OCTOBER & NOVEMBER 2011 | By David Kerekes & Ganymede Foley

A collection of reviews and musing for the month of October 2011. Don't think for a minute all this material was necessarily released in October 2011 or has some relevance to October 2011. This is the month we are reviewing it.

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Three Demonic Tales

By Michel Parry | November 2011 | B! one-shot

A chapbook containing three very short, hugely entertaining horror stories by one of the original stars of British pulp fiction, Michel Parry. Two stories are seventies reprints; one is original. Limited to fifty numbered copies and dressed in an impressive Rik Rawling cover. Published by B! (nice logo), who have also recently brought out issue two of the British horror and cult cinema mag, Bedabbled! Availability and contact info at the bedabbled.blogspot.

Kontinental X No 6

Edited by Cranston McMillan | Also Press/Kontinental X, Oct/Nov 2011

Kontinental X No 5

Edited by Cranston McMillan | Also Press/Kontinental X, Jul/Aug 2011

In the pages of these two most recent copies of Kontinental X are an appraisal of the films of Judy Geeson, a celebration of VHS tapes, and a top ten stories from the Fontana Great Horror Stories anthologies. Production values have not elevated one jot since issue one, and this remains a cheap and cheerful personalised zine whose entertaining bite-sized articles will leave you gagging for more. Comics bonus in issue No 6 is Wallenstein, the first instalment of a strip featuring the Eurosleaze bande dessinée character. It's in English, which is a Wallenstein first in forty years, apparently. Kontinental X can now be picked up at this website: Strange Vice

Zombie Tales Vol 1

Various writers and artists | Pub: BOOM! Studios, 2007

This anthology of smart, snappy zombie comic strips is nothing short of brilliant. In fact, our faith in comics was almost restored by it, but then dissipated again upon entering a comic shop in search of something similar. The question was simple: We wanted more of the same - smart, snappy zombie comic strips like Zombie Tales - but the gentleman behind the counter may as well have been dead himself for all the help he was. And that should make a good story for a future edition, people of BOOM!

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics Vol 1 No 2

Edited by David Huxley & Joan Ormrod | Routledge, 2010

This academic interpolation of comic books and comic book culture is a long time coming, considering that just about every other facet of the arts has a journal and society dedicated to it. Of course it's heavy going at times, but given that one of the editors is our own Dave Huxley (Nasty Tales), the subject matter is suitably eclectic and varied. This edition, for instance, takes a look at Alice Cooper in the comics, British girls' comics and comic books in India.

How I Escaped My Certain Fate: The Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian

By Stewart Lee | Faber and Faber, 2010

Stewart Lee is a stand-up comic and this book reproduces some of his key routines in their entirety, verbatim, including the vocal disfluencies, like um and erm. It's a funny book, but what makes it especially appealing are the footnotes. Lee illustrates aspects of his routines with sometimes long discourses on what he meant, why he meant it, and what would have served better had he said it. Sometimes these footnotes go on so long we lost track of what had prompted them in the first place. We do like a footnote at Headpress and in this book they are put to good use, forming a meta narrative of British popular culture in the late twentieth century. If Feral House published this you'd already have it on your shelf.