Unspeakable Horror!

From Dark Scribe Press:

Dark Scribe Press is pleased to announce the inclusion of “I Am the Shadow That Walks There,” an original work of short fiction by Michelle Scalise, in the Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet anthology.

Michelle Scalise's fiction has appeared in such anthologies as The Darker Side, Dark Arts, Best Women’s Erotica, Best Bisexual Women’s Erotica, The Big Book of Erotic Ghost Stories, Wicked Words, Dead Cat’s Traveling Circus and such magazines as Cemetery Dance, Dark Discoveries and Crimewave. Intervals of Horrible Sanity, her first collection, was published in 2003 from Medium Rare Books.

Author Website

Bartholomew by Daniel CrosierThese are the very first character sketches for Bartholomew of the Scissors, created by artist Daniel Crosier when he first joined the project. 

Daniel is now working on issue #3 of Bartholomew of the Scissors.  The first two completed comics are amazing.  The series will hit the comic book stores in October of 2008.

Daniel uses an innovative and highly original method of illustrating comics by burning them into wood and then augmenting with color. 

The motif of fire works really well thematically because there is a lot of fire in the story of the comic book, mainly because one of the characters is made entirely of fire: the Fire Doppelganger.

Make sure to visit the Bartholomew Preview Gallery for more samples of comics burned in wood. 

Bartholomew Sketches by Daniel Crosier 

The unveiling of the contributors for the upcoming anthology continues! 

From Dark Scribe Press:

Dark Scribe Press is pleased to announce the inclusion of "Black Annis," an original work of short fiction by Joy Marchand, in the Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet anthology.

Joy Marchand holds a B.A. in Classical Studies from the University of the Pacific. In the summer of 2004, she packed her bags and moved across the country to Salem, Massachusetts, where she lives happily in the bittersweet echoes of history. Joy's poems and short stories have been featured in Bare Bone, the Elastic Book of Numbers, Modern Magic, Time for Bedlam, Polyphony 5, and Interfictions. Look for more short stories in Talebones, Apex Digest, and Interzone.

Author Website

 

From Dark Scribe Press: 

Dark Scribe Press is pleased to announce the inclusion of "Sublet," an original work of short fiction by Rick R. Reed, in the Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet anthology.

Rick R. Reed is the author of eight published novels, which have been variously categorized as mysteries, thrillers, horror, and/or suspense. These include Obsessed, Penance, A Face Without a Heart, IM, In the Blood, Deadly Vision, High Risk, and Orientation. He is also the author of a short story collection, Twisted: Tales of Obsession and Terror and his short fiction has appeared in more than twenty anthologies.

Upcoming titles include Dead End Street, a young adult horror novel; and Dignity Takes a Holiday, a novel of twisted humor that reveals, once and for all, that Rick R. Reed belongs in a mental institution. He lives in Miami with his partner, who endures incessant complaining about the humidity and the traffic.

Author Website

Here's an image of the very first conceptual drawing of Bartholomew of the Scissors.  The drawing is by Steve Fox, who worked on the project briefly before Daniel Crosier came on board.  This is the only drawing of Bartholomew with glasses!

Visit the Bartholomew Preview Gallery for more images from the upcoming comic! 

 

From Dark Scribe Press: 

Dark Scribe Press is pleased to announce the inclusion of "The Shaping," an original work of short fiction by Scott Nicholson, in the Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet anthology.

Scott Nicholson is the author of seven novels, including The Skull Ring, They Hunger, and The Farm. He’s also written five screenplays, 60 short stories, and dozens of articles.

A Taoist living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, he works as a journalist and freelance editor and his hobbies include organic gardening, swimming, and guitar playing.

Author Website

Tomorrow, May 3rd is Free Comic Book Day!

What is Free Comic Book Day?

Free Comic Book Day is a single day when participating comic book shops across North America and around the world give away comic books absolutely free to anyone who comes into their stores.

Visit your local comic book store and walk away with some free comic books and promotional stuff.

Tomorrow, I'll be at The Comics Place in downtown Bellingham where I'll be handing out free comic books for my publisher, Bluewater Comics.  If you're in the area, stop by and see me.  

