Sharing Ted

It’s story time again here at That F’ing Monkey and today I’m talking about Ted.  Not the movie about the bear, but a children’s book from Tony DiTerlizzi.  Tony’s name is associated a lot with the Spiderwick Chronicles now, but when I first discovered his work it was back in the Dungeons and Dragons Monstrous Manual.  His art had this ethereal feel that I was fascinated with.  It wasn’t until White Wolf produced Changeling: The Dreaming that I began really following his work.

When White Wolf first started publishing the Vampire: the Masquerade roleplaying game they stated that they were going to create five systems; Vampire, Werewolf, Wizards, Ghosts, and Fairies.  I remember laughing how silly a fairy book was going to be; when Changeling finally came out (1995) I was blown away.  It was a difficult game to run correctly but it remains my favorite White Wolf game ever created.  Tony’s art stood out in those Changeling books.  His illustrations had an otherworldly grace that helped cement all of the far out concepts the game was throwing at the reader. 

In 2001 I had finished my time in the Air Force and moved back to Florida.  I’m pretty sure I was just checking out a local Barnes and Nobles when I saw that Tony DiTerlizzi was going to be doing a signing at the store.   Excited I returned during the signing to see that it was for a children’s story book.  I don’t think I had noticed what the signing was for when I first saw the notice, I just knew an artist I greatly admired was there and I wanted to meet him.  The signing was for Ted, a book about a child and his imaginary friend.   I grabbed one of the books to get signed, because that’s what you do at book signings. 

There weren’t a lot of people there, I’m sure signings now are a much bigger event for him.  To stay in theme with Ted I remember the people that were with Tony were all wearing birthday hats.  The signing was a party with laughing and just being too loud for a bookstore.  I got my book signed and I gushed to Tony about his Changeling work.  He was incredibly nice to the full grown man without a child, standing in the kid’s section, and getting a child’s books signed for himself.  I was made to feel totally welcome and after a little while I took my new book home.  I was thrilled that he had done a tiny sketch for me and the book was proudly put up on my bookshelf.

Over the years I hadn’t thought much about Ted.  Something this past weekend brought it to mind though.  I think I had a daydream about an old Sidhe character that I missed terribly.  Because in my mind Changeling is forever linked with Tony's images.  I looked at my three year old son and asked him, “How about we read a special book tonight before bed?”  He was excited, he didn’t know what the book was only that it was special.  So that night we read Ted.  I'm happy to say he sat captivated by every page.  So today I just wanted to thank Tony DiTerlizzi.  For all of the years I was able to enjoy his art and now for all the years to come where I can share his art with my son.

Aaron Allston

I feel like a horrible person.  Today’s update is going to ramble for a little bit, so I apologize in advance.  To start with we have to go back a little more than 15 years.  I was in the service and living in a tiny dorm room with no cable.  Because I worked odd hours I was usually up all night.  I watched a lot of VHS tapes since there isn’t much to watch at 2 a.m. even when you have cable.  I watched a lot of the original Star Wars trilogy.  That led me to reading a lot of Star Wars books and I hated most of them.  There were a few authors I did enjoy though and my favorites quickly became the Wraith Squadron books Aaron Allston wrote for the X-Wing Series.

I was spending a lot of time on X-Wing related message boards and eventually started putting together a pilot costume for myself.  Then a small North Carolina convention rolled around and Aaron was going to be there.  I brought the first Wraith Squadron book for him to sign and went to his speaking events.  He was the warm, funny writer who was far too nice to the idiot dressed like an X-Wing pilot and reeking of booze.  We seemed to be hitting the same convention circuit so I saw him a lot. 

Each time I saw him I brought one novel for him to sign.  He asked me about it probably the third time I saw him.  It was obvious I had all the books, why didn’t I just bring the whole stack at once?  I told him something along the lines of I didn’t want to be rude.  He found it funny, since my normal convention mode was that of a loud, boisterous drunk.  The insides of my X-Wing books document my first meetings with Aaron.  They go something like “Good to meet you”, “It’s nice to see you again”, “It’s nice to have a reliable stalker,” etc.

He would laugh at my outrage.  I had told him he was the only Star Wars writer that seemed to understand that a character didn’t need to be a Jedi to be interesting.  I’ll never forget how much he laughed when I told Michael Stackpole that Michael ruined the character Corran Horn by turning him into a Jedi.  It was really fun to make Aaron laugh.

