Monday Mix-Up: “The Rocky Hora Hannukah Show”
Enjoy the Shlomones, “The World’s greatest Jewish Rock Band”, and their attempt to turn The Rocky Horror Picture Show from a Halloween to Hannukah classic!
And have a Happy Hannukah!
Tagged: Halloween
THOUGHT PROVOKING TALES OF TERROR AVAILABLE-TOXIC REALITY NOW AVAILABLE!
Toxic Reality now available!
Halloween doesn’t have to end! Author Katherine Tomlinson’s new fiction collection, Toxic Reality is now available in all formats on smashwords as well as in Amazon.com’s kindle store.
“From cyanide and cannibalism to thought-provoking and heartrending stories to Craig List-esque killers and their curious mates and just downright creepiness, if you weren’t a fan of Katherine Tomlinson’s writing before this collection, you will be very soon.”
–Christopher Grant, Editor/Publisher of A Twist Of Noir
“In Toxic Reality, Katherine Tomlinson proves that she’s an imaginative, masterful storyteller. She constructs realistic, likeable characters, drops them in desperate situations and watches them squirm. Her sharp sense of humor and gift for satisfying twist endings tie together this diverse and brilliant collection of crime tales.” – Chris Rhatigan, co-editor of the anthology Pulp Ink
Toxic Reality is the third collection of short fiction from Tomlinson, whose previous works include Just Another Day in Paradise, and L.A. Nocturne. Her work has been anthologized in Alt-Dead, Zombiefied, A Quiet Shelter There, and the upcoming Absolute Write speculative fiction collection.
A collection of 20 dark tales, Toxic Reality includes the Pushcart Prize nominee, “Water Sports” as well as stories that originally appeared in A Twist of Noir, Eaten Alive, Dark Valentine, and Clarity of Night.
For more information, go to: http://katherinetomlinson.com/
To request a review copy, contact: Katherine@storyauthority.com
Toxic Reality on smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/91338
Toxic Reality in Amazon kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Reality-ebook/dp/B005P2AG5M/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1320017528&sr=1-1
Read some reviews of Toxic Reality here:
Halloween Costume Contest — Send Us Your Marvel Super-Hero Pictures!
Kids and adults are no doubt dressing up for school and office parties in celebration of Halloween. Many of you will no doubt be dressed as Marvel characters and we want to see them.
Not only that, we want to publish your pics and name two as the best, awarding lucky winners with a complete set of [[[Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes]]] courtesy of our friends at Walt Disney Home Entertainment. That’s right, all four volumes can be yours if you impress us. Just go to our Contact Page, select “I’d like to submit a file for review!”, fill out the form and upload your picture.
Submission constitutes permission to publish your name and picture. The submission must be accompanied with your full name and address so winners may receive discs. Submissions must be timestamped by 11:59 p.m. Monday, October 31. The judgement of ComicMix’s expert panel of judges will be final.
Happy Halloween!
And as part of our Saturday Morning Cartoons section, here are some clips from the DVDs in question:
AVENGERS: VOLUME 3 – IRON MAN UNLEASHED
V3 Clip: Walk in Both Worlds (Iron Man, Thor, Black Panther)
AVENGERS VOLUME 4 – THOR’S LAST STAND
V4 Clip: Stuck in the Realms (Hulk, Black Panther, Iron Man)
V4 Clip: What Needs To Be Done (Giant Man, Ultron, Iron Man, Hulk)
ComicMix Quick Picks: May 19, 2011
Closing them in our browsers so you can open them on yours…
- In honor of the start of principal photography on The Dark Knight Rises, we present this picture from Dan Hipp.
- A Guide To The Complete Works Of Newt Gingrich, Novelist: With special thanks to William R. Fortschen. (Publishing humor, ain’t it hilarious?)
- And if we include comic writers, the averages get worse.
- Syfy’s Craig Engler Responds To Fans Of ‘Stargate Universe’ In Wake Of Cancellation: There’s no easy way to go after this without picking on Craig, but it seems to me he’s oversimplifying things here. Still, a decent primer for the average person on many of the points that go into a cancellation, with lessons that can be applied to why your favorite comic book got the axe.
- Free Comic Book Day 2011: A Look Back | The Beat – Torsten Adair gives a balanced look back at the long-term success over the last ten years, at something I still think should be focused at Halloween as well.
