COOL SHIT 1-16-14

GRAVEL: COMBAT MAGICIAN #0: FUCK YES! The return of William Gravel! I’ve been a fan of this book since I stumbled upon the first issue of STRANGE KISS at the Graham Crackers in Wheaton. Hot off the fucking press. I only wish that Warren Ellis was still writing it. Don’t get me wrong, I like Mike Wolfer, but Ellis brought a harder edge (and a darker humor) to Gravel. In this one, Gravel expounds on the history of combat magic in Britain, and of course he has to go up against a French combat magician. This is a bit of an odd #0, though. Usually, when Avatar Press does a #0, it’s a smaller book, maybe 99-cents, with a black and white preview, or maybe the first five pages of the first issue with a bunch of artist sketches. This one is fucking massive and comes in at $4.99 with a story of its own, which looks a lot to me like an issue one. There is a great combat log in the back of the book, giving readers Gravel’s history, starting with STRANGE KISS and going through to the final issue of GRAVEL. (Although the order is kind of off, and I can’t figure out why.)

CRYPTOZOIC MAN #3: This is an odd book for me. I can read any comic book with shitty art, just so long as the story is good. I’ve been fond of saying the opposite is not true. No matter how good the art, if the story sucks, I can’t get through it. I’m not saying the story of this book sucks. I just can’t get into it. However, the art is so mindblowingly amazing, I can’t ignore this book. There are so many great images, I found it really hard to settle on the one I wanted to sample for Cool Shit. I think I made the right choice, though.

GOD IS DEAD #5: OK, the gods are still kicking the shit out of each other. That’s not the cool part about this book. You know how the geniuses are trying to create gods of their own to fight the real gods? Well . . . they succeeded with this issue, and not in a good way. That last panel will make you clench your asshole.

NEXT TESTAMENT #7: This is probably my favorite miniseries going on right now, and Clive Barker and Mark Miller have upped the ante big time with this issue. God demands that his new followers fucking BUILD HIM A PYRAMID. When they fuck it up, he gets rid of them all. Next on the agenda? Blacking out the sun and raising a plague of locusts. And he’s acting like he just did everyone a favor. It’s unreal how good this book is.

JAMES FRANCO HAS GIANT FUCKING BALLS: A review of AS I LAY DYING

The top three William Faulkner novels in order of awesomeness: THE SOUND AND THE FURY, ABSALOM, ABSALOM! and AS I LAY DYING. He’s one of the most important American writers in history. He helped change so much with his style that he’s an indispensable figure in the literary world. Yet, even though he was also known as a screenwriter—most notably for THE BIG SLEEP—his work is nearly impossible to adapt into a movie. This is because his novels are by and large internal to the characters. The plots are very simple, but the intricacies of those who inhabit them are so deeply entrenched in the work that it makes for shitty cinema. To adapt one of these novels would take giant fucking balls.

James Franco, who directed this movie, co-wrote the screenplay and starred in it, has those giant fucking balls.

Let’s face it, Franco’s great in everything he does. He’s a Renaissance man. Poetry, painting, acting, philosophy, he does it all, and he’s really good at it. This time, despite his giant fucking balls, he’s bitten off more than he can chew. That’s fine. It’s possible that there will never be a person who can adapt Faulkner to the screen. But dammit, he gives it his all, and one has to respect that kind of dedication.

On the surface, this movie is very simple. It’s the tale of the Bundren family and what happens when their matriarch dies. Addie Bundren has been sick for a while, and when she finally dies, her family is obligated to take her corpse on a long journey back to her hometown, where she wants to be buried. Murphy’s Law is strong with this family, because everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. And that’s it.

But the characters make this a very complicated story. There’s Anse, the patriarch, who will do anything for a new set of teeth. Cash is the dutiful son who builds his mother’s coffin. Darl, who fucked his sister, Dewey, and gets her pregnant. Jewel, the rebel who does his best to stick with his family, but only on his own terms. And Vardaman, the kid of the group who has associated his dead mother with a catfish he caught. This is a rich field for storytelling.

