As we were leaving Shore Leave in its new location of Lancaster, Pennsylvania last week, we pulled into a drive-through to snag some cool drinks for the ride home.
I seldom get the luxury of lazing upon my surroundings in the car, but being the passenger this time, I spotted a pushed-off strip center shopping mall that no doubt went up during the 1980s if not the Seventies.
Now strip malls are still very much a thing as opposed to the megacomplexes that were the lifeblood of my generation’s teen scene. Thus, I was a little caught off-guard, despite being a thorough student of economics, to find a completely barren strip center like this one. With a kaleidoscope of barren marquees, no less.
I mean, this sucker was one hundred percent dead.
Nothing leased, only one other car slinking by in passing. At one time, no doubt a major source of local commerce, considering its otherwise prime location planted on the main business artery of Lancaster Route 30.
The problem, I see, and I think it’s becoming more commonplace with failing strip centers, is not so much the syndrome of online e-markets offering far wider choices and pricing landing somewhat closer to the targeted retail cost.
Route 30 in Lancaster, like most American commercial routes, is a lifeblood to the local economy, so much every possible mainstream food and retail operation you’re looking for is almost guaranteed to be there. So much there are three competing steak houses in close quarters, one of which gained our business for being on our side of the street, even with all three being a stone’s throw from the convention.
The difference I saw in the strip centers of Lancaster that were thriving with stuffed parking lots, is having closer access to the main road. The strip mall you see here was pushed off a smidge of a block from Route 30. You had to rely, back in its prime, upon a guidepost sign directing you in. It’s still there, empty of businesses, but who cares about it when you have three fast food emporiums, a coffee peddler and a closer berthed mini strip burying it?
In other words, out of sight, out of mind. Instant kill-off.
A shame, really, but what I told TJ as I snapped off these quick shots was, “If this was a zombie holocaust and this empty shell was our only safe haven between survival and becoming chow for the undead, we’d be royally effed.”
Hi, my name is Ray Van Horn, Jr. Author of Coming of Rage and Revolution Calling and later in 2024, my new horror compilation, Behind the Shadows. I’ve worn many hats as a music and film journalist and concert photographer for 16 years, a press release writer, a former NHL game analyst, local beat reporter, scribe of serialized superhero adventures and haunter of the open mike.
I’m a deep cut kind of guy, though there’s always a place for timeless hits in my heart. I’m currently grinding out the psychedelic bombast of Heavy Temple with the hip hop stylings of Kid Cudi’s Entergalactic soundtrack on deck. My son turned me on to Kid Cudi and I’m proud of that, because I’m sometimes a tough one to sell in music. I have way broad horizons in my music tastes, but the bottom line is I demand integrity, not filler, from you as a musician.
I beat my 54-year-old body senseless through fitness endeavors because I only know when to quit when the stakes call for it. I have maybe one more Spartan event in me come November at Fenway Park, but knowing my stubborn self, I’ll be scrolling the event calls once again next year.
I’ve hashed 27 years scratching coin in the mortgage title industry and currently hold a title examiner position. That’s a long daggone time in one industry as I’ve seen friends come and friends come again in a business we refer to as incestuous since everyone knows everyone. Now I’m seeing next to no one I remember. Read into that as you will.
This is my favorite picture anyone’s ever taken of me, by the love of my life, TJ, my best friend, catching me in a wee sloshy, mostly infatuated man who knows he’s struck gold in his life. I used this picture as an author photo for my first two books and other publications, but nothing makes me smile harder other than looking at pics of our wedding every single day.
I am thinking about the first time I ever attended Shore Leave in 1992, it being my first day on the job with Alternate Worlds comic shop and told to report to what was then a Star Trek exclusive event. I told this story last night in the company of some of the elite writers of Trek and sci-fi-fantasy in one of the more incredible weekends of my life. Both TJ and my lives.
In ’92, I was thrust into a world I knew only from my childhood perspective watching the original show and the 1970s Filmation series of Star Trek. I had the toys, I had a felt poster of the U.S.S. Enterprise on my wall. Star Wars changed everything and I lost touch with my inner Trekker until Shore Leave ’92. I had veritably no clue what most of the conventioneers were talking about that night and was embarrassed beyond words. Great first day of the job, cough cough, but they kept me anyway. The high point of that clumsy, out of my league evening was calling out to DeForrest Kelley when I spotted him by himself. He gave me a friendly grin and a wave on his way to the elevator. Faboo!
