Some old school Canadian Thrash from Annihilator to punch us in the face and remind us it's Friday! From the 1990 album Never, Neverland. This one takes me back to the days of dubbing random tracks off 88.3 WXAV, St. Xavier University's radio show. So many great musical discoveries.
Watch:
Wow - I did not expect to find a trailer for Deathgasm II today!
Really interesting setup for a sequel. I like the Ghostbusters II, "Nothing worked out for us after we saved the world," angle. And the idea of having an undead, flesh-eating zombie in your metal band is, well, how did no one ever think of that before?
Not sure if this one is going to be in theatres or not, but one can hope.
NCBD Addendum:
Walking into Rick's Comic City yesterday, I had zero idea that David and Maria Lapham had a new series from Image hitting the shelves this week.
A crime comic with a small-town scope, the first issue of Good As Dead sets a pretty mean stage. We meet the Valade Family, who run the local criminal enterprises and own the bridge that puts the small border town of Port Lindon on the map. In the other corner, we meet Sheriff Calhoun, who wants nothing more than to put down the Valades. We get the intimation that the Calhouns and Valades are two of the town's founding families, with something of a Haffield/McCoy history between them. After a couple of catastrophic events play out, Sheriff Calhoun doubles down on getting justice, especially when a pretty severe turn of events leaves him with little more than a week to live...
So yeah, this is going to be great!
This has that Lapham, modern Southwest Noir flavor BIG TIME, and was a joy to read. There can sometimes be a bit of a disconnect with the Laphams' story compression techniques, but their stuff always wins me over in the end, so here's to at least two more issues (hopefully more, that's all that has been solicited thus far).
Playlist:
Jim Williams - Possessor OST
Jim Williams - Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched OST
The Divine Comedy - Promenade
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
The Soft Moon - Eponymous
Night Sins - Portrait in Silver
Joy Division - Substance
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
Joy Division - Closer
Joy Division - Still
Inter Arma - Garbers Days Revisited
Ilsa - Preyer
Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain
Deftones - private music
Annihilator - Never, Neverland
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Also, if you head over to Grimm's Kickstarter HERE you'll see his upcoming The Eldritch Lace Tarot Deck, you can hit the "notify upon launch" button and then you can get on this seriously unbelievably awesome deck.
• Four of Swords
• Five of Cups
• Queen of Swords
Rest and recuperate after a major disappointment. Doing so may force honesty where before there was none.
Not vague at all. I don't really want to go into it, but I'm reading the 'rest' as holding off on sending a pretty sensitive email until tomorrow morning, when I was going to send it tonight. Never really a good idea to send a sensitive email in the middle of the night with a couple beers in you.
I randomly stumbled across the Netherlands on Apple Music a few days ago, and they immediately became a driving force in my musical day-to-day. This album ROCKS! Check out Netherlands' Bandcamp HERE and their physical media HERE.
NCBD:
Hot damn! It's NCBD! Let's see what I'm bringing home from Rick's Comic City tonight:
Batman: First Knight proved to be one of my favorite titles of the last few years, so I was excited to see we're getting a sequel. I love the oversized format and the 1930s, no-tech approach to Batman. What we get is a wonderfully lush period piece, dripping in Noir.
You know, Major Bludd has long been a favorite of mine. As a kid, I loved the original figure, but it wore out and never really got a proper update while I was still collecting, so it got pushed to the back burner by other favorites. And while there were some memorable moments with the character in Hama's comics, those too were early on, and ol' Sebastian Bludd didn't really exert a presence again until his failed attempt to impersonate Destro and take over his Scottish empire. Recently, I acquired the latest Classified version of Blud's figure, and I must say, the nice juxtaposition of receiving that figure and seeing this cover has me excited. He's been an integral part of the building of Cobra in this series, and I'm pretty happy with how much 'screen time' he's received. That might all implode this issue, as I'm wondering if he's going to make it out of this skirmish with The Baroness and Cover Girl alive.
Still really digging this book. Obviously, at least partially inspired by Rob Zombie's 31 - of which I seem to become more a fan of every October upon viewing - Exquisite Corpses differs in one big way. For a book about a bunch of competing homicidal maniacs dropped into a small town for a game of mass murder, this book is FUN! That's right, I said it. FUN! There's a palpable sense of dread at times, but it's often undercut with some pretty amusing peeks behind the curtain of the game and its players.
Anthology Horror at its finest, Oni's rejuvenation of EC Comics continues to thrill me each and every month.
Watch:
Honestly, all I needed to see of Yannis Veslemes and Dimitris Emmanouilidis's She Loved Blossoms More was the still image on the trailer's thumb, and I was sold.
