Unspeakable Horror!

Beware the White Blob! 

Back in 1988, when I was 15, I rode my bicycle over to the local multiplex theater and saw a horror remake called The Blob.  I was so disturbed by what I saw there that I had to walk out of the theater halfway through the movie, and then I had to ride my bicycle home in the dark, so it's no wonder that I've always considered a blob to be a horrifying and formidable monster, not just the campy monster from the 1958 flick.   When I was trying to find an enemy for Bartholomew to vanquish, the blob emerged from deep within my consciousness, inspired by that horrifying theatrical spectacle from 1988.

In the first stories that I wrote about my blob, the blob was a deep tar-like black, marbled with bright red splotches.  Unlike the cinematic predecessors from 1958 and 1988, my blob was not a mindless mass of amoebic hunger that consumed everything in sight.  My blob had a very developed brain deep inside its amorphous mass (in fact, it had many brains), and it was super-intelligent with ambitions for assimilating the human race, so strategy and secrecy became necessities for my blob (see my story "The Master Blob" at the Bartholomew website).  Basically, the blob would enter a victim's bloodstream, take over their mind, and then ultimately the host's body would melt into a nasty attack blob that would re-join the mass of its master (after partaking of a few screaming teenagers).  A master blob with an evil plan and many minions seemed much scarier to me.  

A few years ago, after I had already written several stories about this black-and-red master blob, I was trying to come up with a new kind of vampire/monster for a different story, and I thought of a parasite that lived on the surface of the skin and covered its host's hands and face, turning the host into some kind of zombie/vampire with white skin, and I named these zombie-like creatures the Marshmallow People.  Next, I made the white skin vampiric, giving it the ability to draw blood from a victim with just a touch.  I thought it was a horrifying idea: someone with white, alien skin trying to grab your throat to draw out the blood and feed on you.

I was writing the second draft of the Bartholomew comic book script when it occurred to me to combine the two monsters together.  As soon as I imagined a white blob rising up from the abyss at the bottom of the sea, I knew it would give me a chance to pay homage to two of my favorite monsters, the blob and the great white whale, Moby-Dick.  There is an unforgettable chapter in Moby-Dick where Melville goes into great philosophical depth about why white is the scariest color, and I knew this would apply perfectly to my new monster: the White Blob.  

Since then, the White Blob has evolved into a super-intelligent organism with a very complex life-cycle.  I've always been very impressed by a monster with a complex life-cycle (see Slither for a great example).  For me, the White Blob combines the most horrifying film experience of my childhood (the 1988 Blob) with my most gratifying literary experience (Moby-Dick -- can you tell I was an English Major!).  The White Blob is part blob, part Moby-Dick, and part Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  Beware the White Blob!  Check out "Bartholomew of the Scissors dot com" for more about my most monstrous creation!

Here is a press release from M. Christian about his new novel:

Me2 novel OUT NOW by M. Christian

Be wary of impostors!  Accept no substitutes!

M. Christian and Alyson Books is proud to announce the publication of Me2, a surreal, humorous and horrifying novel of identity and existence.
Do you really know who you are?

The back cover copy provides an eerie glimpse into what Me2 is about, but it's only by reading this hypnotic novel of gay identity and humanity that the true - and hauntingly twisted - nature of who we are comes to light:

He looks just like you.  He acts exactly like you.  He takes away your job.  He steals your friends.  He seduces your lover.  Every day he becomes more and more like you, pushing you out of your life, taking away what was yours … until there’s nothing left.  Where did he come from?  Robot?  Alien?  Clone?  Doppelganger?  Evil twin?  Long lost brother?

