Schlock Magazine https://www.schlockmagazine.net The Best Online Fiction Short Stories on Schlock Magazine Thu, 03 Oct 2019 12:43:44 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.schlockmagazine.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/shlockmagazine2-150x148.png Schlock Magazine https://www.schlockmagazine.net 32 32 Submissions https://www.schlockmagazine.net/submissions/ Thu, 03 Oct 2019 09:59:48 +0000 https://www.schlockmagazine.net/?p=405 These are all guidelines. Don’t worry if you don’t follow them all religiously. If something is good enough and we like it, we will let you know, even if it’s written on toilet paper under suspicious circumstances. Fiction We’re interested in every genre and style, however Schlock is particularly partial to work that eschews traditional

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These are all guidelines. Don’t worry if you don’t follow them all religiously. If something is good enough and we like it, we will let you know, even if it’s written on toilet paper under suspicious circumstances.

Fiction

We’re interested in every genre and style, however Schlock is particularly partial to work that eschews traditional storytelling. Aside from strong works of narrative fiction, we’re open to striking memoir fragments, gonzo journalism, experimental poetry – any number of offerings that will delight, surprise and challenge our readers.

Word Count

This is up to you. The longer it is, the better you should make it.

Poetry

Poetry will be considered. There are no limits on length.

Reprints

We accept reprints. If you submit a reprint, let us know, and mention when and where it was previously published.

Artwork

Schlock Magazine is open to all types of art submissions, photos, collages, comics, original paintings, drawings, etc. Any art that can grace our covers, spice up our stories, or as standalone stories. Color or B&W is fine.

Send your samples as scanned images at high resolution (300dpi). You can send multiple pages.

Payment

Schlock Magazine is a non-paying market. We’re an open venue for aspiring writers, artists, and other creative people.

Rights

If we publish your piece you will be giving us First Electronic Publishing Rights. Keep in mind that most magazines might not publish work that has already been published on the web. (Each magazine is different so make sure to check their guidelines). This means that if we publish your work, it can only be marketed as a reprint, which limits the number of markets that will accept it, and reduces the pay rate it can receive. It is up to you, the author, to decide if publishing your work on our web site, giving up your First Publishing Rights for no payment other than exposure, is really what you want to do.

How to submit

E-mail all submissions to schlocksubs <at> gmail <dot> com. We do not accept submissions via snail mail. The subject header should include the word SUBMISSION and the title of your story/poem/text. It makes it easier for us to keep track of things that way.

Language

We welcome submissions from anywhere in the world but all stories must be in English.

Files

Submissions should be attached as RTF, DOC, or DOCX. Please do not paste them in the body of your email.

Format

All submissions should be easy to read. We are human, we like our eyes. Don’t use strange or small fonts. Thanks.

Final Important Note

Please include your contact details, including email. We will contact you via email about your submission.

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The Sea Issue! September 2010 https://www.schlockmagazine.net/the-sea-issue-september-2010/ Thu, 03 Oct 2019 09:09:54 +0000 https://www.schlockmagazine.net/?p=361 Perfectly mirroring infinity on Earth, the sea is a perfect choice for Schlock Magazine’s latest theme – endless possibility tinged with colour, mystery and danger. Our brave contributors have peered into the abyss and they’ve each come back with a very different story to tell. We’re excited to present a wide variety of genres and

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Perfectly mirroring infinity on Earth, the sea is a perfect choice for Schlock Magazine’s latest theme – endless possibility tinged with colour, mystery and danger. Our brave contributors have peered into the abyss and they’ve each come back with a very different story to tell. We’re excited to present a wide variety of genres and forms, with our regular dose of short stories complemented by poetry and non-fiction. Our writers’ subjects are just as far-reaching, and include stories of swashbuckling pirates and sub-aqueous terrors alongside nostalgic meditations and intriguing undersea commentaries.

We’re pleased to announce the addition of Thom Cuschieri to our cadre of illustrators – not only has he created this issue’s cover, Thom has also illustrated several pieces and contributed his own comic. Enjoy.

Browse the issue online or download the PDF here!

CONTENTS

Nautilus by N. L. A. Brock
Travelogues of Doom: Two Pirates and a Parrot by Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone
In the Belly of the Whale by Gerry Hayes
Overboard by Christina Lovin (originally appeared in Ab Ovo)
The Exile of Sneaky Jack by Teodor Reljic
The Island by Bettina Borg Cardona
The Song of Stones and Sea by Joshua Reynolds
Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea by Noel Tanti
Time and Tide by Thomas Cuschieri
Oceanic by Daniel Vella
Farewell, Santiago by Kim Keith
Travelogues of Doom: The Marie-Celeste – An Eyewitness Account by Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone
Hotel of the Damned, Gazing on the Beach by Lee Lackey and Tom Ribas
The Treacherous Sea by Marie-Claire Pellegrini
How to Survive the Gozo Channel by Peter Farrugia
Life in the Deeps by Marco Attard

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The Malta Issue! June 2010 https://www.schlockmagazine.net/the-malta-issue-june-2010/ Thu, 03 Oct 2019 09:09:28 +0000 https://www.schlockmagazine.net/?p=359 Welcome to Schlock. We are happy to be back with our second Quarterly Edition. This special Issue is dedicated to MALTA – island home of Schlock’s key contributors in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea. This Edition includes our very first selection of submissions in the Maltese language. The issue’s theme may be local but

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Welcome to Schlock. We are happy to be back with our second Quarterly Edition. This special Issue is dedicated to MALTA – island home of Schlock’s key contributors in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea. This Edition includes our very first selection of submissions in the Maltese language.

The issue’s theme may be local but its appeal is international – many of our writers have transformed the island, and archipelago, into an otherworldly fantasy realm in its own right. And who can blame them? Malta has had an interesting time of it lately, with censorship a big topic on the local scene. The Schlock editorial board suggests you keep your wits about you when reading some of these tales… in Malta, words have a strange way of sneaking up on you.

Enter these imaginary realities created around one of Europe’s most intriguing cultures – enjoy the writing, consider the images and draw your own conclusions. We look forward to more of your comments.

Special thanks to Zvezdan Reljic and Denise Scicluna for contributing to the visuals. Cover art by Lefty LeMur.

You can browse the issue online or you can download the PDF version here!

CONTENTS

Unexpected Visitors by Teodor Reljic
Mutant Limestone by Marco Attard
Mrs. Buhagiar, Queen of Hearts by Bettina Borg Cardona
The Depths of Love by Kelinu Vella
Malta Ħanina by Rachel Agius
Eurovision Weekend by Ġużè Stagno
Malta’s Stand-Up Comedians by Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone
Is-Sinjur by Lara Schembri
Ir-Riħa tal-Ewwel Xita by Clive Piscopo
Il-Milied it-Tajjeb by Danjeli Schembri

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Swords and Sorcery issue – Oct 2009 https://www.schlockmagazine.net/swords-and-sorcery-issue-oct-2009/ Thu, 03 Oct 2019 09:00:13 +0000 https://www.schlockmagazine.net/?p=339 Welcome to a place where men are men, women are women (unless they’re uber-evil sorceresses or warrior princesses, that is) – for this spellbinding issue of Schlock! Join us in an exotic world of adventure teeming with barbarians, dinosaurs, monsters and bloody battles – as we embrace one of the pulpiest pleasures of all…. SWORDS.