No reason to risk ruining any surprises this one may have in store - I have a feeling there are many.
Playlist:
Hellbender - Hellbender OST
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
The Jesus Lizard - Rack
Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services
Netherlands - Vapors
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
Blood Incantation - Absolute Everywhere
Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race
Hall & Oats - Do What You Want, Be What You Are (Disc 3)
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Will Haven - Carpe Diem
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Also, if you head over to Grimm's Kickstarter HERE you'll see his upcoming The Eldritch Lace Tarot Deck you can hit the "notify upon launch" button and then you can get on this seriously unbelievably awesome deck.
• Eight of Pentacles
• King of Wands
• III: The Empress
Concentration. Yeah, it's at a premium these last few days. From the Grimoire: The purest manifestation of Fire in the deck, thus strong. Unchecked can be imbalanced. That's the concentration key. Imbalance. Now, let's try and tie those two cards to III: The Empress. Also from the Grimoire: " She is the inferior Garden of Eden, the Earthly Paradise, all that is symbolized by the visible house of man" - A.E. Waite.
How do I reconcile this? My problem at the moment? Too much social media. Luckily for me, it's like fast food - I don't use it much, so even a little can be too much. But I'm fairly certain that's what's killing my concentration. Remember all those epiphanies to start meditating again? Yeah, never happened. Would probably help.
When I say new, I should specify I am way behind on this one - looks like it dropped two weeks ago! Funny, as I just listened to Sound & Color for the first time in a while last week and had a moment of forlorn reflection that it's been ten years since that album was released. I don't know if this new track heralds an upcoming album, but I sure hope so.
Watch:
Where K and I would normally have seen The Long Walk on opening night this past Thursday, we had the opportunity to see John Carpenter's The Thing on the big screen (our second time) during Regal's Cine: A Month of Masterpieces. This series has me in awe: We're seeing Sunset Blvd tonight (also a second time on the big screen for us), I'm going to try like hell to see GDT's Pan's Labyrinth on Wednesday, then we have Psycho on Friday. And we're still in the second week of the month!!!
However, it's Francis Lawrence's The Long Walk I want to talk about right now. Adapted from a Richard Bachman - aka Stephen King - novella of the same name, with the adapted screenplay coming to us from JT Mollner, the Writer/Director of one of 2024's best films (Strange Darling), The Long Walk feels, in this moment, like the best adaptation of King's work to date. Ten years ago, that might have been a no-brainer until you stop to consider The Shawshank Redemption or Stand By Me (I've always heard The Green Mile is up there as well, but I haven't seen that one). But we've had a spate of pretty good adaptations over the last decade, top among them Mike Flanagan's Doctor Sleep and Gerald's Game. In the Tall Grass, and while I don't love the Andy Muschietti IT films, they're better than the original. Castle Rock - while not officially an adaptation of any one King story, is a super solid amalgam of his work. So we're light-years from the days of Langoliers and Needful Things. But The Long Walk feels like it has all of them beat.
I'm largely unfamiliar with Francis Lawrence's work as a Director. Yes, I've seen Constantine, and it puts me in a tough spot, as if they had not based that on John Constantine: Hellblazer, I would have loved it. Some fantastic images and ideas, but it just doesn't work with Reeves as JC and Chas being anyone but a hulking ex-Football hooligan. Other than that, though, looking at Lawrence's IMDB, I see he is mostly known for working with Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. I tried and couldn't get twenty pages into the first book, so I didn't even bother with the films, partially because the entire thing feels like a watered-down version of The Long Walk and Battle Royale. His history doesn't matter, though, because this film is excellent. A complete gut-punch in the best possible way, and King's knack for male camaraderie and how it can be a shortcut to major life epiphanies really shines through in this film. The characters are fantastic, and it hurts to see what happens to them. Cooper Hoffman confirms he is an excellent actor, following in his late father's footsteps, but David Jonsson - wow! In two movies (the other being Alien: Romulus, where he plays Andy, Rain's synthetic "brother"), he has demonstrated charisma and range that have me watching for his next film, genre or not.
I'd recommend catching this one in the theater. If you want to hear more, hit the widget at the upper right-hand side of this page for The Horror Vision's new episode, where we start with a spoiler-free review, then give ample warning before veering into a full-spoiler comparison between the book and the film. Also available on YouTube HERE.
