As I mentioned in tonight’s previous post, this past weekend was spent regaling in the labor day festivities at the Marshall County Blueberry Festival! Imagine if you will, a warm September day, hundreds of thousands of ill tempered people packed shoulder to shoulder in a small community park. Each armed with various forms of such things as meat on a stick, baby strollers, or large over sized and gaudy crafts swung about with wild abandon with nary a thought given to passersby! Such is the experience at the Blueberry Festival, an experience to remember.

For some, the sights and sounds of various entertainments such as live music or tractor pulls are the main draw. For some, it is the bizarre plethora of arts and crafts, most hand made, some resold and all over priced. And still others, it is the large amounts of greasy fair food that is their calling. (Note: Before you call me high and mighty, look at me. I am no stranger to the greasy fair food. It is in fact, my one draw!)

What always fascinates me though is the crafts that are sold about the festival. What passes as a lovely addition to one’s home decor is simply astounding. Granted, many of these items, I’m simply not their target demographic. I’ll give them that! Still, there are many items that crop up around the park that are simply baffling as to why people may want these!

It is these items that I present to you today, as a small sampling of Midwestern Horror, straight from my heartland to yours!

Ah Shrek, that lovable bumbling troll that has entertained our kids for years now! Except here, he looks a bit hungry and rather pissed off. Not sure about you, but if I was a youngin’ and my mom said, “here, let’s go on this ride!” My response would be of the order of, “Uh, sure you first!”

Sure the pooch is cute, the phrase is…a phrase. The context? Yah, I don’t know either. If you look close, you’ll see that this little beauty sells for a measly $15 as well! A bargain indeed!

I like bears, I look like a bear, I’ve played the bass for many many years. Still, not sure how the two tie together! The leigh and grass skirt are a nice touch though.

This? I’m clueless. Somewhat offended. It was proudly displayed on the front of the stand however!

I’m no baseball fan. I’m certainly not a big cubs fan. This seems a bit harsh though. Maybe I’m getting old, but I don’t get it.

Nothing says “Let’s celebrate trade unions and workers” like a walking bottle of shampoo!

I’d say something snarky about this but the more I think about it, who wouldn’t want to go cruise around on a mini cement mixer? I’d ride that bad boy to work!

Finally, this moose stuffed into the grill of a cargo van is a mascot. A mascot for a group of little baton twirlers, dressed up in the frilly little outfits, getting their chance to show off their baton skills in front of their parents and friends!

What name did they bestow on these cute little girls?

The Moose Squad.

And with that, I bid you a fond buh-bye!

Before having to call off this past week’s Bloody Good Horror Podcast due to coming down with a case of the plague, I spent the recent Labor Day Weekend partaking in a horror of a different sort, known mainly as the Marshall County Blueberry Festival! While there was much fair food and other portly sundries to be had all weekend, there was a high quotient of rednecks unleashed and nice reunions to be had!

In the picture above, you’ll notice three distinct slabs of manhood there. At one point in the history of Plymouth, IN you could dare say that these three individuals were nigh inseparable! The gentleman with bad taste there, mainly speaking towards the Purdue jacket he chose to wear there, is my old friend Rick.

Throughout the years Rick and I have remained quite close and visit each other regularly. I bring up Rick here on this home of horror to bring up a funny story. Rick just so happened to be present at the viewing of the movie that quite possibly scared me more than any other; Arachnaphobia. It’s no secret to those that know that I’m deathly afraid of spiders and tend to break down into random screams and arm flailings when I find myself face to face with the little bastards! So, you can image that for whatever reason I decided to watch such a movie, it was met with mass hysterics. By the end of the movie, I don’t know how much of it Rick had managed to see. He spent most of the film rolling about on the floor laughing at me, as I watched from his kitchen, peaking around the corner at the TV screen. It was that bad.

Rick has had his share of diving into the world of fandom with me as well. While his love of horror may not run quite as deep as mine, there was a time that his love of comics was right up there along side of me. Even today as we both hit our mid 30′s, you’ll find conversation turning to the various line ups of the X Men teams or other old comics as well as movies and the like. Rick has found himself a lovely wife that does have a high hankering for horror, so his intake has increased quite a bit of as of late!

