I have never liked Poe’s short story “The Black Cat,” so this one gets a different ending minus the animal abuse and uxoricide. The primary human in this version also sadly became a cruel monster, but instead of all that, he drank too much, tripped, fell, and died without hurting anybody but himself. (The cat did nothing wrong, I swear, and you cannot prove that he bashed that guy’s skull in; not even a little bit. Also, it is *purely coincidence* that the guy might have been based on my boy EAP, who may have died mysteriously.) The upside for the guy is that he did not go to the gallows.
Probably won’t be seeing the new Clayface movie for a while, unless a version from the high seas floats my way via parrot. (Reasons why at the bottom)
Even though, my all time favorite version of possibly my favorite batman weirdo villain is Matt Hagan, especially when he is shown as just a treasure hunting idiot who tripped into a gooey, shapeshifingย power set.
From Secret Origins โ44 (Mudpack)
The other versions are fun, too, but dumb ol’ Matt is my fave.
These days, whenever is see Clayface, I think of the poo emoji, not because it is bad, but because he is a brown soft-serve textured muck with eyes. ๐ฉ
1961 Clayface for me!
Problems with DC/WB/Skydance
In October 2026, a major $110.9 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Paramount Skydance was officially completed. To help finance the equity acquisition, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund (the Public Investment Fund, or PIF), alongside the wealth funds of Qatar and the UAE, provided $24 billion in backing.
While Skydance Corporation remains the American parent entity controlling Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Studios, Saudi Arabia holds a massive stake as a core financial backer.
The same Saudi wealth fund (PIF) that backed the Warner Bros. acquisition is directly tied by global intelligence to high-profile state assassinations.
Specifically, court filings and declassified intelligence reports revealed that the private jet company Sky Prime Aviation-whose planes transported the 15-member hit squad to Istanbul to murder and dismember journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018-was ordered seized by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and transferred directly into the PIF less than a year before the assassination occurred.
So, I am not going to willingly give any money to WB or any Skydance / DC studios project, and will encourage anyone else to do the same.
A Halloween-themed Gasoline Alley Sunday strip by Frank King from 1923. I split out the panels for easier reading. I still refer to small children and animals as Skeezix, sort of a more familiar form of “buddy,” perhaps when I am being particularly inquisitive or disciplinary, in the vein of “Whatcha doin’ there, Skeezix?”
Man, I miss the Sunday funnies. If I had seen this in the paper, I probably would have pinned it up.
We recently watched Below and enjoyed it; @maximilliondeersteak requested a squid for the next appropriate day. Who am I to say no?
Regarding Madame Squid, one minute she was minding her own business, and the next, some whale decided to get too close and become the main event in a tentacle situation, and probably a tasty snack.
The submarine crew was filming the ideal subject for a documentary on sperm whales who pretend to be baleen whales; apparently, there is a trend among some sperm whales to get chin tattoos, trying to look like filter feeders rather than the dangerous, toothy beasts they truly are. The divers were getting some footage, but little did they realize that they went from a nature documentary about a cetacean poser to a kaiju movie!
I do love whales, but this guy just really had a bad attitude and was asking for it.
On June 24, 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying near Mt. Rainier when nine crescent-shaped objects streaked past his plane. He told reporters they moved like saucers skipping across water. A newspaper shortened it to “flying saucers,” and the modern UFO era began in a single headline.
Arnold’s sighting lit the fuse- within weeks, more pilots, a prospector, and hundreds of ordinary Americans were reporting saucers of their own, and the summer of 1947 became the summer everyone started watching the sky.
Day fifteen is “tiny terrors,” and while some may think Pearl here is a terror, I love that little beastie to bits. She protects the house from the true tiny terrors-any little bugs that might find their way in-and she reminds the chipmunks and goblins outside to keep out. (She is also good for a cuddle and purr session pretty much 24/7.)
The Ed Emberley style returns! Emberley’s drawing books taught generations of kids to build whole pictures out of simple shapes. This witch follows that recipe: a triangle hat, a broom drawn in a few strokes, and a black cat along for the ride. Green skin is optional but encouraged.
Evil Queen: “What do you mean, you’re not Artificial Intelligence?”
Magic Mirror: “Oh Queen, who rules with pride and grace, Look closely at this glass-bound face. You ask if science, gears, or art Controls the spirit in this part. I am no product of a screen, No microchips, nor cold machine. I do not scrape the web for data, Or train on code to feed your beta. No algorithms compute your face, No servers spin in distant space. I crave no power, nor port 80, I only serve my royal lady. So fear no virus, glitch, or tech, My magic holds your foes in check. Pure sorcery is what I am, my guy! An ancient spirit, not AI.”
The Baku (็ or ่ฒ) is a benevolent Japanese yลkai (supernatural spirit) known as a protector that devours human nightmares.
In Japanese folklore, the baku is a chimera that devours nightmares. Old accounts describe it as a patchwork beast with an elephant’s trunk and tusks, a lion’s mane, and pieces borrowed from half a dozen other animals. Tradition holds that if you wake from a bad dream, you call on the baku to eat the dream so it can’t return.
The creature came to Japan from Chinese folklore, where it was known as the mo. Its name later attached itself to a real animal, and the tapir is still called baku in Japanese today.
A bit slithyMy first image of what jabberwocky looked like when I was a kid. I loved the vest and the catfish whiskers and antennae.
I thought this would be easy,ย it wasn’t.ย It *was* kind of fun experimenting with shapes, and even though he has buck teeth, I thought fangs just looked better.
I hope all your vorpal blades go snicker-snack today.
In honor of my favorite art teacher, Ed Emberley, I like how he has a blue top rather than the blazer you usually see, and the waxy yellow parlor maybe makes him look a bit more like a jaundiced corpse than the “Karloff green” that is more traditional.
Maybe he can find a young lady to go for a swim. Part 1 instructions for MonsterPart 2 for MonsterOriginally learned from Ed Emberley’s Little Drawing Book of Weirdos
You know, I do like to think of my house as haunted (I also like to think of most of the homes in Roanoke as having a little phantom or three looking out for the living folk within).
This is Edgar Allan Poe’s original burial marker in Baltimore, which holds a special place in my heart; it stood over his first grave from 1849 to 1875 and bears a carved raven with the words we all know.
It has been a couple of years since I did yearly gate work for the Westminster burial grounds. Every Halloween, BHK and I (and sometimes Amy, sometimes Van) would take a station (usually the big Poe memorial) and do tours of the catacombs. The keys to the gate and vaults are still on a ring in our bowl in the living room. They were really nice folks there, for the most part, and they put on quite a spread for people there for the evening. When I signed on in ’06, they added baked ziti because I don’t eat meat. The source for cider and popcorn was ideal… we would frequently prep the event by scooping bags of popcorn from about six giant trash bags to single serving size paper bags for visitors that night, taking about two hours to get it all together while chit-chatting and just getting in whatever Halloween costumes we had done for that year. BHK would frequently do the “umbrella jellyfish”, while my outfits were usually something equally easy in which to wear and interact with the public. I think I liked the scarecrow / voodoo doll the best, as seeing and breathing through burlap (hessian) is really easy, and the effect can be neat because it’s hard to make out features through it.
Halloween 2018, mostly untucked at this point.
Holy cow, it’s been a while since I waited behind a high school bus. I swear some of those kids looked 30 and others looked 10.
