Miramay tells us the horrifying legend of El Silbon and The Whistling man. Spectre breaks down everything you need to know about the notorious Momo and her supposed suicide challenge.

The XIII Club is available most places you can listen to podcasts, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Pocketcasts, TuneIn, and more! As always, a video version is available on YouTube as well!

Make sure to check out our Post-Mortem episodes, too, where we talk about all the stuff we couldn't fit into our regular show, out on alternate Mondays!

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The Legend of El Silbon (translated from Spanish) - Taringa.net

Reddit post with comments from bingbong1234, recounting a possible encounter with a being he refers to as "The Whistler"

Reddit user bingbonb1234's video of their experience above

Japanese artist behind ghastly creature in viral 'Momo Challenge' baffled by disturbing hoax

Bear with us the audio quality, this one is from the vault. Spectre talks about her trip to Zak Bagans' museum in Las Vegas and Miramay tells us about the mysterious case of Bruno Borges.

The XIII Club is available most places you can listen to podcasts, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Pocketcasts, TuneIn, and more! As always, a video version is available on YouTube as well!

Make sure to check out our Post-Mortem episodes, too, where we talk about all the stuff we couldn't fit into our regular show, out on alternate Mondays!

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Wikipedia entry for The Dybbuk Box

Wikipedia entry for The Dybbuk Box

The True Story of the Dybbuk Box and Where It Is Now (Exemplore.com)

Zak Bagan's The Haunted Museum Site

Warning: Just Looking At This Haunted Doll Reportedly Triggers Sickness...Or Not (Redbook)

[Student obsessed with aliens vanishes, leaving behind books written in code (New York Post)](Student obsessed with aliens vanishes, leaving behind books written in code)

After almost 5 months gone, Bruno Borges returns home in Acre (g1.globo.com, headline translated from Portugese)

Bruno Borges says he risked life and integrity to 'wake up sick society'(g1.globo.com, headline translated from Portugese)

Resolved: Bruno Borges - 24 year old Brazilian male who left behind encoded manuscripts has come home (Reddit.com)

The XIII Club's triumphant return from a long, long hiatus! Spectre recounts her adventures in Ireland over the winter holiday, including her trips to various haunted locations, and shares a few paranormal encounters she had there, and Miramay covers the phenomena of The Brown Mountain Lights.

The XIII Club is available most places you can listen to podcasts, including iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Pocketcasts, TuneIn, and more! As always, a video version is available on YouTube as well!

Make sure to check out our Post-Mortem episodes, too, where we talk about all the stuff we couldn't fit into our regular show, out on alternate Mondays!

Listen Here:

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Google Play
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Watch Here:

Wikipedia Entry for Leap Castle

LeapCastle.net

Kinnitty Castle website

JimHarold.com: The Haunted Housewife's report on Kinnitty Castle

BrownMountainLights.com

AnomalyInfo.com's page on the lights

SupernaturalMagazine.com: The Brown Mountain Lights Mystery: What Are They?

CSICop.org: The Brown Mountain Lights: Solved! (Again!

Hunted came to my attention when I was browsing around the Amazon Kindle bookstore last week; I have been making an effort to use my Kindle more, and had just realized that I had a free book waiting on me to reedem. That book was not Hunted, but a rather different book, a bit of a soft spooky tale mixed with hints of romance that wasn't unpleasant but was a bit mild for what I had in mind at the time. After finishing that book, I went down a small rabbit hole trying to find something to scratch that itch, and ended up at Hunted.

I was immediately very into the premise; a young 22-year old woman, Eileen Herschberger, goes missing while out on a hike in a densely wooded Ashlough Forest. A short while later, her camera washes up on the banks of a river, and when the film is developed there appears to be something bizarre in the photos, prompting her brother and their friends to attempt a search for her. To my thinking, this book seems very inspired by The Lost Girls of Panama, the real life mysterious deaths of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon. Kremers and Froon went hiking while staying in Panama, and never returned. Their backpack was discovered a few months later under somewhat questionable circumstances with around 90 unexplained photos on the camera. Here is a link to a video on the case. It's interesting and well worth reading more about, if you're curious. At the risk of sounding morbid, it's one of my favorite unsolved mysteries of recent years, so naturally I was eager to dig into this book.

Unlike in the case of the Lost Girls of Panama, however, Eileen's brother, Chris, and their friends see what appears to be an unearthly figure in the photos. This prompts them to believe there may be something dangerous, some kind of creature, out in those woods, and given that the sleepy local police force is less than helpful, they mount their own search for Eileen, unwilling to give up as long as there is still a chance she might be out there.

Early on in the book, we are introduced to a friend of Chris, named Todd, who has a bit of an unhealthy fixation on Eileen, a white knight complex, and a borderline incel-attitude, who is the first person to go looking for her. However he makes the mistake of going relatively unprepared, and without telling anyone where he is going. He's honestly a fairly unlikeable character, and I was afraid the author was going to make him a main protagonist for the first quarter of the book. However, he quickly falls prey to first his own foolishness, then the elements, and finally, we follow his final moments being stalked by whatever is in the woods, and he meets a sorry fate worthy of our pity as readers.

Basically every other character in the book is reasonably likeable and more relatable and realistic than many I've read in fiction recently. The author has a gift for expressing their characters' innermost turmoil, especially grief and guilt, as portrayed through Chris. Best friend Flint and his girlfriend, Hailey, at first seem like stereotypical meathead and sexy girl characters, but as the plot progresses both prove to have more to their character than expected, and Hailey ends up being quite important to the book's "endgame". Another friend, Anna, serves as the brainier, more level headed and supportive friend, who keeps the group as well prepared as she can, with lots of water, batteries, maps, and food, preventing the cast from feeling like a cliche - they aren't fools who go off into the woods half-cocked like another horror trope, although they do make a few crucial mistakes I'll omit for spoiler reasons. Anna was probably my favorite character; as a psychology major, she shares a scene with Chris that I particularly enjoyed where she "psychoanalyzed" the other friends in the group, pointing out their strengths and flaws, and shows how much they all care about Chris, when he needs them most. It was a surprisingly sincere moment.

