From the 2009 album Primary Colours, which I pulled out yesterday and instantly regretted not having listened to in... a very long time. Fantastic record.
I don't know any other records by The Horrors, but this one is fantastic start to finish. These guys obviously got a big push marketing-wise in the wake of Interpol's success, but they are their own band.
NCBD:
So what did Wheeljack find in issue 33? My guess: Dinobots!
Every issue of any Shaolin Cowboy series is a gift. Loving Staying A.I. Live.
I've literally been thinking about Of the Earth more days than not since reading issues 2 and 3 last month. I adore this book! Condon's "The Thing meets Blood Simple" is so spot on, and being that those are two of my all-time favorite films, this feels made for me.
One more after this and I'll need to re-read everything that came before. It has been a minute since The Nice House on the Lake was on my radar; looking back on the last few release dates shown on League of Comic Book Geeks, it appears this went bi-monthly after returning from its "mid-season" hiatus. That's fine; not giving anyone sh*t, just saying, October's final issue will be a good prompt to re-read both The Nice House By the Lake and this second act. A quick search tells me Tynion has not announced a third act, but I guess that will depend on how this current arc ends.
So, while I'm still digging this current chapter of ARAH, I have space constraints that are weighing on me a bit. I recently bought a new long box (I phased out all but two long boxes before my move from LA; took a tip from my friend Chris Saunders and switched everything to short boxes. Way more manageable. The two I did keep were out of necessity: TMNT and X-Men. There's easily a long box of both. Coming to the end of my TMNT box has a lot to do with why I just canceled the series from my pull. Now, I'm closing in on the end of my ARAH box (which admittedly also includes the IDW run; the Energon stuff is all in a short box) and I have to consider if I'm going to stop.
Talk about first world problems.
Watch:
A few months back, Vinegar Syndrome ran a sale on Kim Stim's Blu-Ray edition of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 2016 film Creepy, which I had never even heard of, let alone seen. I'm fairly new to Kurosawa's work, but what I've seen thus far - Cure, Chime and Cloud - have all blown me away, so I figured, what the hell? Let's give it a blind buy.
I cannot tell you how grateful I am that I did. This one really messed with me, in the best possible way. There is something so alien and yet relatable about Kurosawa's work that has really steeped into me over the viewing of these last four films, and I feel now as though I have to set out on a mission to see everything. There's a level of banality to Creepy that manages to create an unease that is slow, methodical and unexpected at times. The lighting in the Nishino house borders on what I think of as Cyber-Industrial-Gothic, with Tetsuo and Eraserhead immediately coming to mind.
Playlist:
Jim Williams - Possessor OST
John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter & Daniel Davies - Cathedral
Blut Aus Nord - Ethereal Horizons
Various - The (S)hit Factory Disc 2
Various - The (S)hit Factory Disc 3
Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets
Sepultura - Chaos A.D.
Mary Anne Hobbs Final BBC Broadcast: Burial and Kode 9 (Sept. 8, 2010)
The Horrors - Primary Colours
Pigface - Fook
Carpenter Brut - Leather Temple
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Shapes of Midnight (pre-release singles)
Lisa Bella Donna - Reach for the Light (single)
Mascara - Hla-11Tf (single)
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Eight of Swords
• XVI: The Tower
• Ace of Swords
A lot of strife, which can be a struggle, especially when paired with The Tower, a paradigm either in flux or ruling. This leads me to believe something I adhere to - probably a plot point in Shadow Play 2, or something I hold as an absolute with the characters- will change drastically. I'll resist it at first, then realize the change is needed.
Man, I remember when I used to go out of my way to try and find videos without ads to post here. Now they all have ads. Funny thing about that - I've never monetized any of my channels on YT, but the videos with the most hits still get ads. Why? Because, you can't monetize until you have considerably more followers than I have, but if a video gets the hits, YT will monetize it and reap the rewards.
Another one of a thousand instances where I could have just posted Jarvis Cocker's "Cunts Are Still Running the World." Talk about a theme song for the human race, eh?
