Unspeakable Horror!

The White Blob arises from the void-like abyss;
this bleached ameboid, invading alien,
milky deep-sea mass with secret orifice,
swallowing-sphincter to bring the chosen in,
oozing white mastermind's fatal blob kiss,
and human consumed becomes brood-minion;
like Melville's White Whale the surface it breaches;
run for your life when the shoreline it reaches.

Gordon Watt, paranormal investigator
exposes film with spectral phantasm traces,
follows Bartholomew: undead instigator
of vengeful murder; Gordon Watt chases
the minions of the blob: white assimilator,
the alien that lurks behind human faces.
Gordon solves mysteries of the unseen
and finds the secret folded in-between.

A shallow grave can't contain Bartholomew;
he rises, moray eel from corral reef,
his scissors silver eel-teeth, his survivors few;
vengeance swells methodical, onslaught only brief;
he slithers from the id-crevice only to eschew
plain mortal mercy as insertion brings belief;
Bartholomew from beneath emerges
as puppet-blades of the swarm converges.

Gordon inspects the crime scene evidence:
prurient internet watcher now slumped,
death by the scissors unnatural recompense.
The boy's dead body in the forest was dumped;
past dead, he still kills in the present tense.
Digital voyeur by the Scissor Swarm bumped
off; those who view Bartholomew's pictures
soon encounter his steely-tipped strictures.

Spectral phantasm from a strange dimension,
nesting inside your human-host mind;
odd ghost-octopus offers undead suspension
of mortality eternally; then you find
your brain-cage opens with acute comprehension
of the shadow zone: reality behind the blind
of the sunshine surface mirage-world external
that mirrors your slumbering nightmares internal.

The Scissor Swarm swirls: stainless steel vortex,
each pair an exact spectral replica
of the murder weapon, like a witch's hex
to curse the killer's twisted erotica;
the Scissor Swarm attacks by id-like reflex,
all envisioned by the psychic Jessica
and recorded by Gordon, on the trail
to learn Bartholomew's mysterious tale.

Here is a new press release from Bluewater Comics, my comic book publisher.  The press release features a new comic book with Daniel Crosier, the artist for Bartholomew of the Scissors, and a company called "Distortions Unlimited."  Oddly enough, the company is located in Greeley, Colorado where I used to live when I went to college at UNC. 

Make sure to check out "Rage" in action down below (you'll see what I mean). 

Bluewater Productions Teams up with horror company

Bellingham, WA- Bluewater Productions, Inc presents a unique horror comic that revolves around existing full-scale monster and alien animatronics in the new series titled "Distortions Unlimited."

The three issue series is based off of licensed characters crafted by Distortions Unlimited based in Greeley, CO. Distortions is world-renowned for creating shocking props, masks and animatronics that have been the mainstay of the dark amusement industry for the last 30 years. The company is best known for reproducing the 16ft queen alien from the film "Alien" cast from the original molds, as well as designing the stage props for music industry icon Alice Cooper's Brutal Planet tour.

Daniel Crosier, writer and illustrator on the series, has a unique connection with the project. "I grew up near the Distortions studio in Greeley. I used to tour the studio when I was a kid and was fascinated by their creations. I suggested to Darren Davis the president of Bluewater to partner with Distortions to develop another horror comic. Darren liked the idea, so we approached them with the concept. Distortions was enthusiastic about the partnership and green-lighted the project."

The entire series focuses on Distortions' Rage animatronic. Described as half Neanderthal, half beast, and all fury, the Rage is one of Distortions' most popular characters. Ed Edmunds, president of Distortions elaborates of the protagonist of the books. "Rage has been a fan favorite for years. The sheer size of the piece commands attention and really gives people a good scare. He's a great character to base the series on."

The first issue of the series delves into the horror unleashed on the earth with the collapse of a mine. The plot was crafted with multiple, intertwining layers that combine fantasy and true-life events ripped from today's headlines.

Crosier will bring a unique look to the books by illustrating with his watershed technique. All covers and interior pages of the series will be created with graphite on wood poplar panels. Crosier's influence for the series is Dark Horse's "B.P.R.D. 1946". The books will have a high contrast, distressed, organic look.

The creative team will also include veteran inker Peter Palmiotti. Palmiotti has worked for a variety of comic publishers including Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and Image.

The announcement of the Distortions series falls in line with two additional titles in the horror genre being released by Bluewater. "Vincent Price Presents" and "Bartholomew of the Scissors" will hit the shelves this October to coincide with Halloween festivities.

The release date is for the first issue of Distortions Unlimited will be announced shortly.

About Bluewater Productions, Inc
Bluewater Productions, Inc., is one if the top independent production studios of comic, young adult books and graphic novel titles. In the tradition of great storytelling and cutting edge art, Bluewater has stormed onto the comic book and graphic novel scene. With impressive titles, including such smash hits as the "10th MUSE," "VSS," "THE LEGEND OF ISIS," and "Wrath of the Titans" and "Sinbad" from legendary filmmaker Ray Harryhausen and the upcoming series "Vincent Price Presents" based off the late horror icon, Bluewater Productions is committed to continue to produce engaging stories with art from both the top names in the industry alongside up and coming stars.

For more information visit www.bluewaterprod.com.

About Daniel Crosier:
Artist Daniel Crosier has exploded onto the comic book scene in the last year. Illustrating and writing multiple comic book projects with a variety of well-established publishers, Crosier's distinctive approach, incomparable perspective and vibrant personality has the industry taking note.

Crosier has a degree in fine art from Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in Denver, CO with an emphasis in drawing and sculpture. This background in fine art has encouraged him develop a watershed wood burning technique for illustrating comic book interiors, covers, and pinups.

For more information about Daniel Crosier visit www.thothengine.

