Review: The Music Box 1: Welcome to Pandorient by Carbone and Gijé

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cover of The Music Box 1The Music Box 1: Welcome to Pandorient by Carbone and Gijé
Stone Arch Books (January 1, 2023)
64 pages; $7.99 paperback; $5.99 e-book
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Having always been drawn to the world of children, Bénédicte Carboneill, aka Carbone, made the logical choice when it came time to decide on a profession by becoming a teacher. After joining the teaching ranks in 1995, she went on to become a principal before writing entered her life and quickly took over. In 2015, she tried her hand as a comics author with Le Pass’Temps (published by Jungle), taking on the pen name Carbone. She soon followed with La boîte à musique (Dupuis; The Music Box, Europe Comics, Capstone), and already has multiple other series in store, which readers can look forward to discovering over the coming years. Continue Reading

Dark Pathways: That Good Ol’ Fashioned Fright

Dark Pathways

Author Lavie Tidhar has a short story up on The Dark Magazine titled “Sirena” that I think you should definitely check out. It’s about a killer vending machine. Seriously! And it feels like a classic Stephen King story from the ’80s. It’s just the right kind of fun for this type of horror story, and you’ll be hooked from the first paragraph. Did I mention there’s a killer vending machine?

There’s a killer vending machine.Continue Reading

The Black Museum: The Ghost and the Lady by Kazuhiro Fujita

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cover of The Ghost and the LadyThe Black Museum: The Ghost and the Lady by Kazuhiro Fujita
Kodansha Comics (October 2016)
304 pages; $19.99 hardcover, $9.99 e-book
Reviewed by Danica Davidson

The Black Museum: The Ghost and the Lady is a peculiar story that mixes real history with very much made-up fantasy and horror. It opens with a woman in a long, black dress, holding candles and standing at the base of the stairwell, seemingly looking at the reader and asking if there’s interest in a tour of the black museum. After this atmosphere-setting image, the woman begins to give a tour, but things are thrown off when a ghost appears.Continue Reading

Night Time Logic with James Everington

Night Time Logic with Daniel Braum

photo of author James Everington
James Everington

Night Time Logic is the part or parts of a story that are felt but not consciously processed. 

In this column, which shares a name with my New York based reading series, I explore the phenomenon of Night Time Logic and other aspects of horror fiction by diving deep into the stories from award winning authors to emerging new voices. 

In my previous post we visited the dark and fantastical settings in Rudi Dornemann’s stories including his most recent Magazine Fantasy and Science Fiction cover story.

Today I talk with UK author and editor James Everington about strange tales, his fiction, and his anthology projects including Ebb Tides, an anthology of liminal stories all set at the sea-side.Continue Reading

Interview: Richard Delgado on The Art of Dracula of Transylvania

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Ricardo Delgado grew up obsessed with monsters and has turned his childhood love into a career. He’s worked as a conceptual artist in Hollywood, published The Age of Reptiles graphic novel series, and is coming out with books on Dracula. After the success of his illustrated novel Dracula of Transylvania, his The Art of Dracula of Transylvania was put on Kickstarter where it quickly earned its goal. The Kickstarter continues until November 9, and Delgado spoke to Cemetery Dance about his early interests, his career in conceptual art and graphic novels, and why Dracula has obsessed him for so long.Continue Reading

Dark Pathways: From A Certain Point of View

Dark Pathways

Horror fans, I have a terrible confession to make. I read Chuck Wendig’s Star Wars books and decided he wasn’t an author for me. The books were good, but I got the sense that Wendig’s writing style didn’t hit the right notes for me to continue with his other stories. So I passed on Wanderers. I passed on The Book of Accidents.

Holy smokes, am I an idiot. I am a giant, foolish idiot who made a horrible mistake.Continue Reading

How I Spend My Halloween: Cynthia “Cina” Pelayo

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photo of author Cynthia "Cina" Pelayo
Cynthia “Cina” Pelayo

If you know anything about Cemetery Dance, you know that the arrival of October…The Spooky Season…is a very special time of year for us. To celebrate, we’ve invited some of our favorite spinners of spooky tales to share their favorite Halloween traditions and memories with us.

Today we’re joined by Cynthia “Cina” Pelayo, the Chicago-based, award-winning author and poet. Apple cider donuts and The Rocky Horror Picture Show are just some of her Halloween traditions — read on to learn more!
Continue Reading

Video Visions: 32 Bigfoot Movies that Scratch that Squatchy Itch

Black background with spooky lettering that says Hunter Shea Video Visions and the Cemetery Dance logo

So, yeah, I have a bigfoot costume in my attic. And I may have donned it during a multi-author book signing at a New Jersey brewery and run amok, startling every day drinker in my path. On Halloween, I quite possibly made some small children cry as I offered them treats from my hairy hand (see the author in his glory below). For shits and giggles, wearing the squatch mask at random doesn’t seem all that strange to me, even as I sit in my belfry and write this column. 

Hunter Shea in a Bigfoot costume
Hunter “Sasquatch” Shea

I know, I have a problem. Continue Reading

Dead Trees: Bite by Richard Laymon

banner reading Dead Trees by Mark Sieber

cover of The BiteRichard Laymon is one of the most controversial authors in the horror genre. I don’t see him discussed so much anymore, but at one time his work was hotly debated.

Many called Laymon one of the greatest writers we had. Others derided him as a hack and a sexist. Me, I think it’s just as ludicrous to cite Richard Laymon as one of the best as it is to claim he was a bad writer. He knew how to pace a novel, and his plots are always complicated and surprising. Laymon spent time developing his characters before he threw them into the maelstrom.Continue Reading

How I Spend My Halloween: Stephen Graham Jones

banner reading How I Spend My Halloween

If you know anything about Cemetery Dance, you know that the arrival of October…The Spooky Season…is a very special time of year for us. To celebrate, we’ve invited some of our favorite spinners of spooky tales to share their favorite Halloween traditions and memories with us.

