Bauhaus - King Volcano

A little Bauhaus as we close in on the most sacred day of the year. I once had a dream about this song that made me question everything I thought I knew about my own mind. Pure Magick, this one. From Burning from the Inside, their 1983 "final" album (until 2008's Go Away White, that is) and the first Bauhaus record to cross this human's path. Made me an instant fan. 

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31 Days of Halloween:

Ken Russell's Gothic, a film that, although my recent rewatch taught me it doesn't quite hold up to the impression it made on me when I was younger, is still far and away a wild ride. 

I have Frankenstein on the brain, and this really hit the spot, even if it is kind of more Ken Russell than it is Horror or Historical. That's fine with me, though, as I'd imagine a night spent drinking laudanum in a castle with Lord Byron would definitely make me feel as though I were in one of Russell's films. 

..

1) Incident On and Off a Mountain Road///The Funhouse (theatrical viewing)

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1 Ep 4, "Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone"///Cabin in the Woods

3) Satanic Hispanics

4) Creature From the Black Lagoon 3D///Lucky McKee's May

5) The Strangers

6) [REC]

7) The Autopsy - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities///[REC]2

8) Where the Devil Roams

9) The Roost

10) Good Boy///The Viewing - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities

11) Blood Moon (aka Wolf Girl)///All Hallows' Eve (The Last Drive-In Helloween)

12) The Shining///The Simpsons Ssn 6 Treehouse of Horror V

13) Stream (2024)

14) Creepshow (1982; theatrical viewing)

15) They Live in the Grey///John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (theatrical viewing)

16) Black Phone 2

17) Scream 2///Mayhem (The Last Drive-In Blu-ray

18) The Exorcist

19) The Wolf of Snow Hollow/// The Taking of Deborah Logan

20) Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight (theatrical screening)///Cellar Dweller

21) The Black Phone///"Dream Kill" (segment in V/H/S85

22) The Transfiguration///Black Phone 2

23) Shelby Oaks

24) Clown in a Cornfield/// Jack-O (The Last Drive-In Splatterween double feature)

25) Ken Russell's Gothic/// Inferno/// Lords of Salem

26) Night of the Living Dead 1990/// Night of the Demons

27) Final Destination 3/// Jimmy & Stiggs

28) Trick r' Treat

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NCBD:

I never made it out to Rick's Comic City Clarksville last week for my pull, so I'm doing double duty today. Here's this week's books:

Like Imperial below, I'm not really sure this series has lived up to what it could have been, but it's been fun. Ten bucks says Noran Rad isn't actually going to die, that this is just the launching of a new female character a la She Hulk, who Marvel can play around with alongside the original surfer. 

I have no idea if I'll actually get a shot at picking this up—it wasn't in my shop's Shopify—but I'll try. Been meaning to watch the original Ghoulies all month, as it's one of K's favorites, but we just haven't gotten around to it. Maybe bringing this home will help make up for that. 

Imperial started a lot better than it's developed, but I'm still hoping to see some crazy cosmic WTF Marvel sh*t this month in the finale. 

Easily my most anticipated book each month at this point, I'm dying to see what is actually going on in this book. Zander Cannon has laid the groundwork for an epic, and based on what we've seen so far—the way everything has been plotted and slowly unraveled—Sleep is a Horror Mystery of a most singular nature. 

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Playlist:

Various - Return of the Living Dead OST

Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

Various - Rocktober Blood OST

The Cramps - Flamejob

Ritual Howls - Ruin

My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife

Trust Obey - Fear And Bullets

The Body - I Shall Die Here

A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head

Bauhaus - Mask

Eerie Von - Bad Dream No. 13

Bauhaus - Burning From the Inside

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Card:

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

• Three of Swords

• XX: Judgement

• VIII: Strength

Conflict and a reckoning will require strength, but that strength will also increase. 

New Music from Blut Aus Nord!!!

 

The second track released from the upcoming album Ethereal Horizons, out November 28th on Debemur Morti Records. Pre-order HERE.