From The Pop-Up Book of Death 

At last I quit killing spiders,
despite the shudder squeal of
finding a hairy fellow
who shares the doorjamb.

The dread of the window well
where the Black Widow reigns:
I tried to kill her with a pole;
I tried to kill her with a shovel,
only to find her scrambling up the handle
toward the tender hand
of the invader.

The plumber told me:
the nurses cut him out of his jeans at the ER.
The Black Widow bit his leg
while he plumbed in her subterranean crevice.

And my brother's nightmare
about spiders in wax from the hotdog vendor
at the ballpark.

The horror of the bulbous abdomen
and spike-legs like Vlad the Impaler's pikes:
the witch's blood hourglass on your belly,
great femme fatale of the arachnid world.

As a child I smashed many spiders
to see the color of their blood,
and did the spider god
like some great Shelob
in the crevices of
my id
drop each resurrected victim
into the nightmare coffin
of my premature burial?

The Daddy Longlegs my only spider friend.

Much maligned and stereotyped,
the spider is not the preying Nosferatu
of apocalyptic mutants in the age of Cold War despair,
but the patient slurper of bountiful juice pouches
dropped from the sky
by generous gods
on artisan tapestries.  

Now I never kill a spider
as a rule --
when I clean out the shadows
of my fear,
I always find them spinning silken altars
to offer up their sacrifices
to the landlord: me,
and I find them
waiting
like happy little crossing guards on lawn chairs,
only too happy to assist a juicy grasshopper
to the other side.

Mason, the new novel by Thomas Pendleton (also known as Lee Thomas--award winning author of Dust of Wonderland and many others), will be released in only a few days!

Here is the description from the publisher:

Some kids say Mason Avrett is slow. What they don't know is that he also has a terrifying power that he's just beginning to understand. But that's not his worst problem: Mason lives with a sadist. His older brother, Gene, doles out punishments so brutal that all Mason can do is cover his head for the beating and try to forget the horrific things he's seen.

Rene Denton, one of Mason's only friends, knows that Gene is evil, but she doesn't know how evil until the terrible night she becomes a victim of Gene's cruelty. Suddenly Mason's power—raging beyond his control—becomes the only thing that might just be as frightening as Gene.

Horror, revenge, and the twisted images born of a lifetime of pain are woven into a masterful tale of suspense and redemption.

Unspeakable Horror is proud to present "Hypotheses on Poe's Homosexuality," an essay by Jan Vander Laenen, who is one of the distinguished contributors to our upcoming anthology, Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet.

Jan Vander Laenen lives in Brussels, Belgium, where he works as an art historian and translator (Dutch, French and Italian). He is also the author of eight collections of short stories, plays, and screenplays which have attracted keen interest abroad. A romantic comedy, Oscar Divo, and a thriller, The Card Game, are presently in the hands of a competent producer in Hollywood, while his short fiction collections The Butler and Poète maudit are eliciting the requisite accolades in Italy. He credits Karen Blixen and Edgar Allan Poe as his literary influences.

“Epistle of the Sleeping Beauty” makes its English-language debut in the Unspeakable Horror anthology, having appeared in Dutch under the title “De schone slaper” and in French as “Le bel au bois dormant.”

Email Jan Vander Laenen 

Hypotheses on Poe’s Homosexuality

by Jan Vander Laenen

“From childhood's hour I have not been As others were - I have not seen As others saw - I could not bring My passions from a common spring” (E. A. POE)

In spite of a chronic alcohol problem, I continue to be endowed with an excellent memory, and thus now know very well when author Edgar Allan Poe entered into my life for the first time and to never disappear again, like the shadow of a raven over my head; that year was 1976, sometime in the spring, just before the largest heat wave ever to strike Belgium; the place was Sint-Michiels College in Brasschaat, near Antwerp, where I was in my fourth year of studying Latin and Greek as an intern of sixteen years. The man that put me wise on Poe's existence was a shy Father, called Vander Veken, who taught us the Dutch language - my native tongue - along with the history of literature. During that class he read out from “The Cask of Amontillado”, dwelling for a long time on the gruesome irony of Montresor imitating the cries of anguish of his chained victim; thereafter he initiated us into the more general characteristics of the Romantic Movement. That evening, in the reading room, I spied on the bench of the student next to me, Alfons Van Den Maegdenberh, a pocket book with the image of a bottle washed ashore with a rolled up letter in it: Edgar Allan Poe, “MS in a Bottle and other Stories”. I asked him for the book, leaved through it and started reading “The Black Cat”. Oh yes, clichés always hold; my hair - at that time the long hair of a teenager - was literally standing on end. Ever since that sultry spring evening, the author has literally kept me in his grasp.

My knowledge of Edgar Allan Poe and his works is neither academic nor complete. I had not actually read his work in the English language as yet; up to my twentieth year I had to satisfy myself with translations available in the Dutch language, and, at the age of about twenty-one, discovered the French versions of Charles Baudelaire - and these are the versions that I cherish most deeply. Moreover, my knowledge of the English language was not thorough enough to grasp the craftiness and subtleties of the original texts, which of course is a handicap when wishing to appreciate his poetry. Furthermore, there are a number of lacunas: I have gone through all his “short stories” systematically, but “Eureka” and “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” are still awaiting their first really attentive reading. Next, I am not an American, I am hardly familiar with the history, up to now I have not visited the places where Poe used to live and work, and though my knowledge of his biographies is fair, it is certainly not exhaustive - I have not been able, for example, to lay my hands on the work of Marie Bonaparte yet, though that may be an advantage when writing this paper...

In spite of that, I dare to have my say on the author and, - as the title already indicates - I venture to raise here my more or less strong suspicion that Poe may well have been a homosexual, a suspicion based more on intuition rather than facts.

