How’s your July going?
Me, I’m getting ready to take a little vacation before the one-two punch of CARMILLA UNBOUND: 1984 fulfillment and the insanity of San Diego Comic Con.
(Speaking of, will you be there? Come see us at table K-06 in Small Press. I'll have plenty of Bloodline & Fried Comics, plus a special guest and an exclusive ashcan for a brand new book. More on that next time…!)
Meanwhile, several of you have asked about snagging copies of NIGHTMARE THEATER Volume 1. We laid hands on a limited supply of first printings to sell in San Diego, but other than that, we are all sold out.
However!
Devilish Dave Schrader and I are thrilled to announce that we'll be launching a reprint campaign towards the end of the month, behind a brand new cover by fumetti master Emanuele Taglietti.
Click the image above to see the full cover, and while you’re there, give us a follow so you can be among the first to find out when we go live.
Or if you prefer an old school link…
CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW NIGHTMARE THEATER 1 REPRINT
And now for an awkward transition…
What do horror and soap operas have in common?
For about 8 years, I played a character named Lloyd the Bartender on the long-running soap AS THE WORLD TURNS.
Did the writers name him after the dude in THE SHINING? We’ll never know.
Did viewers notice me? We’ll never know.
It’s been 15 years since I shot my final episode, which was the second-to-last episode of the show’s 50+ year run.
Wikipedia tells me: “The show taped its final scenes on June 23, 2010, and its final episode aired on September 17, 2010.” Which means June 22 was my last day of taping.
Nearly 15 years to the day, I’m feeling nostalgic.
As a non-contract player, I could work on all the soaps shooting in NY, so for eight wonderful years, I also bounced around ONE LIFE TO LIVE and ALL MY CHILDREN.
With each show needing my services a couple times a month, it made a good gig going from Oakdale to Llanview to Pine Valley. And each show had its own “flavor.”
ATWT was the efficient one. They could, and did, shoot five episodes in four days. And they’d get you out in time for dinner, too.
OLTL was the fun one. Largely thanks to Alan “Needles” Needleman, the stage manager. He ran a tight ship and kept things light.
AMC was the stressful one. It shot like a film, which meant long days. (It, uh, also had some big personalities.)
Soaps get crapped on a lot, because, like comics, they are produced quickly. But lots of great actors came out of them—Julianne Moore (ATWT), Renée Elise Goldsberry (OLTL), and Michael B. Jordan (AMC), to name just a few.
It was a fantastic training ground for a young actor, a way to get practical experience on a set and get paid for it.
But, also like comics, the industry contracted. Within the span of two years, all four soaps that shot in New York disappeared.
GUIDING LIGHT and AS THE WORLD TURNS were cancelled, and ONE LIFE TO LIVE and ALL MY CHILDREN moved production to Los Angeles before being cancelled themselves.
My fellow ATWT bartender—and current NBC & CNN talking head Raul Reyes—did a great job summing up those heady final days in a recent NY Times piece:
I miss those days and the friends I made there.
I’m also happy to report that the first new soap opera in a long time, BEYOND THE GATES, recently debuted on CBS, the longtime home of AS THE WORLD TURNS.
It was recently renewed for a second season, so hopefully this genre is rising from the grave.
Just like comics?
Jim Shooter
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mark the passing of Jim Shooter this week.
Bleeding Cool has a great roundup of reactions, including one from our pal Ted Sikora.
Shooter would be a legend for the stuff he wrote at age 13 (!) alone, but his run as EIC at Marvel is a big reason why we're still talking about that company today.
And without Jim Shooter's Marvel to compete with, I'm not sure DC would've reached the heights they did in the 80's either.
It's a shame he was shunned by the industry for so many years, but I'm glad I got the chance to meet him on the con circuit 5 years ago.
It was literally days before everything shut down for Covid, and the con was pretty dead, so I abandoned my table and set up camp by Jim, absorbing every story he told while poring through his numerous binders of memorabilia.
He seemed like he was having a ball, as was everyone listening.
Thanks for the stories, Jim.
-Clay
P.S. The CONCRETE ARCANUM: LIVING WITH MONSTERS anthology is still live! If you’d like to get a copy of DMV, the story I did with Peter Taylor and D. Forrest Fox, plus a bunch of other great shorts…
Awesome installment, Lloyd!
Damn, I had no idea Jim Shooter died. Makes me want to go read some 80s comics again. And while I'm at it, maybe I'll track down scenes featuring this bartender you're talking about...