

After that, pop by Trixie's Treats, and the eye-candy will overflow your goodie bag!

AMERIKA 2000, Second series, N. 2: La Setta Degli Scuoiatori (The sect of flayers), Published in July 1989

2009-10-29T16:35:00.005-04:00

"Got milk?"

Splurt!

Splurt!

Splurt!

Splurt!

Splur... oh shit, cops!

The end. I could reveal you his motive, but I think it should be pretty easy to guess. This was the final issue of Amerika 2000, by the way, I hope you enjoyed the abuse.

Storie Viola N. 15: Libidine Precoce (Precocious Lust), Published in January 1987

2009-10-28T12:51:00.004-04:00

What in the world is this? Why is Ethel getting raped by a cartoon character?

Could it have something to do with the bald girl she found naked by the side of the road yesterday? The girl who couldn't speak a word when they met, but now claims to have "completely learned the human language" after spending the night watching TV.

Yes, it sure could! Her name is Bibi, and she likes to play doctor with characters from kids' shows...

...and when she gets angry, they'll play butcher, too!

This non-cartoon guy also raped Ethel, thus he's going to get seriously smurfed! Or "sbulled", to be exact, because copyrights exist even in Italy.

But shit really hits the fan when the gigantic Killrobot gets summoned.

Bibi uses the robot to blackmail some oral sex from Ethel...

...but then Bibi's parents arrive, putting a stop to it. It turns out that she's from outer space and belongs to a race of intergalactic magic users.

And she's also minor, so Ethel gets the death penalty for molesting a child. The End.

Bradley Mengel: Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction – An Encyclopedia from Able Team to Z-Comm

2009-10-28T12:19:00.005-04:00

A bit of a blast from the past here: This is Holger from Hammer and Beyond. In the early days of this blog I had contributed a couple of reviews for Curt about The Baroness, German pulp fiction and some other stuff. I have since kept a bit of a low profile, but when I discovered this new book dedicated to Serial Vigilantes I touched base with Curt again. Eventually this review will also be published in the pages of the PAPERBACK FANATIC, but - given that the current issue is already at the printers - this will take a little while, so both Justin and Curt agreed that Groovy Age would be a good spot for an initial write up. Hope you enjoy it.

Despite their (at the time) immense popularity 70s and 80s pulp fiction is an area of popular entertainment that is often overlooked by traditional media and has very rarely – if at all - been overviewed and analysed properly. So any book that promises to look a little bit deeper into this subject needs to be supported so - despite the high price tag of $40+ and the truly awful cover illustration - I decided to explore Bradley Mengel's new book on Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction.

The book tracks about 130 series of “serial vigilante” fiction, a term Mengel introduces to cover the subgenre dealing with the likes of Mack Bolan & Co, rough'n'ready vigilantes taking the law into their own hands and wreaking havoc amongst the mafia or other do-no-gooders. This overview is not just limited to US examples, but also covers French, British or Australian series of its kind. This book is published by McFarland, a very prestigious University Publisher with a vast output on books covering even the most obscure pop culture subject imaginable.

Mengel's introduction serves as a brief overview over its subject matter and names and explores this subgenre and its narrative strands. At one stage he seems to even prefer the term “Aggressor” to “Serial Vigilante” fiction as it had previously been used by other authors and Mengel himself actually has a blog called Aggressors – The new hero pulp that is worth visiting and that seems to have formed the basis for his initial research. Ultimately, however, he settles for the “serial vigilante” term as it focus on a) vigilantes in b) serial form and c) he imagines that the “Aggressor” term may at one stage be used itself for a new pulp fiction series. Fat chance on c) seeing that with a few exceptions this genre is now moribund.

Though he highlights common threads within that subgenre (e.g. though we generally have a white male protagonist, the moment a team is involved it usually features a range of different racial backgrounds), Mengel never really gets too deeply involved in any discussion about the general worldview that is implied with these works. Are they e.g. potentially quasi-fascist in their attitude? This is a bit of a wasted opportunity especially given the fact that Mengel himself works in Australia's Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and one would think that he may have some interesting thoughts on that matter.

The appendix then deals with a variety of other matters not directly addressed in the main part of the book such as precursors of the Serial Vigilante, crossovers, references and parodies (Mengel definitely knows his Wold Newton Universe), female superheroes or spies and the future of the genre.

