Magen Cubed's Blog, page 36

Brain fodder

In order to fill my brain with the gross, ultimately useless information necessary to creating weird and uncomfortable stories about dead people and psychosexual violence,  I spend a lot of time staring at things. Usually I stare at my Netflix queue, digging through documentaries on Egyptian pharaohs, dinosaurs and deep space exploration. Other times I stare at books and films and television shows, or art in galleries and installations. Most of the time, though, I’m just staring at junk on the internet.

So, for your viewing pleasure, I have assembled this list of the stuff I stare at. Interesting, gross, and mostly just kitschy, this is a good resource of facts, images and junk to suit your voyeuristic internet-surfing needs.

The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice: A site dedicated to the history of pre-anaesthetic surgery, full of weird and gross information about everything from blood-letting to books made of human flesh to dissections of diseased penises. It’s kind of great.

Monster Brains: A great blog for horror and science fiction art of the last century, from masks to movie posters to book illustrations. Lots of wonderful vintage weirdness.

Swamp Thingy: A Tumblr blog showcasing posters, screen caps and set photos of vintage horror and science fiction.

EatSleepDraw: Art from designers and illustrators across the internet, of all styles, mediums and topics. So much great, random stuff here.

Grantbridge Street: Another Tumblr blog, showcasing amazing comic art and artists.

Your Nice New Outfit: Phil Noto’s Tumblr.

MISTERHIPP: Dan Hipp’s Tumblr.

Monsters4Ever: Monster Man’s blog of the weird, random and visually interesting.

Uno Moralez: Truly weird and wonderful digital art.

Zombies, rockers, and cheerleaders, oh my: Texas Frightmare Weekend

 

This year’s Texas Frightmare Weekend has come and gone in a blaze of bloodied teddy bears, things in jars and Freddie Krueger cosplayers. I was fortunate enough to be there on Saturday with Eric Beebe, Brad Carter, Andrew Risch and Kyle Dickerson from Post Mortem Press  yelling at strangers, talking crap and drinking beer. Oh, and we talked to people and sold some books and signed some stuff, which was good.

Although I was only there for the day, I had a great time and got a lot of photos. All of which you will now be subjected to, in full color with all the Freddy Krueger you can handle.

If the pictures suck, blame The Reverend. He was my camera guy.

Come on down to Cripple Town

If you’re going to be in the D/FW Metroplex this weekend, I suggest going down to Texas Frightmare Weekend, the biggest horror convention in my neck of the woods. Movies, goods, autographs, plushie dolls of your favorite chainsaw-wielding lunatics — all for your commercial indulgence and visceral pleasure. I’ll be there this Saturday with the lovely people of Post Mortem Press, selling books, running our mouths and basically just harassing the general public. Come on down to the booth to say hello, and stop by the Frightmakers 101 panel at 1pm, because I said so.

The nature of parties

By nature, I’m not the biggest party-goer you’re likely to meet. I’m more likely to catch a few beers with friends after work on a Sunday afternoon than go cruising through Dallas in the middle of the night. (Not that I haven’t done it, but I digress.) But just as a bit of advice, I suggest that if you’re going to party, always do it with artists.

I’ve gone to parties with writers. By and large we’re a shifty, socially awkward bunch. Hunched shoulders, bad posture, a greasy sensibility. The writers I know tend to try to sell you on their next project over a round of beers, or try to shove their Amazon profile link on you over nachos and Wii. Which is not to say that all writers are pathologically incapable of refraining from selling themselves long enough to have a good time. Horror and bizarro writers, I find, tend to be fun to hang around with, mostly because we drink so much anyway, with or without a party to go to. (Just what do you mean  by “functioning alcoholic“?) But artists, artists are my most favorite people to party with.

Artists always know the best places to score. They wear the best outfits and have the most fascinating things in their hair. Most artists I know are laugh the loudest and have the best time, even better than me, with my deliberate and non-ironic Bad Dancing (TM) and unyielding need to embarrass myself in public. They can hold the best conversations, sober or not, and sometimes especially not, which is why we’re at the party in the first place. Artists — especially illustrators — are the first to arrive and the last ones to leave. They’ll be the first to start pranking people with elaborate bathroom traps and butter on windshields. (Oh, a freshly buttered windshield, you’re always so funny as long as you’re not mine.)

Then again, my idea of a perfect social event is a lazy afternoon in watching Star Trek and drinking Mexican beer, so what do I know?

Return to Planet Magen

This is a picture of me with Optimus Prime. There, now I feel better.

I’ve been home for two days since my New York vacation. Since then I’ve gone back to work, gone through my old clothes, and gotten a new bed. I’ve set about to getting rid of useless things and replacing them with the stuff I need. I rearranged all of my furniture and hung up some old pictures.  Then I drew some new pictures, too. I find myself wanting to do a lot of things, but I’ve settled for my small list of accomplishments so far.

Basically? My life needed a reboot.

Going to New York made that happen. Sitting in tea houses and coffee shops and sushi restaurants. Navigating congested streets in Times Square and China Town and Little Italy. Sleeping on a futon in Brooklyn and watching sunlight come through the overhanging fabric of Tibetan flags at dawn. I got to sit around and talk about art and comics and anime, and look at amazing collections of illustrations and sculptures and paintings. I got to wander around the city at night and think about what I want to do with my life, my writing, my career. For a moment there, maybe two, passing in the glint of headlights in the distance, I felt somehow connected to something. Now I’m back on Planet Texas, Planet Magen, and it’s time for a fresh start.

