First things first: I am incredibly lazy do not lack for well-considered (and self-serving) reasons not to do something. This site has always been something I worked on when I couldn’t do the things I’d rather be doing — be it playing video games, napping next to the puppy, or staring into space for hours […]
Filed under: autobiography, Culture, History | Comments (7)
While love the entire pantheon of old school fight flick archetypes, I have a particular soft spot for the Invisible Man. Perhaps it’s because he’s more sci-fi than horror, a tragic example of science gone wrong that prefigured so many of the characters which inhabited the superhero comics I read as a kid. Or maybe […]
Filed under: Culture, Halloween Countdown, Music | Comment (1)
Poor misbegotten creature. He only crawled out of his lair to catch a Guided By Voices show and maybe hit up that new barcade down the block for some craft brews and Ms. Pac-Man. Little did he realize that he would be attacked by a mob who thought Monster was the best R.E.M. album, and […]
Filed under: Culture, Halloween Countdown, Music | Comment (1)
I grew up in an era where trashy low-budget horror flicks had a marketing presence in newspapers and television. With cable and VCR tech still a ways from becoming ubiquitous household staples, and my peers and I being a little too young (and chicken) to sneak into R-rated movies, these ad spots were the sum […]
Filed under: autobiography, Culture, Halloween Countdown, Music | Comments (2)
In the haunted realm of Romania, it is said that a wolfman who dies shall return as to wreak evil as a vampire. In the blighted hellscape of Hollywood, it is documented fact that an Altman cursed by a career-ending catastrophe…. …shall return a few years later as Count Downula, to plague Solid Gold viewers […]
Filed under: Culture, Halloween Countdown, Music | Comments (6)
It’s like my grandpa used to say: “The only thing worse than a haunted muscle car is a haunted racist muscle car.” Multiple problematic aspects aside, this episode (“The Ghost of General Lee,” 10/29/1979) creeped the heck out of me as a kid, even though it was clearly established as a hoax out of the […]
Filed under: autobiography, Culture, Halloween Countdown | Comments Off on Halloween Countdown: Day 10 – Better off dead
Between The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973)… …and The Devil’s Rain (1975)… …the once and future Captain of the USS Enterprise didn’t fare well in his early 1970s encounters with the occult. Come to think of it, he didn’t do much better against spiders, either. Recommended listening:
Filed under: Culture, Halloween Countdown, Music | Comments (2)
All right, my fellow fiends, it’s time to descend into a realm of truly tragic horror… …otherwise known as “mid-1970s primetime television.” “Vampire,” a second season episode of Starsky & Hutch originally aired on October 30, 1976, is part of the long if not proud tradition of tossing some modestly macabre plot into the mix […]
Filed under: Culture, Halloween Countdown, Music | Comments (2)
All those PSAs and parental lecture were right — peer pressure can make a person do the darndest thing. I can hear my mom’s voice now: “If Mike Sterling bought some original comics art, would you buy some, too?” Well, yeah, mom. Mike is the coolest cat in the funnybook blogging scene, and that would […]
Filed under: Comics, Consumerism, Culture | Comments (3)
About five years back I caught some fortunate breaks which increased what the beancounters would call my “discretionary income.” Being a sober and pragmatic middle-aged man, I used that windfall to chase down various childhood artifacts of deep personal significance. This was not some wild spree, however. Taking a page from my renewed record collecting, […]
Filed under: autobiography, Consumerism, Culture | Comments (2)