Here's early praise for the unique style and powerful voice of Me2:

Absolutely brilliant. M.Christian explores the meaning of identity and humanity in a generic world where literally everything can be manufactured - a world frighteningly like our own.
- Lisabet Sarai, author of Incognito and Fire

Me2 is a unique and always entertaining fable-novel about what exactly identity may entail and how we may or may not decide whether it's worth the price of keeping it.
- Felice Picano, author of Art & Sex in Greenwich Village

M. Christian has a delightful, marvelously twisted way with words which cause his narratives to crawl beneath your skin and fester there, making you go back for more. He writes with a strong, unique voice which is not only entertaining but also makes you think, makes you ponder the improbable. You'll think you've read this delicious, fast-paced story, but did you? Or was it you?
- Mari Adkins contributing editor, Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest

"With delicious slyness, M. Christian creates a world in which the familiar becomes sinister and the comfort of daily routine is replaced by a growing sense of dread. His modern parable lays bare the all-too-real dangers inherent in the sacrifice of individuality in the pursuit of cultural homogenization."
-  Michael Thomas Ford, author of Full Circle and Changing Tides

Here's a small sample of M.Christian's extensive writing credits:

M. Christian’s numerous stories have appeared in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, as well as in the collections Dirty Words, Speaking Parts, The Bachelor Machine, and Filthy.  He is also the author of the novels, Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, The Painted Doll, and Brushes.

Please note: Because of the immense popularity of this new novel and the author, M.Christian, a devious impostor has surfaced claiming to be the real, non-imitation "M.Christian." He is not the author of Me2.  If this obvious fraud should happen to contact you please inform the real M.Christian as soon as possible by commenting on this blog entry.

Be wary of impostors!  Accept no substitutes!

www.mchristian.com 

Bartholomew of the Scissors started out as a powerful poltergeist.  A fourteen-year-old boy murdered by scissors, he comes back from the grave in the form of the Scissor Swarm, acting out his vengeance  on anyone who enters his forest.  So, Bartholomew basically started out as a slasher, killing hikers and drunk college students.  He started out really evil. 

Enter Jessica, the powerful psychic hero.  In the first version of the story, Jessica captures Bartholomew in her mind, almost as if her brain were some kind of psychic womb-prison, and Jessica goes crazy as a result (lots of mental hospital scenes).  However, over the course of drafting the story, this provided too many storytelling problems, and so Bartholomew changed from a disembodied ghost into a very peculiar undead boy, and Jessica also gained new powers (more about that later). 

Enter Gordon Watt, the paranormal detective whose hair is ghostly white because he's had so many encounters with the supernatural.  Gordon is basically a paranormal version of the film-noir detective.  His roots can be found in a combination of  Marlowe (Bogart), Kolchak (Night Stalker), and Agent Mulder. 

The story started out with Gordon and Jessica teaming up to capture the malevolent force of Bartholomew.  However, while working on the story, I began to study the basics of Jungian archetypes, and the archetype of the shadow figure and the trickster began to change my whole perspective on Bartholomew.  Instead of the evil, malevolent slasher, Bartholomew became the ambivalent shadow/trickster, capable of performing terrible acts of violence, but also capable of providing help to the heroes.  Even though their characters are completely different, I started to see a connection between Bartholomew and Hannibal Lecter.  Basically, audiences like Hannibal Lecter (even though he does very nasty things), and Hannibal helps the hero of the story solve the mystery, in addition to causing bloody mayhem.  Like the trickster, Bartholomew became a force of great chaos, but through his mayhem, he ultimately helps the heroes and the progress of the story reach resolution.  

In his character design of Bartholomew, Daniel Crosier has brought vivid life to the devilish child that is Bartholomew, while simultaneously making his evil little face very likeable.  Just wait until you see him!

This is the first entry for my new blog dedicated to Bartholomew of the Scissors, my forthcoming horror comic from Blue Water Productions. 

The first issue of the comic is in production,  and I have to say that Daniel Crosier is doing an amazing job as the artist on the project.  His unique artistic style, which involves illustrating the pages on wood, brings an amazing intensity to the characters and the action.  Over the last five years of working on Bartholomew of the Scissors as a novel, I have always had a specific image of Bartholomew's face in my mind.  Daniel Crosier's interpretation of Bartholomew looks nothing like what I pictured, but the Bartholomew he designed is much, much scarier and infused with a life I could never give Bartholomew on the page.  From now on, I will definitely see the Bartholomew that Daniel Crosier has imagined. 

Who is Bartholomew of the Scissors?