Playlist:
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Hellbender - Hellbender OST
HEALTH - Ordinary Loss (pre-release single)
HEALTH - Rat Wars
David Bowie - Outside
Double Life - Indifferent Stars
Entropy - Dharmakāya
Deftones - private music
Godflesh - Streetcleaner
Blut Aus Nord - Shadows Breathe First (pre-release single)
Blut Aus Nord - Disharmoniu - Nahab
Dreamkid - Daggers
Faetooth - Labyrinthe
Alabama Shakes - Another Life (single)
Netherlands - Vapor
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Also, if you head over to Grimm's Kickstarter HERE you'll see his upcoming The Eldritch Lace Tarot Deck you can hit the "notify upon launch" button and then you can get on this seriously unbelievably awesome deck.
• Queen of Swords
• Six of Wands
• Page of Wands
A major creative period is happening, but it will take clear judgment to navigate.
I love when these are so spot on. I've been working pretty diligently on Shadow Play Book Two, and there are SO many ideas at play right now. So many historical themes to tie into this century-spanning saga, so it's an immense creative rush, but I have to keep asking myself, "How much is too much?"
In 2001 I saw one of my favorite shows ever at Whelans, possibly because I had just flown in to Dublin that morning and was running on adrenaline and lust for the Irish girl I'd flown across the world to visit. Not everything worked out great, but I got to see Damien Frost, New Prayer Breakfast, and another band I'm blanking on at the moment at one of the coolest venues I've been to. To find this Drug Church show posted from there was a blast, and it really just made me remember, A) how much I want to go back to Ireland and, B) how much I want to see Drug Church live.
Watch:
Last night, K and I got to see John Carpenter's The Thing on the big screen for the second time. This is a film that never fails to fill me with inspiration, to blow me away, to remind me just how amazing cinema can be. Also, how the greatest works of art are often not appreciated at first. The Thing bombed upon release; reflecting on that now, it seems unbelievable, but it's a fact. Kinda gives me a little hope.
Anyway, whenever I watch The Thing, I follow it up with Simon Gesrel's video for Zombie Zombie's Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free. It's almost as impressive as Carpenter's film (in a totally different way).
Playlist:
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Blackbraid - Blackbraid III
Joy Division - Still
Mastodon - Leviathan
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Dreamkid - Daggers
Nabihah Iqbal - Weighing of the Heart
Gram Rabbit - Music To Start A Cult To
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Sterolab - Oscillations From the Anti-Sun (disc 3)
The Jesus Lizard - Down
The Jesus Lizard - Rack
Cibo Matto - Viva! La Woman
Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Grimm's newest deck looks maybe even more awesome than The Hand of Doom (hard to believe, but I said it). Head over to his Kickstarter page for the upcoming The Eldritch Lace Tarot Deck and hit "Notify me upon launch." This looks amazing!
• Page of Wands
• Six of Pentacles
• Ten of Wands
Lots of Will being distracted by a perfect earthly set up. Seems like money getting in the way, like it always does.
Interesting. I found out yesterday the yahoos in the payroll department of the corporation that I work for neglected to set up the health care benefits I signed up for in 2025. Correction - they started taking the money out in January, then stopped in February. Now I owe over 1500. This fact has destabilized me with anger, and I'm fairly cetain that's what this pull is referencing.
I've been hearing this track a lot on my Peloton lately, and I really dig it. I have very little knowledge of Seal other than I dig the Rose song that became the ubiquitous Homecoming track in the '90s. My good friend Dave is a pretty big fan, and we share a lot of common music - everything from Cynic and Dillinger to Timberlake's first record. I may need to look a little harder at Seal.
Also, the lyrics really prove prescient to 2025, and this track was released in 1991. Damn!
NCBD:
Daniel Warren Johnson's final issue as writer of Transformers, and Skybound is making a hell of a big claim in the solicitation:
"This is it. And the new era of TRANSFORMERS begins with the most shocking ending to ANY comic book this year!"
I've already seen the cover they solicited for Transformers 25, and Optimus is on it. That said, if we look back at how Kirkman - who is taking over writing duties as of 25 - handled the end of The Walking Dead, we see that he's not adverse to soliciting fake covers to keep a mystery! I, for one, support that level of misdirection in the age of spoilers, and cannot wait to read DWJ's outro! What a fantastic run this has been!
CalExit returned last month after a nearly 8-year absence. It took me a few days to dig out my copies of the original series, and while I have them slated for a re-read soon, I haven't gotten around to that yet. Looks like next month's issue #3 is the final for this new series, so we'll see where it goes from there. I gotta say, I miss seeing Black Mask comics on the shelf. Let's hope this is the start of something.
The final issue of Blood Type. Can't wait to see how this shakes out - and what EC might have in store for us next!
Watch:
Bryan Fuller makes his Directorial debut this December 3rd with Dust Bunny.