By this point we talked about a lot more than Star Wars.  I had fallen in love with his Doc Savage inspired character Doc Sidhe.  We’d email regularly.  There was a period where I was trying to replicate a coffee/chocolate drink from his novel and we laughed about how poorly some of my experiments had come out.  We talked about roleplaying games and any other nonsense I could think of.  I always looked forward to hearing from him and it was even better when we got to talk in person. 

Life happened.  I stepped away from the Star Wars fan community.  I stopped going to conventions as much as I could when I was single.  I didn’t spend all night in my email blasting off messages to friends all over the world.  I drifted out of contact with Aaron without realizing it.  I was reading a Star Wars rpg thread on a message board last night and I just froze.  I didn’t want to believe what I had just read and went scrambling for an official word on the matter.  It was true, my friend Aaron Allston had passed away on February 27, 2014. 

Not that me knowing sooner could have changed anything of course.  It makes me feel like I somehow betrayed our friendship.  How the hell did I not know?  Rest in Peace Aaron, you were far more wonderful to me than I ever deserved.  You were a true friend and I already miss you.

BabyLit

I am eternally grateful that my son loves books.  He’s not quite at two yet and he’ll sit down with a pile of books around.  Because of this I’m always on the lookout for new books that I can give him that are going to be fun for his parent’s to read him and ones that will be educational for him.  This weekend I found the charming BabyLit on the shelves at my local Target.  There in the 0-2 section was Alice in Wonderland, Pride and Prejudice, and Dracula.

I don’t think it’ll surprise anyone that I immediately checked out Dracula.  A missed the line on the cover that said, “A counting primer by Jennifer Adams,” so I wasn’t really sure how they were going to make Dracula a kid’s book.  Inside were wonderfully illustrated pages counting things like wolves, rats, and castles.  The characters were all there too. 

The concept is wonderful.  The books teach things like numbers, colors, animals, and weather.  The illustrations are charming.  It’s almost like an inside joke for the parent’s; they see elements from these classic books while still getting educate and entertain their children.  Check out the BabyLit website for more about their lineup.  It's worth looking at even if you don't have a little reader of your own, the site sells other items with the wonderful artwork form the books.

Oderus Good Night Moon

The people over at Loudwire had Gwar’s lead singer, Oderus Urungus, read the children’s story book “Goodnight Moon.”  It is amazing as it sounds.  There are actually two versions of this video; a censored and an uncensored version.  I’m immature, I think swearwords are funny, but I think the censored version of this video is funnier than the uncensored one.  That being said, just because it is uncensored doesn’t mean it’s safe for small ears.  He manages to take the story to a few places that I don’t think are actually in the book.  Check it out for yourself.

 

We own "Goodnight Moon" for my son.  I think I'll wait a while before I show him Oderus' version though.  Now I have to start thinking about what will be the right age to introduce him to Gwar.  I know I discovered them right after Scumdogs of the Universe was released.  I guess it'll be a few years.





You Can Help Peter David

This has been posted on most of the larger comic book sites, but it’s important so it is getting posted here too. Writer Peter David recently suffered a stroke while on vacation down in Florida. All of the details and the most recent information can be found at peterdavid.net. Obviously it is an extremely stressful time for his family and the biggest question from his friends and fans are what can we do to help.


That information can be found right HERE. This short version is that this is the time to buy his books. I know a lot of people know Peter’s work for things like the Hulk and X-Factor but he has a number of novels too. Every one of his books that is purchased right now is going to be a big help to his family. You get to help someone in need and you get an excellent new book to read. Again, please click HERE and check out the recommended books.

Tome of Fire

Both Brandon and I have talked a lot about Warhammer 40k. It isn’t just the game itself, or the models, we’re pretty taken with the setting itself. Luckily Games Workshop’s publishing arm is a machine that produces new material at a pretty astonishing rate. I’ve been pretty adamant in my love for the Salamander Space Marine chapter, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I thrilled to pick up Nick Kyme’s newest Salamander novel, Tome of Fire.

Tome of Fire is interesting because it really is an anthology that supports the Tome of Fire trilogy. The trilogy completed last November when Nocturne was released. During the time Nick was writing the trilogy he was also writing other short stories about the Salamanders. They were for fliers, other anthologies, and Black Library events. Tome of Fire collects all of those short stories and arranges them chronologically. The index at the front of the book points out exactly where the three novels fit into the reading order.