Analogous to the kids' search for Eileen in the woods of Ashlough Forest, we get the occasional perspective of police detective Carla, who initially dismisses the concerns of the Hershberger family, essentially giving up on Eileen's case after barely 48 hours. She's a woman who we see was previously dedicated to her job, but years on the force as well as personal tragedy have worn her down and blunted her will to fight on the job. However, she begins to discover something amiss in the woods herself after further inspection of Eileen's last photos. The chapters from Carla's perspective provide a nice, investigative mystery for readers to sink their teeth into in between the growing dread and misfortune of the kids.

While the majority of the book plays with the idea of the monster stalking the woods in this small town, in reality the monster takes a far different form than what you are initially led to believe at the beginning of the story. By the time we reach the final chapters, I could see what was taking shape with the plot, but until then, it did a good job keeping me enough in the dark to not have predicted the ending, which I can often do from a mile away. There was one moment that genuinely took me by surprise about halfway through, and which I thought was going to completely change the tone and trajectory of the story thus far, and knowing how the book ends, I feel like it's kind of an underutilised turn which is a bit disappointing.

Overall, this is a good, suspenseful fall read, which is exactly what I was looking for in the lead-up to Halloween. I found the tagline on the cover of the book - "her disappearance wasn't an accident. Her rescue will be a mistake" - a bit misleading until I kind of thought about it afterwards; it lead me to belive a different kind of story was going to take place, but that's not the book's fault so much as it is mine, and honestly, if the tagline gives away the entire story, it's probably not that good to begin with.. It isn't too long, either, and the pages turn pretty quickly once you get into it a good bit. If isolation in the woods and mysterious disapperances are unnerving concepts for you, you will probably enjoy this book. Give it a try, and remember to stay on the trail.

We have returned for episode 10! Spectre covers illegal and extreme body mods. Miramay brings us stories about the gremlins of World War II. Lastly, we discuss the superstitions associated with tempting fate. Rest in Peace, Rick Genest.

The XIII Club is available most places you can listen to podcasts, including iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Pocketcasts, TuneIn, and more! As always, a video version is available on YouTube as well!

Make sure to check out our Post-Mortem episodes, too, where we talk about all the stuff we couldn't fit into our regular show, out on alternate Mondays!

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Mysterioius Universe.org: The Real Gremlins of WWII

BBC: Illegal Tongue Splitting Procedures Exposed

Daily Star: Body mod fans DRILLING HOLES in heads to expand their MINDS

I won't pretend to fully understand Japanese idols. I get the general concept: attractive young performers singing and dancing to pop music. If I had to explain it to someone with no concept of things like Hatsune Miku or Perfect Blue, I would say "boy bands, but Japanese, and often girls." I am late to the alternative idol scene, as well, and a lot of the bands are good but, for my personal taste, too polished. It makes sense. It's pop music, and that's what Japan often does: take a Western thing we were done with a while ago, do it better. A lot of the current J-metal bands smack of guys like Atreyu, As I Lay Dying, Between the Buried and Me, and countless other early 2000s Hot Topic darlings of the post-hardcore/metalcore genre. But cleaner, more polished, and more aware of their niche.

Speaking of niches, apparently idols are doing the same. I became aware of alternative idols through a video produced by This Exists, a channel all about things you might not know about but should. Everyone knows, even if only by gimmick, Babymetal. They toured with Rob Zombie, if that speaks to their cultural significance and how accurate that "Hot Topic darlings" affiliation is. Babymetal is a decent entry point into alternative idols, with heavy but unoffensive music, utilizing traditional idol girl aesthetics and performances, subverting the genre enough to be noticed but little enough to still basically be pop. As the This Exists explainer... explained, there are far more niche groups to choose from, and one stuck out to me most from that video, walking around in the snow in Aokigahara Forest to blast beats and trem picking guitar. Necronomidol differs from some of the other idol groups in ways that make them much more appealing to me.

Before we get into the music more, there are the girls themselves. Idols are much like boy bands or girls (were there really any girl bands that weren't the Spice Girls?), with each member fitting a style and personality type. I can't begin to speak to the various types that exist, but the five members of this group are pretty easy to identify. There's the sort of dark aesthetic, high fashion member, Sari, who looks most like the band's theme, wearing white face paint and a plastic spider on her cheek. She's my favorite, though that's probably like Justin Timberlake being your favorite member of N'Sync, and similarly, she's probably the most recognized/recognizable. Risaki's outfit has a binder and midriff exposed, suggesting something like a Japanese girl gang member; she's, I believe, the leader of the group, being one of the founding members. Rei looks most like a traditional idol, the only member without dark or dyed hair, and also does solo performances outside of the group. Hina is the smallest and youngest, sometimes being unable to attend shows due to her school schedule; she's always got pigtails and an ultracute personality. Himari is most difficult for me to pin down from her appearance and performance, but through her social media, you get a better idea of her interests and personality. She's a bit of an otaku and seems to be the most ironic and funny; In a past Halloween, when all of the band members dressed as classic horror characters, Himari went as Celestia from Dangan Ronpa. She's Miramay's best girl.

The sound of Necronomidol (sometimes affectionately called Necroma by fans) itself is often black metal and dark wave, with some songs treading on other rock and metal territories. I never cared much for black metal as music; I loved the concept, but it gets a bit exhausting after a while, and I suspect even it's biggest fans like it best for it's concepts and aesthetics more than the actual songs. Five singing and dancing women make it much more listenable for a long duration, personally. On the opposite end, idol groups don't usually appeal to me because the music is generally polished and produced to a point that it feels dishonest as heavy music. Necronomidol's recordings are often a little more DIY in quality than acts that rely on music closer to scenester metalcore than older metal genres. That isn't to say they haven't become a little sleeker over time, and have even put out some well produced music videos (most recently of this writing the music video for Strange Aeons, a hybrid of Lovecraftian imagery and magical girls). The performers themselves also seem to be adults, something that also makes me feel a little more at ease participating in the culture of being a fan. Something about idolizing a lolita-styled child as a grown man puts me off a bit. No judgement; my understanding of idol culture is pretty limited, but this is my benchmark and entry point.