I can tell you, I only watched the opening few seconds of this and I didn't need to watch any more. It's got that softly lit Bryan Fuller look, and that's enough for me.
Playlist:
Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses
Type O Negative - Origin of the Feces
Tones on Tail - Everything (Disc 2)
Windhand - Eponymous
Chasms - On the Legs of Love Purified
Perturbator - Age of Acquarius (pre-release singles)
Joy Division - Still
Year of No Light - Ausserwelt
Drab Majesty - An Object In Motion
Drab Majesty - Modern Mirror
Mastodon - Leviathan
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
Crystal Castles - II
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Six of Swords
• King of Swords
• King of Pentacles
Choose between Science and Money.
Some really tough, specfically vague readings lately.
From the ripping new album Blackbraid III, which is destined to be in my top ten of the year. Awesome video to boot - not too often I can say that. Order your copy of the album HERE.
Watch:
Somehow, it's probably been close to 20 years since I last watched my DVD copy of Caro and Jeunet's The City of Lost Children. It's amazing how, just like I wrote about rediscovering Man Man's Life Fantastic last summer, something I once loved so much could slip to the wayside and go so long without a viewing.
This film is still every bit as magical as it was the first time I saw it, circa the early 2000s. Released in 1995, the internet show the original, Sony Pictures Classics' DVD was first released in 1999, and I did not acquire my first DVD player until somewhere either near the end of 2000 or the beginning of 2001. This was one of the first DVDs I ever purchased, as the film had been covered in the Wrapped in Plastic David Lynch/Twin Peaks magazine due to Angelo Badalamenti providing the film's score, and all the stills and the write-up had me ravenous to see this film. Ron Perlman is fantastic as One, and all of the children are grand. What really steals the show, though, is the set design. This is a Steampunk Fantasy world unlike anything realized on film at the time. I'd argue that Caro and Jeunet's film is still one of the most unique visions I've had the pleasure of beholding, and I can only hope that, since this December marks the 30th anniversary of its original release, someone might hold a retrospective screening at one of the theatres in Chicago (cuz it ain't gonna play in Tennessee).
Read:
I am, frankly, all over the damn place with my reading at the moment.
While I've dedicated the remainder of my year for the written word to all the research I need to do for Shadow Play Book Two, I'm leaving comics/graphic novels as an outlet for pleasure reading. In 2024 I began a Sandman re-read that got me through the first three volumes, and now, since finishing Netflix's second season adaptation, I've knocked out Season of Mists and, this past weekend, A Game of You.
I'm fairly certain this is only the second time I've read this fifth collected volume of Sandman, so while I did remember it as I went along, Barbie and the cuckoo's story is nowhere near as familiar to me as the first three or four volumes of the series. One of the strengths of this series is its supporting cast, and that is on full display here, as Morpheus only appears twice, for a considerably shorter time than one might imagine for a book that carries his name.
Barbie's story was an interesting one to continue, a thread pulled from back in TheDoll's House, where we first met her living with Ken in the house where she and several other memorable characters acted as roommates to Rose during her search for her brother.
Of particular note here is Wanda's story. Although Netflix did use this character, they eschewed all of A Game of You, lifting her instead as a character in what would ultimately come from the "Dream and Delirium" road trip story from Volume 7: Brief Lives. I had zero problems with this change, and in fact, found Indya Moore's portrayal of the Wanda character quite affecting. It's important to note the different cultural contexts that distinguish the two versions of Wanda. In the comic, the character first appeared in The Sandman issue #32, published in September, 1991. The character is far more masculine here, despite their Transsexual disposition. That makes sense; the creators were no doubt playing off a cultural zeitgeist of the time, where trans people had a much harder time identifying in public and transitioning (not that they necessarily have it easy now, but I would think '91 would seem like the Dark Ages compared to cultural awareness today). Juxtapose that with Wanda in the show, who, in present-day New York, would have a considerably more established and possibly even 'mainstream' support network than the Wanda of 1991 would have ever had.
Playlist:
Deftones - private music
Blut Aus Nord - Shadows Breathe First (pre-release single)
Blut Aus Nord - Debermur Morti
Blut Aus Nord - 777: Cosmosophy
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Revocation - New Gods, New Masters (pre-release singles)
Chris Connelly - White Phosphorus (Chris Connelly Plays Throbbing Gristle)
Ruelle - Emerge
bunsenburner - Reverie
Russian Circles - Gnosis
The Cars - Eponymous
Godflesh - Post Self
Giraffe Tongue Orchestra - Broken Lines
Frank Sinatra - In the Wee Small Hours
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Three of Swords
• Ten of Pentacles
• IX: The Hermit
Introspection leads to unhappiness, but that unhappiness leads to long-term security.
