Day 4 of October Horror Month: The Bunker, a film by Joseph Monks

First the back story, Joe Monks is a horror writer who made a dark, scary ass film. While it is a horror movie, and it is a dark vision, it is not a vulgar work. More like a roller coaster with kick. But that isn’t the thing that people talk about. He wrote and directed a film. He also promoted it, and got funding and approaches a distribution deal. This isn’t a small work. But Joe Monks is blind. His horror works come from a great imagination, an incredible amount of work to overcome, and a vision that is dark, but not out of the blindness.

Joe Monks is my friend too. He is a special talent.


Meet Joe Monks @
Learn more about THE BUNKER @

Day 3 of October Horror Month: Creature from the Black Lagoon

It was 1954. It was a time when America was growing more aware of its power, and it began to shake off the influences of other countries and become more and more its own place. The idyllic world of America’s dreams was a facade, not entirely wrong, not entirely misguided. But one area it feared but also embraced was science. Science had defeated certain diseases, science had ended the Second World War, and science was providing America with modernity. There was a fear in some that science might unleash unknown catastrophes as well, but, for the most part it was seen as a panacea. But then the Creature from the Black Lagoon came along. It was a remnant from a distant age, evolved to a maturation point that made it nearly human. The scientific expedition that found it couldn’t help but be amazed by it, but as always, conflict occurred when the two forces nature and science collide.

Read about it @
Learn more @

The Mummy Day 2 of October Horror Month

Try to imagine a movie that is slow, because it is meant to be, think of the ancient world, think of how slow a mummy moves... this movie has a pace that is deliberate, and by that, excruciating, but if you watch closely, it will reward your viewing. Boris Karloff played the mummy in THE MUMMY and spends far far more time out of the stereotypical mummy vestiges than not. However, that is the real power behind this film. The mummy is neither mindless, nor under any one else's power, he is awakened and is now seeking to reincarnate his princess, who he was separated from in the deep and distant past. In ancient times he was made prisoner of his flesh so that he could travel to the future and restore the ancient wonders...

Karloff was an amazing actor, and no more so than in this film.

OCTOBER IS HORROR MONTH

This year at Poplitiko I am going to write 31 entries for the Halloween month, each a small invite to you to participate in a horror movie, book, writer, music, whatever...

Today's entry

30 DAYS OF NIGHT
Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith

Vampires only come out at night, right? What if you live in Barrow, Alaska during the month of night at Winter's darkest point? You'd have to fight off a buttload of Vampires is what you'd have to do, that is what.

Visit Steve @
Visit Ben @
Visit IDW Publishing @

Fur Noir: Who Killed Kathleen Gingers?

She was Hollywood's hottest property; a star of the silver screen, very beautiful, and very naked. The cameras loved her, even when the camera belonged to the County Sheriff's department, and it was a death scene that would've made any actress' career... but when the reviews came in, it was her stand-in who got the accolades, and the killer realized he'd have to shoot the scene again! It doesn't take long for unorthodox police detective Allan Connell to find himself with plenty of suspects auditioning for the role of the murderer, and Connell has to wrap the production fast before the killer's next casting call lands the famous actress a starring role – at her own funeral!

This past summer, an acquaintance from LiveJournal named Gary Akins asked me to provide some illustrations for a couple books he was self-publishing. Gary's a furry fan, and his tales are noir-ish detective stories set in a world of anthropomorphic critters. His main character, Allan Connell, is a ferret with a talent for running into hot women and cold corpses.

His first couple books are now available from Furry Logic Productions. The first one, Who Killed Kathleen Gingers?, has illustrations by myself and a number of other furry artists.

CHUCK DIXON TALKS ABOUT WINTERWORLD in time for winter

I’ve always enjoyed Chuck Dixon’s writing. And he has a considerable portion of my comic book TPB bookshelf. The work he did that I would consider to be my favorite is Winter World. The good people at IDW released a collection of it, as well as the second part of the saga, and I am pleased to present this interview with Chuck Dixon about the work, and his place in the comic world.

