New Music From Beth Gibbons!!!

 

Holy smokes - new music from Beth Gibbons! Interesting synchronicity, as I cracked out Henryk Gorecki: Symphony No. 3 Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs for the first time in a while. Gibbons' voice is legendary, and I'm into pretty much anything she does, so the fact that this new solo album, Lives Outgrown, drops on May 17th on Domino Records is very good news indeed. Pre-order HERE.

Man, this sounds a lot like something that could have fit into Portishead's Third. Love that!!!

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Watch:

I want to watch this trailer for Late Night With the Devil SO F*&KING BAD. Not going to do it, though.

Opening in theatres on March 22nd, this is one that, if my local Regal doesn't get it, I will travel for. I've really grown to love David Dastmalchian - his performance in The Last Voyage of the Demeter blew me away, as I did not even realize it was him until well after the movie ended - and I've just generally become a fan of everything he does. His comic Count Crowley - about a TV Horror Host - makes me incredibly happy (what I've read of it, that is), and his brief appearance in Rob Savage's The Boogeyman ranked as possibly the best performance in a movie full of them. Couple all that with the little bit I know about Late Night with the Devil's concept (not much), and I'm practically frothing at the mouth for this one. No reason then, to let possible oversaturation of the trailer ruin anything for me.

 

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Read:

I am happy to report I was totally blown away by the first issue of Simon Spurrier, Aaron Campbell and Jordie Bellaire's new Hellblazer series, John Constantine Hellblazer: Dead in America.

Full disclosure: I haven't read the previous two volumes of Spurrier's Hellblazer. In fact, I haven't really read any new John Constantine material since, well, long before the original Vertigo series ended. I've picked up a few number ones since the title was brought back under the "Sandman Universe" umbrella - the new sub-heading for DC's Black Label that basically indicates, "Former Vertigo Glory Days Title," because I definitely think Constantine - while I LOVE the character - is really only done a disservice by an ongoing title. So I'm reading Dead in America based on that idea, that I haven't checked in on a solely JC-focused title in years and am about due for a fix. This proved perfect because it incorporates Dream of the Endless in a story setup that takes us all the way back to John's encounter with the previous iteration of Dream in the very first Sandman storyline. Very cool way to bring things back around and give it a nostalgic twist that felt more story-driven than story-derivative. 

This looks to be a four-issue series, and I'll be sticking around for the duration, so you'll definitely hear more about this one. 

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Playlist:

Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon

Genghis Tron - Board Up the House

Various Artists - Learn to Relax: A Tribute to Jehu

Alice Donut - Dry Humping the Cash Cow

Witchfinder - Forgotten Mansion

Beth Gibbons - Henryk Gorecki: Symphony No. 3 Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• King of Wands

• Ace of Swords

•XVIII - The Moon

The King (or Prince in Thoth) of Wands is the Airy aspect of Fire - Drive and motivation. The Ace of Swords (what my mind keeps seeing as the Ace of Spades this morning) is a Breakthrough. Enlightenment. seeing Clearly or the intellect as a bridge to the unconscious mind. The Moon is something occulted, i.e. what am I not seeing. All of this is commentary on the last 12 hours and money situations, not bad, just seeing things clearly (which I don't always do in regards to the cheddar).

John Constantine and the Fifth Patio

 

My good friend Mr. Grez recently introduced me to Maldita Vecindad y Los Hijos del Quinto Patio, or from what I'm seeing, more commonly shortened simply to Maldita Vecindad. This band is fantastic; they kind of run all over the place, but for an elevator pitch I might simply go with - from the few songs I know so far - Los Amigos Invisibles meets the Blue Meanies. Check this song out, which in particular was the impetus for me pulling out the Meanies late last week.

