Where the Monsters Go: The Horrorblog Update Page continues to grow pretty much every day, which is delightful. I’ve received numerous requests from bloggers who want their site added, and each new blog I come across tends to have a blogroll of its own ripe for the picking. The page is also now the number-one Google hit for “horror blog,” which is neato indeed. I hope everyone’s been digging it; I know I am.
One thing I’d love to do with the page is to broaden awareness of it beyond people who are already reading horror blogs. Link-love from the many comicsbloggers and comics message-board people who I think still read this page would be cool, but perhaps the best thing I can think of for you to do if you’d like to spread the word is to post about it on any horror- or genre-related message boards you may be a member of. My hope is to attract not just new users of the resource, but new contributors as well.
Meanwhile, I’m looking for any suggestions you may have as to other blogs that should be listed on the page. I’m particularly interested in blogs by horror authors, filmmakers, artists, actors, and other folks directly involved in the creation of horror works, or dedicated to specific examples of same. (I’ve got a handful listed already, but believe it or not I only got around to adding Poppy Z. Brite’s LiveJournal yesterday, so clearly I’m a little behind the eightball in this area.) Foreign-language sites would also be appreciated.
I’m also looking for semi-horrorblogs, or blogs that fall in the gray area between horror and other topics. As far as I’m concerned, blogs about things like serial killers, dark sci-fi, dark fantasy, the paranormal, the occult, and cryptozoology are all fair game. Now, there’s a fine and fluid line between these topics and subjects that I don’t think would make the cut, like true crime, general sci-fi/fantasy, conspiracy theory, mysticism/gnosticism, pure ufology, and so forth. As Howard Peirce mused recently, it can be tough to fix appropriate link boundaries when you’re walking this beat. But I’ll take a look at nearly anything, and thus far I’ve been following the model of the Comic Weblog Update page and erring on the side of generosity when it comes to blogs for which horror is just one topic of many covered. So if you can think of anything, let me know!
Finally, if you come across a great horror blog that doesn’t have an XML feed or isn’t pinging blo.gs, chances are that’s why they’re not already on the list. So do everyone a favor and encourage them to hook themselves up, ‘kay?
And now, on with the links:
Breaking the embargo once again: Following up on his extremely useful breakdown of how best to acquire the complete works of Chris “Acme Novelty Library” Ware, Fantagraphics’ Kim Thompson has now done the same for anyone looking for more work by Gilbert “Palomar” Hernandez and Jaime “Locas” Hernandez beyond the aforementioned massive hardcover collections of their main Love & Rockets work. The Fantagraphics blog justifies its own existence with these three posts alone.
Back on the Howard Peirce tip: The blogger more commonly known as M Valdemar has announced a hiatus, along with his intention to return this fall as the blog equivalent of a Halloween haunted house. Imagine that: a non-fiction horror blog that’s actually a horror work itself! I’m extremely curious to see how this turns out. Godspeed, M!
Over at new (to me, at least) site my concerns about the upcoming remake of The Wicker Man. He points out that the original Wicker Man‘s relative obscurity will mean that this remake becomes the definitive version in the public consciousness (to the extent that the public consciousness will ever demand a definitive version of The Wicker Man), a risk that the lousy remakes of Psycho and even The Texas Chain Saw Massacre didn’t present.
And in an earlier post, Derelict argues that I overanalyzed the ending of Spielberg’s War of the Worlds. Does that film’s “happy ending” belong in sneer quotes or what? Read Derelict’s piece and decide for yourself.
Speaking of aliens, BoingBoing directs us to this New York Times review of the new book Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens. As I get more skeptical in my dotage, I find such psychological explanations of apparent paranormal phenomena fascinating.
Finally, I just noticed that blogger Gardner Linn has me blogrolled under the category “Life and How to Live It.” Best blogroll category ever.