Lawrence C. Connolly's Blog, page 2

Classic Spinoffs

“You Know–For Kids!” Name the Classic

A recent challenge in our Minute-Men: Execute and Run newsletter asked folks to identify the classic predecessors to the six books and films pictured above. Some of the contemporary spinoffs–like The Scarlet Letter Man and All for One–are fairly obvious. I figured the titles alone were enough to link them to the novels of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Alexandre Dumas.

By contrast, I was certain some of the others would be harder to identify. And yet, ...

Iconic Book Illustrations

Worth 1,000 words. Images featured in the July 8 installment of the Minute-Men Newsletter.

Artists have been illustrating the written word for ages, and in some instances, the illustrations have made such indelible impressions that they’ve become forever identified with the author’s work.

With that in mind, we asked newsletter subscribers and social media followers to consider the above illustrations.

The Challenge

Can you name any of the books in which the above illustrations app...

Minute-Men Preview at …

Plus Panels on AI, Horror, Writing … and more!

This year at Confluence, I’ll be joining brother Christopher Connolly for an in-person preview of our forthcoming novel Minute-Men: Execute & Run, set for release this fall from Caezik Science Fiction & Fantasy, an imprint of Arc Manor Books.

The cover of Minute-Men: Execute & Run.

The preview will take place 2:00 on Saturday, July 26, at a display near the convention’s registration table. Look for a Minute-Men banner featuring the boo...

Mail-Order Monkeys?

Comic Book & Magazine Merch of the 60s Kids Today Are Missing Out

Sure, they have tablets, iPhones, TikTok, and YouTube. They can stream anything they want when they want. They can even get a bot to do their homework. But X-ray vision? Asiatic insects? Live monkeys? Nope, nope, and double nope!

It was different back in the day. Maybe we didn’t have email, but we had the US mail. And we had comic books and monster magazines. And … whenever we wanted … we could order all kinds of stuf...

Deleted Movie Scenes

Kill your darlings … spare the dog.

In a recent installment of The Town, podcaster Matthew Belloni shares a list of deleted or added scenes that would have dramatically changed some popular films.

In Pretty in Pink, Molly Ringwald originally ended up with John Cryer, not Andrew McCarthy. Loki initially died in Thor: The Dark World. And in Back to the Future, a scene was added so audiences didn’t think Doc Brown’s dog died when it was sent to the future.

Clearly, those beloved films ...

Deleted Darlings

Newsletter Challenge #2 Deleted scenes from six well-known films. How many do you recognize? (Hint: three are from the same director.)

In a previous post, I shared details and images of a deleted scene from the anthology film Nightmare Cinema.

Produced by and featuring the critically acclaimed segment This Way to Egress (directed by and based on my short story Traumatic Descent), the film had a scene that never made it into the released version.

You can read ...

Strangest Superheroes Ever

Who Are They?

As announced in a previous installment of this blog (find it here), my brother Christopher and I have launched a newsletter featuring production updates, photos, concept art, videos, and audio recordings relating to our forthcoming book Minute-Men: Execute & Run.

Installments of the newsletter also feature puzzles and challenges, with the most recent one relating to the characters pictured above.

Although the graphic includes character names, those identities were hid...

Newsletter Challenge #1

Forgotten Superheroes

Recognize these guys?

If you’ve subscribed to the Minute-Men: Execute and Run newsletter, you know all about the challenge associated with them.

If you’re not a subscriber, please consider signing up via this handy subscription box:

Either way, now that you’re here, let us know if you can identify any of the characters above. You are free to do an image search if you like, but if you do, please share the source(s) you consulted.

And, as stated in the...

Out Now: “Echoes” in Weird Fiction Review

Prosperous Progeny.

“And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper.”

That’s Mary Shelley, writing in her Introduction to the 1831 edition of Frakenstein.

While writing the book as a teenager, she could not have imagined how successful the novel would become. But as an adult, after witnessing a reissue of the book and several stage adaptations, she realized her youthful creation had assumed a prosperous life of its own.

“Lo and behold,” she wrote to a friend ...

Newsletter: Ready for Launch

How to Sign Up.

Earlier this year, a newsletter subscription box appeared on this website.

Can you find it?

If you’re reading on your phone, the box is near the bottom of this page. Otherwise, it should be off to the right. See it?

The box doesn’t flash, expand, or migrate to the center of the screen. That’s by design.

Since I tend to get annoyed when my reading is interrupted by click-through ads, I asked this site’s webmaster (W. H. Horner Editorial & Design) to create...