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Read:

It's been difficult to log anything in this particular segment of late because I've literally been drowning in the written word (a nice way to go, eh?). From the early 90s Fantaco Night of the Living Dead graphic novel adaptation series (thanks, Butcher!), to Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, to weekly issues of the monthly series I follow, to the last-minute Bernie Wrightson/Kelley Jones re-reads I flew through over the weekend as prep for Chris Saunders and I sitting down with Jones to discuss Wrightson on the newest episode of A Most Horrible Library, I've been in and out of so many continuities lately that my heads started to spin a bit.

But something I've casually commented on over the last month or so that's percolating into a full-on reread is the old Hellblazer series. 

Although I was already in the middle of a slow crawl through Jamie Delano and John Ridgway's original arc collected in Original Sins, I went and reread perhaps Constantine's most iconic arc, the Garth Ennis and Will Simpson's Dangerous Habits. This was seasonal reading - the story I went to over a few pints of Guinness on St. Paddys last week. I finished it last night, and really felt a different aspect of the story resonate with me this time, and that's John's relationship with Matt. 

This relationship is extremely poignant in the Constantine evolution because it's one of (if not the first) time in the series that we see John make a new friend, and how because of how he's let down or betrayed so many of his other, old school friends, we see what Matt's friendship means to him, how he comes down on himself in such a brutal fashion when he gets a new lease on life and realizes he may have forgotten about Matt. This B-story is honestly more emotionally fulfilling than the iconic (and still awesome) Constantine cheats the Devil one in the foreground, and it's something that I don't really think made as big an impact on me back in the day as it does now.

From here, I'm going to continue through Original Sins, however, a full-on Ennis/Dillon reread is imminent at this point, now that my appetite for Ennis' particular take on the character has been reawakened.

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Watch:

Patreon is a slippery slope. I launched one for The Horror Vision recently, mostly because last year, I found out there is another guy out there using our podcast name. We've had the name (and the .com) since October 2018; he started his almost a full year later. He also very obviously realized there was already a podcast with the same name when he went to buy the website and saw ours (his website is a derivation). At any rate, I don't really bear this person any ill will, however, I find it a little perplexing and frustrating that he wouldn't just, you know, come up with another name. So, after discovering all this, I immediately went and branded everything I could think of with our name, Patreon being one of the big ones.

But do we, The Horror Vision, as a podcast, do anything that warrants someone paying to support us on this platform? At the moment, no. I'm slowly working on getting some things off the ground that will make me better about occupying this space - the Patreon exclusive Podcast Elements of Horror is coming SOON - but in the meantime, I just feel weird about even having it. I mean, I don't even totally understand Patreon. Or, at least I didn't until I subscribed to Jeremy Haun's.

Now, this is nothing against Jonathan Grimm, whose Patreon I subbed to some time ago. John's one of my favorite artists working today, a frequent collaborator, and one of my best friends, so it's different. But Jeremy is someone who I met as a fan, and, I think, hit it off with over the course of a podcast interview so that, while I don't know that we're 'friends' exactly yet, we're friendly. And Jeremy's mind, the narrative work he creates, it just has me. The Red Mother was a unique and completely enthralling experience to read; having the opportunity to pick Jeremy's brain about it (and a hundred other things) was a pleasure and one that made me think I would absolutely benefit from supporting him on the Patreon platform. Turns out, I was right.

Just the Haunthology stuff alone fills my heart with the jet-black glee I love so much. Jeremy's is a narrative with ongoing, far-reaching continuity, and that's my favorite thing. Literally. The video above should help demonstrate that. I guess this is probably coming off as a sales pitch for Jeremy's Patreon, and I guess to some degree it is, because I just spent a wonderful hour immersing myself in it and feel completely elated, the way I do when I sit down and read a full arc by David Lapham, or a Hellblazer trade, or watch a great movie. And those are always going to be the things I want to tell other people about on here, because I like to spread the word. Works for the creator, works for the consumer. Literally, win-win.

