Looking Forward to Season 4

I finished watching Attack on Titan season 3 last week.
I should have seen it ages ago, but it has become my habit over the years to have a select few shows that I will only watch whilst exercising on my home trainer. The strenuous exercise tends to banish everything outside my immediate vision, shoving aside trouble and concern, while giving me a deeper investment in whatever I'm watching. It also necessitates me to actually get off my lazy ass if I want to go and watch that show I really like. I can also watch only 1 of these shows at a time, because I'm compulsory that way, which is why I had to wait this long before continuing Attack on Titan as I was still watching HunterXHunter, which has 148 episodes in total. HunterXHunter is decent, and I had a good, although quite a drawn-out, time with it, but it still doesn't hold a candle to Attack on Titan.

Every show, bar one, that I've watched this way I've become deeply emotionally invested in.

Black Sails, Attack on Titan, The Walking Dead, HunterXHunter, Doctor Who, the re-watch of Penny Dreadful, Taboo, assorted movies of which the only ones I can remember right now are Atomic Blonde and Hardcore Henry. The one show I hated, though I did see the cleverness of (the ending at least) was The Shield.

     When Season 2 of Attack on Titan came out I went and re-watched the phenomenal first season also on home trainer (one episode at a time, because the show really is that good) before moving on. Before I began watching season 3 I didn't do his, because at the time I was feeling ambivalent about the whole thing.
You see, season 2 had had a difficult task going forward as it needed to begin revealing many of the setting's more tantalizing secrets.
And, sad to say, it didn't do it all that well.

     The most significant revelation came so out of nowhere that I at first hadn't realized what had been said. I imagine it must've looked like one of those scenes from a movie where a character does a double-take; all of a sudden: a few seconds staring at the screen failing to connect, a vacant stare as I slowly began to realize what's just been said. Bewildered moments where I tried to make sense of it, pausing, checking the episode number and title, replaying the scene, shaking my head in absolute bewilderment.
     It was such a bombshell of a reveal.
I have since heard that the manga did it a bit different, for that specific reveal at least, and that it also shortened a particular arc a little. It's a bizarre scene because it completely breaks the viewer's immersion, and though the ideas behind it; the psychology of the characters in the moment, and in that it establishes a common ground in the responses of us, the audience, and Eren as the protagonist privy to that particular revelation, it didn't really work, or at least I didn't feel satisfied with the way in which this was done. But in any case, the secrets revealed were merely the tip of the veil being lifted, and they didn't much impact our knowledge of the Titan enemies our protagonists fight against. On the contrary, it added more mystery to them, and made them more dangerous than ever.

     Season 3 then, must have had an even more difficult task, as it pretty much would be revealing everything the fans might have been curious about.
Yes, that's right; Season 3 of Shingeki No Kyojin serves up the goods, all of them: The nature of the Titans, the truth behind the '100 year peace' (which had always sounded like a very dubious bit of propaganda), everything concerning Grisha Jaeger, the Titan powers and so much more. It's a barrage of information and, given the track record of the show's past revelations, you might be surprised to hear that season 3 does it pretty much perfectly.

     The big revelation is one that had the potential to sink the show completely, and though there is definitely an adjustment period needed because of the magnitude of the thing, the whole opening up of the world, the story, all the new different elements; as these all completely change the show; it is in effect a paradigm shift, it nonetheless works just perfectly.
It mainly works because the themes and ideas, seemingly so vastly different, introduced at this point in the show aren't actually new to the story at all. They've been here all along, but they've been upturned, inverted, and made more vast. It also helps that we've known that this revelation has been coming since day one, with the basement, and the revelations within it, having been Eren's goal from the outset. The knowledge of the titans, the truth about this world; they were always going to be big things, reshaping our perception of the story going forward.

And now the truth is out. The world has altered and the story cannot be the same.

It must be said: not everyone would have been, or is going to be, satisfied with it, because the show is almost going to be an entirely different beast going forward.
And since Season 4, coming out in 2020, will be the final season there's no real telling how it is going to go. It is likely that the story will conclude in some sort of stalemate or tragedy, because it honestly is almost impossible to wrap it all up in just one season. The revelations have shed new light on the world, the convictions and perceptions of our characters have altered, and there doesn't seem enough time left to explore it all.

I've grown very fond of the show, its music and style. The characters have become familiar friends and I'm going to be sad when their story comes to an end. But, I'm looking forward to Season 4 anyway. I'm dreading it and anticipating it in equal measure.

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Over the past few days I've also checked out several of the Attack on TitanOVA's which were all absurdly awesome, with the Ilse Langnar episode in particular being quite affecting, and I've even blazed through Attack on Titan: Junior High, which seems like such a stupidly ridiculous idea with no hope of succeeding, until you start watching it and you find yourself laughing out loud at its humour and its cleverness. It also manages to give some much needed depth to a few of the side characters that have become mainstays in the main series, even though they don't always have much to do over there.

I still need to track down the Lost Girls OVA, and the A.O.T. Wings of Freedom game is waiting for me on my PS4, but after that I'm going to have to avoid spoilers and wait until season 4 releases.
Depending on how good that the anime ends, I might pick up the manga, but for now I'm still good with just reading Berserk.

Exquisite Corpse, Poppy Z. Brite

*Wide-Eyed Stare*

I had loaned this one out to The Ink-Stained Beard a while back, immediately having realized it would be right up his alley after skimming through the first few pages. The Beard has a rather disconcerting fascination with serial killers and the like. Anyway, afterwards, he gave it a short review wherein he stressed really quite alliteratively just how dark, debauched and depraved the book was. At the time I did not yet know just how much the man was fond of a good old understatement.

Because really, calling this book debauched and depraved does not do it an inch of justice.

I normally try to hide a lot of the story but I'm afraid I really gave up quite a bit on the plot here.

I'm going to leave it as is, because it's not a conventional novel, structure and plot-wise, and conventional cover blurb is almost impossible. Spoilers.

Convicted serial killer Andrew Compton wiles his days in solitary away by ruminating on pleasant memories. Dubbed the 'Eternal Host' by the sensationalist papers, after his tendency to eat the men he took home with him, and with his cannibalistic and necrophiliac proclivities known and feared by the world at large, it is unlikely that Andrew will ever see the light of day again. He has nothing to look forward to but an endless stagnation and a lonely death. But as he writes down his experiences, as he looks back on his joy, his exaltation in committing acts that society would condemn him for, Andrew comes to the realization that he would do anything to be out in the world again. And so, Andrew begins to plot his escape.

