Dark, But Shining -- Horror, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Christ Knows What Else.

Three Cheers For April, Sweet April

2006-04-01T19:26:00.000-05:00

Okay, okay. So we aren't converting Dark, But Shining into a "goth haiku web zine." Sorry to disappoint you all.

This is what I was referring to as our "big thing for April." You can read a little further explanation of it here.

Keep in mind that it isn't running at 100% yet -- we're still working out a few more minor technical issues here and there (Well, okay. Sam is and I'm just pestering him constantly about it.) But for all intensive purposes, please redirect your bookmarks to the new domain from here on out.

Unless you want to pretend that we just aren't updating any more, which really wouldn't be a huge stretch from the way things were headed.

But it's a new month, a new year, a new model, and a new way of doing things. Not here, but over there.

This Year's Model

2006-04-01T00:05:00.000-05:00

I warned you a couple weeks back that we here at DBS were "gathering our collective chi" for something big and spectacular and, well, I wasn't lying.

As you may have noticed in recent months, our regular posting has been way down from what it should be. Part of this is real world concerns infringing upon our Internet fun, but mostly it's due to a lack of anything to say. We've found that we're spent. We were in desperate, desperate need of a jump start to get things going back on track.

This is what we came up with. We figured we would leave the genre news and feature writing to those who do it so much better than we do and, in turn, we'd try something a little new. We considered doing a dark fiction web zine, but that's been done and done very well.

So we thought we'd try poetry, only with a darker edge. And while we're interested in haikus (a much maligned art form in recent years), we aren't as strict about the formatting as some purists. We're just of the belief that through constriction comes creativity.

To give you a brief preview of what we have coming when we launch our first official issue this month, below I've posted some of the haikus that will be appearing in it. Some are serious, some have a more humorous side. You know that we can't keep a straight face all the time.

THE PERSECUTION OF THE GOTH IN THESE DARK NIGHTS
Or, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS

Five Dark Haikus, Told in 17 Syllables

by Zorn Hillside

The club betrays me
Why did nobody tell me
Tonight was Punk Night?

Top 40 ails me
Forlorn, I ask Robert Smith
Where now is your cure?

Life is cold, dark, cruel
Did I mention I wear black?
It's symbolism.

Leather, velvet, lace
Some of my favorite things
Look great on grandmas

Peter Steele, Type O,
posed for Playgirl magazine.
I own ten copies.

MUSINGS ON A WORLD TOO LIGHT FOR MORTAL EYES

by Denny McGovern

Those Satanic monks
Are chanting to Cthulhu.
Time to end the world.

People think I’m odd
When I talk of Wolfman, but
He is my hero.

I like Zombie girls
They make me feel special inside
When they eat my brains.

"I will wait for more,"
She said, while smoking a clove.
Black lipstick is hot.

Anyway, that's just a very brief glimpse into what we've got lined up. I assure you that it isn't even a tenth of the haikus we will be bringing you in the first issue. So, I hope you'll stick around and see where the new year for DBS brings all of us. Because I know I will.

No mobs, please.

2006-03-27T18:02:00.000-05:00

No, it isn't April yet. Quit asking or, I swear to God, I'll turn this blog right around and no one -- NO ONE -- is getting ice cream when we get home.

Well, okay. We can still have ice cream.

Until then -- more things to distract your mind with! Go read some stories from the first three issues of Stranger Box, a fantastic little literary web zine, and float about happily in the depths of good prose.

After that you should probably have someone hose you off.

Horror in Unlikely Places: "Selling Yourself Short"

2006-03-20T13:27:00.000-05:00

So, I'm a big fan of horror-inspired music videos. "Thriller" obviously set the bar. But the last, and most recent, band I recall doing them very well was Phantom Planet -- they even had one with zombies. I dig zombies. Without effort, that quickly became my favorite video.

Until today.

The Austin, Texas based indie punk band, What Made Milwaukee Famous, has made a coup. Go to their site, go into the Video section, and watch the video for "Selling Yourself Short." It's a good tune.

And the whole video is an homage to Evil Dead. How can you not love such a thing?

So, go.

[Big thanks to Patrick Caldwell for sending me the link!]

