New Work Published: Drabblecast # 335 - To Whatever

Hooray!  It's Lovecraft month over at the Drabblecast.  All things squamous and cthonic will be celebrated throughout the month of August, with some decidedly great fiction coming down the line.
This week's offering is "To Whatever" by Shaenon Garrity, featuring an episode cover by yours truly.  This one's a lighter sort of creeping doom, paying homage to stories such as Rats in the Walls and Dreams in the Witch House.  Give it a listen.
By the way, if you get Drabblecast in a mobile podcatcher, you should know that the art, frankly, looks terrible.  Seems I didn't plan well enough for the scaling necessary for small screens.  I strongly recommend you take a look at the full-sized version, as there's a couple of nice Lovecraftian in-jokes there.

The Journals of Simon Pariah: Now in Audio!

As I've mentioned here a time or two, I'm a huge fan of podcasting.  There's not a day goes by that I don't indulge in several episodes from a wide variety of podcasts, from the literary to the humorous.  Previously, I've had some of my own comedic work podcast, thanks to (sadly podfaded) Air Out My Shorts.

A while back, I thought it would be interesting to hear some of my more serious work read in podcast format.  With that in mind, I did a slight rework of my comic book story, "God of the Cave" from the first issue of "The Journals of Simon Pariah", and submitted it to one of my current favorite podcasts, Marshal Latham's "Journey Into...".  This show specializes in running genre fiction stories with a pulp flavor to them, and I thought it might be the perfect home for Simon Pariah's first foray into the audio realm.
This week, I was thrilled to find that Marshal had decided to run "God of the Cave" as part of his month-long Superhero Marathon Spectacular.  While not directly superhero-related, readers or listeners to this story will see that there is an obvious influence from comics that makes it fit nicely into his theme.
Not only did Marshal have the story read, he had it read by Christopher Munroe,  a voice actor whose work I have enjoyed on another fine podcast, the Dunesteef Audio Fiction magazine.  To it, he added some fine instrumental work by Kevin MacLeod, whose work I have used myself in past projects. 
All in all, it was a masterful job that not only presented the work well, but gave it a new dimension that even I, as the author, can appreciate.
So thanks, Marshal, for choosing to run the story.  I hope it serves you well.  Thanks Christopher, for doing such a fine reading.  And thanks Kevin, for the music that added some swash to my buckles. 
Go over to "Journey Into...", won't you, and give a listen to Superhero Marathon Day 24: The God of the Cave.  Then be sure to drop a line to any of the people involved and let them know what you think. 
As Marshal Latham would say, journey on!

The Sound of Lovecraft EZine

Did you know that as of issue # 19 you can get Lovecraft EZine as a podcast, in which all the month's stories are read aloud for your enjoyment?  Well you can.
Did you know that each episode of the podcast is available for only 99 cents?  Well it is.
Did you know that I created the art that graces the page for this podcast?  Well now you do.  Go.  See.  Buy.  Hear.  FEAR.

New Work Published: Drabblecast 272

Fresh on the web, Drabblecast episode #272 features the story "Power Armor: A Love Story" by David Barr Kirtley, for which I have provided the cover illustration.  For this one, I mixed together influences from J.C. Leyendecker and manga comics to capture the impressions that the story made on me.
If you're not aware of it, Drabblecast is a weekly podcast that bills itself as "strange stories by strange writers for strange listeners", and always manages to live up to that description.  Host Norm Sherman is one of my favorite podcast readers, and a darn fine musician as well.  Any episode of the show is worth listening to, even more so when they have the good sense to put my art on the cover.

For the best mecha love story on the web, check out the episode for yourself.

New Work Published: Air Out My Shorts #162

Well....."work" in the sense that it took some time and effort to create something that someone else can use.  Certainly nothing of any lasting or redeeming value, but fun all the same.