In short, I really like the music. They have a variety of songs that branch between heavy and dark electronic genres, their gimmick lyrically and visually is built around Lovecraft, and the manager is an American who has done well to make them accessible to Western listeners. They have only played in the US a handful of times and those shows were on the West Coast. While visiting Japan, they had a show a short trip from our AirBnB, and I made sure we put our names on the list.

The first thing that I noticed about the venue and show was that it wasn't an idol show as a whole. The venue resembled many dimly lit, small venues with a bar at the back that I have patroned in the US to see rock bands, and that is exactly who sandwiched Necronomidol on the roster that night. Two Japanese noise bands, girls in school uniforms, and a third noise band. This was a decent arrangement for me. I wanted to get an idea of how a rock show went in Japan, and I really wouldn't have been as engaged in seeing idol groups I didn't know.

The second thing that caught my attention was the "idol" aspect of the fan appreciation. I've been to a lot of shows and played in bands before. Seeing the band hanging around is normal and I've never had a musician that seemed particularly bothered by fans being kind. I've said hello and thanks to musicians before. When running to the bar, I saw my favorite of the performers standing at the back of the crowd watching the band before them, in full uniform and makeup, spider glued to her cheek. I kept an eye on the other fans that I could identify as being there to see the band, as maybe a third of the audience had on the band's various shirts. No one addressed her. No one even really looked at her. I didn't, either. I didn't know how this culture worked and wouldn't want to offend anyone, in particular someone I appreciate, even if I was quietly having a mild meltdown. Yes, I've met musicians I arguably liked more before, but it's one thing to see a guy in a touring band from Irvine in DC. It's another to be in a foreign country and see someone you follow on the internet standing in the same room as you as if a significant portion of the room isn't there to see them.

That changed the moment they took the stage. By that, I mean they actually took the stage, coming in from outside, through the crowd, and to their performance. Maybe it's reading too much into it, but knowing the theme of the songs and the concept of idols, it seemed fitting that women who sing songs about ancient gods be bowed down to and praised as they pass, which, no joke, literally happened. It's not an exaggeration to say that the crowd parted like the Red Sea. At US shows, there's always that guy that grabs the singer when they lean close enough in the audience. It's part of the performance of heavy music in the US. That wasn't an issue here.

I had not watched many of the band's performances by choice. I had listened to the albums, I watched the music videos, I've seen interview clips, but I didn't watch the choreography. It didn't seem quite right to me, like going out of my way to read spoilers. That was the element of the show that was brand new for me, and I genuinely appreciated it. I did know that audiences create call and responses for songs, but I wasn't able to find much in the way of a guide, probably because I would need it to be in English and their US performances can be counted on your hands as of the time of writing. The energy and ability they demonstrate in their dancing is remarkable, in particular when considering their voices not only seeming uninhibited by their movement but in some cases better than the dated recordings I have familiarized myself with (another detail about Japanese music culture, as well as still utilizing physical CDs, albums often reuse songs from prior releases with a new, improved recording, and the band's audio quality improves with each release).

I may have been in the dark as to how to participate in the fan dances and responses, but I did have one great exchange. I had on a Goblin shirt and one of the audience members complimented it between bands. We spoke for a while, using his friend as an interpreter occasionally. During the performance, he ran over to me and asked me who my favorite of the young women was. I told him, he nodded and darted back to the stage. During the band's last song, their best known with a pretty accessible audience dance included, he came back and asked again, and I confirmed. Knowing the verses well enough to distinguish which performer sang each line, he pushed me to the front of the crowd just before my favorite performer's verse started, putting me front and center to her. It really spoke to me how connected and involved this audience was, and meant a lot that someone would take the time to make sure I got that experience. It turns out the audience member and I were already friends on social media from my posting about the band, and he has mailed me some merch.

After the last band, the members and audience of the other groups left, leaving a small crowd of Necronomidol devotees. Had someone not explained this to me, a New Zealand man that seemed to know well how these shows worked, I would have left confused. I'm used to a merch table that stays ready to take your money during the show. Idol performances operate differently, or at least this one did. In this instance, fans lined up in one line to purchase merch and tickets for photos with the performers, called "chekis" in Japanese. A second line is formed, which is parsed to create a new line for each of the performers. As the kind guy explained, it's best to get in the less popular lines first, as you can get through it and then rejoin another line if you intended to meet more than one person. I did. My partner and I had established our favorites based on their visuals and online personalities before we left the states; Sari and Himari, as mentioned above. However, Rei, whom I previously knew very little about impressed me with her performance and I snagged a photo with her in addition. As the manager kept track of the sales and snapped photos, each fan got to spend a few minutes with the performer they were taking photos with, one-on-one. My limited Japanese made this slightly awkward but fan interaction is part of the job, and when I ran out of things I knew how to say, they picked up the slack. All of the performers were genuine and kind, and that added a lot to the experience and our appreciation of the performance. We ended up being the last people to leave, asking for a photo with the manager. He recognized my name from sending me merch. I think the somewhat grass roots feel of the band, something that is commercial and standardized as a concept, makes all the difference as an outsider more used to Western music.

*This article was crossposted to Weeabooze.life, a website where PulpAdded chronicles his adventures in Japanese food and alcohol culture
*

Shintaro Kago is a difficult creator to pin down. Notoriously known as a man of few words, he prefers to let his work speak for itself, but what it's trying to say exactly, is...well, to say up to interpretation is an understatement. Occasionally lumped in with Junji Ito in terms of art style and "horror" content, sometimes referred to as an ero-guro (erotic-gore) mangaka, and pretentiously referred to as specializing in "fashionable paranoia" by Western markets, he seems to prefer to use the word "kisou" (bizarre) to describe his body of work. But what defines a bizarre manga? Well, let's take Demntia 21 as a prime (albeit relatively tame) example.