State of the Union

2006-03-16T12:07:00.000-05:00

Let me assure you that our current lack of posting has, for once, nothing to do with laziness, real world troubles, or polar bears. We have something big coming in April and we're currently gathering our collective chi for it. Please be patient.

It'll be worth it, trust me.

Nightwatch, or Not to be negative, but

2006-03-05T16:41:00.000-05:00

this movie sucked.

Saw it last night, spurred on against myself by all the hype and good reviews. Well, bad decision:

It made no sense.
It was pretty, but empty.
The characters were hardly defined at all.
The world they lived in made next to no sense.
It was a mishmash of a bunch of other things, and not well-synthesized.
It was surprisingly slow in some places.
It did hardly anything new.
I missed all the alleged social commentary (though that may be a result of bad English subtitles).
It's the first part of a trilogy; it's learned the wrong lessons from The Matrix trilogy.

It was so pedestrian that I can't even write a full review of it. I just don't care enough. That's not good.

I realized, after leaving the thing and debriefing it with my friend Lee who I saw it with, I haven't seen a movie that I really loved in about two years (probably not since The Grudge almost made me cry with glee). I mean I movie that I was head-over-heels, embarrassingly passionate about. Or if I did, I can't remember it.

Strange thing is: I've felt that way about more than one TV show in that same period.

Which has led me to this slightly heretical opinion which may make me look like a jackass, but hey it's what I currently believe: the best current TV series are better than almost every current movie.

More Free Poe Audiobooks

2006-03-01T18:43:00.000-05:00

If the free audiobook of Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart from the other day whetted your appetite for more audio Poe, you're in luck.

The Poe Podcast Project, which is part of the Sci-Fi Podcast Network, a site that provides, well, a bunch of podcasts on science fiction, is offering free downloadable podcasts of Poe stories. There are six MP3s to download so far and you can even syndicate the podcasts via XML when new stories are released.

The podcasts available already include "A Cask of Amontillado," "The Fall of the House of Usher," and "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar."

Visit the download/syndication page for the podcasts, and enjoy.

Octavia Butler Dead at 58

2006-02-27T20:06:00.000-05:00

Pioneering SF author Octavia Butler died over the weekend from injuries sustained when she fell near her home and hit her head on a walkway. She was 58.

Butler was known not only for her work but also for being a female and African-American voice in a genre - science fiction - dominated largely by the white and the male. She was also the first ever science fiction writer to be awarded a MacArthur "Genius" grant, which is pioneering in an entirely different way.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Butler lived near Seattle) has a rememberance of her.

More on and by Butler:
An Amazon.com listing of her works
Biography at Oxford University Press
An NPR interview on racism
Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Two short stories by Butler:
The Book of Martha
Amnesty

One Day Only: Free E.A. Poe Audiobook MP3

2006-02-27T13:40:00.000-05:00

The folks over at Telltale Weekly, a purveyor of (according to them) "low cost, DRM-free audiobook downloads in MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and AAC formats" are making their audiobook of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart available for free download today only to celebrate their second anniversary.

If you know horror lit. - or really American lit. - at all, then you know the story and know that it's totally, totally awesome.

And when you combine an awesome story with a free audiobook, there's no way you can lose. Unless you wait. Remember, it's only free today. You want it tomorrow? Cough up $0.75, chump!

So, what are you waiting for?

Shamelessly found first at Boing Boing.

Things That Scare Me

2006-02-25T12:38:00.000-05:00

Queenie Chan, writer/artist of the very, very good The Dreaming (mentioned here at DBS in December), is running an interesting discussion of what people find frightening at her blog.

Some of the greatest fears mentioned by those who have contributed include serial killers, being abandoned, annihilation of the self, and being buried alive.

It's interesting to me to hear what really scares people, as it's a question I think about a lot in the context of horror art. There was certainly a time when the vampire, or werewolf, or whatever other classic horror archetype was legitimately and deeply scary to many people. But now, whether it's a result of our maturing, cynical culture or just overexposure, it seems almost inconceivable to me that anyone could find those figures scary. And yet, so many "horror" movies or comics rely on just trotting out a vampire to prove to us that they're scary.

