I'd be remiss if I finished this countdown without mentioning one of my favorite horror-themed publications: the Ravenloft campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons.
There isn't a single D&D setting that I honestly dislike (though Dragonlance grates on me at times), but if I had to play favorites, Ravenloft would be near the top of my list. The setting was never hugely popular - it was a product of the bad old days when TSR, Inc. would throw out a new campaign setting whenever their sales were slumping and hope to Pelor that it would stick. Rather than being a generic fantasy setting, though, Ravenloft mixed heroic fantasy with gothic horror. Elves and dwarves, wizards and warriors did battle with vampires, restless spirits, and evil geniuses, and a happy ending wasn't always assured.
The setting had its origin in the classic 1980s adventure Ravenloft and its sequel, The House on Gryphon Hill, written by Tracy Hickman, one of the creators of Dragonlance. These adventures gave us the tortured vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich, Lord of Castle Ravenloft, who went on to become the campaign setting's central villain and one of the most popular recurring villains in D&D's history. The original adventure Ravenloft has been reprinted no less than three times for three different editions of the game, and I've no doubt that a version of the adventure for the new 4th Edition will pop up down somewhere the line.
Ravenloft had something that most other RPG settings lack: atmosphere. An impending sense of doom hung over the very land, and the sinister mists constantly threatened to whisk you away to some new unspeakable horror.
If I had the ambition to do so, I'd love to run or otherwise participate in a Ravenloft campaign. If you're into D&D or tabletop RPGs in general, I can't recommend Ravenloft enough.
Unlike "Hansel and Gretel", which merely poked fun at a scary old story, "The Enigma of Amigara Fault" is downright nightmarish. Published as a backup story to Junji Itō'sGyo, "The Enigma" concerns an unnatural geologic formation that manifests a bizarre pull on the local populace. Itō, an award-winning author of horror comics best known for his series Uzumaki, is known for creating detailed drawings of the macabre, and "The Enigma" is no exception.
The comic can be read here; read the pages from right to left.
Time for another quickie! James Rolfe (*dreamy sigh*) examines the classic 1942 noir chiller Cat People, with a brief history of RKO Radio's horror library and an in-depth look at what makes one of the movie's scenes work. This is from his 2007 "Monster Madness" Halloween countdown.
Oh, dear - I missed an update. Ahh well, guess I'll just have to double up tonight.
One of my favorite short stories is "The Whisperer in Darkness", by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Lovecraft was an odd duck - fervently racist, sexist, homophobic, and nationalist, yet possessed of one of the most vivid imaginations in early 20th-century writing. His stories were often chock full with bigotry, but Lovecraft was a master at crafting atmospheric, nightmare-inspiring scenes.
"Whisperer" concerns one Professor Albert Wilmarth from the famed Miskatonic University at witch-haunted Arkham, Massachusetts and his inquiry into reports of extraterrestrial activity in the hills of Vermont. Published in 1930, it's one of the first works of fiction to deal with alien abductions, though they take a much different form than in modern media. It also invokes the dire god Nyarlathotep, who plays a central role in many other stories by Lovecraft.
There is (or was) apparently a film version of "The Whisperer in Darkness" being produced by an independent studio in the style of classic black-and-white 1930s chillers, but I haven't heard any news of it in over a year. Here's the trailer, which does a commendable job recreating the feel of the story.
And here is a gorgeously macabre picture of one of the alien creatures from the story.
When you think creepy comics, you probably think Tales from the Crypt, the classic flagship title of the now-defunct EC Comics. EC published many other horror and suspence comics, including Shock SuspenStories and Crypt's two sister titles, The Haunt of Fear and The Vault of Horror. These comics were wildly popular in the late '40s and early '50s, and known for gruesome depictions of violence and gore; they were the main target of the anti-comics movement spearheaded by Dr. Frederic Wertham.
"Hansel and Gretel", from Haunt of Fear #23, is a classic example of the "twisted fairy tale" convention, which would become popular in later years with a slew of dark-'n'-edgy (and often tasteless) remakes like Snow White: A Tale of Terror and Grimm Fairy Tales. This story stands out from the others, though, with its subversive, sarcastic sense of humor, going to show that it doesn't take itself too seriously. Hosted by the Old Witch (the better-known Crypt Keeper's distaff counterpart), it retells the classic tale by the Brothers Grimm from a decidedly different perspective.
I don't mind admitting that I have a bit of a man-crush on James Rolfe, known to the wider Internet as the Angry Video Game Nerd. I was first exposed to his work through his video game reviews, which are so chock full of profanity and scatalogical references that it made my head spin, but downright hilarious because of just how over-the-top he takes it. If you're a fan of NES games or just enjoy a blast from the past, you've gotta check him out.
Recently, though, I've been enjoying some of Rolfe's non-AVGN material. The man is seriously into horror and suspense cinema, and his devotion to the art of filmmaking is inspiring. He's created over 200 short films since his childhood through his production company, the Cinemassacre, and shows no signs of stopping. One of these films - and expect me to go back to this well more than once - is a zombie flick titled The Deader the Better.