When I saw solicits for a work by Shintaro Kago, and published by prestigous indie publisher Fantagraphics Books, I was honestly surprised; Fakku Books had published a Shintaro Kago collection titled Super Dimensional Love Gun earlier in 2018, a wide ranging collection of Kago's short stories that didn't shy away from some of the more graphic content he's known for (for example, White String). This was the first of Kago's works to be published in the US, and with Dementia 21 hot on its heels, and having not read it before myself, I wasn't sure if I should expect more in the same graphic, shocking vein or not. Not that I would have minded, I thorougly enjoyed SDLG, it epitomized what I love about Kago's art: his graphic, gross-out humor with erotic subtexts.

Dementia 21 is significantly milder fare, but no less enjoyable. Kago's art is still in top form, highly detailed and deceptively generic; and his ability to tell the most outrageous of stories is on display. Dementia 21 is about Yukie Sakai, a young home health aide eager to help her elderly clients, but what seems like a simple, straightforward job quickly turns into a series of surreal adventures that put her wits to the test. Initially following a semi-narrative structure where Yukie's coworkers are attempting to sabotage her flawless record by sending her to impossible (and dangerous) jobs, this is quickly abandoned in favor of tales of Yukie's misadventures with the elderly patients she cares for. It's almost an Alice in Wonderland type tale, if instead of Mad Hatters and March Hares, Yukie's world is populated with mind controlling dentures with the ability to self-replicate, incredible psychic powers, and never-ending extension cords.

As someone who is not Japanese and whose knowledge of Japanese culture is derived almost entirely from media consumed, the book does seem to me to be "about" (if something so anecdotal and intentionally over the top can be said to be "about" anything) Japan's fear of old age. This makes a lot of sense when we consider their population, which is shrinking in the face of longer life expectancies and declining birth rates; a similar phenomena is occuring here in the West but at a far slower rate. In Japan, there are more jobs than there are bodies to fill them, threatening rural communities with extinction and contributing to huge strain on the labor force, as well as tons of other problems (here's an article if you're interested in reading about that kind of thing). However the book isn't held back by the culture of its creator, as aging and death is a fear that transcends all of us, as many of the horrors of this book will likely be recognizable to any reader. But for every story that reflects a common fear of aging, there is the mirror image of the burden that having an older family member represents, the unrealized dreams and lives set aside in performing the expected good duty of caring for those that raised you, a life I saw my own father live and that has profoundly affected his relationships and choices ever since, and has affected how I view the approaching retirement of my own parents, for better or worse.

One story that particularly stuck out to me was the one contained in chapter 14, in which Yukie is tasked with helping one of her clients, Nanae Matsushima, study for a National Standardized Senior Citizen Exam by the Matsushima's daughter-in-law. Encompassing mental and physical components of all types, those that pass the exam are eligible for top notch free health care, exemption from taxes and fees, and more. The problem is that Nanae is in great health, and has an upbeat, youthful spirit. Under pressure from Matsushima's daughter-in-law, Yukie warily sets about destroying the health and happiness of her patient, against her better judgement and professional morals. The twist at the end, of course, is that Nanae does so well in the exam that she reaches the final test, which is to see how well she can fulfill the old-lady stereotype of hectoring her daughter-in-law into insanity (the age old tradition of difficult to please mothers-in-law, particularly widespread in Japan, is seen time and again in this book, with one entire story dedicated to the most impossible to please woman you could possibly imagine).

Dementia 21 breaks genres, managing to dabble a bit with zombies (if not strictly undead ones), aliens, the aforementioned psychic powers, neverending loops to be trapped in, and even tokusatsu, the live action superhero genre that spawned Ultraman, The Power Rangers, and inspired anime superhero teams such as Sailor Moon for years to come. There are no boundaries and taboos in Kago's work, even down to the squeamish topic of when to pull the plug on a suffering loved one, and the death penalty. If you're already familiar with Kago's more in-your-face stories and/or art, Dementia 21 will provide a familiar but fresh look at a different side of the creator; and if you're not familiar, I think this could be a good introduction to his art style and storytelling methods, without going feet-first into girls sneezing their skeletons out of their bodies and a heads made up of mouths. You know, to see if you're into that kind of thing.

The last few weeks, I've been a bit off my comics-game. Heck, I missed the last two Wednesdays, and the weeks before that were all relatively small for new comics, and didn't hold my attention enough to find them worth the time to review. Some weeks, there's just no OOMPH, you know? However, it seems like in my anticipation to leave the country and during my actual leave of absence, I actually missed out on some pretty cool stuff. And what's more, a lot of it has that creepy vibe that I live for, perfect for the spooky mood I'm feeling as the season starts to turn from the blistering heat of summer to the delightuflly dreary autumn. Does the fact that almost all of them begin with a B mean something? Almost certainly negative. Is the release of a spate of decidedly weird comics a coincidence? Probably not, but if this is a prelude to more thriller, horror, and downright strange comics coming out this fall season, I'm in! So without further ado, allow me to introduce you to some of the newest and most intriguing comics of the last few weeks.

Beasts of Burden: Wise Dogs and Eldritch Men #1, Dark Horse Comics

A heroic pack of canines known as the Wise Dogs set off on a mission to clean up a Pennsylvania corridor plagued by seemingly unrelated occult disturbances that include a fire salamander and a horde of mutant lurkers. A link is found among the various disturbances, leading our heroes to a mountain village inhabited by a survivalist witch-cult who have discovered the existence of a "Blood Lure" attracting occult forces, creatures, and many more terrors to Burden Hill!

If you're not familiar with Beasts of Burden, the series is made up of various short stories and miniseries following a team of intelligent animals that investigate different paranormal events that occur in their small neighborhood of Burden Hill. If you're an animal lover of any kind, particularly a dog lover, as well as a fan of the paranormal, I can't imagine anything more perfect. In previous installments of the series, we're treated to everything from werewolves to witches infesting the small town and its surrounding area. A good chunk of the Beast of Burden stories were recently collected in the trade paperback Animal Rites, but for the most part, I think you can pick up almost any Beasts of Burden story and hop right in, figuring out most of the context easily. In Wise Dogs and Eldritch Men, a group of the Elder Wise Dogs are out doing damage control after a fire elemental salamander is caught in a suspicious trap covered in strange occult symbols. While investigating the trap, which at first seems crude to the wise dogs of the Burden area, they quickly realize that whoever set this trap may be more cunning than they imagined. Although this issue is without Jill Thompson's beautiful illustrations and muted color palettes, Benjamin Dewey does a good job of stepping into her shoes, and writer Evan Dorkin captures the voices and personalities of different characters and different breeds perfectly, as always. If you like your horror with four legs and fur, definitely hop on to Beasts of Burden: Wise Dogs and Eldritch Men (or pick up the Animal Rites collection!).

