Stories from Dead Scribes

Greetings! I’ve long wanted to do readings of either my stories or of authors who’ve inspired me. I’ve always procrastinated because I never felt like learning and acquiring the software to edit audio and look into how to assemble a finished, professional sound file that would be worthy of being called an audiobook or even be sold on Audible. And, you know what, I’ve decided that it would take all the fun away from doing a reading for me. That’s one of the things that I never looked forward to after being done writing a book or story: formatting the manuscript into a finished print book or ebook, then finding a way to reach the readers through ads, promotion, social media, and all that. I want to have fun with this and I want it to be something creative devoid of all the hassles that could turn this into a chore. So, I’ll be doing something I love to do: live readings, warts and all, of stories from my favourite dead writers. Not to toot my own horn, but I’m pretty good at reading through a 40-minute tale in one sitting without screwing up more than once or twice. All it takes is a little practice beforehand for the different accents and distinct voices required for a story. My goal is to read a cool tale as if an audience were gathered around a campfire hanging on my every word.

I’ll be calling this Stories from Dead Scribes and it’ll feature mostly stories in the public domain from the late 1800s to the 1980s. You’ll be able to listen to them on my YouTube channel. I plan on doing a reading on average every three weeks. Here are some of the writers whose stories I’ll be diving into: Robert E. Howard, Ian Fleming, M.R. James, H.P. Lovecraft, Frank Herbert, H.G. Wells, Bram Stoker, Robert Bloch, Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Robert Louis Stevenson, Agatha Christie, and Daphne Du Maurier among many others. The genres will range from horror to sci-fi to thrillers and more. You’ll be able to find each new reading in the Stories from Dead Scribes playlist I’ve just created. I’ve recorded this little announcement to launch the series and it’s labelled “Episode 0”. You can check it out and save the playlist for future episodes right here.

And that’s it for me today! I look forward to doing my first reading very soon. It’ll be Robert E. Howard’s first Dark Agnes de Chastillon tale, “Sword Woman”. So, if you’re into Sword & Sorcery and haven’t heard of this lesser known creation of his, you’re in for a treat. This is a new era for me and I hope you’ll come along for the ride. Until next time, stay safe and keep reading! 

John Carpenter's Cathedral

Greetings! From time to time, I like to write special articles when something interesting and unique comes along. Such is the case this week with John Carpenter, one of my favourite directors and musicians of all-time, who saw his debut full-length graphic novel be published on Tuesday, August 4^th as well as its accompanying album released yesterday on Friday, August 7^th. I’m talking about John Carpenter’s Cathedral.

The 128-page graphic novel is published via Storm King Comics, founded by his wife Sandy King, who also co-wrote the book with John and Sean Sobczak. The gorgeous art is courtesy of Federico De Luca and Luis Guaragna. Cathedral unfolds like a nightmarish lucid dream from the Master of Horror. Inspired by a dream John had in 2024, it tells the story of Lieutenant Christine Marks who investigates her father’s gruesome and mysterious death within an abandoned church. With the help of detectives Paul Hernandez and Steve Mayfield, they’ll make their way deep down into the bowels of the cathedral and encounter a plethora of perils leading to a demon named Tezcatlipoca who reigns over the underworld, more than 1,000 feet below the church. As a long-time comic book fan/collector, this graphic novel really hit the spot for me. It’s fast-paced, has a resilient protagonist, features stunning art throughout and as horror comics go, it delivers the goods in spades with creative obstacles and doesn’t give us a happy ending. John said in an interview that back in the days when he was directing, this would’ve been a storyboard to a movie and it feels like it could easily have been turned into a terrific horror film, especially with the accompanying soundtrack.

Cathedral, the album, is the fifth original LP of non-movie music John has done with his son Cody Carpenter on synths and godson Daniel Davies on guitars. It’s released through Sacred Bones Records, the same label that put out Carpenter’s Lost Themes Vol. 1 through 4 as well as the new Halloween trilogy scores. I’ve been a huge fan of Carpenter’s music from the get-go; his score to Halloween (1978) is a soundtrack that I play every year around the spooky season—Halloween is actually my favourite movie of all time—and it never gets old. His scores for Escape from New York, The Fog, and Halloween III (which he did with Alan Howarth) are some of my most cherished soundtracks. I’ve greatly enjoyed his Lost Themes series over the last decade and was eager to hear the soundtrack to the Cathedral graphic novel. It was recorded before the book was fully written/illustrated but it serves as a perfect score to it. It’s highly atmospheric, it’s got more of a metal edge than the Lost Themes albums, gets much darker at times (and rightfully so as the Cathedral story is quite gloomy) while still maintaining that vintage John Carpenter synth sound we all love so much. The three singles released thus far (“Lord of the Underground”, “The Ferryman”, and “Revenge”) are great snapshots of what the full score has to offer. Even if you’re not into comic books/graphic novels, the album still stands on its own as a superb record of instrumental electronic and metal music.

John Carpenter’s Cathedral is the audio-visual event of the summer. This is the closest we’ll get to seeing a new John Carpenter film and the combination of a lengthy comic book along with an album of music to play while you read goes hand in hand. Cathedral is an immersive, fully-realized project of sound and vision depicting an eerie and otherworldly foray into a location grounded in reality. I’m eager to see and hear what John does next in both these mediums; this is the best of both worlds for me and I have a feeling his fans and horror aficionados in general will have a blast with the book and the album.

Official Website for John Carpenter’s Cathedral

John Carpenter’s Cathedral on Bandcamp