Well, well, well...a year or so late, and a dollar fuckin' short. So what the hell happened?! To be honest, everything, really. New house, new (er, sorta) gig, became a fucking FATHER, of all things...it's been chaos. A total personal holocaust of utter destruction, shaky-yet-vital rebirth, and all around tentative, if monumental mutation. With that tone in the air, I thought: fuck it. The time has come to return to my bastard internet spawn of borderline-useless creative venting, my mental jizz-spray of arcane, yet potentially vital musings, to guide us through these dark and odd times. So with that...let us jump RIGHT back into the wave pool I dropped you off at so very long ago, and smear ourselves with the pungent musk of...yes...the 1990s.

The '90s, as you may remember, were a weird time. Hell, maybe you DON'T remember. More likely, you're trying not to. Whatever you're up to in that brain of yours, it doesn't change the fact that the '90s were some weird shit, right out of the gate. Remember Tom Petty's FREE FALLIN' video, from '89? It pretty much predicted what the dawn of the '90s would be all bout.

Assholes

Those unbearably angsty skate kids just...you know...skating, dourly? Because, you know...like, the artifice of the '80s was behind them, and they just had to, like, SHED all that shit, and just BE, man? And like, just fuckin' FROWN, because they were too REAL to, like, feel joy anymore? Yeah, it was a bunch'a fuckin' bullshit. But it literally predicted grunge, right down to the last, phony drop. Now, I DIG Tom Petty, he's a rad motherfucker, and videos both previous and forthcoming - Don't Come Around Here No More & Last Dance With Mary Jane, for instance - prove that the scowling anti-rockstar horseshit the early '90s traded in was very much beneath him. But he DID see the shift in tide coming up around the bend, that's for damned sure. I bring it up to merely point out, that there was some very weird shit in the air right as the big Nine-Oh opened its gates. You could feel that the party was coming to an end, or at the very least, turning sharply sideways. Not all at once, mind you. But it was there.

So where the hell does this leave you humble host's increasingly uncomfortable ramble? Well, let's land the warship in, oh, say 1991. Right about when the '90s TRULY became The Nineties, and long before everything you nostalgically worship actually happened. That's where an eight-year-old CORPSE MONGER comes into the story. And he was not altogether happy.

Your humble host could tell that things were...off. The party that was life seemed like it was winding down, and for no discernable reason. Everything that was good - objectively, purely, beautifully good - was bizarrely going out of style, drop by drop, like when your best friend becomes, almost imperceptibly, a dickbag overnight once he hits middle school, and starts shunning you, just because. That's what culture was doing at around that time. And it was hard to put your finger on. There was just this ennui that replaced all the excitement. Societal pod-people type shit, but when you're little kid, you can't quite put a name on it.

But I had my obsessions. I still burrowed for the fruit beneath the trash, vigorously. The afternoon cartoons were pretty fuckin' fresh. Duck Tales was still ragin' on in repeats, and that begat Darkwing Duck, Tiny Toon Adventures was in its prime, Gummy Bears was still inexplicably delightful (and sweet Jesus, that theme song was sonic Crack)...but the one that pulled me in, with an unhealthy hold, was naturally CHIP AND DALE'S RESCUE RANGERS. Granted, Tiny Toons was easily the best of the lot, but the adventures of Chip and Dale held an unhealthy sway over my tiny mind...mostly because of my sweet, beloved Gadget.

My tiny underpants reeked of cheese

Yeah, judge me, fuck stick. Play it off like you don't exhaust your bandwith looking up caviar films until daybreak. Me, I saw beauty in that uflappably chipper rodent form. I dreamed about her. I was too young yet master boppin' my baloney, but the instinct...my god, man, it raged within my like a forest fire. It haunted me, turned my into a melancholic, pre-adolescent poet, yearning for a lust I could never fulfill...at least not until the internet age, some years later. But there was a long road ahead of me, until those gilded days.

In between bouts of crackling pre-teen sexual psychopathology, I dwindled my remaining months in public school (before a full scale anxiety-fueled meltdown saw me packing my bags at the start of 3rd grade, and turning my back on society almost altogether), doing kid stuff like obsessing over the Troll catalogs that heralded the arrival of the mythic book fair.

