Category: Comics

I’ve been on a major Ralph Bakshi kick lately. I know I’m 35 years late on this one in particular, but Heavy Traffic is probably the first movie that I’ve watched twice in one day in the last decade or so.

Well, as I’m sure you’ll all be pained to discover, one of my many fancy countdown timers hath been smote. For a while there, I was like The King of Shekels with an armful of golden watches. However, after receiving some alarming news from Mister Black, followed swiftly by some less alarming but somewhat disappointing news, I’ve decided that you won’t see Midnight Meat Train‘s countdown until this summer. Both “news clippings” will appear after the image.

From Twitch:

All is not well in the land of Ryuhei Kitamura’s adaptation of Clive Barker’s Midnight Meat Train. It was yanked from Liongate’s release schedule to accommodate a last minute retitling – it’s now known simply as Midnight Train – and the rumblings are that it may end up going direct to video with the planned theatrical release abandoned.

And then, from Bloody Disgusting:

Contrary to reports from recent test screenings, Lionsgate’s publicity page has been updated leaving the title of their Clive Barker adaptation in tact. The Midnight Meat Train is now slated for release on August 1, 2008. Don’t forget to check out a crazy bloody still here. The story features a commuter’s run-in with a New York subway serial killer and a horde of subterranean cannibals. Ryuhei Kitamura (Versus, Alive) directed this R-rated bloodfest.

Would it sound… like this!?

This week on Patrick Macias’ newly theme-songed Otaku USA podcast, I mash minds with Macias to mull over the mastery of the most magical man of marvelous myth, Stan Lee, in preparation for Patrick’s interview with… Stan Lee! Then comes the interview itself, followed by a very rousing read-a-long of Thor #171, with myself in the role of The Mighty One and Patrick as The Wrecker (who doth attack)!

Prepare thyself!

This ended up looking more like Akira Toriyama Presents Gay Black Frankenstein, but I think the concept is pretty self explanatory. Method: sloppy charcoal usage for the first time since high school.

Click to enlarge. I had to take a photo so I wouldn’t soil my scanner

Lo, humans! I do beseech thine eyes and ears once more!

Today’s jamfest comes from the unknown genius I can only dub “The Guy Who Composed Shadowgate‘s Music.” As that likely gave away, the soundtrack of this entry is Shadowgate which, in this instance, is available on your Nintendo Entertainment System. You may also remember the Virt cover medley of this music that I linked in an earlier post.

What’s so special about this mythical music, though? I should first confess that I was never very into Adventure games as a child. While their concepts are novel, they are also, for all intents and purposes, novels. That wasn’t very appealing to my younger self, to which extensive scrolls of text in a video game never quite sounded more attractive than the Frog and Toad books I so coveted.

Also, the games are written as if there aren’t visuals to accompany them, like some grease-mitted scribe made a couple beans on the side by penning Adventure titles after nightly sessions with his role-playing club and the developers just crammed the vaguely related text into the game. “Before you is a monster, fair knight!” I know! Give me a sword!

Then again, you also end up getting serious gems like the one below.

Shadowgate was a bit different, though. It can be a horrific experience to an impressionable boy, one that’s only heightened by the haunting music. The soundtrack is almost entirely situational; there’s a track that inspires high adventure, one that signals horror, a couple that reek of the spoils hidden deep within the titular castle, and many songs of death. For your convenience, I have personally tagged each track with custom care, forced to forge my own titles for these devious ditties.

Download it here (MegaUpload – 6.24 MB)

Track listing:
1. Song of Trepidation (2:08)
2. A Hopeful Fellow (1:06)
3. Frightened But Curious (1:32)
4. Delirium (0:27)
5. The Adventure is Afoot (0:58)
6. Deeper and Deeper (1:22)
7. Death Surely Awaits (0:54)
8. I Am Stronger Than You Think! (0:39)
9. Skeletons (Trapped) in the Closet (1:02)
10. Thy Game is Over (1:30)
11. A Brief Treatise Upon Wraiths (0:43)
12. Won’t Ye Come Again? (1:26)