"On Tuesday, May 17, 2022, at 9:00 a.m. EST, the House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee, chaired by Congressman André Carson (D-Ind.) will hold an open hearing on unidentified aerial phenomena. Following the open portion of the hearing, the subcommittee will hold a closed, classified briefing."
My
new short story has just been published in ABYSS: STORIES OF DEPTH, TIME AND INFINITY, an anthology edited by C.R. Dudley. Lifelong transit riders, please take note! In "On the Bus," I managed to compress every bus ride I've ever experienced into a single story, which is even more disturbing and absurd than you might imagine. Here's the publisher's description of ABYSS...
Take a plunge into the ABYSS... right HERE!
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From Khristina Narizhnaya, Joe Marino, and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon's 5-5-22 NEW YORK POST article entitled "Queens Slay Victim Was Tarot Card Reader Shot Dead by Customer Who Called Her ‘Witch’":
It was a fate she couldn’t predict.To read the entire article, click HERE.
Neal Adams, the legendary comic book artist who reinvigorated Batman and other superheroes with his photorealistic stylings and championed the rights of creators, has died. He was 80.
Adams died Thursday in New York of complications from sepsis, his wife, Marilyn Adams, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Adams jolted the world of comic books in the late 1960s and early ’70s with his toned and sinewy take on heroes, first at DC with a character named Deadman, then at Marvel with the X-Men and the Avengers, then back at DC with his most lasting influence, Batman.
During his Batman run, Adams and writer Dennis O’Neil brought a revolutionary change to the hero and the comics, delivering realism, kineticism and a sense of menace to their storytelling [...].
Adams, also with O’Neil, came up with a then-controversial turn for Green Lantern/Green Arrow that tackled social issues such as drug addiction, racism and overpopulation and introduced the Green Lantern hero John Stewart, who became one of DC’s first Black icons. Their 1971 two-part story “Snowbirds Don’t Fly” remains an important milestone in comics’ evolution toward attracting more mature readers.
It was at this creative height in the mid-’70s that Adams quit drawing for the Big Two, as DC and Marvel were known, and launched Continuity Studios, an artists studio that produced comics, commercial art and storyboards, among other services. The comics division created indie characters such as Bucky O’Hare and Ms. Mystic [...].
Adams also worked tirelessly to promote better working conditions and, radically at the time, creators’ rights, especially for their work. He early on recognized the value of creators and was a thorn in the side of publishers, demanding compensation for himself and others when their characters were adapted off the page [...].
In the late ’70s, when a new federal work-for-hire law was being enshrined, Marvel and then editor-in-chief Jim Shooter distributed contracts that stated freelancers could not assert copyright over their creations. As detailed in Reisman’s 2021 Lee biography, True Believer, Adams sent around a copy of the contract, scrawling on top, “Do Not Sign This Contract! You Will Be Signing Your Life Away!” While it caused a ruckus and awareness, the effort didn’t have its intended effect as Marvel flexed its muscle and threatened anyone who tried to unionize with a drying up of the freelance well.
Adams had more luck in taking on corporate overlords in two other areas. He helped change the practice of comic book publishers keeping the original art by artists or even shredding and tossing it, influencing companies to establish policies of returning the art, something that allowed artists to enjoy a second income stream. The biggest case in point: Marvel returned pages of art to Jack Kirby, the co-creator of Fantastic Four, Thor, X-Men and Hulk.
He also proved to be a champion of two writer-artists who laid the foundation for DC, Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. When he learned of their plight — one inciting factor was hearing that they could not attend a Broadway musical featuring the Man of Steel — he led a lobbying effort that eventually led to greater recognition for the pair, a creator tag in comics and other media that continues to this day, plus a pension.
To read the entire article, click HERE.
In his 5-4-22 blog post, "About Neal Adams," Mark Evanier writes:
I was most impressed by the fact that [Neal] was a freelance talent who would not and could not be treated as a peon. This was not just because he drew so well. There were a lot of guys in comics who drew well but, having grown up in The Depression and not knowing any other way to make a somewhat-secure living than filling pages for DC and Marvel, they allowed The System to treat them as expendable and lucky to have any income at all [...]. I think his greatest contribution was the way in which he helped the comic book industry grow up. I'm not certain it would even exist today if it hadn't.
Read Evanier's entire post right HERE.
Neal Adams Interview from Ken Viola's 1987 Documentary, MASTERS OF COMIC BOOK ART (Introduced by Harlan Ellison):
Directly below, comic book artists Ed Piskor and Jim Rugg analyze Adams' work in the 12-5-20 episode of CARTOONIST KAYFABE....
From Olivia Beavers' 4-29-22 POLITICO article entitled "Inside the House Freedom Caucus’ Identity Crisis":
Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert look from the outside like MAGA twins, both loathed by Democrats for their incendiary right-wing rhetoric. But inside the House GOP, they’re not quite buddy-buddy.
Privately, Republicans say Boebert (R-Colo.) — who’s seen as more of a party team player than Greene — detests being tied to her Georgia colleague. And when the House Freedom Caucus board of directors gathered last month at its usual spot a few blocks from the Capitol, the two tangled over Greene’s appearance at a February event organized by a known white nationalist.
Their confrontation grew so heated that at least one onlooker feared the Greene-Boebert back-and-forth might escalate beyond the verbal cage match had another board member not stepped in to de-escalate, according to a GOP lawmaker who was granted anonymity to describe what happened. The incident was confirmed by three people connected to the Freedom Caucus, whose members largely avoided public criticism of Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) at the time and focused their discontent on the event organizer, Nick Fuentes.
To read the entire article, click HERE.
