The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast

image courtesy of miskatonicbooks.wordpress.com

Along with all the writing I have been doing lately I've been reading a lot. Thanks to my friend Missi's guidance I went through several old Stephen King novels I'd never read before - Cujo and Pet Sematary. Then I binged HBO's True Detective and came out the other side of it needing something else. I found a few pretty good podcasts that critically discussed the show and once I'd burned through them I ended up falling head over heels back into Lovecraft. From here I found the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast and kind of became obsessed with it. Hosts Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer are an absolute pleasure to listen to as they and some occasional guests discuss every Lovecraft story in its own episode - or in many cases several episodes. If you love Lovecraft, please do yourself a favor and dig into this - it has enhanced my appreciation of a writer I've been into for well over twenty years and that my friends, is just not easy to do!

The Walking Dead issue #127

image courtesy of thewalkingdead.com

See, this is why I gave up on the show. The Walking Dead has been consistently the best comic I've read monthly for almost ten years now. And it just keeps getting better. I won't venture into spoiler territory, which I guess is why this is going here and I'm not writing this week's Thee Comic Column about TWD #127, but when Kirkman said he was changing the landscape of the book, he was not bloody kidding!

My personal feeling after reading this issue and acclimating to the new status quo is the end game of the book begins here. I don't think the series will end any time soon, but I think there's more behind it at this point than ahead of it. Of course once the core book wraps I'd bet Rick's hand that Kirkman will "Executive Produce" at the very least one spin off written by someone else and following other characters in this world he has created. But for now, things have definitely changed and I for one am 100% on board.

New Blut Aus Nord

Via Brooklyn Vegan, who has all the pertinent information on this split BaN is doing with another French group, P.H.O.B.O.S. And I will say it right now, as big a fan of Nord as I have become in the last three years or so I ended up not really loving their last effort What Once Was... Liber III. Perhaps I did not give this record a fair enough shake but despite my anticipation, when I really had the time to sit down and listen to it I just didn't feel as though it was very much more than re-hashing some of their other material around that time. Granted, Vindsval and company had just done something like five releases in a year and a half, so it seemed only natural that not all of it would clear the high water mark - when a band as prolific as Nord releases something I consider a misstep I certainly do not hold it against my opinion of them. These guys consistently delivery amazing and ground-breaking music, and at a fairly rapid-fire rate. So if I don't personally care for something they do, I can basically just wait for the next release and bam, there's the genius moment again.

Drinking w/ Comics Issue #6

Wherein A Voice in the Dark creator Larime Taylor sits in with Mike and I for the entire episode! We talk about Larime's fantastic book, horror movies and music's role in his creative process. We interview local comic creator Cassidy James about his Kickstarter for his new book Gun Up Paintball and a trip to The Comic Bug for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2014!

Twin Peaks Missing Pieces

Oh man. Now I'm going to have to buy a blu ray player and a tv from after 1995.

It's worth it.

Rob Zombie's New Horror Movie?

via Bloody Disgusting. I have NO idea what this will be but despite my dislike of H2 (beautifully shot, and that's the only good thing I can say about it) and subsequent relative disappointment in the Lords of Salem - which looks amazing but I was unable to make it all the way through due to what I perceived at the time to be an amazingly sluggish pace* and next to no plot advancement from the inciting incident into almost the end of the second act, I am excited for this. Mr. Zombie's much touted, "I'm done with horror" scared me. Whether he balks or slams one out of the park, I like Zombie on the Horror hound side. I don't want to applaud what may be a diminutive situation for him - being stuck inside a genre he wants out of - but what can I say? House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects are, in my mind, modern classics of the genre (even if they do wear their influences on their sleeve. So what? It makes it so you can watch them and go, "Oh! Zombie loves House by the Cemetery too! Awesome!) and aspects of the Theatrical cut of Halloween turn what is essentially an over-explained and unneeded remake into a beautifully rendered piece of cinema.

...........

* I intend to give Lords of Salem another chance as a lot of folks whose opinions I respect loved it and in the film's defense, I tried watching it after I'd been up for almost 24 hours, so what I perceived as a 'sluggish pace' may have actually been me nodding off.

First. Constantine. Trailer.

At the VERY least they cast this right. Whew.

Seriously though, this first trailer for the upcoming Constantine trailer opens on a nice bit of continuity from the Vertigo book - Ravenscar. It also eludes to Astra, which really seals the deal for me. Also, the trailer appears to go out of its way to assure us that all of the elements the *ahem* movie eschewed (American instead of English, dark hair) this has fixed. Have they fixed Chas from being a little kid? Hopefully. And yet for all of these checks in the plus column the trailer does go on a bit long and at times reminds me maybe a bit too much of that ill-fated film from 2004, what with the CG and ancient evil rising bit. Still, how often do we get to see Occult symbols on nbc?

I'm in.