Horror, Gnosticism and Queer Love: A review of Adam McOmber's Jesus and John

Just in time for the holidays, I wrote a rather cogent Plenitude Magazine review of Adam McOmber's Jesus and John, from Lethe Press, a  horror novel riffing on Gnosticism, their possible love affair, and scads of cosmic horror.

Not to go all Jerry Garcia about this interesting religious horror novel (yes, you read that correctly), but the book's a trip, and reviewing it required looking into Gnosticism, which I was happy to learn about finally.

You can read the review here.

Cold Skin: My favourite cosmic-horror film viewing of 2020

Quite liked Cold Skin from 2017. In fact, it is my favourite cosmic-horror viewing of 2020 (i.e.: horror that shifts our paradigm and suggests that our place in the universe is negligible at best).

In Cold Skin, an attractive young man travels to a remote island to take the post of weather observer, only to find himself defending the lighthouse from deadly creatures who inhabit the ocean. Handsome protagonist David Oakes inhabits a sort of a tortured queer-angst vibe with his GQ fur look, various bearded styles. He is a fine contrast to the weathered, beleaguered, homely lighthouse keeper, Gruner, portrayed by Ray Stevenson (and not quite as old as the part requires, despite the shaggy hair and wild-man beard). Moreover, this movie, to paraphrase Gemma Files, is a mood. A relentless dread and cosmic horror pervades each lavish, menacing shot of the shoreline, the ocean, even the lighthouse. It is almost an overtly horrific Big Sur by Kerouac. It hangs together well and is rather relentless and obviously and infectiously drunk on Lovecraftian (the Deep Ones) inspiration. Great immersive fun!

Trailer is here.

The Battery from 2013 is a notable zombie flick

Here is another arguable exception to the idea of the time of the zombie film having passed, The Battery from 2012. It does fresh things with the zombie premise. Ballplayers Ben (Jeremy Gardner) and Mickey (Adam Cronheim) are thrust together due to the zombie apocalypse breaking out during the middle of their baseball game. Ben is a catcher. Mickey is a pitcher. The odd couple must survive together, traveling in quietude and deserted campgrounds, Gardner's bearded survivalist is a great foil to Mickey's sensitive and introspective character. It's a quite post-apocalyptic trip whose environs include deserted vineyards and endless empty domiciles. It is also an indie flick, sort of a low-rent hipster zombie movie and a character study, at that. Imagine a beat writers' zombie novel, and you would get something like this. Credit goes to Pete at Movies 'n Stuff for ordering it.

Trailer is here.

One Cut of the Dead a delightful, layered, meta zombie flick

While I agree with Toronto horror writer David Nickle that the time of the zombie film has passed, here is one notable and rather remarkable recent exception I found, One Cut of the Dead. Ostensibly, it's a horror flick, but like a matryoshka doll, it has layer upon layer built in and is meta-meta. A delight!

Trailer's here.

Reflecting on typing my first horror novel Town & Train

Oh, I remember typing, not keyboarding. Started my first novel in grade twelve and continued it in grade 13 as an Independent Study, writing on my Olympia typewriter, then longhand on blue-and-red-lined foolscap, then on my Smith Corona electronic typewriter, finishing the walloping 100-page first draft on the family Adam Computer. All this I did at my desk from Sears. It was then The Train of the Damned, a title which  rocked to 18-year-old me drunk on Ray Bradbury, Stephen King and Clive Barker inspiration. A later draft became The Town and Train after Kerouac's first novel, the epic, Thomas-Wolfe-inspired The Town and the City. I thought my debut title should be a nod to his, as he was also following in novelistic traditions of the time before breaking out with his own voice. Still later, the title was gently but firmly shortened by my publisher when I lucked out, ten drafts (and about 20 years later, after rewriting on the side), to Town & Train.

Second novel is an eight-year grapple, mainly on laptop, with copious notes in moleskin notebooks.

Halloween and October Comic Reading

Here are more comics I recommended reading for October and Halloween time in 2020.

The Occult and Supernatural

Hellblazer: Bloody hell, guv'nah! Everyone's Favourite Bi Street Mage only Going to Issue 12

Hellblazer (DC Comics, Sandman Universe) 

I have already said this, but it bears repeating. Hellblazer is the best it has been in years, on par with Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison and Jamie Delano’s tenures. Scripted by British scribe Simon Spurrier and bolstered by gorgeous art from Matías Bergara and Aaron Campbell, the title is spooky, moody, timely and more than clever,. There is a twisted Little Mermaid subversion, everyone's favourite bi street mage John Constantine being out of touch with contemporary London to his newfound pal from the local pub, Nat the bouncer. Unfortunately, the series is too good for this world. Hellblazer never found a large enough audience or the necessary sales during the pandemic to make it an on-going series. Scribe Spurrier talks about it on his blog, here. Thus, it will be a limited 12 issues, much to the chagrin of readers, critics and its creators. The first trade, though, is already available, John Constantine: Hellblazer Vol. 1: Marks of Woe, collecting The Sandman Universe Presents: Hellblazer #1, John Constantine: Hellblazer #1-6, and Books of Magic #14. The second trade collects issues seven to 12.

