READING DIARY, SATURDAY, MAY 18, 2019

Today, Spidey had me, Merrill, and Robert Gordon over for drinks, chats, and homemade kefta kabobs. They were delicious. It was fun. The Wheeltrans guys made great time, both ways, and were very proud of themselves about it (which is cool, as I was proud of them too). Robert finally spilled some beans the two of us had been holding onto since he lived in the Beach(es), which was funny. I guess he figured a decade was enough buffer to keep the shame directed towards us over our scummy behavior that one time to a minimum. Anyway, despite a full day out of the house, I still managed to do a little reading. Here is my reading report...

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INVADERS #5, 

Marvel Comics, written by Zdarsky, art by Magno and Guice

After a promising first couple issues, Marvel’s latest attempt to make a “thing” out of (technically) their first-ever super-team book—the WWII-era Invaders, featuring Captain America, Bucky, the (original, android, criminally underutilized) Human Torch, trying to figure out what’s wrong with/reign in the lunatic ambitions of an out of control Namor who seeks to unite the underwater world and wage war on the surface world (again!)—I am beginning to lose interest. Not just because the story beats are starting to feel too familiar at this point, but also because the stuff that is original to this storyline (the ret-conning of Namor’s years of amnesia, the whole Professor X element and the idea that Namor is, like, “the first mutant’ or some such nonsense), I’m just not feeling. I’ll give it one more issue, just to see how they squirm Namor out of the fact that he appears to have attacked New York with three (count’em!) nuclear warheads. After that, without serious improvement, I will be taking this title off my pull list.

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LITTLE BIRD #3 of 5
Story by Darcy van Poelgeest, Art by Ian Bertram

Upon completing my first read-through of the third issue of this ongoing masterpiece-in-the-making, I was delighted to find that my personal Geek Rating had gone up a notch. How so, you ask? Well, it turns out they decided to publish that letter I wrote (as mentioned above)! They edited my letter down quite a bit (of course), and the parts they printed, they did mostly for utilitarian purposes (you'll know what I mean if and when you read it), but still, I have to admit that seeing my letter in print sent a little shot of adrenaline rippling through me. But aside from all that, if you're at all a fan of—or know of a mature teen who loves—art, First Nations topics, science-fiction, Canadiana, and stories that address the horrible potential of theocracy, then by all means seek out Little Bird. The first issue is in its third printing already, the second issue has been out for four weeks, and the third issue came out literally three days ago (at the time of this writing). You won't be disappointed!

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BLACK WINGS OF CTHULHU 6 (continued)

Twenty-One New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, Edited by S.T. Joshi

“The Gaunt”, by Tom Lynch ~ Boilerplate occult revenge story set in the Massachusetts Bay Colony circa the 1700’s, a man (Arthur Bishop, the titular “Gaunt”) whose wife and daughter were burned as witches for helping a rich family’s servant girl get over her migraines through the use of some slippery elm tea, returns to the township of Arkham after a seven year tour of the colonies and the Old World, during which time he searched for, and discovered, an esoteric means of redress for the monstrous injustice of his family’s destruction. The Necronomicon features, but is not named, and the description of the Gaunt’s horrible vengeance is sufficiently diabolical and descriptive to make up for the fact that, overall, the story feels rushed, under-cooked, and a few pages shorter than it maybe should be.

“Missing at the Morgue”, by Donald Tyson ~ For a story by a “noted scholar of the occult”, “Missing at the Morgue” has the feel of a decent pro-am effort, at best. A kind of Lovecraft noir, liberally riddled with that genre’s shopworn clichés, it’s the story of Dalhoy, a freelance photographer after a photo of a recently deceased serial killer, and his dealings the New World’s most lax, ineffective police force. The laziest of tricks work like magic for Dalhoy. For instance… 

Cop: “I can’t let you in.”
Dalhoy: “Come on. Please?”
Cop: “Well… okay, but only for ten minutes!” 

There are re-animated corpses, disappearing organs (a plot point that also, hilarious irony, disappears from this story halfway through), and a new type of monster, which Tyson describes as “indescribable”, but essentially, they are cat-sized tadpoles with little arms, eyes, and sharp white teeth (oh, and their mama monster, who is just a big black shivering ball floating in an underground lake). There’s a secret tunnel located at the back of a single corpse-locker in the hospital morgue, but it conveniently disappears, via unknown means, within hours of being discovered. There’s the aforementioned vast underground lake that, miraculously, no one knows about, even though it’s somewhere within crawling distance of a major hospital. This story is a mess. Another tale that has no business being in a collection of what are supposed to be the very best stories that the Cthulhu Mythos has to offer.

READING DIARY, SUNDAY, MAY 12, to THURSDAY, MAY 17, 2019

Didn’t get much reading done on Sunday because I watched the third and fourth episodes of this season's Game of Thrones, among other things. Then, on Monday, I spent a lot of time working on Milton Zysman’s Unravelling Genesis project, which again limited my personal reading time.

