* As you may have heard, my buddy Ben Morse, his special lady Megan Sherlock, and woman-I-shared-an-SPX-hotel-room-with Sam Walker have created quite the viral marketing sensation with their secret Secret Invasion tie-in “Kinsey” videos on MySpace.

* Meanwhile, my pseudonymous Marvel.com pals Agent M and Annihilator 882 serve up Marvel’s 10 Mightiest Mullets. The Longshot pic is really spectacular.

* Daily Topless Robot link! Here’s your quote of the day:

Nothing bad ever comes out of a question mark block. The question they’re asking is, “Hey, Paisan, want something awesome?” And the answer is always “Yes.”

That’s my compadre Jackson Alpern on The 8 Most Insane Things About Super Mario Bros. (When You Stop and Think About Them). As you might recall, this is a subject close to my heart.

* Finally, at Topless Robot’s new videogame-centric sister site Joystick Division, my chum Chris Ward shows off four of the most prized items from his frighteningly extensive Pac-Man memorabilia collection. Here’s one now:

Curt Purcell keeps the discussion about the potential impact of a centralized host-driven linkblog on the horror blogosphere going in a new post on the topic. (Earlier: here and here and here and here.) In it he includes a gentle reminder to me to post regarding the positive impact such blogs can have in terms of the obnoxious fannish tendencies a cohesive, collective blogosphere can display. Frankly, I’m not sure there is one beyond leading by example. If a Big Important Linkblog manages to avoid indulging the kinds of myopic, know-it-all behaviors that Bruce Baugh lays out here much more coherently than I’ve done in any of my posts, well, that’s one less blog doing so, and a prominent one at that. I don’t think their impact would go that far beyond that, however. Insofar as the big problems I have with cohesive blogospheres stem from the bloggers’ mutually reinforced conviction that they’re absolutely right about what they choose to talk about, it’s not as though any one other blogger can really put a dent in that.

BUT! First of all, it’s important to remember that the emergence of a cohesive horror blogosphere would have its own positive aspects, several of which Curt and I have talked about enthusiastically–increased exchange of ideas with one another, exposing genre fans to ways of discussing the genre they might not have had access to before and may get something out of, etc.

Second of all, as J.E. Bennett and ILoz Zoc point out, horror bloggers in the main seem to be a slightly less combative and self-serious bunch than those in more problematic blogospheres. I don’t think that’s at all true of horror fandom generally–you don’t need to look any further than comment threads and forums at the big horror sites to figure that out–but I can say that the horror blogs I read tend not to stoke the fires of faux outrage or make proclamations regarding what kinds of horror count or don’t count. Then again, there’s obviously some selection bias in that group. But who knows, maybe a more interactive group of horror bloggers would remain less given to belligerence and dogma.

I think the biggest problem facing the creation of a horror blogosphere is that it’s based on a genre, not a medium. The comics blogosphere is, after all, about comics, and Scott McLoud notwithstanding it’s basically easy to understand what constitutes comics: comic books, graphic novels, manga, BD, editorial cartoons, comic strips, etc. Even if you factor in occasional digressions into illustration proper or animation or superheroes in other media or nerd-culture in general, it’s clear that while different comics bloggers’ tastes may vary, it will at least be clear to each that the other is, in fact, a comics blogger.

Horror is different in that it’s based entirely on qualitative judgments regarding what horror is, which means that differences in personal taste have a lot more impact on whether we can even agree we’re blogging about the same subject. I mean, as Curt and I have discussed in the past, our interests in terms of the genre have very little overlap, and in some fundamental ways we disagree on what constitutes horror in the first place. Now, we’re both broad-minded or informed or whatever enough to acknowledge each other’s interests in horror as horror, but multiply us two by however many other horror blogs there are with however many other interpretations of and interests in and takes on and views of the genre those blogs have, and it becomes that much more difficult to create a cohesive feel.

