First, good news: Two of my favorite bloggers are back! Franklin Harris, formerly of Franklin’s Findings, may now be found at his new blog Graphic Novelties, while Jon Hastings has resurrected his hiatus’d blog The Forager. Franklin’s reliably (and wrongheadedly) anti-altcomix take on the comics industry is almost entirely alien to mine, but I find it an interesting read; moreover, he’s one of the best linkbloggers in the biz. Jon, meanwhile, has some kind things to say about my thoughts on torture and extreme violence in art (which can be found here), a propos of which he teases a possible post on The Sopranos in the future. I’m looking forward to it.
Several goings-on to report on the Texas Chain Saw Massacre front. (Golly, I love horror blogging–only here do you get to write sentences like that.) Bloody Disgusting reports that a new double-disc DVD of the original film is on the way, this time from Dark Sky Films. I own the Pioneer version, and while the filmmaker commentary track (which is apparently going to be transfered here in its entirety) is fascinating, the transfer is a mess: In a misguided attempt to play up the “fairy tale” aspect of the film, various colors were superenhanced–the night scenes are blue, the sunset scenes are red, etc.–almost completely negating the dirty, no-frills snuff-film look that makes the movie so striking. I’m curious to find out how this new version looks.
Next, Stacie Ponder at Final Girl links to a short essay on the film by Doug Brunell at Film Threat, detailing his grade-school obsession with what was a movie he hadn’t even seen. You’re not gonna mistake the piece for something from the New Yorker, and it occasionally embraces ideas about horror that have never made any sense to me (things that could actually happen in real life are scarier than things that couldn’t, frex), but it really captures the gravitational pull that the idea of horror, particularly horror movies with the air of the forbidden, can have on children; it also nails a description of the effects seeing The Scariest Movie You’ve Ever Seen can have. I’ve talked about the former phenomenon here, the latter here, and Texas Chain Saw here, if you’re up for further reading.
On the new blog beat, here’s an interesting idea: Horror Haiku, Nick Braccia’s aptly named collection of horror haikus. Being something of a haiku enthusiast myself (I’ve even dabbled in genre work, as a matter of fact!), this is a site for me, that’s for sure.
Because it wouldn’t be ADDTF without Clive Barker news, Pete Mesling at FearFodder brings word (courtesy of Fangoria, someplace) that Clive Barker is preparing to write the third and final Book of the Art (the previous installments being The Great and Secret Show and Everville). Clive actually told me this during my interview with him a few weeks ago, but like a good little employee I kept it to myself. Publish or perish, Collins!
Finally, the Pentagon is working on cybernetically enhanced stealth sharks. Damn you, Pentagon! Are you mad? Just when we’d finally beaten sharks into submission!