I’ve given away so many sets of Winter World I feel as if I’ve perhaps shrunk the potential audience for your new IDW collection of the first series and the previously unpublished Winter Sea. When the work first came out, what was your goal in writing and telling the story? Was it a story that was any part political, any part bigger picture allegory, or was it just a ripping good adventure in a stark environment? If the last, are those kind of stories still arriving on the comic market shelves or has the glory of a story written without agenda passed?

Winter World was entirely inspired by seeing Jorge Zaffino's artwork for the first time. I had not even an inkling of this story until I saw Jorge's portfolio. My visceral reaction was, "I gotta create something for this guy!"

Winter World was designed to take advantage of everything Jorge did so well. Evocative characters, convincing action, dangerous settings and the treachery of Mother Nature. This guy drew the best weather since Joe Kubert.

I had no political agenda and the first editions contained a disclaimer that Winter World was not meant as a cautionary tale about the environment.

Most of what I see in today's "mature" comics seems to have either a political angle to it or a conscious effort to be meaningful. I've always aimed only to write escapist fiction.

What influenced the story regarding environment, historic tales, fictional tales, what writers, what artists?

A lot of Winter World probably grew out of being a kid back in the "duck and cover" days of the Cold War. We had air raid drills at school and were even sent home one day and told to have our parents write down the time of our arrival so that it could be determined whether or not to send us home to die with our families. I remember bomb shelters and covers of Life magazine showing Soviet rockets raining down on Manhattan. All this fueled by lots of Twilight Zone episodes and movies like Fail Safe. A rich, dark fantasy life evolved from all that in which I would imagine a post-nuclear war and how my family would survive against our neighbors. I'm kind of hard-wired for creating bitter, cynical survivalist adventures.

With the world gripped by fears of global climate change and global warming, however accurate or not those fears are, do you think that such a book as Winter World is actually a refreshing change from that sort of paradigm, or, does that not play into how you see it? Why or why not?

Mark Twain said that "everyone talks about the weather but no one ever does anything about it." Now we're in a very weird age of co-mingled hubris and fear in which we are terrified of the climate but feel we can change it. We seem to be afraid of everything now so that even a mild hurricane off the East Coast throws the media into a panic. Once only the weatherman commented on how hot or cold it is. Newscasts now lead with the startling revelation that it is hot in July. Supposedly educational cable channels are crowded with apocalyptic predictions featuring hours and hours of the same half-dozen scientists describing doomsday scenarios in great detail and CGI animation. I suppose that Winter World now plays into those fears with it's violent disruption. I never meant it that way. I just wanted to write a thrilling adventure in an unimaginable world.

You seemed to really hit on something with Jorge Zaffino, where you wrote works that his pencils were perfect for, how rare is it to find an artist and writer so sympatico creatively, and, if not for his tragic death at a modest age of 42, what would his legacy of work look like now?

Despite the language barrier, Jorge and I always seemed to be of one mind as to how the stories should be presented. In one instance, in Seven Block, I wrote a character telling another to go "eff yourself." The editor felt the line was too strong even for a mature comic so I cut it. Jorge never saw the line. When the artwork was handed in, Jorge had drawn the character giving the finger to the other guy.

Some kind of vulgar psychic connection there.

I'm not sure what Jorge would have done if he'd had the opportunity. I had lots of proposals out for him but American editors had a hard time finding a place for him. They're never sure what to do with a guy who doesn't draw the world of superheroes.

Who do you see as being the perfect artist to complete the trilogy with the chapter Winter War? If you started together right now with that prospective artist on that series, how soon could we expect to see it?

Hard to say who could come into finish up. Rodolfo Damaggio would be a choice but he's far too successful in the movie world these days. Someone mentioned Tommy Lee Edwards to me once. That would certainly be a worthy successor. There's other guys I know but I think they're too in awe of Jorge's work to step in.