Bartholomew started in the Winter of 2001 when I was walking through a densely forested arboretum on my way to graduate school at Western Washington University.  I was thinking about my linguistics homework when I had a vision of an armada of shiny scissors floating out of the forest shadows into the sunlight.  It really gave me the creeps.  Since I was always looking for new horror ideas, I knew that inspiration had struck.  That was the beginning.  The Scissor Swarm was born.  

At first, I imagined the Scissor Swarm as like some kind of poltergeist that manifested in hundreds of stainless steel sewing shears (just like the kind I used as a child when I used to make little stuffed monsters out of felt, stuffing, and thread).  The Scissor Swarm attacked people like the seagulls in Hitchock's Birds or a school of piranha.  It seemed like a terrifying idea, but next I had to figure out what was behind the Scissor Swarm.  Almost immediately, I came up with the idea that a wounded child was behind the malevolence of the Scissor Swarm, a child who was not altogether unsympathetic, but very volatile and dangerous -- perhaps even psychotic.  When it came time to pick a name for this murdered child, Bartholomew, for some reason, was the first and most resonant name. 

I knew it had to be Bartholomew of the Scissors.  

Here's the comic book version of Clive Barker's story and the trailer for the upcoming film:

Last night at Village Books in Bellingham, Washington, I had the opportunity to hear Toby Barlow speak about his new novel Sharp Teeth.  This novel is very unique because it tells the story of an interconnected set of characters in Los Angeles who can turn into dogs (lycanthropes, aka werwolves!), and the novel just happens to be written in the form of a gigantic epic poem.  Hooray!  Barlow had a number of humorous descriptions for the novel, my favorite being that he threw a couple of different genres in the blender and hit puree (I'm paraphrasing).  Basically, it's part film noir, part werewolf saga, and part epic poem. 

Barlow was a very entertaining speaker, offering a lot of interesting background stories about the writing process of the novel (in addition to an excellent poetry reading), and he delivered these stories with copious amounts of clever, wry wit.  

One of the most exciting things about this book is the fact that it was picked up by Harpercollins, which, as an ambitious horror poet myself, gives me great hope for the world of publishing.  In addition, the book is really cool: sharp, funny, engaging, and (yes) very poetic.  I was very impressed by a number of passages that Barlow read last night.  If you cut them out of the novel and pasted them on a separate page, they would definitely count as excellent stand-alone poems, and the book is filled with these passages and poetic moments. 

Purchase a copy today and support horror poetry! 

My partner and I are on the front cover of Afterelton.com.  We're featured in a special article about gay couples on Valentine's Day.

Tshombe is giving me a vampire kiss!  Hooray!

Click Here!

If you haven't heard about it yet, I highly recommend checking out wowio.com.  They have an amazing selection of free e-books, comics, and poetry, including some excellent Queer Horror titles.  They operate on an ingenious business model: basically, each e-book download is sponsored, so the sponsor pays the publisher for the download, and you get the e-book for free.  Very cool.

I thought I would take this opportunity to pitch my theory that Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is the seminal work of American Queer Horror!  How's that for a theory.  

If you haven't read this story recently, you should definitely download the free copy from wowio and check it out.

The detective in the story, Dupin, has an overtly queer romance with the narrator at the beginning of the story.  I almost can't believe my eyes when I'm reading it.  Not only is it obvious, but it is very romantic in a gothic way!

After that, there is a definitively queer monster that is kept locked up in a closet (by a sailor, no less) until it bursts out to wreak havoc on the Paris night.  

I wrote a more complete analysis of the story earlier in this blog:

Part One! 

Part Two! 

But more importantly, surf on over to wowio and download the free e-book of this ultimate Queer Horror story.  I am completely in love with Poe! 

Vince Liaguno and I are co-editing an anthology of Queer Horror stories, which will be published by Dark Scribe Press.  The book will be titled Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet.

So far, Vince and I are completely thrilled with the outstanding response to the call for submissions. 

If you haven't seen the submission guidelines: Click Here! 

We have received some of the best Queer Horror stories that I've ever read, and we've received stories from many of the biggest names in the world of Queer Horror!

Vince started a new blog where he is tracking the progress of the submissions: Click Here! 

There's still plenty of time for you to compose your Queer Horror masterpiece and submit!

When this book comes out, it's going to be the best Queer Horror anthology ever!  No kidding.