A window into a world I could never belong to

I suppose I should give, just a little bit, here. Yeah, I dropped some heavy shit, and tried to move on, but you were too quick for me. Grade 3 was begun by yours truly, but never finished. I didn't attend public school again until 6th grade deep into the '90s, and after that spectacular failure, never again until I got my GED a couple years into The Oughts. To put in plain, as we southerners are wont to do (wait, what?), my family was unraveling faster than the goddamn Mummy from Monster Squad. Whether that precipitated my massive childhood anxiety, or merely added boundless fuel to that already-raging fire, the fact remains that I was losing touch with society, and had just about zero coping mechanisms to interact with it. This was the edge of my becoming borderline feral for a good couple years, there. But not yet. Not, quite, yet. I had my cartoons, and my Castlevania, and more comics, and my Fangorias. Speaking of...

Yeah. Speaking of. There was a little something in the air at the time, and my constantly leering over the newest issues of Fangoria, GoreZone, and whatever off-brand rag was handy at the time hipped me up to it, whether I totally grasped it or not. A weird little tidbit that caught my eye and somehow deemed itself important in my tiny eyes...the controversy, such as it was, surrounding LEATHERFACE: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. Now, here's a little something that might not make sense to you kids now - or maybe it'll make a little too much sense to you by the time any of you read this - but TCM3 was viewed, at the time, to be the absolute limit the God-fearing mainstream could allow, and just barely at that. Apparently, it was a straight up scandal, and as such, it spoke to me somehow.

As important to me as Santa

Like every ne'er do well horror kid, I had heard of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And like most 8 year olds, I still hadn't seen it yet. But Leatherface was still an icon, just like the fuckin' Kool Aid Man, or the President, whoever the fuck that was...you knew him just by looking, and his reputation was legendary, even if you half made it up yourself by filling in the countless blanks. He romped through the pages of Cracked Monster Party, he was a reference you'd make on a lonely road traveling somewhere late at night, you knew what he did...basically. But like sex, you didn't really know it 'til you knew it. So the sudden, big fuss about it was like someone bitching about tits in your general direction...you always knew they existed, you always knew you kinda dug 'em, but now, you NEEDED to know what all the sweat and spittle was about. And like tits indeed, Leatherface lived up.

It may have been mangled, crippled, hobbled, and generally folded-spindled-mutilated from what it originally set out to be, but even before you saw this thing, you could feel the sick rolling off of it. And let me tell you bunkie, at the dawn of the PC era, that was INTOXICATING. Particularly if your balls had practically just dropped. Suddenly, sight-unseen, Leatherface became your best imaginary friend.

My idolatry did not match my spelling prowess

Like Gadget, I had a new obsession. Although this one tickled some very different impulses than my rodent paramour...though maybe not as far apart as the sane might admit. Somehow I knew there was a distinctly sexual edge to the whole TCM thing...no, not sexual, exactly...perverse. THAT was the ticket, even though I couldn't quite articulate it, even in my mind...again, the sickness of it drew me in. A secret, special sickness. I began drawing pictures of Leatherface, making my own little comic books, dreaming my own deranged adventures for this twisted, forbidden boogeyman to slash about in, based on nothing but my own cobbled-together, fractured understanding of the character and his inner workings...in spite of the fact that I had him face off against fucking Predator once, I was actually pretty close to heart of it all. TCM is one of those funny things in life where whatever unthinkable depravity you can dream up, is actually likely to be represented in some way, shape, or form at some point. "It's exactly what you think it is", as PIECES, TCM's most infamous knockoff would later come to crow. And fair enough. Truly, for once, fair e-fuckin'-nuff.

"Wait, this has TITS?!"

As it stands, I wouldn't have to guess for long. Leatherface and his bastard sequel were in every horror rag I feasted my eyes on at the corner drug and grocery store, and I knew that there was a REAL comic book based on the flick coming out...but thanks to the afore-mentioned family meltdown, my dad was living at my semi-estranged half-sister's house, and, to escape the constant malevolent turmoil that my immediate siblings usually targeted me for (or I was at least adjacent to), I got into the habit of staying with pops, eventually more-or-less living with him and my half-sis' family. One good thing about that chaotic situation, was that these cats hit the video store on a damn-near nightly basis, and they had a habit of renting some pretty wild shit (they were into some pretty wild shit).

