Interesting fact: If you look this song up on YouTube, before delivering the results, you get a full page suicide prevention page. Kinda goofy, and kinda nice. Anyway, it's late, I'm tired, and even though there are half a dozen other songs I wanted to post, they all will require some 'writing.' So I went with this, some good old Suicidal. Title track from their 1988 album, a banger from start to finish.
NCBD:
Some great stuff this week. Let's get into New Comic Book Day for Wednesday, February 25, 2026!!!
New Vertigo series from That Texas Blood creators Chris Condon and Jacob Philips! I know NOTHING about this beyond Ezra Cain is a private eye, so I am excited!
The Quintesson War continues, and this month we have a cover with an army of those green Baliff characters that work the Pit of Judgement for the Quintessons. One thing I love about the Quintessons and their, erm, assets is the weird blend that makes a lot of these guys look similar - like they were all cobbled together from the same parts but under slightly different creative whims. Which fits when the architect has five faces.
Only Liam Sharp could get me buying a Spawn title, and so far, The Dark Ages volume 2 lives up! The art in this thing is awesome! Listen to Mike and me discuss the first two issues on Drinking with Comics HERE.
The third and final issue of this second 1930's Batman series. I held off reading issue two, waiting for this one to show up, so now I can read the entire series in one sitting!
Plastic:
Fuck. Just fuck. I stumbled across a YouTube video that clued me in to Big Bad Toy Store's Big Bad Workshop and the fact that they have a figure under their Soldier of Fortune banner that is as close as we're likely to get to a Hooded Cobra Commander figure. Check this out:
It doesn't stop there, though. Scrolling through the workshop page, I found this under the Cult of the Crimson Moon collection:
Even better! The red matches the historically related Baron Ironblood from the British Action Force/Red Shadows. Check out THIS video from Destro is My Spirit Animal that explores the history of this.
Finally, I stumbled on BBWS's Monster Force collection and found this:
Werewolf troopers and they don't have to actually be associated with nazis! I'm sick to fucking death of fucking nazis!
Playlist:
King Woman - Celestial Blues
Mike Patton - The Solitude of Prime Numbers
Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow
Jim Williams - Possessor OST
Suicidal Tendencies - How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can't Even Smile Today
Plague Bringer - Life Songs In A Land Of Death
Plague Bringer - As the Ghosts Collect, the Corpses Rest
Metallica - Ride the Lightning
Card:
Stepping away from Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot (which you can buy HERE.) again to play with my beloved Thoth.
• IX: The Hermit
• 3 of Disks: Work
• 2 of Cups: Love
"Stepping away from the world to rebuild, listen to inner guidance as a stability you have quakes. This is what happens when we build atop previous confidences. New stability will come, and with it, love and partnership."
I think there's something here for me about podcasting. I won't go into it now, but it perfectly maps something that's been developing and how I've handled it.
I'm not sure how I never posted this track before, because I can see I liked it and I recognize it. Regardless, I could not find it in a search on this site. Regardless of whether it appeared in these pages previously, I've really felt an affinity toward this band, this album, and this song lately, so here it is again and HERE is Me and That Man's Bandcamp.
If you're unfamiliar, this is Nergal from Behemoth's 'other' band, and it kind of sounds like if Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds hailed from Norway and sold their souls to the Dark One. Which is to say, they are AWESOME!
Watch:
Friday night, I finally got around to watching Jane Schoenbrun's I Saw The TV Glow.
To say this film had a deeply profound effect on me would be an understatement. I know relatively little about Schoenbach's; last year, I watched their We Are All Going to the World's Fair and was pretty blown away by that, as well. But TV... this one is so much more accomplished. Part of that is, I'd guess, that Schoenbach had a bigger budget the second time around, but also, they have obviously honed their craft.
There's so much 00s Hauntology in this film that it's almost unbelievable to me. I mean, that entire movement was so liminal and audio-based that I find the effectiveness of this filmmaker's ability to 'put it on screen' fascinating and deeply endearing. The blurred pre and post-millennium transition from a still mostly analog cultural paradigm to a fully digital one created a wave of interesting cultural artifacts; people repurposing analog alongside the digital and really projecting the past out into the future to create what was, at the time, a movement so rooted in uncertainty and change that it didn't last long and kind of ate its own tail on the way out, so it almost feels like it didn't exist at all. But Schoenbach proves it did, with a movie whose plot is pretty much what I just described, verbatim.