I vowed from that day to never be caught with my pants down in such fashion again, thus I ground out all the Next Gen, DS9 and Voyager episodes as I fell in love again with the widely spreading canon. I read as many Star Trek novels and comics as I could until I was stronger versed to be effective at my job. One of those authors I became an immediate fan of upon first contact (pun intended) and whom I talked at length to about baseball lesser than Trek and sci fi this weekend.
My wife celebrated another lap around the trail of life selling her books and speaking on panels at the 44th Shore Leave Star Trek and sci-fi-fantasy convention this past weekend, relocated from its long-standing host venue in Hunt Valley, Maryland to beautiful Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
For her birthday, all TJ wanted from me was her very own tribble, so I took care of that wish. It took no time to have a run-in with a con-prowling Klingon who growled and hissed and called it a parasite. All good fun at a Trek con! We joked, “Let’s hope it doesn’t multiply!”
TJ did what she always does and that’s command any room she’s in, be it in the dealer room as one of the best salespeople I know or on the panel. I am so frigging proud of her. It was a magical weekend on many levels and fun talking to our customers and fellow vendors. Speaking of Klingons, it was extra cool having the legendary J.G. Hertzler next to us signing autographs and singing Klingon battle chants. Epic.
Christopher Abbott, Dayton Ward, Aaron Rosenberg, Michael Jan Friedman, David Mack, Greg Cox, Derek Tyler Attico, Russ Colchamiro, Hildy Silverman, Joshua Palmatier, Mary Fan, Keith DeCandido, Wrenn Simms and anyone who’s name I missed. There were so many people I chatted with, and I suck if I forgot you. Rigel Ailur, I think I saw you in passing, lady, hey hey! Whether it was a little or a lot we spoke, I value the time we spent in conversation, comradeship and laughter.
Many of you shared craft and writing marketing tips with me as the NY Times bestselling pros you are. No matter your level, all of you are successes in my book and kind beyond words. You are a tight knit bunch, from the Crazy 8s to their famous colleagues-in-arms. The love shared amongst you radiates. Thank you for sharing that with TJ and I. It’s relationships that count the most in life.
Only downer, our prayers to the motorcycle couple who were caught in a terrible accident next to where we all gathered for dinner. TJ and I attended the husband, Hildy, Mary and others his wife. As I held the husband’s head still in his cracked helmet, I thanked the divine they were both wearing them. I looked this severely busted up man in the eyes and kept him still as I could with TJ helping until the ambulance arrived. I was so deeply moved when he had the cognizance to call out for his wife and she did the same. May the divine protect and heal them both.
My favorite score at Shore Leave 44 aside from a couple of rad Godzilla books and a dude peddling some delicious smelling gamer-themed coffee beans, Todd Alcott’s incredible Horror Tarot deck. I don’t know what’s cooler, the beat-up paperback look to the packaging or the cards themselves, representing the arcana spanning the 1920s through the Eighties homaging classic horror movie posters, book, magazine and comic covers. If you know me, it’s no surprise the divine drew me two Stephen King cards, but the draw three was the exact answer I hoped for.
A mass blanket thank you to all whom I’ve mentioned, for so many reasons. I come out of this surreal weekend far more enlightened and aspirant from the chats and attending panels.
The cosplay was just insane and I am still giggling getting mugged by Borg at 1:30 a.m. on Friday. Shore Leave has become far more than it began with, promoting a spirit of needed inclusivity and I’m not just talking about Trek vs. Star Wars. It’s a celebratory safe haven for all who love this wonderfully geeky stuff.
With my new horror anthology, Behind the Shadows on the way, I’m not laying on my duff. I am already on the fifth chapter of my next horror novel which I am already proud of, since TJ and I began fleshing it out on our honeymoon.
Back to Behind the Shadows, however, I would have to say it came from a combination of Bram Stoker, Twilight Zone, our weekly Saturday night “Ghost Host” theater on Baltimore UHF Channel 45, EC horror comics from the 1950s and a near lifetime burrowed into Stephen King’s works.
Creepshow, especially, which you can see my passion for here, including the film, John Harrison’s jangly synth score, a first print edition of King’s graphic novel collaborated with comics master, Berni Wrightson and Japanese t-shirt. That film poster you see in many of my office photos is an authentic original, scored decades ago through an old Gore Zone ad.
I was 12 when the movie came out and those in my area who remember Golden Ring Mall will attest to the wild positioning of the movie theater, spread over two levels and on opposite ends of the mall. This poster hung not only in the multiple movie lobbies, but inside a pizza shop across from Kay-Bee Toys. I will never forget gnawing on pizza slices staring intently upon the Creepshow poster while my family jawed over their own concerns. Mine was getting to see this film at all costs. That entire moment and the eventual viewing of the movie two years later was invaluable fuel to telling my stories in Behind the Shadows.