Beyonders #1, Aftershock Comics

A young boy obsessed with crop circles and cryptography finds his boring life turned upside-down when he discovers that all of his conspiracy theories are true, sending him on the ultimate treasure hunt for an ancient secret spanning thousands of years. What is the connection between a lost mountaineer, an indecipherable manuscript, and the lost library of Alexandria? How is this connected to a one-eyed, flatulent Welsh Corgi and endless plates of corned beef sandwiches? Find out in... Beyonders!

The first panels of Beyonders open with "Okay, pay attention because this is complicated. There'll be a quiz at the end." And this statement is truer than you would imagine. With the out-there conviction of the best Youtube conspiracy theorist - the kind that actually makes you believe what they're saying, both entertaining and informing - Beyonders spends its first few pages weaving together the seemingly unrelated (on the surface) stories of George Mallory, who attempted to climb Mount Everest in 1924 to the village of Avebury in Southern England to the mysterious death of Ricky McCormick who died with an unsolved cipher in his pocket, to a puzzling ancient battery... and the list goes on and on. Seriously, some of these people, places, and things I've heard of, and others are new to me, and I'm dying to look them all up, to see what if anything was created solely for the comic, and what it all means. I guess that makes me a bit like our protagonist, teenage Jacob Tate, who spends basically all his time stringing together these obscure subjects while living in Alaska with his incredibly mundane aunt and uncle, and pondering the state of his future. Unable to connect with folks outside of random Omegle-style encounters, he finally meets a girl that seems to get him... before the power goes out. And when they meet again, it's in a very unexpected way, to say the least. To put the icing on the cake, the issue is sprinkled throughout with hidden symbols and clues that are meant to be strung together and emailed in, with the chance to win a real prize, Swordquest style. If puzzles and conspiracy theories are your thing, you have to give Beyonders a try.

Black Badge #1, Boom! Studios

Among their organization, the Black Badges are the elite; the best of the best. They are feared even by the other badges. The missions they take are dangerous, and they will only get worse as their leader's attention is split between their mission objectives and tracking down a lost team member. A team member who disappeared years ago, presumed dead.A haunting look at foreign policy, culture wars and isolationism through the lens of kids who know they must fix the worlds that adults have broken.

Less creepy and a bit more of an action thriller, nontheless Black Badge is a worthy entry to this list. I feel like Black Badge, by Matt Kindt, is sort of an anti-Lumberjanes. Instead of a feel-good young adult comic featuring a cast of main characters going on thrilling but mostly ultimately harmless adventures with the occasional mythical creature thrown in for good measure, Black Badge is about a troupe of Boy Scouts that are in actuality akin to spies, employed by a secret, presumably government organization of adults. With Black Badge, the logic is that children will always be underestimated, and boy scouts even more so, giving them an advantage that they can exploit when needed. And you know what? Pretty solid logic, as this issue puts on display for us as our four intrepid troops "stumble" their way into North Korean territory long enough to signal to a plane flying overhead where to drop a bomb. Intense, right? I only spent about a year as a Girl Scout, when I was a kid, it just wasn't for me. But if there was a chance I could have been recruited into a secret organization the way the boys have been, then I might have stuck with it a little longer. With plenty of potential for international intrigue and a surprising amount of political thrills despite the prepubescent main characters, as well as lots of fodder for emotional development in the first issue alone, I recommend Black Badge for folks who want to read a "dark" or "mature" take on the nature of one of America's most revered institutions for young folks.

Bone Parish #1, Boom! Studios

A new drug is sweeping through the streets of New Orleans.one made from the ashes of the dead. Wars are being fought over who will control the supply, while the demand only rises. While the crime families wage war, users begin to experience terrifying visions of the dead coming back to life-through them.

It goes without saying that I love just about everything Cullen Bunn writes, especially when he's doing horror stories, like The Unsound, also from Boom, which came out a little over a year ago (and if I remember correctly, was actually totally unrelated from the "listen-to-it-and-you-die-within-a-year"-Unsound that I was familar with). In Bone Parish, Cullen Bunn blends Hatian Voodoo with the high-stakes underground world, as we are introduced to a hot new drug simply referred to as "Ash" on the streets of New Orleans. Even a small amount can have you fully experiencing your wildest dreams with all five senses, and interest in the product isn't just bringing in new customers from the next town over - outfits from big cities like New York and more are hoping to buy the operation out from under the Winters family, and they're not likely to play nice. Oh, and did I mention that Ash is made out of corpses, (among other things)? Yeah, it's like that. A new take on Zombie powder, grave robbing, unearthly highs and high stakes business transactions make Bone Parish a hard to put down read.

Border Town #1, Vertigo (DC)

When a crack in the border between worlds releases an army of monsters from Mexican folklore, the residents of Devil's Fork, AZ, blame the ensuing weirdness-the shared nightmares, the otherworldly radio transmissions, the mysterious goat mutilations-on "God-dang illegals." With racial tensions supernaturally charged, it's up to new kid in town Frank Dominguez and a motley crew of high school misfits to discover what's really going on in this town torn between worlds.

Taking place in the town of Devil's Fork, Arizona, no one is safe from the mysterious creatures attacking citizens of all kinds. Doesn't matter if you're a gun-toting "patriot" or an immigrant family trying to cross the border into the US, you, too, could fall victim to whatever is preying on those who dare step into the darkness of the desert. Enter our protagonist, Frank, a Mexican-American boy struggling to grasp his heritage in a social climate where his light-skin alienates him from many of his classmates, and unfortunately draws others to him. Unafraid to portray police and Richard Spencer-lookalikes as literal monsters and play with the sociopolitical tensions that remain at the forefront of our constant news cycle, Border Town is that rare horror comic that focuses on the cryptid rather than the monster, the ghost, the vampire, or the serial killer (although I'm not gonna pretend, I love all of those, too!), and manages to keep a lighthearted and humorous tone at the same time. With Brujería dancing at the edges of the story here too, welcome to Border Town, and do your best to steer clear of the Chupacabras.