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31 Days of Halloween:

I was 100% unfamiliar with John Buechler's 1987 film Cellar Dweller before two nights ago. I'd heard of it, but knew nothing about it. After stumbling across it on Prime the other night, I'd have to say this fits right in there with 976-Evil and The Dead Pit as a lost 80s classic Video Store Horror gem!

Not a 'great' flick by any stretch, but FUN! I've grown to recognize seeing Buechler's name attached to a film as an exciting thing, and this only reinforces that assessment. 

...

1) Incident On and Off a Mountain Road///The Funhouse (theatrical viewing)

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1 Ep 4, "Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone"///Cabin in the Woods

3) Satanic Hispanics

4) Creature From the Black Lagoon 3D///Lucky McKee's May

5) The Strangers

6) [REC]

7) The Autopsy - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities///[REC]2

8) Where the Devil Roams

9) The Roost

10) Good Boy///The Viewing - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities

11) Blood Moon (aka Wolf Girl)///All Hallows' Eve (The Last Drive-In Helloween)

12) The Shining///The Simpsons Ssn 6 Treehouse of Horror V

13) Stream (2024)

14) Creepshow (1982; theatrical viewing)

15) They Live in the Grey///John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (theatrical viewing)

16) The Black Phone 2

17) Scream 2///Mayhem (The Last Drive-In Blu-ray

18) The Exorcist

19) The Wolf of Snow Hollow///The Taking of Deborah Logan

20) Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight (theatrical screening)///Cellar Dweller

21) The Black Phone///"Dream Kill" (segment in V/H/S85

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NCBD:

Just four titles this week (I think), so let's talk about the big one first.

Jason Aaron's run is already over? Weird - I don't feel like this book really did what I thought it would do. That's not good or bad, just... I don't even know. Maybe it's the bi-monthly thing that has me feeling so removed from it. Certainly there appear to have been some big changes on the surface, and I did really enjoy the way Aaron took the brothers apart and reintroduced them as a team that is more dysfunctional than we've ever seen before. We'll see how this transitions to the new creative team starting with issue 13.

After finally catching up and reading the first four issues of Chris Condone and Jeffrey Alan Love's News From the Fall Out recently, I have to say, this is the first book I've contemplated dumping before it finishes in quite some time, There was one whole issue spent with people arguing in a diner. I mean, if felt like that "Put on the glasses" scene in They Live, and while I love that film and that scene is hysterically iconic, it's best left not repeating it, because it still tests my patience when Carpenter did it! I don't know - I'm feeling like there's not enough of the story here to go a full six issues so things got stretched out in a way that really killed the momentum, but we'll see. I'm sticking it out until it wraps with issue six. Condone has never disappointed me before, so I owe the man the benefit of the doubt. 

At a glance, this cover gives me all kinds of Uncanny Valley weirdness. 

I've had this book on my mind after watching the 2024 film Stream recently, which was enjoyable, but didn't quite have the scope Walsh and Tynion present in Exquisite Corpses. 

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Playlist:

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Suspended in Dusk edition)

John Harrison - Day of the Dead OST

Testament - Para Bellum

Misfits - Earth A.D. 

Saigon Blue Rain - Oko

Black Tape for a Blue Girl - Remnants of a Deeper Purity

Various - Lords of Salem OST

Count Gorgann - Corpse Eater: Satanic Misery Live for the Dead

77s - All Fall Down

Pilot Priest and Electric Youth - Come True OST

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Card:

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

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is now live! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• Six of Cups

• Queen of Pentacles

• Nine of Cups

The ache of memory can cloud the mind, emotion overwhelming the faculties that make the day-to-day decisions. This is how I feel I live sometimes. Is this a good thing? It can be, but here's an instance where I'll actually use the specific image on Grimm's card to help understand what the cards are saying: intoxication. I'm overflowing with emotional bias and it probably is responsible for regularly made bad decisions. Not like, hookers and blow bad decision, but like, I don't need to buy everything that looks like it will make me happy. 

