Books
Encyclopocalypse Launches ‘Daily Grindhouse’ Literary Imprint With ‘Landis: The Story of a Real Man on 42nd Street’
Bloody Disgusting has learned that Encyclopocalypse Publications, the company founded by Saturn and Rondo Award-winning writer/producer Mark Alan Miller (Nightbreed: The Director’s Cut, BOOM! Studios’ Hellraiser comics), is partnering with genre site DailyGrindhouse.com to launch a new imprint to publish both fiction and nonfiction books related to exploitation cinema, kicking off with a first-of-its kind biography and a unique holiday-themed grindhouse tale.
Landis: The Story of a Real Man on 42nd Street, by award-winning novelist and journalist Preston Fassel (Our Lady of the Inferno; FANGORIA magazine), is a biography of Bill Landis, founder of the seminal 1980s magazine Sleazoid Express, which documented the movie theaters of New York’s famed 42nd Street, the films that played there, and the subculture that grew up around them. Part movie magazine, part ethnographic journal, Sleazoid—whose original run lasted from 1980 to 1985— broke new ground in seriously critiquing genre cinema and laid the foundation for today’s socially-conscious, critically driven approach to nonfiction horror writing.
“When Sleazoid came out, horror magazines were either dedicated to tributes, SFX tutorials, or offering fans behind-the-scenes photos and news on upcoming releases,” says Fassel. “Landis was one of the first people to find serious artistic merit even in so-called low art.” The product of over three years of research, Fassel says he hopes the book will shine new light on Landis’ life while also bringing him into the mainstream. “Bill had a difficult life, and especially a difficult last few years as he dealt with personal issues and a lifelong drug addiction that finally caught up with him. He burned a lot of bridges near the end, and as a result his legacy and reputation have really suffered, and he’s remembered now largely as a cartoon character instead of the pioneering journalist he deserves to be remembered as. I want to preserve the real, brilliant, hurt human being behind Sleazoid Express.” Landis died in 2008 of a drug-related heart attack at the age of 49.
The Daily Grindhouse imprint will also offer fictional work, kicking off with director/author Andrew Allan’s grindhouse pulp novella Miracle on 42nd Street. Set in Manhattan during the Christmas season of 1986, the book tells the tale of a young street walker named Special, who comes to realize that her fellow sex workers are being marked for death as part of a clandestine campaign by the NYPD to “clean up” Times Square. With time running out and a target on her own back, Special is forced to make a strange alliance with an alcoholic Santa Claus to survive the holiday season.
“M42 was written to be a grindhouse movie in book form—lean, mean, demented, and deranged,” says Allan. “It puts you on the Deuce amongst the drunks, punks, thugs, junkies, killer cops, menacing mobsters, even a serial killer, just as anarchy explodes throughout the city, turning Manhattan into a crime zone.” Part of Allan’s popular Grindhouse Pulp series, Miracle on 42nd Street is being published, per Allan, “Because there just isn’t enough time to make every movie. Encyclopocalypse and Daily Grindhouse Books is the perfect home for this kind of story.”
Landis will be released December 7th, 2021, to coincide with the 13th anniversary of Landis’ death. “Dates and numbers meant a lot to Bill, so for this to come out in honor of that anniversary I think would mean a lot to him,” says Fassel. Miracle on 42nd Street will be released in time for the Christmas holiday, in which it is set.
Says Miller, “We believe in authors and their stories. The idea of introducing them to an entirely new audience is baked into the foundation upon which Encyclopocalpyse was built. That’s why we jumped at the chance to work with Andrew and Daily Grindhouse. Landis represents an important piece of grindhouse history that has all but been lost to time. It also tells you as much about its subject as it does about its author. Preston has passionately spent countless hours bringing this book to life, motivated purely by the intent to share Bill Landis with the digital world. We should all be so lucky to have a Preston Fassel looking after our legacies.”
Books
‘Halloween: Illustrated’ Review: Original Novelization of John Carpenter’s Classic Gets an Upgrade
Film novelizations have existed for over 100 years, dating back to the silent era, but they peaked in popularity in the ’70s and ’80s, following the advent of the modern blockbuster but prior to the rise of home video. Despite many beloved properties receiving novelizations upon release, a perceived lack of interest have left a majority of them out of print for decades, with desirable titles attracting three figures on the secondary market.
Once such highly sought-after novelization is that of Halloween by Richard Curtis (under the pen name Curtis Richards), based on the screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. Originally published in 1979 by Bantam Books, the mass market paperback was reissued in the early ’80s but has been out of print for over 40 years.
But even in book form, you can’t kill the boogeyman. While a simple reprint would have satisfied the fanbase, boutique publisher Printed in Blood has gone above and beyond by turning the Halloween novelization into a coffee table book. Curtis’ unabridged original text is accompanied by nearly 100 new pieces of artwork by Orlando Arocena to create Halloween: Illustrated.
One of the reasons that The Shape is so scary is because he is, as Dr. Loomis eloquently puts it, “purely and simply evil.” Like the film sequels that would follow, the novelization attempts to give reason to the malevolence. More ambiguous than his sister or a cult, Curtis’ prologue ties Michael’s preternatural abilities to an ancient Celtic curse.
Jumping to 1963, the first few chapters delve into Michael’s childhood. Curtis hints at a familial history of evil by introducing a dogmatic grandmother, a concerned mother, and a 6-year-old boy plagued by violent nightmares and voices. The author also provides glimpses at Michael’s trial and his time at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, which not only strengthens Loomis’ motivation for keeping him institutionalized but also provides a more concrete theory on how Michael learned to drive.
Aside from a handful of minor discrepancies, including Laurie stabbing Michael in his manhood, the rest of the book essentially follows the film’s depiction of that fateful Halloween night in 1978 beat for beat. Some of the writing is dated — like a smutty fixation on every female character’s breasts and a casual use of the R-word — but it otherwise possesses a timelessness similar to its film counterpart. The written version benefits from expanded detail and enriched characters.
The addition of Arocena’s stunning illustrations, some of which are integrated into the text, creates a unique reading experience. The artwork has a painterly quality to it but is made digitally using vectors. He faithfully reproduces many of Halloween‘s most memorable moments, down to actor likeness, but his more expressionistic pieces are particularly striking.
The 224-page hardcover tome also includes an introduction by Curtis — who details the challenges of translating a script into a novel and explains the reasoning behind his decisions to occasionally subvert the source material — and a brief afterword from Arocena.
Novelizations allow readers to revisit worlds they love from a different perspective. It’s impossible to divorce Halloween from the film’s iconography — Carpenter’s atmospheric direction and score, Dean Cundey’s anamorphic cinematography, Michael’s expressionless mask, Jamie Lee Curtis’ star-making performance — but Halloween: Illustrated paints a vivid picture in the mind’s eye through Curtis’ writing and Arocena’s artwork.
Halloween: Illustrated is available now.
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