Werewolves out in the World, Part X

“X” as in Jason X, yes. I did love that installment. Jason all chrome, and in space, with the same machete as ever? I can’t even imagine how to imagine that. Luckily I just got to go the movies, see it.

Anyway, this may be the longest of these screencap sessions yet. Reason being: been a crazy last few days. Anybody wanting to catch up with the nine rider that came before, here’s the clicks:

• Gunter
• Glieben
• Glauten
• Globen
• [ at which point Mutt Lange ceases to be of any help, and we have to fall back on normal/boring numbers . . . ]
• Five, as in, how many fingers Homer doesn’t have
• Six, that is, when the REAL Jason comes back to F13
• Seven, that being the number-son that’s automagically a werewolf
• Eight, the butterfly’s favorite number
• Nine, homophone AND scrambled-up letters for “nien,” which has surely led to many hilarious confusions

At which point, let’s go:

Truth? You know how, say, a person might write a story about dog-headed people in order to rid himself of the very real fear of a dog-headed human? Purely hyopthetical, here. Like, Sam Waterston-era Law & Order hypothetical. As in, not talking about anybody in this room. In the same way, I thought that if I were to write about yoga pants (which weren’t a thing in the years Mongrels is getting written) and stretch pants and tights and hose and leggings, then maybe, just maybe, it would finally dawn on me, the difference between them all, that my wife seems to know at some instinctual level, but that I cannot seem to make sense of, no matter how much I cogitate upon in. Which is to say: I still don’t know the difference. Could be it’s unlearnable by me, finally. And alas.

Thank you, Damien. I teach her stories to my grad workshops sometimes. Always an honor to get read by people you respect. Don’t know why I’m going second-person for that, either. Like, I’m trying to include us all, such that everybody’s head will be nodding and we’ll all agree? Probably something snaky like that. I’m hardly above it. All I meant to say, though? I, me, Stephen, am proud and honored to be on a writer like Damien’s shelf.

 

I would make some “That’s not a book, this is a book!”-sideways joke here. Except I’m far classier. Far, far classier. And the set-up isn’t really right either. Very cool for the yellow wolf book to have prowled all the way to Australia-land, though. That means it’s now closer to the Tasmanian wolf than I’VE EVER BEEN. Which both breaks my heart and knits it back together.

If it looks like I’m gone for a few minutes (two days) here, it’s because I’ve once more fallen into that YouTube spiral of searching up every shaky-cam video of thylacines and their bones and on and on and on . . .

Me too! So cool. Just did an mini-interview with her too, about weird fiction. For LitReactor. Also, when I say “Me too!” what I mean is I’m also composed of fifty percent Near Dark, fifty percent The Howling. However, right now, I’m actually not reading Mongrels. I AM reading Joe Lansdale’s AMAZING Paradise Sky, though. Seriously, that book. It’s making me wonder why I ever try.

 

There’s a pic on these internets somewhere of me and Amanda, from when I visited her store in the ABQ (as I’m sure nobody actually says) (except loosers) (I spell it like that because that’s how a real loser would spell it). In it, we’re just being us, I suppose. Cool spread of books to be in, too. Wish I had to image-fu to stack covers like that. It would quickly become the main thing I did, I suspect.

 

 

Wow. Wow wow wow. Not at all sure what could possibly be even close to cooler than this. Also? Annette’s a student from way back. Well, way back like a couple-three years. Also: babies are so little, right? Mongrels is nearly as big as their clothes. Amazing.

 

 

“What’s on my mind,” as facebook asks-because-it-cares: how lucky I am that STEVE RASNIC TEM may get to Mongrels one of these fine days. So cool.

 

 

Dude. MY latest acquisition, I wish? That I had a pearl-snap shirt made with the fabric that’s background for this snapshot. I love love LOVE those skulls, and need them all. Thank you.