Also, have to say. I was a little more than halfway through and already spellbound when King Woman showed up and performed a stunning version of Psychic Wound.
I mean, how could I not LOVE this film?
Playlist:
The Police - Outlandos D'Amour
Nick Lowe - Jesus of Cool
Converge - Love Is Not Enough
Jerry Reed - East Bound and Down
Megadeth - Rust in Peace
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F♯ A♯ ∞
Faster Pussycat - Wake Me When It's Over
King Woman - Celestial Blues
Drug Church - Prude
Brand New - The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me
Nihill - Krach
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Napalm Death - Resentment Is Always Seismic (A Final Throw of Throes)
Napalm Death - Suffer the Children (single)
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• King of Pentacles
• Ace of Cups
• Two of Pentacles
"A connection of mind and spirit creates opportunity for lucrative partnership."
Some of my recent readings have really had a 'fortune teller' feel. I hate that. It makes it hard to take things seriously.
I'm late on the game with this one, but I got the tip-off last week when Heaven is an Incubator posted about the new edition of last year's Melvins/Napalm Death collaboration, Savage Imperial Death March, originally released on Amphetamine Reptile. First track off this full-length aural beating has an amazing title and a bludgeoning sound, so I am in! Pre-order from Ipecac Records for an April 10th release HERE.
Watch:
Last night, I went to a double feature of two movies I knew absolutely nothing about. First up, This is Not a Test:
I was stoked to see Adam MacDonald's name come up as Writer/Director/Producer on this one! Takes place in 1998, doesn't reinvent the wheel, but has solid performances and is deeply unsettling.
This is Not a Test is built around Olivia Holt's performance as Sloan, and she anchors the film. Cinematographer Christian Bielz - who previously worked with MacDonald on the film Backcountry - employs a handheld, shaky-cam technique that gives the film a gorilla feel, which definitely makes it feel more real. This realistic approach augments the chaos we get hit with from the opening scenes, which establish Sloane's relationship with abusive father. Because of this, we never get an established 'normal' for Sloane or the film's world through her.
Also, composer Lee Malia (Pyewacket and Out Come the Wolves) hits a sweet spot with drone, itch-you-can't-scratch background, and a little bit of what I'd call a Steve Moore flourish. This also adds to the film's overall unnerving feeling.
Next, Psycho Killer:
Having seen Cold Storge last week, then watched Barbarian again over the weekend, I LOVE that Georgina Campbell is having a moment this year with two back-to-back films. And this... wow. Talk about go big or go home - a saying I don't particularly care for, but it's appropriate. I just couldn't believe how big this one swings and lands. There's a harty comparison here to films like Random Acts of Violence and Son, but Psycho Killer has a grand design that you just won't believe until you see it.
Read:
In researching the middle section of Shadow Play Book 2, I realized I knew very little about the canonical five victims of Jack the Ripper.
One thing I wanted to be certain about was the Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elisabeth Stride, Kate Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly's lives, as they've become something of minor characters in the second act of the book. All five women are generally dismissed as prostitutes; however, that is not a proven fact, but rather an assumption very much in keeping with the misogynistic paradigm of Victorian society. Hallie Rubenhold's book is a mesmerizing and in-depth look at all five women, from birth through to their murders.
Playlist:
Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow
Wintersun - Beyond the Dark Sun (single)
The Mountain Goats - Bleed Out
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1
Faster Pussycat - Wake Me When It's Over
Gogol Bordello - We Mean It, Man!
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F♯ A♯ ∞
Chris Connelly - Largo 22
Psychetect - Extremism
Silversun Pickups - Tenterhooks
sunn O))) - Metta, Benelvolence BBC6 LIVE: At the Invitation of Mary Anne Hobbs
3TEETH - EndEx
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Queen of Pentacles
• Two of Swords
• XX: Judgement
Fostering a partnership or collaboration can lead to solidified power.
Very interesting. This is extremely timely and has prompted me to do some research. I'll try and explain a bit more later on.
When I posted a new track from Myrkur back on January 28th, we did not yet know if more music would follow. Here then is the answer.
Sort of.
Another fantastic new song, still no word of an album.
Amalie Bruun's voice continues to amaze me; this is still probably the closest thing I know of to how the old school Miranda Sex Garden made me feel, once upon a time.
NCBD:
I'm so eager to know more about Edgewater and this strange place
David and Maria Lapham's Good As Dead comes to an end, and although I'm bummed it's done, I can't wait to see how things end. I'm guessing horribly for some - or most - of the cast. This has been such a great ride; I miss having a regular Lapham book in my life. Might be time to re-read Stray Bullets!