Any centralized, hosted horror linkblog is going to have to deal with this, and it might end up being difficult. Again, when Dirk Deppey or Tom Spurgeon looks around the internet for things to link to, it’s pretty easy for them to figure out what qualifies as “comics.” Taste enters into what they choose to link to to a certain extent, but here there’s the added wrinkle that whatever their differences they both have what is generally considered to be “good taste” in comics–both of them having been in charge of the English language’s preeminent comics criticism magazine, for example. But for horror, how would such a blogger figure out where their purview begins and ends? What does “good taste in horror” even mean? It’s so much more subjective than the problems faced by comics linkbloggers…which might mean that the subjective will become the objective out of sheer necessity and cause even more of the problems I was talking about before. Or it might mean that a horror linkblog, and the horror blogosphere in general, becomes a lot more open to the kinds of “blog what you feel” blogs that Bruce Baugh is talking about.

My point, I suppose, is…I don’t know that I have one, as a matter of fact. I’m kind of just thinking through the pros and cons. Both exist, and while one might outweigh the other for a given reader or blogger, certainly neither can erase the other.

* There’s gonna be some consternation over at My New Plaid Pants: The goddamn Weinsteins have announced that they’re consigning Wolf Creek director Greg McLean’s killer-crocodile movie Rogue to a 10-market limited release on April 25th—that’s just 24 days from now! Where’s a man-eating croc when you need one, man.

* It’s posts like this that are why I make Monster Brains a daily stop: He’s posted a gallery of images from Among the Gibjigs and Among the Woblins, children’s fantasy books from the 1880s written by Sydney Hodges and illustrated by Horace Petherick. They don’t make ’em like this anymore.

* Doug Wolk reviews Ganges #2 and All Star Superman #10.

* Daily Topless Robot: My pal Zach Oat runs down the 10 Star Wars Toys They’ll Really Never Make.

Curt at Groovy Age has posted the latest installment in an ongoing conversation regarding the state of the horror blogosphere and the role a prominent, hosted linkblog could play in its maturation. In this go-round, I am particularly fond of his rationale for wanting a more cohesive blogosphere for the genre in the first place:

I think there’s a massive horror fan-base that’s almost entirely oblivious to the existence of horror blogs, and I suspect that’s largely because we remain “a bunch of intense loners off in their own corners.” My hunch is that if we pulled together and achieved some kind of critical mass, we’d make a much bigger splash in horror fandom. Which is another way of saying, the audience most likely to appreciate and embrace what we’re doing would actually begin to find its way to us in increasingly significant numbers.

Yeah, numbers. There, I said it. A thousand or a hundred or even just ten more people every day sitting down with their morning coffee or evening drink, visiting my blog in eager anticipation, and smiling at what they see or read? A thousand or a hundred or even just ten more heads nodding or shaking when I spin out my theories on horror and genre? A thousand or a hundred or even just ten more personal tastes educated to appreciate the kind of vintage horror I love so much? A thousand or a hundred or even just ten more pairs of eyeballs on reviews of current writers or artists I’m excited about and trying to promote? Hell yeah, you’re goddamn right I want that! And so would those thousand or hundred or even just ten more people, if only they had some clue that Groovy Age existed.

I REALLY appreciate the rationale he gives for wanting to develop a horror blogosphere–essentially, simply giving horror fans access to a different array of voices and approaches to the genre than they’re probably getting right now.

I think what burned me a bit on the comics blogosphere–and don’t get me wrong, I still read dozens every day while reading nearly zero comics magazines or websites proper–is this sense of “blogger triumphalism” that arose when it became apparent that comics blogs as a collective entity had a substantial readership and therefore could actually have an impact on the areas they cover. Because comics blogs became able to drive conversation about comics online, I think they (and I) developed a sense of self-importance that does not become them, which manifests itself in all different ways: A need to comment in backseat-driver/armchair-quarterback fashion on industry and artistic issues that the blogger may know little or nothing about; a tendency toward tempest-in-a-teapot outrage over the latest stupid move by the corporate publishers; falling into the hype cycle of PR because a given book is the new big thing and as “industry players” the blogs feel that they should be covering it; a tendency to overinflate their own importance and impact, etc. I was certainly guilty of all of this in my comicsblogging days. When I returned to blogging after my brief hiatus and started reading horror blogs and doing one myself, I remember consciously thinking how refreshing it was that no horror bloggers actually felt any kind of proprietary role in the horror industry, and were simply commenting on it from the perspective of well-informed buffs as opposed to the wannabe captains of industry who populate the comics blogosphere, myself included again. So, calls for a more concentrated horror blogosphere have turned me off.