Today we’re joined by Stephen Graham Jones, whose novel My Heart is a Chainsaw took the horror genre by storm last year and will, in true slasher tradition, be followed by at least two sequels.
Continue Reading

Night Time Logic with Rudi Dornemann

Night Time Logic with Daniel Braum

Rudie Dornemann
Rudi Dornemann

Night Time Logic is the part or parts of a story that are felt but not consciously processed. Those that operate below the conscious surface. Those that are processed somewhere, somehow, and in some way other than… overtly and consciously. The deep-down scares. The scares that find their way to our core and unsettle us in ways we rarely see coming…

Hello and welcome. My name is Daniel Braum, I am an author of strange tales, a term used by Robert Aickman to describe his unique brand of stories. Many of Aickman’s stories were what we now may call “quiet horror.” Often it was ambiguous as to what if any supernatural elements were present and in play. Aickman’s strange tales operated with “Night Time Logic,” the kind of scares and elements that were felt but not consciously processed.  In this column, which shares a name with my New York based reading series, I explore the phenomenon of Night Time Logic and other aspects of horror fiction by diving deep into the stories from authors ranging from award winning favorites to emerging new voices. 

My previous column with Gwendolyn Kiste explored her latest book, Reluctant Immortals, a fresh take on some very well-known characters in a time and setting we haven’t seen them before: California during the Summer of Love. Today I talk with author Rudi Dornemann about his settings-based fiction and more. Dornemann’s work is filled with alternate worlds ranging from those just a little bit different than ours to those strange, horrific, and not familiar. We begin our conversation with a look into his cover story from the August 2022 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, a publication that has delivered to us many horror classics over the decades.Continue Reading

Stephen King: News from the Dead Zone #230

Stephen King News From the Dead Zone

Time for another Stephen King news update, don’t you think? Recently we saw the publication of King’s latest novel, Fairy Tale, and I have news about the next adaptation, which launches this week. In addition to those items, I’m going to talk about two associational projects, one of which involves yours truly and the other that involves someone from New Brunswick in Canada—and it’s not me!
Continue Reading

Night Time Logic with Gwendolyn Kiste

Night Time Logic with Daniel Braum

“The Summer of Love: Wild. Psychedelic.
Like a super-feminst Hammer film.”

photo of author Gwendolyn Kiste
Gwendolyn Kiste

Night Time Logic is the part or parts of a story that are felt but not consciously processed. Those that operate below the conscious surface. Those that are processed somewhere, somehow, and in some way other than… overtly and consciously. The deep-down scares. The scares that find their way to our core and unsettle us in ways we rarely see coming…

Hello and welcome. My name is Daniel Braum, I am an author of strange tales, a term coined by Robert Aickman to describe his unique brand of stories. Aickman’s stories were often what we now may call “quiet horror” and often it was ambiguous as to what if any supernatural elements were present and in play. Aickman’s strange tales operated with “Night Time Logic” — the kind of scares and elements that were felt but not consciously processed.  In this column, which shares a name with my New York based reading series, I explore the phenomenon of Night Time Logic and other notions of what makes horror and good fiction by looking at the stories of my favorite authors along with the work of new voices. 

My previous column with author Brenda Tolian explored her collection of stories relating to a setting specific supernatural phenomenon. Gwendolyn Kiste’s latest book Reluctant Immortals is also set in a very distinct place and time in addition to presenting a fresh take on some very well-known characters. Gwendolyn has been a guest of the series both in person in New York and online. You can find one of her appearances here. We begin our conversation with the character of Lucy Westenra from Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula.Continue Reading

Review: Dreams Factory by Jérôme Hamon and Suheb Zako

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cover of Dreams Factory

Dreams Factory written by Jérôme Hamon, art by Suheb Zako
Magnetic Press (September 13, 2022)
136 pages; $24.99 hardcover
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

 Following his studies at an American university and at business school, French author Jérôme Hamon began his professional life in New York as a financial analyst. Convinced that the life he wanted was elsewhere, he left the field two years later to travel around the world. Back in France, Hamon strung together a number of jobs in the movies, video games, and television. In parallel, he began to write his first comic book and graphic novel scripts. In 2008, Hamon went to Angouleme to present his first completed scripts, and it was there that he met artist Marc Van Straceele. The two would go on to collaborate on Yokozuna, a graphic novel on sumo wrestling in Japan (Kana, 2013). Following that, Hamon worked with artist Antoine Carrion on Nils, a saga halfway between Nordic mythology and the works of Miyazaki (Soleil, 2016). His newest graphic novel, in collaboration with freelance artist Suheb Zako, is Dreams Factory, a dark steampunk tale about mines, kidnapped children, and mechanical beasts.Continue Reading

Review: He Who Fights with Monsters by Francesco Artibani and Werther Dell’Edera

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cover of He Who Fights With MonstersHe Who Fights with Monsters by Francesco Artibani and Werther Dell’Edera
Ablaze (August 30, 2022)
144 pages; $24.99 hardcover
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Francesco Artibani has long worked for the Walt Disney Company Italia, where he writes many tales for Topolino, PK, and W.I.T.C.H., of which he’s been a scriptwriter and story editor for three years, and has created the science fiction series Kylion. Werther Dell’Edera is an Italian comic book artist who provided interior art for the unreleased comic Aliens: Colonial Marines – Rising Threat for Dark Horse Comics, as well as Marvel Comics, and BOOM! Studios hit Something is Killing the Children. Their newest collaboration is the WWII graphic novel He Who Fights With MonstersContinue Reading