The other guy there in the snazzy Hawaiian shirt there is my old friend Noble. Sadly, over the past 10 years or so, Noble and I drifted out of touch and hadn’t spoke to each other in some time. After finding each other recently on Xbox Live, (Gamer Tag=CinemaFromage if your’e nasty) we soon fell back into old ways and old stories and started keeping in touch more often. With this recent trip home, Noble and his girlfriend Abby were able to join us at our annual family BBQ, reuniting the two of us again after nearly 10 years!

The significance of Noble and the workings here at Cinema Fromage actually run pretty deep, despite being incommunicado over so many years. Throughout high school and a few years outside of it, we were brothers in nerdery and fandom, often to scary lengths. Together we both journeyed into the world of comic book collecting and faced creepy mouth breather that ran our small towns only shop. We journeyed to our first comic book convention together. We discovered and obsessed over certain video games together such as the NES system’s “Shadow Gate” and most importantly; we explored the early stages of horror movies together. Such films as “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “The Gate” and many more were seen by the two of us together for the first time. The memories of hanging out in Nobe’s dungeon like basement bedroom reading tattered copies of Fangoria and watching badly recopied video tapes over and over are long and familiar. Essentially, Noble’s partly to blame for me eventually turning into a horror blogger!

So, while this post originally started as a chance to regale you with images of redneck debauchery, it has instead turned into more of a lesson on revisiting your roots. As a writer, I share a tip with any other fellow writer out there, and the non writers as well. Sometimes it’s nice to reconnect with old friends. In the face of burnout and writers block, it helps to refresh your memory just why you turned the craft in the first place. With old friends come fond memories, both things essential to re-stoking the fires!

Oh yes, slutty looking cows may spark some ideas too. What that idea is? That’s up to you. Pervert.

Out now from Vertigo Comics is a new little quirky tale from writer/illustrator Jeff Lemire, Sweet Tooth.

To borrow straight from the writers mouth:

“SWEET TOOTH is the story Gus, a young boy born with deer-like antlers. He has lived his entire life in total isolation in the woods with his Father. As our story begins Gus’ is finally forced to leave their forest sanctuary and begins experiencing the outside world for the first time. What he finds out there is beyond his comprehension; an American landscape decimated a decade earlier by a mysterious disease. Even more remarkable is that Gus is part of a rare new breed of human/animal hybrid children who have emerged in its wake, all apparently immune to the infection. The boy is soon taken in by Jepperd, a hulking drifter who promises to lead Gus to “The Preserve” a fabled safe-haven for hybrid children. Along the way a larger mystery surrounding the origins of the hybrids begins to unfold, with Gus and Jepperd at its center.”

When this book landed on my desk last week, I really didn’t know what to expect. Something I haven’t heard of, something I hadn’t solicited, it was just there by the grace of the US Postal Service. It’s safe to say; I had a blank slate when I finally sat down to give the book a read. You can imagine my surprise when I found myself rather caught up in the story of Gus the boy-deer and his situation!

For a number one issue, there is not a lot going on in this book but there is just enough to reel you in. We get some great character development for Gus and what makes him tick and a brief setup of the the world around him. Lemire’s plot synopsis promises a post apocalyptic world which we do not see yet. However, this savaged land is hinted at in these pages and only manages to make you more curious as to just what Gus is going to see when he leaves his woods. All in all, the book feels fairly magical and much like a twisted fairy tale from the get go, making the perfect setup for an ongoing book.

I’m not an expert on comics by any means, but I know what I like. For “Sweet Tooth” #1, I found myself left wondering what all was going behind the scenes of this weird little world. That’s always a good sign for me!

Consider this an official announcement of sorts; yours truly is hitting the book shelves with the new upcoming anthology, “Dark: A Horror Anthology”.

That slick book cover you see above is drawn by none other than Steve Wands and is edited by Bryan Wolford.

There is no street date as of yet but you can be sure I’ll let you know! Contained within will be my original short titled “Deep Lies the Murky Floor” and I’ll be joined by a host of other top notch scare fiends as well. Some of them you might even recognize from the podcasting world!

Check out the official website for “Dark: A Horror Anthology” for news and updates and to see who will be joining me under the covers!

er…that didn’t come out right.

For those of you missing the dulcet tones of my voice on the BGH Podcast during our week off (shah, right!), I can give you a tiny bit of relief. A quarter of it at any rate!

This week, I joined Charlie and Brad over at The Movie Fan House podcast for a in depth discussion of “Halloween 2″! We also talk about the upcoming “Stepfather” remake as well as our top 5 favorite zombie movies!

Be sure to check it out and say hi to Charlie and Brad!