The cover says it all!
Two issues left after this one, although I'm not sure if that's series end or 'season' end. Either way, things are really heating up (pun intended).
Read:
My good friend Chris Saunders alerted me to a new Weird Tales Kickstarter campaign that launched earlier in the week. I backed this puppy the second I saw it.
I revisited both episodes of Kier-La Janisse's The Haunted Season on Shudder. A good friend was in for the long weekend, and after a lengthy discussion about Folk Horror, this seemed a perfect way to end the night.
Rewatching episode two, Janisse's adaptation of Algernon Blackwood's "The Occupant of the Room," I was reminded how much I liked the score by The Nausea. Spending some time with their 2024 album Requiem, I pretty much fell in love. I'll be adding this one to my writing playlist this year.
Watch:
I caught wind of this new Scottish Horror film, The House Was Not Hungry Then, over on Bloody Disgusting. Just the sonic profile of this trailer - which gives nothing away - put this on my list. As did, let's be honest, the fact that it's Scottish.
This is the feature debut for Writer/Director Harry Aspinwall, has a one-hour-and-thirty-two-minute runtime, and is currently available to rent on Prime Video for $5.99. I'm going to try to add this to my viewing this week, but I want to curate the experience. It's clear Aspinwall took great care with the sound design, so I'm thinking a little bit of smoke and some headphones in a dark room might work best.
Plastic:
I caught wind that Trick or Treat Studios was doing a comic-book-based figure for The Crow last year, and I've kind of been waiting on the edge of my seat since. I checked around Halloween and nothing. I kept checking periodically, but this had recently slipped my mind, so I was especially grateful when Grimm sent me a link for the pre-order. Check this thing out:
If you read these pages or know me, you know how I feel about The Crow. The original comic book is the ONLY one for me, and to finally have a figure - and one that looks this bloody good - is something I've been waiting for most of my life.*
I believe this is the first figure I've ordered from Trick or Treat Studios, and I was impressed to see this one comes fully loaded.
Here's a list of accessories:
Standing crow
Flying crow with clear display stand
Two interchangeable heads: stoic and smiling
Six interchangeable hands:
Left & right gripping hands
Left & right trigger hands
Right pointing hand
Right reaching hand
Sword
Shotgun
Revolver
Cat
Removable coat
Two interchangeable arm sets: with coat and without coat
This is a timed release, so you have just over 25 days left to pre-order it HERE.
*No exaggeration when you figure I first read James O'Barr's The Crow circa late 1993/early 1994, shortly before the movie came out.
Playlist:
Grimes - Visions
Soundgarden - Super Unknown
Quicksand - Slip
Corrosion of Conformity - Gimme Some Moore
Corrosion of Conformity - No Cross No Crown
Mike Patton - The Solitude of Prime Numbers
Tomahawk - Eponymous
Mr. Bungle - California
Mr. Bungle - Merry Go Bye Bye (single)
The Plimsouls - Everywhere at Once
Orville Peck - Pony
The Neverly Boys - The Dark Side of Everything
The Nausea - Requiem
Slow Crush - Thirst
Darkswoon - Bloom Decay
Card:
The Thoth deck continues to hold my favor. Here's today's cards:
• V: The Hierophant
• Ace of Wands
• Princess of Disks
"Forgotten or obscured ideas/information may lead to inspiration and, ultimately, provide a solid foundation for moving the project forward."
New album Good God/Baad Man, out April 3rd. You can pre-order from Nuclear Blast Records HERE. Sounds good up real loud. Would you expect anything else from COC? Nope.
Watch:
If you want to hit the theatre this weekend and have a ton of fun, my recommendation is right here:
I knew nothing about this film going in - I don't even think I'd heard of it before a week or two ago. Written by David Koepp - whose name I knew I recognized but did not realize from how many movies (Jurassic Park, Stir of Echoes, Presence, Premium Rush) and directed by Jonny Campbell, Cold Storage is a BLAST! Joe Keery, Georgina Campbell, Liam Neeson, Sosie Bacon - we've got a stacked cast, a great setup and an execution that evokes a bit of a comparison to such films as Slither, Street Trash, and Return of the Living Dead. This is kind of the pop version of a splattery outbreak flick, and it just works.
Read:
I finally got around to reading Savage Sword of Conan issue 11, the now-fabled issue helmed entirely by Liam Sharp. All I can say - asbsolute masterpiece!