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Welcome to a place where men are men, women are women (unless they’re uber-evil sorceresses or warrior princesses, that is) – for this spellbinding issue of Schlock! Join us in an exotic world of adventure teeming with barbarians, dinosaurs, monsters and bloody battles – as we embrace one of the pulpiest pleasures of all….

SWORDS. AND. SORCERY.

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The Song Issue! March 2010 https://www.schlockmagazine.net/2019/10/03/the-song-issue-march-2010/ Thu, 03 Oct 2019 08:26:00 +0000 https://www.schlockmagazine.net/?p=295 It is with great pleasure and equally sizable pride that Schlock welcomes you to this, our very first quarterly edition. This is a very exciting development for us, because it signals many firsts: we are featuring submissions by ‘external’ writers (and we got lucky with some brilliant writers the first time around), and we are

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It is with great pleasure and equally sizable pride that Schlock welcomes you to this, our very first quarterly edition. This is a very exciting development for us, because it signals many firsts: we are featuring submissions by ‘external’ writers (and we got lucky with some brilliant writers the first time around), and we are bringing the whole issue together into a printer-friendly .pdf format, apart from it being available on the ever-dependable website.

The theme we have chosen to kick off this new format is ‘Song’. Why have we opted to start with this? Well, as a genre fiction publication, we’ve always prided ourselves with being able to offer stuff that brushes shoulders with the most ghettoised of genres, as well as that hard-to-define thing some tendentiously refer to as ‘the mainstream’. Schlock aims to be inclusive of all genres and styles, and we don’t want our themes to be restrictive to the author. So we thought it would be refreshing to have an issue dedicated to and inspired by music.

We don’t think that one needs to know much about music production in order to experience it as a springboard for images and ideas. What turns up is often irrelevant to the song or the music, but it’s triggered by them in some strange, primitive, emotional way. Sometimes it’s the whole mood, a lyric sung slightly off-key, or even something about the title before the track starts up in your ears on the bus home. Once some vague picture or word starts pacing back and forth across your forehead like a badly-drawn cartoon, it’s time to bring some other elements in and strain like hell to suck it out without too much damage to the original. It is these impressions, and others, that we hope this issue conveys.

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Submission Guidelines https://www.schlockmagazine.net/submission-guidelines/ Wed, 02 Oct 2019 07:40:06 +0000 https://www.schlockmagazine.net/?p=178 These are all guidelines. Don’t worry if you don’t follow them all religiously. If something is good enough and we like it, we will let you know, even if it’s written on toilet paper under suspicious circumstances. FICTION We accept all fiction, regardless of subject matter. If we think it is good, we will publish

The post Submission Guidelines first appeared on Schlock Magazine.

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These are all guidelines. Don’t worry if you don’t follow them all religiously. If something is good enough and we like it, we will let you know, even if it’s written on toilet paper under suspicious circumstances.

FICTION
We accept all fiction, regardless of subject matter. If we think it is good, we will publish it. We are aiming to publish an issue every two months (that’s bi-monthly), starting each February.

Word Count
This is up to you. The longer it is, the better you should make it.

POETRY
Poetry will be considered. There are no limits on length.

REPRINTS
We accept reprints. If you submit a reprint, let us know, and mention when and where it was previously published.

ARTWORK
Schlock Magazine is open to all types of art submissions, photos, collages, comics, original paintings, drawings, etc. Any art that can grace our covers, spice up our stories, or as standalone stories. Color or B&W is fine.

Send your samples as scanned images at high resolution (300dpi) and no larger than A4 size. (You can send multiple pages).

PAYMENT
Schlock Magazine is a non-paying market. We’re an open venue for aspiring writers, artists, and other creative people.

RIGHTS
If we publish your piece you will be giving us First Electronic Publishing Rights. Keep in mind that most magazines might not publish work that has already been published on the web. (Each magazine is different so make sure to check their guidelines). This means that if we publish your work, it can only be marketed as a reprint, which limits the number of markets that will accept it, and reduces the pay rate it can receive. It is up to you, the author, to decide if publishing your work on our web site, giving up your First Publishing Rights for no payment other than exposure, is really what you want to do.

How to submit

Email
E-mail all submissions to schlocksubs@gmail.com. We do not accept submissions via snail mail. The subject header should include the word SUBMISSION. It makes it easier for us to keep track of things that way.

Language
We welcome submissions from anywhere in the world but all stories must be in English.

Files
Submissions should be attached as RTF or DOC.

Format
All submissions should be easy to read. We are human, we like our eyes. Don’t use strange or small fonts. Thanks.

Please include your contact details, including email. We will contact you via email about your submission, so if you don’t include one then we can’t get back to you.

The post Submission Guidelines first appeared on Schlock Magazine.

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Little Bastard https://www.schlockmagazine.net/2017/07/03/little-bastard/ Mon, 03 Jul 2017 14:14:05 +0000 https://www.schlockmagazine.net/?p=167 by Patrick Winters Cassie Turpin turned her head all about, fingers in her mouth and spreading her lips open, trying to find the right angle under her bathroom light. After several sighs of frustration and dubious rotations of her head, she finally spotted what she was looking for in the mirror. Leaning closer towards her

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by Patrick Winters

Cassie Turpin turned her head all about, fingers in her mouth and spreading her lips open, trying to find the right angle under her bathroom light. After several sighs of frustration and dubious rotations of her head, she finally spotted what she was looking for in the mirror. Leaning closer towards her reflection, she peered into her mouth and saw that the tooth that had been giving her so much pain and trouble lately was splotched with black.

Cassie gave a woeful groan and immediately regretted it — the vibration sent a sharp jab through the tooth and set it to throbbing once more. Cassie looked at her bottom right molar for a few seconds more, taking in its chipped surface and the dark stain across its top. She pulled back from the sink and stared at her reflected self, seeing her own loathsome look of irritation and worry looking her over, thinking: Shit . . . shit . . . fuck.

She flicked off the bathroom light as she strode back into her bedroom. The little clack the switch made bore through her ear and straight down to her tooth and she flinched with the sensation. Then she trudged out into the hall, down the stairs, and into the kitchen. The house was still and silent, and thankfully so — the pain of her tooth was now radiating up into her inner ear, making it sensitive to every little sound. It had gotten so bad in the last hour that she was even dreading the slight creak of a loose floorboard underfoot; she was making sure to step gingerly as she set to making an impromptu icepack. Her mounting irritation mounted all the more when she opened her freezer to see a nearly-depleted bag of ice wadded up in the door’s shelf. She’d motored through the bag quickly this past week, just about every chip and cube of it going to the icepacks she’d been nursing her tooth with. The packs and their chill had given temporary relief to its spasms and pangs, but hadn’t done much to rid her of the discomfort for good. Combining the packs with two little used-up tubes of Orajel and an unknown number of pain pills also hadn’t ceased the tooth’s endless ache. She was running out of remedies and didn’t know what else to do to help herself. So, she made her little pack and sat down at her kitchen table to think things through. She nestled her elbow on the table’s top and eased the pack onto her cheek, holding it there while she considered her options and thought her upset thoughts.