Half the world away, on the neon-soaked streets of New Orleans' French Quarter, the wealthy Jay has been hiding his dark cravings for flesh and blood by being quite selective in his male liaisons. Though the gay men in the neighbourhood know to be cautious, or that at least they feel that there's something 'off' about the muscular pretty boy and that they shouldn't stray too close, the frequent tourists, the intransigents and vagrants that wild New Orleans inevitably attracts have no such presentiments to save them, and so Jay is kept happy and content, knee deep in warm quivering flesh.

But recently a local Vietnamese teen has caught his eye, has thrilled his heart and loins and Jay is finding it quite hard to keep his distance.

Tran spends his days trying to forget the pain of a relationship turned hateful, selling drugs, and seeking comfort and solace on the neon-soaked streets of New Orleans, away from his traditional family home, but his ex-lover's voice hounds him from every radio, blaring in anger and hate, warning him of the doom that could befall any gay man, and he finds that solace and comfort are hard to find. But one of his clients could possibly provide a cure for the sickness in his heart, and as circumstance propels him out from under his parents' roof, Tran inevitably seeks his refuge with Jay, who himself has just met a dark and dangerous stranger recently arrived from the shores of the old world.

And on the radio, and in the throes of aids and the corrosive knowledge of impending death, Lush Rimbaud talks on and on about hate and despair. But is there still room for love in the dying man's heart, and is he still willing to become a part of humanity to save a doomed ex-lover?

     I have never read any single book that gave such lovingly graphic descriptions of such a wild variety of upsetting things: Necrophilia, murder, torture, cannibalism, rape... sometimes even all of those at the same time. To put it simply; think of the most depraved shit a human being can do to another of its kind and it's likely in here.
I've said it before; the subject matter is one that is chosen by the author and if you can't stomach it then you better get off the bus. But this one is pretty extreme though.
This is alleviated, or rather this one has the impact of its shocks diminished, occluded, by the artistry of the author, and even the most ghoulish scenes have a sort of glamour surrounding them, as if its all unreal, or as if you can't really take it in.
     I'm not sure that makes sense, even to myself, but the truth is that even though I can objectively see that the stuff in here was way more shocking than anything I read in Palahniuk's Haunted last month, it never actually felt that way.

It's a compelling little novel. Gore, horrible sex and violence, and it's... niiiiice?

It's a novel that only has gay characters, and said gay characters also have a lot of quite gay sex, frequently depicted graphically, so if you can't take that, best stay away. Since it was written in the nineties, its story has a marked focus on the whole Aids- scare. When the men in the novel have sex there's a heightened awareness of the possible consequences of that act, and a few of them, at the novel's beginning have already come face to face with their impending death from the disease, and the disease itself is almost another character in the story, its shadow almost always present.

That all being said. I did quite like this one. Don't know anyone I could recommend it to myself. But, if you're still reading, then maybe you would like to give it a go? I guarantee you'll be horrified.

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MASSIVE SPOILERS

So then, on my overly expansive blurb: The title, Exquisite Corpse, might come from the artistic idea of crafting a story from one point to the next, not being aware of the end result at the novel's outset.
This is probably why, even though we start the book with Andrew Compton, his incarceration and subsequent escape from prison, quite soon the story is taken over by Tran, Jay and Luke, their relationships and the inevitable direction that will take.
Upon reflection, this really seems undeniable, as it seems clear to me that regardless of how the novel ends, Andrew Compton didn't actually have much of an influence on its ending. He's someone that just coasts into town, sees the sights, and then leaves again for greener pastures.
It's why devising a blurb was such a hard thing to do, and why I was so unimpressed by virtually all of the book's previous blurbs; they mostly all focus on Andrew Compton, despite him having no real bearing on the plot.
Take him out and you can't quite prove that for our three principal characters, things wouldn't have ended up the same way. There's a strange horrendous beauty to that ending too, that haunting finale.

Belated Birthday Book Batch

   

Behold The Pile of Pleasure, which I got for my birthday, which was the third of november.
Yes I'm very late this one.

From the top:

After finishing Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's seminal masterpiece From Hell I decided that Moore had really by now become one of my favourite authors, and that I really should begin gathering more of his stuff. So, quite a few of the things I asked for had Moore's name on them, but, as it turns out, there happen to be more Moores than expected; to whit:

You can forgive me for thinking that Alan Moore is ubiquitous enough that the man has earned the monopoly on the name but apparently there's others going about calling themselves Alan and/or Moore. The From Hell Moore started out writing poetry so I assumed that there had to be a volume collecting those efforts and I thought that Opia was it, as it was under 'similar suggestions' on the Book Depository (good prices, yes, but pretty much everything else about it sucks.)
Obviously Opia wasn't that volume, but that doesn't mean that it was a bad gift.

 I've read over half of the poems in here by now, and though they haven't swayed me towards making poetry a more frequent go-to, reading-habits-wise, I did end up enjoying some of them.
Most touching of these (so far) I found The Taxman poem.

I can't profess to completely understand what it all means, but I found I was quite touched by the sentiments here; the yearning to reacquire something lost.

Alan Moore (not that one) frequently imbues his poetry with a disarming directness bordering on the crass, which can be quite charming.

 If you love poetry, you can do a lot worse than picking this one up.

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I gave a list of the Warhammer Chronicles Omnibi I still needed and it's Warlords of Karak Eight-Peaks that I got.

     Before anyone says or asks anything: Yes, I have heard the news concerning the Old World, and all I can say is that despite having pined for it ever since it got destroyed, its return (in a few years) leaves me cold. Though I was excited at first, that excitement swiftly turned to annoyance. There is nothing sacred to Games Workshop, and I don't have much interest in whatever they're going to present us with.

     I was only ever here for the novels, in any case; and unless they do away with the End Times novels entirely, or re-write them to something way less rushed, I won't... hmm. No, I can't say I won't pick anything up, but right now I'm still a little ambivalent about the whole thing.