But where Franco as a director comes short is how he deals with these characters. It’s easy to see why he made these decisions, and he had the best of intentions in mind, but it just doesn’t work. First of all, a lot of this film uses a split screen, and sometimes, the split screen shows something happening in the near future on one side while depicting the present on the other. Faulkner’s style is very jarring, and it takes a lot of effort to stick with it and decipher the mystery of what’s going on. It’s kind of like solving a Rubik’s Cube. Franco’s style with this movie is certainly jarring, but the problem is that it doesn’t present the puzzle of Faulkner’s work. It’s style for its own sake, and it rarely serves the story’s purpose. The only time split screen has ever worked for anything is the TV show, 24, where it added urgency and speed to a fast-paced show. Here, it just makes viewing difficult.

Another problem Franco tried to solve is the inner monologue of every character. The novel is narrated by just about everyone, and Faulkner has no mercy for his readers. You have to pay attention to figure out who is narrating any given chapter. Granted, there is no easy way to adapt this style to the screen—there might not be ANY way to do it—but Franco gives it his best. What he comes up with is the reality show confessional. He gets close-ups of the characters talking directly to the viewers. Here, it comes off as cheesy and distracting. One is hard pressed to figure out a better way to handle this, but while a noble thought, it clunks too much and takes one out of the film.

But enough with how the movie fumbles. Here is a list of things Franco gets right. He’s got a great eye for beauty, and this comes through best in the scene when the Bundren family tries to cross a river with the coffin in the back of their wagon. Things go horribly wrong, and the wagon gets knocked over. The brothers go sprawling, and the coffin floats down the river, and the way Franco depicts this is sheer wonderment. He has a tendency to overdo it, as if he’s trying too hard—and he is, since he wants to do justice to a book he values a great deal—but in that sweet spot before lingering too long, it’s perfect.

He’s very good with intense scenes, like when Cash’s leg gets broken, and the doctor has to set it. Also, later when Cash needs to get his foot amputated due to gangrene . . . wow. Jim Parrack, better known as Hoyt from TRUE BLOOD, does an amazing job as Cash, especially in that scene as he has to try to stay calm and ignore the pain as the doctor uses a bone saw on his leg. Another great scene is when Vardaman sees the buzzards on his mom’s coffin, and he runs around like a madman, trying to scare the birds away. Best of all is the barn-burning scene, when Jewel runs in, to pull Addie’s burning coffin out, severely searing his back in the process.

Franco’s also good with humor. In one great moment, Anse has Addie’s corpse put into the coffin upside down, because she’s wearing her favorite dress, and he doesn’t want it to get wrinkled. In another moment, the Bundren boys fumble with the coffin in getting it from the house to the wagon, and they nearly drop it. To top it all off, Tim Blake Nelson makes for the perfect redneck with his grotesque mouth and his slack-jawed demeanor. In some moments, he comes off a lot like Ernest P. Worrell’s great uncle Lloyd.

This is another area where Franco excels: the actors. That Franco is awesome as Darl is a given. Beth Grant brings amazing life to Addie, even though she’s not alive for much of the story. Logan Marshall-Green plays an intense Jewel, especially in the end as he digs his mother’s grave with his burned back. Ahna O’Reilly gets Dewey down perfectly, especially in her fury at her brother for having sex with her. The scene where she exchanges sex for an abortion is definitely shocking. It’s not a sex scene. No, this is more akin to rape, and her demeanor shows it loud and clear.

And then there’s the shocker of the group: Danny McBride. While there is a great deal of humor in this story, it is played straight for the most part, bringing nervous, tragic laughs instead of the over-the-top hilarity McBride usually brings to a role. He plays it really straight, the consummate redneck. He’s really good in this movie. It’s a shame that he’s not around long enough.

Of course, the acting isn’t perfect. Most of the movie is mumbled, so you have to turn the volume waaaaaaay up. Because of this, the film seems to have a slower pace, which may frustrate some viewers. However, stick with it. The ending pays off big time.

While Franco and his team did their best, this is a flawed film. Yet it’s worth watching it. This might be the closest Faulkner’s novel comes to being a good movie. Good news: Franco is working on a film version of THE SOUND AND THE FURY. See? He’s got a giant fucking set of balls on him. One can only hope that he’s learned from AS I LAY DYING, so that he can figure the next one out better. (Wouldn’t it be great to see what he can do with SANCTUARY?)

