H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival 2016 San Pedro

SUPER happy to be able to promote this. I've gone two other times and both were fantastic - really looking forward to this year! If you're unfamiliar with the H.P. Lovecraft Film Fest and are a Lovecraft fan you can read my review of the first one I attended here to get an idea of the level that this fest takes it to. And as good as that initial experience was, my subsequent one was about ten times better, so that's really saying something. This fest improves exponentially with every passing year. And honestly, it's just a great round-up of Weird and Horror culture, as well as being a great time to boot, whether you're an HPL fan or not.

Among the vendors this year I happen to know that Josh Finney and Kat Rocha will be representing the wonderful 01 Publishing. Josh and Kat were our guests on the live stream of Drinking w/ Comics #31 last night and they were awesome! 01's line-up is kind of a dream come true for Lovecraft/Weird/Cyberpunk fans and if that sounds great or even the littlest bit titillating, I suggest you make an intro to their world with Josh and Patrick McEvoy's Casefile: Arkham "Nightmare on the Canvas", which made it into my top comics of 2015 and is an exhaustively researched mash-up of Lovecraft mythos and Noir.  Another great entry to the 01 world would be the Lovecraft-inspired prose anthologies Whispers From the Abyss, volume 2 of which is available in digital right now here or can be pre-ordered in print here. I only just got my hands on Vol. 1 and it looks fantastic and features stories by Josh, Kat, Silvia Moreno-Garcia as well as many others. And Vol. 2 features a story by one of my favorite writers ever, the inimitable Mr. Laird Barron.

Drinking w/ Comics #30!

The new Drinking w/ Comics is up! King Harbor Brewing from Redondo Beach very generously sponsored this episode where we welcome Jenny Wenger, Curtis Fortier and Chris Saunders to talk about their recent performances in The Comic Bug's Development Hell performance of Joss Whedon's abandoned Wonder Woman script!

Twelve Sided Die!

Love this!

In the forthcoming Drinking w/ Comics #30 one of our guests was/is Curtis Fortier, stand-up comedian, writer, actor... jack of all entertaining trades on infinite Earths. He dropped a mention of this web series he wrote and starred in and I finally got around to watching it this evening. I love it and can't wait for more.

Drinking with Comics #29

I forgot to post this here when it went up. Ruben Gerard, creator of the wonderful Penny Strikes is the guest, Monkish, Anchor and Inland Empire beer is consumed and a good time talking about an artist's process, comics and caricatures is had by all!

Drinking w/ Comics #30 on Monday, January 18th...

...at 7:30 PM, streaming Live from Manhattan Beach's The Comic Bug, the best damn comic shop in So Cal! Our guests will be several of the cast of the Bug's recent live table read of Joss Whedon's Wonder Woman script. D w/C is excited to welcome Jennifer Wenger - to you that's Wonder Woman! - Curtis Fortier - aka Steve Trevor - and sound designer extraordinaire Chris Saunders (also upright bass player for the inimitable Thirsty Crows and the man who designed this beee-ooo-tiful flyer!)

 If you haven't watched/heard the read you can watch it on youtube here or on iTunes. Steaming of Dw/C issue #30 will be available on the Dw/C youtube channel here, or like us on Facebook and watch for the live link to magically appear around 7:30 PM on Monday, January 18th.

Huzzah!

Drinking w/ Comics #28

Special thanks to Movie Pilot's Editor At Large Alisha Grauso for returning to talk all things comics (and beer) with us! Topics include but are not limited to Netflix/Marvel's Jessica Jones and the comic it's based on, the upcoming Dr. Strange movie, Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Marjorie Liu's gorgeous comic Monstress, Star Wars: Vader Down, Tango Unlimited Comics' Descent of the Dead and Goose Island Brewing's new Farmhouse Ale Halia.

Drinking w/ Comics - Vader Down

Here's a quick glimpse at upcoming Drinking w/ Comics #29 where Mike explain why you HAVE to read Marvel's Vader Down.

