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Batman: The Doom That Came To Gotham by Mike Mignola
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found this mashup of DC’s iconic superhero Batman with the equally iconic Lovecraft mythos to be absolutely charming, and in many ways everything Alan Moore’s failed NEONOMICON should have been. Mignola and co-author Richard Pace do a great job of fitting Batman and his various supporting characters — mostly villains — into a narrative of horror and cosmic dread. For me, half the fun of these types of books is in spotting the analogs, and so my heart went pitter-pat at the inclusion of so many recognizable characters in new forms: Oswald Cobblepot (brilliantly linked to the giant penguins of “At the Mountains of Madness”), Mr. Freeze, Man-Bat (yes!), Poison Ivy, Two-Face (in a fantastic and very apropos re-interpretation), the Green Arrow, a wide variety of Robins, and many more.

Unfortunately, I found the story detrimentally rushed in places. I wonder if four issues instead of three would have given Mignola and Pace a chance to better pace the story and explore its themes. Troy Nixey’s art is good and surprisingly Mignola-like, but not always clear. There were a few panels where I couldn’t quite tell what was going on, which left me frustrated. But overall, I enjoyed this graphic novel very much. Frankly, I’d love to read more mashups like this. At this point, I find them more interesting than the straightforward “canon” stories.

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This week on The Scariest Part, my guest is Jonathan Winn, whose new collection is Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast. Here’s the publisher’s description:

Eidolon Avenue: where the secretly guilty go to die.

One building. Five floors. Five doors per floor. Twenty-five nightmares feeding the hunger lurking between the bricks and waiting beneath the boards.

The First Feast. A retired Chinese assassin in apartment 1A fleeing from a lifetime of bloodshed. A tattooed man in 1B haunted by his most dangerous regret. A frat boy serial killer in 1C facing his past and an elderly married couple stumbling and wounded from fifty years of failed murder/suicide pacts in 1D. And, finally, a young girl in 1E whose quiet thoughts unleash unspeakable horror.

All thrown into their own private hell as every cruel choice, every deadly mistake, every drop of spilled blood is remembered, resurrected and relived to feed the ancient evil that lives on Eidolon Avenue.

And now, let’s hear what the scariest part was for Jonathan Winn:

Truth be told, I’ve had several “scariest parts” throughout my brief writing career. Chapter Forty-nine of my first book Martuk…the Holy was an experience that so unsettled me I needed to take a very long walk just to shake it off. And I still feel guilty over what fate did to sweet Tiber from Martuk…the Holy: Proseuche. Also, did I mention I darn near lost friends over the opening chapters of both “The Wounded King” and “The Elder”? Yep. Had to convince them to keep reading. Promise them the worst was over and the rest of the read was tame by comparison.

But Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast? My latest? Especially the third story, Apartment 1C, in this collection of five novellas and short stories? That was scary on a whole other level.

Let me explain.

Now, to be clear, Apartment 1C (aka “Click”) wasn’t scary because of what, exactly, was happening, although the events and their consequences are certainly horrific. “Click” was scary because…how can I put this? It was scary because why it was happening was coming from a mindset that could never be mine. The reasoning behind the cruelty, the quiet joy taken in it, the victim’s confusion shifting into realization and then terror, the whole thing turned my stomach. Put a lump in my throat. An insistent thump, thump, thumping in my head. Sent me to bed at night drowning in violent tsunamis of bitter guilt. I actually more than once — more than twice, to be honest — stopped midsentence, stood up and stepped outside just to get away from Apartment 1C. I just could not understand someone like Colton Carryage. And I could not comprehend how I, this nice boring guy — no, really, I am — was creating someone like Colton Carryage. But I was. And I had to. I needed to go there, go deep, put aside my inate kindness and somehow wrap my sane, level-headed logic and reason around this dangerous, vicious insanity because that’s what the narrative demanded.

Thankfully I had a publisher who was supportive — I think brave is the better word — no matter how dark things were. Of course, it also became clear that Eidolon was going to have the dubious distinction of being the first book they’d launch with a Warning Label. But, more importantly, I was fortunate to have my small handful of friends around to remind me that it was just a story and I just needed to get through it — the phrase “survive it” may have been used — so I could move on and leave it behind.

Yeah, that’s how freaked out I got.

So, if you want to know my Scariest Part, it was watching the horror of “Click” and Eidolon unfold, word by word, paragraph by paragraph, page by page. Watching my fingers clickety-clack a brutality which was and still is completely alien to me. It was knowing that readers may cringe and gasp and sob and throw the book across the room because of what Eidolon insisted on being. And then hate me, too!

Actually, now that I think about it, the Scariest Part when it comes to Eidolon is the fear that this is a story — and a collection — I’ll never live down.

Jonathan Winn: Website / Facebook / Twitter

Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / IndieBound

In addition to Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast, Jonathan Winn (Member, HWA) is a screenwriter and author of the full-length novels Martuk…the Holy (A Highlight of the Year, 2012 Papyrus Independent Fiction Awards), Martuk…the Holy: Proseuche (Top Twenty Horror Novels of 2014, Preditors & Editors Readers Poll), Martuk…the Holy: Shayateen (2016) and The Martuk Series (“The Wounded King,” “The Elder,” “Red and Gold”), an ongoing collection of short fiction inspired by Martuk. His work can also be found in Horror 201: The Silver Scream, Writers on Writing, Vol. 2, and Crystal Lake’s Tales from the Lake, Vol. 2, with his award-winning short story “Forever Dark.”