She knew what she ought to do, but what she couldn’t bear the thought of. Ever since her toothy troubles started, the dreaded “D-word” had crossed her mind now and again: dentist. But she hated the idea of going to one. Between having to schedule an appointment around work, her loathsome views towards all things insurance, and the general horror stories surrounding the experience, Cassie wanted to save going to the dentist’s as a last resort. But before she decided for certain what was best to do, she figured she should look into her troubles herself. A-Googling she would go.

Cassie rose up from the table, pulling the chilling icepack from her numbed face; if only her molar were as blissfully numb. She turned about and trudged across the hall and into the living room. Her laptop sat on the edge of her curio table. She gingerly sat down onto her couch, curling her legs up under her and bringing her laptop to bear. Keeping her pack to her cheek, a one-handed Google search of her symptoms and the blackness on her tooth gave Cassie her own diagnosis of the situation. It wasn’t promising.

According to a couple of different sites, she very well had an abscessed tooth. An infected molar. The more she read up on them, the more she hated the sound of it, let alone the possibility of having one. The name alone sounded biblical. Demonic, even. “Our name is Abscess, for we are a pain in the ass.” Seeing all the nasty and gnarly images of these things didn’t help matters either, nor the fact that all of the sites recommended keeping such a tooth heated rather than cooled — the cold could only worsen matters. After reading that, Cassie had dropped her soggy icepack with a self-reproaching grumble. Stupid, she thought. So much for her top-notch tooth care.

After a few more clicks, websites, and paragraph skims, Cassie had had enough and shut her computer off. She gave it a disgusted toss onto the opposite end of the couch. As it bounced hard onto the cushion, it gave the couch a shake and even that slight tremor was enough to send another jab into her jaw. She winced and fought the urge to scream out her frustration.

Dentist’s chairs and drill-bits loomed in Cassie’s mind, and though she felt flushed at doing so, she admitted to herself that she’d have to make an appointment. She wanted to get it over with as soon as possible, but it couldn’t be tomorrow; if she tried to get off work with that late of notice, Katherine Garner — Cassie’s boss — would never let her hear the end of it. The day after tomorrow would be the soonest it could be arranged with Katherine’s begrudging acceptance; Cassie just hoped that she could get an appointment that soon. She’d check for nearby offices during lunch tomorrow and see about calling and arranging an appointment. As Cassie’s thoughts turned to work, she sighed again. Trying to get anything done the way she felt would be a tremendous hurdle and pain . . .

Cassie stopped that line of thought and stood up. She was hungry, but didn’t dare to eat; she wanted to watch some TV, but worried over how the noise would hurt her ears and thus her tooth; she had some housework to see to, but who wants to do chores feeling like stomped crap? Though it was still early, she decided it may be best to try and call it a night, to get some rest and see if that brought some ease to her sufferings. Cassie left the living room, tossed her icepack in the sink, and headed upstairs, taking them slowly and moving extra cautiously after a single step creaked, sending a needle of discomfort into her ear. With that same caution, she inched to the bedroom and lay down, leaving the sheets down; she felt her forehead starting to burn with a slight fever and didn’t mind the coolness of the room to counter it. She lay on her side, resting her non-throbbing cheek on her Queen pillow.

A dull yellow glow shone through the curtains, keeping the bedroom in just enough light to make falling asleep all the more difficult. Cassie tried to clear her mind of all worries and ignore the whoomp-whoomp-whoomp of her throbbing tooth. A long half-hour later, she finally managed to fall asleep.

***

No one ever accused a life in Customer Service of being a glorious occupation; people that worked in it could regale all those who didn’t about all the flack and brunt of rages they took, and all the general shit they dealt with on a daily basis. Those were burdens that Cassie had grown to bear with as a representative for Bolt Toys, and she normally wasn’t one to complain about her work. Her toothy troubles, though, had worn her too thin today.

Cassie couldn’t recall a time when she’d been happier to leave work. Today’s eight hours nearly did her in; between all the rising and chattering voices in the call center, the clacking of keyboards, and having to suffer her boss’ patented “pissy-face” each time she happened to trudge by Cassie’s desk, there had been no shortage of irritation. After Cassie had managed to find a nearby dentist’s office on the web, she’d worked up the nerve to ask Katherine for time off. After boldly entering the dragon-lady’s den and pleading her case, Katherine had hesitantly granted Cassie a sick day for tomorrow. Nevertheless, it didn’t prevent Katherine from showing off her great irritation at the impromptu request; so, the reviled “pissy-face” had been brought out and brandished Cassie’s way the rest of the long, tiresome day.

As Cassie drove back home, she thought she knew a bit of what it felt to be road-kill. Now, stepping out of a hot shower meant to relax her, she knew what it must feel like to be wet road-kill; the warm waters and vapors hadn’t helped at all, nor had the pain relievers she’d taken the moment she made it home.

She saw to putting on her pajamas (very gingerly slipping her shirt over her head, trying not to rock the molar-boat), and then took another gander at her tooth. She stepped up to her mirror, pulled back her lips, and tried to ignore how ignorant her reflection looked. She found the right angle and stared woefully at her molar. Was it just her sour mood, or had that disgusting blackness spread further across the tooth? She stupidly considered touching it with her tongue — and then she stupidly did just that. She let out a cry as her jaw erupted in pain, and she nearly bit down on her fingers. Tears welled in her eyes. She pulled away from the mirror and groaned as her tooth throbbed on. It felt like it was growing in her mouth, pushing against her gums and threatening to burst out like those little creeps from the Alien movies. And the pain was killing her.

Wiping her eyes, Cassie took only a little comfort in thinking: After tomorrow, you’ll be gone, you little bastard. Because no matter how much she dreaded the idea of a root canal or extraction or pulling or whatever would need to be done, she was just ready to be free of the sucker. Can’t fucking wait to get rid of you. As though in retaliation, her tooth sent a jabbing jolt through the side of her face. Cassie squeezed her eyes shut to fight off the feeling and went back into her bedroom.

Her stomach grumbled, but she still didn’t feel up to eating. This was the second day that she’d gone without anything save water; it no doubt contributed to her poor mood and weak limbs, but she still didn’t want to risk it. And TV was out of the question; she relished the stillness of her house, and she wanted to keep things quiet. So, with nothing much else to do — or at least that she felt up to doing — Cassie lay down. Scenario after scenario began running through her thoughts as she wondered what her appointment would have in store for her. She contemplated it until the sun finally fell away outside her window and she began to doze off.

Before she slipped into sleep, she sent a vindictive thought her tooth’s way: Tomorrow, you little sucker. Tomorrow . . . 

***

Pain. White-hot, stunning pain. That’s what Cassie awoke to.

