I knew nothing about Holy Fawn before last week when I stumbled across them on Apple Music. Listening to their 2018 album Death Spells, I was pretty blown away. The band's Wikipedia page lists them as Black Gaze, which I won't exactly contest, but there is a lot more than that going on here. This entire record is fantastic, and I'm looking forward to digging into their follow-up, 2022's Dimensional Bleed.
Fantastic album names that completely fit their sound, too.
Shortest haul in a while. Enjoy, wallet - you've earned this!
Loving this series, thus far. Not sure how long a trip we're in for on Red Roots - the solicitations on League of Comic Book Geeks stop next month with #5. Hope that's just a "seasonal hiatus."
DeMatteis back to do a What If...? Based on the greatest Spider-Man story ever written? And it's a one-shot? Sign me up!
Watch:
I haven't seen I Sell the Dead since it first hit DVD, back in 2008/2009. Probably watched on a through-the-mail DVD rental from Netflix. So I was super excited when I saw Vinegar Syndrome (or one of their partner labels) had it.
My copy arrived yesterday, so by the time you read this, I've already revisited this one. In a weird coincidence, Writer/Director Glen McQuaid had just ended up on my radar again via one of the more recent issues of Fangoria, where they did a piece about his new film, The Restoration of Grayson Manor, which is making the festival rounds now.
Playlist:
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust
Ennio Morricone - Black Belly of the Tarantula OST
Ministry - Animositsomina
Ministry - Amerikkant
Spotlights - Love & Decay
Boards of Canada - Inferno
Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Oz
Carlos Rafael Rivera - The Will Kill You OST
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Ten of Cups
• VII: The Chariot
• XIX: The Sun
Only thing I'm interested in knowing right now is if I'll end up in the ER again - the stone I thought passed apparently did not, because yesterday was ROUGH. The cards don't really work that way, but I'll take these three as a nod to happiness, determination and success as a nod that I will be able to weather the storm on my own.
Despite not caring for the "Quintesson War" storyline very much, I'm liking where everyone landed in the fallout from those events. I think Darak and Solila off the Great Ring and in cahoots with Pythona.
My final issue! All the way to 300 with these guys. Hats off - still the best reboot of anything I've ever experienced.
I finally caught up on this earlier in the month and spoke about it HERE. As I ready myself for this final issue, I'll just say this is also a contender for best of the year. So nice to travel back to the Vertigo 80s with ol' tall, green and swampy.
The penultimate issue before whatever #50 is going to do to change the series. Loving these "young Erika" stories, but ready to get back to the here and now.
The final of Chris Condon and Jacob Philips' first Ezra Cain mystery. Hoping there will be more down the road, although these will undoubtedly read better as trades, so I may refrain from buying any more of this particular series monthly.
I dug the atmosphere and overall storyline for Brutal Dark, and I've said it before and will continue to preach - we need more stories to remind the world that nazis and nationalism are bad. Especially now, when there's a growing number of people in our culture afraid to talk about the unpleasantness of the past.
Another that will easily ride out the year in my top five.
The finale of this wonderful aquatic horror mini-series! Oni still going strong.
Watch:
I'll admit I watched this trailer not expecting to care one way or the other about this flick. It feels a bit like that strain of Horror that includes titles like Afaid and Megan 2.0. That said, there's a jump scare here, though, that made me laugh out loud. In a good way!
Also, what I did not notice at first - this is directed by Rob Savage, and I quite enjoyed both Host and The Boogeyman, so I'm in.
Playlist:
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Shapes of Midnight (pre-release singles)
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Nell' ora blu
Melvins - (A) Senile Animal
Carlos Rafael Rivera - The Will Kill You OST
Secret Chiefs 3 Traditionalists - La Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomimi
Pilot Priest & Electric Youth - Come True OST
Zombie - Shape Shift
Boris/Merzbow - 2R0I2P0
Mastodon - Marrow Deep (pre-release singles)
Spotlights - Alchemy for the Dead
Holy Fawn - Death Spells
Ozzy Osbourne - The Ultimate Sin
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Seven of Swords
• Knight of Pentacles
• XIII: Death
Big change brought about by successful ambition. No idea where to apply that in my life, unless it's telling me my ambitious trek to abstain from beer until at the very earliest November 5th to help my liver recover will pay off. And by pay off, I mean grant me the rest of my lifetime happily drinking pints (maybe not every night anymore, though...).
Holy cow! New QOTSA and it features Nikki Lane! No idea if this heralds a new album on the horizon, but it's been a few years since In Times New Roman, so I'm guessing we'll see something sooner than later.
