Werewolves

The Origins of Larry Talbot

Larry Talbot is, as you will all be aware, the alter-ego of the Wolfman. The Bruce Wayne to the werewolf’s Batman. Last week I went off in search of the gravesite of the “Werewolf of Georgia”—and found it!—which is located in Talbot County, Georgia. This got me to thinking: could Curt Siodmak, who wrote the…

THERIOPHOBIA: FEAR THE BEAST Chapter Three, Part Two

[Note: When chapters are really long, I will be breaking them up into smaller sections.] The Kidde home, located just within the city limits of Ironwood, off Randolph Street, would be difficult to find for anyone unsure of the local geography. A brick wall surrounded the large yard, with a wrought iron gate that opened…

Hunt like a Neanderthal

Our hulking, hirsute cousins are in the news a lot this week. First I reported on the growing of Neanderthal mini-brains in petri dishes, with the end goal being to wire them into little robots that they will then start to control, and now there’s this. Neanderthals killed their prey with spears. We knew that…

Neanderoids

I initially thought this was an article from THE ONION. But no, it appears to be for realz. Scientists are growing mini-Neanderthal brains, called “Neanderoids,” in petri dishes, with the next step being to hardwire them to miniature, crab-like robots. Go ahead and read that last sentence again. See why I thought it was a…

Catching up with the PENNY DREADFUL Comic

I was kept away from my local comic shop for some few months—with “local” being a relative term—due to my not having the time to visit nor having the disposable income to procure my reading material of choice. (I’ve been too busy buying toys, since Toys R Us announced that it was going out of…

Remembering Koko

She knew sign language. She had a vocabulary of over 2000 words and could even use them creatively. She displayed a sense of humor. She had pets, with a special fondness for kittens. She was friends with Mr. Rogers and Robin Williams. When she was informed of the latter’s death, she mourned for him. Let’s…

The Lost City of Gedi

It looks like something out of one of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan novels, but it’s real. The city of Gedi is in ruins today and is being slowly swallowed by the surrounding Kenyan jungle. Gedi was a thriving trade point originally settled in the 11th Century AD and had a population of up to 2500…

“Wolf-Like Creatures”

This made me think of the old GARFIELD AND FRIENDS Saturday morning cartoon series, one of my favorites from back in the day. There were numerous running jokes on the show, sly enough for the adults to appreciate as well as the kids. The Klopman Diamond. The riffs on professional wrestling. And the use of…

THERIOPHOBIA: FEAR THE BEAST Chapter Three, Part One

TEN DAYS AGO: WAXING CRESCENT MOON Hank Frye stood at the head of the classroom, leaning on the instructor’s podium, looking out over the rows of desks, the faces of the students who occupied them, men and women of varying ages and appearances. The majority of them were there because the University required it, of…

In Search of the Gravesite of the Werewolf of Georgia – Part One

Any of you remember that TV show IN SEARCH OF…? It ran from the late 70s to early 80s and was hosted by Leonard Nimoy, chronicling all manner of unexplained phenomena. The show was a spinoff of the special IN SEARCH OF ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS and its sequels, and inspired a series of books of the…

In Search of the Gravesite of the Werewolf of Georgia, Part Two

First things first. If you’re ever in the area and are thinking about seeking out the grave of Emily Isabella Burt for yourself, DON’T. Just don’t. For one thing, the grave is located on private property. I had permission to be there. Also, if you’re thinking you can find the cemetery where Ms. Burt is…

Marvel Comics’ GHOST PANTHER

This character may or may not get his own comic book. I hope he does. Out of all the character mash-ups that have been released as of late as part of the Marvel Comics “Who Gets Warped?” line, Ghost Panther is my favorite and by far the most interesting to me. (The others thus far…

Catching up on MONSTER WEEK: “Lost Kingdom of The Yeti”