To me, the most frightening things are almost never physical things, never figures, or objects. They're ideas.

To answer Queenie's question, the thing that scares me is other people. Not other people as actual people, but what it is that lives in other people, that we can't really ever know who another person is inside, can't be sure that we share values, are interacting on the same terms, or are even speaking to each other in the same way. That essentially unknowability, that mysteriousness, is truly terrifying to me.

So, what do you find scary? Go tell Queenie, and then come back and tell us.

Well well well...

2006-02-22T22:27:00.000-05:00

I know you're getting tired of me mentioning The Bradbury Chronicles by Sam Weller. Some of you may even wonder if I've read other books.

This is the most important mention of it, I promise you.

Not only did the paperback edition come out yesterday (with new material -- including an essay from the Man Himself), but I found something else that was neat while ordering my copy.

Did you take a look? The hardcover edition at bargain price. Nine dollars. Nine stinking dollars. As far as I'm concerned, you have no reason to not pick up a copy of this now.

I don't know how long this deal is going to last, but I can assure you of two things: 1) No, I'm not getting a commission of any sort, so lay off, and 2) You won't regret spending this nine bucks. I promise.

Sympathetic Monsters, an interview with Eric Powell, part 2

2006-02-22T06:32:00.000-05:00

Are you interested in doing further work for the big two? Do you have favorite characters you'd like to tell stories about?

I don't have any objection to it. I just don't see myself having enough time any time soon. I tried to get DC to let me do a Demon miniseries a while back but they wanted to go another direction. And like I said, I really wanted to do Spiderman or the Hulk.

What was your Demon series going to be like? What was the story?

It never got that far. I just told them I was interested in that character. It would have been more like the Kirby series I think. Big Monsters.

Many publishers have been very focused in recent years on structuring their comics in story arcs readymade for trade paperback collections. The Goon has been an unusual book in its dedication to standalone, single-issue stories. You’ve recently announced that you’re going to do arcs. Why?

I'm going to do arcs in combination with stand-alone issues. Trying to cram some of my ideas into a single issue was making the quality of the book suffer. I just decided not to constrain myself.

What attracts you to the ‘30s/’40s era that plays such a big role in The Goon?

I think it's just a personality thing. I hate modern. Don't like to draw modern things. Modern buildings. That era seems to have so much more character and personality. Everything isn't slick and perfect.

You self-published The Goon before taking it to Dark Horse (and after it started at Avatar). What did you learn from self-publishing?

Self-promotion is key.

It seems like we’re in a horror comics renaissance right now. Do you see it that way?

I guess. It could be that we're just getting more variety.

What do you think accounts for that?

Hellboy.

The movie or the comic?

The comic. I think it's the most influential book to other comic artists right now. Before Hellboy, what was passing for a horror comic were T&A books. It actually has atmosphere. I think that's essential for horror.

What do you like about horror as a genre?

I don't really think of it that way. It's just the stuff I like.

Besides the Frankenstein movies, what horror (comics, books?) did you like growing up?

I read a lot of Steven King. Pretty much the only horror comic I ever saw as a kid was Swamp Thing.

Then how'd you get from there (not seeing a lot of horror comics, or even being a big comics fan) to being a successful indie creator?

I loved horror/sci-fi movies and I loved to draw. I do the kinds of comics I'd like to see. Not what I've seen.

What comics, besides Hellboy, are you reading these days?

Not a lot. I don't get a chance to make it out to the comic shop much anymore. Bone is gone. Hellboy doesn't come out much. I pick up Liberty Meadows when I see it.

Do you watch horror movies? Any recent favorites?

A lot of horror movies. I have to say the Japanese are kicking Hollywood's ass when it comes to interesting horror movies these days. I guess that's why they're remaking so many of them. I did enjoy the Dawn of the Dead remake. Even though the characters did pretty stupid stuff (one of my pet peeves). Wasn't as good as the original but great zombies and lots of intensity.

What do you see in the future for horror comics?

I hope lots of interesting original material. I hope it continues to grow.

What do we need more of in comics? What do we need less of?