But what Curt calling for is keeping the horse in front of the cart in terms of the importance of readership. He’s not saying that we should have a horror blogosphere because of what we horrorbloggers could get out of having an increased readership, he’s saying we should have one because of what an increased readership could get out of us. And I think that’s absolutely spot-on. I mean, if you’re a horror fan and you’re looking to read informed, intelligent, and idiosyncratic commentary about genre efforts, you basically have, what, Rue Morgue and whatever decent reviews/criticism/essays you can find in the mainstream media. The online non-blog scene is pretty dire, and Curt’s right, I don’t think most fans really know about the blogs at all. It would be nice if people had an alternative to the big sites! And as I’ve said, Curt (who kindly attributes the genesis of this whole discussion to reading various things I’ve written) is quite right to say that a big Journalista-style horror linkblog would help shore up such an alternative.

But the problems with a collective-identity blogosphere I listed above still would remain, most likely. Moreover, while Curt’s call for a linkblog with a strong personality is no doubt intended to stave off the kind of “hey here’s the news on every single movie with a decapitation in it no matter how unwatchable” feel of the big horror sites and other qualitative linkblogging hazards, I actually think that popular personality-driven linkblogs can exacerbate the blogospheric problems I mentioned earlier rather than ameliorate them. The main difficulty is that points of view that seem unobjectionable or even noble in principle can easily devolve into sweeping generalizations or calcified thou-shalt-nots. Meanwhile, sensible aesthetic advocacy can make a clumsy transition into ill-conceived industry second-guessing–the kind of situation where people who note a particular creator or subgenre’s quality go on to demand that the entire industry abandon whatever business models had been working for it up until now in favor of a new approach that benefits that creator/subgenre, or pleases people who are fans of that creator/subgenre, or simply shames those who aren’t. In that sense, popular linkblogs can even magnify that tendency since their voices are so much louder, shaping the discussion both in terms of links they select as noteworthy and the commentary they provide about them. I mean, that’s true of any blog of any kind, but it’s enhanced with the clearinghouse-linkblog type of blog.

All that being said, I now find myself in love with the idea of a Comics Reporter-style link’n’news blog with an old-fashioned creature-feature horror host personality. We need a Web 2.0 Zacherle!

PS: I am going to try to enable comments once again, but this post will be going up while I lay me down to sleep and it’s entirely possible I’ll discover that the comments aren’t working when I wake up–they haven’t in months so I don’t really figure they’ll start now. But it’s worth a shot. Just know that if your comment is in a moderation queue, that means my comment feature is in fact busted.

* Whenever the topic of Thor comes up, which in my life is often, I say that any and every Thor comic should be at least as cool as Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” or it’s not worth doing. While this video uses a different song to make its point, it is otherwise exactly what I’m talking about.

When Thor shows up in a comic, all the other characters should go “OH FUCK IT’S THOR RUN FOR YOUR FUCKING LIVES HE’S A VIKING WAR GOD WITH A FUCKING MAGIC HAMMER” and if they don’t then that writer and artist FAIL.

* Sounds like the great Howard Shore will be returning to Middle-earth to compose the score to The Hobbit parts one and two, though this same report acts as though Guillermo del Toro has been confirmed as the films’ director, so who really knows?

* Tom Spurgeon serves up two scoops of well-deserved contempt today. The first is directed toward students at the University of Utah who are protesting the inclusion of Alison Bechdel’s excellent graphic memoir Fun Home on a course syllabus:

The fact that they’re so casual in both calling this award-winning book pornography and throwing out the leads-to-children-being-abused idea as if they’re givens and not acidic, horrible, super-serious things to say about anyone’s work makes this whole matter difficult to blog about except to in every way express my derision and contempt for that point of view and the spectacularly childish way in which it’s being expressed.

Indeed.

