No rest for the Wretched

Cocktails @ 6 - DesignPhiladelphia

2011-10-14T17:01:00.001-04:00

On Saturday October 15th, live out your MAD MEN fantasies and more with Cocktails @ 6, taking place at Olde City's More Than Old store. This DesignPhiladelphia celebration of vintage barware which will include cocktail shakers, decanters and glassware in addition to other essential bar accessories.

The event will take place from 2-8pm with a cocktail tasting taking place from 4-8pm. Why is the event called Cocktails @ 6 you may ask? In classic society, the 6 o'clock cocktail hour was a mainstay in glamourous party traditions. As Beth Gibson of More Than Old explains: "Hollywood stars such as Monroe, Bacall, Taylor, or Crawford in slinky gowns with gorgeous jewelry, their handsome escorts in tailored pinstripes, bartenders in starched tuxedo shirts making decadent drinks."

More Than Old (www.morethanold.com) is a leading Old City source for vintage barware and home pieces, including an interesting selection of decorative accessories. It is located at 144-146 N 3rd St and is also home to a cute kitty-kat! This event is completely free so slap on your fedora or boa and be there!

3 Recent YELP reviews from me: Sampan, Farmer's Cabinet, Gunner's Run

2011-05-09T21:47:00.002-04:00

Sampan 5 out of 5 stars~
Category: Asian Fusion
Neighborhood: Market East
5/8/2011
Despite a minor hiccup on the initial service (I also did join my party a few minutes after they were seated so I chalk up the delay to the server not realizing I had arrived yet), we really enjoyed Sampan.

We sat inside and it was open, modern and sleek looking. Loved the dark wood and the open kitchen. They have Asahi Super Dry on tap (a personal fave of mine). We shared between 3 of us:
-duck spring roll: flavorful
-crab won tons: good (but Latest Dish STILL has the best crab won tons in the city!)
-pork potstickers: very tasty
-General Tso's soup dumpling: OH. EM. GEE. This was awesome! Kinda like the french onion soup dumplings from Starr's Continentals but I have to say I liked Sampan's soup dumplings better. Such a neat idea and so yummy!

Each dish came with about 3 or 4 pieces, we were all fully satisfied after the meal. I can't wait to come back and try their happy hour deals! The outdoor Graphitti Bar in the back is also on the list to try!

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The Farmers' Cabinet - 2 out of 5 stars
Categories: Bars, Gastropubs
Neighborhood: Market East
5/6/2011
It really is interesting how people seem to LOVE this place or HATE it. Unfortunately I am on the negative side of spectrum.

I really wanted to like The Farmer's Cabinet as I read so many great twitter reviews prior to our visit. I did quite enjoy the food. We had the spare ribs and the rabbit two ways. Both were really good (except the slates they came out on were just plain silly!).

I hated the communal table we were seated at for dinner. The people that they sat next to us were so close they made the joke "Sorry we're late" to us as they sat down. There was a space 2 seats away that would've put some space between us but of course the hostess didn't put them there. It's just awkward!

I am not really a "beer person." I'm a lager or stella drinker. My boyfriend is a guinness or lager person. Boyfriend asked for lager after they advised they didn't have guinness, was told they didn't carry domestics. He tried to then just order a Jameson and ginger ale to which the reply was they didn't really have Jameson or any Irish whiskey, that they only really carried what was used to make their specialty cocktails. I picked something out for him but it was too hoppy (my fault!) for him and it took quite a while to get to him (I had my drink for quite a few minutes before he got his). The best part was we were joking about how they probably couldn't find the beer b/c they had some many varieties only to glance over at the bar to see 2 bartenders with flashlights looking at bottles. I did partake in the Walnut Street Shuffle cocktail made with St Germain (one of my fave liqueurs) and that was glorious! But I would say overpriced for the size.

So I would say go for the food and hope you get seated at one of the barrel tables!

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Gunners Run - 3 out of 5 stars
Category: American (New)
Neighborhood: Northern Liberties
3/21/2011
The menu on the Gunner's Run website has a lot more on it than what was available both times I went in this past weekend, but I say they're off to an ok start.

The 1st time we went in was the Friday before their grand opening, we had to wait quite a long time for a server to approach us once we were seated and my man-friend finally stopped someone and asked for a server. It was very busy.

Our lager cans took FOREVER, but the food came out pretty quickly. We had the chicken fried chicken and the Bad Luck Burger. The chicken friend chicken was super crispy and the sriracha mayo it's served with was totally tasty. I absolutely loved the Bad Luck Burger. It was so good, Craig N's suggestion that it is "an upscale version of a Big Mac" is the truth. This is not a bad thing at all. The fries were good but not great. The burger was worth the price of admission, a double cheeseburger for $9 is reasonable to me.

I was hoping to try the kobe corn dogs listed on their website's menu but sadly they didn't have them on the menu yet.

I really liked the HUGE map of Philadelphia they have on the back wall now, it's really interesting.

The 2nd time we went on a slow Sunday and both got Bad Luck Burgers b/c they were that good. I hope they extend their menu soon and continue to improve their service.
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10 ARTS / LE BERNADIN DINNER - April 26th

2011-05-02T14:06:00.004-04:00

I will happily admit that Sean and I are major fanboys when it comes to chefs; both of us are avid Top Chef / No Reservations viewers and pride ourselves in how many Iron Chef restaurants we have visited (for the record, the count is: 5 Bobby Flay, 2 Morimoto and 1 Garces). So when I learned about the 10 ARTS / LE BERNADIN Chef’s dinner happening at 10 ARTS this past Tuesday, I snatched up reservations as soon as I could. We have celebrated Sean’s birthday at 10 ARTS before, and while this dinner would take place exactly 1 week before, the prospect of sampling both Jen Carroll’s AND Eric Ripert’s fare was an opportunity we could not afford to miss!

Here's what we had:

Amuse Bouche – A single oyster with so many flavors packed into it was our Amuse Bouche. I wish I could remember what exactly went into that oyster but I can tell you it was divine and a great start to the meal.

1^st Course – The first course was by Ripert and featured insanely thinly pounded layers of tuna (it was basically like a super flat tuna tartare) that featured a toasted baguette in the middle topped with Foie Gras, chives and olive oil. I am a foie gras fanatic and I absolutely loved this dish. The combination of the olive oil, foie and tuna was so rich and satisfying. This course looked huge but the tuna was flattened so much so that I imagine we were really only eating a few ounces. I have to say this was my favorite dish of the evening, certainly not to take away from the amazing courses to come!

2^nd Course – Jen Carroll’s 2^nd course consisted of roasted asparagus topped with poached egg and herb butter underneath. To me, I could see this as a great breakfast side or a modified Egg’s Benedict for veggie lovers. The egg was cooked to perfection and the butter was SO good. Butter in (good) restaurants never ceases to amaze. We use Kerrygold and while that butter is the best I can find in the grocery store, Jen’s herb butter blows that out of the water!

3^rd Course – Ripert prepared the next 2 dishes which I believe he used to his advantage. The 3^rd Course was a charred octopus that featured a black bean-pear sauce and ink-miso vinaigrette. I have had squid before but never octopus so I was a little weary that I may find it too chewy. I should never worry when it comes to Ripert; the octopus was light and tasty, the ink-miso vinaigrette really stood out flavor-wise and the purple basil was both a pretty garnish and tasty accompaniment.

4^th Course – Ripert really spotlighted his talent with his 4^th course which flowed effortlessly from the previous octopus dish. Striped bass was prepared medallion style with a baby carrot-herb salad and miso butter sauce. You would think that having miso in 2 subsequent courses might seem like overkill but quite the contrary: you could tell miso was in both dishes but the ways it was used simply heightened the dishes and allowed them to complement each other in such an amazing and flavorful way. Purple basil was again a garnish but I find these small touches what makes Ripert a world-renowned chef.

5^th Course – Carroll’s rack of lamb came with a quinoa and feta tabbouleh and pomegranate jus. The lamb was cooked to perfection and had just the right amount of fat. While I am not a huge fan of feta I found it went well with the quinoa and pomegranate jus as well. The jus was sweet enough to off-set the slight bitterness of the feta.

6^th Course – the dessert course featured a plethora of different tastes: peanut brittle, lemon curd and the cardomon sorbet were the definite stars of this course. The desserts were prepared by the resident pastry chef, Monica Glass.

While the food was the crux of the evening, the highlight was the fact that Ripert and Carroll both made the rounds to the guests dining at 10 ARTS that evening; Ripert was sincerely nice albeit a bit soft-spoken while Carroll was very friendly and complimented my hair AND my Flyers arm band (WEET!) We were able to get pictures with both of them which I felt made for a great birthday present for Sean. While 10 ARTS is Ripert’s restaurant, I think this only seals our fate that at some point we will need to go to Le Bernadin in NYC for the full Ripert experience.

Camp Camp Philly

2011-04-01T10:33:00.003-04:00

Geekadelphia holds it's first ever camp about camps!

All the info you need is here: http://www.campcampphilly.com

And be sure to check out their awesome sponsors like SPACE BAR: IT'S NOT A TRAP!

PopCultees (+Giveaway!) - Josh Blaylock's T-Shirt Line Launches!!

2011-03-23T16:27:00.010-04:00

Josh Blaylock is known in comic book circles (read: people like me and my friends) as the figurehead behind Devil's Due Publishing and has been pretty direct about the woes associated with that business. Blaylock's go-getter attitude has kept him afloat-and dare I say rivaled the success-of DDP and none is more apparent that the launch of his recent T-Shirt line. PopCultees is for the renaissance nerd; pop culture abounds with Blaylock's new company. I got to chat with Josh about PopCultees and other things - read on and learn how to win a FREE POPCULTEE TSHIRT !!!! WOW!!

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MARY E BRICKTHROWER: What made you decide to start a T-shirt line?

JOSH BLAYLOCK: I actually have roots in the apparel business. In a very real way without that I would never have brought G.I. Joe back in 2001. I helped launch those 80s cartoon retro shirts back in the late '90s that kicked off the craze in Hot Topic, Gadzooks (remember THAT place?), and a million others. I was only 21 years old and it gave me the experience in licensing to pursue my true passion at the time which was comics. While working for the apparel company I was driving all over the MidWest hustling black and white comics at conventions.

Other than that, though, I wanted a great, simple way to build a business around fun topical stuff that I'd enjoy working on. When Joe Song was down to contribute to the artwork and help run this thing then we were off to the races. It's still extremely small but that's how these things begin. It took us a while to get set up with a local printer, get our terms in place, etc., just like anything else. The hangtags are in now and they look great.

MEB: Does this site relate directly to your PopCult company with Christian Beranek?

JB: PopCult is a creative solutions company (we just did the redesign for iCv2 for example), which CB is a collaborator on, but it's also an incubator for new businesses and ideas. If it has the PopCult brand you know you can expect a certain feel, but each compartment can run independently from one another. If something succeeds, awesome, and if not, it doesn't damage the other businesses. Prior to PopCult I had another rather sizable creative business and I was a graphic designer before publishing or apparel, so it just made sense. I've never been able to keep everything in one little box.

MEB: What would you say is the theme for the t-shirt content?

JB: Topical and pop culture references - so that can be a nerdy sci-fi reference, or it can be a satire on the latest celebrity nonsense. There are a lot of online shirt retailers and each has its own flavor, so I think where we stand out is our treading into political or world news territory. We don't want to get too heavy or anything, but the NeoCon shirt is a good example.

MEB: Are more shirts in the works?

JB: We are stocked and ready with over three months worth of ideas and designs. We're getting ready to upload the next one tomorrow.

MEB: What has motivated your move out of comics and into other avenues of media?

JB: You mean besides the business tanking? Haha. No, I've been more than vocal about our situation there and since then I've even warned of a potential collapse of the whole comic book business in February. With Borders going under right on cue, it's beginning to unfold. So we're just plugging away building up the digital business, which isn't enough to compare to the old business yet but it is growing.
Once I called out Diamond and decided to leave them there wasn't any going back. It's the best thing I ever did.
DDP still has bills to pay and will for quite a few years - So far we've knocked about 60 or 70 parties off the list. Only a million or two to go.

The better PopCult-Tees does the better everyone will do. Or in other words - WINNING!

MEB: THe "WINNING!" shirt is my favorite and I don't even really care for the whole Charlie Sheen hoo-ha!! Haha, tell me about your blog, www.JoshBlaylock.com

JB: As far as the blog, it's where I post frequently on all sorts of things, but mostly on the business of pop culture and comics. The theme is "The Business of Creativity."

MEB: Cool thanks so much chatting with me Josh! Can't wait to see more from you and PopCulTees!

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AND NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY!!!

Just RETWEET a link to this story in the next week for a chance to win a FREE t-shirt from PopCultees! Any design of your choice! Make sure to have my Twitter acct (@PhillyGeekMary) mentioned in the post or I won't see the entry. Viva La PopCultees !!

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~Till next time Kittlings!

24 Hours of ... THE RETURN

2011-03-17T15:13:00.005-04:00

Oh yes, I'm bringing it back. Stay tuned right here for the 2nd installment of 24 Hours of ...

BAD VIDEO GAME MOVIES!!!

Here's the queue for this Saturday, it's gonna be AWFULLY awesome!

Plus stay tuned NEXT WEEK for my interview with Josh Blaylock about his new T-shirt line!

Some local Philly Events ... 90's Quizzo + Groundhog Day BEER!

2011-01-23T22:00:00.003-05:00

It's short notice but I feel I would be remiss in not mentioning 90's Quizzo @ PYT to my Filthadelphia Geeks! Monday nights! Here is info for this week's theme, straight from Tommy Up and PYT's Facebook page:

QUOTE

"Monday night at 8:30, Gunner hosts 90s QUIZZO PART 2: JUDGMENT DAY! Last week's quizzo was the best ever. Let's do it again and win some great prizes as always! You'd better know your N*SYNC from your Backstreet Boys and your "My Heart Will Go On" from your "Kiss from a Rose"! HALF-PRICE PITCHERS as always and a 2 point bonus to any TEAM that has all 4 colors of the ninja turtles on in some sort of team combination."

UNQUOTE

PYT is located at the Piazza (2nd and Germantown Ave in Northern Liberties).

Gotta love the TMNT shout-out. T-U-R-T-L-E POWER!

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I know that if you're like me then Groundhog Day brings flashbacks of Sonny and Cher's "I got you babe" and Bill Murray trying to off himself in multiple ways but at the Grey Lodge Pub it's a entirely different tradition. Think drinking before 8am (doors open at 7!) and hula hooping in Hawaiian shirts! 8 plus beers on tap and contests mark the occasion in addition to the usual viewing of Punxutawney (I almost spelled that right the first time!) Phil.

Here's the flyer:

And you can get more Grey Lodge info here.

The Grey Lodge Pub is located in the NEast on Frankford Ave but is close to public trans.

Grey Lodge Pub

Yelp Review - The Dandelion

2011-01-09T15:29:00.001-05:00

18th and Sansom St
Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 558-2500

The Dandelion Pub

Category: Gastropubs
Neighborhoods: Rittenhouse Square, Penn Center

3 OUT OF 5 STARS

I'll admit I'm a Stephen Starr junkie so I really couldn't wait to try out The Dandelion. The bottom line: I plan to give this pub another shot but my fist visit there was a bit all over the place.

The outer facade is adorable, it looks like a quaint corner pub was transplanted from England and plopped down in the middle of Center City. I guess aesthetically using the corner door as the main entrance seemed like a good idea, but you are basically causing a draft through one of the dining rooms every few seconds and leaving a hostess to direct new customers through an eating area and up the stairs to the actual host station.

We were seated downstairs b/c that was the only thing available for walk-ins at 6pm but I'm sure that's due the Dandelion being the new kid on the block. The menu is a decent size and offers some traditional British fare such as fish and chips, shepherd's pie as well as some American classics. I ordered the deviled eggs, the foie gras and the lamb shepherd's pie; my friend ordered the root vegetable soup and the chicken entree. I was also sipping on the house-made cocktail called the "Tatanka" which features fresh squeezed apple juice as the manager was quick to tell me. And then the wait began.

I was catching up with my friend so it wasn't like we were sitting there counting the minutes but unfortunately it was beyond noticeable that after we got our soup + foie gras, we were waiting for quite a long time for our entree. The waitress did come over to apologize. I was a bit overwhelmed by the saltiness of the deviled eggs but the foie gras, fried egg + bacon combination was AMAZING.

When our entrees finally did come, I thought my pie was excellent. It was a nice decent size, not too much. Unfortunately my friend seemed to have the heavy-handed salt problem with her chicken.

We had our food cleared and then the manager visited our table again to apologize that the entree took over 30 minutes to arrive to our table and that he was comping them. We told him he didn't have to (and we were taken aback for the fact that while I did say something to my friend, we didn't complain about the wait b/c we were busy chatting) but he insisted. That to me is pure class. And for that reason I will give The Dandelion a second chance; well that and the fact that my boyfriend still wants to try it despite our dodgy visit. I hope to be update this review with some more positive aspects next time!

Yelp Review - Village Whiskey

2010-12-09T13:05:00.003-05:00

12/9/2010

My boyfriend and I went on a Sunday evening but even still there was a small wait of about 10 minutes. The wait paid off though b/c (as per my previous review of FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY) we got a snug little corner seat that was a great people watching location.

The ambiance was busy but laid back, the Whiskey menu is obviously impressive. The bar was packed.

We shared 2 apps - the tots and the deviled eggs - and while I still maintain South St (with PERCY ST BBQ and SUPPER) as the deviled egg capital of Philly, the Tots were awesome! The potato seemed to be pureed inside so they were melt in your mouth YUM!

Of course we had to order the WHISKEY KING. And it was worth every penny. Boasting 2 of my favorite things, Bleu Cheese and Foie Gras, and combined with bacon and red meat goodness, all I can say is WOW. I liked the maple glazed cipollini but I found it a bit too sweet. Sean however had a love affair with them and I wouldn't be surprised if he sneaks daydreams about them.

We had the regular duck fat French fries but I have been told we should have upgraded to the Short-rib and Cheddar Fries (but hey now we have an excuse to go back!).

Another Garces great, I can't wait to visit again!

David Mack on Electric Ant, an amazing in-depth interview / Interview by M. Sean McManus

2010-12-04T09:50:00.068-05:00

An ELECTRIC ANT is an organic robot, made up of wires and powered by electricity; it is also a hard covered graphic novel by Marvel Comics.

Created by David Mack (w), Pascal Alixe (a), and Christopher Sotomayor (c), "Philip K. Dick's Electric Ant" adapts the original story behind the future noir classics, "Blade Runner" and subsequently "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". I don't think I need to explain to you how important those works are to modern pop culture and science fiction, but in case you do-- it's huge.

In the dreamlike tale of "Philip K. Dick's Electric Ant", Garson Poole wakes up to discover he's been in an accident and now his whole world is changed. The doctors tell him he is not the man he thought he was, he's not even a man at all. Poole is an electricant, an "Electric Ant", a machine programmed like any other. Unlike other machines from the future, Garson Poole does not hunt humans-- he hunts reality. Garson wonders why he was programmed, by whom, and to what purpose? When Garson Poole begins tinkering with his internal programming tape-- reality bends, time breaks. Imagine a walking, talking, face tripping terminator; that is "Philip K. Dick's Electric Ant".

I enjoyed the comic thoroughly and I'm honored that David Mack, author of the adaptation, was willing to spend a little of his Thanksgiving holiday talking with me in-depth about "Philip K. Dick's Electric Ant".