Boroughs of the Dead: New York City Ghost Stories by Andrea Janes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This slim, charming volume is a given to delight fans of spooky stories, but its New York City connection is, for me at least, the special ingredient that makes this collection stand out. Janes, who also runs a ghost tour company in NYC, keeps the tone light even when things get dark in these ten tales, many of which make satisfying use of New York City history and locales. My favorites include “A Fitting Tribute,” in which the spoiled daughter of a wealthy family finds herself unwilling to share the spotlight with her newly arrived aunt; “The General Slocum,” a favorite for obvious reasons, in which Janes pins the historical tragedy on a familiar Germanic legend; “The End,” which unearths a chilling connection between classic mystery authors Ann Radcliffe, Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Agatha Christie; and possibly my favorite of the bunch, “The Northern Dispensary,” which deftly combines the real-life medical landmark where Edgar Allan Poe was once treated, and which used to provide dental services, with Poe’s own teeth-obsessed short story “Berenice.”

The stories are short and sparsely told, and could probably use some fleshing out in parts, but in truth there’s also something charmingly reminiscent of the classic ghost stories of M.R. James and Ambrose Bierce in their brevity. I hope to see more fiction from Janes in the future, where I expect she will have a fuller feast for us. But for now, BOROUGHS OF THE DEAD makes an excellent appetizer.

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This week on The Scariest Part, my guest is John McNee, whose debut horror novel is PRINCE OF NIGHTMARES. Here’s the publisher’s description:

Welcome to the Ballador Country House Hotel. Nestled in the highlands of Scotland, it is unlike any other lodging. Guests can expect wonderful scenery, gourmet food, and horrifying nightmares — guaranteed. Daring travelers pay thousands to stay within the Ballador’s infamous rooms because of the vivid and frightening dreams the accommodations inspire.

Before Josephine Teversham committed suicide, she made a reservation at the hotel for her husband, Australian magnate Victor Teversham. Once he arrives at the hotel, Victor finds himself the target of malevolent forces, revealing the nightmares — and their purpose — to be more strange, personal, and deadly than anyone could have guessed.

And now, let’s hear what the scariest part was for John McNee:

I miss being scared.

There are many different kinds of fear. Horror fans know this well. It’s why we’ll happily wade through an endless sea of cheap, derivative scares to find something that genuinely chills us. What most of us want, I think, is to experience the same kind of terror we knew as children, though for most rational adults it’s close to impossible. And that’s a shame.

At 31, there are things of which I am afraid, but they are as nothing compared to the shapeless terrors that lurked beyond every darkened doorway when I was five years old.

The world seemed a different place then. How could it not? Santa Claus was real. The Tooth Fairy was real. The same went for magic, God and angels. These were facts, for the most part unquestioned. Leprechauns, mermaids and unicorns weren’t guaranteed but seemed just as possible. The world seemed like such an incredible place, so full of wondrous possibilities. I don’t long for much from my childhood, but I do miss that.

However, if God existed it only made sense that the Devil did too. And if Santa Claus could cram his fat ass down your chimney then so could any number of vampires, demons, trolls and gremlins — and on as many nights of they year as they damn well pleased.

No matter what any adult ever claimed, I knew there were a million good reasons to fear the night, each one more strange and extraordinary than the last. And as terrifying as they all were, I’d gladly take any of them over the very real monsters of the modern world — the uniformly pathetic men exerting power through violence.

There is nostalgia in terror. It takes us back to a place where anything seemed possible. The experience of joy today isn’t so different from how it was then. Same goes for sadness and anger. But nothing connects me to my childhood quite so quickly and effectively that sense of bottomless dread.

It’s one of the many reasons I enjoy horror so much, though it’s been a long time since any film, book or game gave me such a visceral fright, simply because I know the horrors on show don’t exist.

That wasn’t something I knew as a child and it’s not something I can totally let go of in adulthood, though I do occasionally forget it when I’m asleep.

In fact, these days, the only time I ever get really close to the kind of scare I miss so much is when I have a nightmare.

I love nightmares but they are all too infrequent. That’s why I know if a hotel ever promised that its guests would be guaranteed nightmares, I’d be one of the first in line for a reservation. And it’s why I can identify somewhat with Heinrich, one of the supporting characters in my novel Prince of Nightmares and frequent guest at the Ballador Country House Hotel.

By the time he’s introduced in the story, Heinrich has experienced the hotel’s famed nightmares so many times that they have ceased to frighten him. In fact, he has developed methods for manipulating them, turning the dreamscape into his own personal playground.

A sadist by profession as well as nature, his repeat visits to the hotel have become all about entertainment and personal gratification. Fear doesn’t even enter into it.

That’s until one evening after dinner when he takes a stroll through the hotel’s gardens and encounters something impossible.

At first it looks like a boulder, pushed up through the ground, but then it begins to take shape, spreading huge arms to push itself up from the earth. Its twisted, worm-like body emerges, first the tail and finally the head. It turns its face to Heinrich — its bulging eyes and smiling mouth of dagger-like teeth — and he recognizes it.

He knows he’s not dreaming. He knows what he’s seeing is real, that it’s happening now, though he knows it can’t be. He knows it’s impossible.

And then the thing speaks. It calls his name.

At that moment, Heinrich experiences pure, overwhelming terror. It’s a kind of fear he hasn’t known since childhood, but it’s back with a vengeance. And with good reason.

Because if just one grotesque abomination from the depths of nightmare can somehow claw its way into existence, it stands to reason that anything could.

John McNee: Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads

Prince of Nightmares: Amazon

John McNee is the author of numerous strange and disturbing horror stories published in various anthologies. He is also the creator of Grudgehaven and the author of Grudge Punk, a collection of short stories detailing the lives and deaths of its gruesome inhabitants. Prince of Nightmares is his first horror novel. He lives in the west of Scotland, where he is employed on a trade magazine.