"Welcome to Count Gore De Vol's Tomb of Dark Delights. I'm J. L. Comeau, horror writer and resident Tomb Keeper. I have been charged with the daunting task of sorting and cataloging the Count's vast library of horror, science fiction and fantasy. Take a torch from the wall and follow me down the stone stairway into the darkness deep beneath the Dungeon. It's cold and damp down here--perfect for the kind of reading we're going to do. Never mind the shambling figures in the shadows, they're probably just some friends of ours looking for a good book. If you click on the cover, you'll be taken to a wonderful place where you can buy the book.
Now, let's reach into the musty stacks and see what we can find..."
(Clicking on the covers gives you more information and prices from Amazon.com and other outlets.)
Let’s override the conscious this week, TombRats, with two collections of
mind-blowing poetry that will put a new slant on your perceptions, yeah!
UNEARTHLY
DELIGHTS by Marge Simon
Space and time are anchors that limit the senses. Shrug off the shackles that
fasten you to the mundane and explore the extraordinary with Marge Simon’s
UNEARTHLY DELIGHTS, which explores and celebrates the unearthly where art and
literature collide. Hiernoymous Bosch informs the titular poem, “A Garden of
Unearthly Delights”, in point/counterpoint to Bosch’s famous surrealistic
painting. Beauty and horror combine in soughing darkness with poetic danse
macabre encounters with artist’s works that engage and illuminate: Degas,
Chagall, more. Bleakness is the key of life in these arresting portraits of
existence in shades of deepest black to finest gray. Imagine life as a hologram
in the SF “The Latest Thing in Holos”, or shudder with delight at the horrific
offerings of a “Performance in a Cemetery”. Horror, science fiction and fantasy
fans will thrill to these darkly beautiful poems underscored by magnificent
artwork throughout rendered by the author. For more about the author, please
visit www.MargeSimon.com.
SURREALTIES
by Bruce Boston
Award winning author Bruce Boston’s newest collection of dark poetry delves into
the depths of surrealism accompanied by his unsettling black Rorschach-inspired
illustrations that counterpoint the poetry contained within. Could the artist
Dali and Frankenstein’s monster inhabit the same volume of dark poetry? Yes!
Consider “Dali’s Ego on Karloff’s Frankenstein”, and plumb the collective
unconscious with “ Surreal People”, Surreal Domestic”, “Surreal Dimensions”.
Surreal Audio Haiku”, “Surreal Wish List”, and “Surreal Fortune”. The ghost of
surrealist artist Salvatore Dali stalks the pages of this beautiful and vital
volume. Informed deconstructions of realties rule here, melting, reforming,
reconstructing. The voice of my favorite stringed instrument fairly shrieks a
victory knell in “Two Nightstands Attacking a Cello”. If your world seems too
real (and my world seems too real all the time!), get down and get surreal with
master poet Bruce Boston’s SURREALITIES. For more information about Bruce
Boston, head over to his online resting place at
www.BruceBoston.com.
Your cranky ‘n’ skanky TombKeeper likes to get graphic from time to time, and here are a couple of fangtastic graphic books for you!
VAMPIRE ART NOW by Jasmine Becket-Griffith and Matthew David Becket
Vampire fans and collectors of macabre art will adore this coffee table sized
volume of lush and bloody vampire art. Provocative and evocative, each slick
page of full color artwork created in various media including oil, acrylic,
Adobe Photoshop and various digital techniques showcases the many moods and
modes of Vampyr. Sexy, dangerous, hideous, horrible, the vampire compels and
repels at the same time. From elegant drawing room beauties to savage
throat-ripping monsters, VAMPIRE ART NOW captures the most enigmatic and popular
creatures of Euro-American cultures. Ranging from angelic to grotesque, the
reader will encounter beautifully wrought and devastating art from razor-edged
graphic novels, games, photography, sculptures, and previously unpublished works
by famous (infamous) artists. And the artists have written about their art,
revealing their techniques and inspirations. Throw this dark volume down at your
next vampy party and let the games begin!
EDGAR ALLAN POE’S TALES OF MYSTERY: GRAPHIC CLASSICS VOLUME 21 edited by Tom
Pomplun
Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) is generally recognized as
the father of the American mystery story, and Graphic Classics celebrates Mr.
Poe with a collection of some of the master’s finest stories of macabre mystery.
My favorite publishers of classic fiction in a graphical mode is Graphic
Classics, and their newest edition of Edgar Allen Poe’s tales of mystery brings
the gravitas and excitement of illustration to these Poe classics: “The Murders
in the Rue Morgue”, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”, “Dreams Within a
Dream”, “Berenice”, “El Dorado”, “Hop-Frog”. “The Oval Portrait”, “The Man in
the Crowd”, “ Spirits of the Dead”, “King Pest”, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The
Masque of the Red Death” and “The Conqueror Worm”. Each of these full-color
illustrated tales is a wonder, but my favorite has to be the modernist update of
“The Tell-Tale Heart”, adapted and illustrated by Ronn Sutton and colored by
Benjamin Write, which takes one of the macabre’s most well-known tales into the
gritty streets of the twenty-first century, making it brand new and terrifying
again.. The finely adapted and illustrated stories are collaboration by the
finest talents working today: Antonella Caputo, Reno Marquis, Molly Kiely,
Michael Manning, Neale Blanden, Nelson Evergreen, Roger Langridge, Rod Lott,
Lisa K. Weber, Craig Wilson, Rich Rainey, Brad Teare, Andy Ewen, Benjamin
Wright, Aton Edmin, Glenn Smith, Ronn Sutton, Stan Shaw, Leong Wan Kok and, of
course, the talented and visionary Tom Pomplun. Readers 12 and up will thrill to
Master Poe’s finest mystery tales brought to life by full-color illustration.
Gorgeous and brilliant!
To
get even more information about these titles, including some of the best prices
on the Internet, just click on each of the book covers and you'll be connected
to
To visit the individual writer's website, just click on any underlined name.
About the Tomb Keeper (Or, who is this person of mystery)
J. L. (Judy) Comeau is an award winning short story writer whose work has appeared internationally in major horror and dark fantasy anthologies such as the Borderlands series, Best New Horror, The Years' Best Horror, the Hot Blood series, and the Dark Voices series in the UK. She is an active member of the Horror Writer's Association, and she lives in the Washington, DC area where she also teaches short story writing. Click on FIREBIRD to read one of her most anthologized stories.
To learn more about the Horror Writer's Association, just click on their logo!