The literary (for want of a better word) and very comedic podcast "Air Out My Shorts" features another of my short stories in their latest, and in my opinion one of their best, episode, # 162 - Cake or Death.
Longtime readers who are keeping count will realize that this is indeed my fifth time going to this well, previous appearances being in episodes 39, 80,  103, and 122.  This time around, I take a crack at their patented Plot Plunger and come up with something that I can't describe in 25 words or less, but to which you should give a listen.  Show hosts Preston Button and the Word Whore really do a tremendous job of butchering the story in their signature way, and it makes for a very entertaining experience.

Click the link to download the episode directly, or go to their website to check out the other great things they have to offer.

Stuff I Like: District of Wonders

In my previous "Stuff I Like" post, I explored my enjoyment of podcasts with Marc Maron's "WTF", and I commented that podcasts are like magazines for my ears.  I think that statement is most true in the context of the shows available through the "District of Wonders" podcast network, podcast magazines from producer Tony C. Smith. 

My love of genre-based, fiction oriented magazines goes back to my teenage years when I was gifted with a subscription to "Fantasy and Science Fiction" magazine.  Through it's page, still pulpy at the time, I discovered for the first time such great fiction as Robert Holdstock's "Mythago Wood" and Stephen King's "The Gunslinger", but I also was given the opportunity to explore such treats as science-based nonfiction articles, editorials by and about the greats of science fiction, poetry (some of it laughably and intentionally bad), and, oddly, the cartoons of Gahan Wilson.  From that springboard, I spread my appreciation of the format to include such titles as "Omni", "Twilight Zone", "Asimov's", and then back into the past with "Weird Tales", "Astounding" and the many other pulps I have discovered, and am still discovering along the way.

These days, life and schedules being what they are, I don't have nearly as much time to devote to chasing and enjoying these magazines as I used to, and for years there's been a slightly immature part of my brain urging me to put aside my responsibilities more often and spend more time in my reading chair with a stack of good magazines.  That's why I was so pleased (or, as the aforementioned Tony C. Smith might say, "chuffed") to discover Tony Smith's first podcast "Starship Sofa" and plug it's feed into my podcatcher, as it comes as close as anyone can to recreating the format of those beloved magazines in audio format.  The fact that it does so on a weekly basis is just gravy.  Sweet, sweet gravy.
 
Each week, Smith combines fact articles such as Amy H. Sturgis explorations into genre history and J. J. Campanella's science articles with at least one usually fantastic and generally long piece of science fiction, with stops along the way for poetry, novel previews and other amusing asides.  The fiction is usually the main focus of the episode, with such featured authors as Michael Moorcock, Gene Wolfe, Ray Bradbury and other giants of the genre.  The readings are well produced and of the highest quality, as the stories deserve.
The blend of fiction and nonfiction in a structured format with such a commitment to quality and reliability make this a true podcast magazine, and one well deserving of the listener's attention.

Earlier this year, Smith expanded his network to include the so far excellent horror-based podcast "Tales to Terrify", hosted by Lawrence Santoro.  Carrying on the format and standards developed by Starship Sofa, this show boasts some unique and informative movie reviews and insights into genre history, as well as presenting fiction from some of the greats of its own genre such as William Hope Hodgson, H. P. Lovecraft , Kim Newman and John Shirley.  Santoro makes for a genially creepy host, with much first hand knowledge about the genre and a connoisseur's eye for fiction.  As a longtime fan of old time radio shows, I'm always especially pleased to hear him evoke E.G. Marshall in his closing each week.

More recently, the District of Wonders network has expanded again with two new podcasts, Crime City Central, based on mystery stories, and (the frankly unfortunately names for purposes of alliteration) Protecting Project Pulp, presenting stories from the golden age of pulp magazines.  Although new, each of these promises to become foremost in the field for their genre, acting as much as archivists of the best in their respective genres as much as audio entertainment. 

With such a wealth of audio on a weekly basis, the only problem is keeping up with it all.  Just these four shows alone could satisfy a normal audio-fictionophile's (I just made that word up; didja notice?) appetite.  In combination with the other excellent podcasts out there (more about which in another post), it's a veritable auditory cornucopia.