She gave a cry and shot up in bed out of sheer reaction, and she immediately started gagging and hacking as she swallowed down a warm, wet, coppery glob swishing in her mouth. Her room was dark with the nighttime. Her heart was pounding a mile a minute. She was sleeked in sweat. Her jaw was singing with excruciating agony, and as she opened and closed it, struggling to clear her throat, it radiated with a further stabbing sensation. She clutched at her soggy, sweat-covered sheets as she cleared her throat, swallowing down more of the warm fluid in her mouth; she finally realized that it was her own blood. With teary eyes, she leaned over to the drawer beside her bed and switched on the lamp, a stream of blood spilling out at the corner of her aching mouth. The sudden light was more than she expected, and she squeezed her eyes shut as another wallop of pain hit her jaw. She reached a hand up to caress her cheek, sitting back down in bed and setting the tip of her tongue to her aching molar, hoping to probe it gently. She gave it a quick touch or two before she realized her tongue was touching a bare, bloodied gum. 

Her tooth was gone.

Cassie opened her eyes, keeping her tongue to her still-pulsating gums. Though her pain persevered, her tooth was indeed gone; as she swallowed down more of her bloodied spit, she wondered if she’d swallowed the tooth in her sleep — if it had somehow . . . come loose, and then down it went. Or maybe she spat it out when she woke up and didn’t realize it. But how in the hell could it just fall out like that . . . ?

Cassie turned her head about, looking at her sheets to see if the blackened, infected molar was anywhere in sight. But there wasn’t a single pinpoint of black on her lightly-colored, floral-print sheets. She looked back to her pillows, at the head of the bed — and saw something peculiar. The pillow she’d been resting her head on just before waking had a thick, coaster-sized pool of blood soaking through the rose-stenciled fabric, no doubt staining the pillow right beneath it. Seeing that that much blood had somehow managed to flow from her gaping gum was sickening to Cassie, and quite odd; but odder still was the thin line of red leading from the circular stain and down the pillow, a streak that crept right over the pillow’s edge. Craning her head to look at the pillow, Cassie saw that the streak didn’t end there; the line of drying blood extended across her bottom sheet, a full foot away from the pillow and leading right over the edge of the bed. Like a line of slime left by a slow-crawling slug — only with Cassie’s blood, in the slime’s stead.

Confused, and feeling more of her blood welling up in her mouth, Cassie tossed off her sheets and made to get out of bed and head to her bathroom to rinse. She’d slipped her legs over the bed, her feet touching floor, when she heard a sound. It was quiet, but rising some — a scritch-scratch sound of something crunching and grinding. She looked to the floor, and that’s when she saw it.

A black mass lay plopped on the hardwood, a pile of something as big as a Great Dane’s droppings and disgustingly similar in shape. What was worse, it was moving. In the light of her lamp, Cassie saw that the stuff was pulsating like a heart’s beat and wiggling to and fro like a turtle trying to right itself. And the scritch-scratch noise was coming from it, and it became louder as the pile began to form into something else. As it kept rocking about, five stubby bits began to stretch out from it, and the pile began to rise up like a worm sticking its head out of the dirt. It then stood on two of its nubs — its legs — and bared its others — its arms — up over the final nub — its head. In a matter of seconds, it looked like a hunchbacked, black gingerbread man. And through her stunned confusion and disgust, Cassie realized that the blackness looked rather familiar to her; it looked like the gunk that had been on her tooth.

As the thing grew tiny little fingers and slowly grew in height, now standing about a foot tall, it turned around to face Cassie. Imbedded in its chest, around the relative spot where a person’s heart would be, was a bump of white jutting out from the rest of its body — Cassie’s molar. Its little face gazed up to Cassie, who sat still on the edge of her bed. Its eyes weren’t so much eyes as they were little indentations in its small head, and its mouth cracked open in a jagged, tiny maw. 

The thing crouched, as in defense, and took a step forward. Then it screamed at her, letting out a pig-like squeal of a war-cry. And then it came running at Cassie.

Cassie finally moved, giving a short scream and jumping off the bed, trying to get out of the thing’s path. But it was quick. It leapt up with another squeal and grabbed hold of her bare right leg, its fingers digging into her calf. Its small black body felt wet against her skin as it hugged tightly to her leg, letting out wild, little huffs of ragged breath. Cassie started doing what looked like a terrified tap-dance as she tried to shake the crazy thing off of her, but it held fast, its fingers piercing into her skin and drawing beads of blood. As she screamed again, it reared back its head and brought its tiny jaws clamping into her leg, making ravenous grunts as it bit away at her shin. Cassie’s flailing went up a notch and she spun about, kicking her right leg out with a determined cry. Her shin and the strange creature smacked up against the frame of her bed with a hard smack. Cassie’s leg erupted in pain, from the bites, the scratches, and the kick, and the thing finally let go, falling to the floor with a pained huff. 

Groaning, feeling her head spinning from shock and disbelief, Cassie turned and started to make her way out of the bedroom and into the hall. She wobbled on her injured leg, though, and her escape was much slower than she yearned for, practically hopping away as she dragged her hurt leg behind her. She’d only made it to the door when she heard the creature give a wet snarl behind her and then felt its hands clawing away at her left heel. Though small, its fingers were like blades, and they cut fast, hard, and deep into her Achilles. With a holler of dismay and pain, she fell forward out into the hall.

She landed hard on her stomach, knocking the wind out of her. The pain of her jaw was now contending with the pain the rest of her body was suffering through. Still, her fear and instinctive urge to flee trumped her discomforts, and she started crawling away down the hall. Her wounded ankle flopped behind her, and she could feel it leaking blood out onto the floorboards. She let out ragged, strained breaths as she belly-crawled away, not sure of where she was going or what she would do to defend herself from this impossible little thing that was attacking her — just knowing that she had to get away. She’d just reached the stairs leading down to the first floor when she heard another screeching battle-cry from behind her, and then the noise was directly in her ear; the thing had launched itself into her back, and it was now clawing at her arms and her back and her neck. She tried to smack it away, but as she pushed herself up to bat it off, she misjudged her own strength and her positioning on the landing. With a jolt of surprise, she sent both herself and the thing tumbling over and down the stairway.

She screamed and the creature screeched as they both fell head over heels, rolling and somersaulting down the dozen or so steps. Cassie felt her shoulder smash into the edge of a step as her legs went over her, and she caught sight of the creature letting go of her shirt as it went flying; her eyes squeezed shut as she tumbled the rest of the way down. She landed on her back with a smack at the foot of the stairs, her legs draped over the last few steps. She groaned and tears started to fall as she just laid there a moment; then she lifted her arms and arched her back, trying once more to get away. 

The creature hopped back into view, giving a cackle as it landed on her chest like a pirate boarding a besieged vessel. Its limbs continued to crack and crunch as it grew larger, now an extra inch or two taller than before. It grabbed hold of her right forearm and sunk its teeth into her arm. Cassie gave a choked cry and brought her arm swinging down, slamming the creature into the floor. It let her go, and before it could get back up and keep up the attack, she swatted it away a few feet down the hall.

Cassie rolled back onto her stomach and started crawling, just barely able get her knees up from the pains of her fall. She panted as she started towards the kitchen, the nearest room in the house that could maybe have a weapon or anything at all to fight off this maddening little bastard.  She heard the thing’s feet scraping against the hardwood floor behind her and urged her arms to carry her on faster. She slid into the kitchen and its cool tiles, making her way to the nearest counter and its drawers full of odds and ends. In one of them, there was a hammer. If only she could get to it . . .

