Galacula Thirsts!

This great moment in comics history (which never happened) brought to you by Chris Sims, Nate Bellegarde and Comics Alliance. Check out the the full post here.

Also, coincidently, there's only three days left before the end of DRACULA MONTH, and I've got a surprise treat (or possibly a trick) to announce today. So head on over to Hunting Monsters to see what's what!

The Cross-Promotional Sluts of Dracula

Kate Beaton drops some knowledge on us, regarding Big Daddy Fangs' tastes and preferences (that last panel had me rolling), then Becky Cloonan backs it up with the visual evidence. What more is there to say?

Oh, I know. I'm going to be on the Book Cave tonight! I get to twitter on at length about my new novel, Dracula Lives!, if that sort of thing interests you in the least. And it should. I've been on the Book Cave twice before, but neither time was I the center of attention...come, wrap yourself in the audient void that is my personality and the demon pipers that are my soul.

And just in case you want to follow along, why not pick up a copy of the book? Amazon jumped the gun a bit, but there's no reason you shouldn't take advantage of that fact, now is there?

Dracula and the Corporate Zen

BOOM!Studios new Dracula series, Dracula: The Company of Monsters is an interesting experiment. Dracula is resurrected by corporate raiders looking to exploit not his vampiric abilities, but the sorcerous secrets he learned at the legendary Scholomance.

Right now, its playing like Silence of the Lambs meets The Satanic Rites of Dracula, with the nervous young corporate toady trying to prise Dracula's secrets loose while simultaneously attempting not to succumb to Big Daddy Fang's seductive manipulations. Quite cool, if not actively scary. The idea of Dracula contrasting the duties of a prince with those of an executive, and being openly scornful of his modern day 'descendants' and their bloodless approach to conquest is a nice character touch, tying the fictional vampire in to the historical figure.

Here's a preview of the latest issue.

Oh, and just as a reminder, it's DRACULA MONTH all this month at my other blog, and I'm offering a number of free electronic copies of my horror novel Dracula Lives! to interested readers. Click here for more info.

Ninety-Niners

So, seriously? Man, I did not think that was even a thing no more. Look, I watched Captain Planet as a kid, and I ain't exactly an environmentalist. I was a pretty dumb kid, too.

And lets be fair here, any religious subtext (or otherwise) is going to be ignored by any kids watching or reading The 99 in favour of the more direct visceral enjoyment of people in costumes hitting one another. That those people happen to be of an ethnic origin which is not the default white European industry standard will likely not even be noticed by the little sugar-addicted darlings. Heck, couple of those dudes is white, so there you go.

Christ on a crutch. Frankly, I'm more upset by the sub-Reboot level of CGI animation they're using on the cartoon. That's just awful.

Ubermensch

Now this is an interesting slice of cinematic awesome.

UBERMENSCH - Dir: Simon Temple
Uploaded by SFLTV. - Classic TV and last night's shows, online.

And Yet...

...The poo-flinging still occurs. Pointed out to me by the ever-helpful Derrick Ferguson (whose books you should really buy).

Free Hellboy Comic at USA Today

If you're interested in that sort of thing (and why wouldn't you be?) there's a never before seen Hellboy comic ("The Whittier Legacy") available to read for free at USA Today. How cool is that? Apparently, Dark Horse is going to do a series of five USA Today-only comics, with this one being the first. Go give it a read.

It's Actually A Bit Depressing When You Think About It...

Not the continuity stuff, I mean. Although that's a bit sad as well. But think about it...Uncle Ben in the Hobbes role? Consider that for a minute. Glommed from Comics Alliance, by the by.

Brave and the Blue-Eyed

Courtesy of the ever entertaining The Brave and the Bold: The Lost Issues! I can only hope we'll get a Marvel Two-in-One cover to go with this one...

The Shadow Out of Alan Moore

This is a very interesting look at the most recent issue of Alan Moore's Neonomicon, which is the center of some well-deserved controversy due to its content. I'm not going to post any images from it. If you haven't read it, and you want to see the nastiness, you feel free to Google yourself, kids.

I read the issue, and the one before it, and The Courtyard before that, and I can understand why, in terms of the story, Moore went where he did. Derleth and Roy Thomas aside, HP Lovecraft's universe-a universe founded on the nihilistic angles that decorate the stories of the Old Gentleman from Providence-that's going to be a nasty place. Not scary necessarily, depending on your tolerance for seafood and the mysteries of the horizontal mambo, but nasty all the same. And Moore gives us nastiness aplenty in his scrawlings in Lovecraft's commonplace book. Other writers have done much the same, though few of them have been working in the graphic medium when they did it.

That said, it's probably not a place I'll be visiting again, any time soon.

Money Train

So, in an interesting announcement, both Marvel Comics and DC have decided to drop their prices from $3.99 to $2.99 come January 2011.

Now, first off, that's nice. A buck is a buck, and cheaper comics means more comics sold (at least in theory), so as business decisions go, this one has been a long time coming. I don't know anyone who felt comfortable paying those prices, as opposed to trade-waiting. So, likely, we'll see at least a few people hopping back on the monthly bandwagon as a result.

Personally, however, I don't see all that much difference between four bucks and three, in terms of whether or not I want to drop some hard-earned cash on twenty-two pages of sweet fictive nectar. In the short-term, it's simply too much to pay for me.

What about you though? Thoughts? Opinions? There's a hundred of you following this blog, so somebody likely has an opinion.

Hey...Did I Mention That It's Dracula Month?

In celebration of my forthcoming novel, Dracula Lives!, I've declared October to be DRACULA MONTH over on my other blog, Hunting Monsters. To that end, I'll be posting occasional reminders like the one above to this blog. Just a heads up.

If you're interested in reading the first chapter of Dracula Lives! or giving a gander to MD Jackson's superlative cover, wander over to the Pulpwork Press website and take a look at the Upcoming Releases page. Too, if you're interested in helping out with Dracula Month, get in touch with me either via the comments section or through my e-mail.

Mega-Interview with Darwyn Cooke

Comics Alliance has a neat interview with Darwyn Cooke concerning his work on adapting Richard Stark's (AKA Donald Westlake) Parker novels into graphic form. I'm a big fan of the Parker books, though I haven't yet checked out Cooke's adaptation of The Hunter. Still, I recommend giving the interview a read. Cooke has a nice perspective on adaptation and the merits and obstacles thereof.

Burdensome Hellbeasts

CBR has a neat preview of the forthcoming Hellboy/Beasts of Burden crossover. I recommend you give it a look, because, y'know, Hellboy and talking animals team-up to fight the forces of evil. What's not to love about that?

See?

Sangue Sul Cremlino

Francesco Francavilla, via Comic Twart. That is some prettiness right there, no lie.

Yep.

Yessir. That is a vampire squid, sure as I'm standing here. Yep, yep, yep. Things are everywhere, these days. Oh, and by the way, on the subject of vampires, did you know that it's DRACULA MONTH?

Gabbing About the Green Lama

Blog-buddy Adam L. Garcia gets his gab on talking about all things Green Lama on the ever-entertaining Book-Cave podcast. Go check it out, then go buy the book.