     In any case, this nonsense is going to involve a whole lot of retconning, and I loathe that type of stuff. Retconning is something that only comes about because of franchise considerations; it's something that is dependent on an audience, and as such, it puts into question the artistic merit of that property. If art is dependent on an audience, and when it is changed to suit that audience's reception, then it's not art any more. In some form or other it will become homogenized, it has to be suited, after all, for mass consumption. Bah, I'm talking bollocks. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Anyway, Warlords of Karak Eight-Peaks collects the Skaven heroes novels Skarsnik and Headtaker, and the Dwarven novella Thorgrim plus a few short stories. 

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Here are some different editions of novels I've already read in some form or other. They were both on my 'Slow Collecting' Page on the side there *points*, and it was quite a surprise when they came in through the mail.

Someone's been keeping up with the blog. Thanks, mate :)

IDW's Dracula was on the list because it came with Ben Templesmith's art, and it didn't disappoint, at least Art-wise, because IDW has a weird lay-out to their text that dor some reason easily makes me lose track of where I'm at. It's okay though, as this one's not for reading and instead is simply for looking pretty on the shelf.

The Warhound and the World's Pain is here because I simply love the novel, and I wanted to have the edition with Rowena Morril's devil on the cover. I'll be giving the novel a re-read next year, and am looking forward to it.

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To Rouse Leviathan is Matt Cardin's second collection of religious horror stories, which in fact also collects all of the fiction from his first collection Dark Awakenings. It doesn't collect Dark Awakenings' essays concerning Isiah, zombies and demonic and angelic history in fiction, so if you want to read those you'll still have to pick that one up.

I still haven't gotten around to finishing off Dark Awakenings, even though I've felt a hankering lately to read some more religion-based fantasy and horror. Reading as a whole has been a really difficult thing to do lately. Been having some problems is all.

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Then we arrive at the comic books.

The Battle Chasers anthology I asked for mainly because it is Joe Madureira's stab at Swords and Fantasy comics.

     Though you might not recognize the name, the unique art style might be a little more familiar.

Joe Madureira's the artist responsible for the design of the Darksiders franchise, which I used to love. The story of Darksiders is basically that the apocalypse has happened, even though it shouldn't have.

Humanity is now dead and gone, and one of the four Horsemen, War, has been found guilty of bringing this about. Of course, there's more going on here, and we follow around War as he tries to clear his name. It's quite a rocky series, the first game being a bit hit and miss, the second one being basically unfinished, the third one (continued after the publisher went belly-up) being remarkably uninspired, and the latest game going on to become a top-down affair. There's a few books too, though I only read the first Death one.

So, based off of nothing but the art I went and asked for this one.

And. It was pretty crap.

Phenomenal art, as was expected, And almost 2000 Ad style of storytelling, but that could've been forgiven if, it just had been finished. Jep, this one is basically not complete.

I felt a lot of annoyance reading this one.

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Next up, extremely pretentious, is Alan Moore's Hypothetical Lizard.

I have no idea what this is going to be about.

All I know is that this one was adapted from one of Moore's short stories and that it is also included in this volume.

Though There's usually too much packed into Moore's work to be able to give a quick opinion on any of it, I'll try to write a little bit when I finish any of his comics. I tend to stall blogging whenever I feel that the book or comic I'm writing about deserves more, and so, nothing gets done. I really need to start remedying this.

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Here's the only Bear on the CIA's hitlist:

Shako.

Absolutely ridiculous.

I asked for this one mostly as a joke, trying to upset someone's delicate sensibilities, but the joke was on me as I received this one without a moment's hesitation.

It's not a great, or even is it anything close to being a, good comic book. It's 2000 AD at its most juvenile and silly.

But. I have a thing about bears.

They terrify me. And if there's something good to be said about the comic then it is that it genuinely unsettled me a few times. e.g. when the bear plays with someone before viciously mauling them to death; such an accurate portrayal of nature's most terrifying monsters. This comic would've been a genuine horror experience if they'd depicted Shako as having no fur... What am I talking about? Jesus, get back on track Levi.

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Another from the 2000 AD stable.

The Complete Future Shocks Volume 1.

This one I asked because I'm a collector and a 'Complete' edition of anything is immensely appealing, and because of the whole Alan Moore thing.

He started out writing for comics in 2000AD's Future Shocks so I thought it was a good idea to read these.

They're overall a bit hit and miss, but even the bad ones are short enough that you don't really mind them. There's at least always some sort of twist present that'll give you your euro's worth. I since then have picked up the second volume, which I keep on my nightstand so I can finish off a story or two before going to bed.

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Completing my Saga Hardcover collection, here's volume three.

I love this series.

That's all I'm gonna say right now.

You could probably subscribe to an online e-comic shop or something and get the first issue for free, that's how I got into it.

Do so. It's probably one of the most emotionally engaging stories in comics right now.

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And, lastly, another Alan Moore book, which has the dubious honour of being the first ever out-and-out superhero comic that I own. The Absolute Edition of Alan Moore's Killing Joke.

I had previously seen the cartoon movie of this one, and though it was ok, there's definitely was no need, or even desire, for the whole bat-girl has sex with batman, stuff. What were they thinking with that? 

It's quite a gorgeous edition, oversized, and apart from having the original comic release it also has artist Brian Bolland's preferred colouring, which he did himself for this edition.

He wasn't pleased with the original colouring, which, it must be said, is very very psychedelic, and which you can compare to his own preference below. It's quite a massive difference.

The original script is also included as are afterwords by the artist, some notes on the Joker's original origins, an art gallery, a retrospective by John Higgins, an introduction by Tim Sale, but oddly, nowhere is there an actual answer to the last panels of the story, nor is there any commentary from Moore himself to be found.

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There were a few more gifts, non-books and such, but as you probably have noticed it appears impossible for me to continue writing right now. Over the past month and more I have seemed to be heading back into depression or something, and I'm having the hardest time to write anything at length.

Either way. Thanks for all the support, the presents and the love.

Take care. I'll be back to writing regularly soon.

Attack on Titan Love

After Hunter Hunter I finally have allowed myself to begin watching Attack on Titan again.

I forgot how perfect the Season 2 opening song was.

Because I have been nothing but lazy this month, let me share it with you.