It’s hard to recommend this movie, because it’s painful to watch great ambition fall just a bit too short. It will take dedication to make it through, but for the few who take this journey with the Bundrens, it is as rewarding as a movie based on a Faulkner book can get.

AS I LAY DYING

Directed by James Franco

Written by James Franco and Matt Rager

Released by Millennium Entertainment

109 minutes

2013

EVERYONE'S GOT ONE #25: IN DEFENSE OF THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

[WARNING: This piece contains spoilers. If you don’t know how things turned out in real life for Jordan Belfort, and you want to be surprised by the ending of the movie, you should not read this until you’ve seen THE WOLF OF WALL STREET. And I highly recommend seeing it. It’s one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time.]

Director Martin Scorsese is being criticized heavily for his biopic of convicted fraudster Jordan Belfort. There are two reasons, but I want to deal with one of them right away, because it’s easy to dismiss it, and I want it out of the way.

A screenwriter, a member of the Academy, told Scorsese, “Shame on you—disgusting.” This is after watching just about three hours worth of sex and drugs excess. And to be sure, there are plenty of excessive things that happen in this movie, from dwarf-tossing to orgies on planes. Hell, you name it, it happens. There’s even a scene in which Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Belfort, has a dominatrix take a burning candle from out of his ass and use it to drip painfully hot wax all over his back. There’s another scene in which Belfort has to ban sex in the office bathrooms—not permanently, but during working hours—because it became such a problem.

I’m not here to talk about whether or not all of these things happened in real life. I believe they did, because I don’t think highly of the human race, and I know exactly how hedonistic they will be if given the chance. However, this is a very faithful adaptation of Belfort’s book of the same title. (I should mention I haven’t read it myself—I intend to, of course—but I did some research and gathered from several independent sources that the movie is pretty much verbatim.) There is the question of whether or not Belfort is to be believed, of course. Keep in mind, he IS a con man. But the key to this is, if you’re accusing Scorsese of being “disgusting” because he faithfully adapted a supposedly true story, then you’re accusing reality of being disgusting. Sure enough, it is, but you can’t blame an artist for holding up a mirror to society. The truth hurts, but only if you don’t recognize it as the truth. This argument against TWOWS is meaningless. Although I really enjoyed Scorsese’s response to this incident: “I don’t know if [the movie] will be to everyone’s taste—I don’t think it will. It’s not made for 14-year-olds.” And that’s a whole other problem that I’m not going to go into. Suffice it to say, I’m glad a director has the balls to say that not all movies should be palatable to one particular demographic in order for it to be mainstream.

Moving on, the other argument against TWOWS is a bit harder to battle because it brings up a lot of uneasy questions, motivations and interpretations. Put simply, Scorsese has been accused of glorifying Belfort’s excessive life. This is a fair thing to say. It sure looks like fun when Belfort and his friends are doing coke on a hooker’s tits. Wouldn’t it be a blast to throw a Velcroed dwarf at a bullseye? And wouldn’t it be great if you could fuck a chick in front of all of your coworkers? Fuck MAD MEN. They only drank at work. Think of all the pills you could pop in this office. Even I will admit to being a little bit thrilled by the events of this movie. I love money as much as the next guy, mostly because I love books, and money allows me to get more of them. We all know that doing this shit is crazy, and we’re able to keep ourselves in check. But if you tell me that you watched this movie and never once felt a little excited, then I’m going to call you a liar. Add in a bunch of torture and some actual penetration, and we could have a modern day CALIGULA.

But my statement has been pretty general, so far. There is one person in particular who made this criticism, and she deserves some attention here. Her name is Christina McDowell, and she’s the daughter of Tom Prousalis, who was involved with Belfort’s crimes. Yes, Prousalis did time for it. And yes, McDowell confesses to benefiting from her father’s involvement. She said in her open letter to Scorsese and Belfort: “I drove a white Range Rover in high school, snorted half of Colombia, and got any guy I ever wanted because my father would take them flying in his King Air.” When she found out why she was able to do all of this shit, she saw the ugly truth, and it disgusted her. To see Belfort’s life “glorified” is an insult to her, and she’s pissed off that Belfort’s “business opportunities will surely multiply thanks to this film.”