Drinking with Comics #27

Issue #27 of Drinking with Comics is up! Special guests Pinguino Kolb, Robert Walker (Cuddli) and Damphyr (The Drunken Fandom) discuss dating in the geek world, fan-inspired cocktails and a whole bevy of books including but not limited to The Weirding Willows, Dave Crosland's Ego Rehab, Rat Queens, Always Raining Here and Skottie Young's I Hate Fairyland. Check it out and if you dig it please subscribe to our Youtube channel!

Drinking w/ Comics #26 - the Halloween Issue!

Mike and I really get into swapping scary comics recommendations: Mike Mignola's Jenny Finn and Batman/Lovecraft mash-up The Doom that Came to Gotham; Tomb of Dracula; Jason Martin and Bill McKay's Night of the 80s Undead; Alan Moore's Swamp Thing; Joe R. Lansdale's Jonah Hex and The Drive In, and the Vertigo Comics' adaptation of William Hope Hodgson's insanely creepy House on the Borderland it's kind of like Fall of the House of Usher with Malevolent Pig monsters!). Also, we drink Ninkasi Brewing's Dawn of the Red India Red Ale and their Sleigh'r Imperial Pumpkin Ale and talk a bit about the new Marvel re-launch.

Drinking w/ Comics Issue #24

About time, eh? Yes, Drinking with Comics has been on hiatus but we are back! Issue #24 is up and we are filming/streaming issue #25 tomorrow night 7:00 PM Pacific Time!

Topics of discussion in #24 include but definitely are not limited to: James Robinson and Greg Hinkle's brilliant Airboy, Marvel's 70s pulp fantasy throwback Weirdworld (in which some of the characters from Crystar the Crystal Warrior make an appearance), Harley Quinn and Power Girl fending off Vartox's advances, the sinking feeling the Juggaloker gives Shawn, how awesome Oscar Isaac is when NOT in Fox's terribly laughable Apocalypse make-up and a whole host of other stuff. All while we wet our whistle with Magic Hat Brewing's tasty Night of the Living Dead variety pack!

Drinking w/ Comics #23

In which Mike Wellman and I talk about Chip Zdarky's new book Kaptara, the fact that Archie Comics has pretty much said, "Fuck it" and done another insane crossover book called... wait for it... Archie vs. Predator (AvP for the ironic class), Becky Cloonan, Andy Belanger and Leigh Loughridge's BRILLIANTLY creepy Southern Cross, Optic Nerve #14 and the Dark Horse, 1989 Predator mini series that definitley should have been used as the template for the 1990 Predator 2 which, let's face it, was terrible except for the Alien skull Danny "I can't act" Glover finds in the Predator's ship at the end.

All that and we drink Uinta Brewery's gorgeous Sum'r Ale, Ol' Burro's Favorable Stout and a few Fat Tires for good measure!

Quiet.

Last night at the taping/streaming of the new issue of Drinking w/ Comics I met Joey, the drummer for a band named Quiet. who hail from the Southbay. Great guy. In the midst of a languid morning of headache and music I managed to remember Quiet. has a bandcamp. I'm glad I did - these guys are great. Support some independent music and give yourself a powerful slap in the speakers at the same time. Given one word to describe Quiet.'s music I would say sonic, which should be enough to get some of you to pull the trigger and give them a spin.