November Update

     Hello there, it's been a while! Been sick and lazy and all that. My month's been filled with sitting in front of the television, in a sick slouch or not, and hammering away at Fallout 4, Blasphemous and Dead Rising 4. Good games, although both the first and the last swiftly deteriorated into vapid busywork. Blasphmous, though initially not really my type of game, being a side-scroller, had an art-style and a type of lore that I loved and so I stuck it out and ended up having a blast. Here, take a look at the launch trailer.

     But, I've been wasting a lot of time this month, or so it feels. The truth is that I'm very out of sorts. So out of sorts that I have not much thought about blogging for these past few weeks, and on those times that I did, I had the damnedest difficulties in actually writing anything I was pleased with. Whether or not that any of this is due to not having imbibed any alcohol for nigh on a month or whether that it is because of a delayed reaction to the events that transpired earlier this year I don't know. Either way; this blog continues, I'm not here to announce my retirement. But I am saying that:... what the fuck man, why is this so difficult right now?
I'm annoyed and saddened that something that I could devote so much of my time and energy on has been delegated to a position of lesser import.

     I have been reading again though. There were maybe 2 weeks where I barely read a thing because of a very annoying slow-burn cold that took root in my brain, but since then I've finished a few comics, Laird Barron's The Imago Sequence, and a whole bunch of Jules De Grandin short stories.
     Of those, the one that I both want and don't want to talk about is the Imago Sequence.
You see, after a great start, specifically after The Procession of the Black Sloth, which read like a weird and terrifying Asian Silent Hill- kind of story, I was all set to proclaim Barron now one of my favourite authors, but then the last 2 or three stories in the collection veered a little too much into an abstract type of writing that is almost dis-associative free-form, and which, if you're not in the mood for it, is irritating in the extreme.
     I've indulged in that type of writing myself in the past, usually in the throes of depression or some or other violent passion, and it's quite an empowering form of art-making. You feel as if you are creating something truly impressive, and it's something that seems to validate itself, even if or maybe even because some or all of the audience that'll read it won't understand what you're talking about. There's a barrier there, and not everyone can slip past it. It's a form of magic, of perception.
But, as I said, it kind of sucks when you're not in the mood for it. Sometimes the chemical brain just doesn't care to cooperate; lack of sleep, nutrition, or being at the whim of emotional circumstance.
     So, though I loved Procession of the Black Sloth, and can recommend anyone to read that one, though Old Virginia, Shiva Open Your Eye, and Bulldozer were all bad-ass and very enjoyable to read, I didn't much enjoy The Royal Zoo is Closed, the latter half of the Imago Sequence short story, and though I thought that both Parallax, Hallucigenia and Proboscis were a little unoriginal, and though after all that, it seems like I didn't have a good time, I did actually appreciate pretty much of all that I read.
     I'm being unduly harsh here, and I wish the stories could've hit me at a better time maybe, but it is what it is.

     I also finally finished off Hunter X Hunter, which I pretty much only allowed myself to watch whilst exercising on my Home Trainer. At 148 episodes for 20-23 minutes per episode, it took me about 8 months of exercising before I'd gone through the whole bunch.
I had a good time. Hunter Hunter is a show not without its flaws but one that has some real nice emotional pay off.

     Lastly, it was my birthday this month and, as you might've expected, I replied to everyone that asked for gift ideas to just go and give me books, as if I didn't already have enough to read. What can you do? An addict is as an addict does, or something. I'll give you a look next post.

Garth Ennis' A Walk Through Hell

 

Two FBI agents go missing in a Warehouse, and the SWAT-team sent in to check out the situation comes out bawling, refusing to go back in.

FBI agents Shaw and Mcgregor go in to find out where their friends have gone.

And then, in their van, in tears and in despair, the SWAT-team commits suicide.

In the warehouse, the two agents are faced with the darkness of their past, and as the world around them steadily becomes more horrible, the horrors without start to merge with the horrors within.

And worse is yet to come.

A Walk Through Hell is one of those comics that is very likely to rub some people the wrong way. If you're familiar with Garth Ennis that shouldn't really come as a surprise,

 as you'll know that this is what he does in most of his work: Violence, deviancy and sex, swearing and extreme gore; the man's actually put out most of those comics that I put on the top shelves, their sweaty red-and-pink pages deemed shocking enough to keep out of reach of the kids.
     Crossed, Preacher, Caliban, his run on Hellblazer; in these there's always some line being crossed, something that'll manage to shock and thrill all but the most hardened of readers. And since I am one of those, so when I need to get my kicks Garth Ennis' tends to be an interesting bet, if not a safe one.
     On top of that, his way of building-up a narrative and his method of structuring stories generally make for very good, and very enveloping reads, easily capable of letting the hours while away, leaving one completely absorbed in the unfolding story.

*BANG*

     A Walk Through Hell is pretty much like that; fascinating and shocking and a pretty good read, annoying in some places but still pretty forgivable there ( more on that below,) and if the comic does one thing wrong and it's a big one! it is that its ending is unmitigatededly bleak, kinda shit and pretty unsatisfying. I wasn't really expecting to be let down by Ennis as his stories tend to end really quite well.
     Despite its content and viciousness, even Crossed had a more hopeful ending, even though that ending was only good in the way of all in medias res endings everywhere, with the happy couple probably dying horribly a few minutes after the last lines or the last panels.

    But not so With a Walk Through Hell; it ends straight up horrible. That isn't anything new par Ennis of course, but at least usually, he brought us micro stories, snapshots of a greater horrible whole, that ended well within the bounds of that greater horrible whole. And that isn't the case here.

     It's a real bummer, as I went into this with high hopes and I really wanted to like this one, but this story isn't really one that stands on its own. It comes across more as reactionary, as an outlet for Ennis to rant against the state of our society, with a higher focus on the derailment of America. But it doesn't offer anything else hopeful on its own, some redeemable way forward, and this isn't too bad all by itself but what is bad is that this isn't a piece of art that satisfies in its own right.

Ennis probably should've sat on A Walk Through Hell's ideas a little longer as anything to do with the supernatural elements and the ideas at the heart of what is actually going on seem to be sound. I would have loved to see more of that. But the whole package is so much a product of its time that it can only be read with knowledge of American society's current ills, and it's worse as those ills have infected Ennis' tendency to craft satisfying endings. But then, this might just be the point. This isn't supposed to be satisfying. It's instead something that's supposed to alarm.
It is a warning: worse is yet to come, for all of us. Be wary, and be afraid, the world is about to shake.

