Your description of having to go back and read certain passages/stories again reminds me of Robert Aickman. I think it's a crime that his work isn't better known and better appreciated than it is. I find myself going back and rereading his stories right after I've just read them because I know I've missed something,…

It is my favorite movie, bar none. I had bought the graphic novel adaptation before I got to see the movie, and it completely changed my life. I was 10 when the film came out, the prime age for stuff like that. It is such a beautiful and mythic film in so many ways. I wish I could afford to design one of the rooms…

Yeeeeeeessssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is all. :)

Oh, okay. Yeah, after viewing it I think it is too.

Yeah, well, we are all a quivering mass of cognitive and social biases, including many so-called scientists (this is not to suggest there aren't any good ones out there, but there are also a ton of bad ones), and cultivating a logical and evidence-driven mind is something that we must all constantly strive for, no…

We went for the essence of what the mythology was, and tried to make them more elemental myths.

In the afterword, Boris Strugatsky explains that there are worse things than ideological censors — there are the literary gatekeepers who want every work of fiction to be banal and reassuring, never forcing the reader to go outside his or her comfort zone.

But you can't tell me that an obvious fan of the horror genre like the filmmaker wasn't aware of Derry, Maine—it's the setting of several King novels and short stories, most notably It.

Ha ha, touché!

Yes, as well as the novels Insomnia (which, ironically, I happen to be reading at the mo), Bag of Bones and 11/22/63, and is mentioned or visited briefly in several other King novels. It's also the setting in some of his short stories. Needless to say, anyone with a passing knowledge of King's works (and the horror…

Derry, huh? Is that an ode to Stephen King or just a direct rip-off? I suppose I should watch it before opening my yap. Okay, here goes . . .

Yep. It's been awhile since I was stung by one, but as I recall their sting is about equivalent to that of a red wasp, and I've been stung by those plenty (you don't live in the South for any amount of time without getting stung by these a-holes at least two or three times in your life). But cow killers are actually…

Cow Killer! I've stepped on those bastards when I was a kid. I hate their furry little red asses.

I love both the comic and the film, but there are some significant differences between the two. I think Moore's big complaint about the film was that it was really more of a reaction to America under Bush than the comic was, which was more of a reaction to Thatcher's England, and I think that is not a totally…

The truth is, of course, that it's not a zero-sum game: insularity and identity-policing will consume geek culture faster and more thoroughly than any legion of imaginary interlopers. For decades, we've prided ourselves on being forward-thinkers, early adopters, willing to challenge cultural norms and think and work…

Although I am a male, I consider myself as much feminine as masculine, so I really don't give a crap about gender labels. In fact, my chosen ID for this site, Ivan Nazarova, is actually a contradiction. The 'a' attached to the end of most last names in Russian denotes female, while Ivan is an obvious male name. …

Oh my gawd, Charlie, why did you have to do that to me so early in the day? Why? Great story!

I have always been an outsider in many respects, and as such I always identified with aliens, robots and other nonhumans, so sci-fi and fantasy were in my blood. And growing up in a rural town in the Deep South, I was an outsider right from the get-go and so were my friends: the only black kid in my grade at school,…

Yeah, I think I might've done it a time or three.