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MSM: David, thanks for taking time to talk about this with me. To start off, can you tell me how Electric Ant came about? Was it a project you put together and pitched to Marvel and ESP, or did ESP bring it to Marvel and you were approached by Marvel?

David Mack: I offered the project to Marvel after I was already working on it with Philip K. Dick’s daughters, Isa & Laura. The producer of the Scanner Darkly film, Tommy Pallotta introduced me to Isa & Laura after he showed them Kabuki and they had discussed me adapting Philip K. Dick to comics and graphic novels. Tommy Pallotta put the idea in motion for me to adapt PKD. Tommy also produced the film Waking Life (also directed by Richard Linklater) and he had contacted me in 2003 to work on a project with Hampton Fancher, the screenwriter for Blade Runner, and Jonathon Lethem the novelist who happens to be a Philip K. Dick scholar.

Tommy had picked up the Kabuki: Metamorphosis graphic novel in a bookstore in New York and then tracked me down for that project (with Fancher & Lethem) in 2003. Then a couple of years ago, when Tommy had finished the Scanner Darkly film, the latest Kabuki film option had expired at Fox and Tommy was interested in making the Kabuki film as his next film, so we began discussing that. Mostly on long bike rides on the beach at Santa Monica and Malibu. At that time I had just finished reading a biography of Philip K. Dick while working on The Alchemy, and Tommy and I began to discuss PKD quite a bit.

Tommy showed my work to Philip K. Dick’s daughters who run Electric Shepherd Productions and he suggested the idea of adapting PKD stories into graphic novels for the first time. They liked the idea, and Tommy and I, along with advice from Jonathan Lethem went about combing the prolific works of PKD in search for the right story to start with. We decided on Electric Ant for specific reasons and I worked out my approach to the story. Tommy and I met with Philip K. Dick’s daughters Laura and Isa in Santa Monica for a long lunch during which I explained ideas for the approach of the adaptation. They liked the approach and we were all on the same page creatively. Laura and Isa revealed that some publishers had heard that we were developing this and they already had offers from publishers.

I suggested to Isa and Laura that Marvel would be a very interesting publisher for this project. Marvel had great success with adapting author Stephen King to comics, and I offered that it could be an epic event if Marvel were to do the first comic book adaptation of the master of Science Fiction as well. The idea being that we could start with Electric Ant, and if well received, continue adapting more PKD stories. Perhaps choosing a different artist for each different story. I asked Isa and Laura if they would mind if I met with Marvel to offer the project to Marvel. Isa and Laura were intrigued by the idea and gave me their blessing. So after the New York Comic-Con in February 2007, I met with Marvel Publisher Dan Buckley at the Marvel offices to discuss this endeavor. He liked the idea, Marvel, and the Philip K. Dick Estate were introduced to each other, and thus began many, many months of working out the business relationship between the two houses of ideas.

I’ve been pals with Paul Pope since way back, so I knew he was a PKD fan, and I thought he would be perfect to do the covers. So I asked him if he was interested and he was into it. Brian Michael Bendis and I are big admirers of Blade Runner, so I asked him if he was interested in being a part of the project and he was into it.

Then Tommy, the Dick Estate, and I looked at the work of many artists that Marvel editor Mark Paniccia sent our way, and we thought Pascal would be great on it. So I was approached by Tommy Pallotta working with the Dick Estate, and then we worked together to cultivate the project and find the right home for it.

MSM: Awesome, what drew you to this tale of PKD's?

David Mack: We (Jonathon Lethem, Tommy Pallotta & I) chose this story as the first adaptation of PKD into comics because we felt the story has what we considered the classic quintessential Philip K. Dick-ian themes. The Electric Ant is a short story that Philip K. Dick wrote in the sixties. The germ of the idea of Electric Ant became the basis for Electric Sheep which became the film Blade Runner. Philip K. Dick would often take some ideas from his short stories that he thought were gems, and flesh them out into the larger format as a novel.

The Electric Ant asks the enduring existential questions: Who am I? Who created me? What was I created for? What is the meaning of my life? Do I have free will? Am I limited by my programming? Can I evolve into something beyond my original programming? What is reality? Is the way I perceive reality different than a fixed reality? Can I alter my perceptions to transcend my ego and programming limitations and see a pure reality? Does my internal reality affect the external reality? Which is more real?

MSM: Can you speak a little about your writing process? When adapting from one media to another, how did you decide what elements to retain from the original and what to delete or modify?

David Mack: The adaptation is very true to the original story, but there was more room to develop things that are only hinted at in the short story. In this case, that was one of the advantages of adapting a short story instead of a novel. In adapting a novel to film or graphic novel, you may have to edit it down. It can be a reductive process. With this story, I was able to let it develop organically into the new format in ways that expand on ideas and scenes that are only hinted at in the short story. It is not identical to the short story, but we decided early on that it was going to be very true to the source material. We did not want to change it into a different story with only minor similarities. Everything that is in the short story is adapted into this version, but things that are suggested in the original story are given more room to flesh out. Some ideas and details that are mentioned only once at the beginning of the short story now have room to return with a twist. And there is a sort of love story that developed. It is not an action story though there is action in it. It became a kind of mystery and a love story with the mystery being these existential questions that I mentioned, it all begins when the protagonist begins searching for answers.

A man wakes up in the hospital from a traffic accident only to have the doctor tell him they cannot treat him because he is a robot. He then has a lot of questions. Who made him? Who owns him? What is his program? Can he alter it? Has he been walking around seeing things differently than they really are? I wrote the script into the story that I would write if I were turning the short story into a film.

It was most important to me to be respectful to Philip K. Dick’s story, to communicate the themes by taking advantage of the new opportunities that the comic book medium offers, and that my version would ring true to his daughters Laura and Isa. I can’t tell you how happy I was that Philip K. Dick’s daughters liked the script that I wrote. That meant everything to me.

MSM: What was the biggest change from the original material, and why did you feel the need to change it? In other words what were the creative challenges it presented?

David Mack: The biggest challenge was that in the original short story, the main character is mostly alone, and thinking to himself. The characters of Danceman & Sarah are in the short story, but briefly. In my comic book adaptation, I let the characters of Sarah & Danceman develop more and they gave opportunity for the protagonist to voice his thoughts through interaction and discussion with these external characters, instead of him thinking most of the action the way it happened in the original short story. This gave more visual opportunity between the characters and room for all of the characters to develop because of that and it lead to the biggest change from the original story, in that there is a kind of love story that develops in the adaptation.

MSM: David, you are a consummate creator, in that you both write and do your own art-- with that in mind, I was struck by the parallels between your role as a creator, and Garson Poole's experimental manipulation of his reality, of time & space, and the editing of reality as presented in story form. Can you speak a little about that and if there was any aspect of this story you felt a deeper connection with other than simply being a "gig".

David Mack: I like the comparison that you are making and I relate to that in terms of us creating our own reality, our own life narrative, all the time, and the act of creating (writing or drawing) comics and books and films is a perfect metaphor for that, as is the character in this story.

Giving the main character an idea of programming, the idea that he has natural inclinations for what he is “hard wired” to do, to see, to enjoy, to pursue, is something that I think is a good metaphor that most humans can relate too. Also the idea that there are things in his program that are naturally edited out of his daily narrative before they make it to his conscious frontal awareness is also, I think, comparable to the unconscious and conscious editing that happens with all of us on a daily bases.

Once we become aware that our reality is limited by these things, what we perceive, what we project, and that we have blind spots about things that we are not perceiving, that epiphany that we are not at all living in an objective linear reality because of our blind spots and our programming (from nature and nurture)... when we become aware of these things and that our reality can indeed be influenced by our own thought and actions more than we realized, we then have a liberty and a responsibility, even a mission, to be more consciously intent about how we create the narrative of our lives.

I know that I related to this character very much when I was writing this story. They character is, in fact, very close to the way that I often think, act, and speak regarding my interaction with others. People have told me that the character speaks in my voice. He is a very earnest character. He’s trying to do his best. But he becomes aware that there is a gap between how he sees things and reacts to things and how other people see things and how he is expected to react in certain social situations. I relate to this in a very personal way.

I work with an art studio for artists with Autism, Asperger’s and other challenges and there are a lot of correlations between how these people navigate the world and the point of view that is presented in Electric Ant. I have Autism and Asperger's in my family and you could even view the protagonist’s earnest efforts to understand and relate to others and interact with the world while being made aware that he has certain blind spots and “hard-wired” inclinations to those of the person with Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome.

I don’t really talk about this much in a professional setting, but it is something that I deal with everyday and very personal to me and I could not ignore the similarities that occurred to me in writing this story. I very much related to Garson Poole in the story.

I try to avoid labels which is the point of the art studio that I work with (so that people with these challenges can be seen in a venue as artists first for what they can do, rather than through the lens of a label with connotations of what is perceived as their deficiencies), but I think author Chuck Palahniuk mentioned this in regards to me publicly at some point, and it is something that occurred to me in the course of this character.

MSM: That is great, I had no idea of your involvement with all of that, and I'm really glad to find out how personally you connect with this project. Funny enough I do now see a certain resemblance to you and the image of Poole on the Hardcover-- something about the shape of the eyes maybe?

Again, I really enjoyed Electric Ant, I think everyone who's a fan of your work or Philip K. Dick should check it out. Is there anything else you'd like to mention?

David Mack: I’m very happy with the Hard Cover collection of "Philip K. Dick's Electric Ant". It has some extra features in the back as well. There are 16 cover drawings from Paul Pope that have never been seen before and there are character designs and sketchbook images. At my facebook page you can see the step by step art process of my cover painting that is on the Hardcover.

If you are not that familiar with my other work, I’d recommend reading my most recent Kabuki collection called The Alchemy. I think it my most evolved work as a writer and an artist and the most diverse art approaches throughout the story. You can also check out my children’s book The Shy Creatures and I have new series coming out from Marvel called Dream Logic.

You can find detailed information about all of these on my facebook or twitter (davidmackkabuki) or the fan site of my work: Davidmackguide.com which is updated daily.

MSM: One last quick thing since Mary is always talking about food here: What is your favorite meal?

David Mack: I like sashimi. Mackerel, Salmon & eel are my favorite. Also Thai soups.

MSM: Great, thanks again for your time, David.

David Mack: You're welcome. Thank you, Sean.

Yelp Review - Brave New Worlds

2010-11-28T14:01:00.002-05:00

A comic shop review - yay!! After these guys helped me with my newest THE WALKING DEAD obsession this past week I knew I needed to post about them on Yelp.

11/28/2010

My pals Mike Oeming and Bryan Glass (creators of the comic MICE TEMPLAR) signed here and I came in to visit them during that event a few years ago. The staff suggested drinks at one of my fave bars, Sugar Moms, after the signing and I knew I had found my new LCS.

Always helpful staff, they will help you find the book you're looking for and not at all pretentious like some other comic shops can be. A great selection of comics (indie and mainstream), graphic novels and collectibles. They have some DARTH MAUL swag that I've never seen which is no small feat as I have a pretty healthy obsession with this particular STAR WARS villain.

They also have a book club which is basically like a frequent buyer card w/o carrying around a card. Spend a certain amount of money and you get store credit. Simple and sweet!

My Thanksgiving Menu 2010

2010-11-15T17:00:00.003-05:00

I have yet to attempt a huge Thanksgiving Dinner with the family and instead I like to cook for just 1 or 2 people, usually just the boyfriend of course! But we have a nice time relaxing and cooking all day. Here is the menu I have decided upon for Thxgiving 2010:

~ Apps ~

Shrimp Dip recipe (From Family Circle, recipe not available on web site)

Chips + Dip (a simple bu

t classic app, we usually never have chips let alone dip so it's a treat)

Cocktail Weenies!

~ Veggies / Fruit ~

Brussels Sprouts with haricort verts and Bacon (Recipe from Family Circle ====> here)

Mustard + Cranberry Relish (From last year's Bon Appetit; Sean and I really liked this dish so we're doing it again. You can find the recipe ====> here)

~ Starch ~

Sean's roasted garlic mashed potatoes (a tried and true recipe for amazing potatoes!)

~ Bread ~

Grand's layers

Stovetop Stuffing

(both require little preparation leaving me more time for the...)

~ Turkey ~

8-12 lb fresh turkey from Fair Food Farmstand, courtesy of Koch Farms in Tamaqua - Sean will be picking up our turkey the day before Thanksgiving. I am going to be using a combination of Ina Garten's Perfect Roast Turkey Recipe and a herbed butter coating for the outside which I adapated from a recipe my sister Shacky shared with me. I've made this same turkey the past 2 Thanksgivings and really have no desire to change it. Basically b/c it's really really tasty!

~ Dessert ~

Turtle Pumpkin Pie (from the Kraft.com website - my friend Dan Berger recommended this non-bake / non-mechanical blender recipe which you can find ====> here

===================

The dessert, veggies, and shrimp dip are new recipes but making the dessert and shrimp dip the night before means I can concentrate on the turkey and brussels sprouts on the "Big Day," while also leisurely making the cranberry relish and letting Sean concentrate on the mashed potatoes. I want a low stress day whilst simultaneously preparing a mini-feast for the 2 of us. We will have THE ICE STORM on at some point during the day as it's one of my personal traditions. Can you tell I'm excited?

Yelp Review - Friday Saturday Sunday

2010-11-07T18:46:00.001-05:00

Mary B.

Pop Culture + Comic Book Blogger, Foodie, Phillies fan

Philadelphia, PA

11/7/2010

I just took my girlfriend here for her birthday this past Saturday and I must say it was a great dining experience. I made reservations a few days before and took it as a good sign that the only times available were 5:30 + 9:30 pm. We opted for the former and were the first to arrive when they opened.

I loved the seating they provided to us; we were in a nice little nook in the back on a catercorner bench. The low lighting and ambiance was just spot-on. It seems like a great place for couples, very romantic.

I did not peruse the menu online beforehand per my usual M.O., but I did read some reviews right here on Yelp. I had the mushroom soup b/c I read so many reviews that recommended it. I am not usually a mushroom soup person but this was pretty good. I really loved my entrée which was the crab cakes. My friend got the Chicken Dijon, the small plates portion which turned out to be the perfect size for a no leftovers dinner. I tried her chicken and was blown away by the taste but my crab cakes with the spicy remolaude was just as good.

The check was on the pricey side but I would consider it well worth it for the overall package. Friday Saturday Sunday will be added to my list of "special occasion" restaurants alongside Butcher + Singer and Bistrot La Minette.

Yelp Review - Quince Fine Foods

2010-11-04T19:49:00.002-04:00

I am going to try something new and start posting my Yelp reviews as I write them. My blossoming food obsession over the past few years has been sharing more and more of my time with my (still) healthy pop culture interest. Hope you enjoy :

QUINCE FINE FOODS - 209 W Girard Ave

Philadelphia, PA 19123

(215) 232-3425

www.quincefinefoods.com

Link to your review Edit your review Add to list

Mary B.

Pop Culture + Comic Book Blogger, Foodie, Phillies fan

Philadelphia, PA

11/4/2010

I wish I knew about this place sooner but glad we found it only a few months into moving back to Philly. We were in search of soup and didn't want to drive over to Center City for DiBruno Bros so the Yelp search app suggested this place, right near our apt to boot! The owner was super nice, we got the 7 Herbed Chicken soup which comes with a roll. The selection of cheeses was so tempting, believe me when I say it is good to know that Cambozola is available only a few blocks from my house!

The soup was absolutely lovely and made it much easier to watch NO RESERVATIONS that evening; I felt like the food I was eating was better than the food Bourdain was touting on his show!

I will be happy to support this small shop in the future and if you're in the No-Libs / Girard area then you should too !

======================

~Till Next Time Kittlings!

Zombie TV ... They've Got Their Visions Again Like It's Oxygen

2010-10-27T19:45:00.005-04:00

Zombie’s all up in your TV grill !

Tis the season … for the living dead. Let me hip you to a couple great series that you should be checking out NOW or soon.

DEAD SET (IFC) – This British import premiered Monday at Midnight on IFC and runs consecutively at the Witching Hour (12am) all this week. The concept of this show combines your typical Zombie flick (outbreak, widespread panic and carnage...zombie and human alike) with that of the typical reality show -- in this case a fictional BIG BROTHER. As the outside world is literally consumed by the undead, Kelly, a behind the scenes grunt on the show, survives long enough to make her way into the compound that houses the set and keeps the cast safe. They are unaware of the outside chaos but soon enough have to make tough decisions to outlast the zombies waiting just outside their gates.

This show is only 5 episodes (about 3 hours) so the pacing is on par with a movie rather than a TV show. But it is also shot wonderfully and the effects hold up. There are some cameos that only British Big Brother / sketch comedy watchers may realize (Bubble or Big Train anyone?) but nevertheless this is a great series worth checking out ! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that IFC shows this more than just this week !

THE WALKING DEAD (AMC) - This series premieres on Halloween at 10pm which does sound creepy enough but I hope they replay this bad boy because I know plenty of people that treat the 'ween like a major holiday and will no doubt be out partying. Set your Tivo kittlings ! I was blown away by the 1st episode, while it may share a common theme (ZOMBIES DUH!) with DEAD SET this series is in for the long haul. Based on the critically (and fanboy) acclaimed comic book by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard, THE WALKING DEAD is not set at a breakneck pace but instead balances the gore with a focus on human relationships and emotions. The main character is police officer Rick Grimes, whom enters a 28 DAYS LATER-like coma after being shot, only to awake to find the world in utter decay and disarray due to the zombie apocalypse. He is able to escape from the hospital and make his way back to the home he shared with his wife and son only to find it long since abandoned. Rick finds other humans along the way and learns that Atlanta was declared a safe haven before the world entered radio silence. Rick decides to make his way to Hot-lanta believing his family has fled there ... only to discover it's not so safe as he was lead to believe.

THE WALKING DEAD shares some similarities with DEAD SET apart from the obvious zombie-stricken plot. Neither series is driven by actors that you will readily recognize. Both series have decent effects, although I am sure that DEAD SET relied less on CGI and more on shaky-cam (but both work nevertheless). They also both have a main character that is dealing with some sort of family / relationship issue although I enjoy the fact that each shows character is on the opposite side of the spectrum when it comes to said relationship.

But from what I've seen of THE WALKING DEAD, this is where the similarities end. THE WALKING DEAD is planned as an ongoing series. Where DEAD SET is set at breakneck pace and contains mostly action, THE WALKING DEAD is really focused on the people whom have survived and the relationships they have both sacrificed and fought to keep alive. The scope of the outbreak is not really defined in DEAD SET, there just simply isn't the time allotted to do so. More background is provided with THE WALKING DEAD; we don't necessarily know the cause of the zombies but the fact that the outbreak is widespread and the symptoms / causes are outlined gives me more of a ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE / WORLD WAR Z feeling. There is a vastness and sense of endless possibilities that THE WALKING DEAD provides that DEAD SET does not.

Don't get me wrong, to miss either of these offerings is a travesty for any zombie lover, it simply proves that not every zombie tale is alike. You will not be disappointed in either show! Viva La Zombie ! < === bit of an oxymoron eh? =============================== Finally, because Halloween is an aforementioned major holiday for me, let me take you back to 1986 and a personal favorite of both mine and my sister Shacky. The movie: THE WORST WITCH starring Fairuza Balk (THE CRAFT) and Tim Curry (ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW). The song: "Anything can happen on Halloween" sung by Tim Curry with amazing effects provided by Brian Harris and Tom McKerrow. Uh...I don't know who they are either but trust me, these effects are "special!". Feast your eyes on this...and I wish you a very Haunted Halloween!

