Canister X – A.P. Fuchs: Zombie, Paranormal Romance and Superhero Novelist, Blogger, Artist, Publisher

Been on a real messed up schedule lately, with going to bed early (7 or 8pm) in the evening only to get up around 12 or 1am and watch TV till 3 or 4 (last night was The Legend of Zorro), then back to bed to get up at 11 or 12. Sick, but due to some health issues, sleep is something I’m needing a lot of lately.

Today was spent going to the doctor’s, running a few errands, helping my wife out with a few things then working on Possession of the Dead.

I’m wiped, but have more to do.

That Monster energy drink I had earlier didn’t really do anything.

Today’s a haze.

Back to work.

From Office Space: “Looks like somebody has a case of the Mondays.”

Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.
9: Cutting Dead Flesh

Cutting dead flesh. There’s nothing like it.

The guy looked at me just before the bat came down, his eyes doing a little dance that said, even despite his dead brain’s lack of intellect, that he knew what was coming. The razors lodged themselves into the front of his skull, remained wedged in for a moment, then tore out on the follow-through as I yanked the bat downward. Blood spilled out from the front of his head along with pieces of bone. The zombie staggered forward a step then fell on his face.

The others surrounding him didn’t pay him any mind and came at me, arms outstretched, their palms open, seeming to be just itching to get hold of my shoulders, head, body, whatever.

I shoved my way through them, rounded them from behind, then took a chunk out of the back of the head of a short woman—about 5’2”—skull, hair and all. She fell. Same with the little boy who tried to gnaw a piece of my ankle like a dog on a soup bone.

The droning cries as the rest of them turned in their place then started toward me reminded me of the sound that seemed to be coming from my own heart as of late, one constantly aching and dripping with the memory of Selena and images of a better day.

But Selena was dead. She had to be. Most of the city was dead. I could have been the only one left for all I knew.

Another dead guy lunged for me, his bulky shoulders and thick arms displaying veins as thick as gardner snakes, which meant he must have hit the ’roids pretty hard in his former life. I slammed the baseball bat into his skin, the blades at its end slicing into the veins like a knife through sausage. Blood leeched from the veins. The wounds didn’t faze him. I came back around and took the bat to the side of his head. His neck broke. When I pulled the bat free, blood and brain came oozing out. The guy dipped to the side then fell over.

The dead kept coming at me and for a brief moment I considered letting them take me. If you’ve ever lived with depression, you’ll know what I’m talking about. The apathy gets so strong sometimes that anything you’re doing, anything you plan to do, anything you dream to do just ceases to matter.

Even killing zombies.

Even surviving.

The moment passed and I caught a glimpse of my old self again, the one that wanted to live. Sure, it might have been what they call “survival instinct,” or perhaps it was the adrenaline taking over. Regardless, I took out a few more undead before coming to the conclusion that I wasn’t going back upstairs anytime soon. The dead had blocked the entrance to my place. They’d stay there until I was either dead or one of them.

I only had one choice.

I had to run.

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Coscom Entertainment has launched a giant Kindle book sale for some of its zombie, monster and superhero titles.

The following books are now available for under $2 for Kindle users.

Scoop ‘em up fast because we don’t know how long this dirt cheap price will be sticking around for.

Here’s what’s available:

Zombie Fight Night: Battles of the Dead by A.P. Fuchs

Blood of the Dead by A.P. Fuchs

Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes: Zany Zombie Poetry for the Undead Head edited by A.P. Fuchs

Dead Science: A Zombie Anthology edited by A.P. Fuchs

Animal Behavior and Other Tales of Lycanthropy by Keith Gouveia

Revolt of the Dead by Keith Gouveia

Bits of the Dead: A Zombie Anthology edited by Keith Gouveia, illustrated by Sean Simmans

Axiom-man (Axiom-man Series, Book 1) by A.P. Fuchs

First Night Out (Axiom-man Series, Episode No. 0) by A.P. Fuchs

Doorway of Darkness (Axiom-man Series, Book 2) by A.P. Fuchs

The Dead Land (Axiom-man Series, Episode No. 1) by A.P. Fuchs

Axiom-man: Of Magic and Men (full-color comic book) by A.P. Fuchs

Axiom-man: Black Water (Axiom-man Series, A Cthulhu Story) by A.P. Fuchs

The Wraith by Frank Dirscherl

Valley of Evil (The Wraith Series, Book 2) by Frank Dirscherl

Cult of the Damned (The Wraith Series, Book 3) by Frank Dirscherl

Thanks.

