For Fans of The Big Bang Theory

You have to watch the flash mob video, which was choreographed by the sister of Kaley Cuoco.

Bazinga.



Is it wrong to suggest that the world would be a better place if we had more videos of Kaley Cuoco jumping around?

If wanting that is wrong, I don't want to be right.

The Amazing Spider-Man: A Brief Review

I watched this twice last weekend, once by myself and the second time with Norma. I liked it better the second time, probably because my enjoyment of most things is amplified when I watch them with her. Her mere presence could make Here Comes Honey Boo Boo seem illuminating.

My one gripe about The Amazing Spider-Man centers on the decision to reboot the franchise and retell his origin. Didn’t we just explain how Spidey came to be? What? That was ten years ago? Ah. Now it makes sense. The teens wouldn’t remember Sam Raimi’s excellent and fun-filled Spider-Man. And Hollywood wants to keep the kids happy.

That complaint aside, Andrew Garfield captures Peter Parker’s goofy awkwardness better than Toby Maguire did. Emma Stone is pitch perfect as Gwen Stacy (whose comic book fate is far off in this new film series, I hope). My favorite bit of casting was Josiah Bartlett as Uncle Ben. It was good to see my favorite president on the screen again.

The action sequences are spectacular. The technology has certainly improved since Raimi had Spidey swing through New York. Sure, the science is pretty wonky (“Hey, Gwen, could you take five minutes and whip up a serum to turn giant mutant lizards back into men?”) but who cares? It’s a lot of fun. It’s no The Avengers, but The Amazing Spider-Man has contributed to making 2012 a great year for superhero flicks.

Bonehead of the Week

It's a toss up.

It could be this kid.

That's Angus T. Jones, the young man who earns many millions of dollars each year for spending a few hours a week pretending to be someone else, yet has zero appreciation for how lucky he is. 

He could be the Bonehead of the week, but he's not. His problem is he's 19. 19-year-olds are generally stupid. I know I was. If you're honest with yourself, you'll may be inclined to admit that you, too, did some very dumb things around that age. And perhaps well past that age.

I actually think this week's Bonehead Supreme is this guy. But you can judge for yourself and get back to me.

(If we were handing out an award for Most Idiotic Obvious Statement, it would go to the doctor in this story who feels pretty sure nipples don't grow back. If you meet this guy, never, I repeat, never let him tune in Tokyo, if you know what I'm sayin'.)

Freakin’ Beacon Update

This week’s Ashland Beacon is out, with my weekly column. This time it’s “Leftovers”.

Expect a fishing joke, every turkey recipe my wife knows, and a brief appearance by Elvis.

You can read it online. It’s on page 2.

Free! Free, I Tells Ya!

Right now you can get Dead Earth: The Green Dawn for your Kindle for the low, low price of nothing.  

If you haven't sampled our world of aliens and zombies and desperate human survivors, then this is a way to do so that's pretty safe on the risk-o-meter.

Plus, it's a great way to catch up on the series before the new book Dead Earth: Sanctuary comes out in 2013.

Here's the reading order:

Dead Earth: The Green Dawn (which is a novella, by the way)

Dead Earth: The Vengeance Road (a novel, now also conveniently available as an audiobook)

Dead Earth: Sanctuary (another novel, coming soon)

The apocalypse starts for free right here.

Last Chance...

...To grab my collection Looking at the World with Broken Glass in My Eye for 99¢. The sale will wrap up tonight (which, in real word terms, means Amazon will probably change it sometime tomorrow).

Why should you grab it now? Here are a few reasons:

1) The two stories that make up my sold-out book Deadneck Hootenanny are included. As a Facebook fan recently said, “Deadneck Hootenanny is both funnier and more appalling than Honey Boo-Boo. Have some today!” This is horror with a big dollop of humor, and it amazes me that I still get feedback on the stories after all this time (including as recently as this weekend from a guest who remarked on the less savory aspects of the tales while chowing down on Thanksgiving leftovers).

2) Around 100.000 words of fiction. That includes a bunch of short stories and two previously unpublished novellas. One of them is threatening to expand itself into a novel in the not-too-distant future.

3) A cool cover by the talented Billy Tackett, based on the novella “Dead Town”. Read the novella, then examine all those tiny figures moving toward that obelisk on the cover. Great work by Mr. Tackett.

And it’s all for under a buck for a few more hours. That’s a pretty good deal.

If you do pick up a book, please consider leaving a brief review and clicking that Amazon “Lke” button. Thanks!

The Morning Bends

What a week! It was filled with accomplishments of herculean proportions. Let me list them for you now.

1) Sleeping at least 11 hours a night.

2) Eating at least 13 hours a day.

Now I have to prepare myself to go back to work tomorrow. This is rougher than it sounds. After a week off, my body has adjusted to my new 11/13 schedule listed above, so the transition to waking up at a time I like to call The Middle Of the &$#%ing Night and having to actually use my brain can be painful. To help you understand my plight,  the closest analogy I can make is that of a diver returning to the surface so quickly that she or he develops the bends.