Faith No More on the Tonight Show

Okay, I was trying very hard not to listen to any songs off of next Tuesdays' FNM record Sol Invictus but I'll admit I've slipped. Now, as of a few days ago the album is streaming in its entirety on NPR - I've managed to resist that because I've really been looking forward to making this a "Day it's released" record store trip to Fingerprints in Long Beach. Day of acquisitions aren't the easiest events to plan and pull off these days, what with the internet being our dread overlord and master, however I've always been one to cherish the experience of first hearing a new album by a band I love as a whole entity and not fragmented songs, so I sometimes have to fight pretty hard against the net and myself in this age of media frenzy. Spoilers, early releases and bootlegs wait around every corner of our increasingly virtual world. And because of this that fight for a perfect first listen has increasingly required me to do things that are sometimes baffling to others, i.e. driving around with QOTSA's ... Like Clockwork for almost a day without ever listening to it in the spring of 2013, or running from a room at work when the lead single off of NIN's Hesitation Marks dropped that same year. That said, when the first song off Faith's first album in 18 years dropped last November I couldn't help myself - I jumped on it right away. I mean, 18 years.

18 YEARS. Shessh.

Since Motherfucker though, I've tried to avoid all the subsequent tracks as they've surfaced, officially (Superhero) or unofficially (any of the live performances captured by concertgoers that have been appearing in varying degrees of quality for about the last year). Then a few weeks ago my co-host on Drinking with Comics Mike Wellman and I saw Faith at LA's Wiltern Theatre and afterward, pumped from the show and hammered from an endless quaff of ale, Mike played me a leak of the entire album. I protested and he ignored - as I said we'd been drinking so I was crashing at his pad and thus, I really didn't have a choice. I mean, I guess I could have left the room but we still had a few bottles of Sierra Nevada we'd picked up as a night cap and the fridge was in listening distance of his stereo so you know, what could I do?

In the end I remember next to nothing of this first, premature experience with Sol Invictus except that I liked what I heard and likened it to the next logical step after 1997's Album of the Year; like Bauhaus in 2006 or The Pixies in 2014 FNM seems to have perfectly picked back up where they left off. And although I've had moments of weakness, due to a pretty memorable night - or not memorable I guess - I've kind of been granted a second chance for that uninterrupted, environment-controlled first listen I'll get to have next Tuesday when the first album in 18 years from one of my all-time favorite bands - a band I really didn't think we'd ever get another album from - drops.

Life is good. And to prove it, here's Faith on the Tonight Show a couple days ago. The Tonight Show? Did they ever score that gig back in the day?

Drinking with Comics #22 - now with DJ KIRKBRIDE!!!

Join us as we drink Modern Times Brewery's spectacular beer and talk to comic writer DJ Kirkbride about Amelia Cole, Never Ending, The Bigger Bang, co-writing, the evolution of writing comics and that pesky Batgirl/Joker cover controversy that was such a big deal a couple of weeks ago!

Faith No More/Mr. Bungle Comic Book!

Mike Wellman, my good friend and co-host on Drinking with Comics, along with artist extraordinaire Matt Jacobs have a Faith No More/Mr. Bungle comic coming out in June. It's the history of the bands written from a "fan's eye view" and from what I've seen so far, this is a must for any Patton fan!

Drinking w/ Comics issue #19

For issue 19 we filmed at Torrance, California's newest and best independent book store, The Book Frog! And, here's the kicker - the green wall we sat in front of was so perfect Joe.Baxter suggested we use it as a green screen. I think you may agree that it turned out wonderfully!

Drinking with Comics #14

Special guest Daniel Pickett, the Action Figure Insider and co-host of Geek Shall Inherit!

Drinking with Comics Half-Pint

New Half-Pint entry into our 'micro-series' where we discuss Eric Powell's The Goon, his collaboration with John Carpenter on the Big Trouble In Little China sequel book from BOOM! Studios and, er, social ills and how pouring beer on yourself can help them...?

Drinking w/ Comics #12

Had a great time doing this one! Jessica was truly gracious, the Lost Coast Brewery Downtown Brown has replaced every other Brown Ale as my favorite and the Rick Remender drinking game is officially retired!

Drinking with Comics Issue #11

Drinking with Comics issue #11 is up! Our guests are Aspen Comics' Vince Hernandez and Siya Oum, talking about there new books - respectively - Damsels in Excess and LOLA XOXO, as well as SDCC 2014, variant covers, gas masks and, um, beer.

Of course.