============================

~Till Next Time Kittlings !

2010-10-13T20:00:00.001-04:00

Recent reviews by Mary B.

What's this?

SECRET PROJECT #11 - Thirty Thousand Feet w/Michael Woods + David Miller

2010-06-04T14:03:00.006-04:00

Welcome to the last SECRET PROJECT interview as THIRTY THOUSAND FEET is the final story in our anthology. It's been a long hard road but we have produced (what I think to be) an amazing collection of stories from some of the most talented message boardies I've even known! Many thanks to Mike Oeming and his Jinxworld forum for bringing us all together.

My final interview is with Michael Woods (writer of SP#11 in addition to being an editor I really look up to!) and David Miller, artist of THIRTY THOUSAND FEET. Please enjoy !

===================

Mary E. Brickthrower: How long have you been reading comics?

David Miller: Well the first comics I read were Disney's The Fox and The Hound. 3 of them came in a pack and I was around 6 or 7 years old. I'm not sure I them more than looked at them. I was heavily into X-men, Spawn, Cerebus and Madman through highschool. Lately I read the spectrum of comics, there's so many good ones. I'm always there for Walking Dead, 100 Bullets and DMZ.

Michael Woods: Since I was old enough to walk down to the corner 7-11 on my own. Mostly war comics like The Nam and Semper Fi and that was probably because my father was in the Army reserves when I was a kid. I looked up to him quite a bit and still do, truth be told.

MEB: When did you decide to become an artist?

DM: I've always been drawing stuff ever since I can remember. Always been the artist kid in class. I had never considered to persue comics until Herbe Trimpe came to school in the 6th grade to lecture. On an overhead projector he showed us some of the published Hulk and GI Joe pages he'd done. Then he drew some faces of Hulk, Wolverine and Thor. It was a good day. Later my father send me to "college for Kids" with Paul Abrams teaching the ropes of comics. More good times.

MEB: What about you Michael? When did you decide to work in comics?

MW: I think it was in high school that I made the conscious decision to be a writer. Before that and as far back as I can remember, I'd been making up stories when playing with my toys and while drawing whatever bit of crazy I could imagine. It's just a part of who I am, I guess.

MEB: How did you become involved with SECRET PROJECT?

DM: First time I've heard I was a part of it! But I guess Mike's been hard at work behind the scenes- Good to know. I met Mike on the Digital Webbing forum talent search. Thirty Thousand Feet was an eight pager we did some time back. That led us to one of the stories in his OUTLAW TERRITORY anthology GUTSHOT. It was a descriptive script with dialogue that was still being written. I look foreward to see how it turned out.

MW: Who can remember? I was probably drunk at the time.

MEB: What else are you working on right now?

DM: About five things that I can think of in the works right now:

WICKED is written by Orlando Harding about an Angel and a Demon having Apple Martini's and sharing stories. They're jobs come face to face at the end of the book. It'll be around 70 pages. I'm on 48 now. The colors that Paul Little are doing are amazeing!

MONARCHY is written by Mandy McMurry with digital paints by the artist Oracle. I got the script the other day and I've thumbed out 10 pages. It's still really early - probably to even mention. But I like how the story is unfolding and I always enjoy Mandy's work. She's goooooood.

CARBIDE SOFTWARE will be luanching soon started by a friend since childhood. It's a new company that makes game apps for the BlackBerry. I've supplied the art for 2 games. One is in the can and the other I'm halfway through. I make the art and he codes the game. He's insane good at this stuff and I'm very excited to see how people react to them.

DINNER I will be eating and digesting in the very near future. Chinese home delivery - my favorite.

MW: Well, Outlaw Territory volume two is finally ready for solicitation. I also have a graphic novel on the way called Bruised Peach (Image) with artist Dan Duncan. I also have a story going up on Act-I-Vate soon with artist Eduardo Mederos and next year will see a new book I'm working on with Tim Kane that should be pretty awesome.

I probably forgot something, but chances are people stopped listening to me after question #2.

MEB: Thanks so much guys!!

(From Top: Photo 1 : David Miller, Photo 2: Art from Thirty Thousand Feet, Photo 3: Michael Woods)

=================

~Till Next Time Kittlings!

SECRET PROJECT #10 - FLAG OF TEARS w/Rob Reilly + Jeff Brown

2010-05-20T15:23:00.003-04:00

We're in the homestretch of SECRET PROJECT and what a ride it's been. This week we're focusing on the creators of FLAG OF TEARS, and they just happen to be 2 of my closest friends. I interview Jeff Brown and Rob Reilly about their past and present. Enjoy!

=====================

Mary E. Brickthrower: How long have you been reading comics?

Jeff Brown: I have been reading comics since I was about 7, I jumped onboard with the typical Marvel and DC books. When I was 14 I found more indie books, like SCUD The Disposable Assassin, Love and Rockets, and Mad Man. During the 90’s I left after all the sagas and variant covers, I was brought back to comics by a book by a good friend (Mike Oeming) called Bastard Samurai, which led to Powers, Ultimate Spider–Man and now I will read just about anything that comes out.

Rob Reilly: When I was a kid (age 5-10 years old), I never really “read” comics. I mostly looked at the pictures. I’m a visual person first and foremost. My dad had stacks of old DC Comics from when he was a kid, so that’s how I got introduce to them. There were a few years where I didn’t read, look at or collect comics and then when I was 13 or 14 I really started reading comics, mostly anything Todd McFarlane and have continued since then expanding my tastes from small press, independent creator owned to a few of the major company titles. Which has been a great inspiration for me, other people’s work makes me want to create more and work harder.

MEB: When did you decide to become a writer?

JB: I think it just happened, I was six and can remember creating stories and movies with the action figures I got as gifts. I would recreate things I saw on TV then I quickly started making my own story lines and eventual crossing heroes and villains over just because I thought it was cool. I also was teaching myself how to draw so that helped me visualize what I wanted to do. While I grew up the art took a side step, my parents were incredibly supportive of my art career, though high school is where I caught the writing and directing bug. The knowing that I created and crafted something was so much more appealing at that time. I have not stopped writing or creating since. I was very thankful to meet an incredible group of people thanks to exploring my creative side. So it’s worked out.

MEB: What about you Rob? When did you decide that you wanted to be an artist?

RR: I knew that I wanted to be a cartoonist since I was 5 years old, in my mind there was no greater profession. At that time (and currently) I was a huge animation nut. I loved watching the old WB cartoons from the 40’s and 50’s as well as the Disney catalogue. I suppose that I really didn’t narrow my career choice until I started college. I felt that I would never have the patience to be an animator and comics would be a faster and more convenient way to get my voice/work out there.

MEB: How did you become involved with SECRET PROJECT?

JB: It’s weird. I went to the jinxworld forums and tried to make myself known of the Bendis board, but found that to be a bit too...not overwhelming, but crowded we'll say. Then I found the Oeming board and started "the big bad Oeming Q&A" thread, which was my way of getting to know Mike, and by proxy everyone else on the board. Later on once we became really comfortable and met pretty much everyone face to face, we started joking about everyone having a secret project, and once we decided to do this project I hopped on board. I will say that I did not have an artist at the start, but I could not be more grateful and thankful to Mary, Sean and Rob. Rob was a great guy to work with and I felt we both knew where we wanted the story to go, and this story wouldn’t be here without his incredible talents.

RR: I remember that this was discussed for sometime on the Jinxworld forum. At first, I really had no interest since previous attempts were made and I had spent time on pages that never saw the light of day. So I waited to make sure that this was a serious venture and once it was clear that this was and you guys still needed an extra story, I was on board.

MEB: What else are you guys working on right now?

JB: Right now I am the co creator of Dorkshelf.com, where I am the comic content editor, podcast host, cameraman, and host with my friend Will. We are growing the site with a voice for all things dorky in Toronto or with the Toronto twist. I have also completed the follow up to Flag of Tears, and have several other script projects for comics and television/ film looking for homes. Dorkshelf.com is my primary focus these days so come by and comment and let us know what ya think.

RR: I recently finished a short story for the Shrek Prequel published through Ape Entertainment. Currently I am awaiting approval for a new Dreamworks Animation property that will be work comic book format and illustrating another Shrek short for an upcoming issue.

In addition, I have been working on a new creator-owned mini series with my friend Steve Walters. We have about 1 1/2 issues in the can and are looking for a publisher.

Lastly, in the upcoming fall, I will have an original graphic novel released through Ape Entertainment that I had complete a year or so ago, titled “Planet Zoo”. Be sure to keep a weather eye on that book and order it like crazy!

You can see more of my work by visiting www.skatoonproductions.blogspot.com

MEB: Thanks guys!

====================

SECRET PROJECT #9 - INCINERATOR...interview with creators Brickthrower, McManus and Quinn

2010-04-29T13:30:00.006-04:00

SECRET PROJECT #9 features INCINERATOR, a story by M. Sean McManus, Brian Quinn, and myself. So this week we have a guest contributor, Jeff Brown of Dorkshelf.com, who will be conducting the interview for all 3 creators of INCINERATOR. (check out photo of me and Jeff at left). Please enjoy and stay tuned for our story which will premiere Monday May 3rd (McManus' birthday!).

=================

Jeff Brown (Aka Boss Hogg): How long have you been reading comics?

Mary E. Brickthrower: I started reading comics when I was 12 to get in with the cool band nerds that I hung out with…yeah I was a band nerd and I thought reading comics would make me cooler ! I was strictly a Marvel girl then, loved VENOM and XMEN. I only collected for about a year before the need to fit in wore off. Then later on, when XMEN the movie came out, I thought “hey, I used to like comics” and started collecting again. This time my interests were all about indies – the 1st two comics I bought during my reawakening were PURGATORY and LUCIFER.

Brian Quinn: I have 2 older brothers that collected comics, so I always had them around. I'm dyslexic but was categorized at an early age (around first grade I think). My mom asked one of my doctors if it was okay for me to read comics since I loved them from an early age. His response was something like "I don't care if he is reading the side of a cereal box, just as long as he is reading something."

M. Sean McManus: I've been reading comics as long as can remember. I read Spidey Super Stories, Archie, and of course Batman from a very early age. The first comic I started reading with any regularity was G.I.Joe from Marvel Comics in 1982-- they had some awesome commercials then.

JB: When did you decide to become an artist creator?

BQ: There was no defining moment or anything like that; just an understanding that when I got older, I was going to be involved with drawing comics. I think as I actually started working on more complex stories in my college years, I really discovered that I enjoy telling stories more than just drawing. Probably why I lost interest in the fine arts so soon after graduating. I was able to do some much with comics that I felt very restrained in painting or other forms of fine art that I was studying at the time.

MSM: I don't know that I ever "decided" to do it, it's just what I have to do... sometimes.

JB: What brought about SECRET PROJECT?

MEB: Check out my previous interview with Tommie Kelly, as he was there to witness the birth of Secret Project. Once the idea started to take form on the message board, my artist Brian Quinn suggested I take on editing duties for the anthology. No one objected, and the rest is history.

JB: How did you become involved with SECRET PROJECT?

BQ: Pretty much like everyone else I think; it was being discussed on the Oeming board and I got involved when Mary & Sean approached me with their story. Not sure if this was before or after I suggested Mary take over the job of editing this project (heh heh).

MSM: I believe I was a witness to the project from the very beginning. I was at a pub in times square with Ziggy and Tommie Kelly, and Tommie said something like, "Why don't we all do an anthology together?" To which Ziggy said, "That's a great idea". Then I think by the next morning Quinn had nominated Mary to be the EIC of the project... and then it just grew from there.

JB: Mary, here are couple questions especially for the editor of SECRET PROJECT: What are some words of wisdom you would like to share about the process?

MEB: Always be open to your collaborators ideas, they might just be better than yours! Also, if you know you can’t make a deadline or you know you won’t be able to participate, TELL YOUR EDITOR! A little bit of communication goes a long way.

JB: Where did the title come from?

MEB: We were throwing around ideas on the board for weeks and nothing was sticking. But it seemed like everyone on the board had some sort of “Secret Project” that they were working on…so we thought “why not expand on that concept.” It worked well for the anthology b/c we had no theme for it, so it’s a very broad term. I like to think it refers to our contributors’ best work.

JB: What is it like collaborating with another creator, let alone friend’s?

MEB: Sean and I are together now, but when we working on INCINERATOR we were just friends. I guess that might’ve allowed a certain amount of politeness that I wouldn’t have now! Haha, we have worked on one other comic script since then and I’m sure I was much more of a bitch about what I wanted in that script. Seriously though, collaborating was a lot of fun. It started with just a word ("Incinerator") and we both came to the table with ideas. Sean really took the reigns in combining our ideas and honing the script due to his past script knowledge. Quinn was easy-peasy to work with in regards to illustrating our tale; I think the dark style of our tale really lends itself to Quinn's particular style for the story.

JB: What inspired you for your tale?

MSM: Incinerator grew out of conversations I had with Ms. Mary E. Brickthrower. She had a definite idea for a story, and I had a bit of a fever dream. Incinerator is a merger of those two ideas.

MEB: The first thing that inspired us was a Flickr image of a crazy looking building called "Incinerator." I was inpsired by Plato's idea of "The Cave," and early versions of the script were entitled "Horror" by Sean so I think we were inspired by some bleak dystopia that I can't think of right now.

BQ: It was a strange story that felt like a dream. I know that sounds hokey, but in this case, it really had that vibe. Regarding the style of art I decided to go with, I had been messing around with some wet & dry wash inks on recent Wicked Samurai pages, so I decided to add that to this project as well.

JB: Are you big gamers? if so what are you playing?

MSM: I love video games, but I'm a bit of a serial monogamer. I'm currently obsessed with Halo3-- still. I've tried some other things since it first came out, but I'm all about the on-line play in Halo. It's not necessarily the most realistic or the latest and greatest of games, but I still think it's the best.

MEB: I get obsessive about a game (like PORTAL) and tend to never let go. Even if I don't play it anymore. Same with Tekken. Still love Tekken Tag even if I never play anymore. But like McManus, it's all about Halo ! We like being able to play split screen and using both of our game tags, I'm kinda insane about getting my gamer score higher (hence my recent manic play with Forza Motorsport, getting my score up left and right with that game!)

BQ: I wouldn't say I'm a big gamer, since I rarely have the time needed to devote to any one game. I do however read up on the business and listen to several podcasts each week. Right now I have God of War 3 waiting for me and I just picked up both Army of 2 games. So many games, so little time...

JB: Which do you prefer the online or the convention experiences?

MSM: Interesting question-- both. I definitely prefer both on-line and convention experiences.

BQ: Being a cartoonist, I am mostly locked away on my own working or even on the internet chatting with friends and/or fans on IM or facebook these days. I definitely enjoy the convention experience because it's a rarity to meet fans face to face, or people that have never seen my work before. And the after hour parties...

MEB: Oh yes Quinn, the after hours is where it's at! That's really my favorite part of conventions, being able to hang out with my online friends in a real life atmosphere. It's so much fun! And the FOO! Crew knows how to (in the immortal words of Andrew WK) "PARTY HARD!"

I do like technology as far as communication goes though; I will text or email over a phone call. The only person I talk to on the phone on a regular basis is my mother. I even text with my dad!

JB: Do you have any advice for those out there looking to start a secret project of their own?

MEB: It's a long hard road out of hell but eventually you will see the light. Haha. Be patient, and if you're an editor you have to keep deadlines in check and the communication open. We started this project back in 2007 and through life changes, board changes, etc, we produced a pretty big anthology that features a lot of great talent. I couldn't be happier with it. So much so...I'm actually considering editing another.

JB: What about you guys? Any advice for those starting out?

BQ: So many things... for now I will just stated that it is incredibly important to hit conventions, both big and small. Meet the people that create the books you read, and some you have never known about before. It's very important to know how the machine works before you jump into this business in any capacity.

MSM: "Starting out", you mean like a baby? I don't think I could give any advice to someone just starting out like that, I don't even speak their language anymore.

JB: What else are you working on right now?

BQ: I'm working on a pitch with Lazlow Jones from Rockstar Games & XM/Sirius Radio. It's called "Darwin" and promises to be epic!

Working on "Jigoku City" & "Wicked Samurai" on my own. Two pitches that mix the supernatural with 19th century Japanese culture.

Also working on a book project based on the legend of the Jersey Devil that was initially started when I was still doing stuff over at Weird NJ/US. I don't have a home for this book yet, but I am hoping to have it completed in time for the Fall of 2010. Will most likely self publish.

Will finally get around to updating my official site http://www.brianquinnartist.com so please bookmark it and check back soonish.

MSM: Currently I have a short story out in Outlaw Territory volume 1, available in stores now. I also have several other projects that are still to embryonic to plug right now- check out my website for more info about what I do: www.mseanmcmanus.com

MEB: Sean and myself have worked on a script for another anthology, and for me that's about it. If you need an editor, I'm cheap! Hire me! /shameless self promotion.

JB: Well guys thank you for your time.

MEB: No, no, thank you!

===================

PHOTOS: An image from INCINERATOR; Quinn, Oeming and McManus.

===================

~Till Next Time Kittlings.

SECRET PROJECT #8 - THE MISSION...and interview with ZeeS

2010-04-14T18:31:00.010-04:00

This week we chat with ZeeS, the creator of Secret Project #8, THE MISSION. ZeeS is multi-talented...he wrote and illustrated this edition of SECRET PROJECT. Be sure to check the web site on Monday when his story premieres!
==================

Mary E. Brickthrower: How long have you been reading comics?

ZeeS: I remember reading Captain America, and the old Incredible Hulk and Savage Sword of Conan magazines when I was 4. Shortly after that I started drawing. While I was in high school, I neglected any type of reading I had for school to read comics – I think the only story I read was Hamlet. Since I was 18, my reading has been cut down drastically. It just wasn’t worth it after awhile, I had to read every little book in order to work out a storyline. It wasn’t until I was 21 that I really took literature seriously and, ironically enough, read Fahrenheit 451, which led me to writing and creating more stories. Now it’s limited to any Hellboy/ BPRD mini, Scalped, and the occasional catch-up on classics like Watchmen or V for Vendetta. Right now, I’m trying to build up my Moebius and Taiyo Matsumoto collection. The latter’s work seems really informed by Moebius, and Moebius is king of composition, and panel layout. Matsumoto’s got a very cohesive idea about how his writing and art coalesce.

MEB: Moebius is indeed awesome! When did you decide to become an artist / writer / creator?

ZeeS: When I was 13, I decided that I would either have to continue drawing for the rest of my life or completely stop all together. My brother (Chris Moreno) and I would create

little comics to feel it out, but nothing really serious. I was always better at developing the stories in my head, since that’s where most of my ideas stay anyways. Later, while I was inking a comic written by Tony DiGeralamo, I got more of an idea of what working in comics was all about. Now there are so many ways to self-publish, it takes away the intimidation of having to go through the whole pipeline of comic companies. The good thing about self-publishing is that there’s more of an opportunity to tell stories that don’t always get told in the mainstream, particularly for communities of color. I really looked up to the Hernandez brothers. It was great to read stories about other Chicanos and know that Chicanos actually wrote and drew those stories. Making comics is something I hope to pass down in my family, because I think of how much my dad drew and didn’t have the opportunity to continue it. He passed something amazing on to my brother and me. I want to give that to my students and eventually, my kids.

MEB: How did you become involved with SECRET PROJECT?