Well now, that's a pickle, but it seems like something I should try and figure out, now doesn't it?
From the forthcoming album Ethereal Horizons, out on November 28th 2025 on the always epic Debemur Morti Productions. Pre-order HERE.
I am so psyched for this release!
Watch:
I've been picking at Alien: Earth for a little over two weeks now. From the moment I sat down to watch the first episode, I hated it. It's funny - I love Noah Hawley's Fargo series, or at least what I've seen of it (seasons 1, 2 and 5), but it seems like everything else I try from him just doesn't gel with me (I tried Legion a few years ago and also hated it). Despite the disconnect, though, this is Alien, and because of that, I have tried to hang in there the best I can, hoping for something to latch onto. This past Tuesday night, they delivered.
Big time.
Holy smokes, did this episode give me everything I wanted! True, I'm a bit disappointed they had to go back to the standard Alien formula of 'Xenomorph loose on a ship' to get there, but I don't care. This was fantastic, and it reaffirmed my hanging in there. Even if I hate the next three episodes, this one made it all worthwhile.
Most of my issues come from the show's heavy focus on Boy Kavaliar and his 'lost boys.' A cunty, twenty-something douche bag trillionaire and his host of synthetics that have had the consciousnesses of sick children uploaded into them. The concept is cool, and it works great with the premise of the show - that governments were done away with as functionless, archaic designs when 'five corporations' stepped up and took control of the globe. That's gotta be a Fugazi reference, right?
Granted, one of the things I probably have so much trouble with here is the fact that this all feels a bit too real. Corporate ownership has weighed heavily on my mind, and this is honestly exactly where I see us going. But the characters in this thread are all very unlikeable and, while that's surely the point, the show spends SO MUCH time with them. Then, when they give us some Alienness, it's akin to what happened in the second episode with the apartment full of rich c_nts partying in powdered wigs and getting slaughtered - off screen, btw - in what felt like an empty gesture; a softball pitch to keep us happy before they just went right back to almost exclusively following the trillionaire and his toys.
Episode four started to come around, and five just blew me away. Part of what I want to see so much more of are not just the Xenomorphs, but the other alien life forms they've introduced on the show. The Eyeball Kid, for instance, is my favorite new thing. Love this 'character' and am eager to find out more about it.
Playlist:
Steve Moore - VFW OST
Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST
Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power
Alabama Shakes - Sound & Color
Ghost - Infestissumam
Goblin - 2013 Tour E.P
The Dead Weather - Dodge and Burn
The Body - All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood
S U R V I V E - Mnq026
Fever Ray - Radical Romantics
Cibo Mato - Viva! La Woman
Blut Aus Nord - Debermur MoRTi (single)
Boy Harsher - Careful
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Three of Cups
• XVI: The Tower
• 0: The Fool
Three of Cups really kind of owns me at this point. I stopped putting individual card metadata in these posts a while ago, but I'm starting to think I should remedy that just to see if I'm wrong or if this card comes up like every three days. That's what it feels like, so let's look at the card a bit more in-depth than usual.
From Crowley's The Book of Thoth:
"This card refers to Binah in the suit of Water. This is the card of Demeter or
Persephone. The Cups are pomegranates: they are filled bountifully to overflowing from a single lotus, arising from the dark calm sea characteristic of
Binah. There is here the fulfillment of the Will of Love in abounding joy. It is
the spiritual basis of fertility.
The card is referred to the influence of Mercury in Cancer; this carries further
the above thesis. Mercury is the Will or Word of the All-Father; here its
influence descends upon the most receptive of the Signs.
At the same time, the combination of these forms of energy brings in the
possibility of somewhat mysterious ideas. Binah, the Great Sea, is the Moon in
one aspect, but Saturn in another; and Mercury, besides being the Word or Will
of the All-One, is the guide of the souls of the Dead. This card requires great
subtlety of interpretation. The pomegranate was the fruit which Persephone
ate in the realms of Pluto, thereby enabling him to hold her in the lower world,
even after the most powerful influence had been brought to
bear. The lesson seems to be that the good things of life, although enjoyed,
should be distrusted."
Abundance in Thoth, this card signifies good times and social connections, and Grimm did a great job illustrating that for his card. Mix this with The Tower - a change in paradigms, and the Fool, a new journey, and I'm thinking this may be telling me to make some new friends here in Tennessee, something I've had a relatively difficult time doing.
Mr. Brown sent this track to me at some point in the last week or two, and I'm just getting around to it now. Holy smokes! With a video directed by Writer/Director of 2014's Faults - fabulous film - Chat Pile and Hayden Pedigo have instantly captured my attention.