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     And I should also mention why that some people are going to end up annoyed even if they aren't left cold by the ending: Though I wasn't really all that bothered there were some elements that were so in-your-face that it jarred me out of my immersion a few times. Ennis does satire pretty well in general, but here his point of attack wasn't much occluded by the choice of fantastical elements this time and instead he chose to put them front-and-center: Twitter, Trump, Racism, SJW zeitgeist, Gender Politics, and more. If that irritates you, then you just can't read this comic.

A Horror from dim Yesteryear

What do we want when we pick out a horror novel to read, when we purchase them and take them home and dive right in?
There's of course the desire, the expectation of being scared, with our own fear sought out and recognized in the moment. Fear, but at a safe remove from daily life, in a comfort zone of our choosing with eyes riveted to the page, hands gripped around the covers eager to see what's next.

Horror is a demanding genre. Demanding in what it requires from the reader.

Alot of times I get lost in what I think what fear in a horror novel ought to mean; shouting in surprise, shock or disgust, and your mind stepping back from behind your eyes, detaching itself for a moment in shock and bewilderment.
But that isn't fear, or at least not totally. Fear is dread. The anticipation of something that might happen. Might. Because it might not.

These days, it's mostly an idle hope to try and capture that feeling. The remove, that distance, has slotted into place and the mind has become less malleable.

I've been scared maybe a handful of times by written fiction.

Mostly that honour lies reserved for Adam Nevill's The Ritual, which for its sublime first half also relied on the build-up of fear coupled with moments of horror in its nightmare sequences and contrasted with its suddenly bizarrely shit second half, though I admit that the last pages managed to become quite good again.

I read it over the course of a single overcast afternoon, with the drawn blinds adding a grey gloom to the room.
I was so deep into it that I almost literally could hear the greedy excited tapping of hooves on the boards inside of a coffin. It's the sound, the perfect way it presented itself to my mind later that night, that made me creep fearfully underneath the covers. Good times.

There was another book that literally gave me nightmares when I was a kid, and I've tried to find it several times to see how it would hold up. I suspect that it would be disappointing now, it was, after all, read in a different time, in a time when there was no remove between story and immersion. When one grows up, the remove slots almost inextricably in the way. There's too much distance to be fully immersed.

The first time I read it I couldn't finish it, and I remember my parents taking it away from me because it was interfering with the household's sleeping cycle. I woke people up, in tears, because it frightened me so much.
Some time after, no idea how much, but years at least, I came back to it, borrowed it from the library  and found it, if not scary, then at least still very disturbing.

It was a tale of aliens, and of kidnapped teenagers forced to engage in bloody death-defying circus acts for their amusement. Of old people in horrific costumes and of rabid children tearing a tormentor apart, eating him, on a bridge overlooking trees while a talking rabbit doll screams for blood and violence in the voice of a small girl. The book ended with the survivors clad in blood and gore and wondering where to go next.

I really wish I could remember what it was called.
For some reason I keep thinking it's called Galaxy Wars, but try to google that in this day and age.
It's the age of Star Wars and easy escapism, baby, nothing else can compete.

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Edit: The Ink-Stained Beard got it pretty much within minutes of posting...
What the hell, man? How???
Anyway: the book is Galax-Arena by Gillian Rubinstein:

Review: Haunted, Chuck Palahniuk

17 writers answer an add for an exclusive writer's retreat and upon arrival are only mildly shocked to find themselves forcibly locked up in a building for three months together with the organizers, and are then forced to write their great novel, poem, or screenplay, completely isolated from the world, and with all the usual distractions removed.

They're being treated alright actually, hot water, plumbing, copious supplies of food, clothing and so on, but most of them wish that the situation was a bit more dire, a bit more harrowing, so that they can sell the desperate story of their 'kidnapping' to the world outside when the three months are up.

To then live the rest of their lives in luxury and attention.

And so, to up the stakes a bit, each individual begins to sabotage the group's supplies and their surroundings, and as a result, the situation begins to grow a lot more dire than anticipated.

As food begins to run out, the lights grow dim and bodies start to drop, and with boredom inevitably setting in, the aspiring writers have no other choice than to share their stories.

Stories which make it clear that each one of them is on the run from someone or something, and that each of them harbours dark and terrible secrets.

     Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted was written as a novel that would explore stories where the horror would be supplied by the most mundane of things. To paraphrase the author: "Carrots, candles, swimming Pools. Microwave popcorn. Bowling Balls." But that's not completely true of course, The ones mentioned here are just elements of the stories, and those first three are present in the infamous 'Guts' short story, the short story that kicks off the collection of tales from the writers-to-be/ aspiring celebrities.

Guts is notorious because it garnered a name for itself as being such an upsetting story that it quite routinely made people faint whenever Palahniuk gave a reading whenever he promoted his books. There's quite an interesting, and rather hilarious, afterword in the book which has Palahniuk stating that he's made 73 people pass out at his readings over the years, and that he still gets mail that reveals that there's still readers and listeners out there who pass out whenever the story's being read.

I myself laughed when my turn came, though I had been spoiled quite a bit beforehand, and I knew the general gist of the story before I began. But it ended up being quite a bit funnier than I was expecting, written with the genuine humour of someone looking back after the fact.

     The stories that the characters tell each other are pretty much always offensive, inspired as they are by themes of depravity, crime, terrorism, violence, cannibalism, and just all-round weird shit. The depravity in particular is a theme that runs throughout and is present everywhere and even if you've got a strong stomach and open sensibilities you'll probably still find a story in here that'll disgust or horrify you.
     But what's maybe most horrifying is that a lot of the stories that the characters tell each other were in fact inspired by true events, anecdotes that Palahniuk had gathered over the years concerning some of the most disgusting and repulsive acts that human being have gotten up to. They're probably not even a thousandth of some of the worst shit that this world holds, but still, surely it's bad enough (or good enough?) that the novel has gotten so much of these between its pages.