More originality. More fun in comics that are supposed to be fun. More artists who look outside of the Wizard top ten as their artistic influences. More comics about ducks. More comics about monkeys and ducks. More mutated half monkey half duck comics. And we need less autobiographical civil war comics. Those damn things are everywhere.

Sympathetic Monsters, an interview with Eric Powell, part 1

2006-02-21T13:42:00.000-05:00

Eric Powell, by his own measure, is a quiet guy. But you wouldn’t know it reading his comics, especially his horror/comedy series The Goon.

The Goon is a monster comic in which a muscled thug – the Goon – and his absurdly violent sidekick, Franky, tackle crime, monsters, zombies, and generally try to keep their illegal rackets going, all while doing some high quality violence against the undead and other creatures.

In another creator’s hands, The Goon might be grim, joyless, and bloody. Instead, Eric Powell’s vision is all primary colors and strong lines, sly references (the series’ main villain and his army of zombies live “down at the end of Lonely St.”), amusing bombast and a funny, exciting romp through a criminal underworld populated by flesh eaters, evil Christmas elves, and Lovecraftian bugaboos.

Just as Powell’s stories are rich in tone, his characters - even the monsters - are nuanced. From the constantly thwarted Zombie Priest to the misunderstood (and misunderstanding) mad scientist Dr. Alloy to the cuckolded Cthulhu Fishy Pete, the cast of characters populating The Goon are all, to one degree or another, sympathetic monsters.

The Goon has seen many incarnations in its short life: the book was first published by Avatar, then self-published, and has now found a home at Dark Horse Comics. Dark Horse publishes the periodical series and has brought out four trade paperbacks of the series so far. The series’ fifth trade paperback, “Virtue and the Grim Consequences Thereof”, is out now.

In this interview Powell talks about The Goon, himself, what he likes and doesn’t like, and comics about monkeys and ducks (you’ll see).

SC: Even though we’re well past the grim and gritty comics of the early 1990s, it still seems like a lot of comics these days are deadly serious and self-important, that they have no sense of humor, no irony, no self-awareness. The Goon is so different than that, so light, straight-forwardly concerned with having fun. Was that intentional?

EP: I've had a few serious stories in the Goon but even those are intended to be fun. Mostly I'm concerned that I'm having fun doing the comic. I do the types of stories that I want to do. For some reason a lot of the publishers aren't doing comics anymore that are unabashedly fun.

Why go in that direction?

Again, because I wanted to be able to do whatever I wanted to do. I didn't want any limitations.

You’ve said in other interviews that you liked monster movies a lot as a kid. Are there any that stand out as having been particularly influential on you?

The Frankenstein movies.

What was it that you liked about those movies?

The weird atmosphere and I prefer sympathetic monsters.

Is that what draws you to The Hulk, too?

Yeah, and I just like big monsters.

What were you like as a kid? Were you more like The Goon or Franky? Or neither?

I think we create characters that are more like we would like to be, or a side of ourselves that has been repressed. People are always saying when they meet me that they can't believe I do the Goon. They expect me to be a crazy person like Franky. I'm actually a pretty quiet introverted person. I'm more like the Goon than Franky. Goon just quietly sits at the bar and has his drink. He's not a talker. But there's a little bit of me in all my characters.

It seems like some people can be funny in real life, while others can be funny on the page. Obviously, you're very funny on the page. Are you also funny in real life? Would people describe you that way?

It depends on who I'm with. I'm more comfortable around people I know. I'm definitely not the class clown. I'm more of a quiet dry wit kind of person.

You live in Tennessee. Is Tennessee a funny place or a scary place?

Both. The countryside is beautiful. The people, while being the nicest, most polite, considerate people you'll find anywhere, can also be narrow minded, hypocritical, racist, and stupid. Depending on the situation, that can be either funny or scary.

Many people, fans and comics creators alike, seem to view (whether conscious or not) getting to work on one of Marvel or DC’s big, iconic characters as the only real goal for comics creators. You’ve done some work for both companies. What do you think about this?