***

BLACK WINGS OF CTHULHU 6 (continued)
Twenty-One New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, Edited by S.T. Joshi

“Carnivorous”, by William F. Nolan ~ Martha and Dave Burns are sick and tired of cold Chicago winters, so they decide to post an online ad seeking rental of a modest house in Los Angeles over the winter/spring months. They get a single reply, from a prim and proper Victorian type named Viola P. Fanning, who agrees to let the couple stay at her beautiful home while she tours Europe for five months in search of new objects for her collection of rare fungi and exotic plants.

Furthermore, she will let them stay without charge, as long as they agree to care for her collection. This involves twice daily plant feedings using a special, gruesome concoction that is swimming with tiny living things, and a midnight sing-song of classics from the American Songbook. Oh, and Martha and Dave are never, under any circumstances, to open the locked door at the back of the greenhouse! Ridiculous, yes, but it’s a deal they can’t refuse.

Upon arriving at the home, they find it to be quite spacious and lovely, but the specimens in the greenhouse are hideous—mostly carnivorous plants and fungoid growths that give off both a repellent stench and an odd orange luminescence. All in all, it’s a fun if somewhat predictable little tale, featuring some truly interesting information about real-world carnivorous plants and a gruesome denouement featuring a far more violent version of what Stephen King turns into at the end of the Creepshow episode, “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”.

“On a Dreamland’s Moon”, by Ashley Dioses ~ Not being a fan of horror poetry, nor of Lovecraft’s Dreamlands stories, this particular offering didn’t have much to offer me, personally. There are some lovely lines, featuring some exquisite imagery, however. And it doesn’t take long to read. So I wouldn’t skip it if I were you.

“Teshtigo Creek”, by Aaron Bittner ~ Jim takes his girlfriend Kelly camping at a state park, even though, as a duo of park rangers try to warn them, it’s the middle of mosquito season, the water is still freezing cold, and the campground is only accessibly via canoe.

Things go from bad to worse as the couple get drunk and, at Jim’s urging, decide to try and skinny dip, only to have Jim step on something that puts a dozen tiny needle-holes in his foot, causing him to pass out in agony and nearly drown. Kelly pulls him out of the water and the next day they head home, with Jim now suffering from the head cold to end all head colds.

The weekend was pretty much a disaster… so bad was it, in fact, that when Jim is sent home sick from work, he arrives to find that Kelly has packed up her shit and moved out. He tries calling her, then gives up, promptly collapsing to the floor and passing out.

Jim wakes up to find the older of the two park rangers from the Teshtigo outing standing over him, reciting some weird incantations. He feels something squirming painfully in his sinus cavities. Then he feels something explode from his face… a tiny monster! With teeth like a piranha and two little salamander legs tipped with three razor-fanged fingerlings!

Jim feels his sanity slipping away as he watches the park ranger gently pick up the creature and tuck it away in a pocket of his windbreaker. Not too far gone to ask questions, Jim demands to know: “Why did you come after me? What is that thing? What’s going on?”

Turns out the park ranger knows these little creatures, and that he felt he “had to get the nuttaunes back.” Nuttaunes, by the way, is a Lakota word meaning “my daughter”. And then he walks away. As brisk and amusing as this story was to read, it also felt like a bit of a rush-job. I’m surprised it made Joshi’s cut.

“Ex Libris”, by Caitlin R. Kiernan ~ Maggie shows up at her friend and lover’s apartment—this unnamed individual providing the story’s first-person narrative—with a battered Campbell’s Tomato Soup box containing 11 very old and creepy books that she picked up at an estate sale. Maggie keeps “forgetting” to take the books home with her, and over the span of a couple weeks, simply being in the presence of these tomes begins to exert a number of changes over both the teller of this tale and Maggie, herself.

Those books that are named should be familiar to most fans of Lovecraft’s work: Freidrich Wilhelm von Junzt’s Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten, Ludvig Prinn’s De Vermis Mysteriis, Francois-Honore’ Balfour’s Cultes des Goules, etc. However, it’s not the books themselves, but the effects they have on the narrator and Maggie, that matter. Both experience these effects in their own way. Maggie begins to change physically, becoming more sexually aggressive and violent, whereas the narrator feels that the books are telling her stories.

The first one she relates is probably the most interesting. It’s about a 19th century Englishwoman named Harriett* who uses an incantation found in Der Vermis Mysteriis to call down a horrible entity by the name of Mynarthitep, a blasting darkness who squeezes tight against her magic circle, which proves to be of insufficient strength, eventually collapsing like a submarine in an uncontrolled descent… but not before the she pulls a trick on the entity by killing herself before it can mess her up too badly.