It's been a minute since I've talked about my growing fascination with Chat Pile here; I got into their 2022 debut full-length, God's Country, late, and their 2024 album Cool World just narrowly missed being incorporated into my best of list last year. Hayden Pedigo, on the other hand, I am not nearly as familiar with, despite a dalliance with their 2021 album, Letting Go, last year, courtesy of a recommendation from my cousin Charles.
The album, In the Earth Again, is due out October 31st and can be pre-ordered from Computer Students HERE.
NCBD:
As always, a lot of great stuff this week, so let's talk about what I'm bringing home for NCBD September 3rd, 2025:
Jason Aaron's TMNT continues to drop at a bi-monthly pace and I love him for it! A great relaunch of the 2012 IDW reboot that I'm so fond of that really shines as we follow the four brothers into the trials and tribulations of adulthood (Janika has her own book).
Look at that Mignola cover! This tenth issue of the anthological Savage Sword of Conan apparently begins a new mini-series that will run through all three tales in this issue, all penned by Jim Zub. While dipping into The Black Stone spin-off mini taught me to stick to what's in this main title, I'm here for whatever they have to say inside this bi-monthly mag.
Third story arc, "The Horror Men," comes to a close and Jeff Lemire and Gabriel H. Walta's Phantom Road goes back on hiatus, much to my chagrin. I love this book, and I'm always a bit blue during its off-seasons.
Revisiting Larry Hama's ongoing, now 43-year-long run on this G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero has been loads of fun and does not appear to be slowing down any time soon. Luckily, despite my card-carrying status as a completionist with comics, I feel zero urge to fill in the 150+ issues I missed that would connect the last time I picked up the Marvel iteration in 1994 and the first Image issue going on two years ago. That said, I have begun looking into filling in a few of the gaps for the central part of Hama's original Marvel run, eyeing connecting the dots that would give me a solid run from issue 26 through to issue 126. It's only seven issues, so I figured, why not?
And finally, a new re-start of the flagship Batman book being written by Matt Fraction? Definitely going to give this one a shot, as Hayden Sherman and Dan Watters' "Dark Patterns" is closing out in a few months and it's been so good, it's given me a taste for a regular Bat-book.
Watch:
Monday night K took control of the remote and picked a film I'd never heard of before, Phillip Kaufman's 1979 film The Wanderers.
First, check out this cast: Ken Wahl, Karen Allen, Dolph Sweet (!), Ken Foree, Linda Manz. The list goes on with a lot of people I recognized, but those are the heavy hitters to me. Ostensibly another "The American Teenagers of early 60s" story a la American Graffiti, The Outsiders, etc. The Wanderers does a pretty good job of adding to that pot with likeable characters and an intricate hierarchy of Street Gangs and the characters' allegiances/associations with them. Where this film really stuck in my head, though, is in three key scenes that introduce a definite Horror element. It dawned on me while watching the second of these scenes - a scene where a character stumbles into the Ducky Boys' territory - that this film may have been meant as a metaphor for the changes Hollywood underwent between the 1960s and 1970s.
First, the Elements of Horror.
The Ducky Boys appear in three scenes in this film. The first is while the main characters are driving and accidentally encroach on the Ducky Boys' side of town. The film takes place in the Bronx in 1963, and up until this key moment, it's a representation of NY in the 60s that's right in line with most of the other movies like this have painted. This, however... there's something so intentionally nightmarish and surreal about this scene that I was immediately taken aback. While watching, I assumed Kaufman had chosen this route to convey the 'we're out of our territory' fears of a teenager in the 60s whose entire world revolved around their block. Taking into account the next two scenes that feature the Ducky Boys—the one where a protagonist is killed while in their neighborhood, and the other, the climactic gang battle at the end of the film, which the film does a great job of subverting until the Ducky Boys arrive. It was a combination of these two scenes that led me to my second point. Is The Wanderers a cinematic metaphor for the changing American Film Zeitgeist in the 1970s?
The film goes from the streets-of-New-York, day-in-the-life Golden Age of Hollywood storytelling trope to the more epic, artistic weirdness of the New Hollywood era.
If this was intentional and not just me reading into things, The Wanderers is a piece of genius cinema that is content to masquerade as 'just another 60s West Side Story throwback.'
Somehow, I missed that The Body had a new album come out a few months back, even though by now I should know to expect a new release at least once a year. All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood is another challenging masterpiece from these guys, its majesty crystallized in this final track.
