Friday, March 30, 2012

Funkin' the Pig


I’ll be interviewed tonight on The Funky Werepig, the Internet radio show hosted by that wascally wastrel, Greg Hall. We’re likely to talk comics, Marie Osmond and horror. In fact, Marie’s plastic surgery may qualify as horror.

We’ll also talk about my books. There will be an update on The Dead Sheriff.

There’s a chat room, so feel free to join in.

The show is at 9:00 PM EST and can be found here.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Groovy Review


Here's a new review of my collection Looking at the World with Broken Glass in My Eye. If you’re so inclined, you can order the book by clicking on the title.

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I need to plug one of my favorite sites, Diversions of the Groovy Kind, where the Groovy Agent keeps alive my favorite era of comics. Go on over there and browse the site. You’re bound to find something you like. I’ve personally wasted many hours reading his posts. Thanks, Groove!

Sunday, March 04, 2012

Columns and Comics

While it’s still up, here the link to the current edition of the Ashland Beacon. My weekly column is on page 9, and it’s sort of about Chiller Theater, the monster movie showcase that ruled the Saturday night’s of my youth.

Also, I have a new column up at Horror World. You can read it here.

Our editor on Dead Earth: Sanctuary has returned the first round of suggestions on the novel. I’ll be going over those this week.

I’ve had an issue this week with my eyes which requires medication. It’s interfered with my reading. When I can read, I’ve been perusing graphic novels, a mixture of new and old stuff.

The old is mostly made up of my favorite era in comics: 1970s Marvel. It was a time where some incredible work was produced with apparently very little editorial supervision. That’s very much the opposite of how the big two seem to operate these days, where nearly every story beat seems to be planned out by executive committee. Both periods produced some real dreck, but the current era seems to be more craptacular. Of course, I’m old. So take this for what it’s worth.

Reboot/restarting an entire line of comics (as DC did last year, and Marvel is rumored to be doing) seems like such a cop out. I can’t argue with DC’s great success with their retooling of their books, yet rather than say “We’re in a rut. We have no good Superman stories left to tell”, why not find creators who are excited to take a shot at those iconic characters? You should never run out of good stories. Find better writers. Turn them loose. Tell your editors to take the broomsticks out of their collective ass, and have some fun again.