All the news that’s fit to capsulize!
GET THE HELL INTO DODGE
Marking the first time a TV network has licensed a book for the Internet, CBS Interactive is developing 18 webisodes based on Seth Grahame-Smith’s HOW TO SURVIVE A HORROR MOVIE: ALL THE SKILLS TO DODGE THE KILLS. The webisodes – which began Oct. 9 – will run at dodgethekills.com, leading up to Halloween. The one about “Seven Things to Never, Ever, Ever Put in a Child’s Room” – y’know, clowns, cymbal-playing monkeys – cracks me up.
‘GHOST’ OF A CHANCE
There currently are zero people in contention to win our 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS contest, which is supposed to close tomorrow. I guess I made it too hard. Either way, if you were to submit the correct answers right now, you’d chances of victory would be sky-high. (Hint: The last two have the word “ghost” in the title.)
‘MAX’ FOR THE MIN
Swing by your local comic shop to pick up MARVEL MAX SAMPLER 2007, a for-a-buck sneak peek at Marvel Comics’ adult titles, including Daniel Lapham’s TERROR, INC.; Gregg Hurwitz’s FOOLKILLER, Garth Ennis’ WAR IS HELL: THE FIRST FLIGHT OF THE PHANTOM EAGLE; Duane Swierczynski’s PUNISHER MAX ANNUAL (wonderfully bloody, this one!); Richard Corben’s HAUNT OF HORROR: H.P. LOVECRAFT; Kyle Hotz’s THE ZOMBIE: SIMON GARTH and, finally, the upcoming DEAD OF NIGHT: MAN-THING. Man, from the looks of things, I’m going to be buying a lot of trade paperbacks in the near future.
SWAP MEET!
Swaptree is a new site where users can trade books – as well as CDs, DVDs and video games – with others for free. “It’s pretty simple and sort of cool,” said the company’s Mark Hexamer. “Also to promote National Book Month, besides fasting, we are running a promotion where, if you tell your friends about the service, we will pay the postage on your first trade.”
FL-EEEEEK!-IPEDIA
Michael Atkinson and Laurel Shifrin’s new movie guide FLICKIPEDIA: PERFECT FILMS FOR EVERY OCCASION, HOLIDAY, MOOD, ORDEAL, AND WHIM recommends renting these five fright flicks for Halloween enjoyment:
• NOSFERATU (1922) – “May still be the creepiest.”
• THE CAT AND THE CANARY (1927) – “Hokey as all get-out, but marvelously musty, too.”
• THE HAUNTING (1963) – “Dread-drenched and blood-chilling and old-dark-house atmospheric like none other.”
• AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981) – “The pre-eminent Halloween party film.”
• MONSTER HOUSE (2006) – “The draftmanship is imaginative.”
HAVE AN ‘EPIPHANY’
Michael Markefka wants you to know his e-novel PROJECT EPIPHANY is now readable for free online “in a comfortable, webcomic-CMS-like reader,” and that the work is an attempt to marry commercial literature with the online realm. Expect a thriller about rogue agents, radical sects and revenge. Said Markefka, “I would like to classify it as ‘clever poolside entertainment,’ being rather light food and only having literary merit the way high-gloss porn has artistic merit.” Well, said. Just keep the laptop away from the water. –Rod Lott