House Amok #1, Black Crown (IDW)

Ten-year-old fraternal twin Dylan Sandifer and her family have fallen down a rabbit hole full of secret implants, conspiracy theories, Mandela effects, extradimensional invaders, and organ thieves. As the attacks against them intensify, the Sandifers light out on a cross-country search for answers and salvation, blazing a bloody path of torture, arson and murder. Can young Dylan save her family from these delusions... or is this ornate conspiracy actually true?

House Amok is a very special kind of creepy comic. Have you ever heard of Folie a Deux? It's understood to be a kind of shared psychosis between two or more people, sometimes even sharing actual hallucinations. One of the most well-known cases occurred in 2008, that of Ursula and Sabina Eriksson, which I won't summarize here, but you should definitely look it up. House Amok shows us twin sisters Ollie and Dylan, as well as their older brother Tyler and their parents. Homeschooled, Ollie and Dylan seem to have more or less normal lives, although the two girls are often referred to, and refer to each other as "special". Besides that sort of psychic one-ness often known to occur between twins, it's implied that Dillon and her family can see "sleeper-men", bulky man-like shapes with red hood-type heads, and we get the idea that perhaps she and her family are on the run from them. As the issue progresses, we get more and more inklings of exactly how not-normal Ollie and Dylan's life are, culminating in the scene we're actually showed at the beginning of the issue, with Ollie and Dylan shoplifting at a gas station store to lure the clerk out, where her parents knock him out and take him to a remote location to torture him. And the truly horrifying part? When, at the end of the issue, Dylan begins to "wake up", and realize how absolutely not okay her life has been up to this point; to be the only lucid and sane person in her family. A more psychological type of horror, rather than simply playing around with the idea of "am I crazy? or is everyone else?" they come right out and show you that yes, this entire situation is messed up beyond rationalization. Eliciting a feeling of sort of social claustrophobia, being pressed in on all sides by a family pushing you into their madness, House Amok was a real pleasant surprise for me, and one I'd suggest giving a try.

That's it for me and this round of spooky stories, I hope at least one of them has piqued your interest! With a wide variety of subject matter, I am actually pretty impressed at what's come out in this genre alone, and I'm hopeful that as we slip into spooky season (or if you're like me, unapologetic Pumpkin Spice season), there will be even more enticing horror fare to come. Again, apologies for a long absence from comics, but I hope this makes up for it!

Have you read any of these already? Did I miss something good? Leave a comment below or contact us on twitter! Thanks for reading, and see you next time!

In this week's episode of the XIII Club Podcast, Spectre covers the horrifying true crime tale (with a recent update!) of the murder and torture of Junko Furuta and Miramay takes us on a twisting and turning journey through the spooks of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Also, pregnancy is like, super scary.

The XIII Club is available most places you can listen to podcasts, including iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Pocketcasts, TuneIn, and more! As always, a video version is available on YouTube as well!

Make sure to check out our Post-Mortem episodes, too, where we talk about all the stuff we couldn't fit into our regular show, out on alternate Mondays!

Listen Here:

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Chilling Details About The Murder of Junko Furuta AKA The Concrete-Encased High School Girl Murder (Ranker)

Junko Furuta's killer arrested for attempted murder after 29 years (Reddit)

Ayase Girls High School "Yuan Boy" of Concrete Stuffed Murder was arrested for attempted murder this time!(translated; Daily Shincho)

Interview With A Cannibal - Vice Meets documentary with Issei Sagawa

Inside the 'ghost towns' of N.J.'s Pine Barrens (NJ.com)

Jersey Devil and Folklore (PinelandsAlliance.org)

Ong’s Hat: Piney Ghost Town or Gateway to Another Dimension? (WeirdNJ.com)

In this episode, Spectre covers discusses the violent crime hotbed of Skidmore, MO. and Miramay unravels the mystery of Nickelodeon's lost film, Crybaby Lane, and we learn about the Hand of Glory. Thanks for listening!

The XIII Club is available most places you can listen to podcasts, including iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Pocketcasts, TuneIn, and more! As always, a video version is available on YouTube as well!

Make sure to check out our Post-Mortem episodes, too, where we talk about all the stuff we couldn't fit into our regular show, out on alternate Mondays!

Listen Here:

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Google Play
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SoundCloud

Watch Here:

r/UnresolvedMysteries: Seriously, what is the deal with Skidmore, Missouri?

The original reddit post that Spectre read for today's episode, by u/Elementaryfan, which includes many links and sources for further reading.

TheGamerFromMars' video on Crybaby Lane, and how it went from a lost film to a found one

The Crybaby Lane Creepypasta (Creepypasta Wiki)

Watch Crybaby Lane (full film)

My reading this book was a happy accident. A coworker of mine had ordered it for himself, arriving in a shipment of other books we had ordered for the store. The cover art, an anatomical drawing of a woman's neck, caressed by a Kelly green ribbon, drew me in. He asked if I'd like to borrow it, as he'd actually read it already; he had checked it out from the library and liked it so much, he wanted to own a copy for himself. There's not a much better recommendation for a book than someone having read it for free and then voluntarily going back and paying money for it, in this economy, so I accepted his offer and took the book home with me.

It's been a week since then, and I finished the book this morning. I have to say, I loved it. I'm very hit or miss on short story collections; I like having long-form novels I can sink my teeth into, but I was really impressed with the consistent ability of the author to draw me into each story, whether with her writing style, the premise, or just a particularly creepy phrase. Her Body and Other Parties is a collection focused on the female point of view, with a very queer voice, throughout. The genre of the stories can span from fantasy to horror to science fiction, sometimes hitting more than one in a single story. I noticed two very distinctive themes present across nearly each entry in the book: erotocism and violence. This makes sense, as Machado's work has been featured in anthologies for dark fantasy, science fiction, horror, and women's erotica.