Occasionally, it was even wild shit that I got to pick, and when the chance finally presented itself to rent the still-steaming Leatherface video, you'd goddamn better believe I took it. Well, and I took a shot at Mutant Hunt too, but my dad shut that down at the first sight of tits. That was dear ol' Dad...you could cut a woman's face off, but she'd better keep her shirt on. My mom on the other hand couldn't handle gore at all, but basically shrugged off tits, probably because, well, she had some.
My dad was the kind of guy who, succumbing to basic human urges, would pick up a porn mag at a truck stop, but sneer at it in case anyone was looking, yet understood my primal urge to watch Dawn of the Dead when I was still in single digits. Whereas my mom started laughing hysterically when someone accidentally popped in a porn in front of all the kids at a family Halloween party once, yet thought I was going to become a serial killer because of my obsession with horror. Parents are weird. Then again as this rambling missive clearly illustrates, I had exactly zero healthy preoccupations across the board, so maybe they were both onto to something.

I should visit my parents more

Anyway, the movie was as I'd hoped. It WAS "exactly what I thought it was", and gasoline rained freely on the fire that had been sparked by all the photos, all the indignant, shocked word of mouth. In the post-"torture porn" era we live in today, it's hard to image Leatherface creating the moral panic that it did (however briefly), but the ENTIRE vibe of the early '90s was to get shit that had been going berserk in pop culture for the past 20 or 30 years FINALLY under control. To make things safe an' sane for our culture, to think of the children, to put a condom on your very mind just like your well-behaved, God-fearing Republican cock, and to let the PMRC take you by the hand and lead you up to the mountain, where Abraham was waiting. Neutered as it may have been, Leatherface wasn't having any of that shit.

Neutered? Did I say neutered?

As most of you horror-adept reading this know (*in which your author and host pretends for his own edification that anyone is, in fact, reading this), TCMIII began its ill-birthed existence as a legendarily ultra-violent script by splatterpunk lauriete David J.Schow. And while a jobbing Jeff Burr took a decidedly more pedestrian approach to the material whilst sitting in the director's chair, the sheer nature of the material itself couldn't be tamed outright, and the resultant cinematic atrocity was assaulted and brutalized by limp-dicked New Line execs with more furor than even the characters onscreen, then FURTHER defiled by no-dicked clowns at the MPAA. After passing through no fewer than three well-meaning entities looking to do nothing short of turn Leatherface into a gelding, the debauched flick wound up nowhere NEAR as deranged as it so dearly sought to be. But at the time - only glimpsed at, through my still-inexperienced eyes - there was one frontier where anything and everything truly went...the comic book page.

NEXT UP...FOUR COLOR DEBAUCHERY, AND A TRUE LEGEND RISES TO BECOME A PERVERSE SAVIOR IN A MALIGNANT AGE!

Greetings, my neglected children! This is your CORPSE MONGER, returning after much too long in the void, to fulfill broken promises and offer you that ever cherished ride upon my knee. Did you miss me? Will you fuckin' PROVE IT by actually commenting on any of this shit? Time will tell.

So where the flyin' fuck have I BEEN this past two months and change?! Brothers and sisters, that is one hell of an answer, waiting for ya at the end of the rainbow. 

Homelessness rules!

As you all (all what, three of you?) might have noticed from our minty keen FaceBook page, the old headquarters - Corpse Manor - has fallen. We've abandoned it for greener pastures, and believe me, we've GOTTEN there...but not all at once. Not by a long shot. Myself and Mrs. Corpse had the unique and splendid experience of (FINAL-FUCKING-LY!) selling our wretched hovel WITHOUT having a place to move into in advance, necessitating us to stay within the sprawling basement apartment of family friends until we found permanent digs. Yes, technically, we were homeless. Hobos. Tramps. One step away from fucking C.H.U.D.s.

"It's only temporary!"

Now, maybe it wasn't quite THAT bad...but it sure as fuck felt like it. No matter how hospitable, living as a barnacle attached to the hull of someone else's life, even short term, is a drag, man. And add onto that the SUPER cool (insert dripping nihilistic sarcasm here) ULTRA-first shift gig I just landed in the middle of all this, requiring me to go to bed, LITERALLY, earlier than when I was in grade school, and you have one fried fuck-up of an author who couldn't write his name on a permission slip, let alone a blog entry any of his two-and-a-half fans might want to actually read.

Even still, I DID try and force myself to keep the glorious dream of TRASH CASKET alive, in those darkest of times...as those amongst you reading this now (Mom? Is that you?) may recall, I had announced an immediately-forthcoming blog entry back in, what, March, complete with a rad illustration from the days of yore...but it never materialized. You can't force a corpse to breath, kids (BEATING back a necrophilia reference here, but there's always time for that, this being Wisconsin an' all).

BUT...as you've no doubt gathered, the new headquarters are in full swing, the savage homelessness is a thing of the past, and the shitty, SHITTY job is...well, that's still in effect. But I'm workin' on that one. 

Of course, the biggest problem you face when you're totally vulnerable, is...other goddamn people. They wanna teach you how to live life! How to adult, properly! How to get through work correctly, how to maintain possessions properly, how to maintain a HOME correctly, how to...well, be THEM, really. Of curse, that's the LAST thing any of us wanna be. You know it, and I know it. So let's take a look back at ANOTHER time when people were sayin' a lotta STUPID shit, and the world at large wanted to take people like YOU and ME, and press them into something else...a time when people like you and me were looking ELSEWHERE for redemption, because you knew these assholes were fulla shit. Just like TODAY. So did I, boils an' ghouls. So did I. 

So with full historical context at our back, let's look at...THE '90s.

Portrait of cultural apotheosis

The '90s, as a number of you may well recall, was a strange time indeed. It's been said that the first couple years of any decade are essentially the final years of the PREVIOUS decade, and there's definitely some truth to that. In that regard, the sainted '80s won the lottery, because not only were they, well, the '80s, but they were coming off the five star classic that was the '70s, so the first couple years? Dy-no-MITE!!! It was like running up a promised blowjob with the best tit-show imaginable. Culturally speaking.


The '90s were...different. The first two or three years of the '90s were unmistakably the afterglow of the '80s, but unlike that '70s mellow gold that dusted the dawn of the Double Decade, the '90s seemed to well and truly hate themselves, damn near out of the gate. It really was like the bitter, needs-to-be-slapped-for-its-and-everybody-else's-good adolescent of the decades.

No jury in the world would convict you of killing these people.

But that's not to say it was a wash. Not at all. There is so, SO much to appreciate and dissect - even WITH all the absolute dross - that negotiating it all would take several chapters. And indeed, that's what I'm giving you, the few, the faithful, my non-existent audience. Your patience will serve you in spades. So we're gonna talk about Nine Inch Nails. We're gonna talk about the slasher revival, and the zombie renaissance - MUCH superior to today's - that no one was paying attention to. We're going to fucking burn Grunge to the ground, eviscerate malignant irony, shame short, post-metal hair. We're going to praise Playstation, Cartoon Network, and straight up suck Snick's cock. And we're going to dig deep - MARROW deep - into the seething, Bud Dwyer-esque self loathing we unanimously felt, both earned and repugnantly hip. It's going to be like Hunter S. Thompson got stuck in the wrong fuckin' time and place, and just had to start writing to save his flannel-bedeviled soul. You might commit suicide by the end of it, but if you do, I guarantee you'll sell some records. To assholes.

I leave you with this image. It tells all. It IS all. Grab hold, and don't let the trip roll over you. Listen to my voice. We're at Bayside now, baby.

Last Supper

 Stay tuned.

Greetings, scumbags. I welcome you once again to the world of TRASH CASKET, your host the Corpse Monger's personal playground. We've gathered here this foggy February night to discuss something very special. Something near and dear to your beloved old Reverend Corpse. A passion project truly worthy of a crucifixion, and one that will be a MAJOR happening in the eyes of a select few. But to understand where we're going, we must look to where we've been...in this case, the far-flung year of 1988.

Like the Sistine Chapel of gore

As these things so very often happen, an arcade smash from the storied kingdom of Japan wound up on American shores. This time, it just so happened to be the 80s gore-era ne plus ultra... SPLATTERHOUSE. 
SH was nothing short of a sacrificial alter to the post-modern cinematic slaughter espoused in the pages of DEEP RED and within the halls of mainstream multiplexes alike, the ultimate horror simulator erupting at the peak of an insanely fertile era that was nevertheless on its way out. Like Pompeii before it, the Splatter Era was marked for divine destruction, and Splatterhouse was like that ultimate party guest that partied the hardest, but stayed just a little too late. It was the Saturday morning after a GREAT sleepover. Few knew of its wonders, and those who dared speak of it, were disbelieved.

Manna in the desert

Which is where I come in. A full two years later. This is of great import, because by then, we were dick-tip into the burgeoning 90s, a decade that, for all its sudden nostalgic value, was a notorious drag when it came to horror, and every good thing associated there-with. It was the dawn of a neutered decade, and the time of wet thrills we simply took for granted a mere couple years before, was looked down upon, sneered at, derided, and outright banned, virtually overnight. The sea change was blatant. but there was hope. And, fittingly enough, that hope was wrapped up baby-Moses-style within the back of a comic book.

In 1990, I had the good sense to be reading a lot of NOW Comics. You know the ones. RALPH SNART ADVENTURES. The continuation of FRIGHT NIGHT. Bloody LITTLE fucking MONSTERS. The best of the best of the semi-mainstream. And a specific ad kept popping up, alongside the ads for the NES pot of Double Dragon II, and the Tiger handheld Castlevania. This was something I had never seen before, never heard of...this, was, SPLATTERHOUSE. Coming to YOUR house courtesy of the Turbografx 16. A system I would NEVER come to own. Naturally. But the advertisement told me all too clearly, that this was something I flat-out needed to live. This was the last bastion of the kind of horror experience I had grown up with, that had gone rapidly, horribly extinct. I had to have it...but I simply couldn't. And so...I merely stared at the advertisement, obsessed over it, fetishized it, until that ad became as familiar to me as something I HAD played, DID possess.

Rubber redemption

The giant, melty head in the lower right corner of the ad particularly fascinated me so (fitting, then, that it would turn out to be be the game's ultimate endboss), and one day, after returning from a family trip up north, a jaunt into the nearby Walgreens (remember those? They seeded the land before CVS) would put me face to face with a cheapo pack of MADBALLS-knockoff pencil erasers called "Odballs"...and one of them looked almost EXACTLY like that melty head. I revered that tiny chunk of rubber as if it were my personal Christ, until I lost it...as children always do. It would be ANOTHER two years before I would ever get to PLAY Splatterhouse at a friends' house...and while that's a story for another time, it did NOT disappoint. 

We jump ahead to the unthinkable year 2009. Your humble chaperone, now deep into his 20s, was enthralled by the news that Splatterhouse was on its way back, to assault the current generation of video game consoles. 

A patron saint returns - or tries to

I had joined the storied ranks of the forum-dwellers at WEST MANSION, without question THE shepherd of the Splatterhouse zeitgeist in the digital age, writing and illustrating countless fanworks in fevered celebration of the return of my idol. So fervent was I, that I created an entire MYTHOLOGY based around the classic games in a sort of fugue state, and those who've been misfortunate enough to have been following me since the early days claim that it remains some of my finest work. Pure tribute to something vitally important to my own -and countless others' - evolution as horror fans in often dry times. 

Strangman (far left) making alliances and fighting for the cause

Teaming up with the site's lord ROB STRANGMAN, easily one of the greatest champions of the SH cause on the scorched and beleaguered planet Earth, we rode a high tide of fan involvement, and did everything we possibly could to try and steer the new installment toward glory. He even got my work shown within the halls of the new game's developers. It was an INSANE time. At the height of it, I'd even begun to develop a comic book adaptation out of my voluminous output, wrangling insane Australian newcomer AUSTEN MENGLER (soon to be witnessed slinging colors for Eibon Press' adaptation of the Fulci ultra-classic ZOMBIE) to illustrate the madness. As glorious as it all was...it was not to be. 

What might have been

The behind-the-scenes machinations of the Splatterhouse reboot are legendary at this point. It was nothing short of the Red Wedding of video game development, a slaughter that started with the wrong people getting involved, taking advantage of the true believers, and getting slaughtered themselves on the way out, leaving a defiled and wounded animal to be nursed to something akin to health by the loyal few who tried to clean up in the massacre's wake. Alas, it simply wasn't enough. The damage was done, and so, too, was Splatterhouse '10. My proposed SH comic, while by NO MEANS a sure thing by anyone's judgement, was nevertheless being screened by people within Namco for legitimate consideration...before higher-ups within the corporate cathedral pulled the plug, and dropped everyone without a net. Splatterhouse '10 was deemed a failure before release, the game was dumped, and my contact within Namco itself, and indeed my go-to for the comic book pitch, was flat-out ousted in the final days of the culling before the game's doomed release. And like (Kid) Icarus, my time in the sun was over.

There were heroes in that story. And villains. I am honor-bound to this day not to name names or speak to specifics, but one day, the story will surely be told. This is not that day. However, the fact remains that nestled within the fallout, I had produced a novella's worth of original Splatterhouse material, with a cabal of friends and fans praising it to be some of my finest, or at least most impassioned work. Now gathering radioactive dust in the crater of a certified bomb. There was a time when I seriously considered pursuing the SH license from Namco after the nightmare had finally quietly, subsided, but calling it an "uphill struggle" would have been a kindness. I consigned my epic to a cold and rueful vault, and moved on. 

But I DIDN'T move on. How could I? Every now and again, for YEARS, I would get pangs that said to me "it isn't over. It can NEVER be over". Eventually, I asked close friend AND fan (going ALL the way back to those earliest West Mansion days) SURGERYHEAD if I should resurrect the old tales. 

SurgeryHead, offering council

But this time courting a more forbidden idea, a notion far more taboo...if I should twist that library of work into ALL-ORIGINAL material, divorced entirely of the ties that bound it? Could I DARE reshape that lost trove of material into something that retained the spirit of that life-long Splatterhouse obsession, but twisted it, reflected it, knowingly deviated from it...gathered it close with one hand, and violently batted at it with the other? The answer, was a resounding "yes". 

And so, SLAUGHTERED KINGDOM was born.

Thy Kingdom come...

I've gone back under the hood, and folded, spindled, and mutilated the original narratives, character designs, and core ideas until what crawled forth was almost an affront to the initial material...but an affront that celebrated as much as it profaned. What is emerging now, is as much of a statement on what it was to BE that fan, as it is a simple love letter to the material that created him. And "what it was to be that fan" must also depict the world that harbored him. Truly, that world was - and is - an ugly one indeed. 

The original character and creature designs have been...perverted to serve a new and greater purpose. Outside artists have been hired to help weave the tapestry of the world they rage in. What is now shrieking forth is nothing short of a hateful, violent manifesto. And you will see it amongst you. 2017 is the year in which my untamed hate-baby will escape into the physical world, to be held in the hands of the faithful and the newcomer alike. What shape will it take? Where will it be waiting? Ah, but that WOULD be telling, wouldn't it? I can only tell you to keep watching this unhallowed ground. Because this quiet and poisonous place will be host to the opening salvo, however it gestates before your helpless eyes. I hope you feel special. You're party to the birth of a true Anti-Christ, trapped in a cage of corrupted pop-culture art.

I anoint you...and offer you asylum within the walls of the SLAUGHTERED KINGDOM. 

The next sermon will be coming sooner than you think. Be ready with your tithe.

...thy will be DONE.

GREETINGS, maggots! You just found yourself in the best puddle of rancid slime on the internet, TRASH CASKET! So what the hell IS Trash Casket? Trash Casket is the world of the infamous CORPSE MONGER...so who the fuck is HE? Solid questions all, and I should SMASH YOUR FACE for daring to ask them instead of just letting this privilege wash over you like the divine wave of garbage water that it is, but I'll hold off...this time. First impressions an' all. 

Long story short, I am Corpse Monger. So why does that matter? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't but either way introductions are in order, so let's get to it.

My human name, given at birth in the Apocalyptic year of 1983, is MIKE WASION. One of many as it turns out, as all of my uncles proved shockingly unoriginal (a trend which berserkly continues to this day, but I digress), so if you want to get technical, fine, fuck it, Mike D. Wasion. You're a real asshole, you know that? I'm starting to wonder why I even let you in here, but if you've come to pay tribute, I ain't lettin' you back out now.

I've popped up all over the goddamn place, from fanzines to websites to the sketch cards all the kids seem to like, I'm hidden in the "special thanks" section of the end credits of a certain video game (more on that another time), and did a little time in a couple bitchin' prozines you could find nestled in the racks of your nearest Barnes & Noble. 


MOST notably, during those days, I somehow managed to snag my own bi-monthly column in FANGORIA, the fabled, lamented COMIC CASKET (I know, me and caskets, right? Hell, most of us are gonna wind up in one some day, so we might as well get used to the word). Comic Casket was my own hands-on vehicle to dig deep into the rotting back issue bins of my youth, and unearth the greatest unheralded gems horror comics had to offer, and truly, this put me on a collision course with my current Terminator-like mission in life...creating horror comics MYSELF. 

These days, I get the dubious pleasure of working alongside the most twisted minds in comics under the roof of ROUGH HOUSE PUBLISHING, the pulp atrocity factory founded by the one and only DEREK ROOK (who's currently killing it on EIBON PRESS' Lucio Fulci adaptations ZOMBIE and the immortal GATES OF HELL...get dat shit while you can, suckas!). 

We've already put out some of the most obscene and deranged books known to man, and that was just the "you kids play nice" warmup to the REAL tide of filth we'll be unleashing onto you helpless bleeting masses in the coming months and years, so I'd stock up on penicillin before that Brian-Peppers-lookin' fuck Martin Shkreli jacks up the price. In case you missed 'em (and if you have, really, put down the lenticular-cover Batman book you're holding, hit puberty, and join the cool kids club...no, really, I'll buy you alcohol!), the newsprint nightmares we've induced thus far include THE DEAD OMNIBUS, the most perverse and horrifying zombie book...EVER (and it debuted in the 90s, no less!), and the resurrection of the mighty GORE SHRIEK, both books I handled writing chores on, primarily, amongst other dubious honors.

Both of these are actual little-kid-Mike fantasy projects that my "adult" brain never, EVER allowed itself to believe I'd pull off, but here the fuck I am, and I couldn't be happier...but I ain't done yet. Not by a long shot, pard'. What I've got up my sleeve for the next couple'a years would have had my teenage self rock-hard with disbelieving delight, and I'm willing to bet my prosthetic chainsaw hand that that will extend to you as well, my newfound friends. 

But, this isn't just a blog to whore out my wares...I mean, it very much IS that, but there's more to the equation. Much, much more. This blog is intended to be nothing short of the barf bag for my brain's vomit. This is the Hellraiser II labyrinth of my mind, given form in the internet age, the kid's-bedroom-junk-drawer of the ethereal plane, the trash-strewn alleyway of the ones-and-zeroes epoch. And I invite you all to bask in it...in fact, you no longer have a choice. I've taken you all hostage. This is the mere opening salvo, bunky...the Cliff's Notes version of unseemly stories you will hear, forbidden histories you will be regaled with, forbidden images to be seared on your retinas that you will never, ever be able to unsee. You will meet true friends who form my army...vile enemies will be hinted at in shame. And so, so very much more, this I promise you.

One day, you will tune in, and find a gibbering, borderline-psychotic review of some movie you're glad you've never heard of. Another day, you'll drop on by, and find me having a delirious, virtually incomprehensible flashback about how I never, not even for a second, thought Boglins could eat fucking peas back in 1987. And of course, you WILL hear about upcoming projects, both professional and personal, and I will splatter your face with art every chance I get. And it will give me an excuse to MAKE art, and keep making it, which is never, ever a bad thing.

So, welcome. Pull up a nice, plump trash bag. Settle in. Enjoy the ride. You're not going anywhere...you're going EVERYWHERE. And I'm behind the driver's seat, baby.

Corpse Monger...pleased ta meet'cha.