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.
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.
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.
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
Hall & Oats - Do What You Want, Be What You Are (Disc 3)
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Will Haven - Carpe Diem
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• 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.
When I say new, I should specify I am way behind on this one - looks like it dropped two weeks ago! Funny, as I just listened to Sound & Color for the first time in a while last week and had a moment of forlorn reflection that it's been ten years since that album was released. I don't know if this new track heralds an upcoming album, but I sure hope so.
Watch:
Where K and I would normally have seen The Long Walk on opening night this past Thursday, we had the opportunity to see John Carpenter's The Thing on the big screen (our second time) during Regal's Cine: A Month of Masterpieces. This series has me in awe: We're seeing Sunset Blvd tonight (also a second time on the big screen for us), I'm going to try like hell to see GDT's Pan's Labyrinth on Wednesday, then we have Psycho on Friday. And we're still in the second week of the month!!!
However, it's Francis Lawrence's The Long Walk I want to talk about right now. Adapted from a Richard Bachman - aka Stephen King - novella of the same name, with the adapted screenplay coming to us from JT Mollner, the Writer/Director of one of 2024's best films (Strange Darling), The Long Walk feels, in this moment, like the best adaptation of King's work to date. Ten years ago, that might have been a no-brainer until you stop to consider The Shawshank Redemption or Stand By Me (I've always heard The Green Mile is up there as well, but I haven't seen that one). But we've had a spate of pretty good adaptations over the last decade, top among them Mike Flanagan's Doctor Sleep and Gerald's Game. In the Tall Grass, and while I don't love the Andy Muschietti IT films, they're better than the original. Castle Rock - while not officially an adaptation of any one King story, is a super solid amalgam of his work. So we're light-years from the days of Langoliers and Needful Things. But The Long Walk feels like it has all of them beat.
I'm largely unfamiliar with Francis Lawrence's work as a Director. Yes, I've seen Constantine, and it puts me in a tough spot, as if they had not based that on John Constantine: Hellblazer, I would have loved it. Some fantastic images and ideas, but it just doesn't work with Reeves as JC and Chas being anyone but a hulking ex-Football hooligan. Other than that, though, looking at Lawrence's IMDB, I see he is mostly known for working with Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. I tried and couldn't get twenty pages into the first book, so I didn't even bother with the films, partially because the entire thing feels like a watered-down version of The Long Walk and Battle Royale. His history doesn't matter, though, because this film is excellent. A complete gut-punch in the best possible way, and King's knack for male camaraderie and how it can be a shortcut to major life epiphanies really shines through in this film. The characters are fantastic, and it hurts to see what happens to them. Cooper Hoffman confirms he is an excellent actor, following in his late father's footsteps, but David Jonsson - wow! In two movies (the other being Alien: Romulus, where he plays Andy, Rain's synthetic "brother"), he has demonstrated charisma and range that have me watching for his next film, genre or not.
I'd recommend catching this one in the theater. If you want to hear more, hit the widget at the upper right-hand side of this page for The Horror Vision's new episode, where we start with a spoiler-free review, then give ample warning before veering into a full-spoiler comparison between the book and the film. Also available on YouTube HERE.
Playlist:
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Hellbender - Hellbender OST
HEALTH - Ordinary Loss (pre-release single)
HEALTH - Rat Wars
David Bowie - Outside
Double Life - Indifferent Stars
Entropy - Dharmakāya
Deftones - private music
Godflesh - Streetcleaner
Blut Aus Nord - Shadows Breathe First (pre-release single)
Blut Aus Nord - Disharmoniu - Nahab
Dreamkid - Daggers
Faetooth - Labyrinthe
Alabama Shakes - Another Life (single)
Netherlands - Vapor
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Queen of Swords
• Six of Wands
• Page of Wands
A major creative period is happening, but it will take clear judgment to navigate.
I love when these are so spot on. I've been working pretty diligently on Shadow Play Book Two, and there are SO many ideas at play right now. So many historical themes to tie into this century-spanning saga, so it's an immense creative rush, but I have to keep asking myself, "How much is too much?"