On April 5, 2022, the Wilhelm Reich Museum announced the death of Reichian researcher, James DeMeo (author of THE ORGONE ACCUMULATOR HANDBOOK and THE DYNAMIC ETHER OF COSMIC SPACE):
It is with sorrow that we note the death of James DeMeo, PhD, a researcher and teacher of Reich’s work for more than 40 years. As a student in the Geography Department at the University of Kansas, DeMeo demonstrated significant effects on rainfall from use of a cloudbuster, resulting in his 1979 Masters thesis “Preliminary Analysis of Changes in Kansas Weather Coincidental to Experimental Operations with a Reich Cloudbuster,” which he self-published as a book in 2010. His subsequent work on a hypothesis about the origins of human armoring in the same department led to his 1986 PhD dissertation, expanded and published in 1998 as Saharasia: The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social Violence, In the Deserts of the Old World. DeMeo published an orgonomic journal, Pulse of the Planet for a number of years beginning in 1989. An enlarged issue of this was published in 2002 under the title Heretics’ Notebook. Most recently, in 2019, he published an extended historical study, The Dynamic Ether of Cosmic Space.
DeMeo started an independent research and teaching lab, Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory in 1979, from which until his death he continued research and teaching on bion experiments, the effects of the orgone accumulator (e.g., on plant growth), weather modification using the cloudbuster (e.g., in the American southwest), and other related subjects. He was hired during droughts in Greece, Eritrea and other places to use the cloudbuster in attempts to produce rain and achieved some noted successes. He described much of this work in a talk at the 2007 International Conference on Orgonomy in Rangeley, Maine sponsored by the Wilhelm Reich Museum.
Click HERE to visit DeMeo's website.
In January of 2020, DeMeo appeared on THE HIGHERSIDE CHATS. You can hear that interview directly below....
If you want to judge for yourself why BELA LUGOSI'S DEAD was nominated in this august category, then feel free to order a copy TODAY!!!
“Blending intertextual rampage through the horror-movie canon with engrossing noir mystery and a backdrop of Hollywood esoterica, Robert Guffey serves up an intoxicating pulp cocktail that will leave you wanting more. A crepuscular treasure from a fascinating author.”
--ALAN MOORE, author of V FOR VENDETTA and WATCHMEN
“In Robert Guffey's latest and greatest novel, dreams of old movies and nightmares of classic horror rack into sharp focus through the lens of a brave film historian, one determined to squint clearly at fleeting grains of film through the shifting sands of time. Never has the truth of Hollywood been so well revealed through fiction. As a result, BELA LUGOSI'S DEAD delightfully and definitively proves that Bela Lugosi isn't dead.”
--GARY D. RHODES, author of LUGOSI and TOD BROWNING'S DRACULA
"[H]orror fans will delight in how Guffey cleverly immerses movie monsters in the real world. Film buffs and monster enthusiasts will relish the supernatural characters brought to life in this atmospheric celebration of monster mayhem."
--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"The sensation [of reading BELA LUGOSI'S DEAD] is like being led deep underground while your flashlight grows dimmer and dimmer, until you’re left in total darkness. That’s when the lights of a subterranean crypt flash on to reveal that you’re not where you expected to be, and where you are is far worse than you could have imagined. The result is an ending that left me chilled and took me a few days to fully process. As shocking as it was, everything was set up from the beginning. I know, I went back and checked, and have to give Guffey credit for pulling off a literary sleight of hand that caught me by surprise. I won’t spoil it with more, except to say that like the frog in water that’s warmed so slowly it doesn’t realize it’s coming to a lethal boil, Guffey’s readers face an equally stunning conclusion."
From George Knapp's 3-31-22 KLAS report entitled "Famed Aviator John Lear, 79, Departs on 'His Next Adventure'":
Nevada aviator John Lear’s death Tuesday night has sent ripples through the worlds of aviation and conspiracy theories. Lear was widely known for his claims about UFOs and Area 51, but also for a lifetime of daring exploits in everything that could fly.
“Most people think I’m absolutely nuts and that’s OK with me,” Lear told 8 News Now in a 2007 interview.
He didn’t mind when people attacked his wild stories. In fact, he reveled in it. He came to be known as the “Godfather of Conspiracies,” but anyone who was given the tour of his jam-packed den knew there was a lot more to Lear than tall tales. Those walls were a museum of his life, pictures with the famous and infamous, of planes he had flown, secret places, and projects he’d investigated. Regret wasn’t a word he was known to use.
George Knapp: “Would you do it the same way.”
John Lear: “Exactly the same way.”
Lear was the son of a world-famous man. His father, Bill Lear, created the Lear jet and invented the 8-Track tape system. Determined to carve out his own path, Lear dove into aviation, becoming an accomplished pilot at a young age, eventually setting multiple world records in all manner of planes. His daredevil life came with a cost — serious injuries caused by plane crashes he shouldn’t have survived.
During the Vietnam era, he flew cargo planes for the CIA and continued to court danger by flying in and out of other hotspots. His contacts in the aerospace world were extensive, and Lear became interested in secret planes and projects. In the 80s he and a few friends started staking out obscure bases in the Nevada desert, places that later became world-famous.
Lear helped KLAS-TV break the story about the existence of a secret plane that was invisible to radar. In the mid-80s, he started hearing stories about a UFO coverup, and not surprisingly jumped in with both feet, making various media appearances to discuss his ideas....
To read Knapp's entire report, click HERE.
From Tracey McManus' 4-28-22 TAMPA BAY TIMES article entitled "3 Former Scientology Workers Sue, Saying They Were Trafficked as Children":
Gawain Baxter was 6 years old when he signed a contract agreeing to work for the Church of Scientology for 1 billion years.To read the entire article, click HERE.
Veteran researcher Jordan Maxwell, author of MATRIX OF POWER, passed away on March 23, 2022, at the age of 82. His death was first reported on March 24th. For more information, click HERE.