First panel by Aaron Campbell. 

Second panel by Matias Bergera. 

Cover by John Paul Leon.

Young Adult
Blackwood (Dark Horse Comics)
To call Blackwood a Harry Potter premise with sharper teeth, taking readers down a dark, sometimes twisting road, is to sell it short. Creators Evan Dorkin (of Beasts of Burden) and double-teaming artists Veronica Fish, and Andy Fish have crafted an interesting motley crew of outcasts getting into occult misadventures at Blackwood College. They are supposed to be learning about witchcraft, but the real lessons are, of course, after class. Dorkin’s work is interesting as he uses established tropes and subverts and plays with them. The use of colours, in particular, is garish, almost impressionist. The art riffs seriously on pre-Comics-Code-Authority E.C. Comics horror fare. It is a retro, exploitative paintjob with decidedly modern trappings and sophisticated writing. There are consequences.  Characters die, and gruesomely. Readers familiar with H.P. Lovecraft will also detect a whiff of eldritch horror, here, which only adds another layer to the enjoyable narrative. In other words, it's a comic for early teens, ideally read on a leafy autumn evening.  

The first trade, Blackwood, came out in 2018. The new four-issue series Blackwood: The Mourning After just released in trade.

Monster Fightin' and Racism

Bitter Root (Image Comics)

Artist Sanford Greene and writers David F. Walker and Chuck M. Brown are part of the all-black or African-American creative team behind Bitter Root. The premise is that the Sangerye Family holds a longstanding tradition of fighting monsters, monsters fuelled by hate, and it’s set in the Harlem Renaissance. It is no surprise that this monthly series is now selling out, given the current political climate in the U.S. They take up arms and fight in the street and are clearly the protagonists in this dynamic. The Red Summer Special occurs during the Tulsa race massacre. The back-matter material is absolutely stunning, with essays on the history of civil rights. The artwork is mind-bendingly good, which is no surprise as Walker, Brown and Greene did such an amazing and fun job on their disappointingly short-lived stint on Power Man and Iron Fist.

Panel from Bitter Root # 3, page 4. Sandford Greene's pencils are just kinetic and full of life.

LGBTQ+ Horror

Theatre of Terror: Revenge of the Queers! (Northwest Press)
Edited by William O. Tyler and Justin Hall, Theatre is a wonderful queer grindhouse/Tales from the Crypt-style horror anthology featuring a frightful cover by artist Phil Jimenez, perhaps best known for his Wonder Woman and The Invisibles work.
The whole works is framed by San Francisco midnight movie drag queen impresario Peaches Christ haunting a post-apocalyptic Castro Theatre, forcing uninvited guests to watch each story unfold. With this classic McGuffin, readers get a lot of bang for their buck, with a wide range of LGBTQ+ art styles and stories.
In the spirit of grindhouse cinema, the most amusing fake horror movie posters appear between the pieces. My only qualm is that there is no table of contents, so it can be difficult to remember where you left off, or to find a certain story you are, uh, dying to read. There is also requisite gore, sex, violence and monsters aplenty, here.
Theatre of Terror came out, so to speak, in December 2019, so it just missed the mark for Halloween, so I am giving it an extra, much-need push here. Stand-outs include “Mer-Maid Story”, Justin Hall's “Full Moon” and “Frankenwhein”, Robyn Adam’s “Dead Name No More!”, featuring a transgender ghost hunter, Tina Horn and Jen Hickaman’s (known for SFSX) “Barrier”, “Werekat”,  “The Vulture” and “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)”.

Panel from writer/artist Robyn Adam’s story “Dead Name No More!” featuring Lorelei Fontaine, transgender ghost hunter!  I really hope to see more of her. 

Panel from Justin Hall's "Full Moon", a randy werewolf yarn...or tail?

Positive Notes during Covid-19

Getting through as best I can. My partner just returned on Sunday from a near-two-week stay in Alberta due to a family crisis. We are all trying to settle into a normal routine (or whatever we can consider normal under Covid-19). 

I have some positive new routines. Driving my son to school to avoid the whole school-bus-distancing thing gets me out into the world. I run errands and torment the manager of Movies N' Stuff, a local video rental place. We have a good deal. I recommend purchases (which he takes) and post brief online reviews and tag M N' S on social media. In turn, Pete, once convinced of a particular show or film's merit, orders them with me in mind, giving me first-rights refusal, remains extremely flexible loan times, tells me when items of interest arrive and, sometimes, even delivers. Meanwhile, I revise Horror Novel Number Two, Monstrous, sometimes sharing breakthroughs with unwitting readers from Russia here on my blog (My focus has improved these past weeks, but still not where it was pre-pandemic). 

My freelance shop is open again. I am penning reviews for Arc: Canada's Poetry Magazine and casting a wide net to include the spec-fic and biography.

Here's my new pandemic greeting, which sounds very Irish - Hope you are having more good days than bad in this thing.