Wide Eyes Towards The Sky

Mr. Brown, our friend Hellman and I hit the Forever Deaf Fest this past Saturday, thus rounding out my Chicago stint. We bought tickets for Plague Bringer - their first show in ten years and the first time any of us had seen the legendary Chicago Industrial-Death band live.

Worth every f*cking penny!

Also on tap, we caught Year of the Knife, who were fantastic as well. 

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Watch:

There's not a helluva lot Marvel does anymore that I care about, but the 'street level' stuff still hits me in the old-school sweet spot. While I've only seen the first episode of Daredevil Born Again season two, that's a priority now that I'm back from my Chicago jaunt. There's confirmation that DD season three is filming now, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has me cautiously optimistic, giving me the kind of anticipation tingles that the MCU used to give me during its first couple of years. And now... Frank gets an R-rated one-shot!

Bernthal IS Frank Castle to me, and I'm super excited about this. Also, there are apparently some easter eggs in here I would never have caught, one in particular that pertains to the possible eventual relaunch of the X-Men. I know, that's getting into the weeds of stuff I'll probably only avoid and/or be disappointed by. Still, as a now forty-year comic reader, this shit is hard-wired into my blood. 

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Read:

Huge haul this past Friday while I was hanging out at Amazing Fantasy Books & Comics. I'm not going to post everything, but here are some highlights:

Here's something I don't think I knew existed, but I had to have the moment I saw it. Props on Amazing Fantasy for always carrying not only the best selection of comics, but an awesome selection of non-comic stuff. 

Oni Press ruled 2025, but I don't think I've read anything from them so far this year. That changes now that I have the first issue of Time Daniel, David Andry and Maan House's Estuary: A Ghost Story. I know nothing about this, but it's another three-issue Oni Press Horror mini-series, so that's all I really need to know. Also, with a quick glance, House's art - which I am unfamiliar with - is as moody and atmospheric as the cover art promises, so this was an easy 'yes.'

I have wanted this for quite some time now, and I was happy to grab it at my favorite shop! Stokoe's art is beyond almost anything else, and when applied to Godzilla, well, it's unlike anything I've ever seen before.

Now here's the only one I had time to read while I was still in Chicago: Matt Kindt and David Lapham's Hero Trade: Project Chimera. I've been keeping an eye on Bad Idea's second-wave releases (I think that's what it's called; basically everything after Planet Death rolled out last year). Despite that, I don't remember hearing about this one. The cover caught my eye, and seeing Lapham's name made me open it and upon doing so, the B&W presentation made me think I was looking at Stray Bullets for a second. 

So yeah, it came home with me. 

This was originally published last year, two issues, and by the time you hit the end of the second issue, you know it's just going to be two issues. Further research shows that there are multiple series within the overall Hero Trade umbrella, starting back in 2020, all two-issue or one-shot length. I liked this enough that I'll probably keep my eyes peeled for future issues or any back issues I can find out in the wild.

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Playlist:

Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow

Jim Williams - Alpha OST

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Melvins & Napalm Death - Savage Imperial Death March

Gorillas - The Mountain

Radiohead - Kid A

Radiohead - Amnesiac

The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis - Eponymous

Neurosis - An Undying Love for a Burning World

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

King Gizard and the Lizard Wizard - Infest the Rats' Nest

Anthrax - Anthems EP

Anthrax - Best of Both Worlds

Gylt - I Will Commit a Holy Crime: Tandem

Gylt - In 1,000 Agonies I Exist

Baroness - Red

Baroness - Chicago Music Exchange

Year of the Knife - No Love Lost

Plague Bringer - As the Ghosts Collect, the Corpses Rest

Corrosion of Conformity - Good God Baad Man

Anthrax - Spreading the Disease

Deftones - private music 

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Card:

Loud and clear.

Better Lovers - Drowning in a Burning World

 

Absolutely LOVING the debut album by Better Lovers, Highly Irresponsible! You can snag the record from the band HERE, or listen on all streaming platforms. This shit will wake you up!

