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?
From the forthcoming album Ethereal Horizons, out on November 28th 2025 on the always epic Debemur Morti Productions. Pre-order HERE.
I am so psyched for this release!
Watch:
I've been picking at Alien: Earth for a little over two weeks now. From the moment I sat down to watch the first episode, I hated it. It's funny - I love Noah Hawley's Fargo series, or at least what I've seen of it (seasons 1, 2 and 5), but it seems like everything else I try from him just doesn't gel with me (I tried Legion a few years ago and also hated it). Despite the disconnect, though, this is Alien, and because of that, I have tried to hang in there the best I can, hoping for something to latch onto. This past Tuesday night, they delivered.
Big time.
Holy smokes, did this episode give me everything I wanted! True, I'm a bit disappointed they had to go back to the standard Alien formula of 'Xenomorph loose on a ship' to get there, but I don't care. This was fantastic, and it reaffirmed my hanging in there. Even if I hate the next three episodes, this one made it all worthwhile.
Most of my issues come from the show's heavy focus on Boy Kavaliar and his 'lost boys.' A cunty, twenty-something douche bag trillionaire and his host of synthetics that have had the consciousnesses of sick children uploaded into them. The concept is cool, and it works great with the premise of the show - that governments were done away with as functionless, archaic designs when 'five corporations' stepped up and took control of the globe. That's gotta be a Fugazi reference, right?
Granted, one of the things I probably have so much trouble with here is the fact that this all feels a bit too real. Corporate ownership has weighed heavily on my mind, and this is honestly exactly where I see us going. But the characters in this thread are all very unlikeable and, while that's surely the point, the show spends SO MUCH time with them. Then, when they give us some Alienness, it's akin to what happened in the second episode with the apartment full of rich c_nts partying in powdered wigs and getting slaughtered - off screen, btw - in what felt like an empty gesture; a softball pitch to keep us happy before they just went right back to almost exclusively following the trillionaire and his toys.
Episode four started to come around, and five just blew me away. Part of what I want to see so much more of are not just the Xenomorphs, but the other alien life forms they've introduced on the show. The Eyeball Kid, for instance, is my favorite new thing. Love this 'character' and am eager to find out more about it.
Playlist:
Steve Moore - VFW OST
Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST
Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power
Alabama Shakes - Sound & Color
Ghost - Infestissumam
Goblin - 2013 Tour E.P
The Dead Weather - Dodge and Burn
The Body - All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood
S U R V I V E - Mnq026
Fever Ray - Radical Romantics
Cibo Mato - Viva! La Woman
Blut Aus Nord - Debermur MoRTi (single)
Boy Harsher - Careful
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Three of Cups
• XVI: The Tower
• 0: The Fool
Three of Cups really kind of owns me at this point. I stopped putting individual card metadata in these posts a while ago, but I'm starting to think I should remedy that just to see if I'm wrong or if this card comes up like every three days. That's what it feels like, so let's look at the card a bit more in-depth than usual.
From Crowley's The Book of Thoth:
"This card refers to Binah in the suit of Water. This is the card of Demeter or
Persephone. The Cups are pomegranates: they are filled bountifully to overflowing from a single lotus, arising from the dark calm sea characteristic of
Binah. There is here the fulfillment of the Will of Love in abounding joy. It is
the spiritual basis of fertility.
The card is referred to the influence of Mercury in Cancer; this carries further
the above thesis. Mercury is the Will or Word of the All-Father; here its
influence descends upon the most receptive of the Signs.
At the same time, the combination of these forms of energy brings in the
possibility of somewhat mysterious ideas. Binah, the Great Sea, is the Moon in
one aspect, but Saturn in another; and Mercury, besides being the Word or Will
of the All-One, is the guide of the souls of the Dead. This card requires great
subtlety of interpretation. The pomegranate was the fruit which Persephone
ate in the realms of Pluto, thereby enabling him to hold her in the lower world,
even after the most powerful influence had been brought to
bear. The lesson seems to be that the good things of life, although enjoyed,
should be distrusted."
Abundance in Thoth, this card signifies good times and social connections, and Grimm did a great job illustrating that for his card. Mix this with The Tower - a change in paradigms, and the Fool, a new journey, and I'm thinking this may be telling me to make some new friends here in Tennessee, something I've had a relatively difficult time doing.
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. Oh wait, All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood is a reissue? Wow. Well, new or old, this one is yet 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.