NCBD:
Great pull this week, with a couple of last-minute surprises!
Still walking that road to SIKTC 50. Digging this series - LOVE this cover - but as I've mentioned before, I'm in need of a reread all around to really cement some of the finer points of the rather intricate continuity that runs between all these books.
I cannot believe that, after re-reading the entire series last week, it ended up timed to coincide with the release of a new Rachel Rising one-shot!
The climax to our introduction to the energon-fueled Dire Technology of Crystal Ball. Smart money says this issue ends with Destro making a deal with the lord of illusions, but we'll see.
Tracking to be in my top five of the year. I LOVE If Destruction Be Our Lot. So much!
Crap! A reminder that I completely forgot issue 2 of Chris Condon, Charlie Adlard and Andrew Enrich's Of the Earth! I mean, I walked into Rick's last month expecting it, but apparently their copies were damaged, and I guess they never got more.
As has become my inadvertent habit, I just read the previous issue of Savage Sword a few days ago, so it was no surprise to find this slated for today. I don't know exactly how that happened, but I have kind of marveled at my unconscious mind's accuracy with this pattern.
Here's another one I didn't see coming! New Last Ronin one-shot! Interesting, as just before seeing this, I decided to cancel my TMNT pull for this month's number 20, which is actually the 300th "Legacy" issue. I hate all this Legacy counting, but whatever, at this point I'm used to it. I will, however, still be picking up one-offs like this.
Watch:
I so want this to be good. I was a weekly BEE Podcast listener for years before Ellis surprised everyone during the pandemic by reading his work-in-progress The Shards every week, and I've listened to those broadcasts at least twice since. This is the perfect Ellis novel to adapt, in my opinion. There's just one thing giving me pause.
Ryan Murphy.
I was never a die hard AHS fan; I love the Hotel, Roanoke and 1984. I jumped off Coven after three episodes, was mostly happy with the first two seasons, and had mixed feelings about Double Feature. Whatever the Cruisin' knock-off season was proved the last straw for me, and watching all the low-brow, tabloid series he's pumped out since (with the exception of The Beauty), I just can't help but feel hesitant about this.
We'll see on August 5th, I guess. I'm really hoping it works, though. Ellis is one of my favorite Authors, he's written some of my favorite novels - The Shards is one - and there's not an adaptation out there that I favor.
Help me Ryan Murphy, you're my only hope.
Playlist:
Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST
Yerusalem - The Sublime
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Spotlights - Alchemy for the Dead
Ennio Morricone - Black Belly of the Tarantula OST
Boards of Canada - Inferno
Ghost - Skeleta
Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
Mastodon - Marrow Deep (pre-release singles)
QOTSA - Easy Street (single)
Spotlights - Seance EP
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Eldritch Lace Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Five of Cups
• Knight of Swords
• Four of Swords
Grief. Drive. Rest.
I haven't talked about this yet, but last Friday I was diagnosed with Fatty Liver Disease. It's actually not as severe as it sounds, but I have to stop drinking beer and really change my diet for the next several months to allow my liver to heal. After that, I'm planning to scale the drinking back. I've been doing 2-6 beers a night for over 20 years, so this really isn't a surprise. And it's a lot better of a diagonsis than the scare that led up to this suggested. I can stop when I need to - K and I just did a three-week hiastus in March - but the thing is beer is my nightly ritual. I don't chase intoxication, I just LOVE beer. Good beer, of course. But part of that love now means I have to let it go for a while, so we can be reunited when I'm healthy again.
All my jokes about Keith Richards' liver have come home to roost.
Also of note, found this card face up in the deck after I laid out the cards above, figured that was worth interpreting.
In light of the reading above, I'm reading this as growing pains, as I have many.
My friend Justin recently interviewed LA's Sisters of Black Mountain on his Trailer Punk Podcast. The idea of an all-female, Giallo-inspired group hooked me, and I have to say, I'm currently digging on their music quite a bit. You can check out the band on Bandcamp HERE and listen to the interview HERE.
NCBD:
This week's pull looks like it could have been from my early 80s childhood! Let's get into it!
So now, this is pretty cool. I've never had a chance to read this issue of TheAmazing Spider-Man that introduced The Punisher, but I've seen the cover on the wall behind a hundred comic shops. These facsimile copies are really neat for getting your hands on pieces of otherwise prohibitively priced items.
Titlating cover, bringing back Dr. Arkville and all, but all I really want is to see what Megatron is turning into inside that chrysalis!