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Playlist:

Drab Majesty - Modern Mirror

Genghis Tron - Board Up the House

Pailhead - Singles

Primitive Man - Immersion 

Steve Moore - The Mind's Eye OST

Sunn O))) - Kanon

Steve Moore -  VFW OST

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Card:

I have always loved the colors in this card. The rocky, pixelated backdrop and the emerald symmetry of the image in the foreground work together so well to create this feeling of order over chaos, which of course, is the nature of a truce.

 

This is the truce within myself that I have to navigate in the midst of the, frankly, insane workload I've created in my life. It's a constant energy drain to dodge and weave between projects, but there's no other way I can do things at this point. I believe it's how I've stayed sane during this trying time.

Happy St. Paddy's - Again!

 

Been drinking, felt the need to post. I was going to watch an Irish Horror Flick tonight, instead I think I'll round out the evening reading old Garth Ennis Hellblazer issues.

Isolation: Day 172 Jeremiah Sand's long lost Album

 Well, I would have never expected to be posting a track off Jeremiah Sand's debut album Lift It Down, out October 30th on Sacred Bones Records. You can pre-order this psyche-folk insanity HERE. 

I'll probably be skipping this one, however, I definitely appreciate the ridiculous level of detail that's gone into pulling this from the fictional world of Mandy into our own.

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NCBD: 

Not a lot out today. However, chomping at the bit for this one after just reading issue two a week or so ago:

Next, there's a couple new books I'm curious about (I know, I know. Wasn't I the guy saying I was done buying monthlies just a few, well, months ago? Yeah). First up, Lonely Receiver from Aftershock comics. Written by Zac Thompson, one of the two writers of Her Infernal Descent, which I loved, and art by Jen Hickman. This one sounds really interesting and taps into something I've been meaning to write a story about myself: AI life mate dolls. 

From the solicitation: 

"Catrin Vander, a lonely video producer, buys an Artificial Intelligence partner that's meant to bond for life. After ten years together, her holographic wife suddenly discon-nects without a warning. The breakup drives Catrin to the point of near insanity. She's alone for the first time in years and reeling from a loss she can't comprehend. Set in the new future, drenched in pastels and sunshine, LONELY RECEIVER is a horror/breakup story in five parts."  

Sound good? Yeah, I think so, too. 

Finally, I've always been hesitant to engage with any of the newer iterations of the John Constantine books that DC has put out over the years. Constantly starting/restarting, renaming, endless turnover on of the moment creative teams - what's all of it mean for a character as old and storied - and beloved - as John Constantine? Usually just a watering down of his legacy. 

That said, I have an interesting feeling about this one, perhaps based on the facts that, A) they've gone back to calling the book Hellblazer, B) it's a limited series, C) Darick Robertson.

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Playlist: 

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Oh Baby - The Art of Sleeping

Jawbox - For Your Own Special Sweetheart

Opeth - Blackwater Park

Windhand - Eternal Return

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Card: 

 

Four chapters into Shadow Play Book Two, and yeah, it's a new journey alright. This is the first book I've written off an outline - a comprehensive outline whose word count may actually end up rivaling that of the finished product. I've been having back issues, so I'm by the time this post goes up, I've probably taken the day off work and am hip deep in writing.

2018: April 11th 7:12 PM

Last night we went and saw A Quiet Place. I can't stress this enough: SEE IT IN THE THEATRE. A theatre with GOOD sound. Excellent film, and outstanding use of sound. The score is a bit overdone early on, but the juxtaposition between quiet, i.e. ambient sound, and quiet, i.e. NO sound (one character is deaf), and sound, like BIG sound, is just fantastic and makes for an awesome theatrical experience.



Playlist from yesterday:

Venue - 8 song demo (circa 2001)
Preoccupations - New Material
Soft Moon - Eponymous
Isaac Hayes - ... To Be Continued
The Who - Who's Next

Just finished Si Spencer and Sean Murphy's John Constantine Hellblazer trade City of Demons. Excellent late-era Constantine story, highly recommended. Has a marvelous climax and then a nice, cinematic outro.