 

 

Ha, excellent. Maybe I should take a stab at something vampirey. I mean, I HAVE written one vampire novel, right on the heels of my first werewolf novel—both unpublished, both 1999, I think—but I quickly put it in an ever deeper drawer. Not because it was terrible. Actually? It was pretty okay, I thought, and still kind of do. Reason I haven’t trucked it out, though, it’s that then 30 Days of Night happened, and stole the exact same ending trick I’d used. Well, I say “stole,” but only in the sense of it got the idea to market first, and, I admit, probably way better than I would have, finally. But still, right?

 

 

Too cool. Though, unless you’re a mouse, and have mouse-eyes (not saying anything about how you’re navigating this with a MOUSE), no way can you actually read that. So I’ll provide the link.

 

 

Dude, that pink background? What’s it remind me of, happily? You guessed it: the first Secret Wars. This is pretty much exactly the shade the colorist uses every time the characters are having a big shocking moment. Their background, it’s mood-wallpaper, pretty much. Which is pretty cool, finally. Like a spotlight, kind of. It’s a cartooning/coloring trick that’s kind of fallen away lately. One I miss. Also, since that “Yesssss” is an image, and won’t translate, let me suck is out of the Parseltongue here: it means, roughly, that Highlander was wrong, finally—there can actually be MORE than one. In this case, more than one werewolf novel. 

 

 

Scott’s parenthetical there is the parenthetical for all my life, too. Concerning werewolves. 

I’m not completely sure that makes, like, PERFECT sense. But I know that it does make perfect sense, too.

 

 

Proud to be found in a stack at Housing Works. Specifically, proud to be in that stack of books right there.

 

 

Casewise y’all don’t know, this John Mantooth dude, he can write some lines of the old fiction. Cool to be in his shopping bag. Thanks, man.

 

 

Hey, I was in Milwaukee not superlong ago. I kept flashing back (can’t believe I actually just said that) (can’t believe MORE that I’m not now deleting it) to Alice Cooper in Wayne’s World, talking about where the name comes from. Anyway, maybe this is a good place to say:  Buehlman’s Suicide Motor Club went live and bitey a week ago. Get thee to a bookstorerry, and convert. Dude brings it every time. Also, while you may know him from everywhere else, and should, you’ll also know him from the back cover of a certain yellow book pictured a time or eighty on this page . . .

 

 

Man, exactly: last time (spill: only time) I was up there, I ended up with some many gimme books that they just had to dropship them to me, as no way were they fitting in my bag. And? I may need The Vagrant. That looks like Link, if Link were Drizzt Do’urden and Drizzt were in a Rothfuss novel. 

 

 

Livia Llewellyn. When her name rolls up on Wheel of Fortune, don’t buy an L, as it’ll break your bank. Too? Livia writes some of the most elegant, icky stuff out there. Seriously. You know that Ween song where Gene or whoever (like I know who’s who) says “help me scrape the mucus off my brain?” The reason he’s saying that, it’s that he was just reading some Livia Llewellyn.

 

And, lest I start thinking the yellow book is one-size-fits all:

 

 

Though? I’ll take both those, definitely.

 

 

All the cool kids are wearing the cool clothes, yes? Also, I’m very interested in Ross’s phone case there. Looks almost Jack Kirby-ish, yeah? I dig. And: this is a werewolf post, yes, but any of y’all who haven’t read Ross’s Zombie, then consider this your reminder: read Ross’s Zombie. Dude’s got a high zombie IQ, but, more than that, the book’s got some real emotional punch. 

And, since who knows how many, if any, of these I end up doing—okay, I’ll keep doing them forever, especially if more werewolf masks and/or pets happen—let’s get nostalgic for a bit here:

 

That’s the UK Mongrels. Note the differences in the cover? No “novel,” no boy. The dimensions are shifted, too. And the book’s got black cloth, not red.

And, more than nostalgia, well into weepy territory, here’s the alert for the reminder I’d set for May 9th, as if I’d just be plugging along, could have somehow forget this was about to happen: