#and now I recently wrote a script for a podcast for a friend's college

[vesteneris]

Florance + The Machine, Dance Fever

Make me evil, then I'm an angel instead At least you'll sanctify me when I'm dead

[absolutelyabby23]

College AU Sanders Sides Headcanons

Hey everyone! I’m getting back into writing and I also recently got accepted to college! I’m going to be a biology major :) With all of that going on, I started thinking of some Sanders Sides College AU Headcanons so here we go! Let’s start off by introducing everyone.

Roman Prince: Freshman. 18 years old. He’s a theatre major with a minor in musical composition. In his free time, Roman likes to write fanfiction correcting Disney movies. He also frequently uploads to his YouTube channel which is called RomanticRoman. He mainly does covers and skits. Occasionally, he will do livestreams where he reads his stories.

Logan Berry: Freshman. 17 years old. Logan skipped a year because he’s just that smart. He’s a psychology major with a specialization in teaching. He wants to become a professor. In his free time, Logan shadows the campus counselor, Emile Picani. 

Virgil Sanders: Freshman. 18 years old. He’s currently undecided but working towards his degree with an exploratory major. He’s a major procrastinator and spends most of his free time watching YouTube videos. He enjoys conspiracy theories and has started to dip into some ASMR. He’s in the process of starting a podcast.

Patton Rogers: Freshman. 19 years old. He’s a child psychology major with a minor in chemistry because “he likes to mix stuff.” In his free time, Patton likes to bake treats for various clubs and organizations on campus. He also helps a certain sassy sophomore named Remy Stewarts at their coffee startup. 

Dee Jones: Junior. 20 years old. He’s majoring in pre-law with a minor in sociology. Dee is the Resident Assistant (RA) for the dorm that the other five all live in. In his free time, Dee is the DM for a campus DnD club. He also likes to visit the small animal center in the veterinary school and feed the snakes.

Remus Prince: Freshman. 18 years old. He’s an english major with a specialization in creative writing. In his free time, Remus likes to prank his brother Roman and his friends. Remus also has a YouTube channel where he specializes in “childhood ruining” facts.

Okay now let’s get to the headcanons!

-Roman, Virgil, Logan, and Patton all live in the same suite-style dorm room. This means they have a common area, bathroom, and two bedroom areas. Roman and Logan are in one room and Patton and Virgil are in the other.

-Remus lives in another dorm room with Remy and two other students. Their room is across the hall from the other four which makes it a prime spot for scouting out pranking information.

-On moving day, Patton was the first to arrive. He made plushies for his three other roommates based on things they said they enjoy on their roommate profiles. He also figured that they might be a source of comfort when the others inevitably started to miss home. Roman got a red dragon wearing a little golden crown. Logan got a robot wearing a labcoat with NASA patches on it. Virgil got a blackbear wearing a purple-patched hoodie.

-When Virgil moved in and saw all of Patton’s pastel pillows and rainbow potted houseplants, he took one look at the MCR poster in his hands and wondered if this was going to work out. However, when Patton came in and saw that they both had fairy lights to hang, they became fast friends while helping each other set them up. Patton actually laughed at Virgil’s edgy humor while Virgil seemed to enjoy Patton’s puns.

-Roman brought about 5 Costco-sized packs of ramen noodles with him and his own personal coffee maker. Remus was behind him threatening to drop his video camera out the nearest window. Roman simply rolled his eyes and moved the rest of his stuff in.

-Logan was the last to show up. He brought a big stack of textbooks and an array of extra supplies that his roommates would go on to “borrow” from for the next four years. Meeting Roman was pretty anticlimactic.

Logan: Is that Shakespeare on your desk?

Roman: *Looking up from doing his makeup in a lightbulb mirror* Yes.

Logan: Cool.

-Things didn’t stay that chill for too long though. Roman and Logan frequently got into arguments about everything.

Logan: Roman for the last time, eating a cup of instant ramen does not automatically make you a more cultured person!

Roman: Okay… but have you tried an egg in it though?

-Patton quickly becomes like the dad of the group. He loves taking care of his friends and it definitely shows. However, they didn’t quite get his parental nature at first.

Patton: Okay kiddo time to get up from your nap and do your homework!

Virgil: Kiddo? Patton you’re like three months older than me.

-However, Virgil and Patton soon started to understand each other more. Virgil knew about Patton’s caring nature and Patton started to learn how badly Virgil procrastinated and got stressed. This led to them coming up with a sort of rules and rewards system. Patton would start saying things like “Okay Virge if we get our math homework done in the next twenty minutes then we can have a cookie and watch YouTube for 30 minutes.”

-Platonic cuddling also proved to be a way to help get rid of Virgil’s anxiety about his future. It was hard to ask him for things like that back home. He was able to trust Patton though so it’s enjoyable for both of them.

-Virgil has trouble sleeping at night after hours of doing homework and trying to get himself to do said homework. Dee was in the hallway one day and heard Virgil telling Logan about this problem while chugging an energy drink. The next day, Virgil had a package waiting on his desk. It was a purple weighted blanket with black spider print on it. Virgil has been sleeping better ever since.

-Logan recognized Roman from YouTube and remembered a few of the technical and research problems that he had with the channel. Logan begins helping Roman with scripting, setup, and editing. People start to notice the quality improvement.

-Roman and Logan went viral when they wrote a song about Crofters jam. Logan’s moms send them jam in care packages. After a late night of studying lines for Roman’s theatre assignment, they ate Crofters straight out of the jar with plastic spoons. Logan started humming a melody and Roman sang along until Virgil banged on the wall as a request for them to shut up. They wrote down lyrics until 4 in the morning. They recorded the video the next night and it got over 1 million views.

-After the Crofters collab, Logan started to appear more on Roman’s channel. He soon became almost a weekly regular.

-Patton invited Remus and Virgil to his new coffee startup to try some of the drinks in order to name them. Remus had some… creative suggestions (some involving horrid ways to use milk), which Remy and Patton immediately shot down. Virgil’s best idea was “Strawberry Survival” for an energy drink with a sugared berry taste and energy boost.

-Dee was able to recruit Roman, Remus, Virgil, and Logan to his DnD club. This is how the club meetings usually go. Roman wants to roll to marry every character. Remus rolls to seduce every living and nonliving element of the game. He then rolls to kill every living and nonliving element of the game. Virgil just thinks of more and more creative ways to try and eliminate his own character. Logan is just whining the whole time that nobody is playing correctly. Dee just tiredly says, “Roman you cannot kiss the villain. Remus you cannot fuck the rock. Virgil that cat cannot rip your heart out. And Logan, here’s $10. Go get me a coffee and chill out. I cannot wait until I’m 21 and can block out you little shits with straight vodka.” Though he’s exasperated, Dee really enjoys the meetings. He just won’t tell the truth.

-Virgil starts his podcast halfway through the year. People immediately love his sarcastic, yet calming, voice. He does a mixture of things on his show. Sometimes he just talks about calm things with Patton while they bake in the school kitchens. Sometimes he broadcasts the DnD sessions. By far his most popular is the segment “Dumb Debates” that he does with Logan where people send in meme questions and they each pick a side and argue about it. A chair might’ve been thrown during “Is water wet?”

-Roman and Logan solve every argument with a rap battle. They sometimes vlog it for Youtube. Four way arguments are solved through a Mario Kart tournament. Everyone always tries to get too technical with the best tricks except for Patton who almost always wins. 

Those are basically it for now! Comments and likes are appreciated. Let me know if you want more headcanons or would like to see a fic out of any of these situations. Take care everyone and I’ll be back with more soon!

[aion-rsa]

Every Upcoming Blumhouse New Horror Movie For 2021 and Beyond

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In just over a decade Blumhouse Productions has gone from a very smart agile indie to possibly the most significant horror production company out there. It’s slate is huge, it most quickly and cheaply, trusts in its creators and favours originality and genuine scares. Though the pandemic has meant certain release dates have had to move, or not as yet locked in, it’s clear the Blumhouse juggernaut is showing no signs of slowing. It has several film in production, with release dates set for 2021 and even more movies in various states of development.

We’ve rounded up the latest on all of Blumhouse’s upcoming horror movies. Note: we have not included TV, we haven’t included anything which is clearly not a horror and the projects which have been in development hell for many years are summarised briefly at the end. We’ll keep this updated so pop back for all your Blumhouse needs.

Image from 2013’s The Purge

The Forever Purge

Release date: 9 July 2021

This fifth installment of the The Purge franchise will reportedly be the last with creator and writer James DeMonaco promising a ‘really cool’ end to the series. This movie was originally scheduled for a summer 2020 release – filming wrapped in February 2020 – but dates inevitably shifted and now it’s aiming for Summer 2021. While DeMonaco wrote the script, the movie is directed by Everardo Gout who’s best known for his work on National Geographic series Mars. The movie stars Ana de la Reguera and Tenoch Huerta with Josh Lucas and Will Patton. 

Welcome to the Blumhouse (second batch)

Release date: 2021 tbc

This imprint which launched in October and streams on Amazon Prime will get another four installments in 2021. The series once again aims to give a platform to upcoming and underrepresented voices. The movies are:

Madres

A pregnant Mexican-American woman and her husband move to a migrant community in California where she starts to experience strange visions and phenomena. Is it the legendary curse? Or is something more sinister going on? This is a first feature from Ryan Zaragoza and stars Tenoch Huerta (The Forever Purge) Ariana Guerra, Evelyn Gonzalez, Kerry Cahill, and Elpidia Carrillo.

The Manor

Residents of a nursing home are haunted by supernatural forces in this film from Soulmate director Axelle Carolyn. Barbara Hershey stars as a woman who’s recently moved into the home following a stroke who suspects malevolent beings are at prey and needs to convince everyone around her she doesn’t belong there at all in order to escape.

Black as Night 

Teenage misfits battle vampires who are attacking New Orleans’ disenfranchised in this feature from Maritte Lee Go which sounds like it might appeal to a young female demographic as well as the usual Blumhouse fans. It stars Asjha Cooper, Fabrizio Guido, Craig Tate, Keith David, Mason Beauchamp, Abbie Gayle and Frankie Smith.

Bingo

Set among an eldery community in the Barrio of Oak Springs, Bingo sees a stubborn group of friends lead by the matriarchal Lupita who keeps them together a family, face their toughest threat yet when they discover their Bingo hall is to be sold to a powerful force. Gigi Saul Guerrero, who directed an episode of The Purge TV show and also a segment of Blum’s Into The Dark horror series takes the helm.

Halloween Kills

Release date: October 15 2021

Originally planned for October 2020, this follow up to David Gordon Green’s 2018 Halloween reboot (which was a direct sequel to John Carpenter’s 1978 Halloween) will now arrive in October 2021 to carry on the saga of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her family in their ongoing battle with Michael Myers. The previous installment was a smart addition to the franchise dealing with themes of PTSD in the wake of what Laurie experienced as a teen so we have high hopes for this. Blum has said the movie will be “Huge” and “Intense” and will feature returning legacy characters from the original. 

Halloween Ends

Release date: October 14 2022

The third part of the reboot trilogy is planned for 2022 and will bring to a close this part of the saga. Ahead of the release of Halloween Kills it’s difficult to predict which direction part three will take us in but if IMDb is to be believed Laurie, her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and Granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) will be in a final showdown with The Shape.

Paranormal Activity 7 (as yet untitled)

Release date: 2022 TBC

Announced back in 2019, Blumhouse is supposedly planning a seventh installment to the found footage franchise, with Oren Peli the creator of the original Paranormal Activity attached to write. No plot details have been released yet and it’s possible the unexpected events of 2020 have affected plans for this. The latest in the franchise – 2015 Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension is the least profitable of the series but still grossed $79M worldwide from a budget of $10M.

Vengeance

Release date: 2021

This is the directorial debut of actor and comedian BJ Novak (who was one of the writers on the US version of The Office, where he also played Ryan Howard), which follows a radio host from New York (also played by Novak) who travels down South in an attempt to solve the murder of his girlfriend and discover what happened to her. The movie co stars Logan’s Boyd Holbrook as well as Ashton Kutcher and Issa Rae. The production began in March 2020 but was put on hold due to COVID19, but has started back up again and Blum says they’ve almost finished shooting what he describes as “a cool, offbeat movie”.

Five Nights At Freddy’s

Status: Pre-production

Currently in pre-production is this adaptation based on the popular horror video game franchise where a night security worker at a restaurant called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza is terrorised by sentient and murderous animatronic characters who come alive after dark. The movie was originally optioned by Warner Bros with Gil Keenan to direct but is now with Blumhouse under Chris Columbus. Despite delays, Blum is confident this is still very much on the cards telling Inverse “”It’s still active. We haven’t quite figured it out, but we’re getting closer every day.” The videogame franchise featured several sequels and spin offs so if Blum and Columbus can make this a hit there’s every possibility for multiple sequels.

Wolfman

Status: Pre-production

After the massive success of The Invisible Man, long time Blumhouse collaborator Leigh Whannell has signed on to tackle another classic Universal monster with the Wolfman. This is one of the strangest but most exciting titles on Blumhouse’s slate with Ryan Gosling attacked to star as a man who is cursed after being bitten by a werewolf. Gosling is a massive talent, Oscar nominated twice, who is selective with his projects so we can only imagine the script must be something special. 

Mother Nature

Status: Pre-Production

Announced back in May Mother Nature marks the directorial debut of Jamie Lee Curtis herself. An eco-horror co-written by Curtis and Russell Goldman who’s head of development at Curtis’ company Comet Pictures, this is the first film in a three year first look deal Comet Pictures has with Blumhouse. Details are scant but it looks like this will be themed around climate change. “I’m 61 and my motto now is: ‘If not now, when, if not me, who?’” Curtis told EW. Well quite.

Untitled John Ridley Paranormal Thriller

Status: Pre-production

Novelist, screenwriter and director John Ridley is set to write and direct this chiller based on this article entitled ‘Project Poltergeist’ which tells the true story of a young boy who is purported terrified by supernatural occurrences in a public housing project in the 1960s. “This is an incredible true-life narrative of a young man dealing with horrors – both paranormal and racially systemic — in a community that is scarred by hate, yet ultimately brought together by hope,” said Ridley, speaking to TheWrap. “I really appreciate Blumhouse’s commitment to telling stories that seek to entertain audiences even as it challenges them.”

Patrick Wilson in Insidious

Insidious 5

Status: Pitch

It’s been ten years since the very scary first installment of Insidious, one of the franchises that really helped put Blumhouse productions on the map, and the series shows no sign of disappearing into the Further just yet. A fifth film is apparently on the cards with star Patrick Wilson set to direct. The film will focus on the Lambert family ten years on as son Dalton prepares to go to college. “We’ve had a lot of luck with first-time directors who are actors, even Jordan Peele (Get Out) or Joel Edgerton on The Gift,” Blum told Den of Geek.

Caroline Ward in Host

Untitled Rob Savage project

Status: Pre-production

Sure the defining horror movie of 2020 has to be Host, a low budget indie written, shot and released in just 12 weeks during lockdown, a Zoom horror which perfectly captured the zeitgeist. After rave reviews, Savage and his team, screenwriters Gemma Hurley and Jed Shepherd and producer Douglas Cox signed with Blumhouse for a three picture deal. In typical quick and dirty style they’ve already begun work on the first of these features, which will reportedly be scarier and more ambitious than Host. Definitely one to watch.

Untitled Dracula project

Status: Treatment

Announced back in March, Jennifer’s Body and The Invitation director Karyn Kusama is attached to another Universal Monster project – a new adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Kusama told the Kingcast podcast that it would be a fairly faithful adaptation which will lean into the idea of multiple voices and points of view to tell the story, and perhaps present a slightly different version of the Count himself. “I would just say in some respect this is gonna be an adaptation called Dracula but it’s perhaps not the same kind of romantic hero that we’ve seen in past adaptations of Dracula,” said Kusama.

Untitled The Thing Remake/Untitled John Carpenter/Blumhouse Project

Status: Pitch

January of 2020 saw rumours that Blumhouse was working on a new iteration of The Thing, based on the (relatively) recently unearthed longer version of the story the movie is based on Who Goes There?, by John W. Campbell Jr. – the longer version is called Frozen Hell. Though there are two separate entries on IMDb for this project they are clearly the same ‘Thing’ – the ‘Untitled John Carpenter/Blumhouse Project’ suggest the Halloween 2018 director David Gordon Green maybe attached.

Firestarter

Status: Script

This new adaptation of the Stephen King novel has been kicking about since 2010 but there has been some movement recently. Zac Efron has been cast in an as yet undisclosed role and Blum has promised a “faithful” adaptation. At one point Akiva Goldsman was attached to direct, then later Fatih Akin but as things currently stand The Vigil director Keith Thomas is the frame to re-tell this story about a young girl with the telekinetic power to set things on fire. There was a previous adap of this story released in 1984 starring Drew Barrymore and directed by Mark L. Lester, with a miniseries Firestarter: Rekindled broadcast on the sci-fi channel in 2002, so this sits within remake territory.

Untitled Elizabeth Moss Project

Status: Pitch

This is a proposed adaptation of Virginia Feito’s novel, Mrs. March, with Moss producing and set to star. The novel will be published in 2021 and has been likened to Shirley Jackson. According to the synopsis it follows an upper Eastside housewife “who unravels when she begins to suspect the detestable protagonist of her husband’s latest bestselling novel is based on her”. Moss’s Love and Squalor productions with partner with Blumhouse on the project

Also in development:

Blumhouse has a multitude of other projects at different stages of development many of which likely won’t ever see the light of day. Here what else has been mooted.

Mark Duplass in Creep

Creep 3

Status: Development unknown

Third part of the Mark Duplass/Patrick Brice series – reached script stage, last updated Dec 2016

Curse 

Status: Optioned

Werewolf story based on a graphic novel, optioned April 2018

Devil’s Night

Status: Development unknown

Night before Halloween story, reached script stage, last updated July 2017

Families 

Status: Development unknown

Cannibal horror, reached script stage in 2015, last updated January 2017

Fangland 

Status: Development unknown

Dracula as an arms dealer. Script in 2009, last updated March 2017.

Intruders

Status: Script

Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola is attached to write and direct this domestic abuse thriller, last updated May 2018.

Read more

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Invasion

Development unknown

A home invasion occurs at the same time as an Alien invasion. Script as of March 2018, last updated July 2020

M3GAN 

Status: Script

Housebound director Gerard Johnstone is attached to this story about a robot doll who develops sentience, with Get Out’s Allison Williams attached. It reached the script stage in July 2018, but no news since.

Magic Eight Ball 

Status: Script

This project about the kids’ toy has been kicking around since 2006 with the latest version of the script listed as June 2019. Currently Jeff Wadlow of Fantasy Island is attached

Sleepwalker 

Status: Script

Alexander Aja who made Switchblade Romance is listed as attached to this, though there’s been no update since September 2017

Snapshot 1988

Status: Optioned

Mike Flanagan was attached to this adaptation of a Joe Hill story, though nothing’s been updated since 2016

The Black Phone

Status: Treatment

Another planned adaptation of a Joe Hill story, with Scott Derrickson attached. No updates since the treatment in 2017 though.

The Breathing Method 

Status: Development unknown

The only story from Stephen King anthology Different Seasons not to be turned into a movie, Scott Derrickson was also attached to this, but there’s been no movement for years with the last update in May 2017.

Untitled Chris Hardwick/Blumhouse Project

Status: Pitch

Collab with comedian and actor Hardwick, no news since October 2017

Untitled Dee Rees Horror Project

Status: Treatment

Collab with Mudbound director, Rees, described as “ghost story centering on an African-American lesbian couple living in a small town”. No news since May 2017.

Untitled Jason Blum/Chris Morgan Project

Status: Script

This collaboration with producer Chris Morgan has been around since 2013, with the latest update April 2017. The synopsis reads “A group of students get in over their heads with their new technological invention.”

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[mc-slowwalker]

currently watching punz’s mcc vod and have not gotten an ad so far so there is that

ikr??!? like their system is just so bad. I love learning, I love knowledge and knowing stuff but gosh. also half my lecturers are just not good. like all they do is read off the slides like I can do that myself :/ :(

oh god know I could never be an updates account. I don’t even know how they get half their information like how does one figure out that dream commented on some random tik tok??? I meant that I’ve been a person that has seen a tweet feom an updates account that dream is on some stream and gone to that stream. yeah I never know what’s going on cause I never have the energy to catch up with stuff I’ve missed but also I have this like need to know everything so I just have like half the information. I don’t even know how dts work on twt. like sometimes they tell people to off themselves in qrts/replies or like dm them probably too, which is so, so shitty. but yeah it’s kinda laughable how they have to censor all the words. but yeah no dts are not cool in the slightest. I’ve never gotten any of that because for the most part I have a very limited online presence and like I wouldn’t get to worried by it or anything but it’s such a shitty thing to do. god the kaveytfon thing was so ughh. and all I saw of it was clips and summary threads. yeah I get that. it’s a bit annoying cause some of my irls are gamer nerds that dislike dream cause “he cheated,” “he scripts manhunts,” “he’s bad at the game,” “he encourages his toxic stans,” and some other “anti” arguments. but what can you do. like I was just talking about minecraft once and one of them was like “oh but he so cheated” like yeah dude we’re well past that now these days we’re shitting on dream for making questionable sounds on a discord podcast /j. yeah like 100% I know dream can handle it and his friends will back him if needed I just feel really sad for him sometimes. maybe it’s just me cause I sometimes have annoyingly emotional reactions to things unnecessarily. bbh popped off with that one tweet on main.

nah we just say uni here and I didn’t know if you also said uni in america or just college. ohhh I see. we just say uni here. ohh that makes sense. and that’s pretty handy! here the only subjects I’m required to do are any that could be a possible prereqs for any major that I may choose to do. a friend of mine who is now going to college in america is doing spanish too! haha yeah my english language teacher once said something about it like two years ago and it’s never left my head ever since.

brooo no,, beets are good!! well not always but I like them in one specific sandwich that I used to have for lunch in school when I was in yr10. but they’re definitely a great plot point. ughhh I 100% agree with the silly lore stuff. it’s so fun and I love it but all the fandom does is whine. like first they’re like “oh I miss silly lore” and then they’ll get silly lore and be like oh not like that. I will never forgive people for writing of l’sandburg. I was asleep for most of it but it was still great. so true!! that was jack manifold right? smartness man ever. everything that ever happens on the dream smp is canon, there is not “semi lore” or “just a bit.” I add the “bit” argument because I’ve seen it used to excuse some c!actions recently. lmaoo yeha like I enjoy high production lore especially if they’re passionate about it but there’s just something about silly minecraft roleplay that I love. like when I first joined the fandom, it was through animatics and then watching the actual streams was so different but in a good way

no we haven’t!! it’s on the list of stuff we still don’t know about. glad to know you agree that enderwalk and c!dream and best friends. idk much about ballsmp but it looks fun and 3rd like looks cool tok like I’ve seen artwork and it interests me. and I really wanna get into hermit craft. if I do with any of them it’ll probably be hermitcraft. wait I do not know about that but that’s absolutely hilarious. I may just not remember cause I feel like I do know about it but my memory is unbelievably shoddy.

oh hahahaa I was asleep for that bit but I heard about it lol. ahahahah george and sapnap just there after dream just leaves is so funny. never fails to make me laugh/not laugh when dream just leaves that quickly. dreams been on a roll since like mcc like he’s done so much. liek today he was even on bads stream playing gartic phone !! I missed it live cause I was busy but imma watch the vod now!

alright I’ve just gotten through like the half of punz’s mcc vod that I had left and not a single ad so woooo for that!

Yooo pay to win actually wins!

Lectures are a bitch I keep falling asleep in them!! Which is bad because I always decide to try and sit up front to show dominance but I keep falling asleep

Oooh sorry I thought you meant that you ran one. Yeah no how tf to they do it??? Everything ccs do seems so fucking random??? Also my brother hates dream not because he cheated but because his fan base is bad? The only fan base you know ya little shit is me step up fucker. I am emotionally attached to dream so I understand

Calling it university isn’t super common here and I don’t think most americans even know the difference. Honesty it’s more about what the school calls itself, so like theres Harvard University & Bowdoin College but you mainly refer to them by their names anyways.

No all beets are bad and I will take 0 criticism on this they’re bad in real life and they’re bad in minecraft!!! Did I forget to add that jack manifold said that I was pretty tired when I wrote it and kinda gave up my b akjdkd. Animatics are banger but they’re just 3 times more banger when they have to be taken out of context. I just started watching 3rd life from grian’s pov and I’m enjoying it so much! The idea is super interesting also big fan of any game that has proximety chat

I miss the garlic phone thing! I had a busy day but I wanna watch it after jack & scott ylyl

[emilymaesar]

The Nerdicon

When I was in college, my friends and I started a nerd and pop culture website where we wrote articles and reviews (and had a podcast!) Here are some excerpts (and links) to some of my favorite pieces.

The Swinging Pendulum: Hannibal, Fannibals, and Bryan Fuller (June 24th, 2013)

Hannibal Lecter is one of the most well-known fictional characters of all time. Thomas Harris will go down in history for changing crime novels, crime stories, and for creating the popular culture’s need for serial killers. Bryan Fuller will go down in history for creating some of the most beloved television series about death, the after life, and food. All of which were tragically cut short. Hannibal,however, has been renewed for a second season on NBC, something which Bryan Fuller was actually pretty sure about (x).

But what does season two mean for the story of Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham? Well, personally, I think we’re going to see the reverse of what happened in the finale. Fuller said that Will Graham is going to be scrappier because now he has nothing to lose and everything to gain. We’re going to see Will’s dark side. According to Fuller’s timeline (x) season four of Hannibal is going to be the story of The Silence of the Lambs, but that doesn’t mean that Lecter’s going to jail right before that storyline begins. Dr. Lecter was in the institution for a few years before Will Graham goes to visit him about the Tooth Fairy.

Sitting at a Round Table: Merlin in Retrospect (January 9th, 2013)

Never could I ever write nearly as much insightful commentary about the legend of King Arthur as there already is. There are people who have dedicated their lives to studying the Once and Future King with his duel kingdoms. I can, however, talk about King Arthur as a life-long fan of the legends. I’ve always been an Arthurian girl – and I always will be. There’s something amazing and inspiring about the legends of Arthur and his knights. Whether it’s uniting a nation with Lancelot, or even the quest for the Holy Grail, Arthur will remain one the of the West’s greatest myths.

Because of that status, there are a lot of retellings of the great and mythic Arthur. Some are awful, some are great. And some are Merlin. More recent adaptations of the tale have taken the side of telling the story through the eyes of Merlin, the old wizard who sometimes helps, sometimes hurts, but is always there. There is no true tale of Arthur without Merlin.

And that’s where Merlin comes in.

-----

We also did a Joss Whedon retrospective period, where I did a few pieces I’m still pretty happy with:

A Brief Life Before Buffy: A Look at Pre-Vampire Joss Whedon (February 5th, 2013)

Hello friends! This particular article is going to be painfully short, and I’m sorry about that. It just so happens that Joss’s career before Buffy Summers came along was less “Joss Whedon” than we’d like to admit. It was filled with working on a TV staff, working as a script doctor, and writing animated films (or at least doing the stories).

I Cannot Believe My Eyes: A Retrospective of the Quest to Dr. Horrible (March 20th, 2013)

The 2007-2008 television year was a dark time. Well, for some people. For fans it meant that there weren’t going to be new episodes, but for the writers it meant that the future of contracts would yield so much more. That being said, the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike hit like a storm that we, as fans, didn’t really predict. Or at least I didn’t because I was fourteen and I didn’t pay attention to the industry the way I do now.

Had Joss Whedon had a show on television at the time, though, he would have had the same problem that 120 other “hyphenates” had. Joss is a showrunner – meaning he’s both head writer and executive producer. He, quite literally, runs his shows. The WGA strike causes a lot of conflicts because head writers were striking as writers, but they were still contractually obligated to work as executive producers. Whedon, however, wasn’t running a show.

Signing a Contract to Be a Slave: Dollhouse in Retrospection (April 5th, 2013)

Dollhouse. How do we even begin to talk about Dollhouse? It might be the most ambitious of all of Joss Whedon’s shows, and, while it is deeply flawed, it’s also one of the most interesting.

Let it never be said that Joss Whedon doesn’t follow the adage “go big or go home.” He’s a man of many big ideas and some of them are way ahead of their time. Firefly and Dollhouse fall into that category. They are both shows that, at their cores, are about consent and slavery. They’re both shows about what consent means and the different ways that slavery is presented in a culture. And for those reasons, they are both shows that were streets ahead.

As It Ever Was: The Cabin in the Woods in Retrospect (April 8th, 2013)

The Cabin in the Woods isn’t your typical horror film. Well…it is, but it also isn’t. I’m gonna put a spolier warning on this article – just in case. If you haven’t seen Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s groundbreaking entry into the ever growing genre of horror, then you should. It truly is a cross-genre masterpiece. Not since Scream has the horror genre been so utterly flipped on its head, and beautiful so.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Five friends go to a cabin in the woods…

I read a review for The Cabin in the Woods when it originally came out. It was a spoiler-free review, because it’s one of those films that you don’t want to ruin for people. It’s just too amazing. It’s a film you wish you could erase from your memory – so you can experience seeing it again for the first time. Although I can’t remember which review it was (dammit), the article said something I stillstand by: How you feel about the official summary of the film will determine how you feel about the film as a whole. The official summary is this, “Five friends go to a remote cabin in the woods. Bad things happen.” That might be the greatest description of this film ever, and the reviewer agreed. If you don’t love that summary, then I don’t think The Cabin in the Woods is the film for you.

[encyclopedia-dramatica]

ED Interviews: The Ben Garrison  (  @GrrrGraphics ) Interview

crackrabbit ( for ED) : First off, you probably get asked this a lot, but can you tell us about how you started drawing and painting? Ben Garrison: I started writing stories when I was in the 5th grade. Then I began illustrating them with little cartoons. I enjoyed drawing stuff for classmates--caricatures and such. I would draw caricatures of my teachers. One time I drew one of a rather brusque math teacher in the 9th grade. He snuck up on me and grabbed the drawing. I thought I was in big trouble, but he loved it and put it up on the bulletin board. By the time I was in high school I started painting. That's when I knew what I wanted to be in life--a fine artist. I studied painting in college, although I have a BA and not a BFA. My wife Tina has a BFA and she was a better cartoonist than me when I met her. I've gotten better since. After I graduated, I got a job at a newspaper and I became a graphic artist instead. I still draw complex information graphics for corporate clients. Political cartooning was a just a sideline when i started drawing them in 2009. I did not expect any fame or money. In fact, they cost me a lot in terms of a smeared reputation and a resulting loss of commercial work.
 crackrabbit ( for ED) : Do you ever listen to music in the background while creating your art? If so (and even if not) what kind of music do you enjoy?

Ben Garrison: Yes. I listen to classical music 90 percent of the time. Some of my darker and more complex cartoons were drawn while listening to Shostakovich symphonies in particular. I like everything he has written, but his Fourth through Eleventh ones in particular--each one is a masterpiece. To me it's a shame that young people aren't listening to the greatest music ever written. Instead they subject their ear drums to heavy metal, rap, hip hop and other trash. I encourage them to listen to classical music because it will connect them to the sublime. I also like early jazz music, old Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra tunes as well as some old standards from that bygone era. If any of your readers want to start with an easy to understand classical music introductory piece, I suggest Mozart's Symphony No. 39. It never fails to put me in a good mood.

crackrabbit ( for ED) : A lot of people on the so-called altright (which includes the new right , or alt-lite as some call it) like to spend free time reading political/philosophy books. Do you ever have time to read books, with all the work you do; and if so, what kind of books do you like and/or recommend?

Ben Garrison: I consider myself to be a libertarian cartoonist and not part of the 'alt right.' I don't have time to read all the books I want to read. I like reading books on history a lot. I minored in history when I was in college. Victor Davis Hanson is one of my favorite history writers. Most recently I finished a book titled "The Problem With Socialism" by Thomas DiLorenzo. I highly recommend it to everyone. I just started a book about my favorite president, "Andrew Jackson," written by H.W. Brands. I don't read a lot of fiction, but a friend gave me "All the Light We Cannot See," by Anthony Doerr and that was pretty good.

crackrabbit ( for ED) : You’ve appeared on INFOWARS/Alex Jones Show a bit over the last two years. How did that come about?

Ben Garrison: I listened to Alex a lot when I first began drawing the cartoons and many of my ideas were inspired directly from some of the things he said. He speaks very colorfully and uses a lot of metaphors that conjure up vivid imagery. I was very angry at him when his divorce was announced and I found out he was a multi-millionaire. I definitely heard him say that he wasn't a millionaire and that most of the money went back into his operations. I was angry that he was hanging out with that scum bag Charlie Sheen for a while, too. Mostly, lot of my anger sprang from regret, because for a while he had guests on such as Max Kaiser and many others who were predicting $500 per ounce silver. It was during this time that I drew a lot of pro-silver cartoons.

I went 'all in' on silver including getting leveraged with silver futures and I got wiped out in 2011 when JP Morgan illegally colluded to short massive amounts of the metal. I should have invested in Bitcoin instead. Now silver is in a protracted bear market, but in retrospect it wasn't Alex's fault and I forgave him. He does deserve to be a millionaire for his years of hard work and waking people up. My financial destruction couldn't have come at a worst time though, because the trolling was at its worst when I was struggling the most. It was hard to find commercial work when search engines summoned up horrific defamation.

Anyway, with the help of my wife Tina we began righting the ship in 2015 and the presidential election in 2016 helped us turn things around. Now I'm close to being able to make a living from cartooning alone. The trolls no longer concern me, although I still despise Andrew Anglin. His troll army helped get me kicked out of the art gallery I was in because they harassed the owner. I'm glad to see someone with the means is going after him for libel and harassment, even though I was disappointed to see the guys at WeSearchr lending him a hand financially. He certainly doesn't deserve it.

I've been on the Alex Jones three times now. It's fast-paced and I have no idea in advance what I'll be asked, so I have to think fast on my feet. I don't claim to have any special talent for public speaking. Mostly I'm content to let him talk. He's a professional and an entertainer. I think he does believe in what he's doing and he's helped us a lot. I've been on many other radio shows and podcasts and those platforms have allowed me more time to sort out my thoughts, but even still I'm mostly a ranter. I never use a script.

crackrabbit ( for ED) : In the image (that i have saved) of your iconic “March of Tyranny” cartoon, there are pencils visible. Do you usually pencil then ink your cartoons, or what is the production process? Ben Garrison:Yeah, I pencil my cartoons in on a large piece of quality 3-ply illustration paper and then ink them in by hand. "The March of Tyranny" was drawn in about three hours with a 'Sharpie' pen and it was drawn rather small. I don't draw them like that any more, but back then I didn't think I'd get many viewers, so I didn't spend a lot of time crafting them. A lot of my earlier cartoons were dashed out quickly.

crackrabbit ( for ED) : Tell me about your fine art paintings.. What paint mediums do you work in most? And what painters are influences on you?

Ben Garrison: In a perfect world I wouldn't be cartooning at all--I'd be working on paintings. I enjoy that the most. I use oil on canvas and a local carpenter here frames them for me--he uses 100 year-old barn wood which gives the paintings a unique western flair. I like Picasso even though he was a monster in his personal life. I also admire the work of DeKooning a great deal. He was a genius. Yes, I know a lot of people consider modern art to be 'degenerate' but they're wrong. I think what they object to is 'conceptual art,' which consists of existential, post-modern exhibition type stuff and I agree it's boring and bad. crackrabbit ( for ED) : What are your thoughts about how the libertarian movement has changed over the past 2-3 decades? Ben Garrison: Libertarians were dealt a setback with the tongue poking Gary Johnson. He hurt the movement. Johnson is a liberal who wants pot legalized. That's it. He apparently smoked too many harvests because he couldn't even name one world leader he admired, even though as governor of New Mexico he must have worked with Mexican leaders such as Vicente Fox. Regardless, I'm a Libertarian because it's the best means to push back against an ever-growing leviathan government. Sure, it may be a waste of time but as Rhett Butler said, "Maybe it's because I've always had a weakness for lost causes." crackrabbit ( for ED) : Where did ya learn to put so much detail into every section of your cartoon pieces?

Ben Garrison: I've always put a lot of detail in my work and when I started out my cartoons were over-worked and chalk full of obsessive detail. I've actually simplified things now. Some people hate what I do, but many more like looking for the little hidden Easter eggs in the detail. The last cartoon I drew featured a small cockroach on Hillary's hamburger of corruption. Nobody saw it. I'm an old man now and my style is pretty much fixed. I will still try to get better, but some want me to draw in an animé style and so forth. I don't think so! Someone wrote me and said I had a lot of work to do...he said my inking was bad, my color theory was terrible and I'd never be a 'professional.' Well, I've made my living via art for nearly 40 years now. I'm thinking that makes me a professional. I've also sold a good number of my latest cartoon collection book. Still, harsh criticism comes with the territory. Some people think my cartoons are the best ever and some think they're the worst ever. As long as I'm getting their attention and drawing memorable things, then I'll consider them to be successful.