Watch:
I rewatched Toby Wilkins' 2008 film Splinter over the weekend. I had only ever seen this one once before, back when my good friend Grimm came out and visited me in 2011. He's the one who turned me onto this film, and rewatching it after so long, I had to message him a note of thanks. I don't know how I haven't rewatched this once more, but it's definitely on my permanent radar now.
The creature FX in this film are outstanding. Sure, the filmmakers are a bit coy with the camera on the monster at times, but that gives this really intense, "What the fuck did I just see?" feeling that helps to put you in the place of the characters. In fact, it's Nelson Cragg's camera work that makes me think of Samy Inayeh's work behind the lens on another creature-feature favorite of mine, Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski's 2011 masterpiece The Void. I'm writing this Saturday afternoon, and I'd wager by the time this posts on Tuesday, I'll probably have rewatched Kostanski & Gillespie's film, too.
Playlist:
Blut Aus Nord - The Mystical Beast of Rebellion
Blut Aus Nord - 777 - Sect(s)
Blut Aus Nord - Codex Obscura Nomina
Anthrax - Persistence of Time
Anthrax - Stomp 442
Deftones - private music
Ruelle - Emerge
Dead Man's Bones - Eponymous
Man Man - Life Fantastic
The Dead Weather - Dodge and Burn
The Body - All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood
Spectral Tilt - Sleepers (single)
lords. - Bleeding Out (single)
lords. - aven (single)
leaving_forever & stream_error - nobody home
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XVIII The Moon
• Three of Cups
• Knight of Cups
A lot of emotion can obscure what you're looking for.
Not sure how to read this one. Work-related? Maybe. Also, Thinking it might be for someone else, but who that would be, at this point, I'm not sure.
From the soundtrack to the new Darren Aronofsky film, Caught Stealing, which I was interested in seeing until I was subjected to the trailer before every movie I've seen at the theatre for the last month and a half. Still, great song. Always cool to get some new music from Idles!
Watch:
Stephen Kostansky's remake of Roger Corman's Deathstalker finally received a trailer and it. Looks. AWESOME!
In theatres October 10th, I am crossing my fingers I'll get to see this on the big screen!
Tracked a copy of Ryan Gosling and Zach Shields' 2009 Dead Man's Bones last night. Super excited. This is one of those weird, one-off records from the 00s that I adore but often forget about. With all the bands currently pulling their music from Streaming, I've been thinking a lot about musical sustainability. I've always preferred physical media, but have come to rely on streaming a lot over the past decade. I think a healthy mix of the two is the best way to navigate the world in 2025; however, the idea that some music could disappear from my life scares me terribly. This is one of those albums I need to make sure I always have access to, even if I don't access it a lot.
NCBD:
Huge pull this week. Damn! Let's get into it:
We're inching closer to the Quintesson War, and for those who don't see Void Rivals as a monthly Transformers book, you're wrong.
On the fence with this one-shot from Image. Here's the solicitation from League of Comic Geeks:
"A nightmarish terror once again haunts the shadowy woods of a small town community. Three young friends have to confront their own childhood fears, undead creatures that stalk the living, an enigmatic tree that seemingly collects souls, and an ancient forest entity that seeks to reclaim these lands as its own. It's Tom Sawyer meets Pan's Labyrinth meets It in this coming-of-age tale of redemption and courage in the face of pure evil."
Sounds fantastic, but it's already a tall week in the duckets column. We'll see.
I love Zander Cannon's Sleep so much that it's become one of my most anticipated reads every month.
Jeff Lemire's Minor Arcana continues to be one of the books I most look forward to each month. Not Horror, but more of a 'supernatural drama,' if you will. The idea of a real psychic taking over her fake psychic mother's psychic shop in a small, podunk town really resonates. Maybe it's the dabs of Seaside Horror that I pick up in this one, but it just feels so mysterious. Love it so much.
It's awesome to see this final iteration of Greg Rucka and Michael Lark's Lazarus come out on the nose every month. I've been buying these but not reading them, as I still have not begun my reread of the previous two series. That's coming soon, though!
JG Jones and Phil Bram's delightfully twisted Dust Bowl horror, Dust to Dust, returns. I'll admit that I'm going to require a re-read to move forward, but I look forward to revisiting this one. A very nuanced tale of Americana Horror that would make a great "double feature" with Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft's Severed.
While picking up issue 1 was something of a lark, so far, I'm enjoying this. Even though the importance of these "Death of" books is all self-invented and transient. Still, it's been a while since I read anything with the Surfer, so this five-issue mini-series is a nice dalliance with a character I've always admired from afar.
The final issue of this Black Metal piss-take. I've really enjoyed Dark Regards.