The black tooth-creature came at her again, popping up beside her face and raking its claws against her cheek and arm, trying to get its head in between her own and her shoulders to sink its jagged teeth into her neck. Cassie gave an angry cry, grabbed hold of one of its legs, and lifted it up. It squealed and struck her hand, fighting for freedom. Cassie heaved it across the room and it landed a few feet away, its rough body screeching against the tile. Afforded this window, Cassie mustered up the rest of her strength and pulled herself up to the counter. She sat herself up, leaned against the bottom of the counter, and reached blindly up to the drawer, keeping her eyes on the creature. It was getting up slowly, shaking its little head in a daze. She floundered for the drawer’s handle as it turned to her with a sneer. Right as it started to charge across the floor, hopping along, she pulled open the drawer, pulling it right off its rollers, sending it and its contents on the floor. She looked down to the mess and found the hammer. She grabbed it and whirled back to face the creature.

Right as it was about to jump up into her lap for another attack, she brought the hammer down on it. It squealed in pain as it fell to its stomach and started kicking like a baby in a tantrum. Cassie wasted no time; she kept on bringing the hammer down, smashing it again and again into the little bastard’s body, some of her wild shots striking the tiled floor instead of the creature. The smacking of the hammer mixed with the pained shrieks of the creature as bits and chips of its black body burst into the air with every strike. One of its arms flicked across the room as it broke off, and of its legs followed quickly after that. Even after the hammerhead pummeled the things head into oblivion, ending its screams and its thrashing, Cassie kept bringing her weapon down onto it. She didn’t stop until the last of its little torso, along with her molar stuck in its chest, exploded with one final hit. 

Panting, and her mind and body still lost to a frenzy, Cassie let the hammer slip out of her hands; it landed in her trembling lap. She swallowed down more bloody spittle as she shook and twitched from her pains and her prevailing fear. Her mind grasped for understanding of what the hell just happened and came up with zilch for logical explanations. She took her hand — the one that ached from how hard she’d gripped the hammer — and ran it through her hair, trying to bring sense to something senseless. She stared at the scattered bits of the tooth-creature and she started to cry again.

Then, through the many discomforts and sensations that swept over her, Cassie felt something that made her blood run cold. Her upper left canine started to throb with a familiar ache — one just like what had started giving her molar troubles a week ago. Subtle, but clearly there. She could have sworn the tooth twitched in her gum, a little tick that set it to clacking against its enamel compatriots. Then her lower right incisor started doing the same. Cassie moaned in trepidation and saw the vicious attack from the strange creature in her mind’s eye all over again. She thought of how her last week of hellish pain had been caused by her molar and that — that thing. How it had nearly killed her.

Cassie looked down at the hammer in her lap. Then to the remains of the little creature. Then, she saw something among the strewn items from the drawer. She stared at it nervously, an idea forming in her head that seemed so terribly crazy. But was it any crazier than what had just occurred? Any more wild than a little demon-thing being born from her tooth and trying to kill her, for God’s sake?

After a quick minute of debate, and as her teeth continued to adopt their aches, she decided it may not be so crazy after all. 

***

Cassie’s next door neighbor, Mrs. Carlyle — an octogenarian and insomniac — had been awake at the time the screaming and ruckus started up from the next house over. At first, she thought that the hollering was coming from a crazed crowd member on the rerun of Match Game that was on her television. When she finally realized it wasn’t, she became worried and called the police to inform them of the late-night disturbance.

When two officers arrived on the scene some ten minutes later, they’d rang the doorbell and called out repeatedly for someone inside to answer; after nobody did, they kicked open the door with guns drawn and flashlights on and out before them. They stepped into the house with caution and started searching for signs of trouble, one of the officers giving a quick look into the kitchen before calling the other one to his side. They shined their flashlights onto Cassie, who was still sitting on the floor with her back to the counter. At her side were the miscellaneous items of her drawer, spread out among the smashed pieces of black that the officers mistook for rocks of some sort. On the floor around her outstretched legs were dents and holes in the tiles, with specks and chips of something white scattered around them. A hammer and a pair of pliers sat in her lap. The officers were stunned to see that, along with the cuts and bite marks on her legs and arms, the front of her shirt was covered in a spattering of red, and her chin was absolutely coated with it, as well. 

But what shocked them most of all was when Cassie turned her eyes up to look at them, and she gave them a wide, bloody, and completely toothless grin — right before she started to laugh and cry all at once, her mind nearly as gone as her teeth.

Patrick Winters is a recent graduate of Illinois College in Jacksonville, IL, where he earned a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. He has been published in the likes of Sanitarium Magazine, The Sirens Call, Trysts of Fate, and other such titles. A full list of his previous publications may be found at his author’s website.

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Spring 2017 Issue https://www.schlockmagazine.net/2017/04/10/spring-2017-issue/ Mon, 10 Apr 2017 08:51:32 +0000 https://www.schlockmagazine.net/?p=321 Cover art by Erika Zammit Dear readers, The long-awaited return of the new, reinvigorated Schlocktopus is finally upon us — and what better way to welcome it than with a fresh Spring edition, incorporating notions of love and death — while living up to the universal maxim, “needs more dragons and shit though”. Put together

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Cover art by Erika Zammit

Dear readers,

The long-awaited return of the new, reinvigorated Schlocktopus is finally upon us — and what better way to welcome it than with a fresh Spring edition, incorporating notions of love and death — while living up to the universal maxim, “needs more dragons and shit though”.

Put together by a photograph of the Gullfoss waterfall, this issue aims to be short and sweet, ushering in a new era for Schlock under a new team. We’re excited to announce that the new Schlock will see the return of downloadable e-book versions of upcoming issues, as well as open up for submissions for essays and other forms non-fiction.

We hope this diverse issue, including stories by Mehi Loveski and Walter G. Esselman, a set of photographs by Fabrice B. Poussin, and a darker group of poems by James G. Piatt, inspires you as much as it did us. By an odd twist of luck, we were also fortunate enough to get a hold of this issue’s stunning cover, snapped by Erika Zammit as part of a series shot in dreamy Iceland.

 

CONTENTS:

Martha, My Dear by Mehi Loveski

Happily Lost by Fabrice B. Poussin

Fire Breathing Dragons Make the Best Space Heaters by Walter G. Esselman

Five poems by James G. Piatt

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POP CULTURE DESTRUCTION: MARCH, MARCH TOWARDS THE DESTRUCTION OF ALL THAT’S FAIR https://www.schlockmagazine.net/2017/04/07/pop-culture-destruction-march-march-towards-the-destruction-of-all-thats-fair/ Fri, 07 Apr 2017 10:56:47 +0000 https://www.schlockmagazine.net/?p=473 The month known as March was surprisingly busy for popular culture, what with films and videogames and comics vying for my increasingly limited attention. Limited because, as I shuffle headlong towards the grave, my attention span’s only becoming smaller. Think of me as a goldfish, all bored after 7 seconds. Hell this sentence has me

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The month known as March was surprisingly busy for popular culture, what with films and videogames and comics vying for my increasingly limited attention. Limited because, as I shuffle headlong towards the grave, my attention span’s only becoming smaller. Think of me as a goldfish, all bored after 7 seconds. Hell this sentence has me bored alrea

DESTRUCTION DIGEST

 

Let’s start with the bad: the Netflix Iron Fist show is shit. I managed to watch four episodes of it, and it was four too many. Finn Jones is terrible, the fight choreography is terrible, the writing is terrible, even the title sequence is terrible. Don’t bother.