ZeeS: I was kicking around on the Oeming Board talking to a bunch of schlubs, when someone brought up the idea of doing an anthology. I was all for it. Originally, I was going to work with JefUK on his story, because I was working on a pretty heavy story at the time and didn’t want to write something new. But I worked out a story idea from a dream and decided to work on The Mission; I think the character in The Mission is very Moebius influenced.

MEB: What else are you working on right now?

ZeeS: Right now, I’m on a long break from school – art school is expensive. (I advise anyone thinking of going to seriously debate alternatives that cost as much - like investing in a car and driving around the country, or opening your own studio) Experience and practice can beat an art school education any day, and you can always take outside classes that are more specific (and cheaper). But while I am on my break, I’m working on my thesis animation and another AmericansUK comic with JefUK called Just Super. I hope to finish 2 more comics. Space Funk and my Presidential Debacles comics this year. Presidential Debacles is a 2-parter, Kerry Zombie vs. Bush Alien and Bush Alien vs. Obama: Space Avenger. I’m also about to get started on a mural and web comic called The Modern American Couple with my partner, inspiration and my energy, Mensen.

MEB: Sounds like you're busy - good luck on all your projects! And thanks for chatting with us!

====================

~Till Next Time Kittlings.

Secret Project #7 - Donal Delay's THE MEETING + EXCLUSIVE News about our upcoming PROJECT!

2010-04-01T11:52:00.013-04:00

As some of you may have noticed, SECRET PROJECT began on Mike Oeming's forum over at Jinxworld. Donal Delay took that to heart when crafting his story THE MEETING for the anthology. I asked Delay a few questions about his tale which will be premiering Sunday April 4th. Check'em out!

===================

Mary E. Brickthrower: How long have you been reading comics?

Donal Delay: A little over 20 years. It started with a couple issues of Marc Silvestri's Wolverine, and some Whilce Portacio issues of X-Factor on a road trip with my parents. It was just a casual reading. I started seriously getting into comics when Image formed.

MEB: When did you decide to become an artist / writer / creator?

DD: Probably around the time I started reading

comics. I wanted to start telling my own stories. Making my own characters. etc.

MEB: How did you become involved with SECRET PROJECT?

DD: I post on Michael Oeming's message board from time to time. He's one of my favorite artists (hence the story) and a bunch of cats on the board were putting together an anthology and taking open submissions. It sounded like fun..

MEB: What else are you working on right now?

DD: I'm working on a short graphic novel called HERRIN MASSACRE. It's about the slaughtering of 50 scabs in 1920's Illinois by the coal miners who were on strike. It'll be about 70-80pgs. You can see the progress of it on my blog http://donaldelay.blogspot.com. Later this year I'll have a short, 24pg comic called BOSTON STRONGBOY coming out. It's about John L. Sullivan. The first World Heavyweight Boxing Champion.

MEB: Thanks Donal!

==================

EXCITING NEWS!!! M. Sean McManus and myself have been tapped by a major publisher to oversee their new imprint of Graphic Romance Graphic Novels. A formal press release for the imprint known as HEART'S INK, INC. is being drafted by the lawyers now. Our first adapted GRGN, will be Nora Robert's BORN IN FIRE and is being scheduled for a fall release.

SECRET PROJECT #6 -- Neil Vokes' MARC OF THE VAMPIRES

2010-03-20T14:49:00.005-04:00

My dear kittlings, this week's interview is a bit late but certainly not least. Neil Vokes' contributes to SECRET PROJECT this week with his story MARC OF THE VAMPIRES. Vokes is a legend and having him aboard SECRET PROJECT was truly an honor. I asked Neil a few questions about his past, present and future in comics. Enjoy!

===================

Mary E. Brickthrower: How long have you been reading comics?

Neil Vokes: Well the 1st comic I recall reading was SUPERMAN in a barber shop-back then they had them for the kids so we'd scream less often,I guess-My best guess is I was 4 years old,so 52 years...yes-I'm that old.

MEB: When did you decide to become an artist / writer / creator?

NV: I probably decided to become an artist back when I was a kid,but I don't think I seriously considered it as a vocation until i was in my late 20s,after losing my "real" job-my wife,Siri, urged me to follow my dream-amazingly,I actually got work in the industry-it's been 26 years now.

MEB: How did you become involved with SECRET PROJECT?

NV: Honestly it's been so long since we started this I don't recall exactly how I got involved-I think i was reading about it in Oeming's forum and basically "raised my hand" and volunteered to donate a story and whatever advice I could to the Project.

MEB: What else are you working on right now?

NV: Recently,I've been working on several short stories,including one for Scott Wegener's ATOMIC ROBO, written by old pal Robert Tinnell; Rich Woodall's ZOMBIE BOMB!, written by another old friend,Jack Herman who wrote EAGLE with me back in the '80s; and another story with Jack for Kerry Gammill's upcoming anthology, BELA LUGOSI'S TALES FROM THE GRAVE.

I'm also in the midst of drawing a new series with Bob Tinnell called FLESH & BLOOD-it's another "monster rally" comic like our THE BLACK FOREST 1 & 2 graphic novels-though in this case,instead of an homage to Universal Studios' films, we're using the great Hammer Films company's work like HORROR OF DRACULA, FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED and VAMPIRE LOVERS as our inspiration-so it will be a more "mature" title. After that I hope to get back to Bob's other script, THE VOICE-this is a very dark,violent thriller with supernatural elements-then I have a pet project on the boards with another writer friend, David Zuzelo, which would be pure mindless fun-it's working title is MACISTE at the moment-the only way to describe it would be an R rated THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN and that doesn't begin to cover everything we have planned.

MEB: Thanks Neil!

==================

Be sure to check out http://www.secretprojectcomic.com on Monday 3/22 for Neil's story!

Secret Project #5 - Sam Little's Fuzzy F***ing Navel interview LIVE* from TAMPA!

2010-03-04T15:21:00.004-05:00

*well almost live. I mean, I am posting this interview LIVE from sunny Tampa where I'll be celebrating some close friend's birthdays and taking a Phillies spring training game. But let's talk about the matter at hand - Mr. SAM LITTLE and his contribution to SECRET PROJECT. His story is called "Fuzzy Fucking Navel" and you might be surprised what it's about. I talked with Little about "Fuzzy..." as well as other comic related things. Check it out!

=================

Mary E. Brickthrower: How long have you been reading comics?

Sam Little: I've been reading comics since the dawn of man. One of my earliest memories is cutting out pictures of Spider-Man and Captain America from comic book covers and taping them up on the walls of my room. Oh, how that childhood memory torments my inner nerd. Would that I could only reach back through time and slap myself. STOP! CUTTING! UP! THE COMICS! That'd teach me.

MEB: Conversely, when did you decide to become an creator?

SL: It's all due to those crazy nutty message boards. I joined the Benbo a few years back to ask Bendis a question about Ultimate Spider-man.

Did I really just type that out loud? Gadzooks.

Anyhoo, whilst perusing the various boards I came upon something on the Oeming board called the MONDAY FUN SKETCH thread that Scott Wegener had started. I'd kinda fell out of drawing for awhile, but there was some cool stuff posted in the thread and everybody seemed pretty loose and non-judgmental so I posted a couple of things. This went on for a few Mondays and I got more and more cranked up about drawing again. The nice folks on the board were very encouraging, I must say. Then I happened to pick up Bendis' TOTAL SELLOUT and I really liked the comics in there where people just kind of told a story. And I thought to myself, "Gee, maybe I could do something like that..." And so I did. And I just never stopped. Man. That was a long story.

MEB: How did you become involved with SECRET PROJECT?

SL: You know what? I don't remember. I am old and am no longer able to retain new long-term memories. Or short-term ones. I'm sorry...who are you again? But, no. I'm guessing somebody posted about it on the Oeming board and I said "Sign me up."

MEB: What else are you working on right now?

SL: Well, I'm still kicking out those "people-telling-stories" comics over at http://www.untruetales.com/. It updates a new page every Sunday. I also did a hardboiled crime comic called THE HAMMER with a few other guys over at Zuda. It's about an angry pink bunny that hits people with a hammer. And it's a hardboiled crime comic. Did I mention that already? Anyways, you can find all 60 pages of it here: http://www.zudacomics.com/the_hammer

Anyways, It's an honor to be included in the Secret Project with all these talented folks. Thanks for having me!

MEB: No, no - thank you Sam!

==============================

Well there you have it! Be sure to check out SECRETPROJECTCOMIC.com this Monday to see Sam's story!

~Till Next Time Kittlings, I'm on vacay!

SECRET PROJECT #4 -- THE MUGGING

2010-02-18T12:25:00.009-05:00

This week we're talking with Ziggy Blumenthal, artist on the Will Swyer penned THE MUGGING, the 4th installment of SECRET PROJECT. But not only did Ziggy contribute to the anthology but also played a key role in the production of the comic. Check out the interview below and don't forget to check www.secretprojectcomic.com on Monday February 22nd!

=============================

Mary E. Brickthrower: How long have you been reading comics?

Ziggy Blumenthal: Give or take about 20 years now. The first comic I really collected was POWER PACK. Between the ages of 11 and 13 my biggest goal was to get every issue and every appearance of the team (mission accomplished, by the way). Other than that I was really into AMAZING SPIDER-MAN,

NEW WARRIORS, ROBIN and I got every issue of the BILL & TED comic by Evan Dorkin. It wasn't until the comic store opened down the street from me when I was 13 that I really branched out, thanks to the recommendations of the owner. SIN CITY, WATC

HMEN, Miller's DAREDEVIL run, the early Jim Shooter / Barry Windsor Smith Valiant books and of course I continued to get everything I could by Evan Dorkin (or as I called him back then, The BILL & TED Guy).

MEB: When did you decide to become an creator?

ZB: It was really all I ever wanted to do. My motivation and how serious I took the thought went up and down over the years, but if asked the question I don't think i ever had a different answer. Looking back, I wish I took the thought more seriously more constantly back when I was 13 and throughout high school. I never really stopped drawing but there were definite misses opportunities in getting some good training early on. The aforementioned comic store that opened down the street from me was owned by Amanda Conner with her husband at the time. She's certainly helped me out and shown me a thing or two, but with a little more motivation on my part what an opportunity for a high quality mentor there. I really didn't know what I was missing.

In addition to that, with my family in the printing business I had the chance, and the intention, of trying the whole self publishing thing while still in high school. It would've been nice to have learned all those lessons so early on. But unfortunately, while I started many projects, I didn't have the discipline to finish them. On the bright side looking back at them they were all atrocious and we should all be thankful they never saw the light of day, but it would've been nice to get the experience.

It wasn't till I was 21 and working in a warehouse that I really decided to take making comics seriously and enrolled in the Savannah College of Art and Design's sequential art program. Now all I need is a genius idea I can make one issue of then sell to Hollywood, cause let me tell you, those student loans aren't gonna pay themselves!

MEB: How did you become involved with SECRET PROJECT?

ZB: I'll give the short version for those who didn't read Tommie's interview (Hey! Go read Tommie's interview!). Out on the town with Sean McManus and Tommie Kelly. In an Irish pub, showing the two of them how much more Irish I am than them both put together. Tommie mentions with all great talent on the Oeming board that we should all do an anthology. Everyone agrees, a legend is born. From there, with my experience self publishing, I decided to join Mary and Sean on the editorial side of things and help how I can putting the book together.

As for the birth of my story with Will, that was a case of us both being lucky enough to have bad luck at the same time. I originally paired with another writer and he originally teamed with Scotty Law to draw THE MUGGING. At the same time my writer and Scotty both had to drop out, so I was more than happy to pick up Will's story. Scotty did do layouts before having to drop out, so wanting as many people from the board involved in the book as possible I chose do my finished pencils off of Scotty's layouts.

The most interesting part of working on this story for me was it's the first thing I've drawn that I didn't ink myself. Tom Shloendorn did a fantastic job making my chicken scratch look good, but I definitely learned a few lessons about collaborative drawing. One of the reasons i decided to graytone the story was after getting the inked pages back I felt the pages looked too white. For a story that took place in an alley at night there was definitely not enough shadow work in it, and I realized it was completely my fault. The shortcuts I take penciling when I do my own inking aren't gonna fly when someone else is finishing the pages. Tom can't read my mind, and I know to pay attention to just how finished the pencils are before I send them out to someone to ink.

MEB: What else are you working on right now?

ZB: My main project is my weekly web comic, Chris Wnuk: Secret Jew, about a man who for reason not yet explained has to keep the fact that he's Jewish a secret. He goes out of his way to throw people off his Jewish scent while still adhering to his religious guidelines as best he can. Well, most guidelines. There's one pretty important Commandment that he's seemed to have missed. Let's just say it's in your best interests to NOT figure out he's Jewish.

Then there's my print comic, Sidekicked!/Operation Pajama Pants, with writer Cory Harris. What started as two separate comics has now been combined into a single flip-book (old Marvel Comics Presents style). The latest issue was released at the Baltimore Comic-Con, and we're making the con rounds with that. And as soon as I find a new apartment and get all my drawing equipment out of storage we'll be starting on the next issue. Anything you ever wanted to know about any of this can be found at fakemccoy.com

MEB: Thanks Zig!

======================

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SECRET PROJECT #3 - The Power of Negative Thinking + Catching up with Attila...

2010-02-04T11:50:00.005-05:00

This week we'll talk with artist Pat Loika and letterer Thomas Mauer of THE POWER OF NEGATIVE THINKING, the 3rd installment of SECRET PROJECT. TPONT will premiere on www.secretprojectcomic.com on Monday February 8th !
==========================

MARY E BRICKTHROWER: How long have you been reading comics?
PAT LOIKA: I've been into comics for about 20 years, and Transformers and GI Joe were my gateway books.

THOMAS MAUER: While I read comics as a kid, there were long stretches in my teens and early 20s where I didn't even think about print comics. Web comics was where it was at and I followed tons of them.

It was around 2002 and Marvel's silent issue month that I started getting interested in the print medium again. Mainly, I read Star Wars comics though. It wasn't until 2004 that I started reading comics in earnest, not discriminating between genres. There are so many good stories out there, I couldn't imagine limiting myself to just one type of genre or storytelling.

MEB: Conversely, when did you decide to become an artist / creator?
TM: Toward the end of 2004, I had a few ideas for short stories and approached Noble Larimer and Ronin Studios about them. This led to editing a short World War II anthology. I couldn't find a letterer for my own stories and decided to give it a try. Lettering turned out to be fun, and shortly after Rich Johnston and X-Force's Chris Yost approached me about lettering their respective comics. It was a great challenge to improve my skills, and since they offered to pay me, you can blame them for leading me down the dark path of comic creation.

PL: I've always been into drawing, even before I discovered comics. I think I was 15 when I realized that I'd really, really love to draw comics...regardless of the pay.

MEB: How did you become involved with SECRET PROJECT?
PL: I frequented Mike Oeming's board, and I saw the open invitation to submit entries for Secret Project, and signed up. I paired up with writer Thommy Melanson and we worked on our story.

TM: Thommy and I have been working on short stories since 2005, so when he asked if I'd letter his story (drawn by Pat to boot--one of my favorite people in comics), I was on board.

MEB: What else are you working on right now?
TM: Right now I'm working on the web comics http://www.contropussy.com and http://wwww.g unsofshadowvalley.com as well as Dark Horse's upcoming NUMBER 13 mini series, the second volume of Image's OUTLAW TERRITORY, Image's BAD DOG, SULLIVAN'S SLUGGERS and SHUDDERTOWN, Atomic Pop Art's OCTOBRIANA, Disney's SHRINK, Archaia's AWAKENING, Desperado's STORM DAMAGE by Phil Hester, and a whole lot of other books.

Stuff that's already in stores includes Oni Press' LOVE BUZZ by Len Wallace, Dark Horse's RAPTURE by Mike Oeming and Taki Soma (the trade collection is in stores soon), Image's KILLER OF DEMONS by Chris Yost and Scott Wegener, all volumes of the POPGUN anthology (volume 4 is in stores February 24, 2010), STARSHIP TROOPERS, THE BOY WHO MADE SILENCE, and tons more.

It might be best to follow this link for a comprehensive overview:

http://thomasmauer.blogspot.com/2006/12/comics-portfolio-in-chronological_11.html

PL: I just finished up a 112 page graphic novel with writer Adam Witt. It's called Blacklisted, and it will debut at the Emerald City Comicon in March. I'm working on finishing up the first storyarc of The Villain with writer Steve Earnhart, and I'm working on a few other short stories.

MB: Thanks guys ! Best of luck to both of you !
============================
Also I recently spoke with Attila Adorjany and caught up with him and what's he's been working on:
ATTILA: Hope all's well and the New Year is getting off to a good start! I've recently re-launched my website with several focused galleries.
Here is the link: http://www.600poundgorilla.com

In addition I've been working on a Graphic Novel that I am
posting on the web as I complete pages.

MEB: Awesome Attila ! Thanks!
===========================
~Till next time Kittlings!

SECRET PROJECT #2 - Tommie Kelly's ROAD CREW plus a MICE TEMPLAR trailer!

2010-01-21T10:51:00.005-05:00

I've never met Tommie Kelly in person but I imagine we'll get along famously. After all we've been Jinxworld chums for years and he's offered to let Sean and myself crash at his house in Ireland next time we're around that way. And without him, who knows if SECRET PROJECT would've ever been conceived?

Tommie Kelly is the creator of ROAD CREW, a online comic about a wayward rock'n'roll roadie. Based partly on Kelly's life, the reality of this story is only outweighed by it's sheer hilarity. I talked to Tommie about Road Crew as well as his contribution to SECRET PROJECT.
=====================
Mary E. Brickthrower: How long have you been reading comics?

Tommie Kelly: I started reading comics when I was about eight. I use to sneak into my cousin's room and read his books. He had WATCHMEN, DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN, loads of 2000ADs, all the WARRIOR issues with V for Vendetta. I loved it. Being eight i didn't get all of the nuances of watchmen but I got enough to get hooked. I actually have a first edition soft cover of the DARK KNIGHT returns signed by my parents in 1988 which I treasure.

Later I got into comics like CEREBUS and LOVE AND ROCKETS, but I still kept in with Batman and the Justice league and more mainstream stuff. I came back to comics a few years ago and caught up on a lot of things I missed. Promethea is probably the greatest comic ever created, followed by V for Vendetta. But Cerebus will always be my favorite. I am so fond of so many comics that it seems wrong to grade them, but there you go.

Brickthrower: Conversely, when did you decide to become an artist / creator?

Kelly: I did a comic called Justice League Ireland when i was about 14, got it all photocopied and sold it in the local shops. I was all set on spending the rest of my life doing comics but i had a really shitty Art teacher at school and he put me off doing art all together. He had a very low opinion of comics and kept trying to get me into doing Graphics. So instead of encouraging me with life drawing or whatever he would make me do designs for washing up bottles. It turned me right off and I lost complete interest in art. I stopped going to class and didn't draw anymore. In the end I managed to get in the top 5% in the country in my final Art exams that year. I did the Art exams totally in comic style and going against everything my teacher had said. That was a nice victory, but the interest was gone.

This was also around the time that every comic had 18 covers and 400 sealed bags around them, ya know THE DARK AGES in the 90's. So, like everyone else I stopped reading comics.

I spent the next ten years of so in the music business. I was in original bands, cover bands, recorded critically ignored albums, went on tours and finally ended up a soundman. About four years ago I started getting back into drawing. Just messing at first. Then I started doing more and more. I got it together and started doing a comic called THE END, which I published on the web for over a year or so. THE END was the first time that I had drawn since I was 18 or so. It took me awhile to get back into. THE END was a great learning curve, looking back I took on way more than I could handle with a first attempt.

