It's Almost Time, Kids. . .
Hey, friends. It’s your favorite monster, Splatterpunk Award winner Lucas Mangum, and if I’m in your inbox, it must be Monday. But more than that, it’s the Monday before Halloween, and the day before my new book Haunted Hearts gets released into the world (you can preorder YOUR COPY right here).
This past week, I felt a bit off. We have had temperatures in the nineties, despite it being late October, which has made it difficult to go outside. I did manage to head out and vote, as Texas has early voting. I’m not sure why some states allow early voting or why other states do not, but I am grateful to live somewhere that does. It makes things a lot easier when I don’t have just one day to do it.
With it being October, I’ve made it my mission to watch as many horror films as possible. I won’t reach 31 movies in 31 days—I’m barely at half of that—but I have seen some gems. I’m finally giving the Hell House, LLC franchise a go. It’s got some deeply effective scares and lore that seems more thought-out than I normally see in low-budget horror movies. I love how the films utilize different types of documentation for their storytelling purposes. They almost remind me more of the analog horror series I sometimes find on YouTube than your typical found footage affair. I’m halfway through the third film as I write this newsletter—by the time you’re reading, I hope to have seen all four.
I also went and revisited Rob Zombie’s Halloween films. I know they aren’t everyone’s favorites, but his work has always spoken to my own madness, and his takes on Halloween are no exception.
On the reading front, I’ve just read Mother Mare by Jae Mazer. It’s a short, sharp splatter western full of unflinching brutality and plenty weirdness, all of it beautifully rendered in her signature style. Give it a peep if that’s your thing.
I also finished up The Halloween Store by Ronald Kelly. I’d hoped to read Mister Glow Bones this month too, but it looks like that’s going to need to wait until next October. If you like the Southern-fried horror of Joe Lansdale but want to see something like that set in a region other than East Texas, give Kelly’s work a go. It’s uniquely Tennessee, and it’s got a playfulness to it that makes it comforting to read, while simultaneously being scary and grotesque.
I had a busy weekend, with not one but two book events. The first was at Haunt Happy Books, a groovy little basement store in Lockhart, TX that was wall-to-wall with horror books. I was joined by an all-star panel of Texas horror authors (John Baltisberger, Ryan C. Bradley, Johnny Compton, Felix Morgan, and Susan Snyder) to read from our respective works and answer questions from the audience. Chris, the proprietor at Haunt Happy, was a consummate professional and very kind. I hope to do more events there in the future.
The second event was a dual book launch at Ghoulish Books in San Antonio that saw Max Booth III launch their newest book I Believe in Mister Bones while I did the official launch of Haunted Hearts. Proceedings were filmed by Michael Louis Dixon, so keep an eye out for those videos soon. We each read, then we all hung out afterwards to watch WNUF Halloween Special—a favorite of mine that only gets better with repeated viewings.
Max is an old friend in the business at this point. They’ve built a nice little community around the bookshop, the Ghoulish Book Festival, and the press Ghoulish Books. It was nice to properly catch up, as we haven’t had the chance to hang out in a while. We discussed how unhinged the final act of Haunted Hearts is, Ryan Gosling’s extremely interesting music project (Dead Man’s Bones), and finding the time to read for pleasure when we have to do so much reading for business (in my case, reading for blurbs and giving feedback; in Max’s, reading the submissions for Ghoulish).
Overall, I’m happy with how the weekend went, but I need a rest. I’ve been running myself hard lately, and I think I’m going to take a couple of days to unwind. Be with the family. Read for fun. Go outside. You know, important stuff—the stuff that gives me life.
Anyway, here’s an excerpt from my work in progress:
The first one Arnold lay eyes on was a clown wearing a baggy blue jumpsuit covered in silver stars and crescent moons. Across the lower section of its snow-white face, brilliant red lips were frozen in a mischievous smile. It had spiky two-tone hair: red to match its lips and blue to match its suit. Though the eyes, like the rest of the puppet, was made of nonliving material, they seemed to hold a knowing twinkle as they reflected the yellow light in the room. A rectangular nameplate made of brass was affixed to the cherrywood wall beneath the puppet’s casing. Playful, it said in black capital letters.