- What Really Happens After a Radioactive Spider Bite
- Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Blames iPad For American Unemployment (VIDEO) Which is not without merit– it may make life better for comic creators, but it makes things rougher on comic book stores.
- Seth MacFarlane to Reboot The Flintstones: Can he do FOUR prime-time animated comedies? We’ll soon find out…
Anything else? Consider this an open thread.
3-D Films in 2009 Face Theater Shortage
Every director these days is either enamored with shooting films in 3-D or for IMAX or both. DreamWorks’ Jeffrey Katzenberg has become the 3-D Preacher, going around the country extolling its virtue.
The New York Times, this morning, noted that there’s just one problem: not every theater is equipped to show 3-D movies and its’ awfully expensive to gear up. “Like all studios experimenting with 3-D, Lionsgate is struggling with a shortage of theaters equipped to project the work. By the release date for My Bloody Valentine 3D, Lionsgate will have only 900 3-D screens available, so it will show a 2-D version of the movie on about 1,600 screens,” the Times reported.
The remake of My Bloody Valentine is the first horror film in the current revival of 3-D as a gimmick to make movie going once more a unique experience. “Advances in digital technology and more comfortable glasses — not to mention a young adult audience that doesn’t remember the 3-D horror movies of the past — have studios jumping back on the 3-D bandwagon. Family entertainment is leading the charge, with DreamWorks Animation and the Walt Disney Company set to unleash a blizzard of 3-D pictures over the next year. But the broader market is following fast,” they wrote.
The article noted horror films need something to keep the genre alive given the lackluster box office for the “torture” sub-genre exemplified by Saw and Hostel.
Joe Drake, the co-chief operating officer of Lionsgate and the president of the studio’s motion picture group, said,. “We see 3-D horror as financially lucrative and creatively exciting,” he said. “We want to break some new ground here in R-rated fare.”
“If there was ever a moment when horror needed to be reinvented, this is it,” said Jeanine Basinger, chairwoman of film studies at Wesleyan University. “You can only work one side of the horror street for so long before you have to cross to the other side and explore something new.”
The other option is to remake familiar films with new actors and directors with January 16’s release of Bloody Valentine as the tip of an iceberg. A month later comes the remake of Friday the 13th with A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween 2, and a parade of zombie releases to follow.
Trolling for Halloween
Before "trolls" became synonymous with "online idiots," and somewhat after they were best known as fairy-tale creatures that dwelt under bridges, they were so-ugly-they’re-cute collectible dolls made by the Russ company. While they’re not as ubiquitous today as they were a couple decades back, they do still pop up around this time of year in various venues, and this year the writers and artists at Girlamatic decided their work was going to suffer a Russ troll invasion.
Getting in on the troll action are Layla Lawlor, Lisa Jonte, Michelle Mauk, Ariel Childers (sub-only), and my hands-down favorite, Tara Tallan, who takes the opportunity to cleverly combine all three meanings of "troll" mentioned in the above paragraph in an 8-page Galaxion storyline featuring the little dears.
Great reading, and enough to make me want to don my troll earrings to greet this evening’s trick-or-treaters.
How to apply Elvira makeup
Time to commence with the Halloween puns and posts, and we’ll start with something that might almost be useful: how to apply makeup in the style of Elvira.
Oh, and don’t forget the wig.
Fear Factor, by Dennis O’Neil
Boo.
Did I scare you?
About that boo…Frankly, it’s a sleazy and probably ineffective way to get your attention. But it is sort of appropriate because it’s a word often encountered in late October and I’m perpetrating this opus a few nights before Halloween, which seems like an appropriate time to be both booing and writing about comics. Because, you know, comics and Halloween are kissing cousins.
Comics, like Halloween, often deal with unearthly phenomena and unlikely characters and, yes, costumes. Both comics and Halloween offer reassurance that after sojourn spent confronting ghouls, goblins, ghosts, vice-presidents and assorted other hellish manifestations of ghastliness, you can retire to someplace comfy and safe.
Fairy tales do that, too, and despite people, including me, frequently comparing comics to mythology, they’re at least as much fairy tale as myth. They don’t, after all, offer cosmic explanations of why we’re here and where we come from, as myths are wont to do, and they almost always end happily. According to a psychologist named Bruno Bettelheim, those happy endings are what make fairy tales useful to little kids. The message is, you can confront ghouls, goblins, ghosts and even vice presidents and you can prevail – you can go home again and maybe score some hot chocolate.