I get the Morning Bends. This is like the regular bends, except that instead of nitrogen forming in my blood (which, in my case is difficult, since my blood in currently 90% gravy), my will to live is replaced with a will to whine and an inability to do simple arithmetic or make coherent words (Note: the inability to do math thing has a tendency to last 365 days). Going through a grueling work day with the morning bends is a hardship akin to sitting for hours on a hard plastic chair in the waiting room of a dentist’s office where the TV is permanently tuned to Fox News or discovering your wife bought Hydrox instead of Oreos.

There is only one cure for the morning bends, and that is the afternoon nap, which I plan to deploy approximately 38 seconds after getting home tomorrow. Fortunately, I have a wife who understands that a man suffering from the morning bends cannot possibly hope to cover his normal daily responsibilities. So for tomorrow she will be on Cleaning the Litter Boxes duty.

And Taking Out the Garbage duty.

And Removing Spiders duty.

Thanks, honey. And try to keep it down, will you?

Pod of Horror # 69: Patricia Cornwell

Pod of Horror is back with a scary feast fit for Thanksgiving, including bestseller Patricia Cornwell,  horror’s funny man Jeff Strand, the original rocket boy Homer Hickam, Writer and ninja Jon F. Merz, movie reviewer and novelist L. L. Soares, along with the Call of Kalanta, Scary Words and the Tomb of Trivia. It’s all on Pod of Horror #69, produced and hosted by Mark Justice.

Download it at iTunes or listen here.

Black Friday Sale!

The Kindle edition of my collection Looking at the World with Broken Glass in My Eye is only 99¢ through this holiday weekend. 

Turn Black Friday into Spooky Dark Friday Including Redneck Zombies Sitting Around Drinking Beer and Eating People.

Here's what legendary horror scribe Gary Braunbeck said about it:

“With Looking at the World with Broken Glass in My Eye, Mark Justice has given us a genuine gift; by turns funny, horrifying, heartbreaking, and just plain weird, this is a real showcase collection, and a feast for readers. You never know from one tale to the next what he’s going to hit you with, and it’s that very unpredictability that makes this book so much more than the mere sum of its often-brilliant parts. Justice has a keen and unflinching eye for the telling details of human (and un-human) behavior, and a poet’s economy with words. There is not a wasted syllable to be found between these covers, and at times I felt as if I were being given a writing lesson. I cannot imagine anyone reading powerhouse stories such as “Black Wings” and the hands-down masterpiece “Father’s Day” without feeling envious that they didn’t write them. I expected this collection to be good; I didn’t expect it to knock my socks off and leave me so wrung out. This is what short fiction should be but too often isn’t. If you don’t get this collection, your life is going to be all the poorer for it — and I’ve never said that about a book before.”

Click here for the deal.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dead Sheriff Reviewed and Other Stuff

There's a nice review of The Dead Sheriff: Zombie Damnation up at Vintage Horror.

One of my other books is going on sale for Thanksgiving weekend. Watch this space for details.

As mentioned earlier, Dead Earth: The Vengeance Road is now an audio book.

You can find my latest humor column for the Ashland Beacon over here on page 2. This week I become the Anti-Oprah with My Least Favorite Things.

Finally, the new Pod of Horror is finished. It's showing up now on iTunes. It should be live on Horror World later today.

At House of Justice...

...the Squirrel and Bird Theater comes with stadium seating.

Dead Earth in Your Ear

Dead Earth: The Vengeance Road is now an audiobook from Audible.com.

For over eight hours of zombie-killing, alien-fighting and crazy biker gang action, download it here.

Who For You

How about a little holiday cheer from across the pond (no, not that Pond; the other big, wet pond)?

First, the new Doctor Who "minisode", a prequel to the Christmas special, including a cameo appearance by the Doctor's new companion:



And here's the trailer for the Christmas episode:



Now go have a hot buttered rum and think about that Christmas goose. Cheerio.

The Best Summation of the 2012 Election

And she's right. For the country to move forward, the extreme right wing of the Republican party has to stop writing their own version of reality. This is no longer a country ruled by rich white guys or poor white guys who want to be rich white guys or women who want to marry rich white guys.

And they must stop acting like little kids sitting around a camp fire, terrifying each other by making up scary stories about the president, then believing their own fiction about the president's religion, birthplace, plans to hand over the country to foreign nations, etc, ad nauseam. 

One more thing: much of the anti-Obama hatred (particularly for many individuals of my acquaintance) uses those fears and threats and outright lies to mask the true reason they dislike and fear him.

He's not white.

His race doesn't seem likely to change, so it's probably best for the Republicans to accept reality, deal with their damaged brand and try to become relevant for the 21st Century. 

A Couple of Plugs

The Greenup County News-Times, a local weekly, had a nice article on The Dead Sheriff: Zombie Damnation this week. The Huntington (WV) Herald Dispatch ran a piece today. 

The latter is online and you can read it here.

Spreading the Word on The Dead Sheriff

I spent part of today sending out press releases, mostly to regional media outlets. The publisher is handling review copies.

If you represent a publication, web site, podcast, etc, and would like to do a story on The Dead Sheriff or interview the author, drop me a line in the comments section.

Thanks!