As the story evolves, the narrator suffers some sort of mental breakdown, seeing visions, visiting buildings that burned down ages ago, applying all of her worldly erudition to the situation at hand. This causes Kiernan to skillfully embed deep cultural, historical, literary and artistic references throughout the story, everything from Hesiod to Nietzsche to Steinbeck to William Burroughs, including extended meditations on sin, and an impressive dissertation on dueling academic opinions on the meaning behind the story of Pandora’s box. Kiernan even manages to sneak in a bit of a mystery about the most likely provenance of the books, a story that involves the Starry Wisdom cult and an occult-obsessed thief named Robert Blake.

Eventually, Maggie literally transforms into a “shining trapezohedron”, as described in the Livre d’Eibon, only made out of bone, blood, muscle and sinews. Pretty weird.

*There’s a line on page 152 that gave me a chuckle. When relaying the story of the Harriett the Englishwoman, Kiernan writes: “Her name must have been irrelevant, because I never did learn that…” Funny for two reasons… first, two paragraphs later she identifies the “unnamed” woman as Harriett, and second, due to the fact that the narrator of “Ex Libris”, herself, goes unnamed.

“You Shadows That in Darkness Dwell”, by Mark Howard Jones ~ Another nameless protagonist, this time, experiencing some truly beautiful weirdness, along with some absolutely chilling, surreal, evocatively written architectural horror.

A soon-to-be-divorced man, indifferent to his money hungry wife and his insolent, unloving daughters, tries to take his mind off things by going on a hiking holiday in an unnamed foreign land. He becomes lost, then comes across a boatyard, where he rents a small, motorized boat to make his way downriver.

Unfortunately, this only gets him MORE lost, as he can’t turn the boat around after crossing swift waters that he’ll never be able to navigate upstream. So, he pulls the boat out of the water and once again starts walking. That’s when he begins to notice black poppies, as well as a massive, man-made structure—a cathedral?—with spires that appear to reach impossibly high.

As he crests a hill, he sees a vast plain made black by the proliferation of the aforementioned black flowers, and he can see that the structure is much farther away than he originally thought… which means that it’s bigger than he first surmised. He also sees, in the far distance, the tiny figure of a woman hurrying through the flowers towards the tower. After a moment, she falls and he loses sight of her.

With little choice, he makes his way towards the tower. Still miles away from the structure, a light rain of silky black fluid begins to fall. What is this curious black rain? Industrial pollution? He hurries towards the structure, and as he approaches, it becomes even more disturbing in appearance.

“Arches seemed to flow one into the other, while buttresses tried to loop inside one another, as if someone had plucked the designs from the nightmares of some half-insane architect and rendered them solid.” From certain angles, it even seems to lurch towards the observer.

Fortunately, it was also on an elevated foundation. Once he reaches the structure and climbs aboard, he circles it, finds a door sufficiently recessed to offer him shelter, and notes a “whimsical” design feature resembling the top of a human skull—fontanels and all—sunken into the black stony material of the structure, apparently serving as some sort of doorstop.

 Other fantastical features include a kind of dry pool with two immense, horn-like shapes (instrumental horns, not from a bull’s head) facing each other. In the pool section, between the horns, figures in varying states of disassembly are visible, almost like they’re sunken into the floor. There is also a figure of a vast hand, three times taller than the tallest human shape, with screaming, roaring faces at each fingertip.

The black rain, in the meantime, has turned the building's foundation into an island of sorts. Black waves lap against the steps leading to the platform level. The wind picks up, causing the twin horns to howl in a painfully loud monotone. He blocks his ears, falls to his knees, and realizes that anything caught in the dry pool between those horns would be pulverized into putty by the decibel assault.

As the noise dies down, he spies a procession of tall figures appearing to walk on the black water towards the structure, as if called there by the howling. Their garments seem to drink in light. They are followed by smaller creatures wearing masks to hide their essential facelessness, “the very lowest apostles of depravity”. The narrator feels that he recognizes some of them.

A ridiculously tall door opens to let them in, giving the narrator a glimpse of the crimson interior. Then there is a cacophony as what sound like huge metal hooks slam and bash, moaning and screaming and other voices intoning: “THERE IS NO OUTSIDE!” over and over again.

More horrifying sounds. He plans to make good his escape by running across what he believes is an underwater platform that the worshipers used to “walk on water”, but he’s too frightened to take that first step. Then he spies a flash of white rolling in the black water. It turns out to be the corpse of the woman he'd seen earlier that same day. Something has used her as food.

And now it is night, dark as raven’s feathers in tar. Fortunately, he sees that his boat has been flooded off the shore and back into the water, and is now floating towards the structure… towards him. He manages to snag it with his jacket.

Though he can’t imagine how, he knows that somehow, this leviathan citadel of night must be destroyed. He also realizes that he’s become lost by drifting into part of the map stained by someone who spilled ink on it. As for his future life, he knows what he must do, but he is too afraid to do it.