The main part of the book is in encyclopedic format with an entry for every series. Those entries cover the following aspects:

the general premise of the series, typical scenarios and team members (if applicable)
a note about the author or authors involved
a detailled list of every book in that series including publishing year and author (if known)
other possible appearences of this hero in cinematic, comic book or other form as well as potential references from other series

What is missing in these overviews is any kind of critical input about the individual values (or lack thereof) of the various series covered. So when coming across a new (at least for me) series like the Missions of Alex Kane about the only vigilante fighting to protect gay rights, I can only admire this unusual premise, but will be none the wiser as to whether these books are actually worth exploring overall. It's a strictly objective and at times repetitive overview as a lot of the authors have been involved in several of the different series and the notes about them are by and large just copied for each new entry.

The main heart and meat of this publication are without a doubt the extensive check lists on each series. If you ever tried compiling your own series lists, you know that even with the help of the Internet a lot of info is still hard to come by and especially identifying the different authors hidden behind the house names is simply a nightmare. Though Mengel does manage to identify the majority of those authors, my own Holy Grail of unidentified series authors still remains a mystery: It looks like we may never know who was behind “Paul Kenyon's” Baroness.

This book is strictly text only without any cover reproductions, so don't expect anything for your coffee table.

Overall, Serial Vigilantes in Paperback Fiction is a good publication, but not necessarily a Must Have. If you are looking for an annotated list of titles, then this is an essential purchase. If you are looking for a more general critical overview of this subgenre, then this work may leave you begging for a little bit more in depth.

BLACKEST NIGHT: Batman & Superman

2009-10-27T22:26:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow we get the double-whammy of Blackest Night 4 and Green Lantern 47, plus the final installment of BN: Titans, which entirely wraps up this first round of tie-in minis. I'm hoping that will give me a lot to talk about (unlike last month's crop), so to clear my plate a little, I thought this would be a good time to sum up my reactions to BN: Batman and BN: Superman, the two tie-in minis that have already concluded.

The main point I want to address is a relatively widespread sentiment expressed by Brian Hibbs at Savage Critics:

BLACKEST NIGHT BATMAN 1-3, and SUPERMAN #1-3: To me, the biggest sin of a crossover tie-in is to be "red skies". That is, where basically nothing really happens, except to take money from your pocket. And I kind of feel that BN crossovers are doing pretty much that -- zombies show up, get fended off, the end.

I guess superhero fans are so conditioned to expect a kick in the teeth from crossover tie-ins that they feel a kick whether any is delivered or not. I wasn't previously familiar with the term "red skies" tie-in, but if this TV Tropes entry fairly summarizes what Hibbs has in mind, I really must disagree with him and all those who've voiced essentially the same complaint.

My first observation would be that a zombie apocalypse isn't the kind of tightly-centralized event that allows for very strict demarcations between the "tentpole" story, tie-ins that are essential to it, and tie-ins that are "red skies" peripheral or irrelevant to it.

Let's suppose that one sweeps-week, CBS ran a zombie apocalypse through the whole CSI franchise. Each show--the original in Vegas, the spinoffs in New York and Miami--depicts its team dealing separately and in its own way with the local consequences of the global event. There's not really a tentpole story here for which one show could be essential and another peripheral. The event is big enough that three shows can depict three entirely unrelated responses to it. What happens in Vegas isn't a "red skies" tie-in to what happens in Miami or New York, or vice-versa in any direction. Now, if you want to talk "red skies," that would be a contained zombie outbreak in Vegas that the New York and Miami teams are shown watching on tv or discussing as they work on their own ordinary murder cases.

As it happens, Blackest Night does have a tentpole story with a central hero (Hal Jordan) and a Big Bad (Nekron). Nevertheless, it's also a DC Universe-wide zombie apocalypse story, and it therefore affects not only Hal and his supporting cast, but pretty much everyone. Returning to the CSI example, Gil and Sara no longer regularly appear on the original show or any other, but they remain important enough to the CSI-verse that if a global zombie apocalypse really did rage through it, fans would naturally be concerned to know how they're dealing with it, and CBS wouldn't be at all remiss if it aired a standalone special to tell their story, quite apart from what happens on their original Vegas show.

By the same token, Batman and Superman are important enough heavy-hitters that it's worthwhile showing them dealing with Blackest Night in their own corners of the DCU with their own supporting casts, whether or not those stories tie-in with Hal Jordan's. There's a big difference between musing about a red sky in the distance, and fighting for your life against a Black Lantern zombie of someone you care about who's trying to rip your heart out. And we don't just have random Black Lanterns briefly interrupting ongoing stories in regular titles, but dedicated miniseries that tell complete story arcs.

On those grounds alone, I don't think BN: Batman and Superman can reasonably be dismissed as "red skies" tie-ins, but my experience has been that these tie-ins contribute a good deal more to the event.