Watch:
Monday night I hit the local theatre for a re-release of 2013's The Conjuring. This is a flick I really liked when it came out, but that all the spin-offs and sequels had convinced me was no longer worth my time. My disdain for the handling of the property crept backward, and when I saw it would be on the big screen again, like I saw it the first time, I figured, let's give it a day in court, shall we?
Glad I did. James Wan's original The Conjuring 100% holds up as one of the best haunted house flicks of the modern era. Yes, the spin-offs and franchising has dragged the overall name down, but this first film... It's almost breathtaking at times with the sequences of sustained fear peppered throughout.
Here's short IG video I did to sum up how I felt directly after leaving the theatre Monday night.
The Body - All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Three of Cups
• VI: The Lovers
• XVII: The Star
Love brings abundance and a positive turning point. Oh boy. This may be directly related to something in Black Gloves and Broken Hearts. I can't say anymore at this point, but I may have to spend part of my writing time this afternoon addressing this.
I was taken aback when I saw Scott Ian's post recognizing that Persistence of Time came out 35 years ago yesterday. I mean, I remember buying that cassette like it was yesterday. Persistence was my first Anthrax album, and I bought it the year it came out, 1990. Since then, it has always remained my favorite of the band's records.
Watch:
I rewatched Michael Sarnoski's Pig this past Saturday night. What a fantastic film!
First, Cinematographer Pat Scola photographs the Pacific Northwest in a way that really sends me there. You can practically smell the trees and feel the misting rain. Even the neighborhoods come alive with an extra dimension - the brief scene where Cage's Robin revisits his old home really put me there, on the sidewalk along the side of the house, into the backyard.
Alexis Grapass and Philip Klein provide a score that is wondrous - it moves through the different scenes of the city and moods of the characters in a way that really enhances the performance without ever dictating emotion. And emotion is where Nick Cage comes in. There's something starkly beautiful about his sorrow and persistence. Robin is motivated by love and loss, and I feel that so acutely that my eyes harbor tears for most of the film.
Alex Wolf and Adam Arkin are no slouches, either. Both have an arc that moves me in a secondary way to Cage's story, so that it all comes together in one of those simple films that feels so robust, as though it can encompass every emotional state of the human experience.
Read:
With secondary hype from the Fantastic Four film I'll probably never see, I'd gotten back around to thinking about the mid-80s Walt Simonson run on the book. I didn't read it at the time, but I was very aware of it all throughout my burgeoning comic book-collecting years, which really hit hyperdrive in 1986, the same year Simonson took over "The World's Greatest Comics Magazine."
As I said on a recent Drinking with Comics, I was a total Marvel Zombie as a child, and I bought into the hype on the FF even if I didn't have the allowance to venture into reading it. So over the years, while I've grabbed an issue here or there, I've never had a concentrated plan of attack for going back and reading some of that stuff.
Until now.
I finally pinned down Simonson's first issue as Writer and Artist and started there, snagging a copy of #337 off eBay a few weeks ago. I wasn't sure how this would read to my eyes in 2025, but I needn't have worried; Into the Time Stream is a fantastic jumping-on point, as well as a great example of Simonson's art and writing complementing each other. The issue is heavy on the 80s Marvel time-travel talk, but honestly, it all sounds very modern. The terminology reminded me a lot of reading Grant Morrison circa 2000. And the thing is, Simonson's art matches that heady, scientific approach perfectly!
I feel like, when you stop to consider the image above, you see how adept Walter Simonson is as an artist of the abstract. This image really sells the "mumbo-jumbo" Reed Richards spouts in this issue, and helps us 'buy into' the weird, fringe science as a reality because, hey, we can see it right there. Similarly, I love this panel as well, where the FF and their Avengers counterparts enter the 'time bubble' from an unknown future that has jeopardized their present.
Even though I didn't read his run on FF until now, Walter Simonson's art was among the first I marveled at outside of 80's G.I. Joe comics because he did a big stint illustrating his wife Louise's run as writer on X-Factor, the first X-Book I picked up. I dug a few of those out this weekend as well. It's cool to really dip back in on his 80s work - both what I know and what I don't - and celebrate one of the artists that made me the comic fan I am.
Playlist:
Deftones - private music
Testament - Infanticide A.I. (pre-release single)
Testament - The New Order
Testament - Titans of Creation
Walter Rizatti - House By the Cemetery OST
Sam Cooke - One Night Stand! Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Page of Swords
• VIII: Strength
• Six of Swords
When attacked on Earthly grounds, the Strength of Science will be the best defense.
Okay, that's pretty vague from the outside looking in, but I'm picking up what these 70s Wizard cards are putting down. To fight a good fight, keep emotional responses from poisoning logic.
