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Author: Sue Granquist

Goth Chick News: The Horror of Adult Coloring Books

Goth Chick News: The Horror of Adult Coloring Books

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Grimm Fairy Tales Adult Coloring Book-small Grimm Fairy Tales Adult Coloring Book-back-small

The explosion in popularity of adult coloring books over the past few years is quite possibly one of the greatest things to happen for us big kids, who are stuck performing stupid “adulting” activities such as going to a day job and paying bills.

Relieving anger and stress by coloring complex and hilarious pictures, (seriously, check out the Farting Animals coloring book; you won’t be disappointed) has become a norm among grown-ups, resulting the marketing of implements significantly more expensive and fancy than the most coveted of childhood creativity tools; the 64-color crayon pack.

So it was only a matter of time before the “Shut the F*** Up and Color” and “Drunk, Foul-Mouthed Jerk Unicorns” coloring book creators sought to capture revenue from an even more diverse audience by venturing further into inappropriate subject matters such as the horror genre.

Welcome to the new world of coloring slashers, corpses and skulls.

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Goth Chick News: Full On Fan-Girling Over MST3K

Goth Chick News: Full On Fan-Girling Over MST3K

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MST3K-small

Though in my early Goth Girl days I was admittedly too enthralled with my beloved (and sometimes cheesy) horror movies to ever consider hacking on them, my teenaged years did find me gaining an appreciation for snarky commentary during movies.

So it will be no surprise to anyone that discovering Mystery Science Theater 3000 meant Joel, Servo, Crow and Gypsy became my early mentors, playing a big part in creating the sarcastic, mocking and malicious critic who sits before you and would ultimately find a safe haven in the page of Black Gate.

In a word – I was hooked.

Years later I now own every episode of every season, in multiple formats. And I waited in a two-and-a-half-hour line to spend a total of 30 seconds saying “hi” to Joel Hodgson at a con – right behind a guy hauling around a life-sized “Crow” which I coveted to the point of violence.

So clearly, I’m not alone.

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Goth Chick News: A LARPing We Will Go…

Goth Chick News: A LARPing We Will Go…

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Black Gate LARP-small

The conversation in the office at my day job was, for once, interesting this week. I overheard several of the engineers discussing LARPs, meaning Live Action Role Play, an activity with which I only have a nodding familiarity. The topic occasionally comes up at the various Cons we cover each year, in the context that cosplayers are sometimes also LARPers.

As there was no way I was going to blow my Black Gate cover by jumping in the middle of the engineers’ discussion, I decided to do a bit of investigation on this topic. I became curious to know how popular LARPs actually were, what type of scenarios are explored and who were the people engaged in the activity?

First, to begin as they say, at the beginning…

LARP is described as one-part improvisational theater, one-part reenactment and one-part role playing game. As you may have guessed, it owes its structure origin to Dungeons and Dragons. Like D&D, a game master or GM (vs a dungeon master) determines the rules and the setting of the game, and may also influence events or act as a referee during play. Unlike D&D where players build and describe their characters through a narrative, LARP players take on the physical role of their player character (PC) and act out the storyline in a real environment.

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Goth Chick News: Your Binge List, Part Deux

Goth Chick News: Your Binge List, Part Deux

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Bram Stoker Award-smallA few weeks back I gave you the list of preliminary ballots for The Horror Writers Association (HWA) 2016 Bram Stoker Awards. Not only is this award the most awesome visually, but any of the works honored by making the preliminary cut are more than worthy of your cold-weather binging.

However, on February 23rd the HWA announced the finalists for the Stoker in each category. So if you were having trouble deciding where to begin, this should help narrow the field as each category now contains five works only, from which one will be chosen to receive the lovely little haunted mansion to forever grace their mantelpieces.

So here they are…

Superior Achievement in a Novel

  • Hard Light, Elizabeth Hand (Minotaur)
  • Mongrels, Stephen Graham Jones (William Morrow)
  • The Fisherman, John Langan (Word Horde)
  • Stranded, Bracken MacLeod (Tor)
  • Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, Paul Tremblay (William Morrow)

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Goth Chick News: A Fan Girl Meltdown Over Amazon’s Good Omens

Goth Chick News: A Fan Girl Meltdown Over Amazon’s Good Omens

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good-omens-smallI can say with certainty that I almost never get worked up over film adaptations of books, with good reason; they rarely live up to their source material.

But today I make an exception.

I might actually squee… Well probably not, but still.

Amazon Studios recently announced a six-part adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s novel Good Omens which will debut in 2018.

Insert small squee here.

I first picked up the book Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch in an airport bookstore in 2006. I then proceeded to laugh out loud on my flight from San Jose to Chicago, and laughing out loud at a book is something I haven’t done since my first reading of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Later I picked up of the audio version which I listened to in the car and nearly drove off the road. Finally, in January of 2015 I acquired the BBC Radio 4 dramatization, performed with a full cast and fell in love all over again.

There is no better cure for a bad day then listening to a few chapters of Good Omens.

But what is just so darn amusing about the story?

For me it has all the elements — demons, angels, witches, the Antichrist — all wrapped in a story that boldly showcases the absurdity of it all in the most biting and British of ways.

The book is set “today” but the show will be set in 2018 and in both, the world is on the brink of an apocalypse. But follies ensue when Aziraphale, a somewhat fussy angel, and Crowley, a demon, aren’t all that enthusiastic about the end of the world, having grown quite comfortable with their lives on earth. Also, they may have misplaced the Antichrist. And he may just be an ordinary boy who wants to stay in his small town with his gang of friends.

I’m snickering just typing that.