In good title sequences, the American Gods series is to start on late April but its opening has leaked and its breed of maximalism looks kind of amazing.

 

The first episode of the third season of Rick and Morty dropped (via frankly confusing livestream) and now I’m in want of McNuggets with Szechuan sauce.

You know what makes me happy? That Takeshi Koike, one of my favourite anime directors, is working on Lupin, one of my favourite, well, things. March saw the release of his latest work in the franchise – the excellently named GOEMON ISHIKAWA’S SPRAY OF BLOOD. It’s technically part of the Woman Named Fujiko Mine series (as was the previous Koike-directed special, DAISUKE JIGEN’S GRAVESTONE), but this is all about Goemon and how he became Lupin’s buddy. Also dudes get chopped up. It is awesome.

 

As I admitted last month, I got Nintendo’s latest console, the Switch. It’s actually a really nice piece of hardware – there’s an element of Nintendo playfulness throughout its design, as one can slot it in and out of its dock, pull out its controllers, slot them back into a controller grip, hold them around for 2-player action… it’s all fun. The best thing about it is brings to life the promise of gaming that’s both on TV and on the go, with the same experience throughout. I actually tend to mostly play with the in handheld mode, since it feels really nice in an oversized PlayStation Vita kind of way.

 

Of course, the main draw for the Switch is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is no doubt one of the best games Nintendo has made in, oh, the last decade or so, which makes it one of the best games in the last decade or so. It’s truly a (wait for it) breathtaking achievement, with Nintendo taking on open world gaming with such confidence it’s surprising to think this is actually its first title in the genre. Here’s a very basic example of what I mean – mountains. In most other games, mountains are obstacles one is meant to traverse around, with climbing strictly verboten. Not in BoTW, as the player is encouraged to climb on said mountain. Link is almost Spider-Man here, and if he has enough of stamina he can climb up the tallest mountain range Hyrule has to offer, before gently gliding back down. Simply put, it’s amazing.

 

However, while BoTW is the superior game of March 2017, the title of most interesting, if not outright important, game of the month goes to Nier: Automata. Technically it is a sequel to Nier, a weird and violent 2010 action RPG about just how weird and violent videogames are, and it has similar commentary on videogames as a medium… in the first playthrough. A second playthrough takes things even further, and one has to play the thing no less than five times to “get” it fully. The fact that it’s all wrapped around a pretty solid Platinum-developed character action framework (not to mention a gorgeous, bleakly apocalyptic aesthetic) boosts its appeal, but ultimately it’s director Yoko Taro that brings both smarts and heart in the initially straightforward tale of 2B and 9S, a pair of androids hunting down machines in the far flung future.

 

Until a handful of weeks back I had no idea who fine artist turned manga-ka Eldo Yoshimizu is. The situation was rectified thanks to Twitter (justifying the existence of the otherwise pointless social networks), and now I’m the proud owner of the first volume of Yoshimizu’s first work, Ryuko. It’s a yakuza epic all about badass ladies destroying bad dudes, done in a retro manga aesthetic that’s something special. So special, in fact, that I got it in French, a language I can only read very little of. But it was worth it. Ryuko’s great and I can’t wait for the second volume, coming 2018.

Pallbearer released an album this month! It’s called Heartless! The band has moved towards a more prog direction! That is a good thing!

MOVIES

The past few weeks were pretty fruitful for a specific kind of movie – so much so it took me to the cinema not once, not twice but three times in the name of B-grade pulp nonsense. And it was mostly great! I love this shit!

JOHN WICK 2

 

A definite entry in the inevitable Best of 2017 list, John Wick 2 does like The Raid 2 in expanding the universe first seen at in the original. The sequel gleans further details of its curious underworld of gangsters and hitmen, with plenty of mythological references as the titular John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is regularly likened to Hercules – a comparison further hammered down by the appearance of Antonio Canova’s massive sculpture, Hercules and Lichas1. The action also moves out of the original’s New York as John Wick heads to Rome, a city that also houses any number of amenities required by the discerning hitman, such as a Continental Hotel, equipment vendors and tailors of suits both tactical and stylish. My favourite detail is the appearance of the underworld’s operations centre. Found beneath the Vatican, it is staffed by women of all ages adorned with clan tattoos and clad in 50s pinup outfits working on typewriters and what appear to be Commodore 64 computers. However, at no point does anyone offer any exposition on, say, the history of the underworld or why gold coins make its currency. It’s simply the way this world works, and in any case this is an action film, and the action is what comes first.

Admittedly the action does take time to ramp up – a bone-crunching intros with John Wick destroying an army of Russian mobster in order to get his car back is followed by a good chunk of running time telling how he is brought back to the assassination game by sleazy mafioso Santino (Riccardo Scamarcio). The first Roman action sequence also disappoints slightly, since it is almost videogame-y in its protagonist hunting down mooks in dark tunnels while searching for hidden weapons caches&2. Thankfully, following that the movie kicks into high gear, and John Wick returns to New York with violent aplomb, aside from a brief interlude to meet Laurence Fishburne’s King of Beggars). By the time the finale and its tremendous showdown in an art gallery turned hall of mirrors arrives one can safely declare John Wick 2 as the action film to watch this year, and the sequel can’t come soon enough.

LOGAN

 

The sombre coda to the X-Men films – at least those starring Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart – Logan is equal parts Unforgiven and Lone Wolf Cub. An old Logan and an even older Professor Xavier play surrogate fathers to Laura, aka X-23 (Dafne Keen), a young mutant bearing the full Wolverine power set (healing factor, sharp claws, unerring instinct for violence), and the little family of sorts sets off sorts on a road trip through a dismal near future America broken into fiefdoms owned by the rich and powerful3. On the chase throughout are the Reavers, mechanically enhanced mercenaries4 hunting for Laura, who’s actually an escapee from one of those mad science facilities found in at least 75% of all X-Men stories, in any form or medium. The road to a seemingly mythic “Eden” is long and hard, and plenty of blood is spilled in the wastelands chosen as arenas by director James Mangold.

Speaking of violence, Logan has an interesting focus on physicality. Not solely in terms of the consequences of what Wolverine does best, which thanks to an R rating proves satisfyingly gross and bloody at times5. Like the its landscapes, Logan’s titular protagonist is ravaged by age and disease. Poisoned by the adamantium making his skeleton indestructible, Wolverine is as damaged physically as he is mentally, his body seemingly held together by knots of scar tissue. This is in sharp contrast with Laura, who’s still fresh to the world (even if she’s seen a fair share of suffering in her young age) and as such full of potential to grow into a better person than her genetic father. Then there’s X-24, a Wolverine clone artificially grown to his physical prime, yet lacking anything akin to experience, making him little more than a vessel filled with directionless rage. The Reavers are also enemies designed to withstand most of the damage Wolverine can dish out – after all, in an age of mechanical enhancement limbs are more or less disposable, flesh and bone easily replaced with metal and piston. This is a strange new future, and it’s just as well that, at the end, the Wolverine physically paves the way for a fresh generation of possible X-People.

