A Primer on the Wizard Behind Phantom’s Divine Comedy: Part 1 — “Necessity or chance approach not me; and what I will is fate,” said poet-philosopher John Milton to Longfellow. Milton believed he could defy the wicked Fates spinning the threads of destiny. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow shook his pessimistic head at his friend’s quaint defiance and offered a more realistic response, “Thy…

How the muses kill . . . and fulfill at the same time — “Go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in…

Man’s Excuse to Explain Away Bad Behavior — On the occasions he wasn’t misquoting “Is it lawful law?” …

The ’70s exploitation filmmaker behind Rocktober Blood and ‘Gator Bait, passes — Editor’s Note: The film hyperlinks within this article will redirect you to off-Medium film reviews by R.D Francis. Prior to Ferd and Beverly Sebastian’s mid-’90s conversion to Christianity and subsequent retirement from an industry where they shared writing, directing, cinematography and producing duties in their crafting drive-in and direct-to-video exploiters…

The First Three Chapters of a Dream Suite to the Edge of the Solar System — 1 THE future is now. The science is no longer fiction. The science is a reality. True, man hasn’t perfected a one-push-of-a-button gravity field that miraculously allows us to effortless take a causal walk through the park of a space vessel, but man is now able to pilot their own…

The first four chapters of a sci-fi horror tale — On July 24, 1701, French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Fort de Pontchartrain de Detroit in New France, a geographical area on the former North American continent that bordered what was once Eastern Canada in the north to the former American southern state of Louisiana along the Gulf…

The first four chapters of a Gothic anthology — 1 — Cathedral IN the year 750 A.D of the 8th century, morning rises on Gothic architecture’s finest monument, Cathedral of Our Lady Chartres, perched on a hill off the River Eure in Chartres, France. Her twin spires rise as salvation beacons on the horizon of lush countryside farmland. A…

The first four chapters of a Gothic horror tale — 1 THE tenth verse of the first book of Ecclesiastes embodies the futility of the dreams of man: The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. And…

Plus a Film Review of his 1978 film, Smokey and the Good Time Outlaws — Redneck Cinema The concept of hicksploitation, aka rednecksploitation and backwoodsploitation, is insane: Everyone south of the Mason-Dixie are uneducated, inbred moonshine running religious zealots (see the Deliverance-inspired subgenre) — and sometimes cannibals (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre subgenre) — who defy authority and society and strand Yankee motorists for car parts — and…