Thank You, Everyone!

I hope everyone had an extraordinary Halloween. Now that everyone is bleary eyed and exhausted from getting their houses ready for trick or treaters, putting the last minute touches on their own costumes for Halloween parties they were either attending, or hosting, or simply watching too many horror movies, I wanted to take the time to thank you all. Whether you participated directly as one of the Cryptkeepers, or simply as someone who went from blog to blog in order to see what daily treats were being offered, I thank you for turning this annual online event from just a few houses spread out across the globe into a tight knit neighborhood, where every house is "the good house' for trick or treating.

This year, by my count, there were 279 participants in the Countdown. A few had dropped out from the year before, but we still gained 75 more participants than we had in 2010. It's clear looking through everyone's posts that we all share a tremendous love for Halloween, and that everyone put in a lot of effort to share that love with the hard work that went into putting together a month's worth of posts celebrating as many different aspects of the holiday as can be imagined. Like most of you, who keep Halloween present in some form throughout the year, I'm looking forward to months of catching up with the roughly 8649 posts that everyone has collectively created.

Next year will undoubtedly be even bigger. With that in mind PLEASE try and remember to check in here by September 2012, or email me and let me know if you'll be participating again next year. This will save a lot of time on tracking people down.

Thanks again, everyone! Now go enjoy your leftover candy and hitting the stores for their heavily discounted Halloween items. See you next year.

The Ultimate Yard Haunts

Bob Burns is a really cool guy. He owns the original armature for King Kong amongst tons of other important sciience fiction, fantasy and horror props. He's been a special effects artist himself and a gorilla suit actor, and when he puts on Halloween at his house he goes all out.

What kind of yard haunt can you put together when your friends include hollywood actors and Oscar winning special effects wizards? Take a look at this link and see for yourself. Bob has been posting videos of his Halloween shows for the past few Halloweens. Unfortunately, the older shows are no longer available to watch (though there are still galleries which you should check out) and these will be taken down in just a few days so make it a priority to go watch them. You won't be disappointed.

Forthcoming Halloween Related Graphic Novel

Please forgive me for a bit of shameless self-promotion here. The only reason I'm doing this is because I truly believe that this is something that will appeal to the majority of people participating in the Countdown to Halloween.

In February 2012, DC Comics will be releasing a trade paperback collection of Xombi, a six issue comic book series that I wrote for them, that was published serially through the Spring and Summer of 2011. The insanely gorgeous artwork was done by the incomparable Frazer Irving, and the series received overwhelming accolades from just about everyone who read and reviewed it, such as this one from Ain't It Cool News.

So what's it about, you ask? Xombi is about a normal scientific researcher who has had his body infused with microscopic nanomachines, following a mortal injury. The nanomachines repaired all of the damage to his body and continue to do so, keeping him perpetually in what they deem peak physical condition using material taken from outside of him and converting it into healthy tissue. He can never die. He can heal any injury, resist any disease. He will never age or lose his hair or eyesight. He never even needs to eat if he doesn't want to. It sounds like a really cool way to live, but it has its downsides. One of them is that because of the circumstances that led to his injury, he's also become something of a weirdness magnet. This comic book is full of people, places and monsters the likes of which you've never seen before. This piece I wrote for DC Comics  will give you a better sense of what I mean, as will this interview from i09 which also features the first five pages of the comic for you to check out.

Amazon.com has Xombi available for pre-order for under ten bucks.

If that's not enough, then try this...

Click on any image to make it larger.

Thank you for your time and indulgence. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!