Click Here to Order from Amazon.com

Daredevil (2003)
Review by A.P. Fuchs

4 out of 5

An A-plus report card brings young Matt Murdock to the docks to show his father. All he ever wanted was to please his dad and, as per his father’s advice, “be a doctor, be a lawyer.” Except, stumbling upon his alcoholic, washed-up ex-boxer father as a leg breaker, Matt takes off on his skateboard in a hurry, only to accidentally run into a truck with barrels of radioactive liquid that—due to the forklift that just avoided him—has sliced the barrels open, the stuff inside spraying Matt in the face, causing him to go blind. But all is not darkness because he also mysteriously inherited a strange “radar sense” that enables him to see in a sort of X-ray way because of his newfound ability to convert sound waves into sight.

Him and his father vow to fix their relationship and their life, promise to never give up and be fearless, and embark on a journey to perfect themselves and hit the comeback trail—Matt via the books and honing his senses and disciplining his body; his father to enter the ring once more. With Matt by his side, Jack “the devil” Murdock makes good on that promise, but a fateful night in the ring changes everything and Matt promises from then on to stick up for those who can’t defend themselves and watch out for the long shots like he and his father were.

Now, all grown-up, he’s a lawyer by day and masked crimefighter by night. His name: Daredevil.

And he’s not the only one who wants a piece of New York. Crime boss the Kingpin (Michael Clarke Duncan) is on the rise, as is his hired goon, Bullseye (Colin Farrell). Adding to matters, Elektra Natchios (Jennifer Garner)—a shapely martial arts master—has her sites on Daredevil (Ben Affleck) as well, leading us into a battle for New York, for vengeance, and for those who have been a victim of crime.

For some reason a lot of people didn’t like this movie. I thought it was great. I liked the overall story; the costumes (except Bullseye’s); the atmospheric New York City; the sense of darkness Matt Murdock carried within himself; Elektra’s close relationship with her father; Foggy Nelson (Jon Favreau) and his being a “come-with” guy—very enjoyable. There was a sense of humanity about this version of Daredevil that I was able to relate to on a lot of levels.

The fight scenes were nothing short of amazing, especially that barroom brawl where Daredevil clears the room. I remember seeing that in the trailer and just being absolutely stoked.

Who cares that Kingpin was black? So what? The dude’s one of my favourite actors and it was interesting to see him play the bad guy as he’s usually the nice, innocent one, but for some reason people didn’t like the character being black in this. It doesn’t matter, folks. He did a good job.

The whole Matt Murdock-Elektra/Daredevil-Elektra relationship was well-handled, in my opinion, and I particularly enjoyed how those elements intertwined with each other throughout the film.

If I was going to criticise a few things—and while I enjoyed Daredevil’s gallivanting throughout New York—his spinning jumps and aerial movies were very similar to Spider-Man’s (who made his feature film debut the year before Daredevil came out), and some of the stuff Daredevil was able to do was pretty farfetched. I mean, I don’t care how awesome you are at acrobatic stuff or if you’re more fit than Bruce Lee on his best day, but falling face first toward a window washer’s station at lightning speed won’t get slowed down by doing a somersault in the air so you could land on your feet. You’d break your legs and die from the impact. But whatever. It’s superheroes, so I overlook most of the impossible these guys accomplish. Just goes with the understanding superheroes can do things we can’t, whether realistic or not.

That’s really my only critique. I liked everything else. Wasn’t crazy about Bulleye’s costume. Would like to have seen him as more of a stealth assassin. I also don’t read Daredevil comics so I can’t tell you if this is a faithful adaptation or not. I know Daredevil’s back story and a bit about some past adventures, but that’s about it.

I haven’t seen the director’s cut of this either, so need to get around to doing that.

Still a good movie and I’m proud to have it in my superhero movie collection.

If you like superhero flicks, you’ll like Daredevil.