That was my goal to begin with. I wanted to draw Spiderman or the Hulk. As more time goes by the more I realize that's not for me. The kind of comics I want to do aren't being done by those companies anymore. I also realized you have no job security working on those titles. At this point I've got a book of my own that's becoming successful and I can never be replaced by another artist on it. I don't see any reason to change direction now.

Check back tomorrow for the conclusion.

Recovery Cinema: Tormented (1960)

2006-02-20T14:26:00.000-05:00

Directed by: Bert I. Gordon

Starring: Richard Carlson, Lugene Sanders, Juli Reding

After my most recent experience with Richard Carlson, I thought I would go and check out some of the other work he's done. Tormented was the first film I came across that starred him. Some of you may be familiar with it already, via Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Honestly, though, it's not a half bad movie. While it's relatively routine overall, where Tormented excels is in the details. Carlson plays jazz pianist Tom Stewart, who lives on a quaint little island paradise. He's preparing to marry the love of his life, a rich debutant girl played by Lugene Sanders, but there's a problem.

His other wife, a jazz singer named Vi, has shown up to claim him for her own. Something is mentioned about a mysterious "letter" and the possibilities for blackmail that it holds, but all of this is solved when Vi tragically falls to her death from the top of an old lighthouse.

The first points Tormented scores are here. Vi literally does fall to her death in an accident, instead of Tom murdering her. His only problem is that he doesn't help her when he has a chance, instead letting her fall. Soon enough, Vi is back in a new form and haunting her dear Tom in order to keep him all for herself.

While there are some unintentionally humorous sequences, for the most part the film manages to create a good, creepy atmosphere. I'll admit that I was actually a bit weirded out while lying on the couch watching it -- as well as when I went to bed that night. There aren't any major scares, but when it throws one our way it makes the most of it. The psychological ones work the best, when we aren't sure if they are the work of Vi's ghost or if they are due to Tom slowly losing his mind.

What really put me on edge is that on the beach scenes, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore and the rocks often comes close to drowning everything else out. Whether intentional or not, these waves always sound like the growling of a tiger. And the constant repetition of that is creepier than one would expect.

Carlson's performance is, again, the stand-out piece of the film for me. He does a fantastic job of being able to switch between Charismatic Leading Man and Guilty Man Going Insane. His interactions with Susan Gordon, who plays the little girl, are the best of the film.

The character of Tom Stewart also never quite bridges into evil territory. While he is responsible for a few less-than-savory events, he understandably acts out of necessity and desperation. This is, of course, until the very end, where he finally may or may not have gone off the deep end. But to discuss that more would be to ruin the fun!

Tormented ends up being a rather solid film and one of my favorite ghost story films (A sub-genre I'm not usually real big on.) It's worth giving a look, for the performances and the pretty good creep-outs, if nothing else.

And, of course, the neat jazz score -- some of which actually comes from House on Haunted Hill!

Coming Soon: Interview with Eric Powell

2006-02-19T14:31:00.000-05:00

About 18 months ago, I had the opportunity to interview the very talented and very funny Eric Powell, the creator of the hilarious Dark Horse series The Goon. I did the interview for a horror comics zine and, for whatever reason, the issue that was supposed to have the interview in it never came out. I tried emailing the editor and he never got back to me, so, rather than let the interview collect pixelly mold on my hard drive, I've decided to share it with you.

I need to do a little preparation of it, but visit us again on Tuesday for the first part of "Sympathetic Monsters, an interview with Eric Powell."

In the meantime, here's a review of the first The Goon TPB from a while back:

The Goon, Vol. 1: Nothin' but Misery

Recovery Cinema: It Came From Outer Space (1953)

2006-02-17T16:37:00.000-05:00

Directed by: Jack Arnold

Starring: Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, Charles Drake

I have a confession to make. I have owned this film on VHS for close to two years, if not a little longer. I never got around to watching it until today.

Man, I'm an idiot sometimes.

Though it requires some patience at times, It Came From Outer Space is a rather fantastic film. Like many of its counterparts, the movie uses the building paranoia of the McCarthy era to its advantage...though in a different way than, say, Invasion of the Body Snatchers would three years later.

