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Post by Michael Connolly on Sept 14, 2017 13:37:25 GMT
Further to my letter about it in Ghosts & Scholars M.R. James Newsletter 32, all ten pages of Kelley Jones's version of "The Ash-Tree" in Eerie 6 are now online. The link is here: readcomiconline.to/Comic/EerieI have attached p.10, just to spoil the end of it.
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Post by helrunar on Sept 14, 2017 14:43:00 GMT
Mmmm... DELICIOUS.
Happy Little Witch Spiders enjoying a gay Yuletide feast!
Thank you Michael,
H.
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Post by johnnymains on Sept 14, 2017 18:23:52 GMT
Thanks for the listing, Kev. Just to be picky, Peter Bell's article is called "The Stele", not "The Steele"! That's nothing like as bad as my mistake in the issue, where I say that the still living Jack Adrian is "late". Seen and fixed. Even as I typing I made a mental note. 'Thats S-t-e-l-e not S-T-E-E-L-E as in Pete. Old habits die hard. Am always tripping up on this, but 'Jack Adrian' is Christopher Chowder LOWDER is 'James Montague,' author of Worms (?), a 'when invertebrates attack' classic set on the fens which may or may not include the odd Jamesian flourish (seem to remember it did, but .... my mind. Enough said). Back to reading. Dem, Christopher Wood of the Confessions series was the author of Worms
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Post by dem bones on Sept 14, 2017 19:34:59 GMT
Told you that one always trips me up. Worst of it is, I remember being suitably astonished when Justin first revealed the truth. Getting old. It ain't recommended, kids.
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Post by johnnymains on Sept 15, 2017 7:51:30 GMT
May be familiar with everyone else, but stumbled across this for the first time last night - a nice pic by Trevor Sutton (1973)
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Post by dem bones on Sept 16, 2017 18:23:37 GMT
So I read the eerie, suspenseful and ultimately touching Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling in one sitting. By the third page was getting so into it that I set aside the notebook, hence trademark mangled synopsis (will try go easy on the spoilers) and any further comment will follow post-rematch. Until then ...
I thought the setting (a crowded pub during the sombre Christmas of 1916) was spot on. The main narrative, centred around the most magnificent and extremely haunted ornamental clock is a beauty, while Shorehouse senior's account of Valkenburg's macabre miracle is a micro EC horror short in its own right. Also love the teasing references to Dr. Lawrence's uncanny adventures concerning the diabolist's quill, the horror of Wraithvale Priory and the never-to-be-pondered curse of the haunted face masks. Am glad Ro ran the story in a stand-alone booklet as that way we get the very welcome bonus material.
Dan, you have excelled yourself.
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Post by ropardoe on Sept 17, 2017 9:54:06 GMT
So I read the eerie, suspenseful and ultimately touching Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling in one sitting. By the third page was getting so into it that I set aside the notebook, hence trademark mangled synopsis (will try go easy on the spoilers) and any further comment will follow post-rematch. Until then ... I thought the setting (a crowded pub during the sombre Christmas of 1916) was spot on. The main narrative, centred around the most magnificent and extremely haunted ornamental clock is a beauty, while Shorehouse senior's account of Valkenburg's macabre miracle is a micro EC horror short in its own right. Also love the teasing references to Dr. Lawrence's uncanny adventures concerning the diabolist's quill, the horror of Wraithvale Priory and the never-to-be-pondered curse of the haunted face masks. Am glad Ro ran the story in a stand-alone booklet as that way we get the very welcome bonus material. Dan, you have excelled yourself. It is good, isn't it? I wasn't going to let it go, even though it was too long to include in G&S itself. Automata are fascinating things.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Sept 17, 2017 15:37:55 GMT
So I read the eerie, suspenseful and ultimately touching Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling in one sitting. By the third page was getting so into it that I set aside the notebook, hence trademark mangled synopsis (will try go easy on the spoilers) and any further comment will follow post-rematch. Until then ... I thought the setting (a crowded pub during the sombre Christmas of 1916) was spot on. The main narrative, centred around the most magnificent and extremely haunted ornamental clock is a beauty, while Shorehouse senior's account of Valkenburg's macabre miracle is a micro EC horror short in its own right. Also love the teasing references to Dr. Lawrence's uncanny adventures concerning the diabolist's quill, the horror of Wraithvale Priory and the never-to-be-pondered curse of the haunted face masks. Am glad Ro ran the story in a stand-alone booklet as that way we get the very welcome bonus material. Dan, you have excelled yourself. Thank you for those generous words. I'm delighted you enjoyed the story, and the bonus material, and I'm grateful that Ro insisted I do a little editing on the considerably longer draft (itself a cut down version of a sprawling earlier draft) to get it into shape so she could run it. Ghosts and Scholars was previously home to my absolute favourite terrifying automata story, The Penny Drops by Steve Duffy and Ian Rodwell, so I feel I'm in exalted company. And at least two of those teasingly referenced Lawrence episodes have been pondered upon, in 'And Still Those Screams Resound...' and in The Unmasking, the former of which first appeared in The Fourth Black Book of Horror, while both are in They That Dwell In Dark Places.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Sept 17, 2017 17:31:40 GMT
Getting old. It ain't recommended, kids. Dead right. But it beats the alternative...