That's a piece of full-page art from the issue, which Mr. Sharp posted on his Substack newsletter The Brave and the Bold - which you can subscribe to HERE.
This book is just extraordinary, and I do not mean just the art. The storyline is pure Hyperborean Weird Fiction - Conan is injured and enters a liminal realm within which nothing is as it seems. Wolfmen, a beautifully dangerous sorceress, and scheming rulers all vie for his assistance. As usual, the Cimmerian is his own man, even in the face of insanely unfavorable odds.
Playlist:
Daydream Twins - Solstice For Embodiment
John Cale - Fear
Corrosion of Conformity - Deliverance
Mr. Bungle - California
Tomahawk - Eponymous
Brand New - The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
Lamp of Murmur - The Dreaming Prince in Ectasy
Burzum - Filosofem
Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow
Ulver - Neverland
Blut Aus Nord - Thematic Emanation of Archetypal Multiplicity
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
David Lee Roth - Crazy from the Heat EP
David Lee Roth - A Little Ain't Enough
Corrosion of Conformity - Gimme Some Moore (pre-release single)
Card:
Continuing my newly reinvigorated workings with the Thoth deck:
Note to self: the green light works much better with Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Prince of Wands
• XX: The Aeon
• Ten of Wands: Oppression
The "Airy" aspect of Fire, or MOTIVATION. The Will to change the work, the paradigm, the Aeon and not succumb to the Oppression of the familiar.
While there's some genuine intuition in this reading, I feel like I've fallen back on rote interpretations and interpretative guides. The added inroads I've made with this deck and Tarot in general just do not seem to want to stick. Part of this is because I am always distracted and I am always anxious. I hate that - I did not use to be this way. Modern Life is Rubbish, though, and it's pretty difficult not to be distracted in this day and age. Oh! What's that - yeah, that's right. I talked a bit about restarting meditation a few months ago and NEVER DID. You think that might help? Yep....
I've really been 'feeling' CDs lately. I think January/February always inspires me to return to a state of mind that reaches through time and connects to the mid-to-late 00s, when the internet was amazing, and the world hadn't yet shifted into a post-apocalyptic paradigm.
At the time, shortly before I moved from Chicago to Los Angeles, I was finishing up years of playing in bands and gigging pretty regularly. I met a lot of bands this way, and one of the fiercest was Amherst, Massachusetts' Read Yellow.
I either saw or opened for these guys at Chicago's Fireside Bowl. Read Yellow had a big, noisy sound slightly reminiscent of Sonic Youth, but that comparison sells Read Yellow short. This band has such energy! When you exist for an extended length of time inside a live indie circuit, one thing you often find - and it definitely plagued a band or two of my own - some bands who have fireball energy live don't always find a way to translate that to a recording.
NOT the case here.
Although Read Yellow broke up years ago (I just double-checked), their website is still up, which definitely suggests someone in the group understands the need to keep their flame burning, even dimly, for future generations to find.
NCBD:
BIG week this week at the comic shop.
This cover says it all! Looking ahead on this book's solicitations, Kirkman is building something epic with Megatron. The increased focus on his volatile madness we've seen over the last few issues is about to burst, and it should make for some awesome reading along the way. Also, I'm still just blown away by Thundercracker defecting to the Autobots. So cool!
A Lovecraft adaptation in mini-series form, it's been a couple of years since I read the original short story, The Thing on the Doorstep, but I'm really interested in how it will translate here, maybe because we never did get that Richard Stanley cinematic version he talked about doing after The Color Out of Space.
Having just caught back up on this book and found Splinter resurrected, I'm very curious how this is going to play out. On the surface, I don't love the idea of long-dead characters coming back from the dead, but I'm willing to give Turtles the benefit of the doubt.
Ever wanted to see a priest kick the Mafia's ass? This is the book for you! Loved the first issue, can't wait to dig into number two!
Larry Hama's GIJOE: A Real American Hero hits another milestone, and to celebrate, he's apparently introducing two new Joes! Being that we're free and clear of toy tie-ins, unless Classified wants to take a nod from Hama, I'm pretty intrigued. What would two new Joes in 2026 look like? We'll find out today!
Watch:
As I alluded to in Monday's post, my ventures into the DC Absolute universe have dovetailed with something... else. Let me explain.