Also, read what had to be my favorite story in the Ligotti Anthology, The Cocoons. Short, sweet and to the point. Body horror with a nightmare finish. Very atmospheric and creepy as all hell. If you've read it, or subsequently read it based on my recommendation, Ligotti himself comments on the story at the prompt of a question HERE.

Card for today (which, despite the late arrival of this entry, I pulled at 5 something this morning:

Professionally, this card can mean a willingness to scrap with others. This fits; I don't talk specific work stuff here, but there are people in other departments not living up to their responsibilities and I've taken to throwing down the gauntlet on them. Take care of your shit, right?

2018: April 1st 10:21 AM

Yesterday was a sacrifice - finished the latest Drinking with Comics and put it up, worked in the middle of the day, cleaned and unboxed. Never had a chance to do the blog until later at night and by then March 30th, it's playlist and the idea of pulling a card were loooong gone. I do know that I woke up with this in my head yesterday though:



Nearing the end of Thomas Ligotti's Grimscribe and just finished The Dreaming in Nortown, easily one of my favorite stories in this collection of the author's earliest two anthologies. The story builds a nice, palpable dread by plumbing the depths of consciousness; that nasty little place where waking life and the oneiric plane intermingle. And Ligotti does this in a way that feels reminiscent of Lovecraft's best philosophical terror, i.e. the opening paragraph of The Call of Cthulhu, so there's a nostalgic harmony to my enjoyment of it, as well. That said, the slightly ineffective abstractions meant to masquerade as profound raison d'être for the characters wax and wane a bit in a kind of 'nothing is happening' way; not to say I'm complaining there's no action or monsters, quite the opposite. Once again though, as I have with other stories in this collection, I feel the The Dreaming in Nortown's end doesn't exactly payoff what the rest of the story sets up.

Also recently began Si Spencer and Sean Murphy's older Hellblazer story, City of Demons. So far, really good.

Playlist from 3/31

Tennis System - Technicolour Blind
Cash Money - Black Hearts and Broken Wills
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - The Very Best of
Childish Gambino - Because the Internet
System of a Down - Eponymous
The Verve - A Storm in Heaven
Pink Floyd - the Wall
The Used - Ocean of the Sky
Garbage - Eponymous

Steve Dillon, 1962-2016

What a fucking shite day. Steve Dillon is responsible for the visual end of two of my top three comics of all times, Preacher and his run on Hellblazer, both with Garth Ennis. These are two books that made me laugh and, more rarely and importantly I'd say in comics, made me cry. His characters were so human, so fragile and - at times - so awful that, well, it reminds me now why this is so hard.

Rest in Peace Mr. Dillon. Thank you for making my life and the field of comics so much better than it would have been without you. Say hello to Bill Hicks and know there will be many raising a pint in your honor tonight.

#RIPSTEVEDILLON

John Constantine Short Film "Soul Play" - NBC learn from this!

This wonderful short film by Waking Dream Studio's is the topic of discussion in this week's edition of Thee Comic Column, over yonder on Joup!

Old News: Watch the Constantine Pilot

This isn't breaking news or anything, I've only just gotten around to finding the time to watch the Constantine pilot and thought I'd share it in case there are any other stragglers out there like me.

First. Constantine. Trailer.

At the VERY least they cast this right. Whew.

Seriously though, this first trailer for the upcoming Constantine trailer opens on a nice bit of continuity from the Vertigo book - Ravenscar. It also eludes to Astra, which really seals the deal for me. Also, the trailer appears to go out of its way to assure us that all of the elements the *ahem* movie eschewed (American instead of English, dark hair) this has fixed. Have they fixed Chas from being a little kid? Hopefully. And yet for all of these checks in the plus column the trailer does go on a bit long and at times reminds me maybe a bit too much of that ill-fated film from 2004, what with the CG and ancient evil rising bit. Still, how often do we get to see Occult symbols on nbc?

I'm in.