On Thursday, May 20, 2010, I officially launched my latest novel, Zombie Fight Night: Battles of the Dead, at McNally Robinson Booksellers here in Winnipeg.

I gave a short speech on why I wrote the book (basically using the forthcoming Stallone movie, The Expendables, as an example of archetypical action guys all in one place), read the Bruce Lee vs Zombies fight, and answered questions from the audience.

Here’s some shots of what went on. A public thank you to those who came out.

An in-store display of my book:

The display next to the podium in the atrium where I did my signing:

Me wearing the Coscom Entertainment Bits of the Dead shirt next to the display:

The old man and I duking it out Zombie Fight Night-style amidst a ray of sunlight:

Last week I teased on Twitter about me creating a life-sized stand up of a zombie vs a werewolf as a prop for my recent Zombie Fight Night booksigning.

I took pictures along the way, and I’m pleased to share them with you here. This was the biggest thing I’ve ever drawn. The only other things that came close were Axiom-man on the wall of my old animation school, and some pencils for Superman (I think) on my wall of my room back when I lived with my folks.

This was the first time I did two fully-rendered characters side-by-side.

Blocking out pencils:

More penciling:

And yet more penciling:

Blocking out the dark areas of paints:

Adding some of the base colors:

More colors:

Adding to it:

Final colors with black lines:

Zombie guts and blood spatter:

Final product standing up against a wall:

I made some cardboard “feet” for it and it stood just fine. You’ll see this thing in action when I post my booksigning pics tomorrow.

Copyright 2010 by A.P. Fuchs. All rights reserved.

8: Hiatus

You know what? Forget it. I was gonna do this big lead-in to what happened that day, get all dramatic, get your blood pumping and all the rest, but not anymore. That’s the problem with the world I live in: try and do something good and proper and instead you get blindsided with some stupid, unexpected situation and BLAM! Totally screwed up.

Okay. I exaggerated on the “unexpected” part. Where I live, these days things are very expected.

There’s a good reason why I haven’t written in awhile. I wanted to. Really wanted to.

Anyway…

Enough screwing around. Here’s the deal:

I logged onto my computer the day after I wrote you last and was about to type my first sentence when this stupid banging on glass jolts me from my thoughts. I live two floors above street level so I wasn’t surprised when the windows to my apartment were free of anything that might be causing the disturbance. That means whatever it was was coming from downstairs. I didn’t even have to leave my apartment to know what was going on.

I opened the window, peered down and, yup, sure enough, there they are.

Zombies.

A whole platoon of them.

Yes, they’re real. I’m not joking. I may be a lot of things but there’s no way I’d try and slip you a fast one by stating the dead are walking when in reality they’re not. That’s not something you joke about. Ever.

The whole crew of them, with rotting faces, hands—even their clothes—are standing around the front of my building, banging against the glass as if they thought they could get in. They’re not smart. They’re not strong. They’re stupid and slow. The only thing that makes them dangerous are: a) when there’s a whole bunch of them; and, b) when they’re hungry.

The stories are true. The myth is real.

Zombies eat people.

So what did I do? I used to just get in my closet, shut the door and wait it out, fearing for my life. Nowadays, I’m more proactive. I can’t stand the noise. That was one thing I hated about the “world of the living,” by the way: the noise. The constant bickering of people, the racket of early-morning rush hour, the incessant blaring of tele-ads on those massive screens that are on nearly every street corner.
Ridiculous.

Anyway, there was no way I was going to let those dead guys down there ruin my peace and quiet, so I went to my utility closet and pulled out my secret weapon: an old Louisville Slugger coated in razor blades. It was easy to make. Just dunk the bat in a bathtub filled with glue then roll it in razors like one rolls cookie dough in Smarties. The thing’s lethal.

It was just what I needed.

I threw on my boots, not paying any mind to the fact I was still in my boxers and white tank top, and stormed downstairs to face them head on.

At the bottom of the stairs, they stood on the other side of the locked dual-paned door, looking at me. One fat slab of a dead guy lunged forward, bounced off the glass, shook his head, then tried again. After bouncing off the second time, he seemed to get the idea, so just stood there as if waiting for me to open the door.

That’s exactly what I did.

