Tag: horror

‘Teen Paranormal Romance.’

David Thompson passes along a picture of a section header from a Barnes & Noble; I saw something similar (‘Supernatural Romance’) at a Books-a-Million yesterday when I picked up a copy of Gail Carriger’s Blameless (The Parasol Protectorate).

(pause)

Gimme a break, it’s steampunk.  Alt-history steampunk horror.  OK, OK, maybe there’s just a bit of romance novel ethos in it… but it also has clockwork assassin beetles in it, so I don’t want to hear any snickering, OK?  Anyway, this entire werewolf/vampire Byronic hero thing seems to be quite the fad.  Did the demographic that reads romance novels get bored with pirates?

And, more importantly, is there any way to suck them farther into the genre?

They had me at “It’s Shelley meets Chandler.”

(via Ain’t It Cool News, via Nodwick) Mind you, I’ve never read the comic…

“I, Frankenstein” comic morphing into movie

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Director Patrick Tatopoulos, “Underworld” co-creator Kevin Grevioux and Death Ray Films are teaming to bring the comic book “I, Frankenstein” to the big screen.

“I, Frankenstein” is an upcoming Darkstorm Comic written by Grevioux that brings together classic monster characters, including Frankenstein’s Monster, the Invisible Man, Dracula and the Hunchback of Notre Dame, in a contemporary film noir setting.

The Monster, for example, who has evolved and learned how to control his anger, is now a private investigator. Dracula, meanwhile, is a kingpin of crime, and the Invisible Man is a secret operative.

…but I am an absolute sucker for mashups like this, as my enthusiastic embrace of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies might suggest.  Noir works particularly well with horror, as Kim Newman demonstrated with his Chandler/Lovecraftian “The Big Fish” (found in The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club) and Tim Powers sorta-kinda did with his Cold War espionage/urban fantasy book Declare (you will enjoy that book, particularly if you are Catholic).  The image of the Monster dressed in a cheap suit and askew fedora appeals; it has a certain iconic feel to it that I can’t help but respond to.

Hopefully, it won’t suck.