Anyway, I recently figured out how to add songs to a playlist on Apple Music so they don't take up the home screen, so I'm recreating all the playlists I made on Spotify - which I only ever subscribed to for October and, after the news a few months back, will never sub to again. I started with my gratuitously named, "Proto Music: The Best of 80s Radio And The Archetypal Foundation Of My Head" playlist, which contains all the songs from 80s classic rock radio that made me who I am today. This song is on that playlist. This song is in my head when I write, even if it has been a few years since I last listened to it. This song is a fucking masterpiece without a genre or any comparable peers.
Watch:
With news of Netflix buying HBO, I have to say, I feel like bad things are coming. Maybe I'm still sore at HBO because I had to cancel my subscription last month after having it since 2019. It was probably time anyway, but when I ended up locked out because I share it with my sister and she uses it more than I do, I got pretty pissed when I received an email that basically said, "This isn't your account." I mean, my name is on it! Anyway, I started thinking about whether it would just be cheaper to buy physical copies of what I can't live without and, yep. It is. In HBO's case, I Marie Kondo'd their lineup and realized it's just Doom Patrol and Primal, and I grabbed Doom Patrol complete for about what I was paying for two or three months for a sub I almost never used (no wonder they thought my sister was the owner).
Netflix will no doubt prove more difficult, as they're pretty anti-physical media. I'd suggest that if there's anything you really love on HBO, grab it now, as the same ethos is likely to carry over once the merger is complete.
Anyway, I see a soon-to-be future where I have Shudder and Criterion, nothing else. Speaking of which, I watched Kiyoshi Kurosawa's latest film Cloud this past Friday night, and was pretty blown away. I posted the trailer a while ago, and honestly, you're better off just going in blind, so here's a gnarly poster I found:
I picked up heavy David Cronenberg vibes from this film. There's a subtle thread of foreboding that hangs over an opening hour that will feel drudging to some. Personally, I was enraptured by the minutiae of the main character's life. I took my own advice and went in blind - I never did watch that trailer I previously posted - and really had no idea what this film was about. There's a very scheduled, day-to-day pace that eventually evolves and then begins to ooze with suspense as that invisible dread slowly manifests in a very odd fashion. There are so many head-scratching elements to this film. Yet, not only do all of them work within the context of the story and characters Kurosawa sets up, but, as a whole, Cloud somehow encapsulates an abstract representation of life in 2025.
Read:
Closer to the beginning of the year, I finally began making my way through Weird Walk's beautiful hardcover book, Weird Walk: Wanderings and Wondering Through the British Ritual Year.
The book is divided into four parts by season: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, and I'd fallen into the strategy of picking it up for a chapter a morning during each of the corresponding seasons. I fell off in Autumn, but after a concentrated sprint over the last week, I finally caught up. I wanted to make specific note of one of the entries for Autumn: Ottery St. Mary.
Ottery St. Mary is a town in Devon where every November 5th, the inhabitants hold a ritual where flaming tar barrels are passed from hand to hand through the streets. The origins are apparently unclear, but the thing about this particular entry in the book that struck me is the idea that this all relates back to ancestral memory of fire as an element that helped develop our consciousness into what it is today.
That really strikes a chord. Maybe it's just my propensity for falling into the British idea of "The Haunted Season" with increasing intensity these past two years, but I'm really connecting with this.
Playlist:
Miles Davis - Ascenseur pour l'échafaud
Miles Davis - Sorcerer
Ulver - Liminal Animals
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturian Poetry
Hotei - Shin Jinginaki Tatakai Soshite Sono Eiga Ongaku OST
D'Nell - 1st Magic
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Nordicwinter - Whispers of the Frozen Abyss (single)
lords. - Bleeding Out (single)
Faetooth - Labyrinthine
Hangman's Chair - Saddiction
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Page of Swords
• Five of Cups
• Four of Wands
Lots of imposing vertical lines in this one. On every card. Feels like there's a bit of a progression there, even in the perspective on the cards as they flow from left to right... I'm picking up something, but not sure what. I've never read the cards like this before. Definite movement. Let's look at the cards themselves.
Page or Princess of Swords' inclination toward mental agility juxtaposed with the grief often associated with the five of cups. That's deep emotion that can threaten the stability of the four of wands.