In 2001 I saw one of my favorite shows ever at Whelans, possibly because I had just flown in to Dublin that morning and was running on adrenaline and lust for the Irish girl I'd flown across the world to visit. Not everything worked out great, but I got to see Damien Frost, New Prayer Breakfast, and another band I'm blanking on at the moment at one of the coolest venues I've been to. To find this Drug Church show posted from there was a blast, and it really just made me remember, A) how much I want to go back to Ireland and, B) how much I want to see Drug Church live.
Watch:
Last night, K and I got to see John Carpenter's The Thing on the big screen for the second time. This is a film that never fails to fill me with inspiration, to blow me away, to remind me just how amazing cinema can be. Also, how the greatest works of art are often not appreciated at first. The Thing bombed upon release; reflecting on that now, it seems unbelievable, but it's a fact. Kinda gives me a little hope.
Anyway, whenever I watch The Thing, I follow it up with Simon Gesrel's video for Zombie Zombie's Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free. It's almost as impressive as Carpenter's film (in a totally different way).
Playlist:
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Blackbraid - Blackbraid III
Joy Division - Still
Mastodon - Leviathan
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Dreamkid - Daggers
Nabihah Iqbal - Weighing of the Heart
Gram Rabbit - Music To Start A Cult To
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Sterolab - Oscillations From the Anti-Sun (disc 3)
The Jesus Lizard - Down
The Jesus Lizard - Rack
Cibo Matto - Viva! La Woman
Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Grimm's newest deck looks maybe even more awesome than The Hand of Doom (hard to believe, but I said it). Head over to his Kickstarter page for the upcoming The Eldritch Lace Tarot Deck and hit "Notify me upon launch." This looks amazing!
• Page of Wands
• Six of Pentacles
• Ten of Wands
Lots of Will being distracted by a perfect earthly set up. Seems like money getting in the way, like it always does.
Interesting. I found out yesterday the yahoos in the payroll department of the corporation that I work for neglected to set up the health care benefits I signed up for in 2025. Correction - they started taking the money out in January, then stopped in February. Now I owe over 1500. This fact has destabilized me with anger, and I'm fairly cetain that's what this pull is referencing.
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!
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!
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.
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
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.
From the ripping new album Blackbraid III, which is destined to be in my top ten of the year. Awesome video to boot - not too often I can say that. Order your copy of the album HERE.
Watch:
Somehow, it's probably been close to 20 years since I last watched my DVD copy of Caro and Jeunet's The City of Lost Children. It's amazing how, just like I wrote about rediscovering Man Man's Life Fantastic last summer, something I once loved so much could slip to the wayside and go so long without a viewing.
This film is still every bit as magical as it was the first time I saw it, circa the early 2000s. Released in 1995, the internet show the original, Sony Pictures Classics' DVD was first released in 1999, and I did not acquire my first DVD player until somewhere either near the end of 2000 or the beginning of 2001. This was one of the first DVDs I ever purchased, as the film had been covered in the Wrapped in Plastic David Lynch/Twin Peaks magazine due to Angelo Badalamenti providing the film's score, and all the stills and the write-up had me ravenous to see this film. Ron Perlman is fantastic as One, and all of the children are grand. What really steals the show, though, is the set design. This is a Steampunk Fantasy world unlike anything realized on film at the time. I'd argue that Caro and Jeunet's film is still one of the most unique visions I've had the pleasure of beholding, and I can only hope that, since this December marks the 30th anniversary of its original release, someone might hold a retrospective screening at one of the theatres in Chicago (cuz it ain't gonna play in Tennessee).
Read:
I am, frankly, all over the damn place with my reading at the moment.
While I've dedicated the remainder of my year for the written word to all the research I need to do for Shadow Play Book Two, I'm leaving comics/graphic novels as an outlet for pleasure reading. In 2024 I began a Sandman re-read that got me through the first three volumes, and now, since finishing Netflix's second season adaptation, I've knocked out Season of Mists and, this past weekend, A Game of You.
I'm fairly certain this is only the second time I've read this fifth collected volume of Sandman, so while I did remember it as I went along, Barbie and the cuckoo's story is nowhere near as familiar to me as the first three or four volumes of the series. One of the strengths of this series is its supporting cast, and that is on full display here, as Morpheus only appears twice, for a considerably shorter time than one might imagine for a book that carries his name.
