Poe Films and Comics

Whew! Haven't made a post on here for a while!

Oh, by the by, my Masque of the Red Death review is coming along well - although I wish I had reviewed Pit and the Pendulum first, because that movie is AWESOME! Like awesome awesome. And after having watched the Holy Trinity in the Poe movies (Red Death, Pit and the Pendulum, and House of Usher) and, though all are good, I am apologetic to say that none of them resonate like Pit even though Red Death is my favorite Poe story. Price is delivers an extremely powerful performance in all the films:

• House of Usher: RODERICK USHER, a dreary, miserable brother. This is the guy who believes he is doing the right thing when he buries his sister alive. It is a very interesting role, and there are two sides of the coin - you have to look at the character as a good guy, a bad guy, or somewhere in between.
• The Pit and the Pendulum: DON NICHOLAS MEDINA, a constantly worried man who is being manipulated by some people you're not gonna be told about. He also has a field day exploring mental extremes - terror, insanity, niceness, scarred. Price is really having fun here in a deliriously crazy role.
• The Masque of the Red Death: PRINCE PROSPERO, an elitist and Satanic prince. Ohhhhhhhh dear God. This is Price's most crazy, malevolent, villainous, evil, sadistic, I'm-running-out-of-synonyms role EVER. He is so so so so so so so so so so so evil and sadistic. Add the plus that he worships Satan. 

I would have to say that his performances in all these films are among his greatest, but in either Red Death or Pit are his greatest. On the subject of the entire films in general, all are fantastic, but Pit is something I will be watching for a LOOOOONG time (along with the other films, but to a lesser extent), and I'm only eleven, so boo-yah! Hey 8th Graders? You don't know Poe? A 6th Grader does (and he's known him since 3rd Grade)!

Red Death Publishing is going...pretty well! We already have several titles in our comics -

• The Haunted Palace: The pride of my collection. Named for the Edgar Allan Poe poem, this anthology series has horror stories of all sorts - classics, urban legends, allegedly "true" stories, and brand new tales by yours truly. The inaugural story is a comics version of The Fall of the House of Usher that was originally going to appear in our (sadly) cancelled Edgar Allan Poe comic book Tales of the Grotesque. We even have a motto!

Classic Tales of Horror!

Urban Legends...are they true?

True Stories of the Unusual!

Ectoplasmic Folklore of Terror!

Macabre New Scary Stories!

(or, as I like to put it, CUT'EM! Y'know, like Cut - 'Em? Cut - Them? Geddit? Ah, forget it!)

• Madness: Freakishly grotesque anthology series. This is a sideshow - in each story, the tale of a human-but-something-is-wrong/inhuman/monstrous-but-human creature is told. There is a recurring subset series - Freak of Nature, which I won from Brendan in a game of chess.
• The Amazing Gas Man: One heck of a superhero story! Brendan created this character FOR Red Death Comics (which, naturally, is a darker world than his ChuckleStudio6 Comix). The story has a recurring theme of disease - particularly in the villains. The parents of our buyers will probably be the most content with this, the only serious comic that remains fairly light-hearted in our annals.
• Legends of the Forgotten Kingdom: This actually started out as a book allegedly written by my magnum opus character, Damien Masque, which is a villain/frenemy in Brendan's magnum opus series/character, Cheeseman (who will be in ChuckleStudio6). This is the only comic in our titles in which an ongoing saga is told - each comic is a chapter (while the others were either anthologies or a more chronicle-ly kind of thing). It details the adventures of some frost elves...

THERE IS ONE POSSIBLE.

• Parody Magazine: This is a pop culture anthology thing like Mad. This is the lightest of all our titles, but I am not sure if I would like to release it as it makes jokes about stars like Miley Cyrus, 1D, and so on, which is a very controversial topic...The first one stars CeeLo Green's cat...It's a work in progress.

Oh, and I would like to say that my first published comic, Brian O'Connell's Schnickle Hospital, came out last week and was a best-seller! I have already sold the series to Brendan's ChuckleStudio6 Comix because I feel that more light-hearted comics belong THERE. Note that the title is Brian O'Connell's Schnickle Hospital - clearly stipulated in our agreement is the fact that full credit for founding the series is to be given to ME and Red Death Productions, not to ChuckleStudio6.

But now to talk of Bowling Ball.

The musical based on Bowling Ball is coming along well - in fact it may be one of the best things I have ever written - but not so much with the fifth edition. We finally made a blog for the series to which we both contribute Production is slow moving...The Superior Hero and Phantom of Snig Part II are moving slowly.