Yet Another COMIC GEEK UPDATE...

The 2nd issue of BELA  LUGOSI'S TALES FROM THE GRAVE is 100% fun despite a couple of familiar stories.  The amazing cover comes courtesy of special effects whiz Rick Baker (there's also an interview with him), and there's four well done stories in FULL COLOR (unlike Dark Horse's recent CREEPY reboot).  There's a nifty Cthulhu-themed tale titled ORDER IN/TAKE OUT CHAOS featuring great artwork by Mike Dubisch and a funny end-story told in "claymation."  The owner of my local comic shop recommended this to me and now I have to find the first issue!  Steve Niles has a tale in the 3rd, due out this summer.

I ragged the 1st and 2nd issues of THE LAST ZOMBIE: NEVERLAND for its short page count and bad artwork.  While the artwork is still bad, this time (Issue 3) the story has picked up a bit and the page count is longer (and somehow there's STILL a 9-page preview of another comic!). I'm now interested enough to see where this is going but am not holding my breath.

Dark Horse's KING CONAN "The Phoenix and the Sword" 4-issue mini-series concludes with TOTAL carnage as Conan battles his captors and would-be kings before facing a huge werewolf-like beast.  Artist Tomas Giorello is simply one of the best in the business, and Timothy Truman's adaptation of the classic Howard story is top notch.  Easily my favorite comics team working today, I hope it doesn't take long for them to team up with our favorite Cimmerian again.

MEANWHILE, Dark Horse's CONAN THE BARBARIAN No. 4 kicks off a new story arc with THE ARGOS DECEPTION, in which Conan agrees to be part of a scam headed by his new girlfriend, Belit, the captain of an infamous pirate ship.  It's a good set-up issue, featuring artwork by James Harren that's much better than the goofy-looking renderings of Becky Cloonan that all but ruined the first 3 issues.  Good stuff.  

Great Title, but that's about it...

RENEGADE SISTERS: GIRL GANGS ON FILM by Bev Zalcock (1999 Creation / 192 pp / tp)

I understand there's an updated edition from 2001 with 60 more pages, but I can't see how it can be any better than this lazy tome that's ALL OVER THE PLACE and hardly talks about its subject matter, that being GIRL GANGS ON FILM. The author REALLY grasps at straws here as most of the chapters--allegedly connected to girl gang films--just aren't. It should have been a four-chapter magazine article without all the off-topic filler.

Some of the photo reproductions are quite fuzzy, and there's a non-girl gang film on the cover (the one pictured above is from REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS, a women-in-prison parody that's ever-so-loosely a related film).

A pure mess.

One of Little's Finest Returns...

THE CIRCLE by Bentley Little (to be released October, 2012 by Cemetery Dance Publications / 137 pp / hc)


Told in three sections, THE CIRCLE is the epitome of a classic Bentley Little story: it's strange, at times darkly funny, and best of all genuinely frightening.


A woman answers a frantic knock at her door.  A loin-clothed kid runs in and begins defecating in her bathroom.  But instead of a mess, the kid fills the toilet with diamonds.  When her husband arrives home, the kid is trapped in the garage, now dropping all kinds of precious stones from his ass.  And just when the couple think they'll be rich, the kid begins to spew an endless army of black beetles...


Meanwhile a few blocks away, Frank and his friends muster the nerve to visit the messy backyard of a reputed local witch, intending to ask favors from a sacred shrine they've heard is hidden among the trash...


And finally Gil Marotta, alerted by one of the kids about what just happened at the shrine, decides to investigate only to discover the "witch" is all too real and a petition the neighborhood had signed against her may be the cause of the growing communal chaos.


THE CIRCLE has been one of my favorite Little stories since I first read it back in 2003, where it appeared as part of a four-novella collection from Leisure Books titled FOUR DARK KNIGHTS. The stories' surreal edge and sexual horror have held up well, and is a good place to start if you've never read Little before.


THAT said, Little fans might be disappointed with the book itself: the novella is presented with no forward, introduction, afterword, or any kind of extras.  Die-hard collectors may want this, but otherwise it's just a reprint with a new (hard) cover.


(WARNING: This story does for cunnilingus what JAWS did to beach swimming.  Seriously...)

New Anthology Featuring Yours Truly...

My story, THE EQUIVALENCE PRINCIPLE, will be part of FADING LIGHT: AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE MONSTROUS, edited by Tim Marquitz.  I'm happy to have this story featured alongside such great writers as Gene O'Neill, Gord Rollo, and William Meikle (to name a few), and so far everyone seems to be lovin' the above cover image!  More news to follow...

A Solid Lovecraftian Anthology

THE SHADOW OF THE UNKNOWN edited by AJ French (2011 Static Movement / 236 pp / tp)


While anthologies featuring Lovecraft-inspired stories are quite common, few (that I've read, anyway) are as satusfying as THE SHADOW OF THE UNKNOWN, a collection of 29 tales that range from good to great with only a couple of clunkers.