This past Sunday, I woke up feeling burnt out. Reading a Substack newsletter from John Pavlovitz about the absolutely blatant racism of the *ahem* superbowl halftime alternative cooked up by magacunts and kid rock,* I found myself overwhelmed again by the "We can't fix this" mantra that has pretty much played on a steady loop in my subconscious since 2018. I don't doom scroll; I don't really 'scroll' all that much at all anymore, but what I have been doing is looking through the various newsletters I receive in my email. I happened on a new one from Grant Morrison's Xanaduum, and falling into the prosiac embrace of a man whose writing I was once obsessed with, I felt the urge to walk over to the bookshelf and pick up his 2011 treatise on Super Heroes as hopeful, psychological antibodies for the modern disaster.
Not looking to add yet another book to the "currently" or even "soon to be" reading piles, instead, I re-read the introduction and was reminded why Morrison once spoke so strongly to me. The bomb had begun as an idea and humanity had worked to give it material form. So too, could another idea - one infinitely more powerful than a mere bomb - be conjured into our lives to stave off the destructive potential assailing us?
Being that Morrison wrote about this way back in 2011 - when things were infinitely less F*cked than they are now - I had to ask myself, might I not need something like this now? Might I not benefit from exposure to something all-powerful and brimming with, of all things, hope?
It was with that in mind that I hit play on James Gunn's Superman laster that day.
All I can say is, always happy to be proven wrong.
In my defense, I have long answered the friends who assured me this film was great and that I was missing out with a patented, "I know it's great, I just don't care." So I simply reached a point in my lfie when I do care, and the film definitely worked its magic on me.
My good friend Chris Saunders asked me to elaborate what I liked about the film and I rattled off the following list:
- That Nick Hoult's Lex Luthor was clearly designed to look like Grant Morrison was the film's evil doer
- That Coresweat somehow managed to avoid all the stupid foibles all other good-natured attempts at Supes have fallen prey to (from what I saw in Snyder's Batman V. Superman, his wasn't good-natured or cloddish, he (and Snyder) just had too much to prove by taking the chacter dark.
- That Rachel Brosnahan was born to play the role of Lois Lane
- That Gunn cast Wendell Pierce as Perry White
- That Edi Gathegi's Mr. Terrific stole every scene he was in
- That Nathan Fillion's Guy Gardner cut and attitude were spot on
- That Pruitt Taylor Vince played Pa Kent
- The Monkeys!
- "Thanks, bitch!"
Honestly, I'm shocked how much I liked this, but I'm not sure why. Apparently, my love of James Gunn far outweighs my detestation of Superman as a character.
For more, Mike and I discuss the film at length in the latest episode of Drinking with Comics, which I'll embed here in a few hours when it posts to youtube.
* So proud that my long-time friend Cap'm Jack once cut KR's tires in a Michigan venue parking lot! I loved that story at the time - back when this cunt was first getting national exposure - but I love it even more now.
Playlist:
Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow
Drab Majesty - Careless
Mr. Bungle - California
Mr. Bungle - Disco Volante
Mr. Bungle - Eponymous
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity
Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol.1
Mountain Realm - Rustborn
Mountain Realm - Frostfall
Atrium Carceri - Kapnobatai
David Lee Roth - Crazy from the Heat EP
David Lee Roth - A Little Ain't Enough
Helmet - Aftertaste
Blut Aus Nord - Ethereal Horizons
Corrosion of Conformity - Deliverance
sunn O))) - Glory Black (pre-release single)
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XVII: The Star
• XX: The Aeon
• XXI: The Universe
The reason I waited to discuss this was so I could have already talked about James Gunn's Superman, Grant Morrison's Super Gods, and this idea that I might be able to use these larger-than-life characters to help assuage the fears and neuroses.
The Star - thinking bigger can act as cleansing. The figure on the card is literally washing themself in the rivers of cosmic confidence.
The Aeon - Pass from one ruling paradigm to another, or it's never too late to change, no matter how difficult it is. No matter how big a change it requires.
The Universe - Think macrocosmic, not microcosmic.
I'm going to pursue an interest in superheroes again - especially Superman - as a way to try and tip the scales and shake off some of the unhealthy mental 'doom plaque' that's built up since, oh, 2016. I'm going to read and enjoy in an active, not a passive manner, where I imagine the foes the super gods are fighting are the foes to the healthy world I want to inhabit, both in my head and outside the walls of my house. It might be a fool's errand, but it's what Superman would do. (since when do I say things like that? Well, maybe it's time I incorporated that kind of thinking into my life.)
