“Story Time (1 Oct. 2019)” by Richard F. Yates

[Editor’s Note: I’ve been a comics lover since I was a little kid, although straightforward superhero comics, believe it or not, weren’t really my thing. The first comic book I remember buying myself, actually choosing and paying for, was some early issue of Ghost Rider, which I bought back in 1979 or ’80 from a guy who was selling comics out of his house, right across the street from ours, and I picked that particular comic because the cover featured a guy with a flaming skull for a head who was riding a crazy looking motorcycle! As I got more into comics, I did read a few superhero books from time to time, The Inhumans or Green Lantern or Uncanny X-Men or The New Mutants, but I usually gravitated more to books with titles like Twisted Tales in 3-D or Vault of Horror or Where Monsters Dwell. In time, I discover a Marvel comic, called The Defenders, which although TECHNICALLY a superhero book, was also about weird monsters and black magic, and had characters in it with odd names, like Dr. Strange and Gargoyle and Moon Dragon and Hellcat! And that book would occasionally have guest appearances by REALLY weird folks, like Son of Satan! Man!…That was good stuff... Easily my favorite series! Later, in the late ‘80s and ‘90s, we got titles like Saga of the Swamp Thing and The Sandman and Hellblazer and Shade, the Changing Man, with sophisticated story telling and creepy plots, and there were also some great independent comics, like The Crow and From Hell, which, not constrained by the Comics Code Authority or an editorial staff that was all that worried about attracting mainstream advertisers, could tell some truly horrifying, gruesome tales.

So now, with superhero MOVIES being all the rage, I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t time for some of those OTHER genres, the forgotten comics styles, to come back out of the woodwork and start making appearances, as well. (The fact that Doom Patrol has gotten a t.v. series is cool, and a good start---even if it’s on a service that I don’t have, so I can’t watch it---and I honestly loved The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which was TECHNICALLY based on a comic, even if the original Harvey Comics' stories were NOWHERE NEAR as cool as the Netflix show.)

But---something it’s important not to forget---I am a terrible artist! I LOVE art, and I draw just about every day, but I’m a doodler---a scribbler---a Dada (Zurich style) non-conformist, when it comes to draftsmanship. I couldn’t DRAW a comic to save my life (and if you’ve been following my blog(s) for any length of time, and you've actually SEEN the comics I’ve made, you’ll know I’m not fibbing.) What I CAN do, what I’ve been trained to do, what I’ve taught OTHERS to do, is write… And what I WANT to write, at the moment, is a comic that is NOT a comic. A TEXT ONLY COMIC. I want to write stories that COULD HAVE BEEN in an issue of Creepy or The Defenders or House of Secrets, but using my WORDS to paint the scenes… (Although, if someone wants to illustrate what I’ve written LATER, I might be open to that, but RIGHT NOW, I’m focusing on PLOT, CHARACTER, and WORLD BUILDING…) I’m going to tell some stories---stories that have sprung up and grown (perhaps festered) in the compost of my brain from the evil seeds dropped by all those horror and suspense titles I read back in the ‘80s and ‘90s---thousands upon thousands of pages of black magic and monsters and ghosts and BLOOD…

So get some popcorn, throw a fresh tape in your VCR and hit record, and come journey with me into the haunted, blood soaked, horrific (and probably very silly) realms of…

STORY TIME!!!! [Shrill organ plays a screeching tone! Aaaaaaaand….fade to black…]

Episode 001: “The Garden”----.....(To be continued...or begun...or something...)

---Richard F. Yates

[P.S. – Episode 001 should be ready to read tomorrow!!!! My point for this introductory post is to explain a little bit about what type of project I have in mind and let folks know that it's starting from POINT ZERO. All new characters (or reintroducing any characters I've already written and establishing how they fit in this new world), all new settings, all new everything. If you've stuck with my weird mythos over the last few years, you'll probably feel at home, but don't get too comfy / cozy! I'm going to be doing some serious re-imagining here, so there might be a surprise or two in the cards! Or more... Or... Just come back tomorrow. You'll see what I mean... ---RFY (Undefined...)]