She’s right about that last part. Belfort reportedly received a million dollars for the film rights. I don’t know if he has a piece of the profits, but if he does, he’s got a nice nut coming along since the film made $9.2 million on opening day alone. (I saw it at a matinee showing three days after opening day, and the theater was fucking packed. I’ll be very interested to see the numbers when this is all done.)

But we’ll get back to that in a moment. Take a look at what is “glorified” in this movie. Personally, I believe most of the shit Scorsese is getting is ridiculous. Granted, much of what he depicts is illegal, but I don’t have a moral opposition to most of the things Belfort did. Doing coke off a hooker is fine with me. Popping a ridiculous amount of pills is OK. Maybe public sex is pushing it a little, but for the most part, I think all drugs—every single fucking one of them—should be legal. Prostitution should be legal. I go with the old George Carlin quote: “Selling’s legal. Fucking’s legal. Why isn’t selling fucking legal?!” Is doing drugs and fucking hookers self-destructive? Yes. But that is every person’s choice, just so long as you’re not hurting anyone else. I’m pissed off that suicide is a felony in some states, by the way. If you want to end your life, you should be able to do so. I personally would not choose to throw my life away with heroin, for example. But my liver’s probably fucked to hell because of all the drinking I’ve done. Belfort does say one thing in the movie that I agree with: that sobriety is an incredibly boring thing. But to each their own.

My moral problem with Belfort is how he ripped off so many gullible investors. He fucked so many people out of their life savings, which should be a high crime, especially in a country as capitalist as ours. And it’s not like he put that money to good use. There’s a scene in the film where he snorts a few lines of coke with a rolled up $100 bill. When he’s done, he crumples the money up and throws it away . . . in a trash can full of crumpled $100 bills. In another scene, he starts dropping large bills, which he calls Fun Coupons, off of his boat at a couple of FBI agents walking away.

His disdain and disregard for the people he suckered is overwhelming. It is very clear that he doesn’t care about anyone else but himself. He even rats out his friends in order to get a lighter prison sentence.

People can argue against the sex and drugs all they want, but I believe that every person who complained about this movie was hurt by the con man aspect, rather than the hedonist. Belfort doesn’t even care about his audience. In a couple of instances, when he was explaining what exactly he did to make all of his millions, he stops in the middle of it and says that we wouldn’t understand what he was saying. He insults an FBI agent, maybe the only honest character in the film, to his face. There is a scene late in the movie where one of Belfort’s partners receives a subpoena and he responds by pissing on it and shouting FUCK AMERICA!

So it’s pretty easy to see why a lot of people are recoiling from this movie. However, in the heat of the moment, it’s easy to forget that just because a director is depicting something doesn’t mean he condones it. For example, do you think Scorsese was saying that all those mob guys in GOODFELLAS were heroes?

This leads us to why the fuck Scorsese would make this movie. What point is he trying to get across? It can’t be to glorify Belfort’s life. Do you seriously believe Belfort was a happy guy? Sure, when he was doped to the gills, he was having a good time. But keep in mind, this is a guy who beat his wife and tried kidnap his scared-shitless daughter. When he crashed his car instead of getting away, as he’s watching his terrified family fleeing from him while he’s blinking blood out of his eyes, do you think he’s having a good time? Or how about when he took too many vintage Quaaludes and wound up a quivering pile of protoplasm at the country club? When he crawled and rolled to his car, do you think he was having a good time? Do you think he had a good time when he crashed his car SEVERAL TIMES on the way home? (It should be mentioned that in the movie, he didn’t hurt anyone on this drive. It’s the same in the book. However, in real life, Belfort did hit someone on his way home, and she wound up in the hospital.)

No, that’s not very glorious. At least this guy went to prison in the end, right?

Well.

About that.

In a just world, he would have gone to prison for 20 years. (I think it should be more, but that’s what the legal system says.) Instead, he got a reduced sentence for turning on all of his friends. He was sentenced to four years, of which he only did less than two.

Well, at least he did time, right? Prison is a terrible place, full of violence and rape. A pretty boy like Belfort—and unlike with most Hollywood stories, Belfort actually is attractive in real life—couldn’t last long in an environment like that. Um. [clears throat] You know why they call it Club Fed, right? He spent those two years living the life, playing tennis with other white collar criminals. His time in prison was an absolute breeze.