SO i stopped doing THE END, and took a breather. I was still working away as a Sound Engineer, and was beginning to really hate it. It wasn't something I ever wanted to do and it was killing me a little inside everyday. The result of all that was that I ended up hating music. I couldn't listen to it. Any music was instantly put me in a bad mood. I needed out. So I quit.

It probably wasn't the best time to do that as myself and my partner Venessa had just started to build our house and money wasn't growing on any of the trees on our site. But V was very supportive and told me that I was right to quit. I decided that I would give doing comics a serious go. I previously had done a few strips about a soundman called Jim, I added a few more and launched roadcrewcomic.com

It's nearly two years later, the house is built and last year I made more money doing art than I had as a musician or sound engineer. So I guess we made the right decision.

Brickthrower: ROAD CREW is an ongoing series but AS ABOVE, SO BELOW is a decidedly different turn than strip-style. In addition, you draw yourself into the comic. I have seen this device used before (ANIMAL MAN, EX MACHINA, AUTOMATIC KAFKA, ASM); what were you trying to achieve with this?

Kelly: AS ABOVE, SO BELOW is the prologue to the third ROAD CREW book called FOR SALE, after the Beatles album.The previous two books are also named after famous albums, Hendrix's ELECTRIC LADYLAND and JANE'S ADDICTION's NOTHING'S SHOCKING, but I choose this title because, for me, it was at this point that The Beatles started to become something that the world had never seen before. They just moved into a completely different league than everyone else. So i was trying to steal some of that energy.

The raison d'etre for FOR SALE is that I wanted to write a magick book that wasn't about magick. I read an awful lot of self-help/new age/spiritual books and what i notice is that 99% of those are written by people who became successful by writing self help books. Most fiction books on magick are about magick, but i wanted to do something different. I wanted to use all the principles of magick, the law of attraction, the secret, paganism, NLP, Buddhism, wicca but not have the story be about any of them. I wanted to do a magickal working using the story of a sound engineer and his life in the music business. The great magickal comics such as PROMETHEA or the INVISIBLES are essential stories about magick, which is great and they're exceptional works but I wanted to take it one step in a new direction.

In Chaos magick there comes an idea that you can use an image to represent an idea that you want to form in the real or physical world. It's called a SIGIL and practically the whole of MORRISON's INVISIBLES is a sigil. Morrison himself says that he had to start going easier on the characters in the book because events in the book where happening in his daily life. FOR SALE is also a sigil, there are things in it, sometimes obvious, sometimes occult, that are meant to affect my own life. I am 32 pages into the book and already I have seen things coming to life. It's weird and exciting and I don't understand exactly why it works but it does. I want to point out that some of the things are symbols and mean different things to me than they do to the main character JIM. So as my character points out to Jim, I don't wish for my Mother to die because Jim's has.

As to why I put myself into the story. Road Crew up to that point had been a cheeky funny strip about cartoon characters that had adventures and were safe. I wanted FOR SALE to not be safe, I wanted it to be more real but esoteric. I wanted the readers to know that something new and different was going on. I was aware that Morrison had put himself in ANIMALMAN, ALAN MOORE was in Promethea, DAVE SIM pops up in CEREBUS in a scene similar to mine. I love that Idea. I really enjoy when writers start taking themselves seriously and bend the format. I didn't read the Animal Man storyline until after I had my scene done, but I was very aware of it; I was interested to see how similar or dis-similar mine would be. I think I did something different but the comparison is obvious.

Anyway, it's not the first time I was in Road Crew, I appeared in the storyline CROSSROADS.

Brickthrower: How did you become involved with SECRET PROJECT? Word on the street is that the whole thing was your idea

Kelly: I had been a member of the OEMING board for awhile and while on Holiday to New York I meet up with McMANUS and ZIGGY. We had a great chat all about different comicy things and I said I had an idea that we should do an anthology. Simply put, the talent that was knocking about the forum was extremely high. I felt it would be a shame not to do something together. Also at that time the forum was very vibrant and lively. It's has died a slow and painful death of late, for many reasons, but as you can attest yourself, there was something magic about it back then. The guys liked the idea and we put it to the rest of the board. People seemed to go for it and it took off.

But yes, I am taking all the credit for it :) Unless it flops... in which case, it was Ziggy's idea.

Brickthrower: What made you contribute ROAD CREW to SECRET PROJECT as opposed to a new / independent story ?

Kelly: Because I am a man on a mission!

I am totally focused on Road Crew. All my energy and attention is on my goal. I want Road Crew to make a massive impact on the comic world and I believe given half a chance it can. So at every opportunity I am going to stuff it down people's throats.

You have to remember that I come from a music background. Ego is a huge event and force in music and it desperately lacking in comics. I love ego, I love it so much that I have cultivated a massive one for myself. I think the comic industry would be a lot healthier if we had few more ROCK STAR type creators. That was one good thing about the early IMAGE era, guys with huge egos that decided to do something huge and different. It all went wrong cos they lost the interest and the hunger and let things slip. What was once all about creative control and ownership became units, units, units and no substance. The basic premise of what those guys did at Image is very sound.

So I am going to stand up and say I think what I am doing with Road Crew is important. I think what all of us working independently in comics is important. I think SECRET PROJECT is important. Webcomics/small press comics are way more exciting to me because people are doing new things, interesting things. Marvel and DC and the rest are great but they're never going to change and they aren't going to save the comic business from going under. If we want comics to survive we have to stand up and do what's in our hearts. Do something new.

We all work or belong to a field of the arts that most of us are embarrassed to talk about unless we are in safe company. Comics are an immense and beautifully complex art-form but collectively we have become meek and shy about our art.

We need more rockstar creators to get us out of this. So that what I plan to be.

Rock On!

Brickthrower: Indeed Tommie ! ROCK! Thanks so much!
========================

Kelly's story will appear on www.secretprojectcomic.com beginning Monday January 25th - be sure to check it out!
========================

NOW Please check out the animated trailer for the newest MICE TEMPLAR Hardcover coming soon!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lLWW_mE-Q0

~Till next time kittlings!

SECRET PROJECT launches JAN 11th! Get to know the creators behind our first story

2010-01-07T11:43:00.008-05:00

It has been a long time coming. More than 2 years ago the Jinxworld.com based Michael Avon Oeming's message board (http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/forumdisplay.php?f=9) decided collectively to produce a comic book anthology. I was nominated as the editor of what we began to call "SECRET PROJECT" and gladly took on the task of organizing and putting together the comic. We ran into some hurdles, some missed deadlines, but in the end I couldn't be happier with the finished product. And I'm especially excited to say that come next Monday, JANUARY 11th, WWW.SECRETPROJECTCOMIC.COM will be available to all of the interwebz ! Be sure to check back every 2 weeks for a new story...and check back here for a new interview with the creator(s) ! Up first is NOT THIS TIME, a story by Jeffrey C Burandt and Ronald Salas (with letters by Ben). This is not your typical super-hero story and these aren't your typical creators. Let's talk more with Jeffrey "JEF UK" Burandt and Ron Salas. ==========================================

MEB - How long has AMERICANS UK been around?

Jeffrey Burandt: The first AMERICANS UK show was on midnight, 1/1/02, Austin, TX. We played a back yard New Year's Party at our friends' place. The girls who lived there would throw these huge parties with us in their giant two story house. We'd burn through a 20 minute set, finished by the time the cops came to make us stop playing.

MEB- Conversely, how long have you been a comic book fan?

JB: I've been reading comics for as long as I've been reading.

MEB - Which makes sense, because your band borrows from the comic book genre a bit in your stage presence, i.e., costumes. Was that around from the band's inception? How did it come about?

JB: We had been working the sci-fi and horror themes into the songs since the beginning, but no, the costumes are relatively recent--they debuted July, 2007. We hadn't played in a while, and for our first show back our guitarist at the time, Bryan Bruchman, suggested we dress as super heroes. I loved the idea (and we had already begun work on the comic) and it stuck. I think we're ready to move beyond to bigger and wilder costumes and stage shows, and play up broader science fiction themes in our presence, but everybody looks hot in a domino mask, and capes work great on stage.

MEB: What about you Ron? When did you get into comic books?

Ronald Salas: I pretty much learned how to read from comic books. Comics were pretty cheap and pretty popular in the Philippines so I always had a huge supply growing up.

MEB – And when did you know you wanted to be an artist?

RLS: I've wanted to be an artist for as long as I can remember. I can't remember a time when I was holding a pencil or crayon and wasn't drawing on something: paper, the table, the walls.

MEB - What provoked you to take your band to the comic book from?

JB: Well, I found out my drummer JTR3 was a robot from the future, and the material was just there. Write what you know, Mary. It seemed to me that comics was the best medium by which to represent all the crazy shit we've been through.

MEB - Issue # 2 takes an almost "Anthology" turn; why did you decide to take that direction?

JB: There's no real impetus for me to write AM/UK in 22 page installments. I write the story in chapters as I would write a prose novel, and the page counts of those chapters fall where they may. So, the immensely talented Paul Ciaravino and I got together and figured out how many pages of comics we could make in 2009. I knew that Chapter 2 of our story was 6 pages, but I wanted to have full issues of content to sell as merch at our shows and also use to promote what we're doing in general. I wanted those issues to hit at at least 20 pages, and I wanted to publish 40 pages of AMERICANS UK comics in a 9 month period. I met cartoonist Zees as we were finishing issue 1, and we decided to make "I, Ape-Man," together, using the AM/UK song as the inspiration. "I, Ape-Man" hit at 13 pages, so I thought publishing the short story version of "The Better Head"--which also has a song equivalent--was thematically appropriate, and would knock us over the 20 page count, hurrah! Meanwhile, Paul and I could get ahead of the game on issue 3. We're doing the same thing again now, where we'll be releasing an AMERICANS UK: Mixtape issue (40 pages of AM/UK comics, with a free, previously unreleased song titled, "John Loves Wayne," as represented in comics form by Donal Delay), while Paul and I chug along on issues 4 & 5.

I'm infatuated with the idea of prose and comics and rock posters and songs sharing the same textual space. I hope we're providing unique narrative experiences by tying these several storytelling modes together. For me, there are few things better in life than sitting around and reading comics while listening to rock and roll. So, by producing content that is both comics and rock and roll, I think AMERICANS UK is providing some robust fictions with which readers can interact. It's not often you get to dance to your comic books.

MEB - So how did NOT THIS TIME (from the SECRET PROJECT anthology) come about?

JB: I had had the story's turn in my head for a bit, but I wasn't sure what narrative mode or what length would work best. Several years ago, I decided to write some 4 page comic scripts, and "Not This Time," emerged. When I was presented with the opportunity to pitch for Secret Project, I sent Ron Salas some of my short scripts, predicting that "Not This Time" was the best fit for his talents, and it's the one he wanted to do!

MEB - How did you get in touch with Ronald Salas for NOT THIS TIME?

JB: Ron was always posting amazing pinups on the Oeming message board over at jinxworld.com. His art is brilliant, and I knew his style would fit what I was trying to achieve with "Not This Time." The very moment I heard about Secret Project, I messaged him asking if he wanted to work on something with me, and then we followed up via email. It thrills me to this day that I got the opportunity to tell this story with him. I'm a huge fan of Salas' work. I love how he rendered "Not This Time" with his high-contrast style. It's a different look than in his Image work. It's so cool to be able to walk into a comic shop and pick up Existence 3.0 and see him really let loose with a different style in that book.

MEB: So Ron, what made you decide on NOT THIS TIME?

RLS: I think it was the shortest one. I also liked his take on an archetypical character and I thought it fit what I could do pretty well.

MEB- Well your art really lended itself well to this project! Thank you both for contribution. So Jef, what's up next for AM/UK?

JB: Paul Ciaravino and I are hard at work on issue #4 of the comic book. Our 40 page anthology, Rocktronic Mixtape #1, should be out any week now, and in conjunction with that, we're releasing the single, "John Loves Wayne." Meanwhile, JTR3 and I are about to finish an EP titled Luxuria, which features some crazy ass smooth jazz renditions of some of our favorite AM/UK songs, and we're starting to demo our next LP titled, Where Giants Walk. And we'll be playing around NYC throughout 2010!

MEB- What are some links where I can check out more of your work?

JB: Please visit americans-uk.com! We have an EP titled, I, Ape-man available there for free download, as well as links to the first 3 issues of the comic, also for free. And, be sure to look up AMERICANS UK on iTunes, where you can buy our full-length album titled Rocktronic for under $9! Also, artist Dennis Culver and I are starting work on our graphic novel Odd Schnozz and the Odd Squad for Oni Press, so I hope we'll see that completed in 2010. There should be some more announcements about that project soon enough.

Thanks, Mary!

MEB: No problem Jef - thank you! What about you Ron? What else are you working on currently? Anything we can check out on the web?

RLS: I'm currently working on Existence 3.0, which is the sequel to my series, Existence 2.0 that came out in the summer.

====================================

There you have it ! Be sure to check out WWW.SECRETPROJECTCOMIC.COM Monday January 11th for NOT THIS TIME!

====================================

~Till Next Time Kittlings!

I hope you all are ready for SECRET PROJECT

2009-11-17T00:10:00.006-05:00

Haunted Theater - A Review of Brat Productions HAUNTED POE

2009-11-06T15:24:00.009-05:00

The hype was undeniably hard to ignore. First the City Paper, then The Philadelphia Inquirer and finally Philadelphia Weekly all begged me to go. How could I not read the glowing reviews of HAUNTED POE, the interactive theater experience by Brat Productions and not buy tickets for myself and 3 of my friends? I was worried that this haunted house was not going to live up to all the positive press and I would be horribly disappointed. But the truth is this: HAUNTED POE was amazing!

Our 1st experience with the show begged for repeat viewings. I joined the text message discount service that tipped me off to special tickets available and this past Sunday I was greatly rewarded with the chance to take a backstage tour after the final performance on Nov 1st. I bought 4 tickets with the idea that we could find SOMEONE that would want to go with us…and sure enough my dear friends Brian and Laura attended HAUNTED POE for the final available 9:30 viewing.

Located in the commercial area between Snyder and Oregon which was surely once an industrial warehouse-haven, you approach HAUNTED POE and find yourself almost taken aback by the desolation despite being amidst the city. Sparsely decorated stairs followed by a hallway bring you into the grand parlor. Check yourself in and let the fear begin to grow as you wait in line for your turn to be ushered into the chambers. The line has it’s own form of entertainment; windows line the walls that allow you to peer into the 1 bedroom apt of Edgar, his wife Virginia and Virginia’s mother (Edgar’s aunt) Maria. Virginia does not look well, she coughs up blood as Poe busies himself with writing and Maria entertains Virginia with piano, reading, and song. This voyeuristic view into Poe’s life turns out to play a central role in the larger experience and draws reality to all the haunted chambers to come.

From the line we entered the Puppet show, a recreation of Poe's most notable events (albeit some liberties were taken with the time line) gives the viewer a poignant overview of Poe's tumultuous life. But do not get the wrong idea as this puppet show is not for children and ends with the death of many...including the puppeteer.

A Hall of Mirrors (a reference to Poe's WILLIAM WILSON) is the next chamber and while the concept lends itself strongly to the "Haunted House" ideal I found myself the least impressed with this room. The layout of the room stifled the sound with in, but sound from the other chambers somehow carried in a bit too much so hearing our guide was rather difficult.

From the Hall of Mirrors we follow a beckoning woman into a Cellar and truthfully this is where I began to fully experience the wonderment of HAUNTED POE. For here my favorite Poe tale, THE BLACK CAT, is recreated right before my very eyes, in truth only a few steps from my face. The first person narrative of this story lends itself perfectly to the actor's monologue (delivered beautifully and drunkenly by Bruce Graham) as does the scare of a hanged black cat and a bludgeoned wife. A haunting song rings through the air and we are led by music to the next chamber.

The Graveyard is green, ominous with fog and upright coffins, and soon to be filled with amazingly-voiced women performing an Operetta which will represent 4 tales named after the female that is represented in each story. These stories as you can imagine, do not end happily. The singing combined with a single violin is entrancing, while Morella's story provides the most amount of exposition in this scene. During our tour I was able to step into the coffin that Morella enters, which was only a bit terrifying as it has a hole in the bottom I could fall through at any moment. I was very careful to stand still while taking pictures.

The Crypt is next and offers a typical haunted house scare. A small dark room, 2 statues where your central focus is of course drawn to the statue...that isn't bloody real! Ha... my hairs stood on end when the Pallas Athena came to life and draw us solmenly into the Library.

The Library is a seemingly vacant room literally LINED with books, they cover the walls like wallpaper and are stacked up on the desk. With a start, Poe appears in the room (actually a simple mirror trick on the floor of the desk) and launches into THE RAVEN. Both this room and the actor (Nathan Holt of a great little hip-hop group called ROWAN AND HASTINGS) are one of my fave's of the show. Poe is manic and totally engaging. Pallas Athena opens a high door from the crypt and plays the part of the Raven as well. Again I must reiterate the enjoyment of being amidst the acting; both the content and the superb talent propels the viewer into the heart of the story.

Now we followed a jester into a Ballroom and into the story of THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. The party-goers include dancers and magicians in addition to the viewers. Prince Prospero is indeed happy to have such a crowd in his Mansion to avoid the plague that is ravaging his country. But you can't hide from death, but it can hide from you. The illusion known as "Pepper's Ghost" plays a key role in this scene as does a tall scary dude in a mask!

Here we are led into a Hallway. Many things are going on in this section of the show. Both a quote from THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM as well as a cryptogram likened to THE GOLD BUG are scrawled upon the walls. Vermin is present, also a reference to PIT…and then we come to the cockroaches. Brat Productions touted that 1500 cockroaches had been specially bred to take part of HAUNTED POE. Unfortunately it was soon found to be more of a hindrance than a help in the scares as the bugs continued to find their way out of their enclosure. Brat was forced to fog them out…some of the carcasses remained in the show. And the loudest scream I could muster was issued in the Hallway as a man we thought to be part of our group is suddenly overcome with the shakes and open his jacket to reveal a covering of cockroaches upon his shirt as he runs towards the group! A great moment in haunted house antics to be sure. I was left on edge the rest of the show although this was most certainly the height of scares to be sure…or is it? Also in the Hallway we are able to revisit another angle of the scene set in the Parlor, Poe’s house with Virginia and Maria. The “quiet” of Poe’s life is a great juxtaposition of the terror we are experiencing by being immersed in his fictional world.

“The thousand injuries of Forturnato” is avenged by Montresor in the next chamber – a Room in the Catacombs of the Montresor Estate. The Fortunato of this story is reminiscent of the Jester in the Ballroom of The Masque of the Red Death and I did think they were the same person until I researched the cast of HAUNTED POE. This air of confusion permeates this entire scene for me, I have walked twice through the HAUNTED POE house as it was being performed plus once through on a tour and I still couldn’t tell you exactly what took place in this chamber…to me and my memory it seems an extension of the Hallway so therein my confusion may lie. I may have received such a tremendous cockroach startle that I was not fully aware of my surroundings directly after.

A Manor Wall is next and represents another popular Poe tale, THE TELL-TALE HEART. The exposition is told using technology not previously seen in this haunted theater: video of prerecorded scene is acted out as the viewer watches through glass in the wall. While I enjoyed the scene immensely, I was also taken out of the interactive part that I so previously enjoyed. To think of HAUNTED POE as not only a haunted experience but also a journey through Poe’s life and times – the introduction of “moving pictures” simply continues that story.

A pounding on a door leads us to an Alley and a Street in Paris or Philadelphia. This chamber references both THE FALL OF HOUSE OF USHER as well as MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. A female narrator stands outside of a house and delivers a frenzied performance then heads indoors where the viewer will both hears a terrific beast as well as sees the damage it delivers with the house shaking and shutters shuddering. All at once these senses cease and our female narrator comes out hurling out of the house, dead. A sad ending to this scene…but perhaps a bit foreboding.

The last chamber is a Train Car and is the climax of HAUNTED POE. We enter a train car and either take a seat or stand and peer out the window where we watch the scenery go by. Music, sound effects of the train and visual representations of every previous chamber are swept past us on the large projection screen. A male narrator provides a voice over, a conclusion, a man afraid of both death and the recollections of his past – his demons. Behind the viewer is the Poe apartment, once again we can see the scene that we have visited upon before. The images and the train seem to speed up, the appearance of a runaway train becomes a rather real fear. It as if we are about to go off the tracks…and then from behind us Poe bursts through a hidden door and dies at our feet! We are left to leave the train at our own volition while Poe must remain.

HAUNTED POE is both theater and a Halloween mainstay – the haunted house. But the combination of both is done so artfully, so epically that it surpasses any idea you might have of either medium. If you are looking for something out of the ordinary to celebrate this spooky holiday then HAUNTED POE is your answer. BRAT has rumored to continue HAUNTED POE next year with a new experience but I still hope to see some of these same scenes that worked so well and beg for repeat viewings. You will do good to mark your calendar now…and anticipate a great homage to a Philadelphia legend.

Be sure to check out the web site for HAUNTED POE – http://www.hauntedpoe.com

Photography by M. Sean McManus.
Additional photography by Laura Viera Quinn and Mary E. Brickthrower.
+++++++++end of transmission++++++++++

HORROR: THE LIST (OUR Top 20 Horror Movies of the last 20 Years)

2009-10-29T20:55:00.010-04:00

By MARY E BRICKTHROWER, JD LOMBARDI, KAYODE KENDALL, HEATHER BUZBY and ERIC BLAIR.

A couple months ago the all things media rag Entertainment Weekly composed a list of the “20 Top Horror Films of the Past 20 Years” (http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20284496_20284497_20295591,00.html)

And my friends and I found ourselves…unimpressed. After collectively slightly cocking our heads we decided to produce our own definitive list. Our process was thorough, paring down individual lists into 1 master list. While you will see some similarities between our list and EW you will note that movies that aren’t really “horror” are omitted (Shaun of the Dead is a great movie but it is primarily a comedy; Silence of the Lambs is primarily a psychological thriller, same with From Hell). Finally the 5 of us sat down together to discuss our Top 20; both our similar picks and perhaps a random barb tossed in for glaring differences. We give you OUR Top 20 Horror Films of the Last 20 Years!

===================================

1.The Ring

KEN: I honestly think the American remake is better than the original from Japan. The mundane, quiet moments in the film are far more unsettling thanks to the cinematography, music, and old, musty locales. The film also benefits from its performances, including Naomi Watts, Brian Cox, and Daveigh Chase as Samara, the demon/ghost/whatever child in question. The few lines she does have in the film are just haunting.

MARY: Totally agree with ya Ken; one of the few remakes of my adored “J-Horror” genre that I actually like more than the original. From the twisted images of the urban legend-esque “tape” that will kill you 7 days later upon viewing it, to the creepy face-mangling that signifies a victim, to the terrifying confrontation between Samara and Martin Henderson (Naomi Watts’ love interest), this movie is pretty much perfect. Could’ve been a little shorter at the end though.

HEATHER: This was pretty much a straightforward thriller – no monsters, no gore – just a scary urban legend apparently come true. While I understand the purpose of a videotape being at the center of the story, for me it makes the terror a little less effective in this age of DVD media. The clips of what originally seem to be random and unrelated scenes are creepy, even before the audience is clued in to what they mean. The horror is only intensified as the story behind the tape is revealed.

ERIC: I love seeing the twisted faces of the victims after the girl comes out TV in this movie…I loved it so much!

JD: Yeah, those faces are what creeped me out the most. I’ll never forget when you see that first girl’s twisted face…yikes! Then there is the one photo where a guy’s face is all warped; yeah I just don’t ever wanna accidentally see that in one of my photos like ever.

Seriously, I think this is pretty close to being a perfect horror film for me. It doesn’t really go for the cheap pops, but tells an interesting, creepy story about normal people screwing each other over in order to not die due to their own curiosity. Samara doesn’t really scare me though the locations and scratchy cinematography did wonders.

2. The Sixth Sense

MARY: I didn’t see this until maybe 2 months after it came out and I was well aware of the “surprise” ending but that didn’t cease any fear that I felt as Haley Joel Osment encounters dead people of young and old. By far M. Night Shyamalan’s best film and most creepy at that.

JD: I agree. M. Night hasn’t come close to a complete film since this one and I still get a jump or two out of this even after repeated viewing. Sixth Sense really worked for me because I got sucked in to caring about Haley’s character. He wasn’t a douche like the people you hope will die in a Friday The 13^th and other horror flicks. Between the tugging at my emotional strings and the overall originality of the story, I paid such close attention that when it was time for a scare I really got it big time.

KEN: I didn’t see it coming and I don’t believe anyone who says they did! It almost feels like something Hitchcock would have done.

HEATHER: This is another flick that when first watched, has an unexpected ending that changes the entire feel of the movie…though I still feel it is more of a thriller than out-and-out horror. I immediately wanted to re-watch it to put all the pieces together that were so obviously there, but the audience didn’t know to look for them. This film wouldn’t have been nearly as successful had Osment’s character been an adult instead of a child. I also agree that this movie is infinitely better than any of Shymalan’s other creations.

MARY: You’re right in a sense Heather that is not straight-up horror but I think the dead people concept does lend itself to the horror genre.

HEATHER: True. I still consider this a horror flick, and actually had it on my original list of picks. The reason I consider it less conventional is that it makes you actually think some, instead of simply scaring you with visuals or “bumps in the night.”

ERIC: Another movie using the element of “not knowing what’s happening next” made the film excellent! Great movie!

3. Dawn of the Dead (Zach Snyder’s)

HEATHER: It didn’t take long to realize this was a Zack Snyder film (I saw Watchmen before ever seeing this flick) and that was a good thing. Here, the speed zombie is done right. A single shot to the head will kill them, but they’re so fast and so numerous, it’s a difficult task to take on. There’s also no “partial-zombie-ness;” the tiniest bite brings on the full fledged infection. The suspense and drama are only heightened when our survivors bicker amongst themselves…Because we all know, you’ve got to stick together to make it through a horror film.

ERIC: All I can say about this movie are three words, “Running Fucking Zombies.” Apparently, in the afterlife people are superhuman, who knew…

JD: “28 Days Later” may have started it, but this Romero-remake brought it to the masses. I remember clenching the entire first time I saw this film. It isn’t out-and-out scary in the traditional horror genre sense and that is why it works for me. Would I want this film to become reality? Hell no! That in itself puts the horror factor on another level to me. Between zombies and being forced into intimate situations with people you’ve only just met, Snyder really does make it more about characters than the potential for spectacle. Highlights for me are almost anything that Ving Rhames says and the Richard Cheese “Down with the Sickness” montage. If only Snyder would have done the other installments.

MARY: If only George Romero could actually direct a movie, it might look like this. This film is the most fully realized Zombie film, and tells an actual story not simply of survival, but of interpersonal relationships. With several well developed characters and plot lines I feel like they all point to one simple truth of the human condition.

KEN: Running zombies. It’s all about running zombies in the new millennium.

4. 28 Days Later

MARY: Why are Zombies even big culturally right now? I would say it’s because of this movie. Yes it is THAT important. Someone please check the timeline, but every NeoZombie film has drawn deeply from the ideas presented here. Most importantly 28 DAYS LATER introduced the Zoombie, a Zombie made 1000x more terrifying because it moves faster than you can.

HEATHER: I do like the newer concept of the “fast-moving zombie,” but what I didn’t like was the speed of infection. Part of the fun of zombie movies is seeing the disease slowly take over its victim. I found myself generally bored by this particular film and thought there were a good amount of holes throughout it.

ERIC: Hmmmmm…What can I say about this movie? It’s a freaking awesome movie! Just imagine waking up almost a month later and the world shot to hell. This movie is scary to me b/c I believe this could actually happen someday.

JD: Wait, you genuinely believe a zombie apocalypse is on the horizon? Anyway…this one came from one of my favorite Directors, Danny Boyle. For me he just has a really great eye for what to put on camera and all his films tend to be character-centric. This is really a small film despite the scope. In fact, the zombies are only a vehicle for Boyle to show how creepy humans can be with each other when faced with an extinction-level event.

KEN: It's relentless, visceral, and just all-around frightening. The shots of Cillian Murphy wandering around the deserted streets of London really put things into perspective. Follow that up with the immediate threat of rage-infected humans, and how quickly they would change once bitten, scratched, or bled on, and you've got some top-notch horror.

5. 30 Days of Night

JD: I was hyped for this one from the moment I finished reading the comics! 30 Days of Night was such a departure from all the “kewel” vampire films that have been coming out for years now. Stuff like “Lost Boys” and “Dracula 2000” or “Near Dark” where so many of the vampires are mouthing off cool one-liners or just showing how much we humans aren’t nearly as cool…this wasn’t like any of that. The vampires here were almost like a full-fledged alien race set on ridding the world of humans and taking the planet for themselves. What we get as a result of that is a total slaughter, the height of which is definitely highlight number one for me. Much like zombies, we’re once more dealing with a classic mode of horror so full on fear isn’t what the viewer will get; though, how these suckers (intended!) chomped down upon a victim was quite nasty.

HEATHER: What makes this particular vampire flick so appealing and scary is the idea of being stuck – not only by the confines of a tiny town in nowhere Alaska in the middle of winter, but also by the darkness. The vampires are actually characters to be feared and not a bunch of emo, whiney teenagers that you’d rather just punch in the face and shove under a sun lamp. They’re gruesome and ugly and when they attack it’s simply disgusting… I love it!

KEN: Even once you get past super-charged bloodbath of the vampires’ initial assault on the town of Barrow, Alaska, you’ve got countless moments of suspense and dread as the survivors try to make it ‘til the end of the month, when the sun finally comes back up.

6. Blair Witch

HEATHER: I can’t come to a conclusion of whether I love or hate this flick. My opinion of it changes with each viewing, depending on the mood and setting I’m in at the moment. This whole movie is what you make it. The scariness is in how much stock you put in the story and how far you let your imagination wander. You never see what is actually scary, you have to imagine it. If you’re not in the right mindset, it won’t be scary. I will say that I won’t be camping in the woods with my friends any time soon, which I guess makes the film effective to an extent.

KEN: I know I’m probably in the minority, but I just did not care for this film. I think the same way some people can hate a horror film for having too much gore, you can hate a film for having too many moments where you don’t see what’s going on. The whole “psychology” of it gets a little overbearing for me.

JD: This is an odd one for me. When I first saw it, I wasn’t all that horrified while sitting there in the theater. But once I got home and was alone? I was paranoid beyond belief! It played on me in such a subtle way that stuck with me and proceeded to haunt my mind for a good few days. Eventually I got over it, even watching the whole film alone in my home. Is this everyone’s cup of tea? Nope. But for those of us who like psychological horror over graphic this is one of the big ones.

MARY: Upon my opening viewing of this film in the theater, I spent the last hour with my head turned to the side whilst softly crying. I proceeded to sleep on the couch outside my parent’s room for the following week. I have watched BLAIR WITCH several times since but I still don’t think I have viewed the ending in its entirety. I daresay this film launched the “reality” movement in media, mixing word of mouth with fake web sites and false documentaries, inspiring other films such as CLOVERFIELD.

ERIC: The reason this movie is scary is b/c it’s from 1^st person point of view. As time went on, I grew to hate this movie b/c my last name is Blair and people use to always say, “Hey Blair Witch”

7. Final Destination

ERIC: I think this movie kind of reintroduce guts and gore to the big screen. Don’t get me wrong, there were movies before that were gory but this one was so over the top. I loved it!

KEN: The idea of death coming back for people who should have died in a horrible accident was pretty inventive. Furthermore, having the main character be male got audiences away from the "final girl" cliché.

HEATHER: I almost didn’t like this movie before I even saw it, but I’ll give almost anything a chance once and tried to keep an open mind. I simply couldn’t get into the concept, as I believe when it’s your time to go, that’s it – you can’t change it. So get on the plane or don’t get on the plane, if you’re meant to die on that day, it is going to happen regardless of what you do. I didn’t feel connected to the characters in any way and therefore didn’t care that they would be meeting their demise.

MARY: What can be scarier than a force of nature, no need for a person or demon to fight, that is just make believe bull shiv. Death is not some silly skeleton in a robe, it is all around us… dun dun duh!

8. The Mist

HEATHER: I’m a big fan of King’s written work, but am often disappointed with Hollywood’s interpretations of his writings. I was expecting more of the same with The Mist. I was pleasantly surprised, though maybe “pleasantly” isn’t the best of words. Having not read this particular story beforehand, I was not prepared for the literal gut wrenching twist to come. An ending like that is the last thing people want or expect and that’s what makes it great. Too often, even in horror films, there is some kind of happily ever after that can ruin what otherwise is (or could be) a good flick.

MARY: This movie had such potential. If it actually went where it was hinting at the whole time, I might have enjoyed it. Instead horrible CGI and a ridiculous ending ended up angering me more than scaring or thrilling me.

JD: I didn’t really think the effects were bad or that the ending was ridiculous. For me there was just enough CGI because that wasn’t what this film was really about. I’m starting to really see what modern horror is and that would be something to the effect of what happens between people when they’re all plopped into a totally screwed up situation. I honestly think it was worse being in the market than it was being out in the mist. At least out there you knew what you were dealing with and how to combat them. Plus, I hate insects so any time I get to kill huge ones is a plus for me. Could there have been more here? Perhaps about what went wrong to open this dimensional hole? Sure, but I think that much like “The Green Mile” Director Frank Darabont works better with less.

KEN: The horror in The Mist definitely lies in how character-driven it is. It’s truly frightening to see how quickly the people trapped in the supermarket are influenced by Marcia Gay Harden’s fanaticism, and it makes Thomas Jane’s struggle to protect his son and friends that much more immediate. Then of course, there’s the ending. It’s always nice to see an American horror film that’s willing to “go there” so to speak.

MARY: STARSHIP TROOPERS is the right way to do giant insects via CGI. And an army-based hallucinogenic fog; a test done on a small town for the benefit of our evil government would’ve gotten to me more in the end.

HEATHER: I have to agree with JD – the monsters are not what’s meant to be scary… it’s almost never that way with King’s stories. The horror is the human reaction to a situation that seems to have NO possibility of a good outcome.

9. Saw

KEN: You have to love the ingenuity of the first Saw, even if the franchise has overstayed its welcome. Nothing was scarier than the ending, as all the pieces fall into place for one of the main characters. I honestly couldn’t sleep after seeing this movie the first time.

HEATHER: Most people view this as just another gory flick, but I found it quite original. It’s not simply senseless hacking up of random victims. They are chosen for reasons, set in intricate traps and actually have a chance to escape. This being the first film of the series, the viewer has no idea what is really going on – the completely unexpected ending leaves the audience begging for sequels to answer their questions. I’m almost always in the minority in my belief that this series has NOT outrun its welcome and there are still too many unanswered questions – I already own and repeatedly watch the first five and will do the same with any and all additional films in the series.

ERIC: Saw, to me isn’t the traditional horror movie but more of a psychological horror flick. B/c the movie just fucks with you and then “Oh! This guy just gets up and leaves the room” at the end.

JD: Flat out, I’m not a fan of this series. With that said, I can still readily admit that the first Saw is the best Saw. All the others are just films that build elaborate mouse traps which have the viewers cheering for the characters do die. I don’t grasp the concept of a series where the only person you have any small connection to is the villain and even then, you don’t really care about him, you just kind of respect him for all the warped shit he does to people. That first one though, it was a gem and it was in your face. Just like Eric said, in those final moments when the film ends…you just can’t believe he was there the whole time and that makes it awesome.

MARY: The 1^st SAW was the indie one and benefits from that. But I called the dead guy being the villain! I truly did! And I like the 2^nd SAW better which might be blasphemy to the “true” original fans.

JD: Is Saw II the one with the girl in the pit of hypodermic needles? Oh my God, that nearly made me puke! I totally never want to see that again.

MARY: That’s the one JD – my queasiest moment watching a film! BLECH!!

10. White Noise

ERIC: The sounds are the key to horror for this movie. I love this movie but I refuse to own it. This just might be the scariest movie I ever seen next to the Passion of Christ.

KEN: An interesting concept, but I just didn’t find it very scary. I can’t even remember most of it now.

JD: Ken, I believe in ghosts and sometimes EVP. With how Keaton bites it at the end I just felt that this was so close to being what could actually happen in the real world. Yeah, no matter how many times I watch this it scares the holy hell out of me. The voices, those damned shadow figures and all the unheeded warnings? Ugh. I’m getting the chills just thinking about it.

HEATHER: I like it because it was a ghost story without being a typical ghost story. What makes it get to you is that if you’re a believer in the film’s concepts it could really be happening around you at any moment. Unless you’ve decided to use the technology available to capture it, you may never know just what lurks around on a regular basis. The quick flashes of apparitions and bumps in the night are things we all think we experience when we’re home alone, but do we dare let our minds wander to what they might actually be?

MARY: How many times must Michael Keaton be warned before he finally gets what’s coming to him? DON’T MEDDLE!!! That is the moral of this story! GHOST HUNTERS should take this movie to heart – watch out Grant!

11. Candy Man

KEN: I love this film for its simplicity. Not that parts of it aren’t complex, but it is rather straightforward in its themes and the story it’s trying to get across. It has an almost theatrical feel to it that I really appreciate. Not to mention Tony Todd creating a black horror icon that was further away from Blackula than we could ever hope.

ERIC: Because of Candy Man I will not look into my bathroom mirror in the pitch dark and say, “Candy Man…Candy Man…Candy Man” Yes, I am a grown man now but I still feel like this movie is too scary for my blood

MARY: I’ll take the urban myth of “Bloody Mary” over this film any day!

JD: You would, Mare!

12. Drag Me to Hell

MARY: Sam Raimi’s finest film since ARMY OF DARKNESS. Some scenes are frightening and build suspense; others are just downright disgusting- anyone have a ruler I can borrow? You don’t mind if I just put my teeth here while I write the rest of this do you? And it’s out now! So go rent / buy this movie NOW !

KEN: From the film’s opening flashback, I should have known all bets were off! Raimi brings back all his old school tricks with this one, making a film that succeeds in being equal parts horror, and slapstick humor. There’s definitely a lingering dread after seeing the film, even if said film features what is, essentially, a Looney Tunes gag.

13. Exorcist III

JD: This is my all-time favorite horror film. Satan films are my thing and this one really just stands out among the “Omens” and “Rosemary’s Baby” due to all the visual horrors. It may be simple like a suddenly evil-morphed statue in a church or that fraction of a second scene in the hospital with the huge sheers but there’ll be something to creep out anyone in Exorcist III. On top of tying into the original (and classic) Exorcist, this one brings back our favorite priest in a way we’d never expect. George C. Scott’s taking over the role of Kinderman is a vast improvement but this film wouldn’t be anything without Brad Dourif’s career-making performance. Many people haven’t seen this installment due to the immense suckage of Exorcist II and that is a shame.