KONG: SKULL ISLAND

 

I have the feeling director Jordan Vogt-Roberts made Kong: Skull Island as a bit of a reaction to the giant monster films of recent years. Gone is the slow buildup of Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla, or the natural disaster imagery of last year’s Shin GodzillaSkull Island is pure B-grade romp, nothing more, nothing less. It does derive novelty from the Vietnam War setting, but only in the shape of a soundtrack of suitable tunes from the period and inevitable Apocalypse Now parallels. At times it manages to veer towards scenes of beauty or tension, such as Kong striding majestically through a river or the human cast making its way in a graveyard of giant gorilla bones, but these are sooner, not later, interrupted by a giant octopus or Skull Crawlers, weird bipedal monsters acting as Kong’s main antagonists. As such, Skull Island is a coliseum for giant monster battles. Which is not that bad a thing, since ILM’s special effects wizards craft some spectacular visuals, with the camera regularly lingering on the sheer scale and presence of the beasties in question. Look at Kong, the film exclaims. Admire how well he is rendered, as he slices a Skull Crawler’s throat open with a huge ship’s propeller! Witness how far technology has come since the days of the original King Kong6!

However, the spectacle of Skull Island appears to come at expense of the script, since it doesn’t really bother with one. The human cast hardly counts as a sketch, with the exception of Samuel L. Jackson and John Goodman, who are little more than caricatures of their best known on-screen personas, and John C. Reilly as essentially Dr. Steve Brule. Actually Steve Brule on Monster Island would have made for a superior film, even more so if accompanied by the likes of Tadanabu Asano as the Japanese pilot he’s seen crash landing with in the film’s WW2-set prologue7. Alas this was not to be, and while Skull Island is undoubtedly entertaining it makes lazy afternoon viewing at best.

1 my friend Robert suggests John Wick also represents The Wild Hunt, a reading I don’t necessarily gel with but is still worth checking out

2 what videogame manages to reach John Wick‘s combination of martial arts and close quarters gun play, though? Superhot comes close, although it felt too sluggish for my own tastes, so I guess my contender for John Wick: the videogame is actually Capcom’s 1993 The Punisher arcade game, which has plenty of both punching and shooting of many men.

3 as they tend to

4 Logan’s Reaver’s are not very closely based on the Reavers from the X-Men comics – a shame, since their gonzo cyberpunk designs are some of my favourites

5 certainly in comparison to the tediously bloodless Bloodpool, whose R rating was mainly used to pepper the script with mildly amusing naughty words

6 King Kong first opened in New York City on March 2nd, 1933

7 “don’t sit on a log in Skull Island, it might be a giant insect you turkey!

Marco Attard, chilling at the Dude and Catastrophe, 2017

The post POP CULTURE DESTRUCTION: MARCH, MARCH TOWARDS THE DESTRUCTION OF ALL THAT’S FAIR first appeared on Schlock Magazine.

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POP CULTURE DESTRUCTION: NEW YEAR, NEW YOU, NEW US, NEW DESTRUCTION https://www.schlockmagazine.net/2017/03/01/pop-culture-destruction-new-year-new-you-new-us-new-destruction/ Wed, 01 Mar 2017 09:03:19 +0000 https://www.schlockmagazine.net/?p=345 Welcome, dear, readers, to popular culture without a definite end. Damn, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, right? Over a year and a half, if I remember correctly! Since that time I decided to go on a vision quest, traveling the world in search for fights, for love, and for meaning.

The post POP CULTURE DESTRUCTION: NEW YEAR, NEW YOU, NEW US, NEW DESTRUCTION first appeared on Schlock Magazine.

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Welcome, dear, readers, to popular culture without a definite end.

Damn, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, right? Over a year and a half, if I remember correctly! Since that time I decided to go on a vision quest, traveling the world in search for fights, for love, and for meaning. I danced the tango in Argentina, meditated with lamas in the Himalayas, traipsed the dreamtime with the Aborigines and even stomped with an absolute lack of patience through the London Underground, before I got the message – POP CULTURE DESTRUCTION! A group of rowdy youths lead by Teodor’s anarchist sister took over Schlock towers, and they want to bring the squamous entity known as SCHLOCK MAGAZINE back to rude life! And who am I to refuse the call?

My name is Marco and welcome to POP CULTURE DESTRUCTION. Yes! Hi!

DESTRUCTION DIGEST

We’re living in one hell of a time, aren’t we? If you’re in want for an attempt at an explanation as to why the world is as it is right now – and by goodness don’t we all – there’s worse ways to do so than going through the films of one Adam Curtis. His body of work revolves around the same theme, namely the examination of latter half of the 20th century, and Hypernormalisation is possibly his best yet. Set a couple of hours aside, be prepared for crushing helplessness, and watch it. If you’ve already done so, then by all means watch it again.

 

So, the Oscars happened, huh? I didn’t bother watching the ceremony, something I regret ever-so-slightly after learning how it involved a real-life reenactment of the awards cock-up from the third season of Bojack Horseman, since the presenters first named La La Land Best Film, before realising the actual winner was Moonlight. I haven’t watched either of those films, although I should check Moonlight out since it does feature the always excellent Mahershala Ali, who actually won a nice statuette on the night. Also a winner of a statuette is Suicide Squad, something which delights me to no end.

 

Talk of the Oscars got me thinking – what were my best films of 2016? The lazy answer would have been that all films were actually shit, and as such there were no favourites, but that’s, well, a lie. My favourite film of 2016 is possibly The Wailing, an incredible tour de force of genre, stylistic and thematic shifts, all wrapped around a tight and gorgeously shot core. There’s also Elle, Paul Verhoeven’s return to excellence as coupled with Isabelle Huppert’s tremendous performance (the year’s best, by far). Hunt for the Wilderpeople was one of the most fun times I’ve had watching a film in literal years. I was surprised by how much I liked Kimi no Na Wa (aka Your Name), despite its being about my twin dislikes of anime highschool romance and body-swapping nonsense. Shin Godzilla was a fantastic stylistic and thematic opposite to the Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla about a plucky group of nerds, outcasts and bureaucrats saving Japan. No movie had man-on-man violence as good as that in Kill Zone 2 (aka SPL II: A Time for Consequences). And last, but not least, both theatrical and extended cuts of Batman vs Superman managed to capture the baffling weirdness of superhero comics while making a film that was both genuinely great and upsetting to the goddamn nerds.

So 2016 had good films after all. Who’d have guessed?

The Young Pope! The hot HBO show about the hot pope who fucks! Except no, he doesn’t fuck and it was actually really, really good? I wasn’t too impressed with Paolo Sorrentino’s post-Il Divo films, but this series captured the best of the director’s stylistic weirdness while actually having something to say about religion, power, and the relationship between the two. Go watch, I’ll wait. And maybe before that watch how good that opening is.