This intuition never occurred to me until, on the occasion of the sale of one my stories “Epistle of the Sleeping Beauty” to the American Dark Scribe Magazine, I started going through their website with much interest [1] . I stumbled upon texts of one Chad Helder, who alleges that the origin of horror is very often the suppression of one's own (homo)sexuality and also argues that most roots of the horror style can be traced back to Edgar Allan Poe; he believes he recognizes homo-erotic sentiments between Dupin and the narrator in the story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”. Almost apologetically, he immediately adds that an author who entered into matrimony with his own thirteen year old cousin and could not stop celebrating (dead) women, naturally never could have been gay…

These texts reached my eyes on the evening of 18 May 2008 - my forty-eighth birthday - and I then sent Chad Helder, somewhat intoxicated, the following comments in my own, hopefully passable English:

“And what if Poe was gay after all? He told his best friend he never consummated his marriage, he loved to write poems about dead women - maybe because he didn't know what to do with them when they were alive, and after all, wasn't he found dead drunk two days before his death in October 1848, dressed in the clothes of another man... There are other "clues"; when he was young, he always wanted to prove he was a "real man", by swimming long distances just like his (gay) idol Lord Byron, by following a military career.  And his fear of the female organs, "The Pit and the Pendulum", "Descent into the Maelström"... I have my doubts...” (May 18, 2008 | Jan Vander Laenen)  “... small error in my previous comment: Poe died in October 1849. Good night!” (May 18, 2008 | Jan Vander Laenen) [2]

Immediately, Chad reacts by e-mail with the following words: “That is a great list of evidence."  His response makes me feel like delving somewhat more deeply into my suspicion through this paper.

I love the first half of the nineteenth century, generally defined as “the Romantic Movement”, and in particular three artists, very different at face value, who were almost each other's exact contemporaries, while all three of them exercised different disciplines: the French composer Hector Berlioz (1803 - 1869), the Belgian painter Antoine Wiertz (1806 - 1865) and the American author Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849). They have a lot in common, especially in thematic terms, such as their obsession for women (in the form of a corpse, prostitute, witch, etc.), their tendency toward the macabre in the form of tortures, premature burials, witches' Sabbaths, guillotines, suicides, epidemics, etc…. and their artistically critical eye. It is also amusing that Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867), a notorious bisexual, extensively covers the three in his writings - as already before, he translated a large number of Poe's stories into French.

Yes, I love the first half of the nineteenth century, and one of my dreams has always been to see a movie made that was set in this period. Being a Belgian, a movie on the character of Antoine Wiertz would seem the most feasible, however; my research is done and I have a robustly elaborated synopsis for a play or film scenario in hand; all I need is a helping hand from the government of our little bilingual country.

And what about a movie on the life of Poe? A movie on the life of Poe?! Many of his stories have been adapted for screening more than once, but the movie has not yet been produced, despite rumours about projects by, among others, Sylvester Stallone [3] and Michael Jackson [4] ..

A movie about the life of Poe? Often, biographical movies take the demise of their character as a starting point to outline the course of their life, and probably no other artist would have thought up a possible script writer with a more colourful and effective end than Edgar Allan Poe himself: on 3 October 1849, he was found blind drunk in the gutter in front of a polling station in Baltimore ... wearing the clothes of another man. He was transferred to the nearest hospital where, after about four days in a condition of almost full delirium tremens - the only word he can manage to utter is “Reynolds”- he passed away on 7 October with his last words “God help my poor soul” [5] .

The ultimate cause of death recorded is “congestion of the brain”, but later guesses about his mysterious end take a fantastic flight; he was made drunk and dressed up in someone else's clothes to get him to vote more than once fraudulently …or, a very romantic reason, he contracted rabies after being bitten by a bat.

Nevertheless, Poe was found in the clothes of another man whilst he was more or less engaged to a friend from his youth, widowed in the meantime, by the name of Sarah Elmira Royster.

Would I dare to start my scenario with Edgar in a tavern, the kind that he describes, for instance, in “King Pest” or “The Black Cat”, with barrels of rum and probably a cat in the corner, and our engaged poet , who recently put the finishing touches to “Eureka” and, seated at a wooden table with a bottle of Amontillado, would reveal his theories with a great deal of gusto to another man, maybe a sailor or a soldier or a construction worker, in other words not a man with an intellectual profession, but one who has followed Poe's career throughout his entire life and is a secret admirer, without yet telling him so?

Would I dare make these two men land up somewhere in a filthy hotel room with the necessary bottles of cognac? Would I dare have them make love to each other - or, even more unspeakable - would I dare to have Edgar sodomized unashamedly, after which he, entirely dismayed and shocked, would dress up again but in the clothes of the other man and, totally upset and drunk, rave though the streets of Baltimore while his almost finished life, mixed with scenes from his stories, starts unfurling in front of his terrified eyes in hallucinating images? Or, maybe more practical from a directing point of view, he might possibly have told his entire life story to his lover - or the person that deflowered him - before the latter committed this act...

It is generally known that Poe's writings are much more popular in Europe - in France he enjoys cult status - than in the United States, where Americans do not really know how to handle him. His oeuvre is often viewed there as being produced by a “carnival author of Gothic horror” and Americans are at a total loss when it comes to his chaotic life; he is more or less considered a drunk, a mythomaniac, a charlatan, in short an author “who is addicted to the bottle and does not pay his debts” [6] .

Then, there is his attitude toward women; on the one hand he makes them perish gruesomely, for instance the two victims in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, or the spouse of the drunken narrator in “The Black Cat” -although in “The Cask of Amontillado” a man is also naturally launched into eternity -, on the other hand he praises their fine sensitivity and intelligence, e.g. in “Ligeia”, he writes lofty poems for her and ventures to claim that the most beautiful subject of the art of poetry is a dead woman. Next, he would naturally have had a decided preference for young, pre-adolescent girls; his marriage to his thirteen-year-young niece Virginia is the best evidence, is it not?