Mark Ronson & RAYE

It is rare to find music that you instantly bond with. That turns a Saturday night at 12:30 AM at age 49 into an event you cannot turn off. That makes you open another bottle of beer. That makes your heart pump like you've suddenly, unexpectedly fallen in love. That is RAYE. A chance encounter on KCRW on the way home from a great night out in L.A. that turns into an hours-long exploration of an artist's catalogue and yields a new obsession.

While the song above is the one that got me, I've been listening to Raye's 2023 album, My 21st Century Blues, for the last three days and it is stuck. In. Me. Head!!! Flashes of Hip-Hop and R&B, slick production and layered vocals really make this record stand out. Also exciting is the fact that Raye has a new album releasing next year. The pre-order is up HERE.

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31 Days of Halloween:

After rewatching Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza's 2007 film [REC] this past Monday night, I feel I can definitively say that I think this is the single best use of the found footage Horror trope/genre out there. In fact, the only thing that might top it is [REC]2.

 

[REC] gets you to drop your guard early on, and then, when shit goes down, quickly becomes increasingly savage. If you haven't seen these but ever wondered what a demonic possession movie would look like with the contagion mechanics of a zombie film, these first two [REC] flicks are for you.

1) Incident On and Off a Mountain Road///The Funhouse

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1 Ep 4, "Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone"///Cabin in the Woods

3) Satanic Hispanics

4) Creature From the Black Lagoon 3D///May

5) The Strangers

6) [REC]

7) The Autopsy - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities///[REC]2

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NCBD:

This week's pull list over at Rick's Comic City, Clarksville:

One more issue of Batman: Dark Patterns to go after this. One of the best Bat-series I've read, and while I'll be sorry to see it go, with a character that is strip-mined as much as Bats, I'm glad Watters and Sherman are leaving us wanting more instead of overstaying their welcome. 

While I recall enjoying the first issue of this Event Horizon prequel mini-series, I don't remember it. I'm not the biggest fan of the flick - I dig it, but each subsequent viewing since my first has diminished it a bit. That's not to say there's a lot of mythology contained in that film that I'd like to see explored - hence my interest in this series. Like probably everyone else who has seen the film, I want more Hell dimension! This book promises to give it to us. 

Things are heating up in Springfield and beyond. Curious to see where the various threads are going to coalesce. I've been into G.I.Joe again in general, as evidenced by the fact that, earlier this evening, I spent 20 minutes lost in a rabbit hole about the character Sci Fi, a character I never owned or knew anything about. 

A new Horror comic from Spectrevision? Sign. Me. Up! Here's the solicitation, culled from League of Comic Geeks:

"Chicago, 1967. Magazine writer Harry Kean is dispatched to rural Indiana to investigate the sudden disappearance of Becky Plume, a local teenager who stepped into the national spotlight with staggering photographic evidence of a recent UFO sighting. Frustrated to leave his developing stories in Chicago—and the wife he’s hoping to win back—Harry sets off to expose a hoax but instead finds himself in a labyrinth of high strangeness involving a missing girl, her boyfriend, a UFO, and some mysterious black-clad visitors circling at the perimeter of a mystery more vast than Harry could possibly imagine."

I have no idea what this new SIKTC one-shot is, but, of course, I'm here for it!

And finally, Robert Kirkman takes over writing Transformers with issue #25. Looks like a potentially significant change in the book's tone, so I'm curious to see how this unfolds. 

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Playlist:

Dreamkid - Daggers

YUNGBLUD - Idols

Burial - Untrue

Telefon Tel Aviv - Immolate Yourself

Drab Majesty - Careless

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

RAYE - My 21st Century Blues

Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me

Faetooth - Labyrinthine

Type O Negative - October Rust

Tones on Tail - Everything!

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

Spotlights - Love and Decay

Loathe - I Let It in and It Took Everything

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Card:

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

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is now live! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• Queen of Cups

• Knight of Pentacles

• XI: Justice

Strong emotional responses can lead to Willful advances in compensation. 

