7/10/26
Zach Rabiroff wrote an excellent biographical sketch of Jim Shooter for Comics Journal. I personally think this has legs for a book length work, and would love to see him turn it in to such. We’ve had exhaustive biographies of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and others from the Silver Age, but we’re missing the same deep dive treatment for the Bronze Age creators and figures who — I would argue — did more to shape the medium into what it is today: folks like Steve Gerber, Jim Starlin, Marv Wolfman, Jeanette Kahn, and Jim Shooter. (I’ve long wished I had the time to sit down and do bios of Steve Gerber and my pal Keith Giffen, as well as figures from horror fiction such as my other pal Jack Ketchum, and may still once I retire soon).
Anyway, this bit hits like a truck.
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Speaking of comic books, now that THE HORROR SHOW WITH BRIAN KEENE has finished migration to this website, I’ve begun the same process with DEFENDERS DIALOGUE. Unlike the former, I will probably keep the latter still available on YouTube, since comics lend themselves to a visual component. But I haven’t decided for sure yet. You can find both podcasts here.
Mary often asks me what I’m going to do in retirement. My plan is to get my comic book collection set up and displayed just how I want it, and then just livestream old comics every night. “Hey kids — here’s what a first issue of The Avengers looks like” or “Hi everyone. Tonight I thought we’d go through this entire run of Tales From the Crypt so you can see what they looked like in their original form.” Probably less than a dozen people will actually be interested in that, but it will keep me content and less inclined to cause trouble.
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Women In Horror Year: Day 79
This Is How A Villain Is Made by Amanda Headlee
Fleeing her father's cruelty, Beatrix Beaumont arrives in Yellow Creek City with little more than a name and a will to survive. When she lands work as a caretaker in the home of a respected town leader, it seems like a stroke of luck.
But the house holds dark secrets—and Bea is no longer free.
As she's drawn deeper into a twisted world of control and illusion, Bea must confront the shadows within and around her. To escape, she'll have to decide what she's willing to endure… and who she's willing to become.
When Vortex still had a physical store, there was a mother, her son, and her daughter who would come in every Friday morning. The son bought manga and comics. The daughter bought manga and novels. And the mom bought novels. One day, the daughter picks Amanda Headlee’s then-just-released Till We Become Monsters off the shelf, because she likes the cover. I tell her that Amanda will be in store tomorrow (Saturday) doing a signing. She came in the next day, got a copy, had Amanda sign it, and the next Friday when she came in she asked if we had anything else by Amanda. And with each of Amanda’s subsequent releases, I knew that was at least one copy sold. Which brings me to This Is How A Villain Is Made, because I can attest — as a bookseller who engaged with my customers and talked books with them — this short novel absolutely had an impact on that teenage girl.
At first glance, This Is How A Villain Is Made might seem like a feminist weird western historical horror novel. And that first glance would be right, because it is very much all of those things. At its core, this is a story about the terrible things men have done to women — and not just acts of violence or assault or enslavement, but of diminishment and disempowerment. But Amanda expertly delves into these topics without a trace of heavy handedness or pulpit banging, delivering an immensely entertaining novel that will have you compulsively reading “just one more chapter”. The plot doesn’t serve the social commentary. The social commentary serves the plot. Had she been writing in the 1990s, this novel would have easily had a home at the fabled Dell/Abyss. We talked here earlier this week (in a review of Candace Nola) about authors leveling up. You can track such a moment for Amanda Headlee here. I can’t wait to read what she does next.
This Is How A Villain Is Made is available in paperback and for Kindle from Uncomfortably Dark Horror.
