The Final Four - Pan Performances That Is

What do you mean you haven't seen it?!

Okay, it's now or never. There are four more performances of The Great God Pan at the Athenaeum Theatre.

Don't be one of those folks who asks us if we videotaped the show for everyone who missed it.

We didn't.

"This is a major achievement as a piece of horror theatre...engaging and scary"
-ChicagoCritic.com

"fantastically executed"
-Killer_works.com

"It delivers the guts and gore you crave and you may actually get blood splattered on you"
-The Chicagoist

"spooky fun in the vein of the classic Hammer Films thrillers of the 1950s and '60s"
-Chicago Reader

Mythic Creatures at the Field Museum

Chicago's Field Museum has a new temporary exhibit, Mythic Creatures, that examines man's fascination with mythic creatures and looks at where these myths may have originated.

March 19 to September 1, 2008

From the Field Museum website:

"Since the dawn of time, creatures of the unknown have fascinated cultures the world over. From medieval fire-breathing dragons to the magical powers of the unicorn, mythic creatures have captured the imagination. Now, examine the legend and the science behind some of the most fascinating creatures ever invented. Enter the fabled world of dragons, journey to the depths of the ocean and soar above the clouds to uncover the origins of the powerful, dangerous and magical beings that have been a part of the human experience for thousands of years. Preserved specimens, cultural artifacts and works of art highlight the surprising similarities and differences in the way people around the world have envisioned these myths. Today, mythic creatures continue to live on in the everyday lives of many cultures—and now they live at The Field Museum."


© AMNH / Denis Finnin

Ray Frenden - He's Everywhere

Ray Frenden is exploding. And now he has gone and won the 2007 Threadless Bestee Select Award for his "Medusa" t-shirt design. Congrats, Ray!

Dave Stevens - An Inspiration

Dave Stevens passed away yesterday. May he rest in peace. Dave will always be an inspiration.


© 1983 Dave Stevens

The First Fear Lives

It has been an exciting 2008 so far. I started with ConceptArt.org's Revelations art orgy in Seattle, did 8 large paintings and a big sculpture for the play, we opened The Great God Pan, in connection with that I interviewed Clive Barker and seem to be starting a biz relationship with Weird Tales magazine. Sue had her baby! We got a visit from Donna. The Devil's Candy Store is ramping up again. And...

I'm back on The First Fear story. I have a beginning, middle and end. I have a cast of characters and I have scenes. I have themes and character arcs. I will soon have sketches and dialog. All the research and all the sketching and thinking and writing came together this weekend.

What did it? Imagining how I would do it as a play in a little blackbox theater with a small cast and limited resources. The blessing and the curse of a comic book is it's limitless potential. You can have millions of characters, endless scenes, thousands of costume characters and it can go on for decades. A two hour, low budget play is quite another story. I've always worked better under restraints (or is that - in restraints?) and thinking this way is just what I needed.

more soon...

My WildClaw Interview with Clive Barker

Tuesday I had the good fortune of interviewing Clive Barker for the WildClaw Theatre website. Always charming and an effortless interview (you just sort of mention a subject and Clive is off and running), Clive was gracious enough to talk to me during a very hectic schedule. He is a creating machine. You can read the interview here.



Clive helped us out with an interview before when Steve Pickering adapted William Gibson's Burning Chrome. He interviewed William Gibson for our Chrome website and the two of them went on for one and a half hours. It was great.

My thanks again to both authors for supporting the arts at all levels. I was a fanboy before I met them and I'm still a fanboy now.

Killer-works and The Great God Pan

"Fantastically executed... It would be impossible to tell the story literally from Machen's text, but Charley Sherman (adaptor/director) does an excellent job of creating a narrative flow that makes sense. Lighting and sound skillfully move you around the stage, help set the tone and punctuate the moments of tension. The acting is also of high caliber and the female leads Lily Mojekwu (as the many faces of evil) and Michaela Petro (as Mary) are particularly captivating."
-Jude Mire, Killer-works(for full review)


Lily Mojekwu in The Great God Pan


Michaela Petro in The Great God Pan