Welcome to Everything

The first time I was here was with Eisenhower in 1953. He was a different kind of man than you find now, the last president born in the nineteenth century. He smelled different. Up close you could see the seams where he had been sewn back together, a clumsy job by some Kansas doctor. He and I used to sit up nights in here listening to the crickets on the lawn. Just talking, drinking, and waiting for whatever call was coming. 

Comic horror novel, written by…

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (or "MCU") has been in existence for over ten years, and has scored great commercial and critical success, both (as its name would suggest) in movies, and on television, both traditional and streaming. Like the comics that inspired them, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has expanded the "superhero" genre to include gritty detective noir (Daredevil), cosmic science-fiction (Thor) and geopolitical drama (Black Panther). But one genre that has not been present in the…

In publishing, the quality of an academic journal is often gauged by how exclusive it is. Thus the higher the rejection rate of that journal (meaning, the more submitted papers it snootily declines to publish as falling below its lofty standards), the better of a journal it must be. It thusly follows that the finest journal in the world is the Journal of Universal Rejection, which rejects every single paper submitted to it, and so, is…

We all know the Mummy, one of the classic movie monsters, brought into the public's consciousness by Universal Studios. He shares a 'verse with the flat-topped, bolt-necked Frankenstein Monster, the caped-and-tailcoated Count, and the upright-walking, respectably trousered Wolf Man. No doubt he fought and teamed up with all of them. A living dead remnant of ancient Egypt, the Mummy (usually named Kharis) wears the face of Boris Karloff, cracked and…