The Creepshow sequels, revival t.v. show and comics series are all fun, but nothing matches that first encounter with a decapitated head cake, eating machine monsters in crates, an army of roaches, a truly frightening drowning revenge arc and of course, “meteor shit.” Creepshow was an unapologetic love letter to the EC classics and it becomes even more apparent as I’ve been pounding through those old horror and suspense reprints.
Strapping on the Creep once again hoping the same mojo spills into my current story.
I wrote this horror poem back in 2010 when I was doing open mike events and experimenting with my voice. Also known as “La Xtabay,” I had fun putting my own spin upon the legend of the notorious demonic Yucatan temptress. Connected to the Mayan goddess of suicide by hanging, Ixtab, and best recounted in Jesus Azcorra Alejos’ Diez Leyendas Mayas, the myth tells of a raven-haired succubus of the forest luring lovestruck men to their gruesome demise.
Not by best work, but you just know a horror freak like me had a field day playing with such gory lore.
Xtabai
Ray Van Horn, Jr.
she has the electric touch
I can sense the Mestizo conduit
dancing between her fingertips
before they ever stroke my chest
it’s the nails which stun my skin like cacti pricks
her hazels are glowing fragments of jasper
overpowering my bland muddies
while the moon illuminates her olive cleavage
asserting her governance
making me feel worthless and disobedient
her breath tastes like anisette
and she whisper-sings the night rhythm
into my craven ears
I want her as much as I don’t
she spreads her fog of velvety corruption
summoned from Belize afar
I dare to forsake my genteel upbringing
and I ask her to hand me the rose
before I willingly pass La Ceiba towards Hell
the succubus smiles her approval
the chalcedony in her pupils ignite
her fragrance is beyond aura
hair of onyx, pale, loosened robes raping my will to the ether
This rad advance review of my upcoming horror compilation, Behind the Shadows by Jack Mangan over at The Metal Hall of Fame and Metal Asylum not only has me smiling, it sums up my entire teen life and many of the elements that give my stories their sustenance. Thank you, Jack! Horns up.
“Ray Van Horn Jr.’s Beyond the Shadows is an eclectic mixtape of Gen-X terrors, drawing from 80s horror flicks, EC Comics, late-night TV, Jolt Cola, Columbia House, Fangoria, Stephen King, and Hit Parader magazine until the tape snaps and snarls up your boombox. He creates scenes with such clarity and vivid detail, you’ll be asking yourself, “Is it real, or is it RVH?”
Behind the Shadows, by Ray Van Horn, Jr. coming soon through Raw Earth Ink. Let’s do this.
Feeling extra grateful for the freedom to chase after my goals on this morning’s training run, the cosmic funk of The Brothers Johnson’s “Strawberry Letter 23,” swimming through my sweaty head on the trails. One of the most sublime love songs ever crafted in our currently bruised and befuddled country. The future is suspect, but today, if not forevermore, let’s drop the pretentions and the sad divisions and just be AMERICANS. It’s our day, people, make it count. Be righteous to one another. Be sublime. Happy Independence Day, my fellow Americans, all.
As often as I like to talk about being a writer here at Roads Lesser Traveled, I am and always have been a devout reader. It comes in the bloodline. I had no hope of being otherwise. No complaints, mind you. I’ve had a rich and rewarding life reading and I know there’s hundreds of book aficionado and review bloggers out there. We get each other. We love to escape from reality and sink into other authors’ microcosms until it’s time to face our responsibilities.
Reading is therapeutic and fundamental, though current social modes and mores have begun to dumb down and dismiss the fine art of holding a book in your hands for however long it takes to engage the material and hopefully come to the concluding paragraph or comic book panel (usually with a “To be continued”) prompt.
I devour new release comic books each week, even if I have to get stingy with myself at times, given the recent price hikes. I can tell you I spend most of my comic book budget on Image and Marvel releases, pecking at some of the offerings from Titan, Dynamite and Dark Horse. I used to be a heavy DC reader and they will get their mentions in this post, given two incredible books they’ve released.
That being said, I find myself delved into comics and graphic novels the most (I can’t devour enough of the 1950s EC Comics horror, sci-fi and suspense reprints like Tales From the Crypt, The Haunt of Fear and Shock SuspenStories Dark Horse has been shuttling out again), but at the root of my love of reading, I have to push the novels, the nonfiction projects and magazines into my queue. Both TJ and I have baskets on either side of our bed where we keep our reading stash and both are always filled. Often we pass each our reads when they’re just that good. I like to say we’re both blessed that way and many others.