I mention this episode over on our sister site vampires.com this week, too, for reasons that you will have to visit said site to learn. Here we will focus on the program itself, and why it is important from a scientific point of view. Science has advanced to the point that DNA can be recovered…

The Daughter Of Little Red Riding Hood And…

I must give credit to my online pal Margot Juby for this one. Margot is a fellow Gilles de Rais scholar—she has a book coming out wherein she argues, quite persuadably, that Gilles de Rais was innocent, that he was the victim of a medieval frame-up. (This is an idea I explored in my original…

The Black Wolf of the Everglades

One of the shows I recorded (and only recently got around to watching) from this year’s MONSTER WEEK on Animal Planet was an episode of “Extinct or Alive”. On the show, scientist-slash-host Forrest Galante leads a film crew around searching for living animals officially declared extinct, and in this particular episode he was down in…

Are Werewolves Real?

We receive such questions so frequently here and at out sister site vampires.com that I’m going to create this post and then simply cut-and-paste it in the future. People are always writing in, asking whether or not werewolves are real. They may be seeking a simple yes or no answer, but unfortunately neither of those…

Werewolves and Silver, Part Two

So we know that the tradition goes back at least a couple’a-three centuries. Folklore from Germany and England in the1800s tells of werewolves felled by silver. A story from the Brothers Grimm involves a witch being killed by a silver bullet. But what’s the origin of this belief, that silver is a “holy” metal, useful…

THERIOPHOBIA: FEAR THE BEAST Chapter Two

FOURTEEN DAYS AGO: NEW MOON A man and woman copulated behind the glass of a television screen, its maladjusted color-setting giving their skins an orange tint. The woman, on her knees, took it from behind, her face on the carpet, her large breasts spread beneath her like cushions, bleached hair spilling over her head as…

Satan’s Steed and Topiary

Sounds like the name of a business, doesn’t it? “Satan’s Steed and Topiary”? If you follow horseracing—I don’t—then you already know that a horse named Justify won some pennant or something. I don’t care. I’m only mentioning it because I found out that the thoroughbred—that’s what you call these horses, right? Thoroughbreds? I don’t know…

Another Teen Wolf, Too

I’m not talking about the lackluster movie starring Jason Bateman, a sequel to the silly but fun TEEN WOLF, which starred Michael J. Fox. They tried to be clever and title the sequel TEEN WOLF, TOO after Fox refused to reprise his role from the first one (either because he just hated the movie or…

The Connection Between Werewolves and Silver

It’s one of those tropes that everyone knows: silver bullets kill werewolves. Only silver bullets. It’s as ubiquitous as the full moon thing. Yet like the belief that werewolves could only transform on nights when the moon is full, the connection between werewolves and silver is of modern vintage. Scouring the folklore of centuries past,…

David Harbour Would Walk Tall

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Buford Pusser Festival in Adamsville, Tennessee. While I would hope that everyone reading this article would recognize that name, Buford Pusser, I understand that, for some of you younger folks, that might not be the case. While I could never in a single article manage to encapsulate…

Demon-Possessed Essential Oil

Lawd have mercy. Last week, I posted an article on this chick I know who is all kinds of batshit, who believes she is under attack from demons but who has some “essential oil” to ward the demons off and prevent them possessing her. I was just being flippant. I posted it because I thought…

The Pulps Are Dead. Long Live The Pulps!

It must be tough to be a “Social Justice Warrior.” Note my use of quotation marks here. This is to designate the difference between any person concerned about social concerns—and frankly, social justice should be a primary concern of any compassionate, intelligent person in this day and age—and those cliché-ridden, self-important types who spend so…

THERIOPHOBIA: FEAR THE BEAST Chapter One

As promised last week, peeps, here is the opening salvo of my original werewolf novel. Give it a paragraph or two. If you aren’t impressed, skip it. But I think you’re gonna dig it. All material is copyright 2018 by me. Feel free to share it ad nauseam, just please credit me as the author….