 

From Dark Scribe Press: 

Dark Scribe Press is pleased to announce the inclusion of “The Bloomsbury Nudes,” an original work of short fiction by Jameson Currier, in the Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet anthology.

Jameson Currier is the author of the novel Where the Rainbow Ends - a 1998 finalist in the Lambda Literary Awards in the Gay Men's Fiction category - and two collections of short fiction, Dancing on the Moon and, most recently, Desire, Lust, Passion, Sex. His short fiction has appeared in many literary magazines and Web sites, including OutsiderInk, Velvet Mafia, Blithe House Quarterly, Absinthe Literary Review, Rainbow Curve, Christopher Street, Harrington Gay Men’s Fiction Quarterly, and the anthologies Men on Men 5, Best American Gay Fiction 3, Certain Voices, Boyfriends from Hell, Men Seeking Men, Mammoth Book of Gay Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best American Erotica, Quickies 3, Circa 2000, Rebel Yell, I Do/I Don't, and Making Literature Matter.

Most recently, twelve of his AIDS-themed short stories have been translated into French by Anne-Laure Hubert and published as Les Fantômes. His reviews, essays, interviews, and articles on AIDS and gay culture have been published in many national and local publications, including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Newsday, The Dallas Morning News, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, Lambda Book Report, The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, Dallas Voice, The Washington Blade, Southern Voice, Metrosource, Bay Area Reporter, Frontiers, Ten Percent, The New York Native, The New York Blade, Out, and Body Positive.

In 2003, he was a recipient of a writing fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. He is a member of the board of directors of the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation and currently resides in Manhattan.

Author Website

 

From Dark Scribe Press: 

Dark Scribe Press is proud to present the authors featured in our first print anthology project - Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet.  Set for release in trade paperback this fall, Unspeakable Horror will feature an eclectic lineup of talent from both the horror and GLBT literary communities. To date, we've collected a brilliant sampling of queer horror stories that will surprise with their universally resonant themes while exploring the deeper aspects of the closet experience - coming out, staying in, being haunted by. From the ghosts of dead lovers and malevolent queer faeries to devious doppelgangers and twisted psychopaths, Unspeakable Horror speaks to the ideas of innocence lost and innocence found...to revenge and redemption. Most of all, it's about what lurks in those dark shadows at the back of our closets. And the horrors found there promise to be unspeakable.

And now, we introduce the Unspeakable Horror lineup...

 

"I'm Your Violence" by Lee Thomas

Dark Scribe Press is pleased to announce the inclusion of "I'm Your Violence," an original short story by Lee Thomas, in the Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet anthology.

Lee Thomas is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Stained, Parish Damned, and Damage. His most recent novel, The Dust of Wonderland (Alyson) is a current finalist for the prestigious Lambda Literary Award. In addition to numerous magazines, his short fiction has appeared in the anthologies A Walk on the Darkside, The Book of Final Flesh, and Inferno, among others.

Writing as Thomas Pendleton, he is the co-author (with Stefan Petrucha) of Wicked Dead (HarperTeen), a series of edgy horror novels for the young adult market. His novels, Mason, Blood Runs Cold, and Demon Unleashed are also forthcoming from HarperCollins.

Lee currently lives in Austin, Texas, where he’s working on a number of projects, including the novels Ash Street, The German, and an urban fantasy trilogy titled, Exiled (HarperTeen).

Author Website

Check out the Lee Thomas feature page here at Unspeakable Horror! 

Here is an important announcement from Dark Scribe Press, the publisher for the forthcoming anthology Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet. 

Here at Dark Scribe Press, we like our horror slow and agonizing, building in momentum until the breaking point of sanity and endurance. In keeping with this predilection for simmering anticipation, we’ve decided to torture our potential readership with the May Days of Unspeakable Horror.

It’s been one of the best-kept industry secrets (even our own authors don't know who they'll be sharing the TOC with), but starting on Thursday, May 1st, we will begin unveiling the table of contents for our upcoming Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet anthology at Dark Scribe Magazine – one incredible author at a time. Each weekday, we will be posting a new TOC announcement until our entire roster of literary talent is revealed.