Gaze into the eyes of a motherfucker.

He was also sentenced to paying back $110.4 million to those he swindled. He actually swindled them for $200 million, but hey, $110.4 million is nothing to sneeze at, especially since he’s been banned from trading by the SEC. It’s something, right? Except (and this is not in the movie) he’s only paid $11.6 million back. He was supposed to pay it back when he got out of prison, and he’s been out since 2006.

We know he’s got money coming in. In addition to the money from the movie rights, he also got a hefty chunk of change for the book it’s based on and its sequel, CATCHING THE WOLF OF WALL STREET. Not only that, but somehow—SOMEHOW!—he’s making a living as a motivational speaker. This guy essentially got away with everything, and he’s telling the world to go fuck itself.

You don’t get more hate-able than that, not without rape and/or murder being involved.

Why would Scorsese make a movie about someone like that? Generally, a protagonist should be reasonably likeable. An audience has to connect with that person in order to get them to sit through three hours of film. Could his motivation really be to glorify this man who proudly calls himself the Wolf of Wall Street?

Here’s where the interpretation comes in. Your mileage may vary, but it is my humble opinion that Scorsese WANTS YOU ALL TO BE ANGRY. Any reasonable human being would be furious with a guy like Belfort getting away with everything. Scorsese isn’t glorifying anything. He’s showing you how our system has failed, and Belfort is just one example. Think of all the scumbag Wall Street czars and how easily they get out of everything. Sure, their names are cursed, but there are no real repercussions for these people.

We need to change this. We need to put the fucking leeches on these scumbags. Give them real prison sentences, and make them do their time in general population.

But that will never change, will it? Rich motherfuckers will always buy their way out of anything, because everyone wants a payday. Not even I am immune. No one’s ever tried to bribe me, and I’d like to think I’d say no to one, but one never really knows what one will do when in the company of fabulous wealth.

Yes, this movie has financially benefited Jordan Belfort. Just like all of his other ventures, of course. Even though he’s listed as worth -$100 million, he’s clearly enjoying the high life from his books and his speaking engagements. But what THE WOLF OF WALL STREET really is, is a big ol’ loogie in Belfort’s face. Too bad he’s the kind of guy who would lick that loogie up, swallow it and laugh in our faces.

Will this film change anything? No. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, Obama isn’t the president. The Bushes were never presidents. Neither were Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon and so on. No, since we won our independence (and even before, to be frank; anyone remember the West India Co.?), we’ve been ordered around by President Money, and that should piss everyone off.

But it doesn’t, and it never will.

[I wanted to talk about one more thing, the unsung hero of this film: Kyle Chandler, who plays Agent Patrick Denham, the guy who eventually arrests Belfort. Chandler plays Denham as an honest man without having him be a nice guy. That takes a lot of balls. This is best illustrated in what I think is one of the greatest scenes in cinematic history. When Belfort and Denham meet on Belfort’s yacht, and they have what seems, on the surface, to be an amiable conversation. DiCaprio and Chandler are so fucking good in this scene. What these two characters are really doing is pissing all over each other. Eventually, things go sour, and the scene ends with a lot of anger and thrown lobsters. But in that sweet spot before Belfort tries to bribe Denham . . . amazing.

And at the very end of the movie, when Denham is on his daily commute home, riding the scummy subway . . . wow. I can’t tell you how much I loved this movie. It’s a shame that people are trying to shit-talk Scorsese. They should really be talking award nominations.]

[One final note: I think I deserve some credit for going this whole article without making a hacky wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing joke. I did a lot of research to write this thing, and just about everyone else pulled that shit. Also, I’m one of the few people who didn’t nitpick the Wall Street thing. So Belfort didn’t operate from Wall Street. So fucking what? You know what the title means. Silly motherfuckers. You’re welcome.]