I would particularly like to weaken the last allegation by way of two quotations:

“As to his supposed sexual interest in young girls, Poe confessed to a friend after Virginia's death that he had never consummated his marriage (leading twentieth-century Freudians to speculate that he was, contrariwise, impotent.)" [7] 

“He complained of his loneliness, but he did not try to alleviate it except by a frantic seeking for feminine companionship, and in that he was limited by the fatal mother-image which beclouded all his relations with women.” [8]

As everyone knows, Poe witnessed his mother dying of tuberculosis when he was only two years old.

My personal conclusion is that this woman's image of Poe, despite these psycho-analytical insights, is just the one that fits a homosexual who was unable to experience his sexuality in his time and place, who, a little like Tchaikovsky and contrary to, for instance, Oscar Wilde, had a pathological aversion to the female body, more exactly the sexual organ, who thus was never able to perform the sexual act with a woman and who, in order to hide this throughout his life, needed to act very cunningly and cautiously, consciously or subconsciously. Let us take a closer look at a number of “tricks” and “red herrings” ....

First, a short autobiographical interlude. I was born in 1960 and already at a tender age - probably eight or nine - I must have understood that “something was the matter” with me: I knew that I should be interested in girls, yet felt more attracted, at that time already, to (more senior) boys and teachers. During Latin and Greek classes, for instance, when the subject of “boy love” arose, I sensed that I was not “the only one” cherishing such emotions. Despite this, I desperately tried to conceal these until my coming-out on my nineteenth birthday, by feigning an interest in girls, e.g. by writing them passionate love letters or by being “in love” with inaccessible women such as pop singer Linda Ronstadt at the time. Secretly, however, I was already dreaming of regions like Italy, Greece, Tunisia or Morocco, where I had heard that men were doing “it” with each other. Incidentally, I have had full sexual contact with six women in my life, and all of them were perfectly aware of my different disposition...

Now back to Edgar Allan Poe and more puritanical times. Although melancholy and the taste for making poetry are certainly not the prerogatives of homosexuals, I believe that a heterosexual adolescent, while masturbating, dreams more of having physical contact with a girl or a woman than scribbling poems for her. And young Edgar? He is said to have experienced his first puppy love at the age of fourteen, involving one Jane Stanard, “the first purely ideal love of my soul” [9] . Certainly, apart from the fact that he was already talking about the “ideal” love, he could hardly have picked a more inaccessible woman so as not to have to perform the act: Jane was thirty at the time and the mother of a school friend in Richmond - a year later she passed away, insane. Apparently, Poe knew how to pick those women who were not sufficiently robust mentally and/or physically to “take a few knocks”. It is always explained that this preference for delicate women had to do with the loss of his mother and his status as an orphan; my more prosaic interpretation is that with such women there was no need for him to prove his manhood.

According to many testimonies, Edgar was a rather haughty, distant lad - did he already sense at that age that he was “different”, a “difference” that he was able to express in words so strikingly in his poems - one of which I have cited as the introductory quotation - a “difference” that he had to hide and compensate for at all costs? For instance by indulging in sport...?

...indulging in sport. Once grown up, Poe was definitely not a sportsman; on the contrary, his health had always caused him anxiety and during most of his life he appeared more sad and vulnerable, though proud; however, as a lad he naturally had to provide proof of belonging to the stronger sex. By gambling. By drinking - he had a hereditary affliction. By taking part in sport.

One feat of strength is well documented; when he was sixteen, he is said to have swum the James River six miles upstream on a sun-drenched day with his teachers and fellow students as an audience [10] , as a result of which he was naturally exhausted and suffered serious sunstroke. He probably wanted to come across as manly. He wanted to imitate his greatest idol, Lord Byron, who, during his mad years in the Ligurian Golfo dei poeti, also used to swim long distances - which advances us one small step...

During his school years, Poe studied the major Latin and Greek poets with much interest, so it can be assumed that he stumbled on the “gentlemen's love” passages, in any case in Plato's Symposium from which he quotes a sentence as an introduction to “Morella”, and thus must have very surely figured out the attitude vis-à-vis (homo)sexuality in ancient Greece and Rome - a view entirely different from that prevailing in the (English-speaking) nineteenth century, during which the persecution - including executions - of those making love with the same sex reached a climax in the first half of that century [11] and during which, in the second half, during Wilde's notorious trial, it was still referred to as “the unspeakable sin” .

In spite of that, or maybe precisely because of it, his greatest example, the man who inspired him to write poems, was Lord Byron (1788 - 1824). The hype surrounding this Romantic hero reached its peak during Poe's early years, and Edgar was also not able to escape this fashion: he recited his poems, dressed up in semi-dramatic black, and, to the displeasure of his foster father - assumed Byronian airs…

As an orphan and without sufficient financial means to go out and search for adventure, Edgar may have dreamed of the life of an English Lord, perhaps - and here I am guided by my intuition again - because Byron had dared to experience his homosexual inclinations and for that purpose was able to travel to such countries as Greece, where such practices do not result so easily in (capital) punishment if performed with the necessary caution. Therefore, it is no wonder that Edgar suffered bouts of mythomania during his entire life, he is said to have traveled all of Europe… did he yearn for (homo)sexual satisfaction, satisfaction which, he believed, could only be achieved without punishment in the more tolerant countries of the old continent?

Back to women. Following Poe's passing away, Sarah Elmira Royster (1810 - 1888) alleged that she had always been the love of his life - thus a love that was never fulfilled. She lived opposite Edgar's school, as adolescents they often dwelled in each other's company, yet the letters that he wrote her when he was sixteen were systematically intercepted by her father. Evidently, Elmira's father felt that Edgar was not a good party for his daughter Elmira. Was the reason perhaps that he was an adopted child - though taken care of by a rich family? Or did he have suspicions that this young man would never make his daughter happy because of his character or because he…did not like girls?

