Mary Fahl's "Winter Songs and Carols" Sets The Christmas Mood

Been a huge, huge fan of chanteuse Mary Fahls' mesmerizing vocals since first hearing her as the lead singer of October Project in their awesome 1993 debut album, and have faithfully purchased each and every one of her albums since then!

Every release of Mary's is as wonderful as could be, and this year we got a special treat as Mary released her very first Christmas themed album, the succinctly titled "Winter Songs and Carols"!


In this collection Mary has chosen some of her favorite seasonal songs, and along with some well known songs (like O Holy Night, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and Silent Night, all of which get the fantastic Mary vocal treatment) are quite a few songs that I'm being introduced to for the first time, like the moody "Wexford Carol","Winter Lady","No End" and the haunting"Walking In The Air"...

Even songs like Joni Mitchell's "Urge for Going" and the song "In the Bleak Midwinter" have bene crafter into pure Mary Fahl works of art, throw in Mary's takes on classics like "What Child Is This"(another HUGE favorite), the Charlie Brown "Christmastime Is Here" , and the awesome "Ave Maria" and you've got a STELLAR Christmas album that will be one of my top GO-TO records in Christmases to come!

Outcast Vol.7: The Darkness Grows

Going back from volume 5 and 6 before I begin this one to get me all reconnected...
EDIT: okay, just finished reading Volume Seven and HOLY HELL things are getting INTERESTING!!!!!

Oblivion Song Vol.3

Continuing on with the new Kirkman Dystopian series

Paper Girls Vol.6

Trade paperback for the Final Paper Girls arc.

The Boys Omnibus Volume One-Four

After watching out the Netflix Amazon Prime Series thought I'd check out the original source material for the Dynamite Series THE BOYS. As expected, totally different from the TV series, with Garth Ennis deploying his usual crass, violent, and mean-spirited style which made him famous in his titles like Hellblazer and Preacher. Best to take in small doses, LOL.

The Walking Dead Vol.32: Rest In Peace

Well, thanks to Big Mouth Zack of Diversity & Comics, I already knew the BIG spoiler for this story arc, but I wasn't surprised Mssrs Kirkman and Adlard decided to wrap this series up. Like the television series, that it spawned, the trials and tribulations of Rick Grimes and the gang was beginning to be repetitive: Have Peace. Meet New People. Stir things up. There is an uprising, people die, more peace, over and over.

At least they managed to end things on a nice note.

Send In Those Clowns

I think that the current iteration of IT’s villain Pennywise the Clown is forgetting a fundamental thing. Clowns don’t have to be portrayed as these demonic denizens roaming the countryside, like this pic of Bill Skarsgaard:

The reason clowns are scary? Is because they're CLOWNS. and I’m not being sarcastic when I say that the comic “Butterscotch the Clown” from Conan O’Brien’s show is absolutely more terrifying:

 Everything about him creeps me the fuck out. The white makeup, the gloves, even the faded  color of the green costume- all of it sets my alarms off!

The Bill Skaarsgard Pennywise frankly looks like a cool Horror monster. Yeah, scary if you saw it , but totally wicked and bad-ass! The Butterscotch clown, looks like he is simply up to no good. I get a million more bad vibes form him than the slick movie version!

That’s why even in the Tim Curry version, where Tim looked more like the traditional clown, they had to add things like his mouth opening with a million teeth and roaring- they just can't get past the fact that it’s the clown out there in the street with no business being there that’s freaky.

In the book, Pennywise was in the sewer which actually doesn’t make sense- f he was trying to trick Georgie into believing he was kind, wouldn’t he appear in the street? But a playful clown PULLING Georgie into the sewer with all his might?. THAT stuff is creepy as HELL!

The Secret Service

I really love the Angelina Jolie/James MacAvoy movie WANTED and was curious to read the original Mark Millar Graphic Novel that inspired it. Unlike the movie, however, it was a very hateful and mean-spirited book that I really detested, making me VERY wary about reading Millar's original comic that inspired the movie KINGSMAN.

Only when I found out that Watchmen artist dave Gibbons illustrated it did I consider picking it up, and when a cheap copy came my way, I bought it.About halfway through and so far very good!

Usagi Yojimbo Vol.33

Was told by the guy at my comic store that this was going to be the last Usagi Yojimbo for DARK HORSE comics and that Stan Sakai was moving his Usagi  series over to IDW publishing. And while Usagi has always been done in the traditional black and white style, apparently the new series will be full color! Something to look forward to. 