So get ready as we open our closet door one painstaking inch at a time to reveal the unspeakable horrors lurking within…

The White Blob is a mysterious alien organism that originates from an abyss at the bottom of the sea, perhaps accounting for its bleached white color.  The White Blob is amphibious, being able to move on land and water, but it prefers to be in dark water.  The White Blob hates sunlight.  It is extremely intelligent and as large as a sperm whale.

The White Blob by Daniel CrosierThe White Blob's biological imperative is to assimilate.  It swallows people whole, and inside its depth, the blob replaces all the human blood with white blob blood.  In effect, this "oil change" puts the person entirely within the control of the blob.  In this sense, the white blob is a puppet master, able to control large numbers of people.  Its followers refer to it as "The Pastor."

The Marshmallow People are groups of people who have been assimilated by the White Blob.

Marshmallow People are telepathically interconnected with each other and the master blob.  They are called "Marshmallow People" because their human blood has been entirely replaced by white blob blood.  In addition, there are often patches of white blob skin on the abdomen where blob tentacles can emerge, depending on how long the person has been a vessel for the blob.  Their most distinctive feature is the white skin on their hands.  Marshmallow People use their hands to absorb human blood for sustenance.  Often, they will grip the throat of their victim, and the white hands absorb the blood through the skin.  White blob skin has an enmity with normal human skin, causing it to bleed on contact. 

Marshmallow People act very strangely.  If someone you know becomes a member of the Marshmallow People, they will avoid sunlight, become withdrawn and secretive, and they will conceal their hands with gloves.  Marshmallow People are extremely dangerous, able to become homicidal at the slightest hint of discovery.  

If threatened, Marshmallow People can melt into an attack blob, an extremely hostile and dangerous organism.

Attack BlobThe only way to kill an attack blob is fire.  A blob is almost invulnerable in water.

Attack blobs have the ability to spring up like frogs and smother people, simultaneously drawing blood from the skin on contact.  In addition, they are able to spray acid with strange nipples on the outer surface of their skin.  

They are able to roll into balls in order to travel over open ground.  They can easily overtake a human runner across an open distance.  However, they are easily confused by twists and turns.  They are adept swimmers.

Many blobs have the use of white tentacles like frog tongues to latch on to a person.

Attack blobs cannot live very long independent of their master.  They will try to return to the master blob as soon as possible in order to be re-integrated into the larger mass of the master blob. 

Learn more about the White Blob in Bartholomew of the Scissors, my forthcoming horror comic from Bluewater Comics.   

The Fire DoppelgangerI just added a new gallery of artwork to promote my forthcoming comic, Bartholomew of the Scissors. 

In the gallery, you will find promotional art and conceptual designs by the artist for the comic, Daniel Crosier.  He has a highly original and innovative method of burning his comic book illustrations into pine planks.  You can see a sample of the first five pages of the first issue: Click Here!

In addition to Daniel's art, the gallery will also feature early conceptual designs by artist Stephen Fox.

Come and see the Fire Doppleganger, an Attack Blob, and Bartholomew of the Scissors himself (looking very sinister indeed).  Visit the Gallery!  

I just picked up the first issue of Pigeons from Hell from Darkhorse.  I completely love it.  The art has this weird cartoony look to the characters, but the rest of the world is super-gothic and dark.  Dead pigeons everywhere! Yuck.  A really strange story.  I was really creeped out by the first issue.  I think this is going to be good.  Also contains a great piece by the writer Joe Lansdale, who explains the history of the story, which is a short story from Robert E. Howard.  I only recently found out that he did more than Conan.  It sounds like he was a really excellent horror writer. 

Pigeons from Hell #1

Pigeons from Hell #3

Pigeons From Hell #2

I just discovered horror writer Thomas Ligotti, and I am very excited to learn more about his short fiction and his cult following.

I discovered Ligotti through a collection of horror comics called The Nightmare Factory.  All of the stories in the collection are based on Ligotti's short stories.  

The collection includes four horror stories, each adapted by a different writer, and each with different artists. 