I want to draw scenes from this story. For the imagery alone, it’s one of the best in this compilation so far, and one of the most impressive surreal short horrors I've read in a long time.

“The Ballad of Asenath Waite”, by Adam Bolivar ~ Basically, a balladic retelling of “The Thing on the Doorstep”, the same Lovecraft story that inspired “The Once and Future Waite”, a story also featured in this collection.

“The Visitor”, by Nancy Kilpatrick ~ Rob has just left his lover, Ian. Moved out and left his life a mess. Following the advice of friends and family, Ian takes a long weekend trip to Grenada for a sunny mini-vacation. Unfortunately, he’s miserably sick and riddled with anxiety for his whole time there. After sleeping through a couple of meals and missing most of his vacation, Ian encounters an intelligent talking bug (he thinks it’s a cockroach, she counters that she’s a “Palmetto”). She claims to be his spirit animal, but the way it’s talking (in Rob’s voice no less), it sounds more like an intelligent species looking for a way to mess with or reign in humanity’s worst instincts. Fun little story, but not very Lovecraftian, and probably insufficiently spooky for a prestige collection like this, which purports to be the gold standard

***

DRIPPIN’

by Laurence Engraver

A beautiful, etching-style exploration of meat, and what it means to eat it… and think about it, which might not be such a great idea if it’s too early in the day for you to be exploring such stuff. Clocking in at an ad-free 28 pages, each page of Drippin’ features a full page image of butcher shop backdrops, with livestock in various states of preparation (cuts, chops, offal, etc), some sort of monster, as well as a diabolical meat deity. Personally, I pretty much love every book put out by Hollow Press, including their Under Dark Weird Fantasy Grounds anthology. And so now we have Drippin', which holds a place near and dear to my heart. What a wonderful, almost wordless Lovecraftian panache! Fans of such things owe it to themselves to look into all of Hollow Press' publications.

READING DIARY, SATURDAY, MAY 11, 2019

Today, I attended TCAF (the Toronto Comics Arts Festival) as I have for the past four years, and while there, I purchased a number of very interesting books: Amnesia—The Lost Films of Francis D. Longfellow, the full package of Read More Comix, a Toronto-based book put out by attendees of the Toronto Comics Jam at Cameron House on the last Tuesday of every month, Andy, a Factual Fairytale: The Life and time of Andy Warhol, a 562 page objet d’art in and of itself, and finally, Drippn’, a wordless Lovecraftian tale, gruesome and beautifully etched in white on black. Anyway, I didn't get a chance to read much because of today's gallivanting, as you soon will see, below...

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AMNESIA, The Lost Films of Francis D. Longfellow
By Al Columbia

A magnificent collection of 24 beautifully rendered, graphically disturbing and darkly evocative oversized images that combine the old-timey animation stylings of the classic Fleischer Studio properties such as Betty Boop and the original (and gorgeous) Popeye and Superman cartoons, with such themes as incest, sex magic, infanticide, cannibalism, Satanism, human sacrifice, and worse. Apparently, this is Columbia’s first salvo in a wide-ranging art project that is meant to create a Borgesian “fictional” historical trail for the “fictional” (and very troubled) animator Francis D. Longfellow. I certainly hope Columbia builds on this concept!

YER OLD PAL JERKY'S READING DIARY, FRIDAY, MAY 10, 2019

I want to write more, so that means reading more. I find that reading not only inspires me in terms of sparking new story ideas, it also helps me learn new techniques for achieving certain effects (something that is particularly important in the genres in which I wish to write: horror, speculative fiction, “the weird”). Unfortunately, thanks to the fact that my brain has been drilled full of holes thanks to our multi-tasking, attention-deficit-disordered way of life, I find that a lot of what I read goes in through my eyes and then rapidly exits my skull like steam schfitzing from my ears or something.

Of course, being a lifelong English Major, in the Garrison Keillor sense, I won’t be limiting my reading to short horror fiction. However, I’ve been reading a LOT of that stuff lately, so it’s probably going to be taking up a lot of room at the start. What I hope to do with this reading diary is to make note of the things I liked/didn’t like/loved/despised about the stories and novels that I read. I will also make note of any intriguing techniques or tricks that I might come across.

Well, that’s probably enough introductory babble for now. Know that I’ll be taking notes on stories in the various anthologies I’ll be reading in a piecemeal manner, reviewing a number of stories at a time. On the other hand, with the novels that I read, I will try to keep my notes on those together, even if I read said novel over an extended period of time during which I read multiple other short stories, comics, novellas, etc.

Let’s get started with the most recent edition of what is reputed to be the finest ongoing collection of Lovecraftian and/or Cthulhu Mythos fiction, editor S.T. Joshi’s Black Wings series.