Barbie's story was an interesting one to continue, a thread pulled from back in TheDoll's House, where we first met her living with Ken in the house where she and several other memorable characters acted as roommates to Rose during her search for her brother.
Of particular note here is Wanda's story. Although Netflix did use this character, they eschewed all of A Game of You, lifting her instead as a character in what would ultimately come from the "Dream and Delirium" road trip story from Volume 7: Brief Lives. I had zero problems with this change, and in fact, found Indya Moore's portrayal of the Wanda character quite affecting. It's important to note the different cultural contexts that distinguish the two versions of Wanda. In the comic, the character first appeared in The Sandman issue #32, published in September, 1991. The character is far more masculine here, despite their Transsexual disposition. That makes sense; the creators were no doubt playing off a cultural zeitgeist of the time, where trans people had a much harder time identifying in public and transitioning (not that they necessarily have it easy now, but I would think '91 would seem like the Dark Ages compared to cultural awareness today). Juxtapose that with Wanda in the show, who, in present-day New York, would have a considerably more established and possibly even 'mainstream' support network than the Wanda of 1991 would have ever had.
Playlist:
Deftones - private music
Blut Aus Nord - Shadows Breathe First (pre-release single)
Blut Aus Nord - Debermur Morti
Blut Aus Nord - 777: Cosmosophy
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Revocation - New Gods, New Masters (pre-release singles)
Chris Connelly - White Phosphorus (Chris Connelly Plays Throbbing Gristle)
Ruelle - Emerge
bunsenburner - Reverie
Russian Circles - Gnosis
The Cars - Eponymous
Godflesh - Post Self
Giraffe Tongue Orchestra - Broken Lines
Frank Sinatra - In the Wee Small Hours
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Three of Swords
• Ten of Pentacles
• IX: The Hermit
Introspection leads to unhappiness, but that unhappiness leads to long-term security.
Well now, that's a pickle, but it seems like something I should try and figure out, now doesn't it?
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.
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.
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.'
Somehow, I missed that The Body had a new album come out a few months back, even though by now I should know to expect a new release at least once a year. All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood is another challenging masterpiece from these guys, its majesty crystallized in this final track.
Watch:
I rewatched Toby Wilkins' 2008 film Splinter over the weekend. I had only ever seen this one once before, back when my good friend Grimm came out and visited me in 2011. He's the one who turned me onto this film, and rewatching it after so long, I had to message him a note of thanks. I don't know how I haven't rewatched this once more, but it's definitely on my permanent radar now.
The creature FX in this film are outstanding. Sure, the filmmakers are a bit coy with the camera on the monster at times, but that gives this really intense, "What the fuck did I just see?" feeling that helps to put you in the place of the characters. In fact, it's Nelson Cragg's camera work that makes me think of Samy Inayeh's work behind the lens on another creature-feature favorite of mine, Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski's 2011 masterpiece The Void. I'm writing this Saturday afternoon, and I'd wager by the time this posts on Tuesday, I'll probably have rewatched Kostanski & Gillespie's film, too.
Playlist:
Blut Aus Nord - The Mystical Beast of Rebellion
Blut Aus Nord - 777 - Sect(s)
Blut Aus Nord - Codex Obscura Nomina
Anthrax - Persistence of Time
Anthrax - Stomp 442
Deftones - private music
Ruelle - Emerge
Dead Man's Bones - Eponymous
Man Man - Life Fantastic
The Dead Weather - Dodge and Burn
The Body - All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood
Spectral Tilt - Sleepers (single)
lords. - Bleeding Out (single)
lords. - aven (single)
leaving_forever & stream_error - nobody home
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XVIII The Moon
• Three of Cups
• Knight of Cups
A lot of emotion can obscure what you're looking for.
Not sure how to read this one. Work-related? Maybe. Also, Thinking it might be for someone else, but who that would be, at this point, I'm not sure.
From the soundtrack to the new Darren Aronofsky film, Caught Stealing, which I was interested in seeing until I was subjected to the trailer before every movie I've seen at the theatre for the last month and a half. Still, great song. Always cool to get some new music from Idles!
Watch:
Stephen Kostansky's remake of Roger Corman's Deathstalker finally received a trailer and it. Looks. AWESOME!
In theatres October 10th, I am crossing my fingers I'll get to see this on the big screen!
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.
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.