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Antibacterial Pope published its Zombie Fight Night review on its blog. It will also appear in next month’s (I think) issue of The Horror Fiction Review.

Please read the review here. Needless to say I’m happy about it.

Also, a friendly reminder that tonight I’ll be at McNally Robinson Booksellers at Grant Park Mall, 1120 Grant Avenue, Winnipeg, MB to officially launch Zombie Fight Night: Battles of the Dead, as well as to sign copies, do a reading, and provide some fun via a life-size cut out of a zombie fighting a werewolf. Bring your camera, plus feel free to bring any copies of my previous books for signature, too.

Thanks. See you there. Show starts at 7pm and runs till 8:30. You can come at any time, but best to come at the beginning to get a good (free) seat.

These trailers just showed up online. Both of them look good, and with Smallville’s upcoming 10th season most likely being its last year, I’m going to need some more superhero goodness to help fill the hours.

NBC’s The Cape:

ABC’s No Ordinary Family:

Click Here to Order from Amazon.com

4.5 out of 5

Pilot Hal Jordan goes for the ride of his life when his test pod is mysteriously transported from the safety of an airforce hanger to a rocky desert only to encounter a bizarre dying alien named Abin Sur, who had summoned Jordan via his powerful. Abin Sur dies and Hal’s world is turned upside down and he is introduced to the Green Lantern Corps, guardians of the galaxy. Under the tutelage of Sinestro, Hal learns to use his newfound power and witness, thanks to Sinestro’s words and actions, that the Guardians of Oa—those who created the Green Lantern Corps and the green lantern power battery—have grown soft in their approach to intergalactic crime. Sinestro believes a more stern approach is needed and so takes Hal under his wing to show him that might makes right.

The Corps faces a crisis as the Yellow Element—the only force capable of weakening the Green Element, which powers the Corps’s green battery on Oa—has been stolen. Should it be used against them, the Green Lantern Corps will crumble and the galaxy as we know it will no longer be protected and chaos and evil will reign.

Green Lantern, to me, has always been a cool character, yet he’s also always been an overlooked character outside the realm of us hardcore superhero guys. Batman? Sure. Superman? We know him even better. Spider-Man? Yeah, good movies on the big screen. But Green Lantern? Wasn’t he that green guy from that old Super Friends show, the one with that ring that does stuff and, um, well . . .

Green Lantern is an outside character. He’s known and he’s unknown. I think of him like Superman, the difference being is he takes the ring off and he’s a guy like you and me. Superman doesn’t have that option because no matter what kind of clothes he’s wearing, he’ll always be a Kryptonian. Green Lantern: First Flight reminds us of that: that beneath the cool power ring Hal Jordan is just your average guy.

I really appreciated the origin tone of this movie and even more so that 99% of it didn’t take place on Earth. Here we got to get a solid look at the world of Green Lantern, which is an intergalactic one and not confined to a bustling Metropolis or an eerie Gotham.

To see the Green Lantern Corps—all those aliens with varied green uniforms—really added to the scope of what the Corps is all about and a visual reminder that humanity’s protection is only a small part of what they do. According to this movie, there are 3600 green lanterns, each with their own sector to watch over. Solid.

I had only a couple minor quibbles with this movie. I thought Hal Jordan dove into the Green Lantern thing rather quickly. He gets the ring and suddenly—BAM—he’s all green and knows what to do. He also seemed too casual and calm about all these alien encounters he suddenly finds himself having. If that was you or me, we’d be freaking out the second Abin Sur showed up, green ring or otherwise.

Likewise, Hal Jordan seemed to be the only guy who got back to wearing regular clothes when the ring came off, whereas everyone else still retained their uniform. I thought the uniform came with the ring. Take the ring off and you’re back to wearing whatever it was when you put it on.

Again, minor, but something I would have liked to have seen handled better.

I know that comic books and comic book movies are not as much for kids as they used to be. Once again this DC film has some foul language in it. Not impressed because it’s kids asking their moms for these flicks. It’s not like the old days where superhero cartoons were clean language-wise.

The action is great. The fights are cool.

If Green Lantern: First Flight is meant as a primer for the upcoming live action film, man, we’re in for a real treat and an awe-inspiring experience coming 2011.

This flick is solid, enjoyable and fun. Check it out.