I’ve already read a handful of the stories published in Tome of Fire. The longest of the stories was a free pdf download on Black Library’s website for years. I’m excited to get to the stories that I haven’t read yet. I may just have to use the anthology as a guide and reread the entire series.

Life After Death

No Flash Friday this week, I realizeThat F’ing Monkey gets the most traffic on Fridays and this one is pretty important. On September 18th a book titled Life After Death was released. The book is written by Damien Echols. You may have heard about Damien, in 1994 he was one of the teenagers wrongly convicted for the murder of three boys in West Memphis Arkansas. The teens became known as the West Memphis Three.

I first heard about the case the same way most people did, from the HBO documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. I saw a lot of myself in the kids that we locked away for life. My teenage years were full of heavy metal music, black trench coats, and drawing pentagrams on everything. Had something like that happened where I lived, I could just as easily been in the same situation. I devoured the book The Devil’s Knot, wm3.org became a daily stop, and I bought all the merchandise that was going to support the legal funds. In 2011 the three entered an Alford plea. It doesn’t completely clear them from the crime, but it does gain them their freedom. After 18 years the West Memphis Three were out of jail.

Damon’s new book doesn’t dwell on the case itself; there are plenty of places to get that information. It does deal with his childhood and his experiences within prison. Obviously there is a lot of dark things in this book. You can’t write about 18 years in prison and make it all happy, but there is a lot of hope in there too. With the story of his trial and his prison sentence behind him, I can’t wait to see what Damien comes up with next.

Write Like the Wind

I was lucky enough to see Paul and Storm a few years ago when they opened for Jonathan Coulton. It seems every time I turn around they are doing something else awesome in the Geek community. Things like their concerts at Pax, the Rockband songs, becoming the Bards in Pax’s live DND game, and my personal favorite, the FudgieThon (Storm raised money by eating an entire Fudgie the Whale in one sitting).

Today’s video is one of those things I just found this weekend. I was sending it to all of the people I know who would enjoy it when I said to myself that I really just needed to put it up on That F’ing Monkey so everyone can see it. If this is the first you’re hearing of Paul and Storm, please spend some time on their website because they are awesome.

X-Wing: Mercy Kill

There are a large number of Star Wars novels out there, so many in fact that to keep track of what comes from the movies and what comes from other sources you’ll see mention of things coming from Star Wars EU (Expanded Universe). For the most part, I don’t really like Star Wars fiction. I prefer the Rebellion Era and the time set in its aftermath, you start getting into the next alien invasion and I’m done. Unfortunately even in that very specific time period, you get authors who believe that a character has to be a Jedi to be worthwhile. The X-Wing series was the exact opposite of that.

The X-Wing books started with Rogue Squadron books written by Michael Stackpole. These are fantastic books. Then the X-Wing series moves on to the Wraith Squadron series written by Aaron Allston. Without question The Wraith Squadron books are my favorite Star Wars novels, I can’t recommend them enough. Because of that I’m thrilled to hear that Aaron Allston has returned with another Wraith Squadron book.

Mercy Kill is set to be released on August 7th. The preview blurbs say that it will be set 30 years after Wraith Squadron carried out their last message. I’m sure we’ll get some old characters back and they’ll have a handful of new troublemakers to help them out. Even the previews talk about how they’ll become thieves, pirates, imposters, forgers, and targets. With Allston writing we’re almost guaranteed crazy schemes and incredible characters. With this coming out a day before my birthday, I’m just going to assume it was written for me.

Hangover Thursday: Game of Breweries

It’s Hangover Thursday, how’s your head? I had a light drinking night last night, but I did hit my 50 beer milestone last night at World of Beer. A bottle of Guinness Foreign Extra was the beer that put me over. This week we are talking about beer that doesn’t exist.

Redbubble user Satansbrand has been busy designing beer labels based around George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones series. If you like one of the designs they are available as stickers and as shirts. I think the Night’s Watch label is pretty amazing, but it is combing one of my favorite beers with my favorite group from the series.

There are a lot more designs than just the Starks and the Night’s Watch. The Lannisters, Greyjoys, Baratheons, Tullys, Targaryens, and the Seaworth all get the beer label treatment. I really like the designs because to me, they seem subtly geeky, although I guess with the series success on HBO liking the fantasy series probably isn't seen as geeky anymore.  Check out Satansbrand’s portfolio to see them for yourself. He has a lot of other great rockabilly and luchador designs too.

