we all know I have no life, so:

Thought for a second Butler, Blake and Grant were an 'On the Buses' tribute band.

The DVD boxset of Dark Shadows: The Complete Original Series. The box is shaped like a coffin, while the spines of the DVD sets inside make up a picture of Jonathan Frid as a sleeping Barnabas Collins.

After an enforced break, my chronological viewing of Dark Shadows (as opposed to the jumbled back and forth of my earliest viewings) has resumed. I'm on disc 96 of 131 in the Barnabas Collins coffin boxset. I might just reach the final episode (of 1,225) by the show's 60th anniversary in June.

The 4 volumes of the Marvel Essential series of black and white reprints of Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan's The Tomb of Dracula.

Revisiting Marvel's 'The Tomb of Dracula' has me wishing that the MCU would adapt these, set in the '70s, featuring the core cast of characters and the twists and turns of the almost soap opera styled plots of intrigue and betrayal as the Lord of the Vampires attempts to establish his kingdom.

'Don't Look Meow'

The Haunted Archive - A Ghost Story Manuscript of M.R. James A beautiful annotated facsimile manuscript edition of M.R. James's classic ghost story 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'.

I just backed The Haunted Archive - A Ghost Story Manuscript of M.R. James on @kickstarter.com www.kickstarter.com/projects/cru...

Channel Premiere! Starts Monday 27th April at 6:30pm. THE VEIL (1958) Hosted by and starring #BorisKarloff This originally un-broadcast anthology series comes to #TalkingPicturesTV featuring #RobertHardy #WhitBissell #NiallMacGinnis #TorinThatcher and many more #TPTVsubtitles

Cover of The Original Music from Dark Shadows by The Robert Cobert Orchestra Featuring Jonathan Frid and David Selby and including Quentin's Theme, aka Shadows of the Night.

Ben Cross as Barnabas Collins on the cover of the Original MGM Television Soundtrack to Dark Shadows the Revival Series, featuring music composed and conducted by Bob Cobert.

Today's CD arrivals. The Dark Shadows soundtrack album 60th anniversary reissue, featuring 9 bonus tracks not available on previous releases, and the double CD of composer Robert Cobert's music for the 1991 Dark Shadows revival series.

Loved Ray Newman's previous collections of contemporary eeriness and the urban uncanny. Looking forward to being disquieted by a third volume.

Vincent Price and Jane Asher in the 1964 film of Masque of the Red Death

Apt viewing to mark Jane Asher's 80th birthday and Roger Corman's centenary, the extraordinary 'The Masque of the Red Death'.

Portrait shot of a smiling Roger Corman

Roger Corman directs Elizabeth Shepherd and Vincent Price on the set of The Tomb of Ligeia

Roger Corman in his office, with a framed Tomb of Ligeia poster in the background

Roger Corman and Vincent Price reading a magazine together during a smoke break on the set of The Pit and the Pendulum

Born 100 years ago today, Roger Corman, director, producer, occasional actor, the man who united Price and Poe, and who mentored and encouraged a generation of film makers that followed.

'Farewell, Punchinello!' (Sleuth, another Shaffer script about a man dressed as a clown involved in a deadly game.)

Preview pages from The Haunted Archive: M.R. James's 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'

Facsimile manuscript with annotations and commentary by leading Jamesian experts.

Kickstarter launching soon: https://bit.ly/OhWhistle  

Subscribe for updates at https://www.crumpledlinenpress.com

A black and white head and shoulders photo of Robert Holmes.

Born 100 years ago today: Robert Holmes, prolific screenwriter, best remembered as script editor of Doctor Who for the first three years of Tom Baker's tenure, he also wrote some of the most memorable serials during the show's original run.

(That's 55 years, not the 65 that I'd said in my initial, now-deleted post. Though if any show could travel back through time and have its final episode 5 years before its first, that would be Dark Shadows.)

The end credits of the very last episode of Dark Shadows ~ 2 April 1971 YouTube video by Jeffrey Blystone

55 years ago today, the last episode of supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows aired, bringing to a close 1225 instalments of vampirism, witchcraft, werewolves, man-made monsters, possessions, phantoms, demons, seances, exorcisms, time travel, and parallel universes. www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKq9...

Ghost messages: Australia’s lost television horror anthology, The Evil Touch Evil Touch

My latest Substack newsletter is live.

andrewnette.substack.com/p/ghost-mess...