The efforts undertaken by Poe to get engaged to her during the last year of his life, as had been the case with Helen Whitman, show that he, as an orphan and widower of a twenty-four year-old virgin, was indeed desperately in search of female company, but which he very evidently did not wished to share in his bedstead - and thus dared to propose only to inaccessible women.

This brings us to the homo-erotic emotions between Dupin and the narrator in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”. Poe was an intellectual. Poe dreamed of a literary magazine of his own. Poe dreamed of an ideal dwelling to devote himself to his writing activities, an ideal house such as “Landor’s Cottage”. It is clear that he, as a gentleman from the south, would have been in need in such ideal circumstances of - well-to-do - female company to meet his practical needs. In my opinion, his housekeeping with his aunt and cousin need to be viewed principally as follows: he was unable to live alone and had a need to be taken care of.

And yes, it is a fact that he dreamed of a strong intellectual bond with another man - regrettably he never found one, according to himself, who was his equal in this sense - but that he additionally dared to dream of a further step with such an imagined partner…to the bed, that was, considering the views on homosexuality in his country, and probably for himself too, still a matter that was too “unspeakable”...

And yes, I must agree with Chad Helder that the absolute horror in Poe's stories plus the absolute mental control and logical way of thinking in his detective stories might indeed have their origin in the desperate suppression of his (homo)sexual emotions. That explains the unbelievable power of these stories, of the fact that they are so aloof of reality, of their “caractère trop rêvé” [12] in the words of Maupassant , an admirer of Poe and who composed in his style, albeit much less effectively, perhaps because this Maupassant was able to indulge his carnal heterosexual desires.

In conclusion, the scenario, the possible scenario! Would I really dare to take away from him the point of departure of a drunken night of love with another man and secret admirer? Improbable? Not really; I close with the following citation that provides food for thought: “Durant les dix années qui suivront sa (E. A. Poe) mort, un inconnu déposera sur sa tombe, oubliée des mondains, une rose et une bouteille de cognac, vestiges du passé ou souvenirs funestes, en hommage au poète.” [13] Was this unknown person the same unknown man in whose clothes Poe was found half-dead on that third of October 1849?

Brussels, 27 May 2008

---

[1] http://www.darkscribemagazine.com/unspeakable-horror-from-the-sh/

[2] http://unspeakablehorror.com/journal/2006/11/29/vincent-price-and-edgar-allan-poe.html

[3] http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,12589,1491040,00.html

[4] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/514069.stm

[5] G. R. THOMPSON, Edgar A. Poe: An American Life , in The Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe , New York - London, 2004, p. xlv.

[6] C. RICHARD, Le mythe de Poe , in Edgar Allan Poe. Contes -Essais - Poèmes , Paris, 1989, p. 9

[7] G. R. THOMPSON, Ibidem , p. xlvii

[8] P. VAN DOREN STERN, Introduction , in The Portable Poe , USA, 1945, p. xxxvii

[9] D. SOVA, Edgar Allan Poe. A to Z , New York, 2001, p. 227.

[10] P. ACKROYD, Poe. A Life cut Short , London, 2008, p. 20.

[11] http://www.glbtq.com/literature/byron_gg.html

[12] MAUPASSANT, Le Colporteur et autres nouvelles , with an introduction by r M.-C. BANQUART, Paris, 2006, p. 250.

[13] For ten years following his death (E.A. Poe), an unknown person was to leave on his grave, forgotten by socialites, a rose and a bottle of brandy, vestiges of the past or memories of death, in tribute to the poet. ( M. CARTIER & V. DUGUET, Double Assassinat dans la rue Morgue. La Lettre volée , Paris, 2004, p. 11.)

Here is a new interview about Vincent Price Presents.  ComicMonsters.com speaks with Darren Davis, the publisher for Vincent Price Presents. 

Click Here:

Darren Davis talks Vincent Price Presents! 

Check out this excellent article by Cliff Biggers over at Newsarama.com:

Immortal After All...Vincent Price Comes to Comic Books 

This is the same article that ran in the Comic Shop News this week! 

Here is the official press release for my upcoming comic book series: 

Bluewater Productions Takes A Stab At Horror with “Vincent Price Presents”

Bellingham, WA- The legacy of legendary horror film actor Vincent Price will soon stalk the comic aisle.
 

Vincent Price PresentsBluewater Productions, Inc., has entered into an agreement with the estate of film icon Vincent Price to produce a new monthly comic book series titled, “Vincent Price Presents.” The series will feature the iconic Price in a myriad of roles including host, muse, background player, and protagonist.
 
The on-going series will showcase classic gothic horror elements, but will also include themes from Prices’s past work in the mystery and suspense genres.
 
Price’s daughter, designer Victoria Price, was instrumental in brokering the historic deal. This is the first time her father’s name and likeness will appear in a licensed comic book series.
 
Victoria Price explains the motivation behind the collaboration:  “I’m really touched and excited about the series because it will help energize my father’s legacy for a new generation.  We’re planning a big celebration for his 100th birthday in 2010, and this comic series fits into those plans perfectly.”
 
Bluewater is predominately known for the “Ray Harryhausen Presents” titles based on the Sinbad franchise, and the “10th MUSE” series of comic books and graphic novels. It has recently added the horror genre to its repertoire.
 
“After the success with the Ray Harryhausen comics, we wanted to work with another film legend. Vincent Price was always at the top of everyone's short list,” said Bluewater President Darren Davis. “We find his body of work and presence on film to be really inspirational, so we wanted to recreate his legacy for a new generation of comic book readers. Not only are we developing sequels to his specific films, we are also developing gothic horror stories in the spirit of his legacy.”
 