The District of Wonders podcasts are, I think, reigniting a love of the genres they represent.  Through their deliberate and intelligent selection of material, they are at the same time providing a sense of artistic and cultural validity to that material.  Fans of well-presented literature in general, and sci-fi, horror, mystery and pulp in particular, owe it to themselves to plug the District of Wonders shows into their podcatchers and discover some of the best audio magazines the internet has to offer.

Stuff I Like: WTF with Marc Maron

I don't have a lot of new work to post right now; besides working on the next volume of "Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit", I've been working on some private commissions that I'm not really free to post to this space.  I've got a cover coming up for an issue of "Sky Pirates of Valendor", but that's about it for public work for now.

Still, I've got to use this space for something, don't I?  So, I thought it might be a good opportunity to start sharing some reviews of things I enjoy.  Like my self-publishing work, this will be done on an "as I can get to it" basis, and when I haven't got anything more important to do, or I'm not trying to catch up on new releases on Netflix.  Who says I haven't got my priorities straight?

I like podcasts.  A lot.  As I write this, I've got 29 episodes of 27 different podcasts waiting on my phone...and only that few because I've made a concerted effort in recent weeks to whittle down that number, as I felt I was getting backlogged.
Podcasts for me are like magazines for my ears; they're a direct channel of information from the source to my brain without requiring the intermediate use of my hands or eyes.  That means that I can consume them by the gigabyte while engaged in other things, like certain aspects of my day job, or while at the drawing board, or while doing paste up on the next book for AIM Comics.  Podcasts are free, disposable infotainment and are easily accessible on a good podcatcher, in my case "Pocket Casts" for Android.  Through the use of podcasts, I get daily doses of fiction, news, comedy, interviews, history lessons and shows on just about anything else I care to take an interest in, with some stops for guilty pleasures along the way (more on those another day).  They make my workday go a little bit faster while allowing me to consume information at a much faster rate than I could just by reading.  In short, I think they are the perfect form of disposable media.

One podcast I've come to recently, and rather late, is WTF with Marc Maron.  It's an interview-based show hosted by standup comedian and insightful neurotic Marc Maron in which he talks with contemporaries and legends in the entertainment industry.  I've missed a lot of the shows and haven't yet signed up for the premium package to get access to his back catalog, but since I've started listening, I've heard Marc give great interviews with such people as Jeffry Tambor, Russell Brand, Chris Rock, Michael Cera, Mindy Kaling, Penn Jilette and Weird Al Yankovic. 

Maron is really using the novelty and freedom of the medium to its finest in this series.  We're so used to seeing celebrity interviews as shallow two minute snippets on Entertainment Tonight that it's easy to forget there's a deeper aspect to the work these people produce and the roads they take to create that work.  Maron uses the long format of his show (most episodes run over an hour to an hour and a half in length) to get behind the creative process of the subject, as well as their own developmental process as a creative person.  This always leads to a better understanding and appreciation of the people and their work, and often to the creative process in general.  It's rare that I finish an episode of WTF without at least one small moment of satori. 

What really helps in this process is that Marc is very open about his own life and frame of mind, and as an experienced standup comedian, he has decades of stories from inside the industry.  He injects a lot of himself into each interview to establish a personal connection with his subjects and reaps a much richer harvest as a result.  It seems at this point that subjects come to his "garage" expecting to have their personal lives delved a bit and bring a willingness to open up more than usual. 
Occasionally, Marc will also host a live WTF event with a panel of comedians which make for some of his funniest episodes.  And this is a comedy podcast at heart; Mark always seems to be able to infuse a sense of humour into the conversation, no matter how dark the subject matter may get (check out the Matt Graham episode from February to see what I mean).  He's got a self-deprecating intellectual approach that never allows things to stay too serious for too long.
What's especially funny to me is that I remember when Marc was a guest on the "Nobody Likes Onions" podcast a few years ago.  He commented on how impressed he was with the show's setup at that time, saying something to the effect that "I got to get me one of these podcasts".  Skip forward a couple of years and his show has developed a huge amount of status and a large following, and he has become one of the premiere names in the medium.
Updating at least weekly, "WTF" is one of the shows I most look forward to in my playlist.  Even when he's interviewing someone I've never heard of, Marc always makes the show enjoyable and insightful.  I recommend that anyone interested in the inner workings of the entertainment industry give it a try.  If nothing else, do yourself a favor and listen to the episode with Penn Jilette (who knew his family is from Newfoundland?). 
"WTF With Marc Maron"...stick it in your ears.