Second issue of MASK! Not much else to say yet, but I dug the ruined space bridge at the end of issue 1, so let's see where this goes!
I'm digging this Manchurian Candidate storyline with Snake Eyes primarily because it takes us allll the way back to near the very beginning of the original series.
Watch:
The Giallo City-Wide Fever recently popped up on my radar, and I've been thinking about it non-stop. Currently streaming on a "channel" I'd never heard of before, Midnight Pulp, I'm planning to grab a subscription this weekend so I can watch. Here's the trailer:
You can read more about this one over on Bloody Disgusting HERE.
Playlist:
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven
From Jonathan Grimm's Eldritch Lace Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Seven of Cups
• 06: The Lovers
• Nine of Swords
Too many ideas create anxiety, making it hard to relax. Seek the arms of your person to help. This is HUGE. For just over a week, I have had insane sleep anxiety, and it's driving me crazy.
While I've dabbled in Russian Circles music over the years, it wasn't until seeing them live with Young Widows last year that I really "got it." Hearing this new track from their forthcoming album Nine, out August 28th on Sargent House. Pre-order HERE.
This is heavy. As. F*CK!
NCBD:
Great week! Let's get into this right away, as the first book is one I've been waiting on with gritted teeth and several others have felt a long time coming!
The book I am most looking forward to - Geoff Darrow's Shaolin Cowboy returns with a new series! Every panel of every issue of every series so far has been a work of unparalleled art, and I expect The Shaolin Cowboy: Staying A.I. Alive to be no different.
Ordained is an action movie in comic form (already been optioned) and it has not disappointed me yet. Who isn't up for watching a Priest beat the tar out of a bunch of mobsters?
Jeff Lemire's Minor Arcana returns to start a new arc!
I'm not a regular FF reader, but my good friend and Drinking with Comics co-host Mike Shin picked this as a book to watch out for a few months back when the solicitation dropped, and here's why:
"Johnny Storm has had some incredibly bad ideas in his time, but every once in a while he also has an incredibly good idea too. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell which is which until you're neck-deep in their consequences, and by then it's usually too late. We mention this only because in this issue, Johnny convinces his sister Sue to go along with a scheme to use her powers to turn the flesh of his skull invisible, so that when he flames on he can pass himself off as the Ghost Rider and settle some old scores. What could possibly go wrong?"
Now does that sound fun or does that sound fun?
The Event Horizon sequel marches on, and the depravity continues. Loving these covers and the art in general, and I'm looking forward to seeing where this takes the mytholgy of the film.
Last but not least, I'd all but forgotten about Gabriel Hardman's Batman/Green Arrow/The Question prestige format book Arcadia, but here it is, the final issue. Overall, I think this will read better as a trade, but I'm a sucker for the prestige format, so I'm looking forward to a full reread before cracking into this final issue.
Watch:
A trailer for Robert Eggers' Werwulf dropped two days ago and, as per my custom, I am posting it here but not watching it. This one releases on Christmas - CHRISTMAS! - and we already have a trailer? This is bound to get beaten to death well before the film lands, so I am doing my best to avoid all contact for now.
Nothing this man has done has disappointed me in the least, so I want to preserve as unspoiled an experience as I can with this one.
Playlist:
Infinity Frequencies - Between Two Worlds
The Caretaker - Theoretically pure anterograde amnesia
Boards of Canada - Inferno
The Atlas Moth - The Old Believer
John Carpenter - Lost Themes IV: Noir
Throbbing Gristle - Once Upon A Time
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: A Dialogue with the Stars
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturian Poetry
Russian Circles - Station
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot Deck, which you can buy HERE.
• Eight of Cups
• Two of Swords
• 01: The Magician
Eight of Cups - the glasses start to spill, the vitality is threatened: Time for a recharge before the spark of creativity returns.
I'm in the midst of a recharge from writing after doing a pretty straight stint, day in, day out. That is the goal, but it definitely feels like it's time to fill the well.
I spent a lot of time with The Caretaker yesterday. From reading an old interview in an issue of The Wire from 2009, to listening to the entire Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia boxset, which is waaaay OOP but available on Bandcamp HERE.
NCBD:
Wow - seems like every week's pull has been a doozy, and I've been cutting back. So many great creator-owned titles hitting the market lately. Here we go...
I did not love the six-part Quintesson War storyline, though I liked it more rereading it the other day than I did as it came out. Big shake-ups, HUGE really, so I don't know why I was left feeling... underwhelmed.
