Marvelous Mash-Ups

Here are a couple of great examples of comic book team-ups that never happened but should've, from the cool site Super-Team Family: The Lost Issues.

 

If this were a movie I would start lining up now.

The Doc-Cap crossover would have had 12-year-old me peeing down both legs. As it stands now, I may need to buy some Depends.

It's a Holiday Tradition Around Here

We call it The Battle for the Box. ESPN, where are the cameras?

New Contract

Read about it in this week's column in the Ashland Beacon, along with my message to the Mayans. It's all on page 2.

Evil Flatwoods Tree Update

On today's walk I captured this image of Evil Flatwoods Tree contemplating the close of another year of evilness.

The True Meaning of Christmas...

...getting cool superhero toys.

And, you know, that peace on Earth stuff, too.

Merry Christmas!

More Fun With Ancient Mayans

Permuted Press, publisher of the Dead Earth Series, is having a "The Mayans Were Wrong Sale". From now through January 2, 2013, several of their books are $2.99 for Kindle and Nook, and this includes Dead Earth: The Vengeance Road.

You can get more details here.

So What Are YOU Doing on Christmas Eve?

My Letter to Santa

It's on page two of this week's Ashland Beacon.

Here's A Story You Don't See Every Day

"Thieves Steal Woman's Driveway".

Click on the headline for the details.

The Rhythm of the Holidays

Because we are a classy outfit here at Ye Olde DoJ, we now delve in to the most sophisticated of the arts. So sit back with your snifter of egg nog and enjoy...

The Charlie Brown School of Dance.

Shop For Holiday Chills

At the request of a few people I’ve put together an easy to access index of some of my books for your online Christmas purchasing pleasure. These would be for the horror lover on your list, although the Dead Earth books certainly have a lot of science fiction elements, too.

Just click the highlighted text to browse or order.

Let’s start with my latest, The Dead Sheriff: Zombie Damnation.

Here’s my collection of stories and novellas (including the long-out-of-print Deadneck Hootenanny), Looking at the World with Broken Glass in My Eye. And the Kindle version is still 99¢. Zoinks!

Dead Earth: The Vengeance Road in print.

And the audio version.

If that person on your list is a reader of ebooks, Dead Earth: The Green Dawn is till free.

Finally, to give you a reason to stay up on a cold winter night, here’s a book of scary holiday stories I edited called Appalachian Winter Hauntings.

Obviously, it’s too close to the holidays to sign books but if you buy one and want it personalized after the Christmas rush, drop me a line.

As always, your support means the world to me. Thanks!

Haven't We All Been There?

That's a mighty profound philosophy summed up in just a few words.

And it's making me hungry.

If I Ran the Holidays, and Other Festive Thoughts

Hey, bros and bro-ettes!

It's time for my weekly column in the Ashland Beacon, festooned with squishy holiday goodness.

You can check it out in its usual spot on page two of the paper. But take care--whatever is read cannot be unread. At least not without a sizable amount of alcohol

Double Wide Trailer

For your Tuesday viewing pleasure, a twin spin of movie trailers.

First, The Lone Ranger.




And here's the new trailer for Man of Steel.

Callie: Demon Cat or Just Powered By A Thermonuclear Core?

You decide.

Personally, I think it's a little of both. Or she just gets really excited about her toy basket. Either way, I'm keeping my distance. I've seen her toast bread with those eye beams.

Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot

 Here are Carl Sagan's words and voice set to a fitting piece of animation, a tribute that I found very moving. Or maybe I haven't had enough coffee.

Pale Blue Dot from ORDER on Vimeo.

Because Nothing Says Lazy Sunday...

...like water balloons to the face in super slo-mo.

♫ It's the Most Frightening Time of the Year♬

That guy is waiting on you. And he's not very patient. The man in the hat knows when you've been naughty. And, honestly, naughty is all he cares about.

So grab some dark winter scares right here.

Teasing Trek

Here's the first teaser trailer from J. J. Abrams' sequel to Star Trek. I enjoyed Abrams' reboot for the franchise.

 I'm on board with dropping the numbers for the sequel titles, with Star Trek Into Darkness instead of Star Trek 2. 

As soon as I can find Abrams' email address I'll send him my pitch for the third Trek film. It's the probing story of the Enterprise's encounter with an intergalactic proctologist. I call it... Star Trek Into Your Colon.



(By the way, the villainous narrator is Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays the title character in the BBC's Sherlock.)

Hey, Kids! Comics!

I love me some funny books. That was my mother’s name for comics when I was a kid (and it probably still is, come to think of it), although it wasn’t funny where she burned them all in the trash barrel in the backyard. Nope, not funny at all. If I ever go into therapy that will be topic #1.

I don’t read many comics at all these days, for a couple of reasons. I’ll talk about them later this week. For now, I want to direct you to my new Horror World column. The subject this time is, you guessed it, comic books. Of the scary variety.

You can dig into it here.

Now Available For Your Yuletide Reading Pleasure

My latest column for the Ashland Beacon, in which I spray holiday joy everywhere and reveal my loathing for “Dominic, the Italian Christmas Donkey”.

You can read it online here, on page 2.

Great. Now that friggin’ donkey song is stuck in my head again.

Do Not Watch This

This is a video compilation of people falling off treadmills.

Speaking as someone who is so uncoordinated he once broke his foot on a treadmill, I can say with some authority that this is wrong, wrong, wrong.

So do not watch this and do not laugh. That would be, you know,  wrong.

 

Archeology Made Easy

North Korea just announced the discovery of an ancient unicorn lair.

They discovered this wondrous site because of a nearby sign that said..."Unicorn Lair". It must be a good time to be a North Korean archeologist. Or a North Korean sign maker with a sense of humor.

Oh, if only Indiana Jones had it this easy.

You can get the full story, such as it is, right here.

In case you're planning a relaxing vacation to Pyongyang (I hear it's lovely and totalitarian this time of year), if you meet a unicorn, don't do this:

 

So This Was Sunday

I read a lot, watched some football and wrote a short story.

Actually, the story wasn’t planned. I don’t have a market in mind and it’s pretty short. If it survives a couple of re-readings  I may post it here.

So how was your Sunday?

The Long, Strange Week in Review

This one has been a little different, with a couple of business developments that seem to point to some positive events in the future.

Sheesh. That sounded like a badly written, generic horoscope. I wonder if actual people still make up horoscopes or if the predictions are generated by software now.

On the writing side, I worked mainly on non-fiction stuff that had Looming Deadlines. I hope to be back to fiction writing tomorrow.

The week ended with a Christmas parade, for which I was honored to emcee. Here I am before the parade started with my niece, Scarlett.

                              
                                                        

Tonight we watched Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, a much more enjoyable movie than I had anticipated. It certainly had a deeper emotional richness than I had anticipated.

I haven’t seen Spielberg’s Lincoln yet. Is Abe a master of Axe Fu in that one, too?