New Work - Lovecraft eZine and Drabblecast

A couple of things have gone online this week.  The latest issue of Lovecraft ezine is up with my illustration for John R. Fultz's story "Lord of Endings".  The Lovecraft eZine can be read for free online, or downloaded for your Kindle or Nook (or app thereof).  I recommend throwing them the 99 cents, because good Lovecraftian is always worth the money.
Also, here's my cover art for episode 84 of Drabblecast.  For those of you who don't know it, Drabblecast is a podcast of "weird stories, by weird authors, for weird listeners".  Hosted by one of my favorite podcast fiction readers, Norm Sherman, it's one of the best sci-fi/fantasy/horror podcasts available right now, showcasing work from some of the best writers in the business such as (for example) Michael Swanwick, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Elizabeth Bear.  This illustration is for a story by the aforementioned Mr. Swanwick, "Hush and Hark", downloadable from the episode archive.  I've also got an illustration for their upcoming episode 221, so keep an eye out for that.  Meantime, enjoy.

Once More Unto the Breeches.....

Let it be known that I have shorts, and once again they have been aired.
The drunkenly funny podcast "Air Out My Shorts" starring the inestimable Preston Buttons and the inimitable Word Whore have just read my fourth short story offering to them, "The Incalculable Mrs. McGonegal".  It's a slightly skewed Mary Poppins-esque bit of fluff with which they have a lot of fun and pull off a decent reading.
Go to their site to listen or download the mp3 of the episode from this link.
While you're there, check out their other entertaining episodes and other paraphernalia at their site.  It's been one of my favorite podcasts for a few years now, and your support will help convince them to keep going.

Somebody Likes Onions....

It's always fun when this happens....first it was Keith and the Girl, this time it's "Nobody Likes Onions". In the latest episode (episode 423), about 30 minutes in, Patrick and and Johnny B. really take me to task for some comments I made on their forums. Well done, lads.
WARNING: NLO is very politically incorrect, but if you can put on a thick skin for a while, it's usually good for a laugh.

Is It Drafty In Here, Or Is It Air On My Shorts?

The podcast "Air Out My Shorts", hosted by the loquacious Preston Buttons and the liquored Word Whore, is once again running one of my stories in their latest episode, "Catcher In the Eye". The story is titled, "Dawn of the Spooge" and is very, VERY NSFW. It may also cause eye irritation, runny nose, restricted circulation, blue skin, loss of consciousness, violent convulsions, and finally...death. Take only as prescribed by a blogger.

I love this podcast, really I do. However, I must be honest and say that I think they do a really bad job of reading this one. No, really. I know I'm no William S. Burroughs, and they make no bones about their literacy, but I do think the story was better than they present it, and suffers from a half-hearted treatment. Still, it's amusing if you can follow their meandering version of it. So give it a listen...if you dare!

Gettin' Love From KATG!

Just for fun, check out this episode of Keith and the Girl to hear Keith Malley tear me a new one for comments I've made on their forum. Look at me, Ma! I'm pissing off Noo Yahkers!

Air On My Shorts!

The highly enjoyable podcast "Air Out My Shorts" has seen fit to read another one of my short stories (the first was in Episode 39, if you want to check their archives). Click below to hear them "read" my latest offering. (Warning: Not safe for children, or humorless lesbians and zombies):

Episode 80: 10 Slot Colostomy Bag