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BLACK WINGS OF CTHULHU 6
Twenty-One New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, Edited by S.T. Joshi

“Pothunters” by Anne K. Schwader ~ Interesting story about field anthropologist Cassie Barrett, who specializes in native cultures of the American Southwest, getting a mysterious package from her assistant Frank Yellowtail’s nephew, Joshua, informing her about a dig site being looted of its unprecedented cache of uniquely constructed and decorated pottery found hidden in sealed-off cavates in the high desert. But looting by meth-addicted “pothunters” is the least of what’s going on at the site, and Schwader does a good job of establishing Cassie as someone who’s dealt with otherworldly forces before, peppering the text with references to terrifying past events at “Zia House”, or the need to bring along her absent mentor’s mysterious “box”. It’s almost as if this is a chapter from a larger novel, or Cassie Barrett is a character who features in multiple linked short stories. Either way, she makes for a unique entry in the pantheon of “Lovecraftian heroes”, and this ends up being an effective horror in the investigative/adventure genre, featuring classic Lovecraftian creatures, the identity of which any seasoned Lovecraft fan will be able to identify relatively early on. Not that this lessens the pleasure of this tale. Particularly recommended for young and female readers.

“The Girl in the Attic” by Darrell Schweitzer ~ A dark, disturbing bit of prose describing in lyrical but horrific ways what appear to be bits and pieces from a lifetime’s worth of memory going through the mind of a young woman (or perhaps the ghost of a young woman?) chained in the attic of a lonely, abandoned house in the woodlands of rural Pennsylvania… a woman who is simultaneously an organized cult’s sacrificial offering, and something like the larval form of a horrifying deity yet to be born. As her memories move from the mundane and familial towards the cruel and unavoidably horrific, the reader is subjected to some tough imagery. “The Girl in the Attic” is chilling and effective, but the ultimate effect is beautifully elusive in its treatment of the story’s central mystery.

“The Once and Future Waite” by Jonathan Thomas ~ Set in the 1980’s, in that most famous of Lovecraftian settings—Arkham Asylum—this story starts off as an investigation into a cell that seems to be haunted. Patients are complaining of flying insects trying to drill their way into their heads, and also of visions of a spooky, bearded man floating above them. Doctor Meg Kilduff, already miffed at being passed over for the job of director after her previous boss’ departure, begrudgingly investigates the room’s past, as per the new director’s orders. It’s at this point that Lovecraftian Easter Eggs (the first of which is in the story’s title) start flying at the reader fast and furious. With themes as varied as Reaganomics, postfeminism, sexual assault and the politics of mental health, this story ends up being an intriguing “serial possession” ghost story, with a final twist that will surprise, a final image that will disgust, and a final line that should put a smile on the reader’s face.

“Oude Goden” by Lynne Jamneck ~ An interesting short piece about a young, self-described “witch” in the Pacific Northwest, set in the 1920’s or so. The title is Dutch for “Ancient Gods”, with the ancient god in this case being Ghanatothoa (first offspring of Cthulhu according to some readings, Lin Carter’s in particular). Seems as though the protagonist’s lover, Jupiter, as well as other “outsiders” (homosexuals for the most part) from a small Seattle suburb are all disappearing. So, she sets out to solve the mystery. For such a short story, “Oude Goden” has an interesting cast of characters, including a sub-continental merchant with a deep understanding of the occult and a sideline in bootleg First Nations alcohol and super-potent hallucinogenic entheogens, a floppy-eared nocturnal rabbit who happens to harbor the soul of a hundred-years-dead Dutchman, the KKK, a phantom college of witches, and an arrogant, doomed young travelling warlock whose ultimate purpose in this story remains mysterious. Jamneck has also gifted us with a new book to add to the Mythos library: “Dhol Chants”, which contains incantations so potent that the reader needs to take arcane steps in order to prevent the triggering of uncontrollable effects simply by opening the book to certain pages! Decent short story.

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LITTLE BIRD #2 of 5

Story by Darcy van Poelgeest, Art by Ian Bertram

The first issue of this instant classic comic book was so utterly superlative, it inspired me to write my first fan letter to a comic book creative team since the mid-1980’s. I guess I’ve got pretty good taste in comics, because since its debut, Little Bird has experienced unprecedented word of mouth success, leading to a swift sell-out and forcing Image Comics to print a second, and then a THIRD run… all before the second issue was even released. A dark future fantasy sf dystopia with elements of Native American lore, over the top superheroics, Jodorowsky-style mytho-messianic mysticism and utterly sui generis character designs, Little Bird is so far telling a somewhat familiar tale, but oh, the way it’s being told! I simply can’t wait to see where this creative team takes this magnificent comic.

RAMSEY CAMPBELL, MASTER OF SHORT HORROR FICTION: "ALL FOR SALE"

Think this guy can't scare you? Think again.

Last night, I was perusing my collection of horror anthologies—a collection of collections!—when I alighted on The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, from 2002 (and purchased somewhere around that time). Having recently become interested in the fiction of Thomas Ligotti, his name on the cover caught my attention and I flipped to the table of contents.

