Hal Johnson's Blog, page 11

Blvd. of Blood

Continued from here. Table of contents for ease of navigation here.

(The story so far: In the village of Cottinend, NY, someone has been tweeting threats about a terrible massacre coming in three months. Bernie Feldstein is in on the massacre, and is excited because he wants revenge on his longtime nemesis, Alan Jancewicz. Patrolman John Oberman, concerned about the tweets, has decided to call the Sp!der…)

Check out this real book I wrote!

It's 45% off (but for how long?)

Impossible Histories! It'...

Truly Wordless Comic Panels

For the sake of the children,

purchase my books

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Ogden Whitney!

A garland of quotations CIX

Amazon let me have a "bio"

There is no more unfortunate being under the sun than a fetishist, who longs for a woman’s shoe and has to make do with a whole woman.
•Karl Kraus, Nachts (1918).

My love for Katya verged on the abnormal. On one occasion I secretly stole one of her handkerchiefs, and on another a piece of ribbon that she used for tying up her hair, and I used to kiss them all night long, wiping my tears with them.
•Dostoevsky, Netochka Nezvanova (1845).

[Leigh Hunt’s] poor wife has led the...

Blvd. of Blood

Continued from here. Table of contents for ease of navigation here. For pete’s sake, don’t start here; this is Book 2! Start at Book 1!

(The story so far: Colin Lang, respectable actuary at Radcliffe Worth Partners, has contrived the perfect plan to perpetrate some kind of horrible massacre in four months. He has recruited Bernie Feldstein, local idiot, to help him. The police have no clue, except that someone has started tweeting threats; only Patrolman John Oberman takes them seriously.)

Book II...

Truly Wordless Comic Panels

I write, for a living, books

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Sparky!

A garland of quotations CVIII

Is this my best book? Maybe

“Surely you have no bourgeois prejudices?” she said.
“Of course not,” he answered her hurriedly, for he would much sooner have been thought knavish than bourgeois.
•W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden (1928).

Stendhal said traders and merchants made him want to “weep and vomit at the same time.” Flaubert thought they were “plodding and avaricious.” Hatred of the bourgeoisie, he wrote, “is the beginning of all virtue.” He signed his letters “Bourgeoisophobus” to show how much he...

Blvd. of Blood

Continued from here. Table of contents for ease of navigation here.

(The story so far: Colin Lang, respectable actuary at Radcliffe Worth Partners, is supposed to be planning some sort of murder spree come spring; Carol Wernick is a coworker he meets at an office party. Meanwhile local cop John Oberman and local patsy Bernie Feldstein have yet to figure out what is really going on; nor has Carol; but has the reader?)

18.

Bernie’s bandage fell off one morning on the drive to work. Yes, the Fines ha...

Truly Wordless Comic Panels

MY BOOKS HAVE VERY LITTLE KISSING!

SORRY!

Hal Johnson Books is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Rick Leonardi!

A garland of quotations CVII

Is this my best book? Maybe

Man suffers, it is possible; but just look at Aldebaran rising!
•Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862).

I have never seen the evening Star set behind the mountains but it was as if I had lost a Hope our of my Soul—as if Love were gone, & a sad Memory only remained— / O it was my earliest Affection, the Evening Star / —One of my first utterances in verse was an address to it, as I was returning from the New River, and it looked newly bathed as well as I—I could remember that...

Blvd. of Blood

Continued from here. Table of contents for ease of navigation here.

(The story so far: Colin Lang, respectable actuary at Radcliffe Worth Partners, has purchased a rifle and plenty of ammunition. There are still about four months until April, when he plans to use them.)

So many books I write

16.

Right before Christmas, like a miracle, Colin found what he needed at a Target. He’d been there shopping for a bicycle—window shopping really, since he wasn’t going to buy anything until the post-Christmas s...