M83 - Beauties Can Die

From their 2003 second album Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, which I'm not sure I had ever listened to before, despite my obsession with this band starting with Saturdays = Youth and culminating on the follow-up Hurry Up, We're Dreaming. Great record, but it takes a little getting used to. You can steam the entire thing "Officially" on their YouTube page HERE (or just any of the streamers).

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Read:

Last week I picked back up on the re-read of Terry Moore's Rachel Rising that I started on New Year's Eve, 2025. I don't know how I got away from it for so long, because although I'd left off on issue 15, I re-read the entire rest of the forty-two-issue series in about a day and a half. 

I read this monthly, so while I have all the floppies, there are seven trade volumes collecting the full series and a recently released omnibus. This one is so worth your time. I mean, I think this is, in my humble opinion, the greatest Horror comic of all time. It's that good, and it's all down to Terry Moore's insanely relatable style and, the flip side to that coin, his absolutely nefarious approach to Horror. There are some insanely dark and disturbing themes, images and ideas in this book, but they never feel like they've gone too far. The overall story starts small and becomes brilliantly biblical, and those are two "B" words that usually do not go together in Shawn's world. 

The characters are fantastic and, again, so likable and relatable. Anyone who's read Moore's seminal Strangers in Paradise knows how great his characters are and make no mistake, Rachel, Jet, Zoe, Aunt Johnnie and Earl all feel like one fucked up branch of my interior family now, and I'm having a hard time letting them go. 

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Playlist:

Bauhaus - Gotham (Live)

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand

Bauhaus - Go Away White

The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us is the Killer

3Teeth - Eponymous

M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts

High on Fire - Electric Messiah

Russian Circles - Gnosis

Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

Chicago - 25 or 6 to 4 (single)

Melvins/Helms Alee - Controlling Data for a Better Feeling Future

M83 - Saturdays = Youth

Pinebender - Working Nine to Wolf

Plague Bringer - As the Ghosts Collect, the Corpses Rest

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Card:

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

• Queen of Pentacles

• Six of Cups

* Ten of Pentacles

Emotion makes it difficult to rule the Earthly matters. A direct reference to spending money frivilously, of which, I have recently been guilty of. On a good path now, but have some make up work to do. 

Save Rachel Rising!!!

image courtesy of terrymooreart.com

Comic book fans and all those in love with a great story I appeal to you - Terry Moore recently tweeted that numbers on his amazing monthly series Rachel Rising - which begins with a girl waking up from her own murder and leads off a twisty path into some old school biblical witchcraft that goes on to incorporate the Salem Witch Trials - is towing numbers so low that, as Moore stated, when his legendary book Strangers in Paradise numbers sported similar numbers he ended the series.

@joe_hill I'm still on it but the orders keep dropping like the comic is bad. So frustrating. I ended sip when it got this low. Frustrating.
— Terry Moore (@TerryMoore) December 17, 2013

This can't happen people!

Now Moore wasn't stating that he was ending Rachel Rising, but the frustration and hurt was there. And it should be because not only is Rachel Rising an amazing book but it is completely INDEPENDENT - put out through Moore's own Abstract Studio. This post isn't an ad for a kickstarter or anything, I'm just imploring to those who read comics to drop into your local comic shop or hit up amazon and pick up the first trade or an issue or anything. Trust me - you will LOVE this book. The art is amazingly detailed B&W and the story is just getting batshit crazy while still retaining the 'sophisticated horror' element that a show such as American Horror Story conveys. And really, this new season of AHS is most definitely influenced by Rachel Rising, as it too revolves around Witchcraft (though to what degree I don't know because I haven't seen it yet).

Terry Moore is an icon - please give him and his wonderful book Rachel Rising a chance!

Terry Moore's Rachel Rising on TV? (via Bloodydisgusting)

REALLY interesting news tonight via the always mighty Bloodydisgusting - one of my favorite comics in recent years, Terry Moore's Rachel Rising, has just been licensed for tv. Read the full article BD article here and if you dig comics and haven't read RR please give it a shot. I wrote some praise for the book here and here.