October Book Club is Happening! Join Us!
If you're on Facebook, click to join and we'll make it happen. Wine and horror comics all month long!
Hello, everybody! We’ve enjoyed our two-week break after the insanity that was September and early October, but we’re currently editing a Halloween episode, and are starting to schedule our next batch of Livestreams. So more coming soon! Like, “next week” soon!
We’ve also been busy prepping our first Kickstarter - bringing a classic 80’s comic back into print. We’ll be publishing under the WACPS (Wine and Comics PubliShing) label. We originally hoped to launch in October, but doing it right took more time than anticipated. Instead of rushing, the new schedule for our Kickstarter is as follows:
Prelaunch to go Live in November.
Campaign launch in January 2024.
That will give us plenty of time to gather followers during the prelaunch phase: a critical tactic in modern-day crowdfunding.
October Book Club
But the Book Club is happening for October!
We’re reading two comic book stories this month. Both horror, naturally. And one of them wine-themed, also naturally. :)
If you’d like to read the books we’ve selected, and pair them with your beverage of choice while discovering what we and everyone else paired with them at the end of the month, join us on Facebook here. (Just request membership and I’ll approve it! Gotta keep the spam-bots out.)
Here are the comics we’re reading:
NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE by James Tynion IV and Álvaro Martínez Bueno
A 12-issue maxi-series from DC Comics’ "Black Label" (mature readers line, the thing that has essentially replaced Vertigo.)
When 10 friends find themselves invited to a lake house by an 11th mutual friend, they don’t know what to expect. But what happens after they arrive is beyond their wildest imaginations.
I won’t give anything away, but I recommend reading this series alongside watching the Hulu/Fox original movie, No One Will Save You. These two stories would make a wicked double feature. Very different takes on an interestingly similar premise.
The execution is essentially a cross between the ensemble drama of Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House and the mixed-media genre thrills of Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves novel (for anyone who remembers THAT bad boy!) The art by Bueno is just incredible.
NICE HOUSE is now collected into 2 trade paperbacks, both of which are available on Hoopla, and Volume 1 is free on ComiXology Unlimited (but not Volume 2, that one you'll have to pay for if you want to read the whole series this month.)
On HOOPLA (your local library)
We plan to read both volumes/the whole series, but feel free to only dive into Volume 1 and we'll try not to give any Volume 2 spoilers when we discuss later this month via Livestream!
I love Nice House writer,
, I always thought Scott Snyder's work was more rounded when he co-write with James back in the day, and since coming into his own with "Something Is Killing the Children", "The Department of Truth" and more, I'm super-excited to dive into Nice House.The Vineyard by Brian Hawkins and Sami Kivela
Yes! A horror comic about a vineyard, baby!
A comic by Wine and Comics Book Club member, writer Brian Hawkins, and artist Sami Kivela. This is a 4-issue horror mini-series, so a much lighter commitment than Nice House!
Now, this was a book put out by Aftershock Comics, and we all know (or just google the company) what's up with them these days. But we still want to give a show of support to Brian and Sami, and we always want to enjoy their comics work. So let's all go grab a copy and share the love together.
Brian is an admitted fanboy of SCREAM and the slasher genre, so expect something playing with that corner of horror but with an element of the supernatural involved (at least I think so, I haven’t read it yet!)
Feel like double-featuring this comic with a movie as well? I’d recommend the 1978 French horror classic, THE GRAPES OF DEATH (Les Raisins de la Mort). Free to stream on Kanopy in the States.
We'll be doing a Livestream online to discuss the comics and the beverages we paired them with on Halloween! Make sure you’ve joined the club so you don’t miss your chance to share your own thoughts and pairings!
Meanwhile, on Substack…
CUALITY [sic] COMICS CRAP:
- just posted a Paid-Subscriber-Only post that was worth its weight in comic page count: she offered up a download of a new Mary Shelley’s School for Monsters comic that was only for her Paid Substack subscribers (at least for now). That’s…a really great subscriber value! She also posts “Monster of the Week” posts, roughly half of which are available to free subscribers, where a character from her comic chronicles what different folkloric monsters are within the world of Mary Shelley. And not just the obvious monsters either. I highly recommend you check her stack out as a free reader to get started!
- posted about Kevin Joseph’s TART VOL. 3 Hardcover, just launched on Kickstarter. We’re going to have Kevin on the Wine and Comics show next week, because his Tart comic is amazing. Check it out and we’ll be posting more about next week’s Livestream with Kevin soon!
- over at writes about how he’s raised over $100,000 via crowdfunding but still hasn’t made a profit on creating comics! In case you thought animation and movies were the only things that cost a bundle just to get them off the ground.
WONDERFUL WINE WHISPERINGS:
- writes about the need for a new wine education. I’m half with Jason, and half think he’s slightly ahead of the actual curve. Yes, we need to get beyond just talking about Napa Cab and Chardonnay and Suavignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio. Exposure is half of any education battle, so the more people hear the names of other wines, the more comfortable they’ll become with them over time. But I also think there’s a need to make wine less pretentious. Making wine “more fun” doesn’t have to mean dumbing it down, it’s true. But it does mean we have to do more fun things with it - make it a part of our everyday experiences and options, rather than something that demands insane levels of formal education and geek talk that consists 75% of name-dropping brand names and soil types and Chateaus. (And tasting notes with terms like fucking “garrigue”.)
- talks up how wine drinkers currently are fighting their own doctors about the “evils” of all alcohol vs. the overall health benefits of drinking wine in moderation. Wine is the ONLY alcoholic beverage that has shown to have a net positive effect on health. It’s relatively low alcohol content makes it much easier to drink regularly without getting wasted or have adverse effects on the kidneys vs. liquor or even highly caloric beer. For anyone out there who has dialed back or completely quit drinking due to health concerns that aren’t too extreme: consider wine as an alternative. Drink it with food, or never more than one glass per day if you’re worried about self-control. Red wine especially is overall healthy for humans, so long as your intake isn’t excessive.
Nice list of horror recommendations. I love Nice House and No One Will Save You. Looking forward to reading The Vineyard! Thanks for mentioning Monster of the Week!