* Tom’s second scoop o’ scorn is aimed at fans whose reaction to the Jerry Siegel/Superman copyright decision is so repugnantly base and abysmally imbecilic to me that I’ve literally been trying not to think about it:

Shame on every stupid-ass, morally ignorant fan out there who has expressed even the slightest opinion that this course of legal action in any way reflects an agenda of greed on the part of people not directly involved in the act of creation, or worse, has articulated as their primary concern the potential interruption of their monthly four-color fantasy intake. Part of me wishes we lived in the might makes right moral universe that supports such a piggish outlook, because then I could quit my job and drive around on a motorcycle punching people in the face until they penned a formal apology to the Siegel family.

Indeed. (Astute readers will note Tom’s appropriation of the mission statement and modus operandi of Justice Society of America member Wildcat, and “indeed” to that as well.)

* Tom also reviews Grant Morrison’s excellent All Star Superman #10, but his review ends with what to me is an unsupported assertion:

…the rush to a conclusion after so many promising starts reminds us all that this is in the end a very clever superhero comic book, and may end up more of a sparkling commentary on the best of comics than a great one in its own right.

Personally I see All Star Superman‘s neverending parade of beginnings—i.e. standalone stories involving funhouse-mirror Superman doppelgangers of varying sorts—to be not commentary but a statement of its own. Sure, it’s an homage to the shotgun-blast approach of Silver Age DC superhero comics to science fiction’s “literature of ideas,” but insofar as it links up with Morrison and Quitely’s portrayal of Superman himself, it also stands as a message that being a caring, competent, helpful, clever, cooperative, kind person is what enables us to navigate the wild web of ideas we find ourselves tangled in in our everyday lives and come to our own ends with fewer regrets. It’s not just a love-letter to Mort Weisinger.

* Your seemingly daily Topless Robot link: Todd Ciolek runs down the 10 Most Regrettably Missing Movie Scenes of All Time. Horror is well represented, from the giant bugs in King Kong to Paul Reiser’s fate in Aliens. And there’s pie!

* News flash: Katee Sackhoff is attractive.

* Creeping Coruscant Alert: A Saudi Arabian prince is planning to build a mile-high skyscraper. What could possibly go wrong there? While the fan of science-fiction manmade immensity in me jumped for joy after reading this story, it also triggered my fear of heights so badly I got nauseated.

This week’s Horror Roundtable is about our guilty pleasures. Mine is being a reverse-pretentious douchenozzle.

Curt Purcell of The Groovy Age of Horror has been thinking big lately. First he had that great post on repetition and genre, and now he’s going meta with a thoughtful post on the Horror Blogosphere itself–or the lack thereof. Curt’s thesis is that while there are obviously quite a few horror blogs, and while several of them are occasionally brought together by such features as The Horror Blog’s Horror Roundtable or Final Girl’s Film Club or my own sadly defunct Where the Monsters Go link page, or even just individual link posts by various and sundry bloggers, there’s not a cohesive feel to this so-called “blogosphere.” Ideas don’t go viral, group conversation doesn’t really occur, topics don’t get advanced from one site to another to another. What he calls for to solve this problem is essentially a lynchpin linkblog site with a distinct host identity to keep track of all the goings-on on the multitudinous horror blogs and sites, point out commonalities and trends, and so on.

I feel I am bizarrely well-equipped to comment on this concept because, as very long-time readers of ADDTF might recall, I was actually a part of another nerdblogging scene during its nascent stages–the comics blogosphere. While not part of the first-gen cohort–I’m at least one step removed from NeilAlien–I was one of (I’d guess) the first dozen or so comics blogs–in other words, part of the first group of comics blogs that thought of itself as The Comics Blogosphere. IIRC this group consisted of myself, NeilAlien, Jim Henley, Franklin Harris, Johnny Bacardi, Alan David Doane, Bill Sherman, Tegan Gjovaag, Eve Tushnet, Elayne Riggs, Steven Wintle, Big Sunny D, Dave Intermittent, and Dirk Deppey. Some of those folks were bloggier than others, some were comicsier than others, some were more into the group aspect of it than others, but I think that was the basic breakdown.