The “Vincent Price Presents” series will launch this fall in conjunction with another new horror series from Bluewater.  “Bartholomew of the Scissors” will feature gothic horror elements with innovative twists.  Similar to the “Vince Prince Presents” series, the primary focus is on good storytelling technique as opposed to gratuitous gore.   Writer Chad Helder and artist Daniel Crosier have given the series a unique voice and a distinctive organic look.
 
The first issues of “Vincent Price Presents” and “Bartholomew of the Scissors” will be released in October to coincide with Halloween festivities.
 
About Vincent Price:
American horror actor, Vincent Price, was born in Missouri in 1911, and, after graduating from Yale, studied fine arts in London.
 
Making his stage debut in ‘Chicago’ at the Gate Theater, in 1935, he worked on Broadway, and with Orson Welles’ legendary Mercury Theater.
 
He debuted on the screen with ‘Service de Luxe’ in 1938, as part of a Universal contract, under which he was offered only supporting roles. Leaving for Twentieth Century Fox, Price starred in ‘Brigham Young Frontiersman’ and ‘Hudson Bay’.
 
After returning to Broadway with ‘Angel Street’, Price co-starred in ‘The Song of Bernadette’ in 1943. Happy to be typecast as a villain, he began making his name in such work as ‘Wilson and Laura’ (1944) and ‘Leave Her To Heaven’ (1946), before finally starring in ‘Shock!’, and ‘Dragonwick’ (1947).
 
More stage work followed his departure from Fox in the early fifties, with performances in ‘The Cocktail Party’ and ‘Don Juan in Hell’.
 
In 1953, Price starred in the 3-D ‘The House of Wax’, which became one of the most successful horror films ever produced. This was followed by the equally 3-D ‘Dangerous Mission’.
 
Triumphant in a return to the stage with ‘Richard III’, Price was now, essentially, a horror film star. Hits such as 1958’s ‘The Fly’ led to his involvement with producer Roger Corman, for whom Price performed in many Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, such as ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ (1960) and ‘The Raven’ (1963).
 
Notable appearances over the years included the teen movie ‘Beach Party’ (1963) and the Elvis film, ‘The Trouble With Girls’ (1969).
 
In the 1970s Price devoted himself mainly to art history, lecturing and publishing books on art history. He re-appeared for a last role in Tim Burton’s ‘Edward Scissorhands’ in 1990, and died in Los Angeles three years later.
 
About Blue Water Productions:
Bluewater Productions, Inc., is one if the top independent production studios of comic, young adult books and graphic novel titles. In the tradition of great storytelling and cutting edge art, Bluewater has stormed onto the comic book and graphic novel scene. With impressive titles, including such smash hits as the “10th MUSE,” “VSS,” “THE LEGEND OF ISIS,” and “Wrath of the Titans” and “Sinbad” from legendary filmmaker Ray Harryhausen, Bluewater Productions is committed to continue to produce engaging stories with art from both the top names in the industry alongside up and coming stars.
 
For more information visit www.bluewaterprod

Today is the day I've been waiting for!  Today I can tell everyone about my new comic book series with Bluewater Comics: Vincent Price Presents! 

I had to wait until the official announcement for the series came out in The Comic Shop News, which happened today.  Make sure to pick up a copy at your local comic book store.  The cover story prominently features Vincent Price Presents.  I am completely thrilled.  There is an excellent cover image of Vincent Price by artist Joel Robinson, who is doing a lot of work for the series.  Inside you'll find a great article by Cliff Biggers, who interviews Darren Davis, the publisher for Bluewater Comics.

Working on this series has been a dream-come-true for me.  First, I have the opportunity to tell some of my strangest quasi-gothic stories, and I also get to work with amazing artists like Rey Armenteros and Gio Timpano. 

Last Man on Earth CoverI am going to be the lead writer and script editor for the series.   All of the stories in the series will involve quasi-gothic horror elements with lots of new twists (some sci-fi, some downright surreal).  Some stories will be based on specific Vincent Price films like Last Man on Earth, while other stories will follow in the tradition of Price's horror films (like his work with Roger Corman).  In addition, there will also be stories that offer a unique, twisted vision that is part gothic landscape and and part postmodern weirdness.  Pick up a copy of The Comic Shop News to get the whole story. 

Check back for an official press release from Bluewater about the series.  

I posted a new gallery for the series, which I will add lots of new stuff to as we approach the September premiere of the series: Visit the Gallery! 

In the upcoming weeks and months, I will write about the development of the series.  I have lots of behind-the-scenes stories to tell.  I will also preview the upcoming stories that have been brought to life by the amazing talents of Rey Armenteros, Gio Timpano, and Joel Robinson (there will also be lots more talented artists and writers attached to the project).  I will give previews and glimpses of the amazing artwork.   

Long Live Vincent Price Presents! 

Here is the new blog-forum from the League of Tana Tea Drinkers:

Evil Kids in the Horror Genre: Why Do They Scare Us So Much?

Sugar and spice and everything nasty and not very nice; that's the usual scenario when evil kids go out to play in the horror genre. But there's something not quite right here. Children in real life rarely have power over adults (unless they are royalty or Disney-channel stars), while in the horror genre they wield enough power to make any and all adults quake in fear or drop dead. How can this be? What elements combine to turn all that sugar sour and comforting cinnamon spice into hot pepper? Why do they scare us so much, or traumatize us, or make us wish they would go away and play with their nastiness somewhere else? From zombie kids to Satan's pride of joy, from juvenile serial killers to mutant offspring, the little evil ones bedevil us.

The following members of The League of Tana Tea Drinkers lend their thoughts on the subject for your edification pleasure.

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Vault of Horror talks about the evil destruction of childhood:

For the longest time, horror films and the concept of childhood have had a complex relationship. This has much to do with the fact that one of the central themes of all horror entertainment—if not the central theme—is the corruption/destruction of good by evil.