That's when I spotted it... a Ramsey Campbell story with a title that was altogether new to me!

For context, I've been a fan of Campbell's work since my teens, getting to know him first as one of Stephen King's most talented contemporaries, then as one of the modern masters of Lovecraftian mythos fiction (kind of a backwards “reeling in” of his actual career trajectory). But whatever the subject matter, Campbell is an uncontested master of the short story form, and his inclusion in an anthology is usually reason enough for me to pick it up.  Campbell’s short stories are so well regarded, in fact, that whenever he’s collected, his name usually has pride of place among the first two or three mentioned on the cover.

Not so, for some reason, with this particular edition of Best New Horror. Which is odd, because the story in question, “All For Sale”, is an absolute beast.

I can’t say too much about it, because it’s short and compact and I don’t want to spoil any aspect of it for you. Suffice it to say that "All For Sale" is goddamn terrifying. An incredibly effective slice of all-too-possible life… the way the bottom can drop out from underneath you in one sickening moment, the way the rational mind can sometimes have trouble keeping up with the reality of a horrifying situation... the mounting tension, the unforgiving hopelessness that resolves into a visceral dread... it's a fucking masterpiece.

In trying to think why this story hasn't been more widely anthologized, I kept coming up blank. It's lean, it's mean, it works like gangbusters, and it packs a powerful punch, the kind that bruises for days... It’s got everything you would think anthology editors love about short genre fiction. Also, it’s got deep literary roots, which, if I elaborate, will give away too much, so for now, I won’t. And so, for now, as far as I can tell, the only two places you can find it are in the above-mentioned Best New Horror (2002) and in a prohibitively expensive and difficult to come by all-Campbell collection, Told by the Dead (2003).

Or, thanks to Google Books’ inability to go through every single anthology in their system to make sure that complete stories don’t slip through their random-page-omission method of “respecting” publishers’ copyright claims… you can read it here and now, on the web, for free.

I recognize that this is not ideal, particularly for Mr. Campbell, who—despite being widely and justifiably recognized as a leading figure in horror, or dark fantasy, or “the weird”, or whatever nomenclature has been assigned to this most primal and powerful of literary forms of late—is not immune from the vicissitudes of fiscal fortune. However, seeing as I am not responsible for Google’s boo-boo in this instance, and seeing as I believe Campbell’s work (in general and this piece, specifically) is of such high quality that anyone reading it is all but certain to seek out more of it—via venues that are more financially remunerative for author and publishers both—I feel justified in pointing it out.

Enjoy! And, if you’re new to the work of Ramsey Campbell… you’re welcome.

Sincerely,

Yer old pal Jerky

MINDHUNTER: TO BINGE OR NOT TO BINGE?

In early 2018, Netflix offered up one of their more intriguing original programs since the first season of Stranger Things. Produced and partially directed by David Fincher, Mindhunter brought viewers sexy, decompressed story-telling at its episodic best. A sexy, chilling, well acted, beautifully mounted, and relatively truthful exploration of the role played by fine, upstanding young white men from the suburbs (men who just happen to be a little cracked in the head regarding certain things) in the development of the FBI's profiling techniques. It also features the best Ed Kemper impersonation ever committed to celluloid!

I realize some of these "reviews" are ridiculously short, but the truth is, I'm using this blog as a way to remind myself of the movies I've seen, the books I've read, the comics I've perused, and the music I've listened to... or at least those that have left an impression on me. Mindhunter, while good, only just made the "remarks-worthy" cut by thismuch.

GRAPHIC NOVEL SERIES "DEMON" EDITIONS 1, 2, 3 and 4

A tour-de-force of over-the-top storytelling. An instant classic, DEMONS has the odd quality of being completely off-the-wall insane, and yet totally making airtight sense in terms of the rules it lays out for the reality in which the events depicted take place.

A 21st century schizoid take on Alfred Bester's bonkers sci-fi masterpiece The Stars My Destination (aka Tiger! Tiger!), Jason Shiga's DEMON is technically (and commercially) split into four volumes, but the story of protagonist Jimmy Yee's life and/or lives (which is already giving away too much) progresses from one part to the next in a propulsive, unbroken narrative of revelation, destruction and bloodshed. All this, while simultaneously engaging in some serious philosophical discussions relating to all the Big Questions, like, why do we exist? and, what is the true nature of the mind/body divide? and, what gives life meaning?

I had the good fortune of having this series recommended to me by someone whose opinion in such matters I trust implicitly--comics legend Stephen Bissette, of Swamp Thing and Taboo infamy--so I purchased the first volume despite the artwork not being my cup of tea, and despite not knowing a single goddamn thing about the story. I was maybe ten pages in before I knew that I'd be picking up the other three volumes on my next visit to my favorite (and by far Toronto's finest) comics shop, The Beguiling.