Now, how did this motley crew of individuals achieve some sort of group sentience, a la Grant Morrison’s DCU? It was indeed the creation of a medium-spanning, labor-intensive, personality-driven linkblog: Dirk Deppey and The Comics Journal’s Journalista. Heck, I even wrote about this phenomenon at the time, likening it to the way the establishment of big-name liberal and conservative linkblogs drove the success of the political blogosphere. Not only did Dirk keep tabs on running discussions, contribute to them himself, and become a repository of topics to inspire new discussions, he also served as a model followed by what I think of as the “third wave” of comics blogs, the now-defunct efforts of people like Kevin Melrose and Graeme McMillan and John Jakala (not to mention Dave “Babar” G.’s Comic Weblog Update Page, from which Where the Monsters Go borrowed its code) that I think directly led to the HUGE explosion and proliferation of comics blogs that gave us the massive, no-one-person-can-keep-track comics blogosphere we have today. Nowadays the comics blogosphere is so big that Journalista’s central role is shared by at least three other sites: Tom Spurgeon’s The Comics Reporter, Heidi MacDonald’s The Beat, and Newsarama’s Blog@Newsarama.

So I think Curt is dead on: If you want a horror blogosphere like the Comics Blogosphere, you need a horror blog like Journalista.

But do I want a horror blogosphere like the Comics Blogosphere?

When I took my job at Wizard I was forced to stop blogging about comics. I kind of hemmed and hawed about what to blog about for a while, just doing odds and ends for a bit, then taking a short break, then doing a music-and-movies blog that was actually a cover for the horror-fiction project in blog format it was eventually to become. When I returned to ADDTF in full force, I made it a horror blog, which it stayed until Wizard let me go and I was able to start blogging about comics again. Now I split it about 50/50.

But if you look at my comics content now versus my comics content then–let alone compare my horror content to my old comics content–I think there’s a world of difference. In terms of comics, I feel NO pressure to comment on EVERYTHING, like I used to. I’m much less likely to snark. I’m much less likely to dogpile on comics-blogosphere whipping boys, much less likely to get involved in back-and-forth debates. I’m spending a lot more time reviewing what I read, much of which is books that are months or even years old rather than this week’s big release. And as for my horror blogging, I’ve never done anything but blog about the kinds of works and topics that interest me and only those works and topics. (ADDTF: Your Clive Barker/Giant Squid Headquarters!) To the extent that other people are as interested in reading my email exchanges about The Ruins and The Wire and discussing Cloverfield and the merits of the term “torture porn” as I am, then this is a pretty terrific horror blog, I suppose.

The thing is, I can’t imagine doing it some other way. I look at the sites that do cover what they consider to be the length and breadth of the horror field–your Bloody Disgustings and Arrow in the Heads and Dread Centrals and so on–and all I see are hype-driven posts about the latest direct-to-DVD release, the latest parody with zombies in it, people objecting in principle to J-horror or PG-13 ratings, posts about the next project for the writers of Turistas…To a certain extent, the comics blogosphere focuses way too much on equivalent topics–the latest event comic from or picayune pseudofeminist outrage over the Big Two superhero publishers, getting really excited if someone on television or in an entertainment magazine mentions Joss Whedon, yadda yadda yadda.

I think I’m just rambling now, but my point is, if given a choice between a horror blogosphere where we’re all talking about the same things or a horror blogosphere where it’s a bunch of intense loners off in their own corners blogging about whatever tickles their fancy, I’d probably take the latter. While I certainly would read a Journalista-esque horror blog (it’d probably beat what I’m getting from the big horror sites!), I’m probably okay without it.

* Today’s top story: Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel’s heirs have been awarded the copyright in Action Comics #1, Superman’s first issue. I honestly have no idea what this means because it’s all so drenched in legal mumbo-jumbo, but my sense is that it’s a victory for truth, justice, and the American way. (Via everyone.)

* Speaking of the Man of Steel, Joe McCulloch reviews Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s quite good All Star Superman #10. It’s always nice to see the infant universe of Qwewq.