Each story is introduced by Ligotti himself, which provides a nice theoretical framework for the horror story (these are, in many ways, very intellectual horror stories). 

My favorite in the collection is the super-short "Dream of a Mannikin."  The story is very creepy and interesting, delving into the fascinating and shadowy world of dreams, and the art is provided by Ben Templesmith, whose work I have admired, but I especially liked this piece because I find his work on IDW titles to be a little over-the-top with the gore. 

Each comic in the collection has a completely different look, style, and vision.  I definitely recommend this collection. 

Nightmare Factory GN

Bartholomew Preview for First Issue (pdf download)!

I am very excited to announce that the 5-page preview for the first issue of Bartholomew of the Scissors is now available.  The pdf can be downloaded by clicking HERE, or by visiting Bartholomew of the Scissors dot com.

Over the past few months, there has been a lot of excitement building about Daniel Crosier's artwork for this new series.  When I explain to people that Daniel illustrates the comics in pine planks with a wood burning instrument, at first they think it is some kind of block printing.  Then I go on to explain that the comic frames are actually burned into the wood, augmented with splashes and shadings of paint. There is a lot of curiosity about what this looks like on the comic book page.  Now I am very excited to be able to give people a glimpse of the final product of Daniel's innovative and highly groundbreaking comic book style.  

Daniel is a master at creating intense close-ups, and you will want to check out some of the faces in this 5-page glimpse of the series.  Bartholomew is really scary! Daniel is the perfect artist for this project because of his ability to create a surreal, full-bodied story world, which is the perfect habitat for Bartholomew of the Scissors to flourish.  

Download the preview!

A few weeks ago, I learned that Doorways magazine accepted one of my poems for a forthcoming issue.   I am very honored to be included in this excellent literary magazine. 

I was excited to discover that Doorways is now on wowio, and I wanted to share this excellent first issue, which is available as a free download on wowio. 

In particular, I wanted to recommend the excellent horror poetry from Stephen Wilson in this issue.

Download Doorways!

I just downloaded the deluxe 25th Anniversary Edition of Michael Jackson's Thriller.  Overall, I recommend the album, which includes all the original tracks and adds new remixes and versions of some songs.  In addition, it includes some behind-the-scenes stuff like interviews with Quincy Jones and Vincent Price reading his horror rap (with an additional verse not heard on the album).  The song Thriller (and the video, which is also included in the itunes download) is of course my favorite, and I was a little bit disappointed that they didn't do any new remixes or versions of that song; however, they do have Vincent Price reading the second verse, and there is an amusing anecdote about the songwriter composing Vincent Price's rap in less than an hour!  Sometimes inspiration is a lightning bolt. 

Long Live Thriller!

What does writing poetry have to do with writing comics?

Long before I wrote my first comic book script (long before I even started reading comics, in fact), I studied to be a poet.  I loved studying poetry and being an English Major so much, I got two Literature degrees (now I teach Literature at the local college, and I recently published my first book of poetry, The Pop-Up Book of Death).  When I started writing scripts for Bluewater and really started to get into the world of comics, much to my surprise, I discovered that reading and writing poetry and reading and writing comics share a lot of the same pleasures. 

You might be thinking: poetry and comics couldn't be more different!

Of course, in a lot of ways they are different, but they share one primary, all-defining characteristic: The Visual Image!

A great comic book depends on exciting visual images for storytelling, and really great poetry depends on exciting visual images in the form of metaphors.  In a comic book, the artist draws the images on the page; in a poem, the poet creates mind-pictures in the form of metaphors, combining two different things together to create one fantastical mental image.

A lot of poetry contains stories just like comic books (even if those stories are difficult to interpret sometimes).  Most of my poems contain stories, and many of the oldest storytelling in the world is written in poetic forms.  Take for example, The Odyssey and Beowulf.  Those are two poems that couldn't be more like comics books: both depict great heroes facing monsters and insurmountable odds to complete trials and quests.