Speaking of good, I’ve enjoyed some franchise-based sci-fi, Picard-era Star Trek novels from Michael Jan Friedman and Dayton Ward and Adam Christopher’s superb Star Wars novel, Shadow of the Sith, set between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. Following FX’s outstanding Shogun miniseries redux, I have a return visit to James Clavell’s Tai-Pan and King Rat on deck.
Speaking of excellent, here’s a handful of way above-par reads I just had to share.
Current volume run of Wonder Woman. Tom King, to me, is the greatest comic book writer of this era. Must be something in that last name, I dunno, but I met the DC Comics mainstay at a comic convention and was bowled over how he greets every single visitor to his table, “Hi, I’m Tom.” He even humbly spoofed himself in this fashion in his game-changing resurrection of old school DC hero, Adam Strange, Strange Adventures. I became a fan of Tom not only for his ballsy work on the Batman books, but for rebranding Mister Miracle into one the hippest miniseries of all-time. Add Heroes in Crisis and the Watchman tie-in Rorschach to his teeming resume at DC.
I know not all readers are pleased with the direction King has taken Diana Prince, but I’m telling you, the man is a revolutionary. After an incident between an Amazonian exile and a crass, misogynistic barfly, Wonder Woman and her Themyscirian sisters have become Public Enemy # 1. The U.S. versus the Amazonian princess who’s devoted her life in protection of our very shores. You have to read King’s style on a consistent basis to see the depth of emotiveness he fuses into Diana’s breakdown (harder than taking Superman down without a rock of kryptonite) from a country which has betrayed her. The Sovereign is the engineer of her eventual surrender yet Wonder Woman will…not…break… Deep, dark, illuminating and at times, heartbreaking. My vote for the top three Wonder Woman arcs of all-time.
The Watson Chronicles, by Christopher D. Abbott. With certain vintage franchises reaching their lapse in copyright protection, it’s become a wild west frontier in the public domain. Yet, I really wish Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had lived to see British author Christopher D. Abbott do his consummate detective, Sherlock Holmes all the justice the character needs in a modern society. Those who burn a candle for the old ways, and I mean Robert Downey, Jr. no disrespect. His Holmes films are wildly entertaining, but at the end of the day, it’s Abbott who has masterminded an entire library of new Holmes adventures in DIY fashion.
The Watson Chronicles should be self-explanatory. Christopher Abbott’s Victorian mysteries are told from the point-of-view of Sherlock Holmes’ right-hand man, John Watson. Abbott has become an Amazon sales sensation with an entire slew of original Holmes cases and I’ve read seven of them so far. He’s even gone so far as to include other authors in his two Cases by Candlelight books featuring himself with guest writers Michael Jan Friedman, Aaron Rosenberg and Keith DeCandido. These Holmes revival books are as authentic to Doyle’s vision as it gets.
I get a lot out of Richard Chizmar’s writing, since he’s a fellow Marylander and we’ve run in the same neighborhoods and circles. I’ve enjoyed some casual chit-chat with the man who’s made a name for himself in the horror leagues, and not just for his collaborations with Stephen King (that other King brand of excellence). As decades-long editor of the illustrious Cemetery Dance magazine, Chizmar knows how to prick your nerves.
The sequel to his runaway success novel Chasing the Boogeyman, Becoming is for sure deeper, scarier and more personal, since Richard fused his real life, home and family into this scary as hell narrative. It helps (for me, especially) Chizmar drops a score of photos in both books to make each ring like a true crime novel. I knew many of the locations he and his contributors shot. You may see who’s coming in Chasing, but not Becoming, that’s for sure. I blasted through Becoming in three days, I was that riveted.
Batman will always reign as my favorite comic book hero, with Spiderman, Storm and Daredevil pulling in right behind. I was as faithful to Batman and DC as my wallet could afford. I see it out there on the chat boards. DC has saturated the market with Batbooks, which includes all of the heroic and villainous tie-ins and spinoffs they can shove. We’re talking Birds of Prey, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Nightwing, Batwing, Penguin and as of this week’s releases, fishnet-clad magician extraordinaire, Zatanna. If you look at my monstrous boxes of back issues, five are devoted to Batman and his affiliates. My Catwoman section alone is considerable and whoever thought her own solo series would have such a long-lasting affair?
DC has a side brand, and I’m not talking Vertigo, wish ushered some of the greatest comics of all-time like Sandman, Preacher, Swamp Thing, Doom Patrol and V is for Vendetta. In prestige format (which means larger size comics with cardstock covers and elite art even the big guns in the normal press kowtow to) is Black Label. No, not the beer which generations before mine (I’m fragging 54, for crying out loud) favored, but a darker side imprint offshoot which expands themes of violence, foul language and occasional nudity – calling to mind the infamous Bat-dick in Batman: Damned.