As for this last Dark Horse graphic novel, "The Hidden", the clerk also mentioned 'Stan went really hard inthe paint wiht the Christianity angle in thsi one". I remembered he'd done a story based on Christianity before, but this one was an entire story arc, this time instead of a crucifix, tracking down a Japanese-translated Bible.

East Of West Vol.9

Was pretty shocked when Gerg told me he heard that East of West was on its last arc and was wrapping up soon, but things have been building up for awhile in the series and I figure it's about time we get the big explosions!

Judging by the individual issues, I'm guessing there will be one more volume to this series before it ends? Looks like it's gonna be a BIG one!

PS: man, BOTh East of West AND Wicked + The Divine wrapping up at the same time! My tow BIG fave comics series. Looks like there'll only be SAGA left!

Michael Connelly: Dark Sacred Night

Matt Haig: The Humans

Claire North: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Thrilling story of a man named Harry August whom, upon his death as an old man, is discovers that he repeats his lives over and over...with his memories of each life intact!

Very intriguing ideas and crazy scenarios played over the decades of death and rebirth....

Stephen King: 11/22/63

A Time-traveling story with some interesting elements that gets bogged down the same way a lot of these things do: Someone jumps into the past or into the future but all the story is about is their boring-ass romance of "Will you tell her you love her?"...

Seriously, at times it seems like King wrote a book JUST about a guy wooing a woman in the 60's and dumped it right in the middle of the time Traveling story. ZZzzzzzzzz.....

Stephen King: Doctor Sleep

After reading King's latest book The Outsider and really digging it, I thought I'd go back and read some of his other books that I'd passed over initially, beginning with the SHINING sequel DOCTOR SLEEP.

In this book, little boy Danny from the original story is back as a grown up recovering alcoholic, who makes contact with a young girl who shares the same "shining" as he does, and their battle against those that prey upon those with the gift.

In a strange coincidence, no sooner had I finished reading this when they released a trailer for a MOVIE to be released starring Ewan McGregor!!!

John Grisham: The Whistler

"Replay" By Ken Grimwood

Man, just started reading "Replay" by Ken Grimwood and it is so good that I've barreled thru a good 1/3rd of it already!!! The story of a 40+ year old man who dies of a heart attack and wakes to find himself brought back to his life as a 19 year old in college!

With the knowledge of the future, he uses what he remembers to mold and shape his life for the (seeming) better, but will these changes bring him happiness and satisfaction? Such a gripping read to watch him as he wrestles with fate to find success, happiness and peace with himself!

"Barrier"

Always up for reading anything from Brian K Vaughan and his latest mini-series "Barrier" with artist Marcos Martin intrigued me with its unique sideways "calendar" style book, beautiful art and compelling story of barriers, both physical, social and mental, but after reading all 5 issues, I have to say for the record how I much I HATED the way it ended. Very "clever" but BRAH what a waste of time this ultimately turned into. I'll pass.

Six Wakes

In the middle of the interesting Futuristic Sci-Fi book "Six Wakes regarding a crew of six members aboard a space jumping transport ship who all wake up as reactivated clones...only to discover that they've all been murdered in grisly fashion by someone who may or may not be one of them!

Six Wakes is just one of a bunch of books recommended by booktuber EmilyFox which I've enjoyed- besides being one of the prettiest tubers out there (she also has a sister make-up tutorial blog), has tastes so similar to mine that I don't even have to think twice about picking up books she raves about!

A Horror Classic: Mad House #96!

Though Archie Comics is best known for, well, Archie comics, in the 70’s they also had an offshoot print called Red Circle Comics which focused on their Super-hero stuff (like The Fly and the Original Shield) as well as horror comics like CHILLING ADVE NTURES in SORCERY and MAD HOUSE!

Of the Mad House run, probably one of the best known issues is issue #96 which featured the famous “Demon Kiss” story written and illustrated by master Bruce Jones (most famous at the time for his work on Warren magazine) with a very alluring cover by Man-Thing creator Gray Morrow, and just today I got my copy in!!

VERY beautiful copy, and it might have been even better if the postal delivery service gave any notice of the “Do Not Bend” messages scrawled on the envelope. Unfortunately, they ignored the request and my package came fairly curved. Not too bad, just some stress lines and cracks at the staples, but still…