Encyclopedia Dramatica would liek 2 thank Ben for the opportunity to interview him.

Ben’s work can be found, viewed and even purchased at grrrgraphics.com . If you want to buy his designs on shirts you can go to https://teespring.com/stores/grrrgraphics-t-shirts . Finally, feel free to help support Ben on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/grrrgraphics .

[man-creates-dinosaurs]

Next week marks the home video release of KONG: SKULL ISLAND (2017, Dir. Jordan Vogt-Roberts) and to celebrate I’m going to be posting an updated version of an article I originally wrote for Kevin Derendorf’s fantastic blog Maser Patrol back in March in anticipation of KONG: SKULL ISLAND’s then impending theatrical release. As recounted on the KONG: SKULL ISLAND episode of the Maser Patrol Podcast (on which I also appeared), Kevin originally asked me to write something for the blog on account that I was currently teaching a course on King Kong and Western History and Culture. Initially I was unsure of what I could contribute until the subject of Delos W. Lovelace’s 1932 novelization of the original KING KONG (1933, Dir. Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack) was broached. Having long been fascinated with the novelization of King Kong for reasons which should quickly become apparent I set to work writing an admittedly lengthy essay outlining both the history of the novelization’s conception and publication as well as the major differences between it and the final theatrical film. This proved to be a rewarding experience since shortly after the publication of my article I was contacted by Ernest Farino of Archive Editions LLC; the publisher of Mike Hankin’s exhaustively researched 3-volume series Ray Harryhausen - Master of Majicks, the first volume of which had proven an important source when researching the history of Lovelace’s King Kong novelization. Ernest was kind enough to share with me some incredibly rare and hard to come by documents and information regarding the different prose versions of King Kong that have been printed over the years as a result I have updated this essay to reflect, what are for me, new discoveries. This updated version of my essay is also coming into existence in a post-KONG: SKULL ISLAND world. When I originally wrote this article I had no idea that an exhaustive essay on the 1932 novelization of the original KING KONG would be so relevant to this latest Kong film, but it was, and so again this essay has been updated to reflect that. With all this out of the way here is…. KING KONG (1932) THE DELOS W. LOVELACE NOVELIZATION (2nd Ed.) Though often considered ‘junk literature,’ movie novelizations – that is, novels based on film scripts – remain a popular and lucrative part of the modern American literary landscape. According to Randall D. Larson’s authoritative book Film Into Books: An Analytical Bibliography of Film Novelizations, Movie and TV Tie-Ins, novelizations are as old as the cinema itself. Historically studios commissioned novelizations as another way of drumming up advance publicity for a film, as well as to provide their movie with a more erudite air at a time when films were still seen as a gimmick by many and not deserving of the same cultural status as books. Also in the days before home video and television, novelizations served as a way for people to revisit a beloved film. Today novelizations remain popular because they often provide fans with a more complete version of a particular story then what can be found in the two-hour runtime of a film. Characters that only got a few words in edgewise can monologue for pages, and various bits of narrative minutia can be expanded upon at length. And because novelizations have to be written well in advance of the film itself being finished, novelizations will often contain deleted or alternate versions of certain scenes not found in the theatrical release.

With regards to Delos W. Lovelace’s 1932 novelization of the 1933 version of King Kong, all of the above is true and then some, because part of what makes Lovelace’s novelization of the original King Kong so interesting is not just the more fully fleshed out characters or the numerous scenes found within the book but not the film, but the fact that Lovelace’s novelization is one of the very few which has never gone out of print – at least not for long. Casualties of their very nature, most movie novelizations are printed once, sold briefly and then disappear entirely; only to pop-up later on the collector’s market where they go for exorbitant prices. Only a lucky few – such as the novelizations for the original Star Wars Trilogy or Alan Dean Foster’s novelization of Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) – stay in print perpetually. Lovelace’s King Kong is one of these.

King Kong was originally published in 1932 by Grosset & Dunlap and genuine first editions are identifiable thanks to a typo on the dust jacket where the word “by” is repeated twice (see above image). After this the novel briefly fell out of print until 1965 when it was reprinted by Bantam Books, followed by Ace Books in 1976 with a cover by legendary fantasy painter Frank Frazetta. That same year King Kong was also reissued by Albin Michel, Tempo Books and its original publisher Grosset & Dunlap this time with the later two featuring accompanying interior illustrations by artist Richard Powers. The following year Grosset & Dunlap reissued the book again as did publishers Arthur Barker, Futura and Otava. King Kong then briefly falls out of publication again until 2005 when Grosset & Dunlap reissue the novelization. That same year King Kong is also inducted into the prestigious Modern Library series, with this being the version still on the commercial market today. This edition features a new preface by Cooper biographer Mark Cotta Vaz and an introductory essay by noted sci-fi author Greg Bear, whose 1998 novel Dinosaur Summer – a sequel to Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World set in the early 1950s  – I would be remise to not mention here only because it features Merian C. Cooper, Ernest Schoedsack, Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen as strong supporting characters.

Undoubtedly much of the King Kong novelization’s success is owed to its author, Delos W. Lovelace, whose clear, crisp prose and taut pacing make the book an exciting and fast read. However, over the years there has been some confusion as to who exactly Mr. Lovelace was, with some even assuming that he was actually a pseudonym for either best-selling mystery writer Edgar Wallace or director Merian C. Cooper whose names also routinely appear on the novelization’s cover. To clarify this issue, Cooper originally hired Edgar Wallace to write the initial story treatment for King Kong and had also planned to hire him on as the writer of the novelization. However this was not to be as Wallace succumbed to pneumonia complicated by undiagnosed diabetes and died shortly after Cooper hired him and before he could contribute – to quote Cooper himself – “one bloody word” to King Kong. However out of respect to Wallace, and out of a less respectful desire to exploit the late author’s brand name, Cooper gave Wallace story credit on both the film and novelization anyway and also authorized for an abridged version of the novelization to be run in the February and March 1933 installments of Mystery magazine; the publication where much of Wallace’s work had seen print. This Mystery magazine version was simply titled Kong and was published under Wallace’s name alone though it was actually written by Walter F. Ripperger. Cooper then hired his old friend, journalist turned short-story writer Delos W. Lovelace to pen the actual novelization. Cooper had roomed with Lovelace in college and both men worked together as journalists for The Minneapolis Daily News in 1916. As a result Lovelace became the natural candidate to transform Cooper’s movie into a book. Lovelace was paid a total of $600 for his work on the novelization – a significant sum of money in the 1930s – with a contract signed for royalties up to $1,500, after which amount all profits would be split equally between Lovelace and the other “authors”; i.e. Cooper. According to researcher Ray Morton, Lovelace based his novelization off of screenwriter Ruth Rose’s first draft of the King Kong screenplay, which was itself a revised version of the screenplay penned by screenwriter James Creelman who had rewritten Wallace’s initial story treatment. As a result Lovelace’s novelization contains several scenes, a good bit of dialogue and a few more superficial details not found in the final theatrical version of King Kong released in 1933.           

Since it is these alternative bits of info which are most likely of interest to readers of this article who have themselves not read Lovelace’s novelization, the remainder of this essay will list the major differences found between the 1932 novelization and the 1933 film version – which I am assuming all readers are thoroughly familiar with. As a final note, there are conflicting reports as to what the legal status of Lovelace’s novelization actually is. Some sources claim that the novel is now in public domain while others dispute this while still other sources say that it is the Mystery magazine version which is public domain while yet others claim it is both. Whatever the case may be one thing is clear and that is that Lovelace’s novelization has proven a source for every major remake, reboot and adaptation of King Kong to come along since the original 1933 film was released. This includes Dino De Laurentiis and John Guillermin’s 1976 King Kong remake, as well as Peter Jackson’s 2005 version and the most recent iteration; Jordan Vogt-Robert’s Kong: Skull Island which is part of Legendary Picture’s MonsterVerse. In addition, both Gold Key and Monster Comics – an imprint of Fantagraphics Books – have produced comic book versions of King Kong based on Lovelace’s novelization in 1968 and 1991 respectively. There have also been animated versions of King Kong as well including 1998’s The Mighty Kong and an episode of the 1990 animated series Alvin and the Chipmunks Go to the Movies, among others, which have clearly used Lovelace’s novelization as a source of inspiration. As a result I have made notes in the following of when and where elements of the King Kong novelization turn up in other Kong media…      

·         A Ship by Any Other Name: In Lovelace’s novelization the ship Denham and co. take to Kong’s island is the Wanderer, not the Venture as in the movie. In Kong: Skull Island, a ship called the Wanderer is found in the native village where it has been converted into a shrine for Kong. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts has said that this was done so as to suggest that some variation of the storyline from the original 1933 film was cannon with Legendary Picture’s MonsterVerse.  

·         Denham, Who?: Actor Robert Armstrong played movie mogul Carl Denham in the 1933 film, but in Lovelace’s 1932 novelization the character is just called Denham with no first name. This is one of the surest signs that you’re dealing with a Kong adaptation that is using the novel as its basis and includes both the 1968 and 1991 King Kong comic adaptations and 1998’s The Mighty Kong.

