RSSWhat’s in a name?
Are you planning on raising that baby as the Antichrist or the next Hitler? Maybe you’re just planning on sending him to clown college…
Either way, that kid’s gonna need a name befitting an evil destiny. Don’t worry. You don’t have to wade through obnoxiously cheerful baby name books looking for that one gem that could be just right for your malevolent progeny. The following links will take you to sites where they’ve done the work for you.
Much to our surprise, and despite all previous references to its evil propensities, Damien is not on either list.
The Canonical List of Evil Baby Names
20,000 Names (a list of less-traditional, highly-likely-to-get-your-kid-teased-mercilessly names)
Review: “Damn Nation”
“Damn Nation”
Writer: Andrew Cosby
Art: J. Alexander
Published by Dark Horse Books
In this nicely illustrated but by-the-numbers horror comic, a Soviet-made plague from the cold war era erupts in modern day America, turning the lower 48 into a quarantined and abandoned land of the… undead?
As with much contemporary horror, the creatures seem supernatural (like vampires, actually) but are created by biological agents. The story pits a hardened, guilt-ridden American solider against a ruthless, unemotional Brit, and throws in a Canadian rescue team, a smart-alecky military group a la “Aliens,” and an innocent child who turns out to be the naturally-evolved cure to the virus.
I just gave away a central plot point, but if you couldn’t see that coming from the second panel of the kid’s appearance (never mind wondering wtf the kid is doing in the country to begin with), then there will be plenty of other clichéd plot elements to surprise you.
Writer Andrew Cosby comes from a TV background, and he has a penchant for creating characters in broad, almost cartoonish strokes, who speak in a combination of exposition and slogans. He relies a lot on existing archetypes in horror and action stories, and doesn’t experiment much with the form. This is not really a problem if you’re looking for a casual horror-themed read. If you want something that pushes boundaries, though, look elsewhere; the story is so mainstream, with a succession of mini-climaxes that are anchored on familiar gimmicks, that it could be a made-for-TV movie on a cable network.
J. Alexander’s artwork is moody, dark, and fuzzy – a little like the messy chaos of the “30 Days of Night” comics, but with a more dynamic color palette that helps differentiate the various locations and times of day. A lot of people like this style, but I have mixed feelings about it. I can appreciate the artwork, but I find it difficult to parse. I want to see precise details, not panel after panel of gauzy, blurred sketches and color washes that seem created to capture tone more than details. But then again, I don’t like Impressionist art either, and this style of dark-and-muddy horror artwork is certainly impressionistic.
In general, if you prefer mainstream, action-oriented horror, and don’t mind (or even enjoy) the staples of modern action and horror movies, then you’ll enjoy “Damn Nation.” It’s a short comic, but seems to be presented as an opening book in a longer series. However, unlike the epic Walking Dead titles, this first book doesn’t develop characters or setting in enough detail to make the concept of a vampire-infested, deserted America very compelling to me (and believe me, I long for a vampire-infested America).
New doomsday cult in Uganda!
Are you the type of over-reactionary person who thinks the world’s gonna end every time something bad happens? Move to Uganda! There, you’ll be right at home in the doomsday cult presided over by 37-year-old Francis Opwonya. Recent floods that have dislocated 300,000 Ugandans come in at #4 in his list of the 5 Signs of the Apocalypse:
- HIV/AIDS epidemic
- famine
- earthquakes
- floods
- hailstones
- ???
- Profit!
Oops, we got a little carried away with the list there. Anyway, we think it’s odd that the Signs of the Apocalypse get progressively weaker as you near the end – “not with a bang, but a whimper” – but we’re not going to be the ones to argue with cult leaders.
Ugandan police arrested Opwonya and 11 other cult leaders in an attempt to crack down on the cult before any real damage is done, like what happened in March 2000 with the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments, which burned alive hundreds of members, then systematically killed hundreds more in mass graves, for a total of between 800-1000 Ugandans after their end-of-the-world predictions failed to come true.
[Read Police raid doomsday cult born from floods at Reuters]
[Read about the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments at religioustolerance.org]
Diableries, demonic dioramas from the past
Europe is a creepy place. In the 19th century, these tiny three-dimensional “diableries” — demonically themed dioramas — were popular enough to be turned into photographs and stereograms. (I’m not even sure “stereograms” is a word — I may have made that one up.)
It’s possible the diableries were a form of political cartoon in France. It’s also possible that they are corrupted by the evil spirits of hell, and that even gazing at them is to risk having your eternal soul devoured by Satan’s army of death. Either way, they’re pretty cool.
[Diableries on Flickr]
[Article: "Life of the Devil in Hell at the End of the 19th Century"]
[Diableries]
[Some images on Google]
[Found via Metafilter]
Corpse in a can
Sometimes you just need to fill the air with the stench of rotting bodies, but you don’t have the luxury of time to do it the old fashioned way. That’s why canned Corpse Scent is so useful! Now, no matter where you are or what the occasion is, you can stink up the place like a two-week-old crime scene in Miami in June. Or, in the case of “drowning victim,” add a salty Nantucket twang to the odour of decay.
The artificial rotting scent is actually made to train corpse-sniffing dogs, since real world supplies are sometimes hard to come by. Using fake (but molecularly the same) corpse scents also helps isolate the appropriate smell, so that your dog doesn’t confuse, say, moldy sleeping bag with murdered hiker.
Read about how to train corpse-sniffing dogs at Slate
Read “The Fake Smell of Death” at Discover
Purchase corpse scent at Sigma-Aldrich
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