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Thank you to Teen Daze and In Sheeps Clothing for turning me onto this treasure trove.

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That's right, pal! Your boy has an interview with the one-and-only Marc Torices from Barcelona. Grab your copy from Bubbles or hit-up your local indie comic store.

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Cake sale, Pat Perry

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The silence, Yasuhiro Ogawa

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Big fan of these covers for Robert Bloch's Lovecraft novel.

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Walton Ford in The Paris Review.

I wish I could get my hands on Issue 201.

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In despite of light, Cindy Ji Hye Kim (because)

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A large rectangular slab marks Breece’s grave in Milton Cemetery. Its border, the letters of his name, his dates, a small, centered cross, are raised in brass. His parents’ graves are just beside. His stone, flat to the ground, seems to deepen into the earth like a pillar. Two weeks before he died, Breece wrote to his mother about a dream he’d had: “I came to a place where the days were the best of every season, the sweetest air and water in spring, then the dry heat where deer make dust in the road, the fog of fall with good leaves. And you could shoot without a gun, never kill, but the rabbits would do a little dance, as if it were all a game, and they were playing it too. Then winter came with heavy powder-snow, and big deer, horses, goats and buffaloes—all white—snorted, tossed their heads, and I lay down with my Army blanket, made my bed in the snow, then dreamed within the dream.”

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“The Garden of Earthly Delights” (c. 1500) by Hieronymus Bosch

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“I’ve had worse” — The Optimist, Chet Phillips

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David Lynch 1946 - 2025

/David Lynch, Łódź, 2000 fot. M. Zubrzycki, Forum via culture

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Andrew Wyeth, "Portrait of Henry Teel" (1945)

Cincinnati Art Museum

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My Top Reads of 2024

Hey gang. We are freshly into 2025 and you might be thinking of ways to spend your time a little differently this year, perhaps venture down a path you haven't gone before. Maybe take a good book to join you. Any of these would be a ready companion.

10. A Swiftly Tilting Planet 

This is the third book in the Time Quintet by Madeleine L'Engle. Charles Wallace is 15 now, and he teams up with the unicorn Gaudior to undertake a journey through time to stop an atomic bomb from destroying the world.

This series is wonderfully strange and bizarre, and this book has a lot of historical fiction woven in. Very much worth reading, but only if you've taken down the first two. It rewards being read in big chunks so you can keep the difference voices straight. A lot of time jumping.

The Time Quintet has had a big influence on the novel I'm working on! The mix of religion, sci-fi and fantasy is special.

9. Crypt of the Moon Spider 

Nathan Ballingrud is one of our leading lights in strange fiction. His stories stand-out in any anthology they're placed in. Wounds in particular was a very impactful read when I read it back in 2019, and I've been a huge fan since I first picked up North American Lake Monsters and started to tweet at him about the body horror in “You Go Where It Takes You” and he sent me a thoughtful reply. Ballingrud just keeps moving the bar up with every book he writes.

This story is a tasty novella that slaps you across the face halfway through. Unexpected, truly gothic with all the weird moon-worship you could want. Recommended!

8. The Life and Death of Conan, Book One + Two

This was straight-up fun. Jason Aaron gets Conan in a big way, and he created a narrative structure that allows him to jump into different periods of Conan's life. We get King Conan, then see him on the high seas, later fighting the Picts and massive snakes, reaving his way through the desert and so much more. It's kind of an incredible run, and he leaves it all on the table. If you're looking for a well-written, engaging entry point for the world of Conan, look no further than Jason Aaron's run. I wasn't familiar with Aaron's work before this and I was very impressed.

7. The Bell Jar

How have I not read this until now? One of the best books we read in my book club this year by far. The first half feels a lot like Salinger and the voice continues into the dark abyss, but really Plath wields a sword that is entirely her own.

6. The Bright Sword

This put me into an Arthurian tailspin I'm not sure when I'll get out of. I loved reading The Sword and the Stone by T.H. White a few years back, and I'd been meaning to read more King Arthur. I mean, he's the KING, right? Well this book came out, heard Grossman interviewed on the NYT Books podcast, and goddman it blew me away. The prose is strong, crisp, clear, moves live a train and his command of story and language is incredible. I WILL be reading the Magician trilogy after this. This guy is incredible. A lot of "fucks" and and a helluva good time.

5. The Poet, The Lion, Talking Pictures, El Farolito, A Wedding in St. Roch, The Big Box Store, The Warp in the Mirror, Spring, Midnights, Fire & All

Long, winding poems that twisted around my brain like a brook. I only read three books of poetry this year, and I enjoyed dipping into this first thing in the morning at my desk to get my head into writing mode. Stunner of a book.

4. Don't Skip Out On Me // Lean On Pete

Both of these books consumed me. I read Lean on Pete in a couple nights, one of those books you nurse a beer and read into the wee hours for. I loved the cover for Don't Skip Out On Me and it was the first book of Willy's I was aware of. Both devastating, life-affirming, staggeringly well-written. Like a glass of clear water, I adore Willy Vlautin's writing.

3. Provinces of Night

This book....you gotta read it if you have any predilection for Southern gothic writing. It's like Gay is putting a spell on you. It's hard to put down, takes hold of you like a fever. Every couple pages Gay cracks you with a thunderbolt of a line like this:

“Life blindsides you so hard you can taste the bright copper blood in your mouth then it beguiles you with a gift of profound and appalling beauty.”

I'd read two short stories, which are what he's more known for, but by God he can write the hell out of a novel. I loved everything about this book. William Gay was one of the greats.

2. Lonesome Dove

When I finished this enormous book, I was at a coffee shop near my house. I turned the last page, over a thousand pages into this novel, and by God I could've read a thousand more pages.

This is a book that lives up to all the hype. It takes it's time to get going, provides an unbelievable amount of characters to get to know, and it takes hold of you (a term I keep coming back to in these reviews). If you're looking to get into a western, this is the greatest of all time, and well deserved. I read the sequel as well, Streets of Laredo, which was also great, but very dark, and it didn't quite have the magic. Still a great book, and it was a pleasure to spend time with those characters again. McMurty was a real one.

1. Watership Down

Watership Down has been on my bookshelf my entire life, waiting for me. Literally THIS copy. When I finally started it at the end of 2023, it was like reading C.S. Lewis for the first time. The rabbits and their society is so well-articulated and believable. I was in this world from the start and it was a pure joy. I loved it so much I designed a long-sleeve for my buddy Tim’s bookshop!

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It's happening.

Playlist here.

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German magazine ad for the 1922 film.