Childhood as an ideal represents nothing as much as innocence in its purest form. And innocence itself is the ultimate distillation of “good”. Perhaps this is why both creators and audiences alike have often had something of a difficult time dealing with it within the horror medium. Because childhood represents the ultimate good, the corruption/destruction of that good is the most extreme form of evil that most of us can imagine. Very often it is simply too much to bear.

This is why, for as long as horror films have been around, the ultimate taboo, the one area most have avoided like the plague, has been the murder of children. True, there have been notable exceptions over the years, movies like Frankenstein (1931), The Blob (1988) and Sleepy Hollow (1999). But for the most part, filmmakers keep away from it, as exemplified most vividly in some of the Friday the 13th movies, in which Jason will literally walk past the beds of sleeping campers and keep his focus on the counselors. For most of us, violence against children is something we don’t really want to see in horror movies. It’s not fun or entertaining, and unfortunately, all too painful and real.

Which brings me to the original topic: Evil kids in the horror genre. Ruling out the literal destruction of the child, the closest most horror creators choose to come is the destruction of childhood. If horror is all about the corruption of good, then the corruption of the ultimate good, the innocence of childhood, is about as evil as it gets.

For this reason, the depiction of evil children stirs up deep feelings of dread and revulsion in many viewers. We innately perceive it as a gross affront to the natural order of things. Something within us senses this perversion, and recoils from it. Evil adults we can handle; most of us deal with them on an almost daily basis. But evil children? And by this I don’t mean the bratty kid on line at the grocery store who won’t shut up—I mean genuinely, truly evil children. An utterly alien concept.

Some of the genre’s finest works have mined this motherlode of subconscious terror: The Omen (1976), Halloween (1978), The Ring (2001), and most recently, The Orphanage (2007). It works to particular effect in William Friedkin’s masterpiece The Exorcist (1973), in which we literally witness the purest and most innocent little girl imaginable defiled and twisted by a wholly evil force into an obscene mockery of nature. Though flawed, Stephen King’s Pet Sematary (1989) pulls off a powerful combination by presenting us with the ultimate taboo (death of a child), followed by the perversion of innocence, as the child returns in evil form.

In short, it is this underlying sense of profound and incomprehensible wrongness that causes us to fear the so-called “evil child” in horror movies. It is also the subconscious connection to the ultimate act of corruption—the literal corruption of the flesh itself, i.e. the death of the child. Sublimating this primordial horror in the form of corrupted childhood thus becomes a safer way to scare the crap out of us, without offending.

 

Kindertrauma shares thoughts on evil children and their power:

In normal day-to-day life, children are not that scary. They are not really at their intellectual peaks and they're easy to shove around and steal candy from. In movies though, particularly horror movies, you really don't want to mess with them. They operate in a gloriously luxurious state that only the absence of learned social conditioning can provide. I should make a distinction right away between "creepy" kids and killer kids. Creepy kids are more passive and may just show up to sing a song about how you're going to die or shove bloody images into your brain to freak you out. These kids are victims themselves and usually have way too much jump roping to do to stop and actively try to kill you. Most of their fright power is derived from whatever mangled teddy bear or doll they're clutching anyway.

The (for the most part) less supernatural "killer" kid, you can tell from their name, is way more interested in well,... killing. All nature vs. nurture arguments are chucked out the nearest window as soon as one of these kids arrives. They really have not spent enough time on our planet to be as pissed off as they are; they're just born bad like the Edsel and PlayStation 3. O.K., some of them may be from outer space, spent time in a toxic nuclear fog or possessed by an irate relative, but the important thing is that they hate your guts and they want to kill you. Overall, they make Dennis the Menace look like Ziggy.

In a culture that is obsessed with maintaining the purity of its youth, well at least up until they are thrown to the wolves at the local college, there is something innately transgressive about these little hellions with no accountability. I think if truth were told we feign our fear of these mini psychos to mask the vicarious thrill we derive from watching their (often hilarious) shenanigans. Even those of us who were raised in safe environments can easily recall moments from our youth where we were frustratingly devoid of anything resembling power. These early introductions to the limits of our control over the world are constantly being shaken awake in our adult lives whether we are aware of them or not. Watching a smaller creature take those who loom over him to exaggerated task satisfies our need for retroactive revenge and may be more about wish fulfillment than fear.

In real life, the killer child is rarely seen. Sure every once in a while one will pop up to kick up some debate about violence in the media, but it's not exactly a frequent occurrence. Still children do hold some kind of impossible to understand control over our psyches. I've lived long enough to witness their births transform friends of mine who were once like Sid and Nancy into Ozzie and Harriet clones overnight. Now to me, that's scary.

Gospel of the Living Dead talks about zombie children:

Many would argue that Karen (played by Kyra Schon), the girl zombie at the end of Night of the Living Dead (1968), is one of the most striking examples of an evil child in horror films. Here is a child who stabs her mother to death with a trowel, then eats her father. Her ghoulish face is iconic at horror cons, seen all over t-shirts, often without any label, since she is so well-known as a symbol of horror.

The similar scene in the sequel Dawn of the Dead (1978) is harrowing, but much more subdued. Near the beginning of the film, Peter (played by Ken Foree) is savagely attacked by two growling, feral, zombie children. When they are finally fought off, they are discreetly shot off camera. The scene is subdued both because the violence is so much less, but more importantly, because the children have no connection to Peter. Just being attacked by one's own child would be much more monstrous than actually being murdered by a stranger.

In Dawn of the Dead, one of the main characters, Fran (played by Gaylen Ross), is said to be pregnant. Her condition plays no real role in the narrative, except as motive for her own survival, and as the topic of one chilling conversation, in which the male characters coldly discuss violating Fran by aborting the fetus without any consultation with her. But the horror of this pregnancy is astonishingly ramped up in the 2004 remake of the film, in which the bitten mother lapses into zombieism during labor, finally birthing a zombie baby which must be shot in the head along with its mother.

