Orrin Grey's Blog: Shovel Murders & Monologues, page 71

The Last Man on Earth

I don't know why I'd never seen Vincent Price's The Last Man on Earth before last night. By all accounts it doesn't make sense. Vincent Price is probably my favorite actor of all time, and I Am Legend is a book that I've longed to see adapted well ever since I first read it. Little did I know that it already had been.

I saw the recent Will Smith adaptation of I Am Legend, which I had high hopes for because I'd loved Francis Lawrence's directorial debut Constantine and thought he would have a p...

Better Left Unsaid

So Ridley Scott has spilled a lot of the beans about his forthcoming prequel to Alien, and... I'm not interested. I mean, I'm sure it'll be a fine movie, and all, and I'm sure I'll even see it, but...

Here's the thing: I love Aliens. It was one of the first movies that I saw as a kid that showed me science fiction and horror and monsters being taken seriously and used well. I've got a lot of residual affection for the franchise, some of it earned and some of it not.

I know for a lot of people R...

To a New World of Gods and Monsters!

It's the 75th anniversary of The Bride of Frankenstein, and the good folks over at Frankensteinia are having a week-and-change long celebration in its honor. This seemed like as good a time as any to talk about Frankenstein--the man, the story, and the monster--and my relationship to all three.

I've never read Mary Shelley's novel. I've got a big, nice, hardcover copy with illustrations by Berni Wrightson on my shelf at home, but I've never done more than look at the pictures. I know I should,...

The Best News I've Got All Day

So, forgive the shortness of this post, but I felt I had to share this right away. There's going to be a crossover between Beasts of Burden and Hellboy! Basically, two of my very favorite (and very different) supernatural monster fightin' comics out right now are going to be crossing over for one special issue, with variant covers drawn by both Mike Mignola and regular artist Jill Thompson, with the writing chores being handled by the usual (and unbeatable) Evan Dorkin.

I can't freakin' wait!

Pet Connection Needs Help

The Pet Connection is a local no-kill animal shelter in Mission, Kansas. It's where my wife and I got our two cats. It's a very good place staffed by very good people who genuinely care about the animals in their care. It's also going to be closing its doors for lack of funding.

If you have some extra money to spare, please consider heading over to their website and clicking on the donate button so that they can continue to help people find pets they'll love as much as we love ours. Thanks.

Great Minds

Those of you who've read The Mysterious Flame, check out these panels from the fourth issue of Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson's Beasts of Burden mini-series. (Thanks to The Groovy Age of Horror for posting the scan, since I've not read that issue yet.)

Bad luck wind been blowin' on my back

OK, so Glen Danzig wrote a song for Johnny Cash and I had to learn about it from the Hangover soundtrack? WTF?

Anyway, last night I went to an awesome show put on by the Kansas City Society of Burlesque. It was a lot of fun, very laid back, and with a lot of great... ahem... talent. (No, seriously, there was a lot of awesome talent on display, along with some other more tangible qualities.)

I'm currently wrapping up my first week at the new job. So far I'm happy with it, though this first week ...

Sometimes the ups outnumber the downs...

I've not really talked about this before, but it's been coming on for awhile now.

Several months ago, my wife was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. This following a lengthy series of testing and other efforts to figure out and name just what was wrong. Unfortunately, at the same time her work was getting increasingly stressful and uncomfortable. Either one alone would probably have been bearable, both together proved not to be. Last week she finally realized the extent to which her work...

Downs & Ups

I have not been broadcasting regularly--in fact, I haven't been doing much of anything I would usually do--but I like to think I've got some good excuses.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty crazy, though they probably wouldn't sound much like it if I talked about them. Lots of mundane stuff like dentist appointments and trips to the allergist, but also some extra-mundane stuff (in the sense of "extra" that means "outside" rather than "very") in the form of a very unexpected new job! I c...

The Corner of Interview and Win

The last couple of weeks have been crazy ones for me, and I feel like I am behind in absolutely everything, but I wanted to drop a couple of quick (and exciting) news items here:

First off, there's a micro-interview with me up at Innsmouth Free Press, in which I talk about Lovecraft, ghouls, giant albino penguins, and my story Nature vs Nurture. Though I may be mistaken, I think this may be the first time I've ever been interviewed for a publication, so that's pretty awesome.

Also, my story The...