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Goth Chick News Interviews: Deadgar Winter and Dark Coffin Classics

Goth Chick News Interviews: Deadgar Winter and Dark Coffin Classics

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Deadgar’s Dark Coffin Classics hosts-small

When Black Gate photog Chris Z isn’t too busy surfing the net for combat kilts and more camera equipment (both for attracting gender-specific attention at our many trade shows), he is a veritable font of potential GCN subject matters. Granted, much of it is questionable at best or at worse, flat out rejected by the “big cheese” John O (re: Zombeavers which got us both reprimanded before I had even typed the first paragraph).

Still, on occasion he hits pay dirt, which Chris Z did in spades when he suggested I check out a cable access show called Deadgar’s Dark Coffin Classics, hosted by Deadgar Winter.

I did. And though I am still trying to find just the right words to describe what I saw, what I can tell you is that I found my new binge while I wait for season 2 of Stranger Things.

Deadgar’s Dark Coffin Classics is about taking older, sometimes very cheesy classic horror and sci-fi films and reviewing them on an internet / cable access show. Throughout the movie, Deadgar and his “Dead Girls” will break in to comment about what you’re watching; imagine if Svengoulie and Elvira got together and partied on with Joel from MST3K…

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Goth Chick News: Rare Footage of Steven Spielberg NOT Directing Poltergeist…

Goth Chick News: Rare Footage of Steven Spielberg NOT Directing Poltergeist…

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Poltergeist

Setting aside the fact that Poltergeist is one of the most celebrated horror films of all time, a burning question has been the cause of endless debate among fans: who really directed the film?

What? Have you never heard this story?

Well me either until this week – so here goes.

While Tobe Hooper – certified genre legend for helming The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – is the credited director, there has long been debate around whether or not it was in fact producer Steven Spielberg who did most, if not all, of the directing.

The rumor about Spielberg’s creative control began way back in 1982 with an L.A. Times feature on the making of Poltergeist that ran before the film’s release. In it, Spielberg contrasted his input with Hooper’s: “Tobe isn’t what you’d call a take-charge sort of guy. He’s just not a strong presence on a movie set. If a question was asked and an answer wasn’t immediately forthcoming, I’d jump up and say what we could do. Tobe would nod agreement, and that became the process of the collaboration.”

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Goth Chick News: A Penny for More Dreadfuls

Goth Chick News: A Penny for More Dreadfuls

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Penny Dreadful Titan Comics-small Penny Dreadful Issue 1-small

You may not be familiar with the term “penny dreadful.” And no one would blame you considering that, until 2014, the term had not been in popular use since the 1890’s.

Back to the 1830s, “penny dreadfuls”were serial stories published weekly on cheap wood-pulp paper aimed at young, working-class men. Each costing one penny, the subject matter of these publications typically focused on the sensationalized and bloody (or “dreadful”) exploits of detectives, criminals, or supernatural entities. Varney the Vampire, a precursor to Dracula, as well as Sweeny Todd made their first appearances in print as subjects of the penny dreadful.

However in 2014, Showtime launched a very successful series by the same name starring Eva Green, Timothy Dalton and Josh Hartnett. Penny Dreadful featured classic characters from Victorian gothic literature such as the Frankenstein’s monster, the wolfman, Dorian Gray and Dracula as well as a host of new human characters including Vanessa Ives, Sir Malcolm Murray and Ethan Chandler. The series ran for three seasons, coming to what many fans (me included) felt was a highly unsatisfying end in 2016 .

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Goth Chick News: Get Ready, Here Comes Your 2017 Binge List…

Goth Chick News: Get Ready, Here Comes Your 2017 Binge List…

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Stranger Things poster-small penny-dreadful-season-2-poster-small The Witch poster-small

Just when it seemed like the bleakness of winter would give rise to a whole lot of cabin fever weirdness, The Horror Writers Association (HWA) swoops in to save us by announcing the Preliminary Ballots for the 2016 Bram Stoker Awards.

In case you’ve got to believing that horror was the avocation of an over-imaginative (and slightly dark) few, the HWA dispels that notion by being the premier writer’s organization in the horror and dark fiction genre, with over 1,300 members. They have presented the Bram Stoker Awards to a talented group of writers in various categories every year since 1987.

Like every year at this time, the list probably contains names and titles you are familiar with, along with a whole lot of new finds. For instance, I sincerely hope you’ve already discovered Stranger Things and Penny Dreadful, but perhaps you skipped The Witch; a situation you should remedy immediately.

Also, you may be familiar with the work of Elizabeth Hand (12 Monkeys, Star Wars: Bobo Fett series), but have not yet discovered Greg Chapman and his unique take on a haunted house story, Hollow House.

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Goth Chick News: New (Horror) Treasures – Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Goth Chick News: New (Horror) Treasures – Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

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Lincoln in the Bardo-smallI sincerely appreciate when an author or screenwriter discovers folklore, a legend or a historical occurrence that is not well-known in the general public, and spins it into a new tale.   Though here at GCN we have explored ad nauseum, the disappointments caused by the Hollywood recycling machine, this is different.   Instead of telling us the same story with flashier CGI, this approach involves taking a piece of human experience or understanding which has been overlooked by pop culture, and introducing it to a modern-day audience.

Such is the creative approach to the long-awaited first novel from author George Saunders; Lincoln in the Bardo.

As outlined in The Tibetan Book of the Dead, bardo means ‘transition’ or ‘hanging in between’ and is a period of time between life and death (think something akin to purgatory).   And Lincoln is in it – though it’s more like two different Lincolns and two different bardos…

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy’s body.

From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state — called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo — a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.

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