     The most repulsive one, and yet strangely, also the one I most appreciated, was Director Denial's story; Exodus.
     It was so vile and disgusting, the acts hinted at giving such a low and degrading opinion on humanity that it quite simply revolted me, even more so when I reasoned that, yes, this stuff undoubtedly happens. It's the kind of stuff, the kind of actions you couldn't conceive of anyone actually doing, until someone says it, suggests it, lifts the rock and lifts the monster out into the light, and then you realize that, fuck, there is definitely people doing this kind of bile-inducing shit, and your stomach just turns at the thought of it.
     And then, this really quite short little tale, it ups the ante by offering you vengeance against those people, and gleefully you take it, oh yes, you want to see this wrongness punished... until you actually see it enacted, and it's a bit more nasty than you expected. Karmic justice, sure, but there will be a queasy cast to your vindictive laughter nonetheless.
     And then it just made laugh out loud, which is something that very few books ever have managed from me.

     I'm not going to talk to much about the stories, and the poems themselves, as people should probably read the book on their own, without spoilers, as it is such a unique and memorable experience.
     But I must stress that all the short stories in here are all incredibly polarizing, not suited for an immature audience, and that some people will find themselves targeted, or even confronted by their past, and that for some old sins might come back to haunt them, whether they be victims or sinners themselves.

     Either way, with any type of fiction you take and accept what you're given, really, but if there's one negative here, it's that I found that it never became believable that these were stories by 19 different people. Palahniuk's voice was always dominant, and as it's such a distinctive voice, it's never any less than clear that we're reading something written by a single writer. It's a minor niggle, but I felt I had to remark on it nonetheless.

Review: The Green Mile

In the Georgia Pines' nursing home, Paul Edgecombe spends his days trying to exorcise his demons. He's been writing about his experiences of the time when he was employed as the chief guard of the Death Row staff at the Cold Mountain prison in the far-gone year of 1932.

To Paul and the other guards of that part of the prison that was to be the final destination for hundreds of human lives, the year of 1932 was a year of cruelty, of botched execution, of miracles and darkest sin, and no-one who lived through it was left untouched by the events that took place there.

To Paul, regardless of everything else that happened, he would always remember it as the year of John Coffey, the black man convicted for the rape and murder of two 9-year-old white girls, the depraved killer with his eyes full of tears, the man whom Paul began to believe was innocent.

     I had previously seen and loved the movie adaptation of Stephen King's stab at a prison novel somewhere in my childhood, a few times even, and I remember having been in tears at a few points throughout. Mostly because it's such an amazingly impactful movie, able to sweep you up and away in its emotional rollercoaster. It's isn't very horrific though, which is why I was very dubious about its inclusion in Gollancz's Terror 8 series.

     But it turns out, that there are reasons enough to include it.
The novel obviously has a large measure of its time devoted to ruminations on death and death-dealing, and these are interesting, though less than adequately explored through our narrator Paul Edgecombe, who is a little Blasé (internally at least) about the executions he has performed, but it ios also implied at one point, hinted, that there just might be something more involved, something evilly supernatural.

     Of course, having seen the movie, I knew that Coffey himself has an extraordinary power at his command, and it's also more than clear that he has it in the book itself. However, what wasn't clear in the movie (I think) is that, at one point, Coffey appears to exorcise a woman of an evil spirit. It's hidden, occluded, behind known science; the vileness is cloaked behind the symptoms of dementia and Tourette's, but King gives enough hints here that whoever is so inclined to will be able to see it. It's especially clear since the novel evokes the name of God more than a bit, and in horror, where there's the light there must be darkness as well, and not just human darkness.
     The human darkness is presented mostly by Percy Wetmore, the sadist guard who's only at the Green Mile to be able to execute a man himself, and William 'Wild Bill' Wharton, both of whom are different shades of irredeemable all on their own.
     I should make mention of Eduard Delacroix who never ever fits the role of rapist-arsonist-murderer, and who only ever comes across as pitiful, likable and silly by turns. This is remarked on several times in the story, of course, but this does not excuse or validate King's portrayal of this particular prisoner, who's ever only here to evoke sympathy in the reader, and isn't well explored because of it.

     Mr Jingles is perfect of course. And if I hadn't seen the movie I probably would've been bloody shocked and angered. As it is, I remembered where the story went and took it in stride, only to then be surprised, in not so nice a manner, at the end of the novel, which does do things a bit different, epilogue-wise. Brutal, Harry Terwilliger and Dean Stanton are all very likable characters, and it was a little bit disconcerting to have their eventual fates revealed as well.

     There's a lot of Melancholy in this book, and though it's reasonably light on details concerning the time period it takes place in, it does manage to evoke a lingering sense of the time. It's a slow, ruminative novel, filled with a gripping sentimentality, and it should be, the conceit being that this is Paul writing his story 60 years after the facts, but it's remarkable how well this reads.
     I'm not a fan of King, at all, but the man does consistently write the proverbial page-turner.

Icky October Book Haul

*BOOM*

     Told you this one'd be big, didn't I? Here it is then: The Massive October Book Haul! 

You'll notice that it is (almost) a nice mix between books and comics this time, and that pretty much all of it is horror except for a few fantasy titles and the obligatory Judge Dredd comic book.

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Let's start from the top, which is also immediately the book I'm reading right now: Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted, which is technically a collection of (or at least, the back-blurb says these are going to be) 23 short stories connected by an overarching narrative in which 18 or so wannabe writers answer an ad to go to an exclusive writer's retreat and who are then surprisingly locked in a building for three months. They're being treated alright, actually, but most of them wish that the situation was a bit more harrowing, and so pretty much all of them start to sabotage the group's supplies and their surroundings and, as a result, the situation quickly begins to become more dire than anticipated. Or at least I think so. I've only read a fourth of the book at this point.

     Palahniuk might be familiar to some of you. His big mainstream success came when his novel Fight Club got adapted by David Fincher. I watched the movie, became obsessed by it and eventually got around to also giving the novel a go. And honestly it was okay but on the whole I just preferred the movie. Palahniuk's writing style is one of those that goes in one ear and out the other, so to speak; nothing much sticks at the end except the idea that this is one man who doesn't like society much.