Speaking of television, one of my favourite TV things from 2016 was Documentary Now‘s send off of David Gelb’s work. For those not in the know, Gelb directed Jiro Dreams of Sushi and that Chef’s Table show one can find on the Netflix. Now I actually like media based around food more than most people, but since Gelb’s work is really ripe for some mockery Juan Likes Rice & Chicken is an absolute gem.

 

Currently good chunk of my spare time is occupied with what’s already one of my Games of 2017 – Yakuza 0. I’ve something of a weird relationship with the Yakuza games – while the series is clearly made for me, what with its being about large men destroying each other, in Japan, I never got to play any of them until this latest title (to hit the West), a prequel set in the 1980s. And yes, it’s excellent, and I’ll maybe write something about it once I’m done with it. But I honest have no idea when that’ll happen, since I plan to stay in the neighbourhoods of Kamurocho and Sotenbori a while longer.

 

Speaking of videogames, I’m needlessly excited this week since I went ahead and preordered a Nintendo Switch. It’ll be the first time I’ll actually get a games console on launch day! The main reason I went ahead I made such an investment is, perhaps obviously, Breath of the Wild. Come on, look at that. Tell me how it doesn’t clown all over any other attempt at open world games from recent years! Actually I wan’t too impressed by Nintendo’s presentation of the console back in January, but then they ended the damn thing with this trailer and I was all whelp, I going to have to cough up the cash for this damn thing at its priciest, aren’t I? Thank you, poor impulse control!

 

A couple of months back I bought a couple of things off likable Swedish comics publisher Peow Studio. Starting from left to right, the first is Wrecked Hearts, a volume with a couple of science fiction romance stories  done by Mathilde Kitteh and Luca Olivari in the shoujo mould. The second is Croix Point, which is a prequel to The World, a comic about Wizzards (correct spelling, that) leading armies of little dudes. Very reminiscent of GBA classic Advance Wars, this.  A thing about Peow is just how nice their books are, even in pure physical object terms. Like how Croix Point comes in a little box complete with fun little pin (you can damn well bet that doggo has a firm place on my blazer’s lapel), or how Wrecked Hearts replicates the physical manga format as well as the art style. PCD approved!

Grails might have released their newest album, Chalis Hymnal, a couple of months back, but I only got around to listening to it now. I like it a great deal, since it combines post rock noodlings, jazzy overtones and electronic elements without songs going on for skeleton-crushing lengths.

 

And now Robert Pisani tells us all about he has gone done and read back late last year in a section I will call DESTRUCTION BOOKS. Because, shut up, I am imaginative like that. I’m told the man reads a lot of things, unlike yours truly. I just read comics, because I have no time for all those dumb words. Take it away, Bob!

December was a month full of death, war, destruction and a talking squirrel. Maybe in real life that happened too but I’m talking about what I read last month. Since I go through quite a few books a month I encounter some awesome ones and some stinkers on the way. I was quite lucky cause the good ones outnumbered the bad.
For some weird reason, the first two weeks of December began with books based on genocides, hardly a topic for Christmastime but anyway. It kicked off with Naomi Benaron’s Running the Rift, which is about a boy who wants to represent his country in the Olympics, however there are problems. Mainly because the book takes place in Rwanda during the mid-90’s when Tutsi and Hutu tribes were slaughtering each other. It’s a heartbreaking book but the writing reminded me of some slightly better than average TV drama.
If that wasn’t enough the next book was Sara Novic’s Girl at War, which focuses on the Sarajevo/Bosnia/Croatia conflict of the early 90’s. This time the book is seen from the point of view of a Croatian girl who manages to escape the war and live in the US, only to return to her homeland and face her past. A harrowing read but a page turner.
Then just because I am a masochist I picked up Xiaolu Guo’s I am China, which is about the political persecutions which occurred in China during the late 80’s. This one was different than the previous two as the book takes place in London with a translator receiving a diary and a stack of letters from two youths who managed to escape persecution. More than heartbreaking this was an interesting fusion of literary style with some political and feminist aspects, not to mention the problem of cultures trying to adapt. It’s great.
Then to lighten things up, I read Antoine de Saint-Eupery’s The Little Prince, just to feel that inner warmth and to be reminded that this world is not total trash heap of evil. What can I say about The Little Prince? It’s got an infectious feel good vibe without ever descending in some gloopy saccharine preachy diatribe. The story of a pilot of a prince who goes on a journey of self-revelation still has not lost the magnetic quality and if The Little Prince doesn’t make you smile then you officially have a worm infested walnut for a heart.
That worked and then I delved back into the dark dank world of Graham Swift’s Waterland, a murky tale of murder and incest in the fens. Need I say more? Read it, be creeped out and then take a good long shower cause you’re going feel pretty dirty after reading it.
Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I didn’t like and thought, was overrated and boring. Although at the time it was controversial (I guess mentioning menstruation in 1943 was a shocker) it still manages to coat everything with this irritating goody two shoes casing.
The last two reads consisted of Elizabeth Mckenzie’s The Portable Veblen, a quirky story of squirrels, modern life, marriage and tons of trivia. Ever wanted to know about snow globes? Or the different words for squirrel? Or maybe you’ve exhausted your supply of indie films like Francis Ha or Submarine? Then this little charming (and I’m not being sarcastic here) book will satisfy your needs.
The last novel of 2016 that I thought was great was by Indonesia’s (oooh I’m such a global reader) Eka Kurniawan’s Man Tiger. It’s about a man you inherits a spiritual female white tiger (yes those are important details) from his grandfather and it emerges from his body when pissed off – a kind of Bruce Banner/Hulk situation. The thing is the guy unleashes the beast and commits a murder. The rest of the book traces the motives behind the killing and you end up with a pretty messed up family saga. I couldn’t put this down but I admit that the translation felt clunky, but the plot was too warped for me to DNF (that’s did not finish in book parlance)
Unfortunately I can’t like everything and there were a couple of stinkers this month. Both of them were total surprises has I had high expectations for both.
One was Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story. In theory I should adore this book. It’s a dystopian novel about a technology obsessed society. The book alternates between loveable misfit Lenny, who just cannot cope with the new values that are cropping up and the Eunice, a product of this society. Although they don’t fall in love both characters have a sort of parasitic relationship. Really though this book is Shteyngart’s way of telling us to hold back a bit with computers.
Sounds great right? Well I actually liked the Eunice chapters but the Lenny ones are a slog. All it consists of is technological term after term being dumped on you and Lenny’s Woody Allen neurotic ramblings become irritating after a while – halfway through I just gave up.
That was December – for January I’ve got three pretentious and fat tomes ready to read and to inflict on you. Happy new year!

 

And that’s all for POP CULTURE DESTRUCTION for March. Until the next one, I suggest reading this again? Or going through the archives? I don’t know, it’s your life. Who am I to tell you how to live it? Sheesh.

 

Marco Attard, 2017

The post POP CULTURE DESTRUCTION: NEW YEAR, NEW YOU, NEW US, NEW DESTRUCTION first appeared on Schlock Magazine.

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