I really should have waited for this one to hit trade, but I guess after DC holding it on for so long, I wanted to make sure I actually got my hands on it as soon as I could.
The first issue of Red Roots had me. I mean, had me. Second issue was great, but also introduced an element of what miiiight be high fantasy? Let's see how #3 shakes out. I'm hoping for more of a Seven to Eternity than Tolkien vibe.
The twists and turns in the new Condon/Phillips Weird Fiction/Mystery are great. Can't wait to see how this all comes out.
And so the epic battle concludes! This book has been just the right kind of crazy, schlocky, video game fist-fight punch-em-up I'd hoped for when I signed on. Sad to see it go.
Never heard of these guys until the other day when I saw this. Instantly intrigued, so I ran through their 2025 album Tyrants of Wrath and dug it. Their Bandcamp is HERE.
NCBD:
It's funny how the wheel turns. Not too long ago, I was lamenting that almost everything I read each month is based on a pre-existing IP from my childhood. While I am still seeing that some weeks, there is a whole crop of new creator-owned books I love, and three of the biggest ones have number two issues this week!
Chris Condon and Charlie Adlard. 'Nuff said. The Earth's started with some serious Blood Simple vibes - I talked a bit about that when we reviewed issue one on Drinking with Comics last month (HERE), so I was immediately infatuated.
Interestingly enough, on the same episode of Drinking with Comics I linked above, I also talked about how James Tynion IV and Marguerite Bennett's Odin has two things I love: 1) Elements that pay homage to Donna Tartt's The Secret History, and 2) dead nazis. Can't go wrong, especially when I have a hunch there are more dead nazis on the horizon. Watch Mike and I talk about that first issue HERE.
Rounding out the new stuff, Andy MacDonald, Matthew and Mark Elijah Rosenberg's If Destruction Be Our Lot might have actually been my favorite of the three. I guess I'm a sucker for Rosenberg's style, and this definitely feels adjacent to What's the Furthest Place From Here storytelling-wise.
I'm starting to wonder if it was that big of a thing for Aaron to die so early on in this series, if we were bound to spend this much time in the past where he's still alive. Either way, the road to issue 50 winnows, and I'm hoping for some big stuff to coalesce out of what's building in The Fall of the House of Slaughter.
And we close the week with one of the aforementioned childhood IPs, although expertly adapted to the present day (and a middle-aged reading base) in the pages of the Energon Universe.
Watch:
At some point in the last year or so, I caught wind of Russell Bates and Matt McDowell's 16mm Sheila and the Brainstem, then quickly forgot about it again. That's okay, because I randomly came across Severin's announcement for the upcoming release. Here's the trailer:
Part Repo Man, part... I'm not quite sure, but I'm curious as all hell to see this one. No date yet, but it's a'coming.
Playlist:
Boards of Canada - Inferno
Dean Hurley - Anthology Resource Vol. II: Philosophy of Beyond
Well, thought I forgot about the whole "Seven Days of The Reverend Horton Heat," eh? That's because I 100% DID forget.
The one that started it all for me. True, Mr. Brown and I had seen the Rev years before opening for White Zombie on the Astrocreep tour (along with Melvins!), but it wasn't until 88.3 WXAV St. Xavier University played "It's Martini Time" that I fell in love with the Rev's guitar sound and overall aesthetic and bought an album.
I still think this track's guitar is among my favorites ever.
NCBD:
Great list today.
Continuing on as my favorite of the Energon Universe books, this cover to Transformers 33 sends shivers of great joy through my body. I still can't get over all the massive changes Kirkman has added to the book - Optimus giving over Prime leadership to Elita One, Thundercracker ditching the 'cons and becoming a 'bot, and hey, let's not forget, what the hell is going on with Megatron? Hopefully, we'll see this issue.
The finale of this fantastic adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep. This story has gotten maybe more traction than any other HPL story in a while, so it's been interesting to see the different takes. Pretty sure Birks/Roberts is my favorite (though I can't help my forlorn wonder at what Richard Stanley's would have been like).
I have zero idea what is going on with this family reunion from the afterlife storyline in TMNT. I mean, I'm following the story just fine; I'm just not sure what this means for the series going forward. I guess one thing to keep in mind is, I don't think this was ever done before. For now, I'll hold my reservations close to my chest and trust in the creative team, as we're almost 170 issues into the relaunch continuity that began back in 2012, and the book has been fantastic for most of that run.
Once again, totally forgot this book was even out there. Going to need a full re-read before getting into this, and I'm wondering if I should just wait until this second chapter runs its course.
Will this actually come out today? This final chapter of Rafael Grampá's Gargoyle of Gotham has been pushed back so many times, I lost count. Still, these are unbelievably gorgeous books that must take a lot of Grampá's heart and soul to produce, so I'm not complaining.
The Energon Universe tightens its stranglehold on my wallet with another book! I never had any of the toys as a kid, but I was always intrigued then and am still now. I've loved the introduction of these characters in the other books, so this feels like a natural evolution.
Looking forward to more of this weird Snake Eyes conundrum. I love that they went all the way back to the first two years of ARAH to show us something Dr. Venom did that we never saw until now. That kind of callback really shows that Hama continues to function at the top of his game, even after 329 issues.
The first issue was solid, and I'm curious what this title will mean for the evolution of SIKTC.
Read:
I'm still working through Stephen King's third novel in The Dark Tower series, The Wastelands. This is my favorite book, so it's a bit amazing to me how long it's taking me to read. I sailed through up to the Doorkeeper in the house on Dutch Hill, where he crosses over into Roland's world. Amazing scene that sort of serves as an act break. After, it's been a bit slower going. Part of that is various other things grasping at my attention - lots of comics to read for DwC, etc. Part of it is also something I only just realized this morning, as I blew through the chapter where Gasher absconds with Jake, leading him into the detritus tunnels of east Lud. This entire post-Jake's section is where the evidence of Roland's world having moved on grows to include people.
Sure, in book one, The Gunslinger, we had the town of Tull, but this is early on in the saga, and Tull feels like a town in a Western, which is what that first book purports to be for it's early chapters, only slowly peeling back the curtain and revealing Roland's world is actually very similar to our own, only a thousand or so years down a timeline where we destroy ourselves with, what I've always assumed, was warfare.
"The ancient, rusty hulks of what had once surely been automobiles stood at intervals along both curbs... There were no tires on any of these eerie hulks; they either had been stolen or had rotted away to dust long since. And all the glass had been broken, as if the remaining denizens of this city abhorred anything which might show them their own reflections... beneath and between the abandoned cars, the gutters were filled with drifts of unidentifiable metal junk and bright glints of glass. Trees had been planted at intervals along the sidewalks in some long-gone, happier time, but they were now so emphatically dead that they looked like stark metal sculptures against the cloudy sky. Some of the warehouses had either been bombed or had collapsed on their own, and beyond the jumbled heaps of bricks..."
The passage above switched on a fairly bright lightbulb when I read it yesterday morning. This is our world. We're not quite there yet, but the fact that, over the intervening roughly two decades since I last read The Wastelands, our world has become an eerily identifiable 're-echo' of Roland's. The key 'tell' here is the fact that the deeper Gasher, Jake, Roland and Oy descend into East Lud and the Tick Tock Man's domain, the more we get a sense that the people who inhabit this land enjoy living amongst the ruins of the old world. That's the thing I always get hung up on when contemplating, "could we actually take things too far?" in our own world, the operative idea being that, at a certain point, all of our in-fighting and disassembling of the mores, conventions and general social reform is going to leave our world covered in detritus and despair and that no one wants that. Only, maybe some people do want that. Maybe some people, to quote Michael Caine's Alfred in Christopher Nolan's film The Dark Knight, "want to see the world burn." We know those people have always existed; however, maybe they're not fringe, ineffectual nothings who can only damage small portions of our society. Maybe they are the people in charge. The same way late-stage Capitalism has seen the advent of destruction economics, maybe there's a big-picture advantage for those in power in destroying everything we've built.
"He thought he was at last beginning to fully understand what that innocuous phrase - the world has moved on - really meant. What a breadth of ignorance and evil it covered."
Jesus Christ. No wonder King hates trump so much - literally the Ticktock man of our world, and he predicted him over thirty years ago.
Playlist:
Boards of Canada - Inferno
Blut Aus Nord - Ethereal Horizons
Ennio Morricone - The Thing OST
sunn O))) - Loser
Pilot Priest & Electric Youth - Come True OST
Gnarls Barkley - Atlanta
Boy Harsher - Careful
Blackbraid - Celestial Womb EP
Revocation - New Gods, New Masters
Sinoa Caves - Beyond the Black Rainbow OST
Melvins & Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Six of Cups
• Queen of Pentacles
• Four of Pentacles
Emotional Balance takes a steady hand on Earthly concerns, something I'm struggling with at the moment, which makes feel isolated.