Brimstone and Treacle – Limited Edition (UHD4K+Blu-Ray) - Screenbound Direct #woocommerce_price Young con man Martin Taylor is out grifting on the streets of London when he happens across Tom Bates, a middle-class family man who, Martin quickly learns, has a disabled daughter at home who’s been ...

Been meaning to revisit the film of Brimstone & Treacle for a while, having become an admirer of Richard Loncraine's direction. The fact that this release also includes the original BBC Play for Today episode as a bonus feature seals the deal. screenbounddirect.co.uk/product/brim...

The Four Oaks Mystery - Part 1 (Sherlock Holmes) YouTube video by OhIRememberThis

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIN5...

You and Whose Army? | Dennis the Menace and Gnasher | Season 4 Episode 3 | Beano YouTube video by Dennis & Gnasher: Unleashed!

As it's Dennis the Menace's 75th Anniversary, here's one of the episodes I wrote for the Dennis the Menace & Gnasher animated series back in 2013. www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVBz...

Excellent article. Seeing Ring on DVD in the early 2000s, then watching other J-Horrors as a result, restored my faith that there was still room for ghost stories to thrive in cinema.

Exclusive Peter Purves Interview

On Wednesday, 11th March 26, Peter Purves walked into Leicester’s Phoenix Arts Cinema and Art Centre. What happened next took the great man’s breath away. Film is Fabulous! had, in fact, recovered two missing episodes of The Daleks’ Master Plan, in which he starred

SINGULARITY- Horror/Sci-Fi Anthology-Issue 2 & Trading cards A gritty, unnerving horror/sci-fi comic anthology packed with body horror, biotech nightmares, revenge noir, and futuristic weirdness

6 days left to back the second issue of this new science fiction/horror anthology comic. www.kickstarter.com/projects/vhs...

I hope the last issue of Ghosts & Scholars doesn't encounter any small figures in red raincoats while in Venice...

A black and white illustration inspired by Susan Hill's novel The Woman in Black. A woman in late Victorian mourning stands in a graveyard in a flat desolate landscape. There are two stone pillars in the foreground.

An illustration of the ghost of a woman in a dress of the mid to late Georgian era with a sort of skeletal face. She is stood / hovering in front of a detached Georgian house in the dusk, flanked by dark trees, with its front door lit from above.

A print of a black and white illustration inspired by John Masefield's novel the Box of Delights: a bearded man with a heavy pack trudges through snow pursued by wolves. There's a big white house in the distance, and a small aeroplane (in fact a car-o-plane) in the sky. The scene is flanked by trees and emerges from a square box. The face of its beholder is just visible.

A ridiculous black and white illustration (in print form) of worshippers dancing around a ceremonial bonfire in the trees. The flames take the shape of a large cat's head.

Hello! I've been a bit preoccupied lately with real life and stuff but I've finally put a bit of effort into my Etsy shop... added new prints and restocked old ones. Do have a look. Sharing much appreciated. Thank you.

sarahcoomershop.etsy.com

A marvellous story. Read it late at night and thoroughly enjoyed it. The fact that it references my own personal favourite MRJ tale didn't hurt either.

I'll be at Power Con this weekend in Glasgow alongside lots of other cool comics folks. I'll have some GOLDEN RAGE goodies plus some other comics this lassie from Dundee done-did and a small supply of prints like these! Details: www.forthefans.uk/power-gaming...

Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Crown Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Crown : McGachey, Daniel: Amazon.co.uk: Books

As it's World Book Day, here's a book... #SherlockHolmes www.amazon.co.uk/Sherlock-Hol...

More Ghosts & Scholars (ie, issue 2), also had 5 stories. There may have been a few more issues to match, but there were more often 3 or 4.

Front and back covers to issue 50 of Ghosts & Scholars magazine, sub-headed The Final Issue. Front cover by Jim Potts illustrates the M.R. James story 'After dark in the Playing Fields', and shows owls and sprites and dark creatures by moonlight by a steeple. The back cover, drawn by me, is a portrait of M.R. James next to a cowled skeleton leafing through back issues of Ghosts & Scholars.

Returned home late to find something ghostly waiting for me... Very proud to have contributed a new story, a review, and the back cover art, and to find myself in VERY good company in the pages of the final issue of the legendary Ghosts & Scholars.