* Mark your calendars: Bloody Disgusting reports that Clive Barker has an art show opening at Sloane Fine Art in New York City on April 16th. Among the art on display will be nine pieces created in honor of the upcoming film version of The Midnight Meat Train, including these two lovely portraits of mass transit enthusiast Mahogany:

* Curt Purcell offers a full-throated defense of the repetitive aspects of genre storytelling. The funny thing is that even though Curt is quite clear in his intent to defend story-based fiction against literary fiction, I think several of his points regarding repetition totally apply to, for instance, the literary comics of Anders Nilsen and Kevin Huizenga and John Hankiewicz that I am so into these days. For example, “Repetition Generates Complexity and Depth”–absolutely! Very thought-provoking stuff.

* And now speaking of genre storytelling, Ken Lowery gives Neil Marshall’s excellent Doomsday a rave review. I particularly liked this line:

It’s Grindhouse without all the winking and nudging.

That is exactly right.

* Beware of Tom Neely knockoffs!

* Water monster update: Dig this crazy video of the lake monster of Lake Champlain! (Via Loren Coleman.)

* Because it’s cool to read interviews with talented people who come across as good-natured and diligent about their talent, I really enjoyed this interview with Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood.

* Finally, over at Topless Robot my buddy Jesse Thompson has a rundown of the 10 Grossest Onscreen Movie Kisses that’s worth reading for the opening image alone:

And cheap! Amazon’s discount graphic novels page has some pretty outrageous deals right now on some great books:

House by Josh Simmons for $2.59 (that’s right, $2.59)

Love & Rockets: Perla la Loca and Love & Rockets: Beyond Palomar for $6.75 each

Chance in Hell by Gilbert Hernandez for $5.50

Holy moses! Thanks to reader Joe Villella for the tip…

* I am totally blogging from the jurors’ lounge at the Nassau County courthouse right now. Hooray for living in the future!

* I’d forgotten that Battlestar Galactica creator/revivifier Ron Moore is involved in the remake of The Thing. This is the kind of movie that I’d be tempted to get all outraged about its being remade, until I reflect that the version we all love was itself a remake and the person in charge of remaking it already has a miles-better-than-the-original remake under his belt.

* AICN’s Moriarty loved serial superhero ruiner J. Michael Straczynski’s screenplay adaptation of Max Brooks’s brilliant docu-zombie novel World War Z. Color me extremely skeptical, though I will of course go see the movie to decide in the end.

* Someone made an opera out of David Lynch’s Lost Highway? (Via Matt Zoller Seitz.)

* Finally, our quote of the day comes from Siskoid’s review of Jim Woodring’s Trosper:

The story? It’s about a little elephant who’s playing with a ball, when things go awry and he gets chased by Woodring’s trademark vaginas and penises until he finds another ball…

* Apparently the makers of the Descent sequel The De2cent are also planning The De3cent, but what really struck me about the post at that link is that it says Neil Marshall is co-writing The De2cent itself, which was news to me.

* I wasn’t sure what the big idea behind Marvel’s upcoming event comic Secret Invasion was going to be–I mean, I knew it was about Skrulls replacing superheroes but I wasn’t sure what the philosophical hook a la Civil War‘s bowdlerized privacy vs. security debate was, if any. But in this interview with writer Brian Michael Bendis about the comic, he reveals that a) there is a religious element to the Skrulls’ plan of conquest, and b) the Skrulls totalitarian way of life is going to actually appeal to some of the characters. I’m still not sold at all on Bendis as an event writer, but it is nice to see Marvel continuing to blend “hey isn’t that neat” comicsy ideas with intelligible ideological/emotional-struggle angles in their big projects. (Via Tom Spurgeon.)

* Unfortunately the old ToyFare gallery of He-Man art by comics artists I linked to a while back went down wizarduniverse.com’s memory hole, but here’s Ben Templesmith’s contribution. (Via Heidi MacDonald.)

* Well, crap, this print of the original Star Wars action figure line by Kenner photographer Dan Simmons is pretty damn rad. Buy one yourself! (Via Uncrate.)

* Finally, another great weekly strip by Tom Neely.

* Dueling Duel posts! First Kevin B. Lee reviews Steven Spielberg’s super-tense debut feature and also assembles a truly massive collection of reviews and information to supplement the post. (Via The House Next Door.) Then Lee, Keith Uhlich, Steven Boone, and Andrew “Filmbrain” Grant have a roundtable podcast discussion of the flick.

