The most amazing Seamus Cooper tweeted me the other day and told me he'd write a post for me. After emailing him, he emailed this to me yesterday. I think it's fantastic. I hope to bring him back in the future for an up date, So let me shut up and let his post start. And seriously, go buy his book.
Hey, blogosphere! It’s your pal Seamus Cooper, author of the Mall of Cthulhu, and, more importantly in this case, guy who does not have finals this week! (The last time I had finals was, I believe, late in the Polk administration.)
So: no time for a horror movie this week? (Maybe you have finals or something). Why not pick up a horror comic instead? Here are some suggestions:
Atomic Robo: The Shadow From Beyond Time. (Red 5 Comics). Though Atomic Robo is a really fun and lighthearted adventure comic, this particular volume has Robo fighting a Lovecraftian horror from beyond time and space through many decades. Ol’ H.P. Lovecraft Not scary, but tons of fun. himself (as gibbering madman) makes an appearance in issue 1!
We Kill Monsters (Red 5 Comics). So what if two brothers who ran a garage ran into some kind of homicidal demon that they killed, but in killing it, one of them wound up with a big, green, muscular demon arm with big, scary claws? And then they had a whole bunch more monsters to kill? Sometimes with shovels? You’d have a kickass comic, that’s what.
North 40 (Wildstorm). This one is actually scary. We’re only 2 issues in, but so far, hoo boy this is a winner. Something very awful happens in a small desert town one night. When everyone wakes up, most of them have been horribly transformed and their town is literally hell on earth. Lots of great, creepy images.
Creepy (Dark Horse). The next issue isn’t coming out until October, but you can still find issue 1 around. If you’re not familiar with Creepy, it was a black-and-white horror anthology comic book in the 60’s and 70’s featuring nasty little stories with a twist in the Tales from the Crypt vein. Dark Horse has collected many of the originals in big, beautiful, and pricey hardcover editions (they should run you about 50 bucks a pop). But even more exciting and, more importantly, affordable, they’ve brought back Creepy as a new comic book drawn and written by all kinds of talented people. It’s in black and white and features nasty little stories with a twist. And it is excellent.
If trade paperbacks are more your style, the Marvel Essentials series has lots of great stuff to choose from. I’m currently working my way through Essential Man-Thing, which features a shambling swamp creature and completely nutty (but in a good way) writing that features lots of trans-dimensional demon fighting and nearly endless repetition of the sentence “Whatever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing’s touch!” (There are collections of all Marvel’s horror comics from the 70’s, so if werewolves or vampires are more your style, you can get those too.)
Finally, if you are not yet reading The Walking Dead, go buy volume 1 right now. It’s a familiar story of survivors after a zombie apocalypse, but it’s got much more emotional realism and power than pretty much anything else set in this universe. It’s an incredible tour de force full of characters who feel like real people, and, as in all the best zombie stories, the real horror is in the way the survivors interact with each other. Well, that and the awesome zombie killing.
That’s it for me. Back to your regularly scheduled blog entries as soon as finals are over. If you enjoy my smartass, irreverent take on horror, please consider buying my book, The Mall of Cthulhu.
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