Ivan Reis and Doug Mahnke have established a distinctive look and a high standard of art to Blackest Night in the main title and Green Lantern. By maintaining that look and quality, Eddy Barrows in Superman and especially Adrian Syaf in Batman really make the tie-ins feel like part of the bigger story, and thereby make the story feel that much bigger. The visual juxtaposition between gloomy horror and flashy superheroic action is one I've been enjoying immensely. Big-budget, high-concept blockbuster extravaganza movies only wish they could deliver this kind of slick, eye-popping overstimulation.

What's more, these earth-bound tie-ins nicely balanced and grounded the event when Green Lantern went all War-of-Light and joined Green Lantern Corps on a more space-operatic stage. Tucker Stone:

Blackest Night Batman is that other kind of "horror-but-not-really" movie, the action-with-gore kind. Old men yell "empty!" and get new shotguns thrown to them from their cripple daughters, people hide out in rooms and listen to unnamed side characters die in pain, somebody gets a drill shoved into their chest, reinforcements show up out of nowhere in giant machines, guns blazing...it's all very fast, a story that takes place in minutes. [. . .] It shows Batman, Damian & Tim Drake shooting monster types with flamethrowers on the cover. It's a gory action movie with Batman in it. One's appreciation for it is based around whether or not they think Devils Rejects would have been better if William Forsythe's character had been played by Christian Bale.

I think he's saying that like it's a bad thing, though I can't imagine why. A gory action movie with superheroes is exactly what I was hoping for, and it's exactly what was called for to counterbalance all that Compassion when the Indigo Tribe popped in from nowhere and whisked Hal to the stars.

Then, these tie-ins delve a bit more deeply into certain thematic concerns. The emotional spectrum visible to Black Lanterns figures prominently in Superman, while Batman appropriately enough explores the Black Lanterns' psychological manipulations.

Finally, in a previous post, I expressed my hope that the Blackest Night tie-ins would take advantage of the serial pamphlet format's possibilities for a "less linear approach to storytelling, based on storylines that converge, diverge, overlap, and run parallel." I really feel that BN: Superman and especially Batman accomplish this. Superman, so far, only runs parallel to the main action, as I discuss above in my point about zombie apocalypses, but ends on the suggestion that Superman's story will converge with it in due time--a suggestion the cover for the forthcoming BN #5 appears to bear out:

Batman presents a more interesting case, with a number of threads weaving it to the main and core titles--primarily Bruce Wayne's grave (BN 1, GL 44, BN:B 1), the Bat-Signal/Jim Gordon/Oracle (GL 44, BN 2, BN:B 1-3), and Deadman (BN 2, BN:B 1-3). What's fun here is that when the main story forks away from certain intriguing threads, they don't just get dropped, but interested readers can follow them into another title. I'm finding that to be true of the event generally. Hal Jordan's story may be central, but there's a lot more going on, and none of it has to be sacrificed or left out. Collectively, the various relevant titles are like a bank of screens, where a character who steps out of one steps into another. That's what I was hoping for, and so far that's what I feel I'm getting. We'll see how that holds up when the November wave of tie-ins hits.

Update: Not a minute after I posted this, Geoff Johns won the Scream Award for Best Comic Book Writer on Spike. Heh!

Zora N. 145: La Vampira Ha Sete (The Vampiress is Thirsty), Published in August 1980

2009-10-27T13:17:00.004-04:00

Remember The Obelisk Man, the guy who has no hands, but makes it up with his massive prehensile penis? Well, here he is again, knocking out our lovely vampire Zora with only one blow of his mighty rod.

He then drags her through the streets...

...and gives her a good whipping!

Dude, now that's just redundant!

Fortunately Zora's vampire friend Frau Murder rushes to help...

...and thus our dark heroine lives to fight another night! The End.

MONSTERS & GIRLS: Interview with minicomics creator Denis St. John

2009-10-26T17:08:00.001-04:00

I really liked the first issue of Denis St. John's weird/creepy horror minicomic Monsters & Girls: Amelia (see my review here). With the second issue in hand and just as weird/creepy enjoyable, I thought the Halloween season would be a great time to have a chat about it with Denis.

1. Monsters & Girls: Amelia is a minicomic series that definitely aims to tell a story with strong genre elements--mystery, sex, violence, supernatural horror, MacGuffins, etc. Of course, there's sort of a stereotype that the indie comics scene privileges "literary" and especially autobio comics. I'm curious, first of all, to what extent your experience has either confirmed or refuted that stereotype. How have your comics been received in indie comics circles--by other creators, on review sites or forums, at venues like SPX, etc.--and specifically, what kind of reaction have you gotten to the genre aspects? Do you have any "branding" concerns, that potential readers who would probably enjoy Amelia might be put off by that stereotype, or simply might not find it because they don't shop for indie comics? When I recently interviewed indie comics creator Benjamin Marra, he was harshly contemptuous of autobio comics, and explicitly defined his work in opposition to them; do you have any particular opinion about them, or see your work in any particular relation to them?

