Beyond The Crack Of Doom.

Fell asleep on the sofa last night and had one of those walks through the dream place where  nothing really makes sense and although things might look familiar they are not what they seem. Do you ever have a dream where the streets are filled with cars with human faces which scream when the engines are switched on? Or you find yourself walking towards the front entrance of your old school and just past the open doorway you see giant teeth and you realise it is a mouth and it wants to eat you? Where every clock face has fingers but no hands and there is a Salvation Army band on the corner in their Victorian uniforms playing their instruments and both sides of all their heads is the back?
               Mind you..the last song I remember hearing before drifting off was The Crack Of Doom by The Tiger Lillies. That is practically an application to go to strange places in ones head..

Easy.Easy Like Sunday Morning.

When winter leaves the branches bare and icy breezes fill the air just go for a wee dander with your chums. Well, thats what I like to do. Like the gentlemen in this lovely cover for the magazine Comic Art. It was done by the Canadian artist and writer Seth. I so enjoyed his comic Palookaville and I really really enjoyed the collection of stories from that publication that made up the wonderful Its A Good Life If You Do'nt Weaken. It appeared to be semi-autobiographical and captured a series of bitter sweet moments in the life of an art collector and artist as he moves through our fragmented times. It was all rendered so artfully and stands as a brilliant collection that comprises a well written and beautifully drawn story that is touchingly human.
              We are all such fragile beings at the whim of titanic forces that shape our destinies without a care for where we end up.
               Be strong.
               Be true.
               Do'nt weaken.
               Be yourself.

Sign Of The Times-Traveller.

Just over ten years ago the writing was on the wall..or the billboards. The doctor was on his way back. The BBC were running an amazing teaser trailer. The Magical Christopher Eccelson running down a long corridor with a wall of flame chasing him. The first time I saw it I felt a firework explode inside my head. My hero The Doctor was getting another chance and he was in good hands...
                  Billboards? Billboards announcing his return all over the place. This was big news back then. I had hoped for so long to see him again and to watch new stories unfold and the myth to grow and grow. I just could not believe that there were billboards with my hero's face all over them. Sure, it was a new face but I am a life long fan of the man from Gallifrey so it had happened before..eight or nine times( I love Peter Cushing's interpretation and although it is not canon I do not mind. Life so rarely conforms to canon.) I got my brother to drive around town so I could take photos. He was mortified. What if someone who knew him saw this boobie behaviour? I was pretty much used to the scorn my passions evoked in complete strangers let alone people who knew me. I let it go. Tried not to judge the mockers too harshly. He was more of the busted heads school of thought.
                  Ten years and three (or four!) new faces later the wheezing and grinding of the greatest ship in the galaxy still resounds around the worlds of space and time.
                  Unfortunately those are also the sounds I make climbing a flight of stairs.
                  I need to regenerate not degenerate.

Strings Of Murder

I have heard it said The Devil has the best tunes and if this is true I think he plays the best ones on the fiddle.
Just read this fantastic novel by a chap called Oscar De Muriel called The Strings Of Murder. The year is 1888, the year of The Ripper. Jack The Ripper. The mysterious and still annonymous killer who rocked Victorian society to its hypocritical heart as he splattered the streets of Whitechapel with innocent blood. (Yes I say innocent blood as these poor women had been driven to degrading acts by a life that was as unrelenting as it was merciless.) at the same time, in a fictional sense, at the other end of the British Isles, in Edinburgh, the brutal murder of a beloved violin teacher leads the top brass to suspect a copy-cat killer is at work. One maniac on the loose is enough, two implies a society out of control and those in control fear a loss of the illusion that all is well at the top. They fear this may even be an attempt to undermine the social order by suspects unknown. To combat this they decide to send a disgraced Scotland Yard detective Inspector Ian Fey up to Edinburgh to assist the eccentric but powerful Nine Nails McGray with his "ghost bustin division" to catch the killer before he strikes again. The Scottish detective is called Nine Nails because of events which took place in his dysfunctional family(and that is something of an understatement.)
               This is a very atmospheric thrilling yarn with very believable and well written characters walking down some very dark entries in search of a savage killer who may not even be off this world. The are echoes of Poe and of Doyle, of Holmes and Mulder, Of MR James and John Connolly. It straddles the fictional and the factual in a city where the class divide is unbridgeable and the common morality is unforgiving. It has a great central cast of two very interesting and compelling leads surrounded by friends and foe alike. If either character showed up in an episode of the magnificent Penny Dreadful I would not be surprised.
                 I would welcome it.