The other thing this film has going for it is that it was “based on” a story by Ray Bradbury. I use quotes because Bradbury essentially wrote the screenplay. While the studio didn’t trust him enough to hire him for the final script, using Harry Essex for that instead, Bradbury spent six weeks at Universal, eventually settling on a 111-page outline. Ray said on the subject: “Harry just retyped my treatment. He added things, of course, because it wasn’t complete, but he was very open. He told people this. He said, ‘Ray Bradbury wrote a screenplay and called it a treatment.’” (Information and quotes courtesy of The Bradbury Chronicles, by Sam Weller.)

You don’t have to look very hard to see the Bradbury in this film. It shines through the most when the characters, specifically Carlson’s John Putnam, consider the ramifications of their actions, as well as the world around them they once thought they knew so well.

While the performances are good, none stand above that of Richard Carlson. He brings his own brand of charisma to the screen, causing the audience to further question the disbelief of those around him. And while his role is that of your typical “outcast believer,” he manages to go above it and wrestle his lines away from the land of campiness.

The aliens themselves, when we do see their true forms, also stray from the campy side. The creatures are indeed horrid looking things – they basically appear to be blocks of meat with a single eye in the middle. This movement away from the usual “horrifying, yet cool looking” monster aids in the message of the film; that humans just aren’t ready to accept such things without responding with violence.

My only real complaint with the film is a technical one. I’m not sure if it had something to do with the film supposedly being in 3-D, but it’s filled with some of the worst “day for night” filming I’ve ever seen. While it wasn’t distracting enough to ruin the film in any way, it was still distracting. Suddenly someone would make a comment about it being the middle of the night and I’d have to stop and ask myself why it looked like they were traipsing about in the afternoon sun all this time. I’m willing to forgive some of the awful backgrounds – where the film appears to obviously be taking place on a set – but this “day for night” issue is going to continue pestering my nit-picky side. Perhaps they should have spent less time questioning the existence of alien creatures and more time questioning the rampant appearance of shadows at night. In the middle of a desert.

Outside of that, the story itself makes up for any other shortcomings. The pace is slower than I expected – becoming more of a science-fiction drama than a thriller, but it’s well worth the wait once you start to get into the meat of it. It Came From Outer Space turns the sci-fi standards of its day on end, instead choosing a closer route to The Day the Earth Stood Still than of the infinite “malevolent space invader” movies that were being pumped out.

And what a good choice it was.

Recovery Cinema -- The Corpse Vanishes (1942)

2006-02-15T10:50:00.000-05:00

Directed by: Wallace Fox

Starring: Bela Lugosi, Luana Walters, Tristram Coffin

Now, I didn't expect an awful lot when I went into this film. I didn't really know what to expect. I recalled hearing bits and pieces about it -- some good, some bad.

I was very pleasantly surprised.

I was not so pleasantly surprised when, after viewing the film, I went hunting around for how others felt. A lot of them seem to hate it. Some vehemently so. They called it ridiculous and bashed the incredibly slow pacing.

Incredibly slow pacing? The film is sixty-five minutes long! And, if anything, it's one of the better paced B-movies for its time. Things start right in with the action -- brides are falling down dead at the altar and their corpses are being stolen afterwards.

Frankly, I'm sold right there.

In a shocking turn of events, the entire story and plot isn't dropped in our laps. Instead, we figure it out as our fearless female reporter protagonist and her chums do. It seems that the evil (though not quite mad -- I'll get to that in a minute) Doctor Lorenz and his motley crew are drugging and kidnapping these virgin brides so that he can extract something from their glands and inject it into his archaic wife, keeping her young and firm. We never really discover a lot more about this, which seems to be another big complaint from people.

And, again, it's another thing I loved about the film. I hate, hate, story dumps. I loathe everything being explained by the end and everything being tied up in a neat little package for the audience. This doesn't do that. I therefore approve of such a decision.

Lugosi does his usual great job as Lorenz. I'm constantly fascinated by his ability to appear as Kindly Old Grandfather one minute and then Evil Psychopath the next. I would not, however, lump this film into the "mad scientist" category of films. Lorenz, if anything, comes across as completely sane. Just a little...bizarre. He lives in your standard Big Creepy House with Secret Corridors, surrounds himself with his wife, a crazy old hag, the crazy old hag's two sons (One is a midget, one is a beast of a man!), and a relatively normal thug named Mike. Oh, and Lorenz and his wife sleep in coffins. Y'know, just because. They're more comfortable, you know.

