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Okay, now you're burying me in books.

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What? I didn't know there was a new novel. Now I must seek it out. I did love her collection "Honored Guest" and "Breaking & Entering." Thank you for being persistent.

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Now I want to read the story of this Russian aristocrat who starved to death.

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Footnote (2) has always been one of my favorite tactics to draw in the audience. ex. The movie ‘Fargo’ starts off with a title card that informs/sets-up the viewer by stating that the following story is true or based on real events (or something of that nature). Then chaos ensues for just shy of two hours. In reality, the Coen brothers blended together two completely separate events but also included a kitchen full of their own ingredients that they conveniently left off the menu. I employ the same tactic by informing everyone I meet that I was the product of an event similar to immaculate conception. It never ceases to create an atmosphere of alluring tension and unique conversation. PS EC Comics are partially responsible for the consequences of the majority of my actions.

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I'd heard that the initial cut of "Fargo" was too slapstick, like "Raising Arizona," so they put the single-card on the front and scored the music to give it gravity.

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That’s wild. It makes complete sense but I had no idea. In my opinion, that alone is a sign of their significant contribution to the art form(s), as well as a sign of their brilliance within the medium (not to in any way discount every collaborative contribution from their crews in front of and behind the camera on every film they’ve made). Their body of work is a complete film school unto itself. I can attest to that as someone who spent five years in one learning what to forget.

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And it's fascinating to see how such minor last-minute tweaks can alter the entire mood of a story.

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The “writing is rewriting” credo sounds trite but it never fails to prove to be the most valuable tool we have short of imagination, a tool for the act itself, and a trash can. *My habit of a ritualistic burn has become a bit of an issue, as I live on the west coast. However, in retrospect, it does sounds like a fun party activity for a writing group. Maybe I’ll look up how to construct a floating funeral pyre (and how to avoid the Coast Guard).

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Having entered into the comic/graphic novel medium with 'Fight Club 2' and 'Fight Club 3', do have any interest in returning to it? And if you do (running with the hypothetical "Yes" or "maybe" here), would you want to make a sequel to another one of your books (my mind goes to what would have been the third book in the 'Damned'/'Doomed' trilogy here), or would you maybe want to create something new in the comic/graphic novel medium? Either way (again, assuming "Yes" or "Maybe"), would this comic/graphic novel based project feature a semi-naked grave digging scene? I mean, if the medium allows it...

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Funny you should ask... I was all set to launch a comic called "Anne Frank: Nazi Hunter!" The young fugitive would sneak down from her attic in Amsterdam each night to shed Gestapo blood. We were set to roll the moment the copyright expired on The Diary, but then the copyright was extended. Perhaps this is all for the best. Still, Nazi Hunter would've been bold and romantic (Anne falls for a blonde-blue-eyed Hitler young) and bloody. Best of all, it would've given my college German a run for its money.

This was to be part of an "Underdog Series" in which history's most famous victims emerged as victorious. Even prior to "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" one issue was about Sharon Tate fighting back with an Uzi. Another issue was Oscar Wilde escaping from Reading Gael to hunt down Jack the Ripper.

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My vote for an underdog for the series, spurred by your mention of Wilde and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, in which one of my choice’s books is momentarily visible on Cliff Booth’s bookshelf, is Jean Genet. I know you and Quentin shared the stage on Conan O’Brien’s show. My question is whether you still own those brown leather pants.

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Those Armani water buffalo pants? The dumbest thing I've ever bought? Yes. And I'll need to go bulimic if I ever want to squeeze into them again.

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LOVE the unbridled honesty in this post. Brilliant.

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I always thought books (more than comics, as they were harder to get here) were like a portal to a world you weren't allowed into otherwise. Parents would stop you watching violent, gory films stuffed with sex......but get all that stuff in a book, and they'd not only allow it, but actively encourage it as it was 'reading'!

On a similar note.....is book censorship even a thing now? Is it simply that people don't care enough to try to ban things in books? Do they no longer reach an audience wide enough to care?

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Lol - “ Sure, Boy’s Life magazine had its charms, but horror comics taught me ethics.”

Superhero comics shaped me.

At leadership retreats in my youth when we were asked ‘who is your role model?’ I would answer, “Spider-Man.” Because dad, scoutmaster, pastor, etc. weren’t able to live up to the ideals they taught. But a fictional character? Always able to be perfect.

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I empathize with this, hard. Er, I emphasize this, hard? I empathize there for I am, hard.