The movement may be a system - a rhythm - of countering the grief. Above, I outlined the cards in the cadence of the traditional three-card pull: center-left-right. Following the left-to-right rhythm, we'd have Grief overcome by mental agility (discipline?) that leads to stability. I'm not entirely sure what the source of the grief is - pondering that gives me a bit of trepediation - but I guess I know how to approach it if and when it rears its head.
Blackbraid III will be released independently on August 8th, and you can pre-order directly from the artist HERE.
I'll tell you, I have no problem spending whatever an artist wants to sell their physical media for in 2025 because they need to recoup the cost of services like spotify raping them (while pouring their profits in to the AI arms race). This Blackbraid merchandise looks fantastic - I had to restrain the impulse to buy one of the bundles with the shirt and hoodie - and this is easily the best-looking vinyl release I've seen all year.
NCBD:
A pretty robust haul this week. Let's go!
This time, it's all about the "B" cover! LOVE this! Those shadowy Decepticon images amidst fire and ruin, with Only two issues left with DWJ. I haven't seen who is taking over, but it looks like it's just in time for Quintesson War, which starts in Void Rivals 25 and, I'd imagine, will at the very least echo through this book.
My first issue of Savage Sword as a now monthly subscriber and I'm psyched! I owe a huge debt to my good friend Grimm for turning me onto this book.
I have been looking forward to Planet Death number one since stumbling on issue 0 last month. If you want to know more, check out the Drinking with Comics Mike Shinabarger and I did on this one HERE.
Dark Regrets is turning out to be insanely fun and pretty damn funny to boot! As much as I love Black Metal and (most) of its aesthetic, you have to admit, there's a lot there to make fun of.
Look at that cover by Miguel Mercado! And inside, Andrea Sorrentino's art adds an extra punch to the first mini-series spin-off from the anthology Epitaphs From the Abyss. Not sure if there are any more coming after this wraps up with issue number 4, but hopefully. That's the awesome thing about running an anthology - you can always mine the stories therein for longer ones down the road.
The penultimate issue of Dark Pattern's Case 03: Pareidolia. Can't wait to see where this is going. I've sampled a handful of Batman books over the last year - the first book* to feature the dark detective that I've read in years - and this? This has been one of my favorites (but nothing beats Gargoyle of Gotham!)
* Not entirely true; there was that Maxx/Batman book a few years ago. I didn't buy that for Batman, though.
Watch:
A few days ago, I mentioned my Criterion Sale items, Repo Man and Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure. Since I spoke a bit about Repo Man the other day, I wanted to talk now about Cure.
I've heard about this one for years, but somehow never got around to it until now. Wow. Talk about atmospheric! There is a beautiful pall that hangs over this film, and while it grinds the characters to dust, it creates a singular cinematic experience for the viewer. The tension is so quiet! That's gotta be hard to do, because no one does it. At least, not like Kurosawa does here.
For years, one of the things I always saw referenced about this film was how it was the start of the Japanese Horror movement of the late 90s/early 00s. That was an immediate turn-off, because with few exceptions, I'm not really a fan of that era of Japanese Horror. I see now that both the inclusion of Cure in with films like Ringu and Juwon is a false relation, and my own preconceived notions about Japanese Horror from that era are wrong. I wouldn't call either a sweeping generalization, but it's close. It's also a great reminder to draw my own conclusions. Sometimes, certain cinematics feel akin to a quagmire, and I after a small sampling, I run for the hills. Best not to do that, and Cure is the, well, cure?
I loved this film and am happy to have it on my shelf. Further study is on the horizon.
Playlist:
Stephen Sanchez - Angel Face
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Miss Machine
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Arcade Fire - Everything Now
Shellac - 1000 Hurts
The Reverend Horton Heat - Liquor in the Front
Sonic Youth - Dirty
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
bunsenburner - Reverie
Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz
Ike Reilly - Salesmen and Racists
Muggs - Dust
Blackbraid - The Dying Breath of the Stag (pre-release single)
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality*
Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9
* Read a fantastic article about a girl who owns 54 different vinyl pressings of Master of Reality HERE.