HEATHER: This was an edge-of-the-seat thriller for me – always wondering what’s coming next. For those who’ve seen this movie, I think two words can sum it up: scissor scene. When one single image from a film is enough to forever haunt my dreams, the film is a success.

MARY: Exactly Heather! I dig this movie for the scissor scene alone – EEK!

ERIC: I always seen pieces of this movie and the piece I seen were always so dark and scary. I will never forget the priest’s voice. I need to buy this movie.

14. Ginger Snaps

MARY: I just saw this movie about a month ago and absolutely loved it. A great low-budget film that takes advantage of quick cuts to mask that lack of special effects. The dialogue sounds so real and the story is both scary and funny. Upon seeing previews, I feel like JENNIFER’S BODY totally aped GINGER SNAP’s style.

ERIC: I never heard of this movie or seen it before but every time I look at the name, I think of actual ginger snaps snapping in my hands.

KEN: Lycanthropy used as a metaphor for puberty is nothing new, but it’s rarely seen from a female perspective. And watching the film, you can see the parallels being drawn are somewhat more effective when it’s a female. And ultimately, a bit scarier.

MARY: The franchise is cool because it keeps the girl’s the same but takes places in different time periods / configurations of the same werewolf story.

15. House of 1000 Corpses

MARY: The most perfect and beautiful scene in modern horror comes with this film, when our main villain shoots a kneeling officer in a expansive long-shot that makes me praise Rob Zombie as both a talented musician and master filmmaker. Zombie can play homage to horror any time he wants after viewing this amazing debut.

HEATHER: I first watched this film essentially alone in the dark, around Halloween… and nearly bit through my thumb in fright. My fear of clowns was a factor, though Captain Spalding has become a favorite of mine and probably the only clown I like. The family aspect of this film makes it all that much more disturbing.

JD: So far this is as close as I’ll get to having an Alice in Wonderland-type horror film. Between the outfit that gal is in and all the freaks and distorted camera work for roughly the last half-hour of the film, it really makes me think that Zombie was on to the Alice-symbolism in terms of falling down a much more forbidden rabbit hole. Also – and maybe this is strictly because of “Deliverance” – but anytime there are backwoods baddies it just scares the crap out of me.

16. Scream

HEATHER: Scream goes back to the teen slasher genre, but does it right and is not overly cheesy. It was particularly upsetting for me because the stalker films are what really get me (and keep me looking over my shoulder and sleeping with the lights on for weeks).The characters know all of the cliché horror movie elements, but choose to ignore some of them anyway… causing me to jump on more than one occasion.

JD: I get so jealous when I watch this movie. Kevin Williamson unleashed a script that was so smart that half the filmgoers didn’t even grasp that this was deconstructing what a horror film was right in front of their eyes. It gave us so many of the plot elements we already knew of because they’d become staples of the genre and showed the audience that even if the characters in the film knew these same things…they’d still be dead. We were deliberately served the familiar but Williamson did it in a way that not only still surprised us, but left us wondering. As a writer, I dream of creating a scene like the famous “rules” when they’re all watching Halloween. It was like the photo of a man holding a photo of himself holding a photo of himself holding a photo for infinity. It was pop culture post-modernism at its best and still managed to give us a new icon in the form of that horrid mask. Now if only there were just two “Scream” films and nothing else, maybe it’d still be considered a good series.

ERIC: Scream introduced a new era of horror. Nothing supernatural, no monsters, no boogieman, just a few guys reenacting what they see on movies. The true horror of this film is the element of “not knowing what’s happening next.”

KEN: This movie came out at the perfect time, when it was cool to be so self-aware and referential. Not to mention the total fake-out of Drew Barrymore plastered big as day on movie posters, only to have her be the first victim before we even see the opening title card!

17. What Lies Beneath

HEATHER: This was a classic concept done right. There is a dark, secret past that we are discovering in bits and pieces. That secret isn’t even necessarily the scariest part. What had me jumping were the little things – the sounds in the darkness and glimpses out of the corner of our eye that we all experience and cause our minds to go to movies such as this. You get that feeling you’re being watched, that someone else is there, that you swear you closed that door but now it’s open even though no one else is around.

KEN: I had never fallen asleep in a theater, until I saw this film

JD: Really? I thought that his was pretty messed up, especially with Harrison Ford in such an unconventional role. Rare is it in the horror genre to have such huge stars in a film and still keep the story important enough for you to believe that all bets could be off. As I said earlier, I’m a believer of ghosts so when a film is done right and keeps the CGI to a bare minimum it really works for me. Believe it or not, a door shutting on it’s own with no musical accompaniment will do wonders to terrorize me.

MARY: This movie is definitely creepy.

18. Hostel

MARY: Boobies and gross torture. Not scary.

KEN: I liked that this was a very different take on slasher movies. They play with a lot of clichés and flips them into something new, and characters you’d think you’d be following throughout the entire film actually get picked off in short order. For a second, you have to really wonder how it’s going to end

HEATHER: Liked/hated at the same time (haha): Originally, I refused to even see this film. The previews and trailers alone had me terrified to the point that I didn’t think I could handle it. But I bucked up, broke down and watched it – only to be proven right. Gore does not usually bother me, but the torture techniques showcased here were so real, I was hurting just witnessing them on screen. It also made me nearly ill to recall that I had, in fact, stayed in a hostel while visiting Europe – never again!

19. Event Horizon

MARY: Ever the glutton for punishment, I saw this twice in the theater (and hid my eyes both times) and even attempted to read the novelization of the film. Couldn’t finish it though…scared me too much!

JD: I really didn’t appreciate this one enough when I originally saw it in theaters and remember leaving thinking it sucked. A viewing or two at home and now I’m in a totally opposite belief. I think this is really a difficult breed, the sci-fi horror film. There aren’t many true success stories here and even this film didn’t set the world afire considering it grossed about 20M less than the cost to make it. DVD people, watch it. What cracks me up a little bit is that Director Paul Anderson is also the guy who Produced the recently release “Pandorum” which looks just a little similar to Event Horizon.

MARY: The idea that the ship tortures each victim in a way that is catered especially to them makes fighting it off even more difficult. It is the isolation of the vessel and the horror that is inflicted that is so terrifying.

20. Devil’s Rejects

KEN: Proof that when he really focuses, Rob Zombie can make a pretty effective horror film. The look of the film is just beautiful in its grit and grime, and Zombie proves that he understands character and story development. Besides, I’m a sucker for “Highway Horror”.

MARY: Another great gem by Rob Zombie, but in my opinion not nearly as poignant as his first horror outing.

HEATHER: One of the few sequels that hasn’t fallen victim to the sequel curse. This is gore and violence but not just for the sake of gore and violence. The audience is again brought into the world of this family and just how deranged they are. The simple idea that there just might be people out there like this is frightening enough. There is no predicting what they might do, as it seems nothing is off limits in their minds.

JD: Count me as the lone dissenter here. It certainly wasn’t a horrible film, but in contrast to the high creativity factor of its predecessor this one just falls very short. There are too many generic horror movies that this one resembles and perhaps that was Zombie’s intent, to make a dirty 70’s-looking highway horror film. As a sequel it just didn’t work for me and as a horror film overall I just found it lacking in the creativity that the Director often exudes.

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Nailing down what people find scary is often a crapshoot, but it’s always interesting to see what people will connect with. Horror as a genre tends to work via the trend. One movie will unexpectedly break the bank and soon after we’ll have five variations on it’s theme to choose (or not choose) from for viewing. If the recent success of Paranormal Activity is any indication (even ending the Saw franchise’s streak of #1 box office openings), audiences may be looking towards a more back-to-basics, “less is more” approach. It’d also be nice to see a return to anthology horror films, like Trick R’ Treat, which has finally been released, albeit straight to DVD. It’s mean-spirited, effectively creepy without being needlessly gory, and even a bit funny. It’s just the movie to get you in the Halloween spirit…especially if your tastes run more hardcore than say, “A Nightmare Before Christmas.”

So in the meanwhile, lock all your doors, keep the lights on and unless the killer’s already in your house, check out some of our picks and see for yourself what’ll scare the holy hell out of you.

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RECIPE: Pesto & Goat Cheese Chicken Salad

2009-10-19T14:35:00.003-04:00

Ingredients:
(1) 5.3 oz package Chavrie Goat's Milk Cheese - "Basil and Roasted Garlic" flavor
(1 ) 7 oz package Buitoni Reduced Fat Pesto with Basil (refrigerated, not frozen)
(1) 9 oz package Perdue Short Cuts Carved Chicken Breast - "Italian" flavor

While letting goat cheese sit out of fridge and further soften, chop chicken as finely as desired; combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

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I plan to put this mixture in multigrain tortillas to make a wrap for tomorrow's pot luck lunch at work. By using reduced fat pesto and goat cheese, the calories are less than using fattier cheese. Goat cheese is soft so it mixes well. This can also be added to toast or crackers as a dip or topping.

RIP Zeke Feldhaus

2009-10-15T12:11:00.011-04:00

On October 5th the comic book community lost a great friend with the unexpected passing of Joseph Michael Linsner's Point Man, Zeke Feldhaus. Zeke was a Linsner.com and comic book convention staple whom handled all of Linsner's shipping, ebay auctions, in addition to being his best friend. If you ever had a chance encounter with Zeke whether at a con or online then you are well aware of his friendliness and humor. I had more than just encounters with Zeke... I would consider him a good friend.

I first met Zeke Feldhaus in the fall of 2003 at the September Baltimore Comic Con. Joseph Michael Linser was to be my first interview for a now defunct online web-zine and Zeke was the one I approached first after securing the interview via online communication with Linsner. I was wearing a red shirt with a subtle "FUCK" written on it in the style of the "LOVE" statue in Philadelphia. Zeke wasted no time to point out the obscenity on my shirt and as I visited the Linsner table several times that day I was given the peculiar "Fuck Girl" nickname by Zeke. This name ended up putting off some fellow Linsner fans but they didn't know the rapport Zeke and I had! The interview went well and a friendship between myself and Zeke was born. We communicated via IM and email (where he was quick to tell me all about the latest news in regards to his awesome wife and son) when not hanging out at comic conventions we both attended. He was always concerned with me, my love life, and I felt a sense of compassion and affection that garnered my nickname for him: Uncle Zekey.

I remember meeting Eva Hopkins (Linsner's "Office Goddess" and comic book creator in her own right) through Zeke, as soon as Zeke said "This is Mary Brickthrower," Eva replied sincerely "FUCK GIRL!" Knowing that Zeke talked about me to his other friends just proved that our friendship was real in some sense to me. I will never forget attending his birthday party in Pittsburgh or spending an evening with him sharing beers and stories in Philadelphia. He was a dear dear person to me. When I introduced him to Sean McManus, my now-boyfriend, Zeke told Sean to "take care of me." Sean has adhered to Zeke's words as if they're law.

Zeke was struggling with lung cancer but was not public with his ailment b/c he never wanted to burden anyone. In truth, it had been a few months since I last spoke to him but my feelings for my beloved "Uncle" were always there, always strong. He was 60 years old...too young to be taken.

Zeke Feldhaus is survived by his wife Helen and his son Jake. To make a donation or send a card to Zeke's family, please follow this link to the Zeke Feldhaus Memorial Fund (to help pay for Jake to go to college): LINSNER FORUM _ DONATION INFO

Cheers Zeke! <3 With much love and much tears, Zeke will be truly missed by me, his family, his friends.

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Comic-Centric: Attila Adorjany || Can you feel Len's Love Buzz?

2009-04-13T12:54:00.016-04:00

I recently caught up with one of my favorite Canadian based artists, Attila Adorjany and asked him to catch me up on his latest projects:

Attila: I think the number 1 thing is the webcomic. Some of my other comic stuff was on Numb3rs is that note worthy? I'm also putting together my first solo gallery show which will include a bunch of paintings and custom toys. I just finished overhauling the 600poundgorilla site and I'm contributing stuff on a weekly schedule including icon sets wallpapers and I'll be putting up a few tutorials over the coming weeks.
Check out his links:
Webcomic :
http://comics.600poundgorilla.com/
Gallery/blog/shop:
http://www.600poundgorilla.com/

twitter:
http://twitter.com/attila_adorjany
Facebook stuff:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=136124725163
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Attila-Adorjany/68548213114
====================
I also took some time out to see how it goes for writer Len Wallace who is promoting his first published work, LOVE BUZZ. Below is a short interview with Len.

Mary E Brickthrower [MEB]: First Len, a little role play-- you're standing at the convention table, shiny new copies of LOVE BUZZ stacked neatly in front of you. The clock turns, the doors open. Your very first customer walks by the table-- you have 40 words or less, three sentences and even less seconds to hook them-- what is LOVE BUZZ all about?

Len N Wallace [LNW]: Normally, I hate having to summarize this particular book in such a short amount of space. The story summary in our pitch itself was something like three pages, which from what I'm told, is heresy for publishers to look at anything over one page. How we actually got this far sometimes strikes me as amazing, but I guess it also speaks volumes to how much Oni digs the book, so apparently I've done something right... And with that, I think I've blown my 40 word wad and maybe then some, so I'm just gonna call for a Mulligan and start over.

Love Buzz is a story about Norm and Maggie, a pair of kids who meet up towards the end of high school, date for a while, break up, then end up getting back together... Several times over through the rest of high school and beyond.

Oni has a great little write-up on their website (http://onipress.com/display.php?type=bk&id=378) that does my overblown wordiness a little bit better justice.

MEB: Great, I'll take two! Seriously Len, you've been working on this project for quite a long while... without recounting your entire tale, blog by blog, can you tell me a little about trials and tribulations you endured to get LOVE BUZZ into print?

LNW: Love Buzz has been an overall epic test of patience on the parts of everyone involved. We've been picked up, then dropped by three different publishers, either by circumstances beyond any specific parties control, or getting contracts we weren't too keen on. It's been a damn crazy ride, to say the least, but having it this close to done is absolutely worth every single time we've had to fight and scrape, and claw our way up. That and Oni's treating us pretty damn good.

MEB: Amazing. Tell me what it's like to work on such a long term collaboration with Michelle Silva and... I see that originally LOVE BUZZ had a different artist?

LNN: Michelle has been nothing short of the most kick-ass collaborator I could have hoped for on a first project. I really, sincerely believe that she's going to blow up so huge when all is said and done with this book. She's been drawing her own comics for a long time before she and I got involved with each other on Love Buzz. Her webcomic, Once Upon A Time (http://onceuponatime.comicgenesis.com/) was how I first found and fell in love with her work, and after my original artist had to quit for personal reasons, I immediately started barraging Michelle with emails until she finally broke down and said yes. Ever since, it's been a pretty great ride. Every day I recieve a new batch of pages from Michelle is always a huge treat. Her work is amazing and I'm so glad I decided against drawing the book myself. That would have been an absolute fucking disaster!

I'd also like to take a little time to show some appreciation for one of Love Buzz's great background players, Dave Tuney, who provides around 30 pages of art throughout the book, including a couple great jam pages with Michelle. When I got Dave onboard, I had a pretty specific idea of what his role would be. Since I made Norm an aspiring comic artist, I wanted to have him draw a few sequences of his own throughout the book, so instead of asking Michelle to invent a second style for Norm's comics to be drawn in, I went with Dave, whose style is very different from Michelle's, while still being complementary to her work at the same time. Here's one particular Dave page I'm currently in love with...

MEB: Oh man. That's intense. Now that LOVE BUZZ is finally coming to fruition, what can offer in terms of advice to people starting out in comics who are looking to break in?

LNW: As much as breaking down the barrier into this industry takes skill and talent, it also takes a lot of patience and tenacity and an ungodly level of stubbornness. With this game, you're going to have set backs. You're going to have instances that will slap the living shit out of you, and you can either give in and quit, or you can take the sucky situation, take a little time off to recover, and then get up and learn from it. The point is to just be too stubborn to say 'die'.

MEB: Cool, cool; so what's next for Len N. Wallace?

LNW: Without going into specific spoilers, here's a list of subject matters that my next five projects have one thing or another to do with. (Excluding the romance anthology which I'm starting back to work on editing, once Love Buzz is finally finished.) Transgenderism, detectives, the American Old West, the porn industry, talking brain tumors, and possibly one of the most spectacular death scenes in all of fiction.

MEB: Finally my friend, please give the who what where on how can my kittlings can get their claws on LOVE BUZZ?

LNW: Although I believe the pre-order deadline for comic shops was today, since it's a graphic novel, it should be relatively easy to order again, if you can't find it after it ends up coming out. The book's Diamond order code is MAR094378 and the cut-off date for pre-orders is April 7th, so reserve your copy today. ISBN number is 978-1-934964-21-7. Other than that, it's also available for pre-order on Amazon, but I think they'll be shipping their copies about a month after the book's already hit stores.

HERE'S WHERE YOU CAN FIND LEN ON THE WBZ!!1
http://twitter.com/lennwallace
Http://wallaceswastedspace.blogspot.com

AND HERE ARE LINKS TO ART...
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_hdgzG87kTPk/ScCViOxhr3I/AAAAAAAAADc/1dTUmrwoxzM/s1600-h/LBpg110tone.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v408/LNWallace/Love%20Buzz/mailgooglecom.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v408/LNWallace/Journal/ohnoes.jpg
http://onipress.com/images/books/onibk_378.jpg
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~Till Next Time Kittlings.

Bye Bye BSG || Flight of the Conchords Finale

2009-03-26T16:11:00.012-04:00

For many the love affair with Sci-Fi’s (arguably) best drama BATTLESTAR GALACTICA has spanned years. For me, it’s been all of 3 months. My man was persistent prior to last December that I would enjoy the series but the netflix rental of the 1st disc of the 1st series sat untouched for a couple weeks before we finally threw it in the Xbox and pressed play. I can’t give the exact moment that I fell head over heels in love with the show but I remember marathon watching the 1st disc which contained the full original mini-series. And voraciously wanting more.

We ended up buying the entire 1st season and borrowing the others from a friend. I was watching upwards of 4 episodes per day. I was certain that Lieutenant Gaeda was a cylon. We affectionately nicknamed the XO “Colonel Tigh One On” due to his drinking habits. I both loved and loathed Gaius Baltar and mocked Lee “Apollo” Adama when he packed on the pounds. Even though my relationship with BSG was shorter than most people I do feel that it was more intense at times. I went through a major crash course in anticipation of watching the final episodes in “real time.” I was only 1 week behind when I finally caught up.

The series was great because while the story was science fiction in nature, the drama was the real driving force in the show. Character relations were key; the underlying aspect of “is he a cylon” kept the viewer keen on clues and verbal or physical tells. I think this alone produced a more adept fan than your normal show would render. BSG spawned it’s own frakin’ language too which would immediately gain acceptance in fellow BSG company…so say we all! I don’t think I could personally side with the humanoids or the cylons because they were both fallible. When the final cylon was revealed I was let-down mostly because it was my least favorite character (and I wanted it to be Gaeda!!) but also because it was the beginning of the end of a well-written, well executed, exciting and interesting series. And it was consistently so.

But when the end arrived and all truths were revealed the feeling of being let-down did not subside. I was not blown away nor happy with the resolution of the remaining characters…I even felt anger about certain things. I have some MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD if you haven’t seen the end. But if you haven’t seen it yet, either you’re not a fan or a very lazy one!