Her Body is composed of eight short stories or novellas, all of which I enjoyed but some of which were more impactful for me than others. I will briefly discuss my favorites here, so as to leave some content to the imagination, as well as to allow potential readers to form their own opinions.

The first story in the book, The Husband Stitch, is a retelling of the old story of a beautiful young woman with a ribbon around her neck that must never be untied, lest her head fall off. The narrator tells the story of her relationship with her husband, from the moment they meet, up through the consummation of their relationship, their marriage, the birth of a child, and more. She punctuates this retelling with various stories, old wives' tales, and urban legends that get passed around from person to person, meant to be cautionary lest another woman find herself ensnared in a similar trap, whatever that might be. These are real legends, stories I've heard myself, in one form or another. They serve to illustrate how word of mouth tales such as this can go on to blend into one another and shape much of the female perception of what they should or shouldn't do, whether for themselves or those around them. As the narrator relates her relationship, we see a woman giving everything to the man she loves, who cannot be satiated, as the one thing he desires, at a sexual fever-pitch, is to touch the ribbon around her throat...

The novella Especially Heinous was perhaps my favorite story in the book. After finishing the novel, looking to get others' reactions to the stories held within, I checked several review sites and found this one overwhelmingly among peoples' least favorites, citing it as boring or reptitive. I think Especially Heinous does use repitition but in a very effective way, as the entire novella is a brief retelling of a fictional episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, through twelve entire seasons. Before I go any further, I confess, I've only ever seen two episodes tops of Law and Order, ever; shocking for a true crime fan who reached adolescence in the craze of Forensic Files and CSI. But I think in this case, my lack of prior knowledge allowed me to take the faces I associate with the show, and imagine them in a world loosely related to what I know a crime procedural to be, but populated with delightfully creepy imagery such as ghost girls with bells for eyes and doppelgangers. The repetition only serves to remind us that we're reading what is supposed to be a television show, which often itself becomes predictable. It's also a thoughtful meditation on how we view violent crime as entertainment, which is something that gave me pause, although I like to consider myself a conscientious participant in said types of media.

The third story that I loved was called The Resident, about an author participating in a sort of creative retreat, in a mostly-abandoned hotel, in a section of woods near where she used to camp during her childhood. The Resident has a very autobiographical feel to it, with our mostly unnamed narrator signing as "C M", but there is a strong tone of gothic horror to the entire thing. The imagery conjured up by Machado in this story is the most vivid of the entire book, leaving a haunting presence in the readers' mind. Many trademarks of a good scary story, present throughout the book, take the forefront in this story, from perhaps-omens of hitting an animal on the road, to an abandoned luxury hotel, to extreme mist, lakesides, sunsets, disturbing paintings, night terrors, and some particularly stomach-turning pustules, dipping the author's toes into body horror in the smallest, but most effective way. The story seems to be an exploration of self, where one must tread through the memory of what they percieve things to be in order to reach what is, and with any luck, they will return unscathed from the other side.

Broaching other topics like age, body dysmorphia, sexual assault, toxic relationships and more, this book is an unflinching set of modern fairy tales, where the princess loses her head, the prince is more often than not a handsome woman, and the crazy witch in the attic breaks out.

Below are links to two reviews I found particularly enjoyable, among the others I read after the fact, just in case anyone out there would like to preview the content a bit beforehand, for potential triggers.

Slate: Grimm Meets Law and Order: Special Victims Unit

The Guardian: Her Body & Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado review – powerful debut collection

In this episode, a listener hits us with his spooky ghost story, Miramay goes over a terrifying now-defunct facebook mystery, and Spectre found her superstition book. Thank you a million times, again to Jacob for sharing his story with us! Listen to the episode for info on how to submit your own story for the show as well. This is somewhat of a landmark episode, the first official one under the name The XIII Club! Thanks for listening!

The XIII Club is available most places you can listen to podcasts, including iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Pocketcasts, TuneIn, and more! As always, a video version is available on YouTube as well!

Make sure to check out our Post-Mortem episodes, too, where we talk about all the stuff we couldn't fit into our regular show, out on alternate Mondays!

Listen Here:

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Watch Here:

Gifs of the "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" scene from Ghost Adventures, as mentioned by Spectre. Gifs by zakbaguets.tumblr.com, click through the link to view the original post!

I believe the original episode is for the location Rose Hall.

Scare Theater Video on Ahenobarbus Henocied

Deburke321 Video featuring art by Yuko Tatsushima

Spectre's two kitten babies, ready 2 ship

Today's podcast episode is a very special one, for two reasons. It's the first episode to be released under the new podcast's name: The Pretty Spooky Podcast is now The XIII Club Podcast! If you missed our announcement, click here for more info, or check our last post here on the site.

WARNING: While our episode itself is no more graphic than normal and verbally we don't get explicit with it, we are discussing Martyrs, which is a bit extreme even for a horror movie, which means we do talk about some things that could be potentially triggering.

Listen Here:

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Make sure to check out our Post-Mortem episodes, too, where we talk about all the stuff we couldn't fit into our regular show, out on alternate Mondays!

This episode is special because we stray a bit from our standard episode structure to talk about two of our favorite movies of all time. Spectre and Miramay did a sort of favorite movie swap, where each watched the other's favorite horror film for the first time, and then met back up to talk about it! So Miramay watched Martyrs, Spectre's favorite film, and Spectre watched Suspira, which is Miramay's favorite.

In today's episode we get deep into spoilers and plot points so if you're concerned about being spoiled, you may want to skip this episode. But if you don't mind that kind of thing, please join us! We had a ton of fun recording this episode, and may do another one like it some time in the future.

If you want to watch either movie before you listen, to be in on our disccussion, Martyrs is available to watch on Amazon and Youtube for a small fee, and Suspiria is availabe to watch for free on the Midnight Pulp streaming site

Announcement time!