     And he's right of course, but that doesn't mean I want to read about it. Palahniuk's stories are infused with grime, with the baser elements of life and sex, and on the whole frequently comes off as mean-spirited. It's good for an outraged chuckle or two, but I still don't believe this is the type of literature that'll stand the test of time. Yuppie-infused capitalist nonsense of yesteryear. Kind of like American Psycho. And realizing that immediately makes me think that I might just be wrong about Palahniuk's books not withstanding the test of time.

At least the cover is glow in the dark, which is something.

I bought this one finally because I had it listed somewhere on the books I'd like to give to a friend, purely on hearsay, as the novel frequently tops best of lists in the horror category. So far it's been both hilarious and annoying, but no scares as of yet. Or even anything that one would constitute as horror reading, though I guess it does have a certain queasiness factor going for it.

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Next up, an overpriced novella, which I had to pay import taxes on for more than half the price of the book itself. 20 euros for 'formalities' on top of the 3.50 or so of actual income-tax... Modern Highway Robbery I tells you.

     This one'd better be good, is all I'm saying.

Don't know much about it except what the blurb told me, and that a writer who I still have an entire unread trilogy of lying around was the one who wrote it.

     So, a venture of about 50 euros for a huge big question mark of a story, written by an author you don't know anything about, Levi, what possessed you to do such a thing?

     Well, snooty reader, have a look at the blurb of the thing.

ENTER THE EXECRATION,

WHERE THE DAMNED AND THE DESPERATE

COME TO PRAY TO THE MAD GOD…

It is two hundred years since the deity known as the Absolved went mad and destroyed the Kingdom of Alnachim, transforming it into the Execration, a blasted wasteland filled with nameless terrors. For decades, desperate souls have made pilgrimage to the centre of this cursed land to seek the Mad God’s favour, their fate always unknown. 

Now a veteran warrior known only as Pilgrim, armed with a fabled blade inhabited by the soul of a taunting demon, must join with six others to make the last journey to the heart of the Execration. Allied with a youthful priest, a beast-charmer, a duplicitous scholar, an effete actor and two exiled lovers, Pilgrim must survive madness, malevolent spirits, unnatural monsters and the ever-present risk of treachery, all so that the Mad God might hear his prayer and, perhaps, grant redemption. But can sins such as his ever be forgiven? 

Set in a world where demons and gods walk the earth, A Pilgrimage of Swords is a dark and exciting fantasy adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of the Raven’s Shadow and Draconis Memoria trilogies. 

     Yeah, exactly.

I don't know about you, but I got some serious Hyperion-vibes from that.

     Mad Gods, a pilgrimage-type quest, demons, religion, darkness... Sounds bloody awesome!

And to be fair to the book's price tag: It does look quite nice. And it's limited too!

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     Yes, in the Book-Pile photo at the top you'll see that there's a few more books in there than I'm actually giving attention to, which in every case is because those individual books and comic books all have already had their time to shine in another of this month's posts. To whit: after I had read The Light is The Darkness, by Laird Barron, And which is in the picture up above, I immediately went ahead and ordered the short story collection I really should've picked up ages ago by now: The Imago Sequence.

     It arrived pretty quickly too, and I have begun reading it already, as I had a bit of waiting time at the doctor's today. It's immediately become clear that Barron's work is more inter-connected than I thought. Bare pages in, there are already organizations and names intimately connected with some of the elements in The Light is the Darkness novella. His protagonists also come across as pretty bad-ass, which is very much to my liking. Apparently this is called Hard-boiled.

The book  itself is actually the winner of the 2007 Shirley Jackson Awards for Best Short Story Collection, so, you know, that sounds pretty cool. Even though I'm not one to put much stock in popular opinions, or jury-based decisions of any kind.

What an odd thing to say, no?

Almost as if there's more to say there...

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Next up; the latest Michael Fletcher novel.

I haven't read anything by him since Beyond Redemption, though I compulsively buy everything he puts out.

     I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'm a compulsive reader, and a slow reader.

Which means that if the story isn't finished by the time I've read the first book in the series, I'm very likely to be side-tracked by other stuff, and in the end I usually don't go back to the series at all.

     Reading takes a lot of time for me. Which is why I just purchase the stuff I know I'll like when it comes out, and then wait for the series to be finished before I dive in.

It's a problematic and selfish position to take maybe. But I've been burned a few times too many to look further than my own capabilities on this one.

     The one idea that informs all of my thinking on this is that there is so much good stuff to read still, and 95 percent of which has been finished decades ago, if not generations ago, and it's whole and complete and guaranteed to satisfy.

     Read the world's classics, for God's sake people. Stop diving into the very next buzz-worthy thing. Half the stuff you're reading right now will not last a decade. There's too many writers out there right now, and most of them don't add much to the art.

But if you find one you really like, you should stick with them.

Michael Fletcher is my one thing.

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So then, on to comics!

First up is the latest Junji Ito manga hardback, which now completes my Junji ito Horror Library.

Though I guess I could still buy the Dissolving Class Room manga, if I really crave some horror manga, but it isn't likely.

Manga is very miss with me, and barring Berserk and 2 of Ito's stories, almost never a hit.

I loved Uzumaki, or at least the concept of the thing itself, but there were elements that just couldn't help coming across as silly, the whirlwind-flyers for one (boy, was that stupid...), but there is a certain draw to these things anyway. And I'm of the opinion that one should probably go and explore the top of each art form one comes across. And the top in Horror Manga is Junji Ito.

But if I'm very honest, I'm happy that I can close this particular chapter of Manga exploration quite soon. It might just not be my thing entirely.

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Here's the last Hellboy trade ever.

Hopefully.

What can I say about this one that won't drip with annoyance and ill will?

     Hellboy was such a great character and had some really damn good stories, and it all went to shit when the BPRD went and became their own thing. Storylines that would've worked fine in the hands of Mignola himself went to other writers and artists, and it almost never worked. This is my opinion of course. I'm sure most people love the BPRD storylines but I have come to actively loathe them.

     And here then, in Ragna Rok, is the story that's supposed to end 25 years of storytelling, and a whole universe worth of comics and properties. And it just sucks.

It's all so rushed that it actively pissed me off.

     What's bizarre though is that it does get really really good there at the end, you know, when Mignola's the one doing the drawing. And even I have to admit that it's really one hell of a way to end the series. I'm not sure if I've ever seen anything done like this before.

