Recommended Reading: "The 'Punk' In Splatterpunk"

Earlier this month, PUNK NOIR MAGAZINE published my review of Wrath James White's latest short story collection, THE ECSTASY OF AGONY (Clash Books, 2023). I suggest checking out White's 5-23-24 essay, "The 'Punk' In Splatterpunk: Why You Absolutely Should Be Talking About What’s Going On Right Now." Here's an excerpt: 

In the 1980s, when I was an angry teenager reading Marvel comics, horror and Splatterpunk novels, watching horror movies, listening to punk rock, Industrial music, and Black Consciousness Rap, we had a lot to be pissed off about. We had high interest rates and high unemployment, the AIDS Crises, the imminent threat of nuclear war, a drug war that turned the nation’s ghettos into warzones and police states, Reaganomics exponentially widening the gap between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else, factories closing down and machines taking our jobs. From that chaos we got Punk Rock music and Black Consciousness Rap, post apocalyptic novels and films, a surge of horror films and novels dominating the box office and the New York Times Bestseller list, and we got Splatterpunk [...].

I will never forget how Brian Keene got so much shit after Trump was elected when he suggested we turn our outrage into art like we did in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And I'll never forget how we, except for a very few, failed to heed that call. We need to get angry again. We need to get radical again. We need to take real risks again. We need to get punk again!

To read the entire essay, click HERE.