I’ve found a lot of horror work in Indie comics, when I go to SPX or A.P.E. (Alternative Press Expo) or MoCCA I always see new horror work from new creators and you look at a lot of the giants of the indie comic world and a bunch of them use horror elements if not doing straight up horror, like Charles Burns, Richard Sala, Jim Woodring, the Hernandez Brothers. There are people who look down on genre work in indie comics but the majority I’ve met and dealt with don’t.

It’s kind of the same thing with movies, arty movie people may like horror as long as it’s not called horror, like Ingmar Bergman totally made horror movies, but people who don’t like horror movies accept them.

I went to The Center for Cartoon Studies, which was co-founded by James Sturm, and is sometimes thought of as an indie comics boot camp. Horror is definitely accepted there, Steve Bissette is one of the professors, no one can deny he’s a horror guy, but he’s still self-published his own serieses.

As far as the branding part of the question, I do worry about that. I sometimes think I’m artistically skating a line, almost making an art book. Getting my comic into horror fan’s hands has been a real struggle, part of that is that I self publish and self distribute, I don’t have money to advertise, if someone else wanted to do all that for me I’d be interested! So really, only like a couple hundred people have even seen my work, and it’s hard to find the people who would like it, I don’t think my audience has found me yet, or the other way around.

2. Both S. R. Bissette and myself have likened your work a bit to Richard Sala's, and you've used those quotes as back-cover blurbs, suggesting you agree with the comparison, perhaps acknowledge his influence, and see it as a selling-point. Could you say a little about how you've experienced and engaged with Sala's comics? What, if anything, have you taken from them, and how have you tried to make it your own? Have you met and/or corresponded with Sala? If such comparisons are helpful at this point in your career, might they also make it harder to establish your own distinctiveness as a creator further on?

Richard Sala to me is a good person to compare my work to partially because he walks the same lines I do of being a horror guy in an indie world (or the other way around?). I do love Sala’s work. I read all of it I can, I’m really happy to have just bought the fourth issue of Delpine. The two things I really take from his work are using genre images and taking them for your own or using them as a jumping off point to your own story and the sexiness of his work, how unafraid he seems to have his strong female leads running around without clothes or whatever. He’s definitely an influence in terms of -if he can get away with it, so can I.

I’ve never met or talked with Sala. Steve Bissette was going to mail Sala my comics but I haven’t heard a response yet. One thing that’s really cool about the comics world is how small it is, so I’ve met a lot of my comics idols, like Charles Burns, Gahan Wilson, all 3 Hernandez brothers, and gotten my comics in their hands. Steve Bissette was also a major inspiration for me and thanks to CCS I now see him every week and we work together on projects (we just did a signing together and earlier this month I horror hosted a movie with his help). But, I haven’t met Sala yet.

If the comparison might hinder me later on? I don’t know it’s too early to tell. I don’t think any one is ever going to confuse the two of us. We draw pretty differently.

3. Amelia really is an unusual comic, and I'm curious how similar or different it is from the comics that got you reading and ultimately creating them yourself in the first place. Are you drawing the comic you've always wanted to, or have your tastes and interests evolved to this?

I have a long long list of comic influences. Some of which I’ve already mentioned. I’ve been reading comics pretty much my entire life and drawing them just about as long. So no, Amelia is nothing like the comics I was reading or making in junior high, which was mostly superheroes, or as an elementary school kid when I was tracing Peanuts. My tastes are still growing and changing. When I first started making comics they were all jokes. My first mini comics were horror-comedies about monster parties:

(from Seamus Thunder: Horror Detective)

(from In a Dark Dark)

Somewhere along the line it all became important to me though. Like it can still be funny, but it’s not a joke anymore. Horror for whatever reason became the filter though which I process and that’s where my comics are right now. That might just be different in a couple years.

But I’m still not making the comics I want to be making because I’m still not good enough. I’m (hopefully) still getting better so maybe some day I’ll be happy with my comics.

4. If it makes sense to ask this, did Amelia (the character) start out as more of a sketch that you decided to build a story around, or as more of an idea for a character in this story whom you then had to design? How did you decide on this particular look for her, and were there other versions or possibilities you considered? Any interesting stories behind the rest of the rogues' gallery that makes up Amelia's ensemble cast?