I honestly believe that going into DEMON fresh is the best way to experience it, because it begins as a puzzle box and then, just when you think it might be getting too complex or bizarre or impossible to understand, it all starts making (a ridiculous kind of) sense. This ongoing roll-out of DEMON's many revelations is intensely satisfying on a number of levels. Also, remember that if you purchase it via my Amazon affiliate link, I get a few shekels in my begging cup!

Finally, for those of you who feel the need to know a bit more about the book(s) before plunking down your hard-earned dollars--pussies, in other words--this here is a decent but spoiler-filled rundown of Jimmy's crazed, debauched saga. 

Enjoy! I know I sure did!

THE 50 BEST HORROR MOVIES YOU'VE NEVER SEEN

I mean... I've seen most of these flicks, myself, but I'm a horror freak of distinct and august vintage. Most likely, the majority of y'all out there reading this have only seen a handful of them.

KUNG FURY!

BULLET REVIEWS ~ FILMS I'VE RECENTLY SEEN

I've been focusing more on long-form projects like my concordances for Season of the Witch and In The Dust of This Planet, and also catching up on my movie watching lately... hence the paucity of updates at the Daily Dirt Diaspora, Kubrick U, The Mediavore, or anything other than "on this day" segments at the Useless Eater Blog. So I thought I'd throw up some filler content by doing short little bullet reviews of some of the movies that I've seen which I think are worth commenting on, one way or the other. So, in absolute random sequence and in no way related to the order in which I watched them, here are my thoughts on some of the movies, great and small, that I've recently watched! - Jerky

The Childhood of a Leader ~ This is "one of those" movies... the kind that really wowed me, but which I suspect will resonate powerfully with just a few, while the majority fart into their couch cushions and wonder what the hell they just watched. Which is too bad, really, because this is a top-notch thriller with one of the best musical scores of the new millennium, courtesy of Scott Walker, of Walker Brothers fame.

The story is deceptively simple, and rooted in real world history. Following the end of the First World War, an American ambassador, his French speaking wife and their young son are temporarily relocated to Europe to work on the Treaty of Versailles.The film's structure is based on a their son's transgressions, followed by his tantrums at being reprimanded, eventually leading to unexpected aftermath. These transgressions and tantrums become more brutal and disturbing as the film goes on.

If you do start in on this one, please do try to stick with it, because even though it feels as though the film is going to end without revealing anything, there does come a moment of shock revelation as the story veers with self-assurance into speculative fiction territory. One of my favorite films of 2018 so far.

***

The Bar ~ Spain's most prolific and adventurous genre director Alex de la Iglesia strikes again! Unfortunately, this time, the director of such classics as Perdita Durango, Day of the Beast, Accion Mutante, and The Last Circus doesn't have much to work with. Essentially a knock-off of the instant classic Spanish rage virus film [REC], only set in a small corner bar instead of a large, spooky apartment block The Bar swiftly succumbs to the limitations of its setting, not to mention the irrational and occasionally inexplicable decisions Iglesia is forced to have his characters make, simply to keep the plot moving forward. Despite being a fan of Iglesia's work in general, I'd recommend you give this one a miss. Go watch [REC] again, instead, and follow it up with one of Iglesia's better films (like any of the ones I mentioned above). 

***

The Shape of Water ~ As much as I love Guillermo Del Toro, and as much as I enjoyed this humanistic ode to the beauty of the broken ones, this lovingly crafted homage to the hypnotizing make-believe of old Hollywood, this exploration of deeply flawed people at an even more flawed time, the best of them trying and occasionally succeeding to make family and happiness where and however they can... I still couldn't help but think Dunkirk got robbed. And I'm not even a Nolan fan!

***

Thor: Ragnarok ~ A big hit with both critics and casual audiences, I have a feeling that time will not be kind to the third entry in Marvel's Thor cinematic saga, if only because of the decision to turn what should have been a somber, emotionally devastating event -- Ragnarok, the total destruction of Thor's homeworld of Asgard, including the grizzly deaths of numerous beloved friends and fellow warriors -- into a series of sight gags and mediocre jokes.

The formerly noble citizens of Asgard are here reduced to homely, obese, whiny, simple-minded, helpless fools who are in constant need of saving. Contrast this to the unironic celebration of "hotep" wish fulfillment tropes that Wakanda and its citizens embodied only a few months later in Black Panther, and it's not difficult to see how some alt-right bozos might have gotten the impression that there's something more than coincidence behind the joke-ification of Norse mythology, gussied up in Jack Kirby-esque comic book science-fiction flare though it may be, in Ragnarok.

Is it fun? Sure. Director Taika Waititi, who helmed the awesome vampire comedy What We Do In The Shadows, does a more than decent job of crafting a cohesive narrative out of the disparate elements he's been given to play with. It was great seeing The Hulk, who's mostly been wasted since the first Avengers flick. And Jeff Goldblum being Jeff Goldblum is always a treat. But I can't help but wonder what could have been.

