Wicker Man Studios
“Good evening! Good evening Barnabas, Julia, please, come in…” said Professor Stokes, inviting them into his house.
“You said that you had an urgent matter to discuss with us,” said Barnabas Collins, as he and his dearest companion, Dr. Julia Hoffman, entered Professor Stokes’ home.
“Come, please, sit down,” said Professor Stokes.
As a writer of urban/dark fantasy stories (Gun Street Girl, Hungry Ghosts (a graphic novel and also a related-but-not-the-same prose novel by the same name), The Talking Cure, and Song to the Siren), I had originally planned to write this essay about obscure female fantasy/horror writers that deserved more attention. I wanted to write about the Weird Tales writer Mary Elizabeth Counselman (“The Monkey Spoons,” “Mommy”) and the quiet horror writer Rosemary Timperley (“Harry,” “The Sinister Schoolmaster”). However, I ran into a psychological block: it’s extremely difficult to find these fine ladies’ works. Oh, if you’re lucky, you may find “Harry,” one of the finest quiet horror stories out there, in a ghost story anthology. If you’re extremely lucky, you may find Mary Elizabeth Counselman’s “The Monkey Spoons,” a tale of fate and tragedy, in a horror anthology. But if you liked their work and wanted more, unless you’re an internet detective the way my husband and writing partner, Park Cooper, is, finding more stories by these women will be an exercise in frustration, as their works are, sadly, long out of print.
So, I’ve decided to write a personal essay about two women named Dorothy and how they influenced my writing. The first one is an ace short story writer. The second is a mystery author.
Look, it’s more stuff of which Barb approves! (And I, Park, do, too!)
—Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974) (also known as The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue)
I am not usually a fan of zombie films. They bore me. All zombie films have the same plot: zombies eat a bunch of people, humanity is screwed, the end.
Yes, there are exceptions. I love the original Night of the Living Dead, Hammer Studios’ Plague of the Zombies, and the obscure radio production of a Halloween one-off called “The Peoria Plague.” But unless a zombie film has something different to offer me like the Blind Dead films or, I just have no interest in the walking-dead-type films.
So, I was surprised how deeply affected I was by Let Sleeping Corpses Lie. It had such a stupid title, just for a start. But Kill Baby Kill has a silly title, and I like that film, so, what the heck, I decided to poke those sleeping corpses with a stick to see what gives.
One (or 8 for that matter) isn’t enough to satisfy y’all! So here’s another essay about the 1966-1971 gothic daytime soap opera Dark Shadows…
In my previous essay about Angelique, I mentioned that Angelique had ambitions to better her station in life. Angelique, a lady’s maid to Countess Natalie du Prés, was raised from a young age as a servant. In the du Prés household in Martinique, Angelique learned the manners and mannerisms of the upper class, and wanted the lifestyle they lived.
Time for another essay about the 1966-1971 gothic daytime soap opera Dark Shadows…
When it comes to the 1795 Dark Shadows storyline, I am a bit of an Angelique apologist, with two huge exceptions:
1/ What Angelique does to Victoria Winters, the only person who, in the Collins household, offers Angelique friendship, one of the few people who wants to be kind to Angelique, and Angelique frames Vicki for being a witch (instead of herself)! Yes, it was an act of self-preservation on Angelique’s part, but it was still a nasty thing to do.
2/ What Angelique does to Sarah Collins when Barnabas tells Angelique that he knows that Angelique is a witch. Yeah, I get it, Angelique, you’re angry as heck at Barnabas, but sticking pins in a voodoo doll representing Barnabas’ little sister and then threatening to stick one right in the dolly’s heart? Sorry, that’s a step way, way too far. I was totally on your side before that (I wasn’t all that fond of Vicki, sorry).
Still… let me tell you why I have more compassion for Angelique than I do for most villains.
Our colleague Patrick McCray (of The Dark Shadows Daybook) asked us, suddenly, “If you were going to tell people briefly about the history of television, what would you emphasize?”
Well, you can’t ask Barb a question like that and not expect her to do anything with it, so she wrote the following essay. If you are someone who can’t remember a time before the internet, then you might find this educational. If you are someone who can remember a time before the internet, then you might find this nostalgic.