The answer to this question is a little weird. I thought Amelia came from sketch book drawings until just recently. Jason Lutes (Berlin, Jar of Fools) is one the professors at CCS. He had this one assignment to make a comic cover based on an image from a recent dream. Mine was this beautiful girl whose eyes kept getting bigger and bigger until eventually her head was just an eye, but with the lid still and lashes and hair. So that was the cover.

Then we had to make a comic based on the cover-not the dream, and this character just appeared, she was unnamed, but wearing a hoodie and in the comic she kind of talks her way into this guy's house for reasons unknown. So I had not made the connection that she was the same character until much later when I found that comic again. So within the sketchbooks and stuff she needed some refining, and she’s still changing to this day, but she came almost fully formed with out me knowing it.

I don’t know if you’re very familiar with Carl Jung’s idea of the anima? She’s like you’re female counterpart or balance. I wonder if that’s what Amelia is to me. I never sat down and figured out her personality, it was always just there, and at times I have to be careful she doesn’t guide the plot in the wrong direction.

As for Sammy, originally all I knew about him is he had glow in the dark eyes that could possibly be mistaken by Amelia for her own. Originally I gave him Bela Lugosi hair and malformed fat hands. The Mustache Man I wanted to be some cross between Salvador Dali and Vincent Price. Amelia’s mom I think of as a classic scream queen like Barbara Steele:

Amelia’s mom and Sammy get more of a page count in a new short comic I did for an anthology recently (I’ll include the cover image for that), Dark Corners, in that I tell some of Sammy’s back story.

5. The three antique objects not only drive the story, but they're also the most visually arresting elements in a comic full of weird characters and macabre compositions. Why do you think objects like that can fascinate us so powerfully, and how do you try to intensify that effect in the way you draw them? Does any of that tie in to your preference for comics as physical objects (vs. digital versions), and your use of the patterns on the objects for the covers?

Man, these are some deep questions! A friend of mine told me that whenever he sees the tablet in the story (the biggest of the 3 objects) he thinks they’re holding the first issue of the comic.

I don’t know why objects fascinate us really. I have that collector's gene that makes me want to own things, some people have it, some don’t. There’s something exciting about mysterious object, secrets, more things in them. I was raised catholic, and I think about how important objects are in religion, holy objects, reliquaries, etc.

The patterns on the objects and the covers of the books are really fun to draw, I get really lost in them. It’s a different kind of drawing than the rest of the book, it’s more like Celtic art or something. My friend, Bryan Stone, who drew pin-ups for both issues is much better and more natural with that kind of patterning than I am, you can see it in his pin-ups.

As for the physical comic book vs. a digital version. To me, it’s not finished until it’s printed, folded, cut, and stapled. I like books, I like owning them, I like touching them. It’s really in the most base sense materialistic of me.

6. The flashbacks about Amelia's mother have a distinctly retro look and sensibility. What's some of your favorite stuff from the period I call the "groovy age of horror," and what kind of inspiration have you drawn from it?

More movies than I could name! Before I came to CCS I was in a film non profit back in Indiana that ran a weekly horror show called Atomic Age Cinema. It was then that I became really entrenched in horror. I think one of my biggest influences, at least visually is Mario Bava. In terms of comics, the 60’s and 70’s were a pretty exciting time for comics, but a lot of that wasn’t horror. I’d like to read more horror comics from that era, like those Creepy and Eerie trades that Dark Horse is putting out, I’d like to check them out, also I’d like to read more Vampirella, but I don’t know of any good collections. So mostly it’s movies, and lots of them. I think I get my pacing from movies a lot. I think I steal some stuff from Fellini and Bergman, at least I try to, I don’t know if you’d count them, but I would. It’s kind of silly I’m having a hard time answering this question, but I am, specifcs just aren’t coming to mind.

7. Halloween's just around the corner--any special plans?

The town I live in goes all out for Halloween, they do a parade and a dance, and I’m going to dress up and party with a lot of cartoonists, it’s going to be fun.

October is, as it probably is for a lot of us, my favorite month, and I try to make the most of it. Earlier this month I horror hosted a screening on A Bucket of Blood as a zombie beatnik character, and this weekend I did a comic signing with Steve Bissette and other cartoonists in Keene, New Hampshire and then went to a screening of Brides of Dracula on the big screen, that was a lot of fun.

8. Anything else you'd like to add? Thanks very much for taking the time to answer my questions!

Thank you, these have been some really intense questions! I’d just like to say my comics can be bought online at I Know Joe Kimpel and I hope people like em.