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Post by dem bones on Sept 17, 2017 17:49:15 GMT
Getting old. It ain't recommended, kids. Dead right. But it beats the alternative... Oh, I don't know.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Sept 17, 2017 19:03:06 GMT
Dead right. But it beats the alternative... Oh, I don't know. Well I think so. Of course I can't be totally sure. After all, I've never had a day's death in my life...
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Post by Michael Connolly on Sept 18, 2017 12:42:34 GMT
So I read the eerie, suspenseful and ultimately touching Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling in one sitting. By the third page was getting so into it that I set aside the notebook, hence trademark mangled synopsis (will try go easy on the spoilers) and any further comment will follow post-rematch. Until then ... I thought the setting (a crowded pub during the sombre Christmas of 1916) was spot on. The main narrative, centred around the most magnificent and extremely haunted ornamental clock is a beauty, while Shorehouse senior's account of Valkenburg's macabre miracle is a micro EC horror short in its own right. Also love the teasing references to Dr. Lawrence's uncanny adventures concerning the diabolist's quill, the horror of Wraithvale Priory and the never-to-be-pondered curse of the haunted face masks. Am glad Ro ran the story in a stand-alone booklet as that way we get the very welcome bonus material. Dan, you have excelled yourself. Thank you for those generous words. I'm delighted you enjoyed the story, and the bonus material, and I'm grateful that Ro insisted I do a little editing on the considerably longer draft (itself a cut down version of a sprawling earlier draft) to get it into shape so she could run it. Ghosts and Scholars was previously home to my absolute favourite terrifying automata story, The Penny Drops by Steve Duffy and Ian Rodwell, so I feel I'm in exalted company. And at least two of those teasingly referenced Lawrence episodes have been pondered upon, in 'And Still Those Screams Resound...' and in The Unmasking, the former of which first appeared in The Fourth Black Book of Horror, while both are in They That Dwell In Dark Places. I never thought I'd read the horror story of an horologist featuring Heinrich the Homunculus.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 19, 2017 2:47:36 GMT
Think the fairest way to handle this synopsis is to take the story only so far - half way, as it turns out. Have on intention of ruining it for those yet to enjoy the pleasure.
Dan McGachey - Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling: On learning the terrible news that his brother has been killed in battle, Reginald Hinchcliffe pays a visit to --------- college to seek out the late Jonathan's tutor, Dr. Lawrence, of whom the young man spoke fondly. Reginald learned from Jonathan that the master has a deep interest in matters folklore and occult - could he be the man to help him in his current plight? Lawrence agrees to accompany Reginald to a local pub, where a group of soldiers are belting out the gloriously macabre jingle, The Bells of Hell go Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling. Given Hinchcliffe's current dilemma, it is disconcertingly apt.
Until recently, Reginald Hinchcliffe was employed by Rupert Fosdyke, the renowned business magnate, as procurer for and curator of his private museum at Everfayre Manor. Reginald's work brought him into contact with Madame Lousalle, an impoverished refugee who fled to England with several valuable painting and objects d'art rather than have them fall into the hands of the Germans. Prominent amongst this treasure trove, The Awakening Clock, the most fantastic time piece Hinchcliffe has ever gazed upon.
All that is lacking from this undoubted masterpiece of the clockmaker's art is the winding key. Fosdyke is not without useful contacts, and hires Eric Shorehouse, son of the most skilled horologist he ever knew, to replicate the missing item. Eric takes a wax impression of the key - it is shaped as a pentacle.
Eric has a bad feeling about this commission. He remembers a story his father told him concerning Friedrich Valkenburg, the genius clockmaker and reputed necromancer, who briefly revived his dead son as a mechanical homunculus. Valkenburg had invited the whole town to witness the miracle. Horrified at what they witnessed, the mob razed his workshop to the ground. Friedrich fled the country, after which history lost all track of him. Could he have lived on to create the magnificent apparatus before them? Can it be that, once wound, The Awakening Clock will resurrect the dead? Too simplistic by far to tag Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling as MRJ via E.T.A. Hoffman via Mary Shelley via the horrors of WWI but that should give you some idea of the flavour. Jamesian Gothic. Some anthologist is going to strike lucky.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Sept 22, 2017 13:27:42 GMT
I was pleased to spot this brief but pleasant review of the Newsletter and its accompaniment on the Supernatural Tales blog; suptales.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/ghosts-scholars-bumper-bundlette.htmlEven more pleased as it reminded me that I've yet to sample Supernatural Tales, so some back issues, featuring a few favourite names from the G&S roster, have been ordered. (Also, Dem's review above has been gratefully noted and has gone straight to my head. In such ways are monsters born... )
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Sept 24, 2017 16:42:47 GMT
Well, although it's way outside my usual budget for such things, Peter Bell's G&S Newsletter review of Patrick J. Murphy's Medieval Studies & The Ghosts Of M. R. James has knocked me off the fence about buying it, and my copy is now in transit. As is Pfaff's Montague Rhodes James as I figured I'd be as well to complete the biographical collection, so they can join James's own Eton & Kings, Cox's M.R. James: An Informal Portrait, and Lubbocks' A Memoir of Montague Rhodes James in A Pleasing Terror (not forgetting the numerous biographical articles in G&S, of course) on one of the Jamesian shelves in my bookcases.
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