PS. BY THE WAY!

follow me on insta @iceandshadows.

[ g r a v i t y _ d r i v e ]

i mentioned "completely different," right?

my chops couldn't pull off my original vision for this concept, but thematically it rhymes. someday i'll revisit this idea with something closer to what i'd intended, but i do like the ultimate simplicity of design in what this became. i tried adding to or tweaking it for days on end and kept reverting back to a cleaner, more elemental look. the meat grinder tunnel is reinterpreted as something more organic and menacing ("Who knows where this ship has been... and what it's brought back with it."), and the iconic rings and knobs of the gravity drive are lovingly reproduced.

this one is for those who know. damn, i love this movie. my brother and i somehow coerced our "beyond unimpressed by horror and tawdry content" dad to take us to this one in the theater, and OH BOY he did not have a fun time. love you, Pops.

/.n [while listening to the Event Horizon score]

[ t h e _ w e d d i n g _ c l o t h e s ]

time for something new.

i've been feeling defeated a lot lately. i feel like i'm hitting a plateau at work and am concerned about the direction of my school; large chunks of society are wholesale abandoning decency, reason, and accountability; and lots of things i'd looked forward to are falling short or just can't happen. i don't know if i've been having more depressive states than usual this past year or if i'm just getting better at noticing them. nuts to it - let's try to explore new adventures.

one thing i've wanted to try for a while is to run a little booth at a horror con and sell art prints. i'm damn sure i'm going to take a loss on it, but i just want to have that experience (and bonus if i can hustle at a con with my bro). i may be able to repurpose some of my older stuff, but in general that's going to challenge me to come up with a new line of prints. normally i'm a bit slow to come up with novel ideas, but when i started thinking about movies or stories that are personally important to me, a bunch sprang more or less fully formed in my mind. i'm going to botch the ever-loving hell out of them helping them escape into the world with my, er, "developing" skill set, but it's been an interesting, fun, and frustrating process so far. here's the first: "The Wedding Clothes."

a reimagined exorcism scene from Beetlejuice - perhaps in the future - with the wedding garb of Not The Maitlands. this movie is probably tied with Ghostbusters for my favorite comedy, spookily themed or otherwise, of all time. to paraphrase the man, "I've seen [Beetlejuice] about a hundred sixty-seven times... and it keeps getting funnier every single time I see it!"

pour one out for Otho. happy belated Halloween.

/.n [while listening to the main theme from Beetlejuice]

[ t h e _ p r i s o n e r ]

as promised. Happy Walpurgisnacht.

there's a lot to say about this one. a vibrant print of it was my first public art exhibition in meatspace (other than that time i won an ASPCA contest back in 6th grade. i drew a dolphin...). "The Prisoner" hung at my school's Morrissey Art Gallery in March and April as part of a portfolio exchange, and i was incredibly pumped that some of the art students really dug it. the colors, the colors!

we recorded a podcast about the general exhibition; you can hear my talky talky (mins. 4-11, 36) about Weird Fiction, Bloodborne and Gothic Revival architecture, Italian horror cinema, riding in Jim Lee's Porsche, and other fun bullshit. this may be the only instance in which i don't primally, elementally loathe how i come across in an interview, so please consider checking it out.

the blurb below is similar to text intended to accompany my print on the wall, but a little more personal and without unnecessary biographical info. its counterpart in reality was (surprise!) banished to a binder in the corner that no one realized existed, and i think it gives some important context here.

whatever. i've installed it as a permanent click-through to the actual story.

thanks for sticking with me.

=====

I create small horror stories.

Most of my [sparse] work over the past decade has explored my interest in early Weird Fiction, with themes inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, Robert W. Chambers, and others. “The Prisoner” is heavily influenced by a more recent entry in the genre, Bloodborne (FromSoftware, Sony Computer Entertainment, 2015), which I consider to be the richest and most successful interpretation of cosmic horror in an interactive medium to date. Its breathtaking Gothic art direction and themes of addiction, fatalism, and the doomed pursuit of the unknowable inspired me to write this story.