* Jason Adams reviews Singin’ in the Rain! Jason, your first-paragraph fake-out freaked me the hell out, man. I have very vivid memories of being in a sophomore-year film studies class and hearing too-cool-for-school film students calling that movie “corny” and thinking there truly must be something wrong with them mentally.

* “I’m in the god-damn club, aren’t I?” BC at Horror Movie a Day reviews The Monster Squad, tackling the deluxe DVD, a screening with Fred Dekker, and his memories of the viewings of his youth all in one fell swoop.

* Finally, over at Topless Robot, Todd Ciolek runs down the Top 10 Most Insane, Child-Warping Moments in ’80s Cartoons. The second I saw this headline I thought “Oh my God, they’re gonna have that G.I. Joe cartoon with the meltings.” Big points also for including the Smurfs’ “goodness makes the badness go away” song, which I used to sing to myself at night if I got scared, sadly enough.

If you know what’s going on here—and I do, god help me—you probably need to be doing something more constructive with your time.

* No word on whether this is due to a track fire at Penn Station, but word all over the horror internet is that Lionsgate has pushed the release of their adaptation of Clive Barker’s The Midnight Meat Train back from its original May 19 release date to a new unknown time. My guess is that you won’t see it until the horror-rich late summer period, then, but what do I know.

* Here’s the poster for Robin Hardy’s upcoming kinda quasi sorta sequel semi remake pseudo reimagining of The Wicker Man, Cowboys for Christ. I’m sorry to see it using the dreaded Trajan font, but oh well!

* More Wicker Man: Bill Sherman reviews Neil LaBute’s much-derided remake and adds some derision of his own. Rather than kicking poor Nic Cage around and repeating “Not the bees!”, Bill’s astute critique isolates several points where the new version deviated from the old at its own peril, both general (ruining the bait-and-switch that drives so much of the first film by making the pagan society unappealing from the get-go) and very specific (changing the community’s name from Summerisle to the “sibilant and unwieldy” Summersisle).

* Joe McCulloch does Jack T. Chick! Specifically, he compares a Chick tract to its African-Americanized remake by Chick disciple-cartoonist Fred Carter.

* Ross Douthat analyzes the return of the ’70s in American cinema. His emphasis is political and you may not agree with his take on this phenomenon, but the cogent way he runs down everything from conspiracy thrillers to torture porn to the horror-remake wave to the zombie revival to the HBO dramas to Battlestar Galactica strikes me as mightily impressive. (Via Keith Uhlich.)

* Rob Humanick re-views and reviews The Mist. I think he’s fonder of the movie than I am–perhaps because he hasn’t read the original story (let alone re-read it half a dozen times like me) so the scares were fresh and there was nothing to unfavorably compare the movie version to–but even so I think he’s pretty sharp in terms of what works and doesn’t work in the film.

* IT’S…a Monty Python quiz! I got a perfect score, you sons of a silly person. (Via Whitney Matheson.)

* Water monster alert: A new species of plesiosaur–the oldest aquatic reptile of any kind on record in North America–has been discovered in Alberta, Canada. Actually it was discovered in 1994, but it took until now to fully remove the fossil from the rock it was found in.

* Finally, LOST SPOILER WARNING: I’ve been hearing a lot lately about how badass Sayid is and how he must have a plan in terms of his actions in the last episode. Just to recap, this is a guy who got knocked out and had his radio smashed by Locke, got captured by Rousseau, got captured by the Iraqi restaurateur in his flashback, let the Others sneak right past him and attack the boat with Sun on it, got captured by the Others in Others Village, got captured by the Others on the beach, got captured by Locke in Others Village, and got shot by his girlfriend in his flashforward. The only target he’s ever successfully infiltrated is Shannon’s vagina.

Tom Spurgeon has posted his big Best of 2007 feature! It’s fun, and I like how this year he divided it up into categories rather than posting a massive Top 50 countdown that makes me feel bad about my inadequate reading habits.

Also I don’t know why I haven’t been posting links to this every week like I do with the Horror Roundtable, but this week’s Five for Friday audience participation feature at Tom’s site asks the participants to construct the comic of our dreams in just five words. I was surprised to see how many other folks picked the same writer I did.