Maurice Sendak

Sad news today. Maurice Sendak, best known for his book “Where the Wild Things Are” has passed away. He was 83.

I don’t think it will come to anyone’s surprise that as a kid a book full of giant monsters was one of my favorites. Hopefully my son will enjoy it as much as I did. I think I'm going to be buying it for him tonight.  Last year saw the release of “Bumble-Ardy”, the first book in thirty years that Sendak and written and illustrated. “My Brother’s Book” is scheduled to be published next February.

No Cute Hunger Games Pun

So The Hunger Games took first place in the box office for the second week of it's release, beating out the horrendous looking Wrath of the Titans.

I have not seen it, so this is not a movie review. However at the insistence of a co-worker I have read the book. I must say that even though it is a book written with teen girls in mind, it is not that bad. Unlike the awful fan fiction like writing of the Twilight books, Suzanne Collins manages to pull of a interesting world and a strong main character.

For those that have never read it, The Hunger Games is told from the point of view of Katniss Everdeen a 16 year old girl from District 12. It seems that North America, at least the US, has gone through some changes in the unspecified future. It had been split up into 13 Districts each with a specific role to play in keeping the Capital running. When all of the slave camp like Districts started a rebellion District 13 was bombed into a mass of wreckage and poison air as an example to the others.

Now because of that rebellion each of the remaining Districts must give one girl and one boy tribute to the Capital once a year to participate in the Hunger Games. The Games happen in a new arena each year and are broadcast for all to see as 24 kids ranging from twelve to seventeen try to kill each other. The last one standing each year is rewarded with plenty of money to eat and live a life of relative ease.

Wait, you say, that sounds a bit like Battle Royale. Well yes it does, but Battle Royale sounds a bit like The Running Man, and the list goes on from there. So don't be a hipster douche and say you saw it before it was called the Hunger Games.

All in all it is a fun, quick, and worth the time to read. There are parts that bothered me, and they are the same parts that bugged me about some of the later Harry Potter books. The whining and petulance that the main character sometimes showcases. Now I was a teenager once and I get where the author is coming from, but at this stage in my life it is just kinda annoying to read about.

As Always Let Your F'ing Voice Be Heard! In the comments, our Facebook page, or the Contact Us button.

Book Trouble

In September I picked up a new book series and got very into it. It was an incomplete trilogy at the time, but luckily for me the third book released a month after I had finished the second book. The actual book series isn’t the topic here today, so that really isn’t important. This is more about the third book in the series and more specifically how messed up my printing of the book is.

The picture above is of pages 48 and 49; or where they should be. Page 47 is right before them and page 50 is right after it. Obviously I wasn’t expecting random blank pages when reading. It confused me but I was reading late at night. There was no chance to run the book back to the store and replace it. Besides, it was only two pages. I’m a fairly smart guy, I figured I could piece together what happened and just continue reading.

There are five pages that look like exactly like what is pictured above. I guess it is really ten pages, not five since that is two separate pages. The printing just runs onto both the full page and the jagged one. I actually haven’t reached those pages yet, I just found them while flipping through the book looking for more blank pages. If the two pages are held together you can at least read them, so it makes them better then the blank pages at least.

Finally we have the third printing mishap. As you can see it looks just like the pages I was talking about just a moment ago, but this time we don’t have the jagged half page that contains half of the text on the page. There are three pages like this. I could probably piece together what is going on, but after blank pages, jagged cut pages, and half blank pages this book just needs to go back to the store. I did flip through another copy of the book the other day and did not see any of the issues that happened to my copy.

So has anyone else gotten a book like this before?

You May Also Like…

You may remember at the start of the month I posted a picture of a pile of Space Marine goodness. In that shot there was the novel Salamander by Nick Kyme. Well, I finished that book over the weekend and on Tuesday I found myself going to the local Barnes and Noble to pick up the second book in the Tome of Fire Trilogy, Firedrake.

Now this isn’t really about Warhammer 40k, it is more about what Barnes and Noble is doing. When I buy a new book I almost always keep the receipt because I use them as bookmarks. When I reached into my bag to grab the receipt this time I noticed there were two sheets of paper. The longer of the two was the receipt but the shorter one was something I had never noticed before.

The paper said, “You May Also Like…” and listed five other books that were either set in the Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40k line of books. Not only did it list the titles, but if the books belonged to a series, it also listed what series. This time around it recommended books from the Horus Heresy, the Empire Army, and the Gotrek and Felix series.

I thought it was a neat touch. It also reminded me I’m a few books behind when it comes to Gotrek and Felix.

Hangover Thursday: Secret Safe Books

It’s Hangover Thursday, how’s your head? Now I know you probably read today’s title and thought one of two things. 1. “What do books have to do with booze?” and 2. “Keep it secret, keep it safe.” You have to trust me on this one, it’ll get back around to booze I promise. Secret Safe Books is an incredible Etsy store created by Kara Witham.

So what exactly are Secret Safe Books? Kara takes a scroll saw, carves a hiding space into the pages of a hardcover book, secures the pages with professional book-binding glue, and then mounts magnets into the book so it closes secure. Now this is where the product gets even more incredible, there are Secret Safe Books made specifically for flasks.

Now I have to admit that I’m a sucker for a flask. I don’t carry them around for everyday use or anything like that; although I do tend to have one or two of them around when I am hitting a convention. There is just something cool about a flask. This product takes that cool and wraps it up an all the fun of secret compartments. I might not have James Bond gadgets but I will have a book that hides a flask. I think I can live with that.

Check out the Secret Safe Books store. They have a number of different books ready to hide a flask for you. It looks like they take custom orders too. I think I’d like to have a nice Raymond Chandler one made, it seems fitting.  All images used today were taken from the Secret Safe store to show you how awesome it is.

Hangover Thursday: How to Booze

It’s Hangover Thursday, how’s your head? I had a couple beers here and there last night and then finished off with a pitcher of Guinness. It was enough that it made me want to sleep in this morning but not enough to actually give me a hangover. We’ve talked about booze books before when I wrote about the wonderful Old Man Drinks. Today we look at another book that will help you find that perfect drink.

How to Booze: Exquisite Cocktails and Unsound Advice is 224 pages of drink recipes and life advice. Written by Jordan Kaye and Marshall Altier the book pairs events with the proper drink. Going on a first date, there’s a drink for that. Stalking your Ex, there’s a drink for that. Besides the recipes and humor the book also covers the basic skills you need to make a proper cocktail.
The book is damn funny and would be worth reading even without the helpful drinking advice. Check it out if you’re looking to expand your drinking repertoire.

Game of Thrones Beat Down

Are you enjoying HBO’s Game of Thrones? Has the intricate plot possibly caused some healthy debate with your friends and family about what is going to happen next? If so there really are only two things you can do. You can wait a week to see the next episode, or you can go out and buy the books. Fandom loves the second option because then you can act like you’ve been a fan for years and turn your nose down at people just discovering it!

Oh, I forgot about the third option. When arguing about Game of Thrones you can also take a swing at the person you’re talking to and then throw them out a window. According to the Smoking Gun that is what Michael Podniestrzanski did to his cousin Joshua Ross. The two got into a fight about "who was going to win" and then Ross was thrown out a window.  Michael has been arrested for misdemeanor domestic battery and as of 4/25/11 was in the county jail.

Podniestrzanski and Ross are more then just cousins, they are also roommates. So it may have been about Game of Thrones or this could have been months of built up aggression over their roommates other annoying habits. Regardless I think they need to update the rules to the Game of Thrones board game to include fisticuffs and defenestration.

For the record, I've have the first Game of Throwns novel in my nightstand for a year and a half.  So far I've made it to the fifth chapter.  I'm sure it's good, I just haven't "gotten" it yet.

Bah!

Being extremely short-handed at work is driving me insane. So this will be another short post due to RL.

If you have been paying attention to my "Reading this week" section at the bottom of my posts you will notice that I am reading alot of books from The Black Library.


This is the publishing arm of Games Workshop, the makers of Warhammer 40k and Fantasy. Say what you will about the company, games, and expense of said games, but the background and writing is quite fun. On the fantasy side I would recommend the Gotrek and Felix series and I am currently reading the Horus Heresy series for 40K. Good, fun, and relatively quick and easy reads. With my busy schedule lately, that is what I need.

Quick Hockey Update.

Go Bolts tonight as they fight to stay in the playoffs, a loss tonight and they are all done.

The Wings brought out the brooms and swept the Coyotes and stopped their playoff hopes for the second straight season.
Beard update coming soon...


Reading this week - "Legion" by Dan Abnett

Bring me the box of Ferrets! or Random Thought Download.

I am going to continue the trend from last week and make this just a random stuff in my craw post.

First up is the Cal McDonald Detective Tales book from Bloody Pulp Books.

It came in the mail on Saturday. It comes in an evidence bag with what seems to be the date that your book was sent out, mine is 4/9/11. For some damn reason I thought this was fucking awesome, it is just a random detail that sticks out to me. As for the contents of the book, I like to call it "bite-sized (pill sized?) Cal". Why you ask? Well let me tell you. It contains 2 short stories - The "Y" Incision and Nocturnal Invasions. These stories are able to be read in about 15 minutes. I have only read The "Y" Incision so far and it is a great read. Mr. Niles has a gift of description, especially when that description is straight up disgusting. When he writes about disembowelment you feel like you are looking at the entrails pouring out right in front of you. That is of course a complement to his writing. There is a point in the story that had me flashing on Invader Zim, which is fan-damn-tastic when put into the context of Cal's world. I would HIGHLY recommend picking this up before it is gone, plus it is only five bucks. I personally can't wait until the next one comes out.


Now for your Hockey playoffs update. The Lighting tied up the series with the hated Penguins on Friday night with a 5-1 trouncing after a sad showing the game before with a 3-0 loss. The next game is tonight. My 6 game Lightning win is still in effect. Tonight's game is being played in Tampa.

Detroit on the other hand is looking to repeat last years effort of crushing the Coyotes hopes of moving to the second round. The Wings are up 2-0 in the series and are not looking to let up as they move to Phoenix for game three tonight.
Stay tuned next week as Ken and I update the playoff beard situation.

Finally I was going to talk about the premiere of "A Game of Thrones" last night. However because I do not have HBO and my totally legal search of the interwebs produced nothing for me this morning, I can't talk about it yet. This makes me sad, so if any of you fine folks watched it let me know what you thought in the comments.

That's it for this week, as always Let Your F'ing Voice Be Heard in the comments or facebook page!

Reading this week: Descent of Angels by Mitchell Scanlon and Cal McDonald Detective Tales by Steve Niles and illustrated by Kelley Jones

Bloody Pulp Books: Cal McDonald: Detective Tales Volume 1

I got some fantastic news this morning; Blood Pulp Books is now taking pre-orders for Cal McDonald: Detective Tales Volume 1. I realize I just threw a bunch of different things at you all at once, some of the names you may recognize and some may be new to you, so let me slow down and go over just why all of this is a very, very good thing and why I already spent 10 bucks before I finished my first cup of coffee.

Bloody Pulp Books is a small book publisher started by Steve Niles and graphic designer Alex Lodermeier. As the writer of 30 Days of Night, Criminal Macabre, Simon Dark, etc…Steve Niles should be a pretty familiar name to F’ing Monkey readers. Don’t think that Bloody Pulp is just going to be releasing comic related books though; their next book is going to be a biography of Lance Henriksen written by Lance and Joseph Maddrey. The book is going to include illustrations by Tim Bradstreet, Mike Mignola, Eric Powell, Bill Sienkiewicz, Ashley Wood, and Bernie Wrightson. How can that not be amazing?

Now that we got Bloody Pulp Books explained, we can go on to talk about Cal. Cal McDonald: Detective Tales is a collection of prose stories about Steve Niles’ famous pill popping detective. This first volume is written by Steve and will have illustrations by Kelly Jones. The book just went on pre-order this morning and only 2,000 copies of this 84 page beauty are being made. The fact that the website calls it volume one makes be very excited because I haven’t even read the first one yet and I already want more.

Now it is possible some people are reading this and saying, Cal who? Cal McDonald is a detective who is routinely pulled into the plots of the paranormal. For some reason it is attracted to him and he sees the things that most people refuse to take notice of. Seeing werewolves and vampires will take its toll on a person and Cal copes with handfuls of pills and what ever other drug he can get his hands on. Take one part noir detective, one part horror movie, and blend them together with a handful of speed and you get Cal McDonald. You can find Cal stories in the Criminal Macabre comic book series or in prose. If you’re looking for the prose, they made it easy on you a few years ago and collected it all in a single volume, Criminal Macabre: The Complete Cal McDonald Stories. I seriously can not recommend that book enough.