As in my other recent tales, “The Prisoner” focuses on the frailty and failings of an individual against a backdrop of Very Big Things happening. I suspect that many of us have, at some point in life, been able to relate to a feeling of powerlessness in the face of addiction or similar cycles of self-destruction. It can be hard, so hard, to find the sense of agency one needs to break free from a struggle with alcohol, a toxic relationship, or in the case of “The Prisoner,” communing with eldritch gods through the vessel of a blood witch.

There is hope.

This story is, as always, dedicated to my amazing wife, partner, and patron Jillian. Thank you for believing in me.

“The Prisoner” was printed at 14x18” and displayed at one of my university’s art galleries from March 8 - April 12, 2019 as a contribution to the Moving Pictures Portfolio Exchange. Certain elements of the design would be lost were I to cut the page into strips to better fit a computer monitor, so please pan around the image as necessary.

=====

/.n [while, neatly bookending this chapter from Halloween, listening to the Bloodborne soundtrack.]

[ s p o o k y _ b a s e m e n t ] - Freak Show banner

i've been on sabbatical this semester; while it's come with ups and downs, the first couple of months provided a surfeit of free time to engage in fabulous nonsense like this:

kid bro is back on the con circuit to promote Spooky Basement, with revised editions of the first two books out and a third novel [hopefully] on its way this summer. the target here was a vintage "Freak Show" aesthetic, featuring marquee creeps from each edition. Obese Chef Monster, Triclyde Momster [basically three of the Mob Wives rolled into one sentient trash heap], and the no-explanation-necessary Tent City of Perverts. you may recall references to the latter if you were one of three people to watch our livestream reading of SB2 on Christmas.

this was a ton of fun to do and i think turned out reasonably well. it's already made its debut in the wild at Monster Mania in Jersey. hopefully i will find a chance to hit another of these shows up before Clay retires.

you know we're not done for the day.

/.n [while sipping on the final 2018 Warlock and watching The Wicker Man (1973)]

Happy Halloween

enjoy this dark night.

i did in fact finish my story, "The Prisoner," in time for Halloween. but. BUT.

as mentioned in the previous post, this work is to be displayed in a gallery exhibition next March to April. i have decided to hold back publication until the end of the run to encourage people to come see the monster live in person. i am proud of this one. it is my darkest and most troubling story yet, sown deep with every bit of narrative and artistic structure i've cobbled together in my head over the years, and i hope that it works. i plan to publish it here on Walpurgisnacht as a compromise to the season.

here is one more panel for the road. i am sure that everything will be fine, just fine.

this was perhaps the most beautiful fall in memory. while the circumstances of adulting may have prevented me from fully immersing myself in the Halloween season, i will try to savor every last fading black wisp and i hope that it treats you well.

/.n [while again listening to the Bloodborne soundtrack. of course i am.]

[ s p o o k y _ b a s e m e n t _ 2 ] + upcoming stuff

it is known - my brother has an unusual mind. this has been noted by both family and strangers, child and adult, those keenly observant and those less so.

it is a good thing, and he has a new book out: Spooky Basement Vol. 2: The 13 Creeps of Christmas [print|kindle]. go, go now and do the right thing.

Vol. 2 continues the adventures of Baron and Garindax as they engage in glorious battle with existential dread and cursed/perverted/hipstery monsters in a haunted Christmas theme park while on an urgent quest to find the One True Santa. it's brilliant and disturbing and one of the funniest things i've ever read. Goosebumps for super-immature adults, indeed.

i spent the first chunk of summer knocking out the cover for this one, and i think it turned out rather fun. lots of perspective exercises this year.

Clay and his wife are currently hustling at Monster Mania 40 in Jersey, where i trust they'll continue to meet with tremendous success slinging these to Our People.

i am proud of my brother.

other news: next March and April i'm going to have a new work on public display (!) for the first time since i was a tiny child. i'm participating in a gallery showing in support of SAU's annual theme ("Visual Narratives"), and this gave me an excuse/challenge to tackle the Bloodborne-tinged story i mentioned back in January. it's a 14x18" single comic page with 11 panels, is about half done, and features i think some of my best and wildest stuff. if i get it done by Halloween, you'll see it in chopped-up, internet-ready form.

see you in October.

/.n [while listening to the Bloodborne soundtrack. Halloween is coming.]