Countess Lorenz is by far the most insane character of the film and provides the creepiest moment when she appears in the reporter's room out of nowhere. When she isn't crying and moaning about the agony she's going through and blaming her husband for everything, she's being extremely curt to her guests and slapping them. Some people shake hands, other people slap the spit out of your mouth.

While The Corpse Vanishes may not be the best horror movie I've seen, I still enjoyed it very much. I would definitely watch it a few more times. And I will definitely have to continue to defend it against the world.

Such is life.

Coffin

2006-02-14T17:05:00.000-05:00

Days later, when asked why he had brought the knife, Jeffrey Dean would claim that it had been for love.

Comics writer Neil Kleid is serializing his new novel, Coffin, on his LiveJournal. The novel looks to be a survival horror piece, telling the story of a group of people trapped underground in a New York City subway car after a terrorist bombing of the train.

The set up is similar to TokyoPop's recently released series Dragon Head, but the execution surely promises to be very different.

The first section of the book just went online yesterday. It's a well-written, tight piece so far and looks like it will be a lot of fun.

Go, Read.

Peter Benchley dead at 65

2006-02-12T21:33:00.000-05:00

Author and conservationist Peter Benchly is dead at age 65. He died Saturday night at his house in Princeton, NJ, from a condition that causes scarring of the lungs.

Benchley, of course, is well-known to horror fans and every kid in the last 30 years who was every afraid of what was below them while they swam in the ocean as the author of Jaws. I haven't read the book, but the first film is terrific and certainly made me pretty nervous whenever something would brush my foot or leg in the ocean (even in lakes sometimes).

There's something about the visceral, irrational fear of the yawning depths below you in the ocean and the mysteries and terrors that might be contained there that makes the fear captured in Jaws really effective.

CNN.com has a longer story on Benchley, his work, his life, and his death.

Recovery Cinema: Lady in the Lake (1947)

2006-02-08T12:57:00.000-05:00

Directed by: Robert Montgomery

Starring: Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter, Leon Ames

Lady in the Lake, like a flood of other films in the late- to mid-1940s, is based on a novel by Raymond Chandler. But after having other actors, including the likes of Humphrey Bogart, take their turn as the infamous Philip Marlowe, how was Robert Montgomery (in his feature directing debut) to set this film apart from the crowd?

Easy. He filmed it true to the novel. He shot the entire film in first person, hence the tagline of, "M*G*M presents a Revolutionary motion picture; the most amazing since Talkies began! YOU and ROBERT MONTGOMERY solve a murder mystery together!" The only time you actually see Montgomery is through reflections.

It's an incredibly fascinating film, though mostly through a technical and historical standpoint. While I love the ingenuity of Montgomery's experimentation (Especially for 1947!) I think it ultimately hurts the overall film. I'm sure it was neat at the time to have sat in a crowded theater and actually lived through the film as the main character, but looking back on the piece today it doesn't hold up as well.

My main gripe with the film is that because it's in first person everything is slowed down just enough to be a little frustrating. Every time Montgomery turns a door knob or moves something or picks up an object, the camera has to pan down and focus on the target item long enough for everyone in the audience to process it four times over. Do people really stare at doorbells for three seconds when they press them?

Ultimately, I don't think I was even a quarter of the way in before I was getting bored out of my mind. I still recommend giving it a look just to see something done radically different from its peer films, but know going in that it may take some patience.

A good amount of patience.

Recovery Cinema

2006-02-08T12:48:00.000-05:00

So, how many of you were starting to think that Costello had my incident arranged so that he could take over all my glory? I can vouch that he had nothing to do with it. He prefers to use "unfortunate anvil accidents" to accomplish his bidding.

Regardless, I've devised a new semi-regular feature to break up the Costello streak we've been having around here. While I've been recovering from my injuries, I've spent a lot of time stranded on the couch watching movies. Not so bad, you say.