My bed is new. My layout is new. The paper I’m drawing on — yes, I’m drawing again, god help you all — is new, too. I feel good. I feel ready to start on my next round of projects and get shit done. No more stagnation or distractions or meandering around. No more letting work dictate my life or being bogged down by the drama of coworkers. I’m busy. Even if I’m not busy, I’m about to get busy, so just lose my number.

This is Planet Magen, and we have things to do.

Zero hour, 9am

So this happened, and now I’m back home on Planet Texas. Hope you all had fun in my absence. I certainly did.

Leavin', leavin', leavin'

Don't expect to hear from me. No calls, no emails, no witty social networking updates about bad genre television and pop culture. You're heartbroken, I know. So am I.

This time next week I will be in New York City on vacation. My girlfriend Melissa Dominic will be there. Our friend Anna will be there. We're going to go to the museums and eat a lot of unhealthy food and roam around the Japanese grocery market. I'm going to return with a lot of photos and curios and likely Melissa smuggled in my duffel. Basically? It's going to be awesome. You just can't come, so. Be good and mind Tumblr while I'm gone, will you?

Leavin’, leavin’, leavin’

Don’t expect to hear from me. No calls, no emails, no witty social networking updates about bad genre television and pop culture. You’re heartbroken, I know. So am I.

This time next week I will be in New York City on vacation. My girlfriend Melissa Dominic will be there. Our friend Anna will be there. We’re going to go to the museums and eat a lot of unhealthy food and roam around the Japanese grocery market. I’m going to return with a lot of photos and curios and likely Melissa smuggled in my duffel. Basically? It’s going to be awesome. You just can’t come, so. Be good and mind Tumblr while I’m gone, will you?

Stories, videos, reviews

1). The Girls was posted this week by the lovely and twisted people at Flashes in the Dark. It's about amputee fetishism and fascination gone wrong. It's also about Harold Tan from Flesh Trap.

Harold Tan loved girls. He loved the girls with drooping eyelids and dirty knees, carpet-burned on their elbows and knuckles. He loved them with bruised lips and black eyes, amputated arms and legs fitted snugly into cuffed pegswith matching collars. Girls looked best spread open, stuffed full of medical utensils as big as fists, laughing and smiling and asking for more.  Harold loved that the most.

Good times, guys. Good times.

2). The bastards and thieves of Fiction Circus bring us this video of Ain't No Grave, an experiment in music, fiction and comics. Reading by Miracle Jones, music by Kevin Carter, art by John David Brown, words by me.

3). Craig Smith released his review of my contribution to the horror anthology M is for Monster, T is for Trap, better known as The Girl on Mooreland Street, the introductory chapter of Flesh Trap.

This story has me wondering about the people we meet, what sort of past are they hiding? Carroll is your average hard-working, but he as a dark past lurking underneath. A past he has forgotten about and put safely behind him, but the universe hasn't forgotten, not at all. Should people pay for crimes they committed years and years ago even though they have lived quite a productive life? I agree with Magen when I think they should. Pay your debt to society. To the people you caused harm they most probably relive the event everyday for the rest of their lives. Overall the writing was compelling and I was hooked to the end.

You can read more of Chris' reviews here.

Wait for wintertime, a Flesh Trap flash fiction

 

Summer mornings reminded Casey of grass between his teeth and licking dirt from his lips. The dry heat that made the clothes stick to his back was unwelcomed each year, seeking refuge at his opened refrigerator door, a bottle of water pressed to his forehead. Plastic sweating on his brow, he sighed, closed his eyes.

August in the city still tasted like salt and the days spent in the vacant lot on the edge of the housing development where he grew up. No matter how much space he put between himself and Mooreland Street, the summers spent there still hid in streams of sunlight coming between half-opened blinds, making the roof of his mouth dry. Tongue pasty, throat raw, heart beating in his wrists and temple where he could listen for it. The grass was as tall as he was back then, beige from the mid-July drought and crunchy beneath his feet. He and Mariska used to go the lot after school, backpacks forgotten in a sunken patch of earth and under a rotted wooden plank.

The lot was all that remained of a house that had burned down before Casey was born, just a foundation and a bathtub left behind in the jungle of grass. It was their place, the one spot in the neighborhood none of the other children dared to venture and none of the parents remembered to check. Each summer they hid from the sun under the brush and plucked at the flowered heads of weeds and didn't say a word of home or David or Alyona. Never Mom or Dad, just Them and They and Us, forever separated by the invisible lines that divided the Way-Kovol home. They were safe there in the lot, blades of grass stuck between their teeth and rolled into knots around their fingers. She always promised they would be together forever, no matter what their parents did or didn't do. He always held his breath and nodded under his shaggy hair, and said yes. Of course. Forever.

She was eight, ten, twelve and fourteen. He was six, eight, ten and twelve. Then David Way died and they never returned to Mooreland Street again.

Casey closed the refrigerator door, slid off his shirt and closed the blinds. The sunshine edging across the carpet died in a flick of the plastic cord and he went back to the bed where Joel slept. If Joel woke, Casey said nothing of summer or home and breathed against Joel's collarbone instead.