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I’m all about the Heathcliffs of the world. Vengeful, abusive, amoral, and damn sexy! In a novel I’m working on now, my antihero monologues, “Most people think transgression means freedom to make macrame underwear for a living or have deviant sex in public. What I’m showing is it can also mean murder, suicide, theft, domination, hatred. Pain, pleasure, good, bad, it’s all meaningless and ultimately the same. Transgression’s boundaries are the limits of human capability. I’m not planning on eating human babies any time soon, but what you did is against everything I represent.”

Now that I paste my character’s rant out of context, it’s a little heavy-handed. However, it illustrates why horror and the macabre are so wonderfully delicious. It’s coloring outside the lines of the acceptable human experience.

To me, horror is about power, control, transcendence, and detachment. As you pointed out, Chuck, it’s also about spirituality and morality. (Watch Midnight Mass on Netflix if you want a clear example of that!) As a kid, I loved jump scares, body horror, and gothic ghost stories (enter Wuthering Heights). I didn’t make sense of it until my fourth decade. When I feel anxious or depressed, I immerse myself in a horror marathon. I finally discovered that if I cheer through the jump scares or laugh at the fingers getting chopped up with the carrots; then I have mastery over my own fear and inevitable death.

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Glad someone else is discussing “Midnight Mass.” That was disturbing. An odd combo of True Blood, Salem’s Lot & Castle Rock.

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My library carried the Ripley's Special Edition books in the early 2000s and I was OBSESSED. I must have renewed it over and over for a whole summer once...

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Are EC comics still being made? I've never heard of them before. Maybe they didn't make it to the UK? If they're not, is there an equivalent?

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Dark Horse is reissuing them. The problem is that the original paper is so lousy that they can't be scanned. With pulpy, thin paper the image on the opposite side bleeds through on the scan. This means every page must be, in effect, traced by an artist to recreate the book.

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Like the sort of paper in cheap colouring books you had as a kid? The ones where you had to prioritise which ones got coloured because if your pen stayed still for too long the colour would bleed through into the image behind (maybe several pages if you were feeling reckless) so you'd have, say, Lion-o posing on the back of one finished page only with a multicoloured rash spreading over his face and chest.

They were terrible really.

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Yes! I only had a couple of treasured Tales from the Crypt comics (still have them), but oooh I loved them. And my dad let us watch awesome movies like Creepshow. One summer when I was maybe 9 or 10 (little sis was 4 or 5, ha) we did a scary movie marathon. Lots of digging through the couch for quarters, but we rented about every horror flick the video store had, with Dad instructing me and sis to cover our eyes during the sex scenes lol. Great times.

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Did you ever see "Monolith Monsters"? Huge growing rocks from outer space that suck all the moisture from your body when you touch them. Leaving you a shriveled mummy!

Don't even get me started on the "side show" horrors that used to come with the county fair. All the stuff of medical nightmares. My brother and I would be left shaking for days.

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No, I did not! Sounds awesome though. I can't wait for my boys to be old enough for scary movies. My two year old loves monsters right now... What happened was I read this parenting book that suggested using various monsters to deter kids from unwanted behavior. For example, I made up one called Kush-Kush, the couch monster. His eyes are pennies and his body is covered in pretzel crumbs and pocket lint. He sleeps under the cushion and if you jump on the couch, he will wake up and grab you by the ankles and pull you down with him.

Like I said, the kid loves monsters, so this didn't work at all the way I thought it would. He does, however, follow instructions of ALL monsters. If the toilet monster says it wants a drink, he'll pee in the toilet. If the corn monster says it wants to go in his mouth, he'll eat the corn. So I adjusted my tactic and basically everything is a monster right now.

I'm off on a tangent, but the point is, the kid loves monsters and loves being scared to some extent, so I cannot WAIT to read Scary Stories to him and watch horror flicks with him. I did play the Labyrinth movie for him the other day, and he said that it was "a little bit scary," so I don't think he's quite ready yet. Ha! :) :) :)

But I'll earmark "Monolith Monsters" for when the time comes.

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Also I really love the idea of ghost stories as comforting. Makes perfect sense.

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Will have to check it out!

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Chuck, isn't that you on the cover of CREEPY? That's how I picture you writing. By candle light, in a castle with a demon bouncing ideas of you.

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One of the shocks of writing comics was finding out that the covers have little to do with the contents. So often as a kid I'd buy a comic because it seemed to offer a great monster. Then, said monster would be nowhere within. (frowny face)

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‘Vampirella’ from the 70’s. Whew. Those damn sexy front covers. She and Elvira. (Fans self) I’d sneak them out of my Dad’s nightstand and pour over them, while listening for the stairs to creek. I was kindah a bad kid. Good thing my brother was born— I had someone to share my blame. Heheh. My brother still holds it against me. We are both in our 40’s now.

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Wuthering Heights, after yours is one of my favorite books

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