That's pretty weak, fortune-teller vague, but I'm tired, so that's all I have at the moment. 

New Music From The Subways!

Holy smokes, has it been a minute since we had some new music from The Subways! I was initially going to post this last Friday, but then I realized it wouldn't debut until Friday afternoon, and I completely forgot about it. Seeing it in my drafts, I became excited all over again. I mean, NEW music from The Subways?!? Sure, this song doesn't herald a new album, just a comp, but STILL! Hearing this band again, I remember how much I love their first album. 

 

That new compilation is called When I'm With You, and you can pre-order it HERE.

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NCBD:

Pretty cool NCBD this week, as I've added a few outliers to my pull. 

I'm not sure I'll be buying Matt Fraction's Batman title in perpetuity, but I definitely had to grab this second issue just for the way the cover complements issue #1. Also, I did really dig that first issue, so who knows? Dan Watters' Dark Patterns is ending soon, and I've kind of grown attached to having a monthly bat-book. We'll see. 

I don't know much about Spider-Man Noir, but I dug the character in Across the Spider-Verse, and I love the design and concept, so I'm giving this a shot. Also, Erik Larsen returns to a derivation of the character that made him famous, so that feels like something I want to be here for. 

It just dawned on me now that we're six issues from SIKTC #50. I can feel this title building toward something, as it has gone backward into the past to propel us into the future. I don't know if I've said it here before, but I've carried a distinct idea for a while now that this book isn't going to go past 75 issues, so we may be closing in on a whole new world here. 

Like Spider-Man Noir, I don't know a helluva lot about Zatana, although I've probably read a skosh more with her than our Cage-voiced web-head up there. How could I not buy a one-shot with this title on the first day of Halloween? 

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Watch:

Puppet Combo made a movie!

Okay, yeah, this isn't going to win any awards. It also might ultimately prove a bit of a chore to get through. But hit damn if I'm not psyched to A) Support Puppet Combo's first film and, B) see some of their game imagery come to life on the big screen. If this goes well... imagine a Nun Massacre film? 

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Playlist:

NIN - The Downward Spiral

David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails - Back in Anger 1995

David Bowie - No Plan EP

NIN - The Fragile (Disc 1)

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Blackbraid - Blackbraid III

Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets (1998 Edition)

Odonis Odonis - Post Plague

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Mitch & Ira Yuspeh - Seven Doors of Death OST

At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command

Slow Dive - Thirst

Fabio Frizzi - The Beyond OST

lords. - Bleeding Out (single)

lords. - Singles playlist

Cryo Chamber - Echoes of the Hollow Earth

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Card:

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

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is now live! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• Four of Cups

• II: High Priestess

• Six of Cups

There's that apathy again. So weird how certain cards in this deck just stick to me. I've never had this with any other deck. So we're looking at that disinterest I'm showing the digital world, and we see it undercut by cloudy logic; am I missing something? Am I mixing nostalgia with reason? 

Young Widows - Call Bullshit

My friend Chris is in town and we're heading to Nashville's Eastside Bowl tonight to see Young Widows and Russian Circles. Here's a track from the Widows' new album, Power Sucker, which is currently on my best of list for the year. 

You can check out more tour dates and merch for Young Widows on their Bandcamp HERE.

Also, Russian Circles' Bandcamp can be found HERE.

I'm relatively new to Russian Circles, but Young Widows I've been digging on since back when their debut Settle Down City landed in my mailbox. 

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NCBD:

I'm off today so I'll be heading into Rick's earlier than usual to pick up my books. Here's what's coming home with me for NCBD, September 24, 2025:

One issue remains after this month's Void Rivals before we are catapulted into the eagerly anticipated Quintesson War. Crossovers and Events are generally not my thing, but being that the entire Energon Universe is kind of one big crossover, I'm hoping Kirkman and company show the big two how to do these correctly. I've expressed my love of the Quintessons here before, so to have them up front for six issues is going to (hopefully) be a dream come true.