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.
The Body - All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood
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.
The first track off Testament's upcoming fourteenth studio album, Para Bellum, is out October 10th on Nuclear Blast Records. You can pre-order a copy HERE.
Fourteen albums? That just blows me away. I've dodged in and out of keeping tabs on these guys. Most of their records still sound fantastic to me, and if this first track is any indication, Para Bellum will be no different.
Watch:
Last night I saw Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno's 2016 Shin Godzilla on the big screen for the second time in three days.
Unlike many of my friends, I did not grow up with Godzilla. Certainly, I knew what the monster was. Who doesn't? The big G has occupied a fairly lofty space in the cultural lexicon for longer than I have been alive. I'm not sure that, without that layer of nostalgia, I'll ever be able to go back and embrace the Godzilla movies of the past (maybe, though), but between this and Minus One, hot damn am I a convery. This movie is STUNNING. Some of the best effects I have ever seen theatrically. They build a world and destroy it and, although I know I'm not watching half a dozen skyscrapers in Tokyo topple, I believe that's exactly what I'm seeing.
Read:
I'm halfway through Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and to complement it as research for Shadow Play Book Two, I've also procured a $10 Kindle copy of Richard Ellmann's celebrated biography of Wilde, Oscar Wilde:
This is often shown titled as Oscar Wilde: Pulitzer Prize Winner; however, I find that adding the book's accolade to the title is a bit churlish, to say the least.
I've pretty much accepted that despite the literal tower of books on my 'to-read' pile, the remainder of my 2025 reading will most likely be reserved specifically for research. Two exceptions are the Nathan Ballingrud and Laird Barron novellas due next month. Other than that, I'm all in on researching both Victorian and Elizabethan England, which have winnowed their way into my novel as main characters of the second act.
Playlist:
Windhand - Eternal Return
Sleep - Dopesmoker
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1
Steve Moore - VFW OST
Blackbraid - Blackbraid III
Testament - Infanticide AI (single)
Mastodon - Leviathan
Testament - The Gathering
Portishead - Third
Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel
Hall & Oats - Rock 'N' Soul, Part 1
Deftones - private music
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XVII: The Star
• XX: Adjustment
• Eight of Swords
Struggling interrupts the path to enlightenment.
That's a pretty vague interpretation, but I'm picking up what I'm putting down. This is a work-oriented Pull, letting me know that the theoretical middle finger roadblocks I'm throwing in certain folks' direction are perhaps counterproductive. I would argue that corporate backstabbing and rigamarole are also counterproductive, but that's just it - stop pointing that out and try to work past it.
The new album from Revocation lands in under a month and I'm pretty psyched. I've especially taken to this pre-release single "Cronenberged," the name of which almost immediately signified how I would feel for it. And with a title referencing the Godfather of Body Horror, Revocation and Director, Cinematographer and FX guru David Brodsky 100% delivered!
You can pre-order the new album, New Gods, New Masters, from Metal Blade Records HERE.
NCBD:
Another Wednesday, another NCBD pull list! Super excited about these, so let's get into it!
So excited for the next chapter in this cosmic game of thrones (not a reference to George R. Martin). Hickman brings his trademark complexity, but also, he once again manages to infuse it with a sense of excitement I've not seen anyone bring to the big two in quite some time.
G.I.Joe issue #9 was, I think, the best of the series thus far, so despite the instant exhaustion I feel looking at a cover displaying Cover Girl and Baroness as the stars of the issue, I have high hopes. I'd just really like to move on from them soon.
I feel a re-read coming on for Exquisite Corpses. Interesting to note that issue 3 had Pornsak Pichetshote and Valentine De Landro were credited as Writer/Artist, so I'd kind of assumed this might be a project that Tynion and Walsh had conceived, set up and handed off; however, that's not the case. League of Comic Geeks' entry for this issue shows the founders back on board for the next few solicitations.
The first issue of Catacombs of Torment was a blast, so I've been jonesing to read #2, due out today! There is nothing quite as satisfying as a fantastic Horror Anthology, especially when it's in comic book form (This is probably based on the fact that I saw Creepshow as a very young child, and it imprinted on me forevermore).
Watch:
After rewatching Osgood Perkins' The Monkey this past Sunday night, I was reminded just how much I'm looking forward to his next film, Keeper, due in theatres November 14th!
