Hal Johnson's Blog, page 13
December 29, 2024
Blvd. of Blood: Table of Contents
Chapter
(The original post)
Unless someone talks me out of it in the immediate future, starting next week I will begin serializing a complete novel, Blvd. of Blood. This is a straight-up thriller, with no postmodern jibber-jabber added—an edge-of-the-seat tale of a man planning a mass shooting and the cop who seeks to stop him. I should warn you that the book involves salty language and either a little or a lot of violence—depending...
Starting next week: Blvd. of Blood
Unless someone talks me out of it in the immediate future, starting next week I will begin serializing a complete novel, Blvd. of Blood. This is a straight-up thriller, with no postmodern jibber-jabber added—an edge-of-the-seat tale of a man planning a mass shooting and the cop who seeks to stop him. I should warn you that the book involves salty language and either a little or a lot of violence—depending on the plot’s outcome.
Please tell your thriller-loving friends about this new project—I am ...
December 26, 2024
Truly Wordless Comic Panels

Hal Johnson Books is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
John Severin!
December 24, 2024
A garland of quotations C
When water stinks I break the dam,
In love I break it.
•Graves, Seven Days in New Crete (1949).
That there was a deluge once seems not to me so great a miracle as that there is not one always.
•Browne, Religio Medici (1643).
Said a witty misanthrope to me à propos of the iniquities of men, “It is only the uselessness of the first Deluge that preserves us from being visited by a second.”
•Chamfort, Maxims, Thoughts, Characters and Anecdotes (1796).
Dey m...
December 22, 2024
Cruelly negative reviews
As you may have heard, I write books for a living, and when you write books, getting negative reviews is just part of the game. Here are two mediocre reviews for Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods I pulled off Amazon:


Of course, some people just genuinely don’t like my books

and that’s fine. It’s fine. That’s part of the game. And, honestly, in my case, when I get a stinging review, I remind myself I deserve it, because I personally am horribly cruel w...
December 19, 2024
Truly Wordless Comic Panels

Hal Johnson Books is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Carl Barks!
December 17, 2024
A garland of quotations XCIX
Look at them,
busy, making an iron frame
for a bubble on the water
to make it safe!
•Basavanna, vacana 162 (C 12).
They relate that :—Nimrúd sate in an iron-closet around which was kindled a fire; and, in fancy, said—“Behold! how will the Angel of Death come here, and take my soul?” ¶By the power of God, the Omnipotent, a gnat crept into his brain (by the ear), began to bite, and so distressed him that finally, in great torment, he died.
•H. Wilberforce Clarke, notes to The Sikandar ná...
December 12, 2024
Truly Wordless Comic Panels
Could it be you'll need a gift soon?

Hal Johnson Books is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Joe Oriolo!
December 10, 2024
A garland of quotations XCVIII
When hempe is ripe and ready to pull,
Then, Englishman, beware thy skull.
•Thomas Heywood, Life of Merlin, with His Prophesies and Predictions Interpreted and Made Good by Our English Annal (c. 1635).
Away with astrologers! Deaf is the augur, the soothsayer blind, and the prophet mad. To know present things is permitted to man; God alone knows the future.
•Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria Nova (ca. 1210).
For ’tis to me the power is given
Unclosed the b...
December 5, 2024
Truly Wordless Comic Panels
(Come see me tomorrow at Concentric Brewing, Portland, CT, 12–4; flier at the bottom)

Thanks for reading Hal Johnson Books! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Al Alvison!