If you were to see a mass response to this collection and the third part were to occur, what actors could you see playing the main roles in a movie of the story? Would it have to be CGI? Or just go to Minnesota in February and use hand held cameras and shot guns and flash bombs for effects?

I don't really play the casting game. I think of Winter World as a comic first and last. Were it ever to be adapted to film then that's a whole different deal and I'd have little say in how it all turned out. But for me, the comic is my last word on Winter World.

But there's no reason a fine movie could not be shot in some frigid location with little or no effects. Not to sound like some Hollywood hosebag but it's all about the characters.

Is IDW the intellectual inheritor of the mantle of Eclipse comics, the original publisher of Winter World? Or is there one out there right now?

IDW is absolutely the closest thing to Eclipse that's out there right now. With its combination of licensed properties, creator-owned stuff and archival projects it's like time has caught up to Jan and Dean's original vision of a company that fully embraces comics as a medium. For the creators, it's the least corporate of the companies out there right now. Not to say that it's not run by actual grown-ups. But there's none of the show-biz phony doubletalk that's so common in comics right now. No one talks in terms of synergy or similar BS. Dealing with Ted Adams and the rest of the folks reminds me of dealing with Dean Mullaney back in the day. You present them with an idea and they come back with whether or not it will work and real world reasons why or why not. No lame excuses or gladhanding.

As some people read a while back, a long while back, in my column at PopThought.com, we discussed how Eclipse was a ripe area for talents like yourself and Timothy Truman, Beau Smith, Alan Moore even, and others, to spread your wings outside of the constrictions of an over arching continuity and genres found at Marvel or DC. Do you see the market allowing such a broadly minded publisher rising again?

As I answered above, I think IDW is that company. But times have changed. When Eclipse was going strong the market for comics was hot. While you can have a talent gain heat these days it seems to be a heat that burns hot and fast. The criteria for "hotness" is no longer subjective. You have it being determined on one end by the increasingly irrelevant Wizard magazine and like websites for the superhero market and on the other end Entertainment Weekly for the boutique "precious" comics market.

Within comics you are a “famously conservative” creative talent. How do you see that, if at all, as affecting the layers of your stories and ideas filling your work? Is it possible for a creative talent to create OUTSIDE of his ideas and beliefs? If so, how? I have no idea.

Make that "infamously" conservative. I try not to place any of my political beliefs in my work. Batman or GI Joe are escapist entertainment and not a platform for my views. Even when I write The Simpsons I skewer both sides.

Last question, are there any plans for an Evangeline series in similar collection? For those who never read it, it is a kick ass Nun in an apocalyptic sort of future...
The ownership of Evangeline is murky at best. I doubt it's worth the time and expense it would take to disentangle it.

Thank you Chuck Dixon.

Time and Motion

Pictured at left is Marcel Duchamp's controversial "Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2". When first exhibited at New York's Armory Show in 1913, it created a scandal.

"I see no nude! I see no Staircase!"

There were fistfights.

I visit this amazing work all the time at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It's hard, at this late date, to understand the fuss. We 21st-century types are used to non-representative art. Of course there's no nude. That's not what the painting is about! It's about motion, and surface, time and space.

Pictured at right is another early 20th century masterpiece; a panel from E.C. Segar's Thimble Theater (April 29, 1932). While nowhere near the draftsman that Duchamp was, Segar here employs a very similar method for depicting time and motion in a static two-dimensional space.

Why no fistfights?

Is it because 20 years had passed, and Duchamp's methods had been asimilated? Is it because it's "just a comic strip" and therefore unworthy of the passion elicited by Duchamp?

I have no answer to these questions. I'm not even sure they're valid questions. I was just reading old Segar strips and said "Hey- that looks a lot like Duchamp's Nude!" I can't discount the possibility that I'm completely full of shit, but that's what I see.