     But does it work though?

I really liked those 5 final pages. But when they were done, I felt just kind of deflated, and disinterested. Some of these characters got such a raw deal, and the landscape is just unrecognizable.

     I suppose the name of the game is that this really has become an almost alien world now, and that humanity's day has drawn to a close. And my beef isn't that 'I can't identify with this' or something, no. Hell no. Fuck humanity, kill them all.

     No, I loved the fact that this was an unstoppable apocalypse and all. But it felt just so hollow, so rushed and poorly executed. You gave the annoying plague of Frogs 14 trade paperbacks of story, Hell on Earth got 15, and the Apocalypse itself only gets 3 trades, and when Hellboy shows up to finally do the thing he's been having to do since issue 1 and then you don't even make him feel like Hellboy?

     No. My guess is that somebody got tired of the whole thing, and it all needed to be wrapped up as soon as possible.

     The problem with this is that there's no desire for pre-quels or spin-offs either. I was reading Crimson Lotus and I was wondering why I was doing so. There was build up here for the grand finale, and it annoyed me, because the grand finale itself ultimately had proved itself to be disappointing. It was all pointless. Ugh.

Man, I have a lot of annoyance and anger on this one. Might eventually come back to it, but on the whole, I'd rather just forget about Hellboy right now.

 Moving on.

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     Here is one I am very much curious about. 

There's something abstract about these covers, something that teases without even showing anything.

There's black, blue and 3 spots of red in a scene that just screams that there's something going on here, but because we're so far away there's also a sense of peace and quiet about it. Some sort of hidden darkness.

     And then the highly suggestive title, somehow connected with that pitch black warehouse door... this one looks very, very enticing.

     Somehow I've been able to keep completely spoiler-free on this one. I solely picked it up based on the name of the comic itself, the writer associated with it and the kind of art-style that the cover has. There's no guarantee that this one'll be good, but at the very least the whole series, 12 issues in total, has been collected between these two trades.

I'm itching to dive in.

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Here it is finally.

Terminal Diagnosis.

This is likely Harry Absalom's final outing.

He'll likely die here, though I hope not, but if he can give a good poke in the eye of the powers that be I'll be more than happy either way. Hopefully there'll also be some more hints to Gordon Rennie's Cabbalistics universe, which there was a playful reference to in one of the earlier Absalom volumes.

The story's one that the groundwork's been laid for in the previous Absalom stories:

To keep him in line, the forces of Hell have kidnapped and imprisoned Harry's grandchildren and put them in 'The Mills', and now, with Harry's final days approaching as his much-stalled cancer is taking the last chunks out of his system, he's putting a team together to get his grandchildren back.

I'm gonna miss the old bugger.

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Another one from the pages of 2000AD.

Tales of Telguuth collects the comic adaptations of Steve Moore's Telguuth short stories, and as I've read about a third of it now I can already say that I'm going to go and get the Tales of Telguuth collection from Strange Attractor Press as well. These tales are dark, and nasty, and pretty unique as well. Sorcery, Gods and monsters, and some tits thrown in for good measure. The artwork is gorgeous and pretty similar across all the tales in here, which is perfect for someone like me who can't stand it if the art veers between too different styles. 

Now, I've read a bunch of sword and sorcery stuff but there's a very strange taste to these stories, and I can very well understand why the most often used adjective to describe them is 'perverse'. It isn't exactly that but the word does seem to sum it up best, as they all seem to end badly for their main characters, and pretty much every time there's a sick delight in watching this unfold. 

I recommend you pick this one up.

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Dreddy's number 24 outing.

It's been pretty good. Not much to say though.

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I do have a lot to say about this one.

Note the paws?

     I've already read three chapters, and though the edition featured above is gorgeous of course, and quite hefty, though not heavy, I was a bit on the fence about recommending the Top Shelf edition of From Hell as I thought there wasn't any introduction or explanatory piece in here, but last night I discovered the appendices at the back of the book and: ehh... maybe there's not even a need for an introduction?

     Well, let me put it this way.

There's this bit in BBC's Luther where a girl is reading a comic book, and Luther asks her what she's doing, and she responds with, "I'm reading a Graphic Novel", and Luther scoffs and says, "Call it what is, it is a comic book, I don't know why the youth always have to pretend that things are bigger than what they are. Go read a real book, might do you some good", or something. There's a lot of disdain there for this idea of wanting to call comic books graphic novels, as if that can 'legitimize' an art form that's pretty much just dumb entertainment to the people that love reading actual novels.

     This pretty much was my position as well, for the longest time, and when I began reading comics I always called them comics, but From Hell has made me realize that you just can't call this thing a comic book; In some ways it IS a novel, and if you go into this one expecting to breeze through it you're gonna fall flat on your face. And the funny thing is that when I tried to think of other comic books one should be calling graphic novels the only ones I could come up with (and that I'd read) were those that had also been written by Alan Moore: V for Vendetta, Providence (though not Neonomicon), and From Hell.

     So what's the difference, why are some of these 'higher' than others?

I guess it's about what's in it, behind it, what brought the thing about.

Anyone can tell a story (though not really), but what I'm trying to say is that this one is of a different class than anything else in comics. When I look at it, I just can't understand that anyone crafted it. It is whole and complete, exactingly pre-determined and then meticulously executed. It's laborious and perfect. There's so much that's in it, that it can not have done anything other than consume the artists working on it, and From Hell did do that of course. Moore came out of this one a changed man.

     Anyway There's over 40 pages of notes in here, indicating which elements have been fictionalized and which elements came about by research and speculation, and it's dense and quite heavy to read. And it almost obviates the need for an introduction.

Here's the girl that those paws belong to.

Saffy's got a good home, let me tell you, and she knows.

Oh yeah, I can recommend the Top Shelf edition.

I'm going to take it slow reading this one, as it really is quite a lot to digest.

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And here's the last book on the pile: the American Vampire Omnibus.

Strangely, there's no news on omnibus 2 even though the story isn't completely collected in here.

There simply might not be enough issues to constitute a new volume but I'd like one anyway, even if it's half the size of this one.

Nothing to say about this one either really, as I'm going to hold off reading until at the very least I have the whole series in one form or another.

Oofh, I'm exhausted now.