Try sitting in one place watching movies all day for at least one week straight and then let's see how much you enjoy it.

So I thought I would take the time to cover some of the films I viewed, ranging from the great to the dreadful. The first one should be up shortly.

Unless I have an unfortunate anvil accident before then.

Cthulegos

2006-02-06T13:49:00.000-05:00

Man, people just never get tired of inventing new ways for Cthulhu and the Old Gods to menace the world, do they?

And it seems I never get tired of pointing them out to you.

Here's a cute little tableau of the Old Gods rising from the deep blue sea to menace a seaside town made entirely of Legos. Not that scary, really, but cute and cool and funny, and that gets you somewhere with me.

Oh, and there are zombies, too!

First seen at Boing Boing

"An Excuse to Draw a Naked Girl with a Tail" - Charles Burns Talks Black Hole

2006-02-05T11:14:00.000-05:00

You've all read Charles Burns' horror masterwork Black Hole, right? If you haven't, get the hell out to a comic shop, or good bookstore, this very afternoon and pick up a copy of the extremely pretty Pantheon hardcover edition. The story, concerning a group of teenagers in Seattle in the '70s and sexually transmitted "plague" that transforms the infected in monstrous ways, is worth every cent - and then some.

It's a great, sprawling, sexy, sad, layered work, truly befitting the term "graphic novel."

For those that have read it, or want to get excited for it, there's an excellent, in-depth interview with Burns that's just been posted. An excerpt:

That woman at the signing thought it was a romance story and if you regard it as a horror story than that's legitimate as well. But I wasn’t specifically trying to make a horror story. I was going to do the story the best way I could. I could have told a similar story without any of the obvious horrific physical transformations. I could have just had adolescent kids struggling and running away from home and all these things. But I wanted to push it into even stronger, more extreme situations. That was the reason I chose to do the mutations and the transformations. Or maybe it was just an excuse to draw a naked girl with a tail, I don’t know.

Go, read.

Not Just for Evil Dead Anymore

2006-02-02T20:28:00.000-05:00

Remember Evil Dead and its sequels? Remember that one of the key factors in all hell breaking loose and trees coming to horny life was a human-skin-bound book called, alternatively, the Necronomicon and the Book of the Dead?

Well, binding books in human skin isn't, it turns out, just for Hollywood. It's for Harvard, too. An article in today's issue of the school newspaper, The Crimson, reveals the following:

A few individuals give new meaning to the idea of spending forever in the library—their skin binds three of the books in Harvard’s 15-million-volume collection.

Without extensive genetic testing, Harvard librarians still do not have the “foggiest notion” of how many volumes wrapped in human hide exist throughout the system, says Director of University Libraries Sidney Verba ’53. But they have identified three such volumes in the Langdell Law Library, Countway Library of Medicine, and the Houghton Collection. The three books range in content from medieval law to Roman poetry to French philosophy.

I'm torn between thinking that this is pretty cool and pretty, well, weird.

Luckily, all this human-skin-wrapping-paper isn't just for the Ivy League (though Brown University's John Hay Library has some, too. They also have some of H.P. Lovecraft's original manuscripts. Good library, apparently. I just saw the Lovecraft stuff a few weeks ago. Keep an eye on Rue Morgue later this year for my article). Apparently, libraries all over the country have these kind of books.

A Boston Globe online article from earlier in January reveals these thrilling details:

The Cleveland Public Library has a Quran that may have been bound in the skin of its previous owner, an Arab tribal leader ... The College of Physicians of Philadelphia [home to the Mutter Museum] has four bound by Dr. John Stockton Hough, known for diagnosing the city's first case of trichinosis. He used that patient's skin to bind three of the volumes.

The Globe article keeps referring to "human leather." Makes me think of fruit leather. Mmmm, chewy.

Sleepless in Seattle as a horror movie

2006-01-31T13:05:00.000-05:00

Here's a hilarious recutting of Sleepless in Seattle to make it appear to be a horror film instead of a romance.

Very funny, even to someone like me who hasn't seen the original, and very well done.

It's amazing what a little taking-out-of-context will do for you!

Enjoy!

I saw this link first on Boing Boing.