It isn't the same, no matter how they wish it to be

We hear political pundits telling us how screwed we are. This is the next "Great Depression". But it neither informs us, nor helps us. This is how our popular culture avoids absorbing the full impact of bad news, and how it keeps us from carrying out actions that require great courage, and hardship. We are not averse to pain, if it brings us result. But we aren't talking about avoiding pain... I think our culture does something that makes us feel better about any given situation, without a moral commitment to change.


It isn't the same. We are often told that a certain event equates another event, or a certain disaster beckons to be as bad as a previous one. The current war is like a past war, a current economic downturn is like a previous one.

























But we are victims of something in the media,
through no clear misbehavior or malicious intent. We live in a culture that seeks to make all events understandable. One way of doing this is by to assert that things are similar to another. Or that we can expect one event to play out, as another did. But, no matter how much easier it is if it worked that way, Desert Storm did not turn out to be Vietnam, nor did the later wars in Iraq nor Afghanistan. Before you suggest that they are equals in terms of failures or moral collapse due to various issues, Vietnam cost ten times more American lives than all three of the recent wars mentioned. The cost alone in lives suggests that any commentary equating the various conflicts to be at most surface level commentary, and worse, insulting to the complexity of each conflict.

There is no answer here to any problems, just a suggestion that every event, for good or bad is unique to itself, and the pain of the people in 1929 is nothing like it is now. We've changed so much that our lives cannot possible reflect the same, in the present to the past and vice versa.

If a movie, comic, television show, song, or piece of art, or literature can reflect that uniqueness we are the beneficiaries... because those who mold opinion seem to not want us to think seriously about change. Perhaps they have an interest in the status quo?

Memories of My Comic Book Golden Era

People ask all the time what comics I read growing up, and I remember most comics I've read, and specifically eras of comics I enjoyed. But this period, from age 5 to age 22 was the period in which everything I read I seriously got a thrill out of.

((PLEASE CLICK UPON THE PICS TO MAKE THEM BIGGER))

1968 Brave and Bold, Spectre and Batman fighting in Chinatown... I was on the way home from the doctor with a bad bee sting, Mother knows best, so I got a comic to feel better.



1969 The Wacky Races, bought for a trip with my brother and father ice fishing. I didn't quite understand why people would stand outside in winter to catch fish, and, I still don't.



1970 Christmas shopping, I saw my hero Underdog at Daly News and Drug, and demanded it. I received it. And I got my order form into the Underdog fan club and got a ring and t-shirt of the great hero as well.



1971 Two week summer vacation at a cabin at Fish Lake. What do you do when you are hot and tired? Sit in the cool of the dark cabin and read comics. I still dig Valkyrie.



1972 March or so, brother and I woke up to learn that my mother was gone because my father had had a massive heart attack in Milwaukee while on a business trip. Fortunately for him, he had it next to a hospital, with a special cardiac care unit. We visited, I read Turok and was amazed.



1973 I had a broken leg. My wonderful brother bought me my first X-Men. And oh yes, IT WAS GOOD.



1974 Summer bus trip to Minneapolis with brother and mother. GI Combat was my ticket to excitement.



1975 Nearly every book I read was about World War II, so a comic based in that era with Submariner and Cap? OH HELL YES!



1976 The Justice Society became my favorite Superhero group ever, so a reprint with a complete story and another with Batman and Superman to boot? Oh yes very fun reading. My copy got hail damage walking home but I still enjoyed it.



1977 Master of Kung Fu was better than any Bruce Lee film, or James Bond film, it combined the two, with perfect art and kewl stories and writing. Issue 48 was brilliance. Truly. Cinematic, big, wild, and completely awesome.



1978 was a time when I was starting to follow talents as well as characters, and Jack Kirby was my hero creator. Devil Dinosaur is funky, silly even, but I enjoyed it. I was beginning to learn how different I was than most of my friends and all of my "enemies", comics became a refuge for me.



1979 Again, the JSA rules. I was now living in a new town, with new friends, but I still sought refuge in the super heroics.



1980 New Teen Titans prove to me that comics are for adults as well. This stuff was great. I was a sophomore in high school, my grades were bad, but I was making friends, and life started to improve.