COOL SHIT 1-9-14

SEX CRIMINALS #4: Of course I’m going to love a series called SEX CRIMINALS. It helps that it’s illustrated by the maniac behind PRISON FUNNIES, Chip Zdarsky. In case you don’t know, this book is about two people who discover that they can freeze time whenever they have an orgasm, so they decide to fuck each other and take advantage of the frozen world by robbing banks. Unfortunately for them, there is a police force that keeps an eye out for such things, and our sex criminals are now on guard against them. We learn a bit about one of the “cops” in this issue, that she’s a soccer mom whose job comes second to her precious kids. We also find out what happens when one smokes weed in frozen time. But best of all is Suzie’s roommate’s conclusion, that Suzie’s new boyfriend has gotten her hooked on public sex and now they’re planning bank heists together. In what world would one jump so readily to that conclusion? By the way, SC has the absolute best letters column ever. Even better than PREACHER’s. I love the sex tips at the top of each page. For example: “Nothing wrong with stopping at second base for the first few weeks. But if you were a pro baseball player I’d fucking fire you.” Or this: “Sex is a wonderful and natural way to discover if your partner is a lousy lay or not.” And be sure to check out Zdarsky’s pizza vagina.

FATALE #19: We’ve reached the end of another story arc, and it’s been a lot of fun to watch Brubaker return to his roots with a story like this. Of course it ends tragically. Maybe more tragic than on the surface, actually, considering the epilogue. Josephine has finally come back to herself. She knows who she is again, but there’s no way she can save the day, not for a group of people who were doomed from the very moment we met them. And then there’s Mr. Somerset, and I can’t wait to learn more about him. Brubaker says that the next story is going to be much different from anything else he’s done here. I have no choice but to believe him. This book defies expectations. It started with Lovecraftian noir, and it’s come so far, especially in the one-story issues. I can’t wait to see what’s next. (By the way, take a look at Sean Phillips’s illustration of Mr. Somerset above. I have never seen a creepier depiction of sheer joy in my life.)

THE WALKING DEAD #119: Truthfully, I haven’t been a big fan of ALL OUT WAR. It’s been a lot of build-up for very little payoff so far. Every time it looks like something big will happen, next to nothing does. This issue is probably going to lead to more of the same, but there are a few interesting things in here. For example, Michonne calls Ezekiel a pussy, and she’s right. Take his stupid fucking tiger away from him, and he’s a sniveling mess. Negan has arrived at the Community again, this time armed with explosives. And hey! We now know what happened to Holly. I swear to fuck, if this confrontation leads to more beating around the bush, I’m going to be sorely disappointed. (Also, pay attention to the letters column. Before, Kirkman has said this series could go on forever. Sure enough, it probably could. This is the first time that he’s admitted to working toward an actual ending. Don’t worry, though. We have plenty of time. He thinks he can tackle this in 300-500 issues.)

BROTHER LONO #7: This is it. The penultimate issue of this miniseries. And the moment we’ve all been waiting for is finally upon us. For six issues, Lono struggled with the beast inside of himself, doing his best to atone for his life of crime and sin. Last issue saw him captured, and now we witness his torture. Except it doesn’t end so well for his torturer as the real Lono rises from his self-imposed grave, ready to deal death to all who have it coming. ONE ISSUE TO GO!

ONE QUESTION INTERVIEWS

I’ve been thinking about the art form of the interview a lot lately. There are very few people who are good at it these days. As far as I’m concerned, the king of the interview is Ron Bennington, who does amazing things not just with UNMASKED, but also with his regular show, RON AND FEZ. The key is to make it seem like a conversation, rather than either a promotional tool or even an info-pumping session. Judging by the few interviews I’ve conducted, I’m not very good at that. Leo Perez is much better at it than I am, and I wish the interview he did with me would be posted someday so you can all see what I see. If he ever wants a career doing something like that, I’m sure he’d kick a lot of ass.

But the main thing I’m thinking about here is the internet interview. I’m not talking about podcasts, where the internet interview is thriving. I’m talking about written interviews. No one is good at this. It’s hard to be good at an interview that people will eventually read, instead of listen to. It always seems to be fill-in-the-blank, rather than two people sitting down and talking. I think the only good written interview is the monthly interview published by PLAYBOY.

But I want to see what I can do about making the internet interview much more interesting. There is no substitute for the fill-in-the-blank sensation, but there might not need to be. This, in combination with the idea that the internet is all about brevity, led to my new idea for TALES OF UNSPEAKABLE TASTE: one question interviews. I’ll grant, I’m not the first person to think of this, but I want to explore this method and see where it leads me.