Now one of my most anticipated books each month, Zander Cannon's Sleep continues to keep me hanging on every issue. 

I was just talking about this on a recent episode of The Horror Vision, so I'm overjoyed to see the second chapter of James Stokoe's Orphan and the Five Beasts finally hitting the stands. The art in Stokoe's pages must take an insane amount of time, so I'll be reading this one slowly, with a keen eye on all the details that make Stokoe's work so rewarding. 

I'm behind on Condon and Alan Love's News From the Fall Out, but the first issue left quite the impression, so I'm looking forward to catching up this week and getting current. 

Regarding this cover: As a life-long fan of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow with virtually no good adaptations of the source material or even just jaunts with the Headless Horseman, you have my attention, Mr. Spears. Please - the floor is yours. 

As I mentioned in Monday's "Card" section of this page, I'm still putting off my Lazarus reread that is meant to be a welcome refresher before jumping into this final Lazarus series. This series just hits too close to home these days. 

I started buying this Death of the Silver Surfer series for the covers, but the story is turning out to be pretty good, even if we all know there are no real stakes here. Still, even though I don't have much interest in most of what Marvel is doing at the moment, I always keep my eye out for mini-series, as there have been quite a few over the last five years or so that I really liked. The Death of Doctor Strange was incredibly good, and while this isn't that, it's keeping me hanging on from issue to issue. 

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Watch:

Last Saturday night I sat down and watched Brandon Christensen's latest flick, Night of the Reaper. Here's a trailer that won't spoil anything:

This one is a bit of style over substance, but not intentionally so, and it's pretty fun. That said, the "twist" did not feel earned at all, and I'm still a little bit confused as to whether the logistics actually work. Still, this would make a fun Friday night beer bottle flick for sure. 

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Playlist:

Young Widows - Power Sucker

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

Hellbender - Hellbender OST

Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears

Young Widows - Settle Down City

Opeth - Blackwater Park

Drug Church - Prude

Led Zeppelin - Live EP

Roy Ayers - Ubiquity

Frank Black and the Catholics - One More Road for the Hit

Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth For Christ Choir - Like a Ship Without a Sail

Butthole Surfers - Rembrandt Pussyhorse

Joy Division - Still

Butthole Surfers - Locust Abortion Technician

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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 Cups

• Queen of Pentacles

• Nine of Swords

An abundance of feminine energy is never a bad thing; Coupled with the Nine of Swords, I take this as a "pay attention to what the women in your life are saying" connotation. 

Netherlands - Deathling

 

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.

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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. 

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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.

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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

Deftones - private music

Comic Tropes - Robert Kirkman Interview 

Testament - Shadow People (pre-release single)

USSA - The Spoils

Hall & Oats - Do What You Want, Be What You Are (Disc 3)

Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman

Will Haven - Carpe Diem

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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. 

Seal's Crazy About Bryan Fuller's Dust Bunny and So Am I!!!

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!

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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!

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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. 

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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

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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.

Chat Pile and Hayden Pedigo!

 

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. 

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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. 

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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.'

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - VFW OST

The Cure - Pornography

Deftones - Diamond Eyes

Radiohead - Kid A

How to Destroy Angeles - Welcome Oblivion

The Knife - Silent Shout

Kane Parsons - Backrooms OST

Chat Pile/Hayden Perdigo - Radioactive Dreams (single)

Deftones - private music

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Card:

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

• VIII: Strength

• Page of Swords

• XIII: Death

Dead Man's Bones Conjure NCBD

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. 

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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. 

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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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Horror Vision (@thehorrorvision)

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Playlist:

Massive Attack - Blue Lines

Ruelle - Emerge

Woodkid - Woodkid for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand

How To Destroy Angels - Eponymous EP

Slipknot - Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)

Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance

Dead Man's Bones - Eponymous

NIN - Full show Toronto, 8/23/25

PLaNETS - THEDARKWOODS

Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services

Deafheaven - Sunbather

Ghostbath - Moonlover

The Body - All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood

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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.