Yes, that’s a long preamble to get to The Bat-Man: First Knight, by the legendary Dan Jurgens and Mike Perkins. Note the hyphenated version of Bat-Man, as in when Bob Kane and Bill Finger first brought the Dark Knight to life. If you’re fortunate enough, you’ve read the early Post World War II and waning moments of The Great Depression arcs, but more so if you got to watch the Batman movie serials from the 1940s starring Lewis Wilson.
Keep all of it in mind as Jurgens writes a near-masterpiece with his three-issue First Knight miniseries set in 1939 when Bruce Wayne was just getting started and nobody, not even a green, pre-commissioner Gordon, put two and two together. Jurgens is just aces as a rube in capturing the lingo of the period in telling a tale of the Bat-Man’s early years, fighting a gory anomaly making Two-Face seem pussy by comparison. I got more out of the language Jurgens fused and the fact Bruce gets laid with a Hollywood starlet posing as love interest to a gay actor (this is how “woke” is done, people, FYI) we haven’t seen in his entire canon, plus the pro-Jewish stance the series takes. In the midst of The Holocaust perpetrated by those bastard Nazis, both Bruce Wayne and The Bat-Man find a fleeting sense of spirituality in protection of a Rabbi and his flock. Rabbi Cohen is the FIRST character to dig deep enough to sense the ennui that Batman (okay, Bat-man in this series) has a sense of gravitas to not only avenge his family, but the Yiddish culture facing extermination by Adolf Hitler in this story.
“I fear peace will forever elude me,” The Bat-Man with Bruce Wayne’s conscience, says to Rabbi Cohen. I frigging wept reading that. Thank you, Mr. Jurgens. I’m not Jewish, but I work for orthodox. I am a polytheist, but your insight hit me in the same way my Egyptian pantheon hit me. Congratulations. Whatever accolades or detriment you face, I have been with you since the early 1990s. I bought this series on a whim because it carried your name, my friend. Mazel Tov. You brought me out of a dollars-fused denunciation.
I felt so compelled by Rick Remender and Hollywood darling Brian Posehn I wrote a long-winded letter to them and the full creative team. If you were a skater, especially back in the day, Grommets is your effing jam.
To summarize a section of my long-winded letter:
“I’m tailspun by this book and I have so much to say (like I haven’t already) but I covered metal, punk and horror for 16 years in numerous magazines and websites and I lived my life as a metalhead all those years, even if punk is a far better genre in many ways. I saw myself in Grommets and my punker friends, my skate rat friends. I saw the title Grommets done up in the Thrasher magazine logo, I knew this was a mandatory read.
I laughed my ass off, guys. “Douche canoe dipshits.” “Choad lickers.” BWAHAHAHAHAHA! So fucking rad! I would consider myself Brian in this story and remember full well how Rush was accused of Satanism because of the 2112 cover. I was also “too metal” for everything back then, until crossover happened and it wasn’t just Suicidal Tendencies and D.R.I. turning thrash.
Crossover went down in my high school, a much-needed bridging between the metal and punk sanctions that I fostered. I’m really damn proud of that, because I saw we needed to fortify our forces as countercultural people, if you get me. Of course you do. Grommets wouldn’t be a thing if you didn’t. Four of my closest bros are metalheads and punks from those days of crossover.
We swapped our albums across the lines: Black Sabbath for Black Flag. Saint Vitus for The Crumbsuckers (who also turned thrash, of course). Every panel showing a punk band logo in Grommets all morphed into my massive collection of vinyl and cassettes. They remain today in my massive multi-genre music catalog. “World Up My Ass” by the Circle Jerks is a cut I still scream inside my car with the windows down.
I did a little bit of skating in my time and I sucked at it. I pulled off more “folllies” than “ollies.” I dabbled in BMX and nailed bunny hops, that’s about it. Instead, the local skaters and BMX tricksters roped me in as their music man. I was positioned atop a quarterpipe blasting music from my Emerson boombox, the treads of bike tires and trucks of boards whizzing within inches of my nose.
In other words, Grommets made me feel at home, even though I’m from the suburban east coast and that is the climate I lived in at the same timeframe of your story. We used to lament the west coast seemed to be so much cooler, so much more happening than our side of the U.S. We had a glorious time in the 80s, but California was “it,” and I know it every time I listen to the grit rawk band Fu Manchu and early days Kyuss or I go old school Cali punk with Redd Kross, Circle Jerks or Agent Orange. This comic book makes me feel every lick of it.”
Roads Lesser Traveled 