***

IT ~ Written at the height of horror-meister Stephen King's cocaine habit, the novel IT is mostly remembered for its length, the TV miniseries it spawned (featuring Tim Curry), and one of the most inappropriate endings in contemporary popular literature (a 13-year-old girl pulling a train of 'tweens in a sewer?!). Now that the first part of the cinematic version of IT has turned out to be a surprise late summer blockbuster in 2017 -- and that was without the benefit of Tim Curry's memorable turn as Pennywise the Clown -- maybe it will be remembered for something more. With the arrival of Part 2 next year, we'll know more.

To be honest, I don't really have much to say about this particular flick. I enjoyed it, for whatever that's worth, but it was mostly empty movie calories. The jump scares jumped, the rush scares rushed, there were a few genuinely freaky moments, but it was ultimately all so cliche'd and bound up in shopworn horror tropes that it's hard to get too enthused over the end results. It would probably be a really great movie to play in the background during a Halloween party, though, I'll give it that much.

***

Tommy ~ If you haven't seen Tommy yet, then what the Hell are you waiting for?! Get out there, find a copy and watch the damn thing! it's a goddamn rock opera masterpiece, with one of the most compelling plot lines in the history of prog! The music is great, the guest spots are great, the imagery is great (thanks Ken Russell!), Roger Daltry's performance is great, as are those of Ann Margaret and Oliver Reed... For a long time, this movie suffered a lot of hate, but NO MORE! Let its myriad charms wash over you and know the feeling of liberation that comes with playing pinball when you're deaf, dumb and blind!

***

Mom and Dad ~ Selma Blair and Nick Cage star as a typical, upwardly mobile middle class mom and dad with two kids and an Asian housekeeper. One day, the whole town is inundated with a signal that makes parents fall prey to an overwhelming rage and a need to destroy their own children (and ONLY their own children... other people's kids, they couldn't care less). Works both as gripping horror / black comedy AND as a bracing satire of the increasingly unbridgeable generational divide. Cage and Blair are both superlative, giving it their all for every second they're on the screen. A future classic. But, yeah, trigger warnings galore. 

"MAMMON" A GRAPHIC NOVEL BY MICHAEL HAGUE

With Dark Horse's recent release of renowned fantasy illustrator Michael Hague's millennia-sweeping Decadent/Gothic epic vampire graphic novel Mammon, a new high water mark for illustrated horror has been set, and I imagine it will be a long time before it's bested.

Simultaneously beautiful and brutal, Hague's narrative begins in the early 1920's, following a journalist, Mr Meeks, whose obsession with vampires brings him to the attention of a reclusive, wealthy, Eastern European aristocrat who promises to reveal all he knows about the subject, as long as Meeks agrees to trust him unconditionally. Anxious for adventure, Meeks eventually meets his mysterious benefactor, who goes by the name Mammon.

To reveal more about how Mammon unfolds would rob the reader of the great pleasure of the story's unfolding. Suffice it to say that Meeks soon becomes Mammon's amanuensis/apprentice, and has to reckon with his host's bizarre double-transgression, which includes an absolutely twisted conversion story in which monsters formerly in league with Satan embrace the power of Christ... but on their own, incomprehensibly vile terms.

.So, if you've ever wondered what a full-fledged graphic novel by, say, 19th century Decadent Satanic fin-de-sciecle artist Felicien Rops might have looked like -- put together in a beautiful hardcover package, with the greatest attention paid to aesthetics -- wonder no more. Mammon is a top notch entry in a genre you probably didn't know you needed in your life. Serious horror aficionados owe it to themselves to reckon with this work on both the literary and artistic levels. Hague has produced a masterpiece.

DICK COUGHLIN'S "GENESIS OF JIHADI SATIRE" ~ AN APPRECIATION OF CHRIS MORRIS' "FOUR LIONS"

The Genisis of Jihadi Satire from Dick Coughlan on Vimeo.

ANDY KINDLER'S STATE OF THE INDUSTRY SET AT JUST FOR LAUGHS 2018!

Every year, I look forward to hearing stand up comic Andy Kindler deliver his "State of the Industry" set at Montreal's Just For Laughs comedy festival, wherein he gives a roast-style assessment of what things are like in the world of professional comedy. Thanks to Vulture.com and Soundcloud, you can listen to this year's edition, delivered this past Friday, below.

SUBLIMINAL DEMON IN NEW TRAILER FOR 'GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS'?

Spotted by Twitter's @EuzebTusk, one spooky-looking motherfucker, who writes: 

“Am I the only one who caught this? What is it... Godzuzu?! Also, if it's supposed to be an 'ancient' location, then why does it appear to be taking place deep underground?”

NEW GREATEST VIDEO EVER