++ Starbuck’s end was a major disappointment. The idea of nothing being explained does leave an awful lot to interpretation but it also screams “cop-out” to me. In some cases, especially when the character herself is questioning her existence, then a resolution is preferable. A disappearance almost literally in front of Apollo’s eyes just confused me – was she ever really real? I’ve heard talk of Starbuck’s father being a secret cylon – but where does this idea come from?

++ Colonel Tigh and Admiral Adama never say goodbye to each other. Their dynamic in the show was one of the most captivating and for that reason they deserved to have a final farewell.

++ I did enjoy the idea that cylon/humanoids are the fathers and mothers of the present earth inhabitants. “The Chief” Gaelin is hinted at heading towards Ireland (A true “Man of Gael” huh?) gives an extra treat to the audience.

++Great dramas do not always end joyfully, they often they end in tragedy with a multitude of death. I'm thinking of things like Romeo and Juliet or MacBeth here kittlings, I'm thinking of tales that resonate for ages on end. The BSG series ending crashes smack dab in the center of pandering to the audience; backpedaling from drama into a form of escapism that happily "tighs" up the plot lines at what felt like a breakneck pace. It lacks all the punch and promise of that very brilliant opening mini-series where the very existence of the humanity was counted down every episode and every death brought us one step closer to these characters and ourselves. Instead of making one final stand for human and cylon kind, we are told to believe that this small, closely woven space family just disbands-- walking to the far corners of our globe... and even evaporates into thin air? I may be be just a writing machine, but I choose to believe that our BSG heroes didn't abandon the fight, but clearly their creators did.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA began as a cheesy sci-fi series in the late 70’s that inexplicably used inferior technology and had an abundance of clunky metal robots. The new BSG transformed the idea of inferior technology into a positive (robots can’t control analog!) and disguised the enemy as ourselves. Add in a perfect cast and you have possibly the best series to hit TV in the last 10 years. And it was on the Sci-Fi channel of all places! Good on ya Sci-Fi and BSG…and fare thee well!
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It should be noted another series came to an end this past weekend with HBO’s folk comedy FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS. A slightly shorter season than the prior, this time around it was a slow burn into brilliance. A similar ending takes Bret, Jemaine and manager Murray back to their home country of New Zealand. While I felt the songs took a back seat this season I seemed to enjoy each episode more than the last. For FotC withdrawal, I highly recommend the BBC RADIO SERIES that aired before the HBO series but is basically the same plot line with a few differences in names, characters and situations. A great addition to any Ipod!

Ze Wretched Return || Mary Watches the Watchmen || BSG Anticipation!

2009-03-18T15:38:00.006-04:00

Welcome back Kittlings – it’s glad to have you join me as I re-embark on my written journey through pop culture that I like to call NO REST FOR THE WRETCHED…

And oh…the places I’ve seen!

1st off, the anthology that I have been putting all my free time and effort into has finally come to fruition. SECRET PROJECT is now in the submission stage after making its debut at the NEW YORK COMIC CON this past February. A 72 page black and white anthology, SECRET PROJECT features work from fresh talent and established creators alike. With comics crafted by Jeffery C. Burandt, Ronald Salas, Thommy Melanson, Pat Loika, Will Swyer, Ziggy Blumenthal, Neil Vokes, Donal Delay, Sam Little, ZeeS, M. Sean McManus, Brian Quinn, Mary E. Brickthrower, Jeff Brown, Rob Reilly, Michael Woods, David Miller, and Tommie Kelly; SECRET PROJECT provides a vision of comics future stars. Art lovers will go gaga for the pin-ups by Dave Johnson, Taki Soma, John Broglia, Ernie Stiner and Tim Daniel while the cover by Michael Avon Oeming will blow them away. If you or someone you know might be interested in assisting us in the publishing process, please contact me!

Secondly, the east coast said goodbye to the wonderful couple of Taki Soma and Mike Oeming. As they were fellow residents of my quant New Jersey town it was especially hard to say farewell to such awesome neighbors. But the west coast seems to be taking good care of them as they’ve recently tied the knot AND saw their new project RAPTURE get some much-deserved attention. You can check it out for yourself here =====> MySpace Dark Horse Presents: Rapture!

Spring has sprung and so has the urge to bathe the interwebz with my keen observations on the stuff in pop culture that a geek like me digs! So let’s get started shall we?

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THE WATCHMEN – of course I have to mention this. After all it’s only THE MOST IMPORTANT COMIC OF ALL TIME EVER!!!! That’s what mainstream media wants you to believe and in some aspects that’s surely true. It helped to define “Superhero” and “Graphic Novel” for a lot of people in addition to just being a great story. This film has been much anticipated. I inadvertently avoided the 1st weekend crowds thanks to my best friend Loretta who visited Filthadelphia from Tampa opening weekend. Mr. McManus and I got Imax tickets for the following weekend and I was a bit surprised at how thinned the crowd was, although we did catch a matinee. I have to believe that the majority of people that check out my column already know the story of THE WATCHMEN like the back of their hand; I actually attempted to re-read the book the day we saw the movie but only made it about half-way through with an hour to spare and ended up skipping over the rest. Here’s a really quick synopsis: It’s 1985, superheroes are outlawed except those sanctioned by the government to virtually police the world. The Cold War is still imminent however and amidst this international terror is a “costume killer” who is slowly picking off the most famous super-people. Will nuclear disaster become a reality? Will the killer be caught? Find out all this and more in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons groundbreaking graphic novel turned to Zack Snyder’s blockbuster film!!!

What I liked: Rohrshach – I’m pretty amazed with this one as he never really appealed to me in the book. I felt his character really come to life and flesh out in the movie. Former child star Haley is simply amazing in his role. The colors are also eerily accurate to the bright brights and dark darks of the GN. Sometimes the music choices were obnoxious but Tears for Fears “Everybody wants to Rule the World” (in muzak!) and Jimi Hendrix’ “All Along the Watchtower” (despite it’s heavy use in Battlestar Galactica) were classic tunes that worked amazingly well. Dr. Manhattan, my favorite GN character, remained so in the film. He looked as impressive as you can only imagine a blue glowing naked super-hero to look in real life. Billy Crudup voiced the character in such a way as to both soothe and frustrate depending on the scene. And while my fanboy brethren may have taken offense to the change of what I like to call the “Main Ending” in the movie, I happened to really enjoy it. It is reminiscent of another recent comic book related film that was actually so darn good it earned an Oscar for one actor’s particular performance. I speak to thee of THE DARK KNIGHT, where in the end the hero must take the fall for the greater good. I felt this ending applied well to THE WATCHMEN, elevated it to a more mature story.

What I didn’t like: I felt it was a little long but that was going to happen no matter what (Snyder was trying to please the fanboy brethren as much as he could; I did find that his ability to take out unneeded scenes was pretty spot-on). Speaking of Snyder, his sped-up, slowed-down MUCH USED technique for capturing action is so OVER! I’m seriously done with it. I was bored with it within the first 20 minutes of 300, having to endure yet another film with his “signature” action capture is torture at this point. Ozymandias’ very fake hair was distracting to the nth degree. For a movie that had countless money to spend on special effects I feel they could’ve done better in hairpieces for the dramatic actors. You can see I’m kinda grasping at straws. The truth is I liked most of this movie but the only other thing I can negatively comment on is the size of Dr. Manhattan’s junk! I’m totally serious! It was not accurate to the graphic novel and way more distracting than any wig! I know they had to show him naked, that’s not my issue. That junk was borderline porn star…just sayin’.

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While next week I plan to regale all of you with my BATTLESTAR GALACTICA tales of the series, the end, and what it all means in the grand scheme of things I must remind you all that the series finale is coming on this Friday at 9pm – a 2 hour special to end this epic sci-fi drama. What’s your opinion? Can this season still shock and satisfy with only a measly 2 hours left? I feel that I really want my socks knocked off and I am weary that this will happen. But I hold fast that my little faith will be wrong and next week I will be waxing poetic on the BEST SCI-FI (Dramatic?) SERIES EVER!+++++++++++++++++++
~Till Next Time Kittlings.

The WRETCHED Hiatus

2008-12-09T11:57:00.002-05:00

Hello Kittlings ~

I am in the midst of putting together an awesome new comic book anthology entitled SECRET PROJECT, scheduled to drop sometime next year.

This editing job is taking up all my free time, so until I can commit fully to NO REST FOR THE WRETCHED, I will be on extended hiatus.

Keep reading HiddenRobot.com and stay tuned as I plan to make a triumphant return in March of 2009!
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~Till Next Time Kittlings!

Come for the Paradise Con - stay for the grub! Toronto is for restaurant-tourists!

2008-07-27T11:50:00.004-04:00

This past weekend Toronto, Ontario hosted the PARADISE CON, Canada's gem of a comic book convention. I was invited by my friend and co-writer for Hidden Robot, Jeff "Boss Hogg" Brown, along with my bestest Jersey friend, M. Sean McManus of THE LAST SIN OF MARK GRIMM writing fame. As both of us are fans of the Ontario metropolis it seemed a comic-con was a great excuse to check out that city up north once again.

My last excursion to T.O. was several years ago for the CANADIAN NATIONAL EXPO, a con that was both huge and disappointing whereas Paradise con always aims to please and usually does. The convention was held in the Holiday Inn on King Street, a mere few blocks from the CN Tower and Lake Ontario as well as the hippest street in the land, Queen Street West.

While I wish I could say my column this week focuses on the convention goings-on, it really doesn't. I used this vacation to take an eating tour of Toronto, with stops to various restaurants around the city. While my FOO (Friends of Oeming) bretheren was out full force, I leave the real con details to my fellow columnist Boss Hogg to relay to the Hidden Robot readers while I whisk the rest of you hungry lot to the best food in Canada's most awesome city. Bon Appetit!

DAY ONE - We arrived in T.O. late afternoon and checked into our very hip hotel, THE REX which is an inn above a very popular jazz and blues bar. The room was small but rather modern with a glass shower and newly tiled bathroom and a flat screen TV mounted to the wall. The window looked directly onto Queen Street west, a strip known for it's many hip shops, restaurants and overall trendy vibe. The REX has musical acts from noon until midnight and is almost always packed. It's hard to pass by and not want to stop in for a drink and listen to the bands. The rooms upstairs can be rented daily, weekly, and monthly for as little as $500 Canadian a month!! If only I could come up with a good excuse to hi-tail it to Toronto for a month. Ah well...tis something to strive for.

After a nap and freshening up Sean and I hit the streets in search of dinner. We walked west down Queen street and happened upon THE BLACK BULL, a bar and outdoor patio that seemed pretty darn popular so we decided to stop and try it out. The Bull is right across from THE SILVER SNAIL, one of the most popular comic shops in the city. They had a huge HELLBOY display in their window; a street artist was putting "THE GIRL WITH THE PEARL EARRING" in chalk on the sidewalk; the weather was beautiful and we were about to partake in pub fare with a delightful twist.

I had The Black Bull's "classic" fish and chips which was done just right. A lightly fried cod with perfectly fried fries - Yum! Sean had the appetizer sampler that came with fries of its own along with mozzerella sticks, and pierogies. These were the gem of the Bull - made with feta cheese instead of the typical base. Amazing! The feta did not overpower but instead provided a great little twist to the rather simplicity of the potato.

After dinner we met up with some of our fellow FOO and headed to Gabby's on King Street. While Sean and I did not partake in food there, our cohorts enjoyed the menu with no complaints. Scott Wegener (Atomic Robo artist) particularly enjoyed Ricketts Red beer. I cursed myself for being on a wine kick and not really being in the mood for beer. After some catching up with our friends, we made a cameo at the Holiday Inn where the Paradise Con was being held, shared a celebratory shot (or 2) with BIONICLES artist STUART SAYGER.

We took a walk North of Queen St and found THE VILLAGE IDIOT PUB, a semi-swank little spot where we had a couple drinks. In truth I was sad I was so full because the specials looked absolutely boss. One drink later and we were ready to retire in anticipation of the next day's comic book events.

DAY 2 - We rose early for the convention and found a greasy spoon on the way to the convention thanks to a local that we passed by as we were loudly lamenting about our hunger. In truth, this was the 2nd time a local helped us after loudly lamenting about a problem we were having. I have never had this happen in the states let alone twice in a 24 hour period. Breakfast consisted of dippy eggs, toast and sausage for me while Sean tried piemeal (basically Canadian bacon) that Boss Hogg had recommended to us the day before. A great way to start the morning!

The convention was in full swing when we made it into the hotel and our first stop happened to be the EVIL DEAD: THE MUSICAL booth. McManus was fortunate enough to see the show on Broadway in NYC during its run and after conversing with the booth boy about "splatter zone" tickets that go on sale at 5pm the night of the show, we decided to check out the show that night. A 11pm showing sounded like fun especially when combined with splatter zone tickets!

We traipsed around the con, found some hip tank tops designed by artist ANDREW FOERSTER (rew.foe@gmail.com), and before I knew it lunchtime was upon me. A pretty little block of Baldwin Street was discovered filled to the brim with restaurants of the Italian and Japanese variety. KON-ICHI-WA SUSHI caught our eye, so we made our way into the little raw fish merchant.

Sean and I decided to share the "lunch special" consisting of the chef's discretion based on the fresh catch of the day along with miso soup and the house salad with ginger dressing. I noshed on the salad while Sean had the soup. Both were excellent. For the main course we had a small selection of the classic sashimi spread (salmon, tuna) and several sushi rolls (salmon, yellowtail tuna, shrimp). This was my first taste of yellowtail and MAN ALIVE! I was in love! Everything was tasty. It inspired me to order another 2 pieces of sweet shrimp but I was let down to find out that the sweet shrimp was not in stock. I was feeling sushi adventurous and decided the salmon caviar would be a decent substitute. I was wrong. =(

Beautiful huge eggs wrapped plainly in a seawood roll sans rice. I dived in, and within 2 bites could not stomach the texture of the large eggs as opposed to the smaller garnish roe I enjoyed on other sushi pieces. I did the unthinkable: I spit the food out into my napkin. I would be surprised if my face was not bright red in shame. I lurved the food - I really did! The experience was great. The space was charming as was the street. We had a nice little window seat/bench that looked right out onto Baldwin. I enjoyed the salad and the sushi prior. I HIGHLY recommend this place. My palate just couldn't take the texture. It's not you KON-ICHI-WA, its me!

In between lunch and dinner we had a light antipasto snack at the KIT KAT, an Italian restaurant that was only seating reservations. The wait was 40 mins at 4pm in the afternoon. Pretty impressive! We got in by taking up at the bar and some crudites, bread, cheese and meats was a nice light snack. The Kit Kat was situated on King Street amidst many a restaurant but none of them chains, which was a nice surprise. I wouldn't have felt touristy going into any one place.

Our excursion into Asian cuisine was not yet finished that day as we made our way to Chinatown for dinner that evening. Chinatown is located mostly on Spadina Avenue, Northwest of the CN Tower. LEE SZICHUAN was our dinner spot, a typical looking Chinese restaurant but with extraordinary food. Chicken with almonds was my choice while Sean opted for the General Tso's chicken. We also had pot stickers and steamed buns as well as fried rice and brown rice. So much food! Sean's Tso's Chicken was not too spicy like the dish I'm used to in the states, and the steamed buns were hot and tasty. While we waited quite a long time it was all worth it.

Before we knew it the time for EVIL DEAD: THE MUSICAL was upon us....
=====STAY TUNED FOR PART 2 of my TORONTO VISIT!!!====
~Till Next Time Kittlings!

WHAT YOU SHOULD BE...

2008-07-21T22:50:00.004-04:00

<=====ROB REILLY and BRYAN GLASS prepare for battle.
See Mary Move!
Hello all - it's been a crazy couple months but Ze Brickthrower is now in a new state (uhh...COUGH dirty jerz COUGH!), a new apartment, a few months into a new job...I just wanted to give a shout out to my awesome EIC - T Daniel for rocking the wbz like no one can. And a big thanks to the Oeming Message Board who helped a weakling like me raise a bloody couch up a one story via a metal coil, some rope and some spare 2X4s!!! You guys rock!!! And now, onto some POP CULTURE goodness!

WATCHING -- NINJA WARRIOR on G4. This show is already a fave in many a mind of the urban fanboy. I recently was introduced to it by my dearest friend Loretta Gogetta (that's 1967 to you!) and I must say that while THE UNBEATABLE BANZUKE is a tad more insane in skill, NINJA WARRIOR is the perfect combination of reality and video game. 100 contestants are pitted against 3 manic courses atop the lovely MOUNT MIDORIYAMA in Japan. Each course grows progressively harder, it is rare for more than 10 to make it past the 1st round (WARPED WALL kittlings!) and to watch the pure strength, agility and sometimes pure dumb luck will take this competitors to the most absure and entertaining challenge available on TV today. G4 plays this in excess...and I just can't get enough!

LISTENING TO -- FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS - the BBC RADIO SESSIONS. 3 part series on CD that pre-dates the HBO show but is basically the same thing. I am in complete awe how these guys can be doing the same thing for literally YEARS now and I am still rapt on every folk novelty song. Be delighted as FotC has 2 fans, instead of 1 obsessive girl, a manager named BRIAN NESBIT but still Murray through and through. And oh - that little Bret...he is the cutest, especially when dressed up like Legolas...YUM~!

BUYING -- SPACED, the complete series - FINALLY available in the US dvd format!!! I have had bootlegs of this show for a couple years now and have shown anyone that stops long enough around me and a tv, or now my laptop. EDGAR WRIGHT and SIMON PEGG, prior to SHAUN OF THE DEAD fame teamed with JESSICA STEVENSON to create a comic book/pop culture based sitcom about 20-somethings with some witty banter. Spot NICK FROST as military-centric best pal "Mike" and a short cameo by Mr. Brit-Com 2000, RICKY GERVAIS. This is my favorite sitcom EVER. And I'm glad it was only 14 episodes. AND I'm staunchly AGAINST an Americanized version. Dammit!!!

(((Finally - here is the intro to my Thursday column, a little food tour of my favorite city to the North, Toronto, Ontario!)))
Come for the Paradise Con - stay for the grub! Toronto is for restaurant-tourists!
This past weekend Toronto, Ontario hosted the PARADISE CON, Canada's gem of a comic book convention. I was invited by my friend and co-writer for Hidden Robot, Jeff "Boss Hogg" Brown, along with my bestest Jersey friend, M. Sean McManus of THE LAST SIN OF MARK GRIMM writing fame. As both of us are fans of the Ontario metropolis it seemed a comic-con was a great excuse to check out that city up north once again.

My last excursion to T.O. was several years ago for the CANADIAN NATIONAL EXPO, a con that was both huge and disappointing whereas Paradise con always aims to please and usually does. The convention was held in the Holiday Inn on King Street, a mere few blocks from the CN Tower and Lake Ontario as well as the hippest street in the land, Queen Street West.

While I wish I could say my column this week focuses on the convention goings-on, it really doesn't. I used this vacation to take an eating tour of Toronto, with stops to various restaurants around the city. While my FOO (Friends of Oeming) bretheren was out full force, I leave the real con details to my fellow columnist Boss Hogg to relay to the Hidden Robot readers while I whisk the rest of you hungry lot to the best food in Canada's most awesome city. Bon Appetit!

STAY TUNED FOR THURSDAY'S FULL COLUMN!!!!!

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~Till Next Time Kittlings...