1981 A 27 page story that brings to an end the first full cycle of stories of the Warlord. Mike Grell was great (is great) but had balls aplenty to take his story into new frontiers by putting a bullet in the noggin of one of his most important characters of the saga. Stunning.



1982 In May I graduated from high school and moved on to university. Alone, depressed, I returned to a friend, comics, only to find a brilliant cover by George Perez, with the poopy art of Don Heck inside of a Justice League of America.



1983 Roy Thomas and the JSA. My first year of university nearly ended with my suicide, I was lost and depressed, but, I still liked the good old comics.



1984 While I was a Legion of Superheroes fan I had great hopes in 1984 when the Legion got its prestige series. I was horrified and wounded when my favorite hero Karate Kid died in issue #4. Nonetheless, it was a good run. University studies and female studies interrupted my comic buying, but I still loved them.



1985 Jack Kirby returned to end the story of the New Gods, with a fabulous looking graphic novel. It was ok but there were issues with it. On the other hand, I had a girl friend of sorts, though we wouldn't date technically until 1986. Then we would marry in 1988 June.

WARBIRDS OF MARS!

Announcing Warbirds of Mars, a thrilling Neo-pulp/noir scifi WebComic by Doc and Kane! Warbirds of Mars

Created and illustrated by SCOTT P. ‘DOC’ VAUGHN and written by KANE GILMOUR. In 1944 the ‘martians’ (as the invaders are called) attacked the earth and super-ceded WWII, occupying much of the major cities of the world. Man must struggle to re-unite the ragged/ dispersed armies of the planet Earth in the hopes of fighting back with new technology.

The year is now 1948 and one brave band of resistance fighters will make the
difference between a free humanity and a world ruled by invaders from the stars!

The first pages are now available to read! Subscribe today! Click the link ---> Warbirds of Mars

Toil, Labor, Sweat, and Art

Who we are as a culture, as a people, has always been determined by our willingness to work. Those who drive cars do not do so with magic beans to fuel their vehicles, but gasoline pumped from the ground, in vehicles made from steel and other materials, mined from the ground. Every thing we do, comes from labor. And so does art, but especially so, when the art reflects our reality, of labor.



Artist Diego Rivera
Migrant workers

“. . . when the farm workers strike and their strike is successful, the employers go to Mexico and have unlimited, unrestricted use of illegal alien strikebreakers to break the strike. And, for over 30 years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has looked the other way and assisted in the strikebreaking. I do not remember one single instance in 30 years where the Immigration Service has removed strikebreakers. . . .The employers use professional smugglers to recruit and transport human contraband across the Mexican border for the specific act of strikebreaking . . .”
Cesar Chavez



Elmer Brown
WPA Cleveland Mural

“Labor is man's greatest function. He is nothing, he can do nothing, he can achieve nothing, he can fulfill nothing, without working.”
Orville Dewey



Dorothea Lange
Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company

“Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.”
Adam Smith



Dorothea Lange
Migrant Mother

“Naked a man comes from his mother’s womb,
and as he comes, so he departs.
He takes nothing from his labor
that he can carry in his hand.”
King Solomon



Soviet Union Agriculture worker Propaganda poster
"Day after day, life becomes even happier!"

“For as labor cannot produce without the use of land, the denial of the equal right to the use of land is necessarily the denial of the labor to its own produce.”
Henry George



Boris Jeremejewitsch Wladimirskij
Miner

“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.



Vladimir Il'ich Malagis
Steel Workers

“The workers asked only for bread and a shortening of the long hours of toil. The agitators gave them visions. The police gave them clubs.”
Mother Jones



Lee Lawrie
Atlas

“Human history is work history. The heroes of the people are work heroes.”
Meridel Le Sueur



Yevgeny Vuchetich
Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares

“Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.”
Thomas Merton



Lewis Hine
Power house mechanic working on steam pump

“Such hath it been--shall be--beneath the sun The many still must labour for the one.”
Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)