My favorite piece here is titled QUIETUS by A.A. Garrison.  While the "mirror world" theme of the story has been done many times, Garrison makes it his own and spins an epic yarn in a mere six pages.  The always reliable Gary A. Braunbeck strikes with THE MUSIC OF BLEAK ENTRAINMENT, where an incarcerated man tells of how he and his collegues summoned Cthulhu through a music program.  I always enjoy Braunbeck's first-person stories, this one enhanced with quite a dark conclusion.


Other memorable offerings come from Gene O'Neill (his GRAFFITI SONATA is arguably the most original piece here), AJ French (I found WHEN A CLOWN FACE SPEAKS to be the all-around scariest tale), Geoffrey H. Goodwin (AMENDS FOR AN EARLIER SUMMER is a nice blend of Lovecraft and a 70s occult horror film), and L.E. Badillo (whose claustrophobic IN THE VALLEY OF THE THINGS really gets the goosebumps going).


Some stories feature actual Lovecraft monsters and ideas, while others stray away from both and focus mainly on dark mysteries.  It's always good to see so many newer/unknown authors deliver quality material, and editor French has done a fine job collecting so many solid like-minded tales.  My only gripe is I'd like to have seen a more detailed list of where the reprints had first appeared, but that's only a small complaint.  THE SHADOW OF THE UNKNOWN is well worth your time.

For Straub Completists Only...

MRS. GOD by Peter Straub (2012 Pegasus Crime / 185 pp / hc)


Originally released in 1990 as a limited edition novella and then in 1991 as part of Straub's HOUSES WITHOUT DOORS collection, MRS. GOD is now available as a trade hardcover from Pegasus Crime.  WHY Pegasus Crime?  I haven't the slightest idea...and unless you are a DIE HARD Straub fan, you'll have no idea why they felt the necessity to re-re-release this downbeat tale.  In fact, I AM a die hard Straub fan and couldn't tell you...


THAT said, MRS. GOD is an interesting if unclear tale dealing with American English professor William Standish, who is chosen over 600 other applicants to spend three weeks in England at Esswood House, which is the home of an incredible library of both published and non published works.  Standish is a major fan of obscure poet Isobel Standish, who's also a distant relative of his.  She only had one volume of her work published in the early 1900s, and Standish is amazed to find how many non-published pieces are at Esswood.


What I liked about MRS. GOD is the "Wicker Man"-type suspense building, which begins when Standish has a run-in with a strange pub owner, to his meeting with a mysterious woman who shows him to his room at Esswood House, to his dinner with Robert Wall, the Houses' generational caretaker.  Standish spends his days studying countless texts, and his nights eating alone in the vast dining room.  He continually hears laughter and sees things moving in the shadows, but is never sure if it's real or an after-effect of the wine and whiskey.


In the end, it's never clear if Straub was trying to tell an offbeat ghost story or give us a portrait of a father-to-be attempting to delay his future.  As a booklover, I liked the scenes of Standish standing in awe of the Esswood library and Straub's prose here is slick and addictive.  But even fans of "quiet" horror may have a hard time making it to the end of this one, despite it's short page count.  An unsatisfying conclusion doesn't help matters, either.


For Straub completists ONLY.

Geeks vs. Monsters

THE ABYSS ABOVE US by Ryan Notch (2010 / 174 pp / eBook)


A bunch of astronomy students discover an area out in space that holds no galaxies.  It is a pitch-black void full of nothing (as far as they can tell), until it begins to transmit a strange sound.  The sound causes all who hear it to go crazy and committ suicide.  Over 500 students and people in the surroudning area of their university are killed, with only one survivor.


Said survivor, Shaw, is now in a mental institution with a 'One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest' array of characters.  He manages to get on the Internet and meet people who help him hack the Institution's system, and he learns about the massacre at his old university.  He manages to escape the asylum and is housed by a priest in a church he once did computer work for.  The priest also believes his story of an impending alien attack and allows Shaw to set up camp in a hidden room.


Meanwhile, another computer whiz, Collin, has become a slave of the Dark God, a name he gives to the mysterious entity responsible for the university massacre.  The brownstone he lives in becomes a portal where this thing intends to enter the world.  It's up to Englishman Jack and his friend Terra to stop things before they get too out of hand.  But standing in their way are once human-now alien creatures and a building with no way of escape.  Add to the mix Shaw, who winds up in the brownstone being chased by a spider-like creature he has inadvertently called down to his new church home.


This sci-fi/horror/monster hyrbid features a familiar although well paced plot.  And despite some stiff dialogue, THE ABYSS ABOVE US isn't a bad way to kill an afternoon.

Who Lurks Upstairs?

My review of Tim Waggoner's latest novella, THE MEN UPSTAIRS, is now LIVE over at THE CROW'S CAW:

THE MEN UPSTAIRS / The Crow's Caw

Check Out...

...the 49th column in my SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES series over at CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT.  This week I take a look back at the 1985 supernatural horror flick, SUPERSTITION.

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT -- SUPERSTITION