·         The Wanderer’s Crew: Other than Englehorn and Jack we don’t get to know much of the ship’s crew in the 1933 King Kong film. But in Lovelace’s novelization we are introduced to two additional characters; Jimmy and Lumpy. Lumpy is a veteran sailor who spends his time hanging out with a pet monkey named Ignatz. Lumpy never ventures into the interior of Kong’s island and so survives his time there. Jimmy, on the other hand, is a cabin boy who volunteers to go with the first wave of men after Ann and who carries the backpack full of gas bombs smuggled onto the island by Denham. Jimmy later dies in the Spider-Pit. Both of these characters are featured in Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of King Kong with Jimmy being portrayed by actor Jamie Bell and Lumpy by actor Andy Serkis who pulled double duty as the motion-capture actor for Kong. In Jackson’s version Lumpy dies in the Spider-Pit while Jimmy survives but is badly injured by Kong. Jimmy also pops up in 1998’s The Mighty Kong now with a pet monkey named Chip.

·         Ann and Jack’s Backstory: Like the rest of the characters we learn only the scantest details about our principal protagonists Ann Darrow and Jack Driscoll in the 1933 film. Lovelace’s novelization fleshes these two out telling us that Ann was raised on a farm and loss her parent’s at a young age. The money left to her was entrusted to an uncle until she came of age, but her uncle squandered the money leaving Ann destitute and in New York searching for work. Likewise we learn that Jack ran away from home to avoid going to college, became a sailor and later reconciled with his mother – though she disapproves of his association with a known risk-taker like Denham.    

·         Love in the Crow’s Nest: In the 1933 film Jack confesses his love to Ann on the desk of the ship, but in Lovelace’s novelization he does it up in the ship’s crow’s nest – which is a far more atmospheric and romantic image.

·         Skull Mountain Island: Though it may come as a surprise to many, Kong’s home is never actually called “Skull Island” in the original 1933 film. Nor is it called this, per se, in Lovelace’s novelization where it is instead referred to as “Skull Mountain Island.” The name Skull Island appears to go back to Kingsley Long’s serialized version of the King Kong story (to be discussed in more detail below) but it is not until 1976 that the name Skull Island appears in association with any official King Kong merchandise, in this case the John Barry soundtrack for the Dino De Laurentiis and John Guillermin remake; though again the island itself is never called this in the actual film. Since then Kong’s home has been unambiguously referred to as Skull Island in all other movies. 

·         Racism: As a franchise King Kong has a poor track record when it comes to depictions of both people of color and indigenous cultures. Lovelace’s novelization is no exception here, though it does fair better in some ways and worse in others. For one Charlie the racially insensitive comic relief Chinese cook from the 1933 film – and its sequel Son of Kong – is nowhere to be found. The Skull Mountain Island natives however are still the same lamentable stereotypes with Lovelace contributing a few cringe worthy lines regarding both the white explorers “racial superiority” and how “primitive minds” find the act of thinking especially difficult. Lovelace also chooses to repeatedly emphasize the whiteness of Ann’s skin to a point that it becomes apparent he is attempting to make a link between white skin, virginal innocence and moral purity – ideas which have a long history of problematic racial and sexual connotations.

·         The Protagonists Figure out What Kong is Before Ever Seeing Him: After their initial encounter with the natives of Skull Mountain Island, Denham, Jack and Ann return to Englehorn’s cabin and try to make sense out of the mysterious ritual they’ve just seen. Knowing that the native girl they saw was intended as the bride of Kong the four attempt to figure out just what Kong is leading to the following exchange…

“But even agreeing to all this,” Englehorn puzzled, “I haven’t yet any clear idea of what Kong is.”

“I have,” Denham said with abrupt conviction. “That wall wasn’t built against any pintsized danger. There were a dozen proxy bridegrooms because only with so many could the natives approximate the size of the creature which was getting the sacrifices. And those gorilla skins that the dancers wore didn’t mean that Kong is a gorilla by a long shot. If he’s really there, he’s a brute big enough to use a gorilla for a medicine ball.”

“But there never was such a beast!” Ann laughed uncertainly. “At least not since prehistoric times.” Denham shifted in his seat to stare.

“Holy Mackerel!” he whispered. “I wonder if you’ve hit it, Ann?

”“Rot!” Discroll exploded. Englehorn shook an unbelieving head…

“Why shouldn’t such an out-of-the-way spot be just the place to find a solitary, surviving prehistoric freak?” [Denham’s] eyes flashed. “Holy Mackerel! If we find the brute, what a picture!”

·         Triceratops in the Asphalt Pit: Marian C. Cooper met Willis O’Brien while the later was at work on never-to-be-completed ‘Lost World’ picture Creation. At the time the only sequence from Creation which O’Brien had committed to film was a brief scene in which a hunter shoots and kills a baby triceratops, enraging its parents who proceed to chase the vandal down and gore him to death. Cooper had originally intended to make use of this footage and O’Brien’s triceratops models in a sequence following the crew of the Wanderer’s narrow escape from the lagoon dwelling brontosaurus. In Lovelace’s novelization the men catch up with Kong who is embroiled in a fight with a trio of triceratopses in an asphalt pit with Kong lobbing boulders at his dinosaur adversaries. Kong escapes the enraged dinosaurs that then turn their attention to the men and give chase, killing one, while the rest are forced onto a log leading across a ravine where they encounter Kong on the other side. It’s not clear at what point this sequence was cut from the 1933 film but it seems to have been fairly late and after having gone through several variations including one where the triceratops would be replaced by a prehistoric rhino – arsinoitherium – and another in which they were replaced by a different horned dinosaur; styracosaurus. Early publicity photos of the iconic log sequence exist showing the styracosaurus on the one side of the ravine and Kong on the other. Some, like Peter Jackson, believe a version of this scene, like the infamous ‘lost’ Spider-Pit sequence, may have even been shot and then deleted. Variations on this sequence show up in both the 1968 and 1991 King Kong comic adaptations. In the 1968 comic Kong battles a pair of triceratops while a styracosaurus chases the men across the log. The 1991 comic has Kong facing off against a whole heard of different ceratopsian dinosaurs and a random ankylosaurus(!) In 1998’s The Mighty Kong the stegosaurus the sailors initially encounter in the 1933 film is replaced with a lone ceratopian, anticipating Peter Jackson by seven years. A triceratops skull is also featured prominently in the mass grave seen in Kong: Skull Island, which director Jordan Vogt-Roberts says was done to indicate that while dinosaurs did once exist on Skull Island that by the 1970s they are all long dead.   

·         The Spider-Pit Sequence: Undoubtedly the most celebrated deleted-scene of all time is the infamous Spider-Pit sequence. Conceived early on in the 1933 film’s development this sequence would have taken place immediately after Kong knocks the remaining sailor off the log into the ravine. The sailors – most of whom are still alive – would have awakened to find themselves besieged by various giant arachnids, insects, lizards and other assorted monstrosities who lurk at the bottom of the ravine. Behind-the-scenes photos from the 1933 film show that the set and models for the scene were constructed but to this day debate rages over whether or not they were ever actually employed with many fans holding out hope that they were and that the deleted scene has survived the ravages of time locked away somewhere in an unmarked film canister waiting to be rediscovered. This sequence however definitely shows up in Lovelace’s novelization and is just as chilling as anyone might hope. It also shows up in 1991 King Kong comic adaptation and, of course, in Peter Jackson’s 2005 film. Jackson also commissioned a period-accurate reconstruction of the original Spider-Pit sequence which is included as a special feature on all current Blu-ray and most DVD releases of the original King Kong. Spiders are, of course, not the only denizens of the Spider-Pit and one of these beasts did make it into the 1933 film. This is a strange two-legged lizard which climbs up the side of the ravine in an attempt to get Jack. Identified as a fictitious “polysauro” in the Draycott Montagu Dell version of the King Kong story (to be discussed in more detail below) this creature also served as the principal inspiration for the Skull Crawler kaijū in Kong: Skull Island.    

·         Kong vs. a Giant Snake (Maybe?): Following his fight with the tyrannosaurus, Kong reaches his mountain lair where he encounters another foe lying in wait. Based on Lovelace’s description it’s not entirely clear what this creature is supposed to be though it is described as “serpentine” leading many subsequent artists and filmmakers to conclude that it is a giant snake. This includes most notably Dino De Laurentiis and John Guillermin in their 1976 King Kong remake as well as the artists for the 1968 and 1991 comic book adaptations, 1998’s The Mighty Kong and even the “Kong!” episode of the 1990 animated series Alvin and the Chipmunks Go to the Movies. In the 1933 film version of this sequence the creature Kong battles is actually an elasmosaurus; albeit an admittedly snake-like one.    

·         Escape from Kong’s Lair: In the 1933 film Ann and Jack escape from Kong’s lair by attempting to shimmy down a vine dangling over a cliff. When this doesn’t work the two jump into a pool of water below. In Lovelace’s novelization, however, Ann and Jack escape by diving down into the pool inside Kong’s cave – the same pool the giant snake had been hiding in – and swimming through an underwater tunnel and that spits them out over the adjacent waterfall. The two then swim down river until reaching the lagoon where the crew of the Wanderer previously encountered the angry brontosaurus and then running the rest of the way back to the native village.

·         Kong Caged: Lovelace describes Kong as being shackled to the floor inside a large cage when he is presented to the public as part of Denham’s show, as oppose to the now iconic crucifixion pose from the 1933 film. Both the 1968 comic adaptation and Dino De Laurentiis and John Guillermin’s 1976 King Kong remake share the cage imagery.    

