I much enjoyed my day at the Portsmouth Comic Book Show, which gave me a chance to sit between Christopher Golden and Stephen Bissette and gab about comics, cryptozoology, and obscure, nasty horror movies. The convention was hosted by the good folks at Jetpack Comics; my thanks to them for having me. I signed a lot of copies of 20th Century Ghosts and Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft for Jetpack, so if you wanted an autographed copy, and haven’t been able to make it to one of my East Coast appearances, I’d point you in their direction. If you’re paying postage, they’re glad to ship.

While I was at the Portsmouth Comic Show, I also ran into a painter named Alan Bull, who I had met earlier at my Jabberwocky reading in Newburyport, on Halloween. At the Jabberwocky reading, Alan handed me a homemade Halloween card, which I’ve been meaning to scan and post. And here it is:

The sad looking child with the smiley-face eyes would be Buttonboy from “Best New Horror.”

Alan has a website here where you can check out his paintings, which feature a lot of striking New England atmospherics.

Finally, there’s still time to read AMERICAN WIDOW and AMERICAN WIFE for the Words + Pictures book club… but not much. Sometime here in the next week or two I’ll be posting my thoughts on them, and we can maybe pick a night to crowd on the message board and chat (I’ll probably also jump on to the boards at LibraryThing for some WIDOW-WIFE talk).

The other day I had a chance to watch a fifteen-minute movie made out of my story “Abraham’s Boys,” the first short by a film student named Dorothy Street. I don’t know what I was expecting, but certainly not what I got: a remarkably polished short with the production values and narrative focus of an Amazing Stories or Tales from the Darkside episode, built around fine performances from the two young actors cast as the sons of Abraham Van Helsing. It’s no secret I’m a big fan of Amanda Boyle’s short adaptation of “Pop Art”; what a pleasure to get lucky twice. By which I mean, I’ve been lucky to have two talented people want to make little movies out of my stories. If the films are good, that’s not luck, but a result of some film-makers hustling like mad to do a lot with very little in the way of money and time.

There’s some chance “Abraham’s Boys” will play as a part of the Shocklines Film series (where “Pop Art” is also likely to make an appearance in the near future), so if you’re in NYC that’s one place to look for it. Dorothy is just beginning to apply to film festivals, and when I know where it’ll be playing, I’ll post it here on the website.

Just a quick rundown of a few upcoming appearances.

On Saturday the 15th, the Maine culture show, ‘207,’ will be airing the second part of a two-part interview I did with them a few weeks back. In the first bit, which aired a week or two ago, I managed not to embarrass myself too badly, so you have my permission to watch. If you live in Maine, New Hampshire, or Vermont, you’ll find ‘207′ on channel 6. If you live elsewhere… you won’t find it.

On the 16th, I’ll be at the Portsmouth Comic Book Show, between 10 to 3, along with Steven Bissette (illustrator of the genre redefining Alan Moore Swamp Thing run), David Petersen (Mouse Guard), and my pal Christopher Golden (Baltimore). And here’s a link to a Seacoast Online article with more information about the event.

And on December 7th, you’ll be able to find me at the Barnes & Noble in Newington, NH, along with a pile of other writers. Signed books make a great Christmas present and cost less than games for the xBox. Just sayin’.

At one point the site was getting almost 500 crap comments a day, and I just kind of threw my hands up and stopped dealing with it. Commenters with names like biggbutthookahswhowanthornyyoungstudds ruled the threads. But a couple weeks back I had a quality SPAM-blocker installed, and the flood has been reduced to a very manageable trickle. The incoming SPAM has slowed down so much, I’ve even been able to start going back, and grooming out all the bullshit comments in the old posts.

The downside to this, though, is that the blocker has also been stopping a certain number of legitimate comments from getting through, and I only just realized I have to check now and then to see if there’s anything hung up in moderation. This evening I cleared a bunch of frozen comments left over the last week (apologies, benthewriter, avid reader, and others), and I will try to do a better job of quickly freeing genuine comments that get blocked in the future.

Turns out there were two other big winners last Tuesday.

Billy Corgan has spent a long time wandering in the wilderness since the glory days of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, which for my money was one of the two or three best albums of the 1990s. Last tuesday, though, he released his new Pumpkins track, “G.L.O.W.,” and it’s his best and most badass single since “Bullet with Butterfly Wings.”

Same day, Buckcherry dropped their new disc. I haven’t downloaded the whole thing yet, but the first three cuts are just as big and trashy and addictive as you could want. If you’re in the mood for some loud, rancid noises, you could do a lot worse.

No excuses.

I expect early November to be a low activity time here on the blog; the next two weeks are shaping up busy. This also means - with my apologies - that we’re going to have to hold off until late November on the first meeting of the Words + Pictures book club, to discuss AMERICAN WIFE & AMERICAN WIDOW. I still have a lot of WIFE to read and no time at all to work up my mini-essay on it. Of course, this is good news if you wanted in on the action, but hadn’t started the books, and was feeling like maybe it was too late. Nope.

I did have one bit of news this morning I wanted to pass on. Apparently “Pop Art” earned the audience award for best narrative short film at the Austin Film Festival. Naturally I’m just tied in a big happy knot over the news. And look - so is Arthur Roth:

I’ll be in Jabberwocky Books, in Newburyport, tomorrow night, at 7. I’m torn between reading “The Devil on the Staircase,” the new story, which seems to be a fun one to read live, and “Last Breath,” which over the years has kind of become my traditional Halloween night story. If you’re going to be there, you’re welcome to cast your vote for which you’d rather hear in the comments thread. If you’re not going to be there… well, I guess you could still cast a vote, but why?

While I was up in Portland the other day, I did a round of New England press, and for the most part managed to keep from planting my foot on top of my tongue. I talked with Sandra Harris for her Sunday morning show “Perspectives,” which airs on several stations (WHOM, WBLM, Q97.9, and WCYY). I believe you can listen a stream here, among other places. Sorry, I don’t have the exact time of broadcast, but I’ll try and find out.

I was also interviewed for ‘207,’ a show that often features writers with a strong tie to Maine. And that, I believe, plays tonight, on WCSH6. Information here. At some point, they may put the interview up on the internet; if that happens, I’ll probably link to it, unless I watch it and find it completely embarrassing, in which case you can hunt it down yourself.

This is all over the ‘net, and deservedly so… not just the best and funniest campaign commercial of the year, but maybe the best and funniest viral video of the year, period. Remember the “Whassup” guys who were selling Budweiser back when George Bush first took office? For those who don’t, here’s the original commercial that made ‘em famous and had everyone screaming “whassup!” for about 12 months:

Well, the original cast got back together to amp up the vote for Barack Obama. Even if you’re pro-McCain, I think it’s possible to see the cleverness and hilarity of this bit. Dig on it:

Apologies for doin’ the political thang again, but this was too funny to resist.

(discovered by way of Buzzfeed and Huffington)