I think the Horror genre has the wrong name, at least for the stuff that's actually worth reading and watching.  For a while now, I've been thinking about how the best horror isn't about horror at all.  By this I mean that the purpose of the storytelling is not to leave the reader or viewer with a feeling of horror as the final end result.  Horror, revulsion, tension all happen on the road to the conclusion, but I believe that the best horror gives you something else in the conclusion: relief -- a happy ending, but not always.  Sometimes, the final conclusion gives you a surprising reversal, a denouement that really makes you think.  All of this is in contrast to works of horror that relish in gratuitous violence and gross-outs as a primary purpose.  I find that these types of stories often have a hollow denouement (like the evil is reborn in some new way that is just, well... yawn, not inventive and surprising).  Ultimately, the best horror leaves you with something at the conclusion when the horror and suspense has been relieved.  So, what is this final something?

In regard to Darabont's Mist, the ending was definitely not a happy ending...oh my god!  I won't reveal the exact details of the ending, but I would argue that it was not hollow.  In fact, the ending was resonant.  I thought about it for like three days, and I still catch myself thinking about it.  I would argue that it is a message about not giving up hope, delivered through a very shocking way, in a cultural context that is full of hopelessness and despair.  In fact, the entire film resonates with pieces of allegory that touch upon rampant hopelessness in a culture of fear (like the culture we live in!).  On the road to that shocking denouement, we also have many awesome, thrilling monsters, and gross-outs that serve a purpose in accentuating the suspense.  However, I would argue that the ultimate purpose of the film is not to leave you with horror.  In many ways, the end of Mist is like many Twilight Zone endings.  Rod Serling was a master at crafting the denouement with resonance and meaning.  M. Night Shymalan also does this very well.   

For me personally, my favorite horror films offer relief from the horror and the suspense in the conclusion.  In other words, happy endings.  Ultimately, a happy ending in a horror film is so satisfying because of the building of suspense, tension, and identification with the character's strife.  Good horror absolutely depends upon good, believable characters.  The "horror" is often some kind of embodiment of the character's conflicts; in that sense, horror is about overcoming conflict and facing fears.  My life is about overcoming conflict and facing fear all the time.  If you ask me, that's what the best horror is really about: overcoming horror in pursuit of the happy ending, not relishing in horror. 

Does watching horror offer a psychological benefit, some kind of sympathetic magic for facing the fears and anxieties of my life?  I would say yes. 

My favorite horror films also contain another integral piece, a complicated monster, a monster that is actually not completely evil after all -- like Hannibal Lecter, or Dracula, or Grendel (in a lot of the modern interpretations of Grendel).  A quasi-sympathetic monster also enables queer identification with the monster, because, as a queer kid, I felt alienated and "monstrous" (for a good, straightforward demonstration of this, see the werewolf scene at the beginning of Michael Jackson's Thriller).  This kind of exploration of "monstrousness" goes a lot deeper than just "horror," a lot deeper indeed. 

Please respond to this post!

Unspeakable Horror is now a member of The League of Tana Tea Drinkers!

This is from the League's website:

Our mission is to acknowledge, foster, and support thoughtful, articulate,and creative blogs built on an appreciation of the horror and sci-horror genre.

Horror bloggers are a unique group of devoted fans and professionals, from all walks of life, who keep the horror genre, in all its permutations and media outlets, alive and kicking.

Often spending long hours to keep their blogs informative and fun, horror bloggers share their unique mix of personality, culture and knowledge freely to fans of a genre difficult to describe, but easy to love.

It's time to honor exemplary horror blogs with our own special insignia: one that signifies the heights to which we aspire, and the code of excellence we follow to promote horror in all it's wonderfully frightening forms, from classic to contemporary, from philosophical to schlockical.

The League of Tana Tea Drinkers recognizes horror bloggers who toil away the extra midnight hour to present the best in horror blogging, who reach the heights of horrifying excellence, know what rapture it is to sip Tana Tea by the full moon, and feel the thrill of trodding the dark passageways beneath the earth in search of the unusual, the terrifying, and the monstrous. For the fun of it.

Keep watching the skies, and reading the horror. LOTT D is coming for you!

 

It is an honor to be included in The League of Tana Tea Drinkers: