COMING SOON! Halloween Stories :)

Woo hoo! I am very proud to announce that there will be Halloween stories here this year 🙂 It has been a while since I last wrote any, and I hadn’t planned to, but thanks to some extra time and a sudden moment of inspiration, I ended up writing five of them over the space of about three days 🙂

They will appear here every day at 7:30AM (GMT/UTC) between the 27th and 31st October 2022. I’ll also be posting a round-up post at 11PM (GMT/UTC) on Halloween in case you missed any of them.

The theme of this year’s stories will be “found footage” and there’s a mixture of beautiful “art-horror”, goofy comedy horror, grim dark comedy and weird cosmic/psychological horror too 🙂

If you can’t wait and want to read some Halloween stories now, check out my older ones from 2016-2018 on the “Short Stories” page, although – again – the link to this year’s collection on there won’t go live until 11PM GMT/UTC on the 31st October 2022.

Anyway, enjoy 🙂

Coming Soon! Book Reviews :)

Woo hoo! I am very proud to announce that regular book reviews will be starting here on Friday. Expect a book review every 2-5 days (and, don’t worry, I’ll still be reviewing at least one “Doom II” WAD every month).

Although the review series will start with reviews of eight Clive Cussler novels (since I needed something fast-paced to get me back into reading), expect a much better variety of horror, detective, sci-fi, urban fantasy/dark fantasy, historical and thriller novels after this 🙂

Plus, since I prepare daily articles /reviews quite far in advance, I can assure you that this will be a long-running feature (since I actually got back into reading regularly in January). Given that I originally planned to do something like this when I started this blog in 2013, I’m surprised that it has taken me this long.

COMING SOON! Halloween 2018 Stories And Comic :)

Well, Halloween draws closer and this means Halloween stuff 🙂 Like last year, there will be both a comic and some short stories (last year’s Halloween stuff can be seen here and here).

The new comic, which begins on the 21st October, is called “Nocturnal” and if you’ve ever wondered what would happen if the characters from my occasional webcomic met some vampires, then you’re in luck 🙂 Here’s a small preview:

This is a preview. The comic will begin on the 21st October 🙂

The daily short stories will probably begin appearing in a few days’ time (and will conclude the day before Halloween, with a compilation post on Halloween itself. Each story will appear at 9:30pm GMT too).

At the moment, I’m not sure how many I’ll write (so far, I’ve prepared seven) but the theme of the collection is “The modern world”. So, expect lots of cynicism and dark comedy too 🙂

Announcement: Woo hoo! Album Cover :)

Woo hoo! I am very proud to announce that I’ve made part of the cover art for Renz Wilde’s new digital album “Shattered” – which can be found on Bandcamp (I don’t know if I can link to it here though) 🙂

I’ve only had a chance to listen to the album briefly at the time of writing, but it’s wonderfully retro and it contains quite a bit of musical variety too 🙂 Here are brief descriptions of each track:

“Intro (Get Down)” is an ominous, understated piece of 80s-style synth music, like something from the opening credits of a sci-fi/horror film or TV show.

The title track (“Shattered”) is a 1970s-style disco piece, with some subtle background hints of 80s synth in a few parts too.

“Teen Breakup (feat. Nastassja)” is piece of slow, atmospheric 1980s-style synth pop, with a few cyberpunk elements.

“Wave Length” is a dramatic, atmospheric 1980s/90s-style cyberpunk piece in the tradition of the original “Deus Ex”, with some hints of jazz music and 1990s pop too.

The final track, “Passion (Ft. Oceanside85)” is another atmospheric slow 80s synth-pop piece (think Ghost Dance meets Roxy Music or something like that ), with some hints of the cyberpunk genre too.

COMING SOON! “Noir Christmas” Short Stories And Christmas Comics :)

Woo hoo! I am very proud to announce two festive things that will be appearing here in the near future:

– “Noir Christmas” Short Stories: From the 14th-23rd December, there will be daily short stories posted here in the evenings 🙂

Unlike last year’s Cyberpunk Christmas stories, this year’s collection was meant to have more of a “film noir” theme. However, they’re more like cynical modern comedic detective stories about a nameless grumpy old private detective. This collection will also have something of a story arc too.

Here’s an extract from the first story: “But, this year was different. My only client this week had been Mrs Johansen, and she only wandered into my office because she’d mistaken it for the local optician. And with the measly fiver I’d earned for my deductive services in the matter, the coffers were looking a little bare.”

– “Christmas Comics”: Like with last year’s “A Cynical Christmas 2016” collection, there will be a special festive mini series of my long-running occasional webcomic between the 19th-24th December, with a single-panel comic on Christmas Day.

Here’s a preview from this year’s “Cynical Christmas” mini series:

This mini series will run from the 19th-24th December. Plus, there will be a single-panel comic on Christmas Day too 🙂

Merry Christmas everyone 🙂

COMING SOON! Halloween Stories & Comic :)

Well, with Halloween approaching, this means that it’s time for my usual Halloween stuff 🙂

This became something of an annual tradition when I wrote an interactive novella and made a comedic horror comic in 2015. In 2016, I made another comedy horror comic and wrote some short stories.

So, what can you expect this year?

– Another Comic 🙂 : Starting on the 20th October and concluding on Halloween, there will be a new daily comedy horror comic called “Video Nasty”, starring the characters from my webcomics. Here’s a preview of it:

This is a panel from my upcoming Halloween comic, which starts on the 20th October 🙂

– Retro sci-fi Horror Stories 🙂 : Starting on the 21st and concluding on the 30th, there will be a daily series of ten “Retro Sci-Fi” horror stories. Think neon, rain, mega-cities, flying cars, crackling radios etc… These were kind of interesting to write and, for the first time in literally ages, I even used third-person narration occasionally. Here’s a preview of the title graphic from one of the stories:

This short story series will run from the 21st-30th October 🙂

And here’s a spine-tingling extract from that story: ‘The air was filled with anguished howls, counterpointed crudely by the furious buzzing of an industrial saw. Above the cacophony, cackling laughter crackled through the air.‘

So, yes, there’s lots to look forward to here in the days leading up to Halloween 🙂

Announcement: Writer’s Club On “A Writer’s Path”

Sorry about the change to the title graphic, but I wasn’t quite satisfied with the original text.

As regular readers of this site probably know, some of my articles have been featured as guest posts on “A Writer’s Path“. Anyway, the owner of the site recently contacted me to point out that the site now has a writer’s club.

From what I’ve read about it, it is a crowdfunded club (with a minimum membership fee/donation of one US dollar per month) that also offers a list of writing-related benefits and services to members, which include things like blurb coaching, book summary critiques, book promotion etc..

In addition to this, at the time of writing, the comment section on the article about the writing club still seems to be active – so you can ask about these things if you need more details.

Although I haven’t joined the club (since, aside from a few short stories I’ll be posting here near Halloween, I’m still focusing more on art/comics than on writing fiction these days) and therefore can’t personally review it, my experiences with guest posting on “A Writer’s Path” have been very positive (both in terms of the discussion about the posts and my correspondence with the site owner).

Plus, the “A Writer’s Path” site updates regularly and features both instructional articles about writing (including a few guest posts by yours truly) and regular book reviews. So, the site is certainly worth taking a look at, regardless of whether you decide to join the writing club or not.

COMING SOON: Five Short Stories Set In The 1990s

Woo hoo! Although it will be no surprise to anyone who has read the “Short Stories” page, I am pleased to announce that, at the beginning of February, there will be a series of daily short stories posted here at 9:30pm GMT each evening.

This was more of an experimental project and it only lasted for five stories before the whole thing ran out of steam. Although I’d originally planned to set these stories during different parts of the 1990s and in both Britain and America, virtually all of the stories take place in mid-late 1990s Britain.

These stories mostly revolve around (vaguely) mundane life and it was something of an experiment with writing mildly more “realistic” fiction. From this, I learnt that my strengths lie in more imaginative types of fiction (eg: the series of cyberpunk stories I wrote for Christmas last year). Still, I’ll post the stories since at least a couple of them turned out reasonably well.

COMING SOON: Christmas Cyberpunk Stories & Cynical Comics :)

Woo hoo! I am very proud to make two awesome announcements about extra Christmas stuff that will be appearing here soon 🙂

1) Daily cyberpunk stories! Just like the collection of horror stories I wrote for Halloween this year, there will be also a series of daily short stories (posted at 9:30pm GMT) starting on the 12th December.

These will be Christmas-themed cyberpunk stories (since it’s been way too long since I last wrote any cyberpunk fiction), with a fair amount of humour and a slight variety of narrative styles. I’m not sure how many I’ll end up writing, but I just finished the seventh one a couple of hours before writing this announcement.

2) Christmas comics: Ok, anyone who has read the comics index page probably already knows about this, but I’ll be posting a special 6-comic webcomic mini series called “A Cynical Christmas (2016)”, featuring the characters from my long-running occasional “Damania” webcomic series.

This mini series will start on the 19th and, hopefully, it’ll also have a fairly simultaneous release both here and on DeviantART too. There will also be an extra seventh comic (albeit just a single-panel one) posted on Christmas day too.

Three Awesome Announcements :) – Halloween 2016

Woo hoo! I am very proud to make three awesome Halloween-themed announcements today 🙂

First of all, I have been interviewed for this autumn’s issue of a really cool free online magazine called “Abrazine“. This issue is based on the theme of “shadows” and it’s full of wonderfully gothic and/or ethereal art from several artists, as well as lots of cool interviews and articles.

Secondly, I am very proud to announce a (brief) return to fiction writing and, more importantly, to the horror genre too 🙂 From the 11th October until the 20th October, I’ll be posting a short horror story on here every night.

Well, sort of.. Some of these stories are dark comedy stories (the first one is probably the funniest), some border on science fiction, one is more gothic fiction than anything else and the last one is a totally random thing, but at least two of them (the second and the ninth stories) are actual proper horror fiction. Not to mention that the fifth story in the collection contains a rather unusual twist on a familiar genre of horror fiction too 🙂 But, which one? Well, you’ll have to wait and see…

(However, if you see any articles over the next few months that mention that I don’t really write fiction – this is probably because I write these blog articles ages in advance and didn’t notice it in time to correct it).

Last, but not least, there will be another Halloween comic this year 🙂 This one will be called “Zombies Again!” and it will run from the 21st-31st October (with a full retrospective afterwards).

I’m also hoping that this comic will have a relatively simultaneous release on both this site and on DeviantART. If you’ve ever wondered how the characters from my “Damania” webcomic would react to a zombie apocalypse, you’ll get to find out later this month 🙂