What do these haunting images show us about how horror works, or perhaps more fundamentally, about our attitudes toward children and parenthood? The images of larger children turning into ravening beasts is surely about loss of innocence, or the fragility of innocence. But as noted, this image is heightened and intensified when those children attack their parents, so there is something not just about innocence lost, but about betrayal of trust and violation of fundamental bonds between parents and children. It is Oedipal, in short, perhaps compounded by guilt on the parents' part that they did not protect the child from death and undeath. (Certainly this is seen in Karen's mother, who seems to willingly give herself over to her daughter's murderous wrath.)

In the case of the pregnancies, there are other dynamics. We have the ultimate perversion and loss of the promise of future life - a stillbirth, only worse. With the pregnant women, we also have the mystery of life and death. Pregnant women are odd, hybrid, liminal creatures - somehow two people in one, and the one might prove to be the death of the other. The presence of a pregnant woman in a narrative cannot help but disorient and nudge the audience to uncomfortable questions about life, even if nothing overtly supernatural or horrific happens - even natural pregnancy and birth is quite harrowing enough. Further, birth is a shocking, painful drama many of us have experienced or witnessed up close, unlike being stabbed to death or eaten alive, so the horror of pregnancy, like the horror of children gone bad, injects an element of the ordinary and everyday into the imaginary world of a zombie apocalypse.

Blogue Macabre examines supernatural evil children:

This topic comes up at a wonderful time for my blog as I am embarking on a tour of horror films and subgenres that look more deeply at the idea of what is it that scares us.

One of the may themes expressed in the horror genre is that of Evil Children and to expand that somewhat, I will include possessed or otherwise supernaturally afflicted children as I believe many aspects that make these films unsettling are closely related to that of inherently evil children. So what is it about Evil Children that scares us?

On my blog I have been thinking about the nature of fear lately and how Horror entertainment utilizes that. I have surmised that in order for a story to be effectively scary it must it must properly incorporate two types of fear. The first of these is conscious or rational fear. This I submit is not true fear, rather more of a concern or an uneasiness centering on an intangible thought, idea or concept. Death for example is a conscious fear that one must consider to effectively be scared by it, and ultimately the end results and not the act itself. For example “Is there something after I die or will everything I am disappear from existence? Is there a heaven or Hell and has my life been worthy if there is? What if the ancient Egyptians were right, and I’ll be showing up to the party without underwear or shoes and nothing more than a bad suit with a slit down the back for all eternity?” You get the idea. The purpose of rational fear in a story is to build suspense, it is the “what if” factor. Quite simply for a horror story to be scary it has to get into your head.

The other aspect of fear is subconscious or irrational fear. This is true fear. It causes the heart to race, adrenalin to be released and a degree of heightened awareness. If you don’t mind a phrase that frankly I’m tired of, it is the “fight-or-flight” response. Spiders, snakes, heights, clowns, dolls, lightning and thunder and so on, these are all fears or phobias that not everyone has but all exist with an often surprisingly frequency. True fear occurs entirely beyond an individual’s conscious rationale and completely precludes the “what if”, it is a purely physical reaction. Now keep in mind that this can and does exist beyond basic phobias and can occur in instances where under different stimulus would have no effect on the same individual. Add to that that someone whit such phobias can trigger true fear simply by thinking about it. Yes this muddies the water a bit, but I’m not a psychologist and I’ve already gone on well enough on this thought without really getting to the topic at hand, Evil Children.

So with all this talk of fear behind us, how does the idea of Evil Children come into play? It is my belief that it exists almost entirely as a conscious fear. As an irrational fear it is to obscure. While I certainly know people who dislike children, none of them to my knowledge has ever ran screaming out of a room in a fit of hysteria when one has walked in. In fact it is contrary to basic primeval nature where we are predisposed to care for our young. It is this same nature that makes the idea so horrific to the conscious mind. Children embody innocence and frailty. They are to be nurtured and protected. It is this deep seeded belief that makes crimes against children so despicable. Naturally as such a child that is neither frail nor innocent is an uncomfortable paradigm and an easy platform for horror as removing the audience from it’s comfort zone if the first rule of successful horror. It is this same protective nurturing desire that has mad movies such as Poltergeist and even The Exorcist successful franchises. Although the children herein are themselves not evil it is our nature to be offended at the dangers and atrocities they suffer. The fact that Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) was a child was crucial to The Exorcist and how effective the horror of the possession was. Similarly if Carol Anne was another teenager running and screaming from the ghosts, Poltergeist would have been a flop. Her childish innocence and the jeopardy that it placed her in was the whole point of the movie.

In films such as The Omen, and Children of the Corn to name but two, the children are no longer the victims; they are in fact the villains. While naturally the nurturing aspect occurs here too, children represent another common theme in horror that I would refer to as corrupted innocence. This would be where comfortable reassuring symbols usually associated with childhood are used as devices of horror such as clowns, dolls, imaginary friends and such. In this case it is childhood itself that is the symbol. In The Omen the parents are trapped with the fact their child, whom they are obligated naturally to love and protect, is at the same time evil itself, and as the parents come to realize this it is a truly horrific dilemma. In our culture we place such value on children, they are our legacy and the single greatest investment on life, and to be forced to destroy that not to mention the fact these are people and not simple objects.

Certainly there are other aspects and themes to be explored here as well, but I feel what I have outlined is likely the heart of what it is about the subgenre of Evil Children that we find so appealing.

TheoFantastique reflects on why evil children get under our skin:

In my view there are at least two primary reasons why we find evil children so repulsive and fascinating in horror. First,