I personally know a lot of incredibly smart, remarkably creative people. I hope to invite them to take part in this idea as a starting off point, and I’m interested in pursuing some creative people I don’t count as friends, as well. I have a list of people I want to try, of course, but who do you want to see me interview? Let me know in the comments, text me, email me, post to my Twitter, wherever you want to contact me, let me know. This is only in the idea stage so far, but if this sounds like something that could be cool, let me know. Keep in mind that I intend to ask a lot of people, not just writers or comics people, but also actors, stand-up comedians, painters, musicians and anyone who follows a creative path in their lives. Thanks for reading.

COOL SHIT 12-19-13

LOCKE & KEY: ALPHA #2: [Remember, Cool Shit usually contains spoilers, so tread lightly.] So this is it. The final issue of my favorite ongoing comic book series, and it’s a big motherfucker with 10 extra pages, plus a bunch of extras in the back. It starts out with Bode’s funeral, which is perfectly juxtaposed with how this series began. Remember, when we first met Mr. Locke’s family, it was at his funeral, and the panels match perfectly. But this isn’t about tragedy. No, this is about tying up loose ends, and it only makes sense that it’s Ty that does it. He goes back to the ruins of their home and does the one thing no one really expected him to do: he saves Lucas Caravaggio from the well. Pretty crazy, no? He does a couple of other things while he’s there, one of which alleviates a lot of sorrow, and after another funeral, Ty closes out the series with one final talk with his dead father. It’s a very beautiful issue, not just due to Joe Hill’s outstanding writing, but also because of Gabriel Rodriguez’s incredible artwork. Hill asked Rodriguez to do some of the craziest art in comics history, and the guy fucking delivered each and every time. He’s easily my favorite artist working in the industry today. I’m going to miss this series.

Check out this awesome quote from Mr. Locke: “Death isn’t the end of your life, you know. Your body is a lock. Death is the key. The key turns . . . and you’re free. To be anywhere, everywhere, two places at once. Nowhere. Part of the background hum of the universe.”

So that’s it. If you have any problem with how this book ended, Joe Hill has something for ya’:

'TIS THE SEASON FOR FREE SHIT!

It's almost time for Christmas, and I'm in a giving mood. At Days of the Dead in Schaumburg this past month, I offered a full set of TABARD INN magazines for everyone who bought my StrangeHouse book, TALES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE. The promotion worked so well that we sold out of my book by Sunday. I think it's time to bring back the deal.


I have two books out right now. If you buy them both, let me know at editor@talesofquestionabletaste.com, and I will send you all three issues of TABARD INN for free. You won't even have to pay shipping. Just send me your physical address, and I'll send 'em off. OK?





STRIP is my first novel and is available on Kindle only (at least for now). It's about a group of desperate men who attempt to rob a Mafia-run strip club that is being watched by an undercover cop. Of course, things go horribly wrong. If you're looking for an ultraviolent, hypersexed crime book, this is what you want. You can find it on Amazon here.





TALES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE is my second book, my first collection of short stories. True to the title, these stories are nasty buggers. If you're not careful, they'll murder your brain. We have monsters, portals to other worlds, superstitious baseball players, euthanasia enthusiasts, necrophilia, cannibalism and a skyscraper full of affluent, murderous perverts. Something for everyone's taste, questionable as it may be. This book is available on Kindle, but you can also get it in paperback from Amazon here.


Want to know more about TABARD INN? Feel free to look around here. There are three issues. The first contains four short stories, part one of a serial, four poems and two articles. Issue two has five stories, part two of a serial, one poem, two articles and a bunch of beautiful black and white pictures. Issue three--the biggest of them all--has a whopping 31 stories, the third and final part of a serial, one poem, one article and some of the most beautiful black and white pictures you've ever seen. That's 54 titles and a lot of pictures FOR FREE. How could you not be interested in that?


But wait! There's more! If you review these books (honestly, of course; I'm not looking to bribe anyone), either on Amazon, Goodreads or your own blog, please forward it to me, and I'll post it on Twitter (@tusitalabruni). Whether you liked them or hated them, I'll email you a free short story in a Word document featuring one of the characters from STRIP. The offer expires on New Year's Day.


Merry Free Shit Day!