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Queen of Cups
• Eight of Pentacles
• Four of Wands
Queen of Cups again - as I write this on Tuesday afternoon, Sweetie has returned from surgery. A section of her intestines is enlarged, and - tests pending - it's likely lymphoma. We have been instructed to begin administering Prednisone today, which the Vet says should help hold it at bay and make her feel better. Once the lab results come back and we know for sure what we're dealing with, we can proceed. It's not the best result, but for now, I will take it and lavish her with Queen of Cups-sized emotion.
Eight of Pentacles - dedication.
Four of Swords - two interpretations that I can see lining up from those in the Grimoire. The first is completion and balance. The second is, "recognize completion and channel it into the next phase." These would seem to be offering two separate wisps of advice, because, of course, I'm interpreting this all about Sweetie. It's not an easy thing to let a loved one suffer, and that is definitely not our intention. So the idea is we treat it best we can. If it's lymphoma, we'll do chemo, which for cats isn't the same as it is for people. We're talking about a pill. I don't know, I have to do a lot more research. First things first, though. We need those results.
Deafheaven absolutely KILLS at Hellfest a few weeks ago. Super thanks to Mr. Brown for throwing this my way, 'cuz I completely missed it.
What an awesome performance despite some troubles mixing George's voice during the set opener.
Watch:
Kiyoshi Kurosawa's film Pulse has been on my peripheral radar for years. Seeing that the Criterion Sale returned recently, I finally snagged a copy of the Blu-ray sight unseen. Coincidentally, the trailer for his latest film, Cloud, dropped a day later.
Not watching this trailer. I want to go in B.L.I.N.D.
Read:
I finished David Sodergren's Death Spell a few days ago. Fantastic novel! This was my first Sodergren novel, but it definitely won't be my last. Definitely slots in nicely with the Asian Horror vibe I've been exploring over the last few years, Indonesian Horror especially, so if you're a fan of films like Impetigore, May the Devil Take You, or Satan's Slaves, you'll dig this.
Next up - Like • Comment • Survive, This is the new novel by Timothy James, who happens to be the host of The Dread Broadcast I guested on recently guested on.
Fantastic title. Here's the solicitation blurb from Amazon:
"The Specter Seekers! YouTube channel has built its reputation on skepticism—debunking hauntings with night-vision cameras and nervous laughter. But when they become the first team ever granted overnight access to the Indiana State Sanatorium, their biggest investigation turns into something they never expected.
What starts as another routine ghost hunt quickly unravels into a nightmare they can’t explain. The tunnels shift. The past bleeds into the present. Their footage captures things that shouldn’t be there—and some of them may not be leaving at all.
Told through recovered video transcripts, chat logs, and firsthand accounts, this found-footage horror novel pieces together the final investigation of the Specter Seekers! team. But as their last broadcast spreads across the internet, one question remains:
Did any survive?"
Like Comment Survive is available for free if you're in Kindle Unlimited; otherwise, it's a steal at $7.99 or $24.99 for the hardcover.
Playlist:
Willie Nelson - Oh What a Beautiful World Songs of Rodney Crowell
Amigo the Devil - Born Against
The Veils - Total Depravity
Deafheaven - live at Hellfest 2025 – ARTE Concert
Low Cut Connie - Art Dealer
Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services
Ian Lynch - All You Need Is Death OST
Ren - Sick Boi
Everlast - What It's Like (single)
Wake the Devil - Snake Eyes (single)
dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip - Angles
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Four of Wands
• V: The Hierophant
• Two of Cups
Haromy comes from conformity? Man, this is not the message I want to see this morning. All week I've been seeing posts about the Spotify CEO investing some unbelievable amount of money into Military AI Targeting tech, and while I don't have a paid subscription to the platform, all of my podcast episodes utilize Spotify for Podcasters (formerly Anchor) to distribute the episodes. That and the return of Greg Rucka and Michael Lark's Lazarus has me contemplating the world we live in and what it will look like in just a few more years.
It's pretty fucking terrifying.
And yeah, there's harmony in conformity, but it's only skin deep. Inside, that's where the rot occurs. Makes me think of the quote below, which, although not entirely appropriate, definitely feels prescient.