Let me warn you - this is an extremely gory movie, though the blood 'n' guts are obviously (and deliberately) fake. The Exorcist it ain't, but as a send-up of the zombie genre it's good fun.
Well, it's been a month, and I'm feeling about ready to get back into the habit of posting again. I'm doing a lot better now; not up to 100%, but getting there.
Anyway, while I was on my break, I had a great idea: Why not do a series of 13 posts, one per day, sharing creepy, Halloween-related, or just plain weird things related to comics, movies, and other pop cultural things I like talking about on my blog? Great way to motivate myself to write a bit more often, right?
Unfortunately, I only thought of it three days ago.
So instead of counting down to All Hallow's Eve, I've decided to start on the 31st and keep going from there. Stretch the season out by two weeks or so. It'll be like the Twelve Days of Christmas, only spookier!
Since it's going to take me a little while to plan this whole thing out, all I have to share today is a sketch I drew a few years ago when I still had a working scanner. I promise that most of the posts I write from here on out won't be this self-indulgent.
For a short while in my adolescence, I was a fan of Changeling: The Dreaming, a role-playing game published by White Wolf Game Studio as part of their World of Darkness line (which also included Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and a half dozen other games titled Noun: The Noun). Unlike the other games, though, Changeling had a much more pronounced sense of idealism, even whimsy, though it still had its fair share of things that go bump in the night.
The idea of the game was that the players were fairies* disguised as humans, trying to fight off the banality of the modern world lest they fade away. Players were given a variety of different types of fairies to play as, from the beautiful Sidhe and mighty Trolls to the inventive Nockers and vicious Redcaps; fairies of all types were aligned with one of two Courts: the haughty yet benevolent Seelie or the cold and amoral Unseelie. One of the fairy types, or "kith" as they were called, associated with the Unseelie were the Beasties, who thrived on the fear of little children. The bogeymen, the monster in the closet, whatever you want to call them.
Beasties come in all shapes and sizes - anything that anyone would find scary, really. The one I drew was supposed to look sort of like a corrupted stuffed animal, a teddy bear gone bad. You can probably tell I saw Gremlins (which I may or may not also end up posting about) before drawing it.
Since I drew this, Changeling: The Dreaming has been discontinued and I've drifted away from RPGs, but I still like this piece. I'm not a terrific artist by any stretch, but I think I did a fair job at making it look good 'n' creepy.
That's it for now. Watch this space!
*I refuse to say "faeries". It's trendy, yeah, but it misses the point that fairies were supposed to be downright dangerous, and that calling them "fair" was supposed to be a way to get on their good side and keep them from spoiling your crop, poisoning your livestock... or abducting your children.
I've started reading "At the Mountains of Madness" by H. P. Lovecraft, which has sparked in me a mild interest in the great southern continent. So I've just now watched this video, presumably by a scientist, showing through time-lapse photography the course of one year. It's utterly breathtaking. The scenes of natural splendor and life in a bustling scientific base make Antarctica seem downright welcoming.
You find a lot of cool stuff clicking around the TV Tropes Wiki. Here's two creepy short stories I stumbled across via some outbound links:
All the Myriad Ways, by Larry Niven. I've been crazy for alternate universe stories (Infinite Crisis, etc.) for years, but not enough of them get into the effects the knowledge of parallel Earths would have on the general populace. This one does.
Daphne and Her Dog, by Rebecca Sean Borgstrom. I've not much to say about this one save that it's a hilarious and terrifying deconstruction of a certain enduring piece of pop kitsch.
My first blog fight. Ugh. I managed to go for over a year with no drama whatsoever, and now this. I don't hold it against WFA 'cause it's not their fault who follows their links, but I think from now on I should moderate myself a little better when discussing feminism and other political topics in case I attract more trolls out to belittle my fanhood.
...my bulging, throbbing fanhood.
*snicker*
Okay, I'm done being juvenile. No ripping bodices here.
On a completely different note, here's Neil Gaiman talking about H. P. Lovecraft:
Damn straight. The thing about Lovecraft isn't that his stories were particularly scary (most were not), or that he was a particularly skilled writer (he really, really wasn't). In fact, he was a wordy, overly-sentimental bigot -- and that's what his fans have to say about him. The great thing about Lovecraft, though, was his ability to masterfully set a sense of mood, to convey his worldview, and to inflame the imagination. Say what you will about his writing ability ('cause it's all of it true), but he's still one of the greats in my book.
Welcome to my comfy little hobbit-hole on the web! A 24-year-old slacker in Springfield, Massachusetts. Considering going to art school to work towards a career in animation. Likes role-playing games, fantasy novels, cartoons, and comic books. Lovably ineffectual. I pretty much just use this weblog to post about pop culture stuff that I'm into.