After much thought and deliberation, we are going to change the name of the Pretty Spooky Podcast. Initially, when we came up with the name, we chose it because it was something we liked, that we felt accurately represented us, and wasn't already taken. However, in our search, we didn't find the Pretty Scary Podcast, which did already exist. It's too similar - when you search for our name, you find their podcast, and it's not fair to us or them. So we've decided that we are rebranding a little! We will be making the exact same type of content and we will have the same schedule, but we will now be called The XIII Club (The Thirteen Club) Podcast, and if you listen to Episode 6, you'll know why! Thanks for sticking with us; we promise we aren't going anywhere, we're just changing our name. Thanks again!

--Spectre & Miramay

I first read Tarot Cafe in high school. I think I've mentioned elsewhere in another review that I grew up in a fairly conservative Christian household, which had some somewhat contradictory ideas about was and was not appropriate for me (reading comics is for boys, but watching cartoons and movies about superheroes is fine?) That extended to other arenas; I loved watching Cardcaptor Sakura (or as it was aired when I orignially watched it, "Cardcaptors") but they absolutely forbade me from owning the toy set of Clow Cards that was available at the time, as it was too similar to tarot cards. Now, as an adult, not only do I own the toy set of cards I was forbidden as a child, but several tarot decks of my own, which just goes to show that the harder you try to push your kid away from something, they more they'll want to do it.

I remember borrowing the first volume of Tarot Cafe from a friend, who said she thought I would enjoy it, and she was right. Initially drawn to its graphically stylish, stylized cover, I was sucked in even more with the interior art and story inside, to the point that I eventually bought a copy of volume one on my own on the sly, one day. (It's probably in a box somewhere at my parents' house, as I type). But I never finished reading the series, as by the time I got back around to it, it was out of print, and publisher Tokyopop somewhat defunct. Which is why when I saw a solicit for the "collector's edition" in Previews Magazine, I told my coworker to order it for our shop - and if no one else bought it, I most likely would.

Let's for a moment talk about the series itself. Tarot Cafe is technically a manhwa (Korean comics, in particular, but not exclusively, those from South Korea; as opposed to Manga, Japanese comics) by Park Sang-Sun, originally published in Korea from I'm guessing 2002-2005 (a quick wikipedia search didn't contain dates, but art in early chapters of the books themselves include the year 2002, and I'm mostly guessing past that). They were translated and published in the west from 2005-2008, and the series spanned 7 volumes total. The story mainly takes place in contemporary Great Britain, and follows the mysterious Pamela, a tarot card reader and cafe owner who takes in "special clients" after-hours, mostly creatures and figures from myth and legend around the world. From wish-granting cats to werewolves, you name it. The format of most chapters include someone coming to visit Pamela with a question or to ask advice, and she performs a reading for them. The cards and their meanings are used to narrate each character's story, leading up to the events that brought them to the Tarot Cafe, and the final card usually prompts them to action, bringing about the conclusion of their story. Certain characters are recurring and become a part of the larger plot involving Pamela herself, including her complex backstory. Tarot Cafe strides a fine line between romance, drama, fantasy and horror, and does so masterfully.

Like the orignal fairy-tales we all know, before they were sanitized and Disney-fied, the stories in Tarot Cafe are all pretty dark (ironically, Tokyopop's biggest acquisition since their big return to publishing are Disney-related properties, some of which are vaguely cringe-worthy manga adaptations). There are some really sad stories here about love and loss, and the selfishness of man (and beast). While the series isn't bleak, it's not exactly hopeful either. Just about every note of something positive is bittersweet, and there are few happy endings. The art is really great, somehow feeling distinctly...Korean. I still can't exactly articulate the differences between a lot of manhwa and what American audiences are used to seeing with manga, but I'd say it has a lot to do with how the lines are drawn and also how faces are defined, and Tarot Cafe's art is still more unique, filled with feminine faces (even amongst the male characters), soft glowy eyes, and detailed and/or specific depictions of hair. Even though it's supposed to take place in contemporary Great Britain, clearly the fashion and design takes inspiration from Asian street fashion circa the early to mid '00s. Also of note is that there are clearly gay themes in Tarot Cafe. I wouldn't classify the series as yaoi or BL as those relationships are rarely the focus for more than a chapter or two, and they don't fit so neatly into a Seme/uke characterization (as often both characters present as having been feminized in some way as opposed to one character being more masc and one being more fem). Regardless, there's more boy on boy romance than in the standard volume you're likely to pick up off the shelf. Also, as a side note, as someone who's taken up studying tarot themselves, I was impressed that for the most part, the story uses the meanings of cards fairly faithfully to their actual meanings, which is a fun little bonus for other tarot enthusiasts who might be interested in picking the series up on the name alone.

As I stated before, having only read volume one previously, I was excited to jump into this collector's edition, as book one compiles the first three volumes of the series. However, although this is perhaps not a fair thing to make a critique over, the book is...exceptionally ugly. I don't know where they got the art for the cover, it could be canon in some way, but it looks like fanart, and the art style and color usage really date the book. It looks like a manga from the mid '00s alright...but not in a good way. And when the original cover art Tokyopop used was so striking, I'm not sure why you would go in this direction. I even checked the credits on the inside for the cover art, since it's so markedly different from the interior art, I had a hard time believing it's the same artist as the book itself, but I didn't see a named credit. Other than that, I have to admit, I have no real critiques. And hey - maybe it's just me...

I did become confused a bit with the introduction of a character named Ash, a figure from Pamela's past, although after doing some research it's likely he is meant to be confusing, as opposed to a failure in visual storytelling by the artist. While I think it's not worth being called a collector's edition due to how just...unforgivably unattractive the volume is (seriously, why couldn't they shell out for something a little nicer, or something that looked a bit more like their original cover art?) Tarot Cafe holds up well, and it was a blast to finally get to read more of the series, 10 years later (wow I feel old writing that). If you're interested in checking out the series at all, I definitely recommend it, especially if you're a fan of the Cain Saga by Kaori Yuki, Yumekui Kenbun: Nightmare Inspector, or similar fare - both series I'd like to cover here someday. It mixes the timeless occult and fantasy elements with a sense of nostalgia for the mid aughts just right for me, while maintaining a high sense of drama. If you were a weird goth kid in middle school or high school, and are looking to relive that part of your life via manga, or just a weird goth adult, I don't judge - definitely give Tarot Cafe a try.