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31 Days of Halloween:

K and I got to see Hereditary on the big screen again last night. My third overall viewing of Ari Aster's breakout debut, and it still totally fucking ROCKS!

The fact that Toni Collete's performance was overlooked by the 'Industry' just solidifies what a pack of cunts they are.

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1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer

2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)

3) Loop Track

4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS

5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway

7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats

8) V/H/S Beyond

9) Killer Klowns from Outer Space

10) Terrifier 3

11) Summer of '84

12) Rosemary's Baby/Suspiria ('77)

13) Daddy's Head

14) Undead

15) Moloch/Tea Cup (episode 1)/ Evil Dead 2

16) Smile

17) Laura Hasn't Slept/Smile 2

18) Terrifier

19) The House of the Devil - Last Drive-in Presentation (original air date April 26, 2019)

20) The Woods

21) Rob Zombie's 31

22) Carrie 2: The Rage

23) The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

24) Planet Terror

25) Baron Blood

26) The Blob ('88)/ The Thing/Tremors/Abigail

27) Halloween Kills

28) Over the Garden Wall

29) Hereditary

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NCBD:

Not much on my pull today. In fact, only one book. Is this the best we can do the week of Halloween, publishers? Really?

Okay, then, allow me to talk a bit about some books I picked up while in Chicago over the weekend. As usual, I stopped in at Amazing Fantasy Comics, and so far, my favorite thing I picked up was the first four issues of Horror Anthology Epitaphs From the Abyss.

This is Oni Press's revival of EC Comics, and I wanted to pay special attention to the editorial "mission statement" in the first book:

"From the earliest stages of this project, we've agreed amongst ourselves that it would be a fool's errand to try and produce a knock-off simulacrum of the original EC titles... Instead, we've challenged ourselves to imagine a world where the Comics Code never unceremoniously amputated EC's publishing line at the end of 1955 and, through that lens, what kinds of series and stories EC Comics would be producing for a new generation of readers eager to disturb and discover in the year of 2024."

Talk about the right way to approach an undertaking of this magnitude!!!

Look at these covers, courtesy of Lee Bermejo (issues 2-4) and Andrea Sorrentino (issue 1). Absolutely fantastic, and inside? Well, let's say where the revived Creepshow comic (and show) mostly leaves a lot to be desired, Epitaphs from the Abyss is a great read that takes familiar characteristics of the age we live in and turns them against us (even more than we already do ourselves!). 

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Playlist:

Sumerlands - Dreamkiller 

Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers and Queers

Various - The Daptone Super Soul Revue LIVE at the Apollo

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

Dinosaur Jr. - Sweep It Into Space

Deafheaven - Infinite Granite

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Card:

Today, we're going to take a look at XX: The Aeon.

From my own personal Grimoire: "The Pivotal Sequence - what comes next is upon you!"

Another note I have that catches my eye right away is "Holography- multiple outcomes contained within a whole."

For Crowley, this card was all about Nuit, arched above Horus, the Crowned and Conquering Child. Nuit is the doorway to the new Aeon. So much of Crowley's work revolved around the Age of Horus. Did it come upon us? Probably. Did it affect us? Definitely, although these kind of subtle energies never manifest as anything as gaudy as a flying saucer landing on the white house lawn or some politician tearing away their flesh to reveal a scaly visage beneath (not yet, anyway). These energies creep in through the back door of the human collective unconscious and change the world by changing us over time. I'm reminded immediately of Donald Tyson's bone-chilling essay, "Enochian Apocalypse" (read it HERE). I'm also reminded that in his Book of Thoth, Crowley has this to say, "... the child Horus is born... he is also solar in character, and is therefore shown coming forth in a golden light." To which I drew an arrow and wrote in the margins oh so long ago, "UFO???"

Now, that's not to say I believe in UFOs (or whatever they're called now), but the idea for the card is something arrives that will change your perception of what is real or possible. The very definition of a new Aeon, eh?