Out Of My League.

                                                       The men with no time for crime!
                                                          "Think clean thoughts, chum."

Ripping Yarns.

A summing up and a possible verdict to a series of wicked crimes to this day without a culprit. Although I wonder in truth if such a thing is possible after all this time and all these theories as to the identity and to the reasons behind this series of ghastly murders all those years ago. In point of fact this book was itself first published one hundred years after that Autumn of Terror( actually the title of a fine book written on the subject by the author Tom Cullen.) took place and the Whitechapel district of  London shivered for fear at what walked its gaslit foggy streets. it is once of the staggering realizations about the notion of the ripper crimes and their place in history. That the phenomenon lasted, as far as can be determined, for ten weeks alone over a hundred years ago and yet it is hard to imagine any far flung corner of this world where the nick-name of its unidentified killer would not be known. I once read it suggested The Ripper crimes and their impact on the concious of the world helped give birth to the twentieth century. If this is so then it is hard to imagine a more gruesome delivery of a new century (although as a species we are bewilderingly adept at birthing fresh horrors.)
            It is a great read for anyone with an interest in this period of criminal and even social history with enough information to satisfy the well versed or the casual observer. Quite a few theories are aired, given consideration no matter how bizarre or unlikely. From the very plausible to the terribly unlikely and even out there to the very outre. The fringes of the map marking the Ripper territory should be marked with the legend Here Be Outre...
             When you go for a walk through the dark streets of Whitechapel London in 1988 you all too quickly find you are Feasting with Panthers. The shadow play of history throws weird shapes, figures distorted into caricature by passing of time and conspiracy, nick names and no names turning it all into a thought exercise with victim and villan all beyond reach. It is a compelling mystery though and its pursuit can become an addiction.
               The only certainty being nobody knows Jack.

The Scarlet Gospels.

Clive Barker has finally gotten round to putting pen to paper to write about his most infamous and enduring creation the lead cenobite of The Order Of The Gash himself.
             Or Pinhead. More of a description than a name I suppose but hardly even an accurate one. Surely Nail head or even Nail face would be more appropriate. I do not think that Clive Barker ever got around to giving him a name other than the description itself. What a striking appearance though. This demon/hell priest summoned from Hell by the act of adjusting the configuration of an elegant little puzzle box. A veil between worlds becomes sundered and through it step these visions from a fetishist purgatory. The creations of a brilliantly imagination which are at once as horrifying as they are compelling to watch and listen to. This creature is not your usual shambling monosyllabic blood drenched monstrosity it is instead all the more disturbing given its thoughtful and even elegant turn of phrase.Yet to the best of my knowledge Clive barker only ever wrote about him in the Hellbound Heart the novella that formed the basis for the whole Hellraiser mythology launching a thousand lament configurations.
                I managed to read an advance proof of the new novel The Scarlet Gospels in which another Clive Barker creation Harry D'Amour descends into Hell itself to rescue his stolen friend Norma Paine from the clutches of the Hell priest himself who has set in motion a plan to take over that benighted region. In return for her release this high priest of abomination requires something quite specific of Harry D'Armour and harry is not the sort of man to be bound by Faustian deals. Yet it will stretch his considerable wits to their absolute limits if he is to survive this pilgrimage to lands where the living were never meant to walk. It is a book filled with wild magic and horror and is also something of an epic Yep, two of Clive Barkers bastard creations come together in a crimson bouquet of blood and tears in a quest to the territories of torment. These two creations have come a long way down a dark path strewn with the bones of different mediums, films, comic books and novels. From the distant days of The Books Of Blood  and The Last Illusion for D'Amour and The Hellbound Heart For the man of nails himself. Decades have passed since both these characters were introduced and both have proved to have a life beyond their fleeting first appearances. The cenobites in particular proving to be something of a merchandising phenomenon as over the years we have seen action figures and toys of myriadly startling compositions. Frankly, some of the most disturbing "toys" ever produced  have been directly inspired by the feverish imaginings of Clive Barkers darkly fertile thinking.  Plastic creations surely intended to populate some hellish nursery.
                Do you ever imagine mushrooms springing to life through dark soil illuminated by something other than the light of day? I think some ideas are like that. They require no sunlight to germinate, to reach their best, are the buds of flowers grown in goblin soil.
                That is Clive Barker for me. A gardener in The Fluer De Mal.
                A rosemariner in the garden of evil.