Culture

although afterlife with Archie may be his greatest horror hit, Riverdale's finest has always celebrated the holiday, from #5 on.

Yes it's the most magical time of the year, Halloween, which is a 24 hour tradition here at Stately Beat Manor. To get into...

The Haunted Vagina by Carlton Mellick III ploughs into fertile territory first tilled by Jim Balent. But horror has many shapes and sizes...as do the tacky and the just plain oh no.

Here's one of those matters where there are really no winners. The Wallace Wood Estate, which is administered by J. David Spurlock, the publisher of Vanguard Publishing, is suing Wood's ex-wife Tatjana Wood, for the possession some of 150-200 pages of Wood art. According to the complaint, the pages are worth between $2000-25,000 each.

http://player.ooyala.com/iframe.js#pbid=23ab3edda6d64b96a30b37a512eb5adf&ec=RjNnBlcTp6-ewmVxR2yXDzQrp-yPkK0A Game over, man, game over. UPDATE: You can watch the whole segment exclusively at The Mary Sue.

  Timing is everything, and Humble Bundle has just launched a horror themed bundle with many comics including Shadowman, afterlife with Archie, Buffy and prose works...

by Edie Nugent The main stage spectacles of NYCC saw panels filled with celebrity actors and moderators alike, whipping thousands of screaming audience members into...

I'm pretty sure we've posted some of Eric Haven's creepy cool Mancat comics before. But not it's all being collected by AdHouse, in UR. The publisher describes these comics as "Dark, absurdist, and deadpan, these stories reflect the apocalyptic undercurrent of the modern era. Also included is Haven's long-running comic strip "Race Murdock" which appeared in The Believer magazine." Haven is among those cartoonist's whose work is just inherently spooky. In the past his work has appeared in various anthologies, but when he isn't cartooning he's producing the TV Show Mythbusters. A real hyphenate for the season.

There was a time not too long ago when you could fit all the "women in comics" at a big table in a coffee shop. Now there re more than 300 women who just work in comics shops. That's the membership of The Valkyries, a private organization for female comics retail employees. and it turns out the group has been instrumental in promoting a coupld of books that have had great success this year, namely Saga and Lumberjanes. Janelle Asselin interviews group founder Kate Leth for all the details:

Who is Marie Duval? While not a household name in comics circles she's actually one of the most important Victorian cartoonists, artist on Ally Sloper, one of the early cartoon sensations. The tale of a no good lazeabout that ran from 1857 on, it was created by Duval's husband, Charles Ross, but gained its greatest fame after Duval took over in 1859. The Guardian has a tribute to her.

English artist INJ Culbard has become the resident HP Lovecraft expert at SelfMadeHero with several of his adaptations of Lovecraft (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Shadow Out of Time and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath) turning into bestsellers for the Brit Literary Comics house. Well, it seems his next book is one that greatly influenced Lovecraft—and Stephen King, and Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Raymond Chandler and True Detective—namely The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. The 1895 short story collection centers around a sinister play called "The King in Yellow" and this title character, as well as Carcosa were used in Season 1 of True Detective, and gave the cult book a new life.

Did I get tricked into running this somewhat non-slick infographic because The Beat is ranked #8 in a list of the top 100 comics blogs? You bet. But I did like that The Nib is #1. I think the chart went by Alexa rankings and it includes webcomics among the blogs, which doesn't really make any sense. But anyway, talking points.