·         Kong in New York: In Lovelace’s novelization Kong pursues Ann and Jack into the lobby of the hotel where Jack is staying which is across the street from the theater – Ann had the good sense to get a room nine blocks away – where a security guard opens fire on the beast-god with little effect. In the 1933 film Kong climbs the building searching for Ann and in one of the more horrific scenes finds another woman sleeping in bed. Thinking it may be Ann, Kong reaches inside of picks her up. When he realizes it is not he simply drops her to her death. In Lovelace’s novelization this moment still plays out but is surprisingly more terrifying since it occurs from Ann and Jack’s perspective who can only hear what is happening to the women in the room next door to them. Once Kong has Ann he escapes by climbing over various NYC rooftops until he reaches the Empire State Building. Unlike the 1933 film there is no sequence in which Kong destroys an elevated train.    

·         “It Was Beauty. As always, Beauty killed the Beast:” Denham still delivers a slightly wordier version of his famous last line in Lovelace’s novelization from atop the Empire State Building rather than on the ground next to Kong’s body as in the film.  

Lovelace’s novelization is not the only prose version of the original 1933 King Kong film to appear in print, though it is definitely the most accessible today. The aforementioned Mystery magazine version of the story has been reprinted in Mike Hankin’s Ray Harryhausen - Master of the Majicks Vol. 1: Beginnings and Endings. Forest J. Ackerman, founder of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine also later rewrote the Mystery magazine version when he serialized it in Issues #25-27 (Oct. 1963-March ’64) of his now legendary fanzine. Ackerman evidently felt that “many of the ‘good’ parts were left out” in this adaptation (he’s right, there’s no T. Rex fight for one) and so Ackerman took the liberty of adding them back in.

Hankin also reports that beginning in April of 1933 the London Dailey Herald ran a serialized version of King Kong over the course of 37 installments penned by journalist turned crime-fiction novelist Kingsley Long. Long’s version of the story – which is virtually impossible to come by today with one of the few extant copies kept under lock-and-key at The Special Collections Library at Brigham Young University – is told in a pseudo-documentary style; reporting on the events of King Kong as if they had actually happened. Hankin writes that Long’s adaptation not only fleshes out the principal characters more but also contains such intriguing additional information including the idea that “the origins of Kong and the Skull Island civilization” lie in Atlantis – an idea that crops up in Weta Workshop’s faux-field guide The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island and finds its fullest expression in the 2005 direct-to-DVD animated movie Kong: King of Atlantis – and reveals what happened to Kong’s body after his fall from the Empire State Building: Denham had it stuffed and mounted and charged folks to see it!

Yet another short-story version of the film appeared in the October 1933 issue of Cinema Weekly magazine where it was also credited to Edgar Wallace but actually written by Draycott Montague Dell. This adaptation was later reprinted in the 1988 book Movie Monsters published by Severn House and is now out-of-print, though it appears to be common throughout public libraries and used copies are not hard to track down. That same month this same version of the story also appeared in the juvenile publication Boys Magazine (Vol 23. No. 608, Oct. 1933).

There has also been at least one children’s book adaptation of the original King Kong. First published in 1983 and then again in 1988 by Random House this version was based on the Lovelace novelization but rewritten for children by Judith Conaway with accompanying illustrations by Michael Berenstain. Conaway was not the last to rewrite Lovelace’s prose however. In 2005 writers Joe DeVito and Brad Strickland also rewrote Lovelace’s 1932 novelization and published it under the title Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong: A Novel. The point of this was apparently to improve upon Lovelace’s original as well as to bring the novelization into the same narrative continuity as DeVito and Strickland’s own original prequel Kong novel Kong: King of Skull Island.           

[nothingman]

When Mike Cernovich, one of the most prominent alt-right internet trolls supporting Donald Trump, was interviewed on 60 Minutes, he used the platform to spread conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton's health and to allege that she is involved with pedophilic sex trafficking operations. But he also declared his belief in single-payer health care.

"I believe in some form of universal basic income," he told CBS’s Scott Pelley, citing concerns about technological unemployment. "I’m pro-single-payer health care. Is that right-wing or is that left-wing anymore? Well, if you have a lot of people, a large swath of the company, or country, are suffering, then I think that we owe it to all Americans to do right by them and to help them out."

This might seem like a bizarre position for a far-right conspiracy theorist to take. Single-payer health care, after all, entails nationalizing most or all of the health insurance industry and having the government set prices for doctors’ services. Conservatives in America have spent the better part of the past century arguing that the idea is socialistic, would lead to long waits for lifesaving treatment, and would give the government power over the life and death of its citizens.

But Cernovich is less a traditional conservative than he is a Trumpist — and Trumpism in its purest, alt-right variety cares more about white working-class identity politics than traditional conservatism. More and more, Trump fans are seeing single-payer as part of that.

Alt-rightists and other Trump-loyal conservatives — Richard Spencer, VDARE writer and ex–National Review staffer John Derbyshire, Newsmax CEO and Trump friend Christopher Ruddy, and onetime Donald Trump Jr. speechwriter and Scholars & Writers for Trump head F.H. Buckley — all endorsed various models of single-payer in recent months and years.

Even elites in the alt-right mold who once deplored single-payer are changing their tune. Pat Buchanan, the paleoconservative three-time presidential candidate whose white identity politics and fiercely anti-trade and anti-immigration stances helped inspire the modern alt-right, had free market views on health care in the 1990s and condemned Obamacare as a scheme to kill Grandma in 2009. This week, he told me in an email he has “not taken any position on single-payer, and [has] pretty much stayed out of the Obamacare repeal-and-replace debate.”

Curtis Yarvin, a Silicon Valley programmer whose writings under the pen name Mencius Moldbug helped launch the neoreactionary branch of the alt-right, told me he welcomes the movement’s trend toward single-payer, viewing it as a “sincere effort to think realistically in the present tense rather than in abstract ideology.”

Insofar as the alt-right, and the Trump-supporting right more generally, have a coherent economic agenda, it’s a vehement rejection of the free market ideology crucial to post–World War II American conservatism. While Paul Ryan reportedly makes all his interns read Atlas Shrugged, figures like Cernovich, Spencer, and Derbyshire are trying to build an American right where race and identity are more central and laissez-faire economics is ignored or actively avoided.

This has been most obvious on immigration and trade, where libertarians’ opposition to most or any government restrictions is in tension with the alt-right’s economic nationalism. But it’s also true on health care, where the pure alt-righters are joined by more mainstream pro-Trump voices like Ruddy and Buckley and even some Trump-wary conservatives such as Peggy Noonan.

The Trump-supporting right’s case for single-payer is part of a vision of a party where ideological purity on economic issues is much less important, and where welfare state expansion can be accommodated if it serves other goals — like building a political base among working-class whites.

The welfare state has always been more popular with the Republican base than with its elected officials. Trump arguably won the presidency in part by being the first Republican in years to promise to protect Social Security and Medicare. My colleague Sarah Kliff has run focus groups with Trump voters where participants bring up their admiration for Canadian-style single-payer unprompted. The alt-right single-payer fad suggests that elites are finally catching up.

The ultranationalist case for single-payer health care

Some of the arguments that the Trumpists and alt-rightists offer for single-payer are the standard concerns about the plight of sick and suffering Americans that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Bernie Sanders speech — like Cernovich’s insistence that “we owe it to all Americans to do right by them, and to help them out.”

Other arguments are offered more in sorrow than in anger. Derbyshire, for example, laments the fact that Americans are unwilling to accept a true free market in health care — but argues that single-payer makes more sense than the current hodgepodge of insurance subsidies and regulations and tax breaks.

“Citizens of modern states will accept no other kind of health care but the socialized or mostly socialized kind,” he said on a 2012 episode of his podcast, Radio Derb. “This being the case, however regrettably, the most efficient option is to make the socialization as rational as possible.” Single-payer, he concludes, would involve “less socialism, and more private choice,” than “what we now have.” (Derbyshire doesn’t really explain why socializing insurance is less socialist than not socializing insurance.)

But the main argument offered by Trumpists is about their movement. Donald Trump famously promised in May 2016 to turn the Republican Party into a “workers’ party.” The implication was clear: Republican elites before him like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney prioritized deregulation for businesses and tax cuts for the rich, and offered little or nothing for working-class people, specifically working-class white people. Instead, the party relied on social issues like abortion and immigration to earn their votes.

F.H. Buckley, the George Mason University law professor who led Scholars & Writers for Trump, even approvingly cites the leftist writer Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter With Kansas? on this point. “Frank asked how it was that the poor folks of his home state voted for a Republican Party that cared so little for their economic interests,” Buckley wrote in the New York Post. “Become the jobs and the health-care president, and you [Trump] will have answered Frank’s question.”

“Steve Bannon has said the Republicans will become a party of ‘economic nationalism,’” Buckley continued. “No one has bothered to define this, but here’s one thing it must mean: We’re going to treat Americans better than non-Americans. We’re going to see that Americans have jobs, medical care and an enviable safety net.”

Of course, the Trumpists are big fans of using racialized, not explicitly economic appeals on issues like immigration and crime to win votes. But whereas they see mainstream Republicans like Paul Ryan or Jeb Bush making those appeals as a smokescreen for unpopular economic policies, they want to pair the appeals with an nationalist economic agenda that is actually popular with these voters.

“Unlike Paul Ryan and Rich Lowry, who masturbated to Atlas Shrugged in their college dorms and have no loyalty to their race, Donald Trump is a nationalist,” Richard Spencer writes. “We can’t ignore the politics of this. If Trumpcare passes, leftists can credibly claim that Trump has betrayed his populist vision. They will recycle the hoary script about nationalism and ‘scapegoating’ immigrants as a means of pushing through a draconian agenda. And they’ll have a point!”

Single-payer, Spencer insists, would "serve our constituency" (read: white people), give the right an answer to the appeal of social democrats like Bernie Sanders, and encourage the growth of the alt-right movement: "So many writers, activists, and content creators on our side shy away from becoming more involved, not just out of fear of social punishment, but out of fear of being fired and losing their health insurance."

Moreover, as soon as health care becomes a public issue, an alt-right government could use that power to promote a more vigorous, healthy white race on a number of dimensions. "When single-payer healthcare is implemented, issues like food safety, nutrition, and obesity become matters of public concern,” Spencer writes. “It will draw more attention to the alternative we are presenting to America’s current lowest-common-denominator society."

Of course, single-payer would overwhelmingly benefit a lot of nonwhite Americans as well. But programs like Social Security and Medicare do too, and their universal nature and the fact that they’re tied to work have led them to be less racialized and stigmatized than cash welfare or Medicaid. Single-payer’s universality is appealing because it helps the white working class without making them enroll in means-tested programs traditionally associated with black and Latino beneficiaries.

This is a key strategy of the far right in Europe

Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images

Marine Le Pen on the campaign trail in Lille.

The ideological vision being offered here is hardly original. The political scientist Sheri Berman has argued that fascism and nationalism succeeded in Europe before World War II largely because unlike traditional conservative parties, fascist parties could provide a real challenge to the social democrats’ promise of relief from the suffering of the Great Depression.

"Across Europe nationalists began openly referring to themselves as 'national' socialists to make clear their commitment to ending the insecurities, injustices, and instabilities that capitalism brought in its wake, while clearly differentiating themselves from their competitors on the left," she writes in The Primacy of Politics.

And more recently, this strategy been adopted by some far-right parties in Europe. Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s Front National, has relied heavily on "welfare chauvinism” in her presidential bids, a promise to protect and expand social programs for (white) native workers against migrants who might exploit them and drain money that should be going to noble French citizens. Geert Wilders, the far-right leader in the Netherlands, used to be a small-government conservative but began publicly fighting cuts to health programs and calling for expanded pensions once it became clear that this appealed to the lower-income voters who loved his anti-Islam message.

This trend isn’t universal; the Freedom Party in Austria, for example, was a traditional laissez-faire party on economics. But it’s become a popular strategy for several parties, from the Finns Party in Finland to the Danish People’s Party to the Sweden Democrats, whose leader once tweeted, “The election is a choice between mass immigration and welfare. You choose.”

And American far-rightists have noticed. James Kirkpatrick, a fellow writer of Derbyshire’s at VDARE (an anti-immigration site named after the first white person born in the American colonies), has approvingly cited the nationalist, authoritarian Polish Law and Justice Party’s strategy of tacking left on welfare to tack right on everything else. The country’s “patriotic government,” he swoons, “outflanked the Left and strengthened its grip on power with universal health care.”

The difference between those parties and Trump’s would-be workers’ party is that European countries already have universal health care. And one thing that happened once it was established is that mainstream conservative parties got on board with its preservation. The British Conservatives and the Gaullists in France and the Christian Democrats in Germany don’t try to repeal their countries’ universal health care systems. At most, they push for market-based reforms that retain universality but maybe introduce some more copays or an increased role for private insurers and providers.

When that’s the mainstream right-wing alternative, a right-wing party that calls for expanding welfare and health benefits seems more plausible. More to the point, most of the countries enjoying a far-right resurgence employ some system of proportional representation, which allows new parties without much political base to quickly gain ground in the legislature. Tellingly, while Le Pen does well in France’s presidential elections, there are only two Front National members in its National Assembly, which elects by district à la the US or UK.

So even if Trump were to be persuaded by his followers and embrace single-payer, he’d face a tough task. He can’t form a new right-wing party and sweep the legislative elections; he has to change the policies of the existent Republican Party, which has spent decades fighting proposals for universal health care, and get a quorum of members in the House and Senate on his side. That’s much harder, and suggests that the Spencers, Buckleys, and Derbyshires of the world won’t get their wish on this anytime soon.

via Vox - All

[tanmath3-blog]

My next author/publisher hardly needs an introduction—but in case some of you have missed knowing him, let me invite you to get to know Richard Chizmar. He is a brilliant writer and publishes amazing books, magazines, podcast and many other things as well. Richard is co-owner of the famed Cemetery Dance Publications, which publishes many great, talented authors. He is a dedicated family man with two handsome boys, is very driven, and has a great sense of humor. He believes in helping other writers and publishers he believes have the ability to become great. To say the least, I admire and respect him—and what he stands for. He is a class act all the way. His stories will amaze you and take you on a ride like never before. I have always loved reading his books, and highly recommend if you have not had the chance to read them, that you do so immediately! Please take a moment to get to know Mr. Chizmar and say hello—you won’t be sorry. Please welcome Richard Chizmar to Roadie Notes…..

1. How old were you when you wrote your first story?

Probably five or six. I used to write monster and war stories. I’d sit at my desk in front of the window in my second-floor bedroom and write in a thick, lined tablet my father brought home for me. Right from the beginning, I felt like a real writer. Making up stories has always been fun to me.

2. How many books have you written?

Three short story collections, a handful of novellas, and four of my scripts have been published in book form.

3. Anything you won’t write about?

Nothing specific comes to mind. I tend to just focus on people, places, and moments in time that mean something to me. Wherever that takes me…I follow.

4. Tell me about you. Age (if you don’t mind answering), married, kids, do you have another job etc…

I just recently turned 50 (and as a two-time cancer survivor, I’m pretty pleased with reaching that plateau). I’m married to a wonderful woman, have two amazing sons, and Cemetery Dance Publications has been my full-time job since before I graduated from college, closing in on 29 years now. I’m blessed in more ways than I can count.

5. What’s your favorite book you have written?

It will sound like a cop-out, but it’s true: the most recent one, A Long December. Thirty-five stories, spanning my entire writing career. I can trace the entirety of my adult life by when each story was written and where I was at the time it was written. It’s been pretty neat to look back on each story, almost like traveling back in a time machine.

6. Who or what inspired you to write?

I was fortunate in that my family was a big reading family. My father always had a book in his hands, usually a well-worn paperback novel from the library swap shelf. My mother was always reading a magazine or some type of non-fiction. My sisters were all big readers. So I learned a love of reading from a very early age.

The initial spark of writing interest just always seemed to live inside of me. I felt like I saw and heard and felt things just a little differently than the people around me, and I wanted to write down those thoughts so people might understand. But I was also just a normal little boy who was obsessed with baseball and football and fishing and playing marbles and climbing trees. It wasn’t until early in high school when my English teacher brought in a copy of Stephen King’s “The Monkey” for us to read aloud in class that I knew I wanted to truly grow up to be a writer. That is the moment where I knew…

7. What do you like to do for fun?

Fishing. Hiking. Exercise. Watching my sons’ sports team.

8. Any traditions you do when you finish a book?

Get to work on the next project. That’s something I learned from my father. Finish one job and move on to the next one. Keep grinding.

9. Where do you write? Quiet or music?

Most of my writing is done in an upstairs bedroom in my house, but I will write anywhere and at anytime. Parked in my car. At my office. At dinner in a restaurant. Wherever the mood strikes me.

10. Anything you would change about your writing? Sometimes, I wish I was more of a stylist; that I produced a lusher, more lavish prose. But that’s not me. My writing is all about clarity and forward momentum.

11. What is your dream? Famous writer?

I’m living my dream. One hundred percent true. I am living my dream each and every day.

12. Where do you live?

I live in the Maryland suburbs about a half-hour north of Baltimore. I’m 15-20 minutes away from the CD offices in Forest Hill and about the same distance from Edgewood, the town in which I grew up.

13. Pets?

Three dogs: Boo, Zoey, and Cujo.

14. What’s your favorite thing about writing?

That moment when everything clicks into place and you know the story works. It doesn’t happen with every story, maybe not even most of them, but man oh man when it does, it’s a magical feeling.

15. What is coming next for you?

The rest of 2016 is busy. My collection, A Long December, is due from Subterranean Press in early November. Darkness Whispers, a novella I co-wrote with Brian Freeman will be published later in November from Scarlet Galleon Publications. And, finally, Heroes, a chapbook featuring my short story and the script adaptation (co-written with John Schaech) and a comic adaptation, as well as a brand new introduction and afterword, will see print from SST Publications in December. I also have new short stories appearing in a variety of anthologies and magazines including Dark Hallows 2, Christmas Horrors, You, Human, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

You can connect with Richard Chizmar here:

Twitter: @RichardChizmar

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Richard-Chizmar/111616148855452?ref=ts&fref=ts

Cemetery Dance Publications: http://www.cemeterydance.com/

As always, thank you so much for letting us get to know you better. I wish you continued success and much happiness. So very proud to call you my friend.

Some of Richard Chizmar’s books:

  Getting personal with Richard Chizmar My next author/publisher hardly needs an introduction—but in case some of you have missed knowing him, let me invite you to get to know Richard Chizmar.