I'm continually amazed at not only how fast Mr. Perkins works, but how he's really matured as a filmmaker of late.
Playlist:
The Knife - Silent Shout
The Knife - Shaking the Habitual
The Knife - Deep Cuts
Blackbraid - Blackbraid III
Drug Church - Prude
King Woman - Doubt EP
Steve Moore - The Mind's Eye OST
Steve Moore - Christmas Bloody Christmas OST
Revocation - New Gods, New Masters (pre-release singles)
Helmet - Aftertaste
Spotlights - Love & Decay
Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XVI: The Tower
• XII: The Hanged Man
• 7 of Disks: Failure
It'd been a minute since I put hands on my Thoth deck, so that's what I pulled for today. Looks like to change a paradigm, I'm going to have to go through a sacrifice and fail once or twice. Not sure what this is alluding to; might be the new methodology I've been tweaking for working on Shadow Play Book 2. Might be work-related.
I love that Steve Moore has done an original score for every movie Joe Begos has made except his first. I love everyone of those scores, own them all on vinyl, and am happy to share the news that Terror Vision.
My god do I love the design on this one! You can pre-order the soundtrack HERE, and from what I'm seeing, Jimmy and Stiggs is still in wide release up until Thursday when the new stuff comes out. I'm going to try to drive into Nashville to see it again, and I have to implore the rest of you to make the effort as well. It's not a perfect film, but it's made for the big screen and supporting something so DIY in big box chains is VITAL to our way of life as fans.
Watch:
Pierre Tsigaridis's new film Traumatika is getting a lot of hype coming out of recent festival screenings, and I'm super curious. I really liked his previous film, Two Witches, which I watched on the Arrow Streaming service back when it first landed in 2022. I can't say I remember the film very well, but that's definitely not the movie's fault. It usually takes a viewing or two for things to stick.
Early reports and all the promotional material make Traumatika sound pretty daunting, but we'll see. I watched about a third of this trailer and it was enough to get me further on board, so I'm hoping come September 12th, this pops up on a big screen in my neck of the woods. The blurb on Letterboxd mentions two phrases that always suggest a promising formula for Horror: "Night Terrors" and "Demonic Possession."
Read:
I finished Stephen Graham Jones' latest novel The Buffalo Hunter Hunter over the weekend. This is the kind of novel that leaves a deafening vacuum when it ends, where you just look at the other books on your shelf or in your queue and can't quite bring yourself to replace it right away.
Luckily, while I've begun picking at my Sandman re-read again, my main focus for the next few months and possibly the remainder of the year will be on a list of titles I have determined I need to read to continue to work on the sequel to Shadow Play. Some of these are books I've known I'm going to have to read for a few years now, and some are new to the list. The point is, I'm finally working through this project the way I should have been all along.
First up: The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. It's a shame I haven't already read this, anyway, so I'm finally making up for lost time. a handful of chapters in, I'm hooked, even if it did take me a few to adjust to the more flowery, 'purple' prose style. Once I readjusted, it fit like a glove.
I'm just reading the cheapie Kindle edition, so I thought I'd post one of the more interesting covers from previous editions here, published by Penguin Clothbound Classics in 2000. Yeah, not the best 'vintage' for a book with this much history, but honestly, after google image searching this one, I don't know that it ever received a cover I actually like.
Playlist:
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Nell' ora blu
Secret Chiefs 2 Traditionalists - La Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomimi
White Zombie - Astro-Creep 2000
Zombi - Shape Shift
Ruin of Romantics - Self Control (single)
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity
Fvnerals - Let the Earth be Silent
Brittany Bindrim - Ever So Slowly (single)
Revocation - The Outer Ones
The Body - No One Deserves Happiness
Fantômas - Delirium Cordia
In Slaughter Natives - Sacrosancts Bleed
Ministry - Houses of the Molee
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
ISIS - Panopticon
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1
Steve Moore - Jimmy and Stiggs OST
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Knight of Pentacles
• XVI: The Tower
• XI: Justice
I saw the Knight of Disks - which I often equate with saving money, and knew exactly what I had to do. I had literally been thinking about it just before the pull, so this was an easy one. Especially after adding in The Tower and Justice.
