Halloween

When writer Sergio arrives in Ljubljana to give a lecture on Narcissus, the first thing he does after checking in to his hotel room is get on an app and look for someone to have sex with. A few hours later, once Igor has come and gone, Sergio spots a dark brown stain on the floor. Looking closer, he sees that it's a blood stain. And looking around, he discovers more and more blood stains all over the room. A metafictional narrative about obsession, ego, desire and the writer's psyche, The Rage of Narcissus is a fascinating and disturbing journey into the labyrinth of the self and the darkness within us.

Horror films strive to make audiences scream, but they also garner plenty of laughs. In fact, there is a long tradition of horror directors who are fluent in humor, from James Whale to John Landis to Jordan Peele. So how might horror and humor overlap more than we would expect?   Dead Funny locates humor as a key element in the American horror film, one that is not merely used for extraneous "comic relief" moments but often serves to underscore major themes, intensify suspense, and disorient viewers. Each chapter focuses on a different comic style or device, from the use of funny monsters and scary clowns in movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street to the physical humor and slapstick in movies ranging from The Evil Dead to Final Destination.  Along the way, humor scholar David Gillota explores how horror films employ parody, satire, and camp to comment on gender, sexuality, and racial politics. Covering everything from the grotesque body in Freaks to the comedy of awkwardness in Midsommar, this book shows how integral humor has been to the development of the American horror film over the past century. 

S.M. Vidaurri, writer and watercolor illustrator of the award-winning graphic novel IRON: OR, THE WAR AFTER, unfolds the stunning tale of "The Magic Swan Goose & the Lord of the Forest." When her brother is kidnapped by a witch, a young princess must venture into the mysterious forest beyond the castle. There, the Lord of the Forest, an armor clad spirit who watches over the wilderness, comes to her aid, but the princess must rely on her wits to discover who she can trust before her family is cursed forever.

Jim Henson's The Storyteller is a beloved celebration of fairy tales and folklore. After releasing a critically acclaimed graphic novel we're thrilled to share more of The Storyteller's magic. In the spirit of Henson's inventive imagination, this hardcover collects four stories of witches and witchcraft from all over the world. Each story is told by different a different writer and artist, exploring classic witch stories and fairy tales through an incredible blend of art styles and storytelling techniques, and taking full advantage of the visual medium.

Matthew Dow Smith (X-FILES, HELLBOY) tells the epic Irish folktale of "The Phantom Isle." When a young man shipwrecks on a mysterious island ruled by a council of witches, he has the choice of freedom or staying on the isle where he does not age. The lure of immortality is hard to resist, but it comes with a price he may not be willing to pay.

Walkern, 1712. England has been free from witch-hunts for decades until Jane Wenham is blamed for a tragic death and charged with witchcraft. A terrifying ordeal begins as the village is torn between those who want to save Jane's life and those who want to save her soul. Inspired by events in a Hertfordshire village, the play explores ... society's hunger to find and create witches.

A wry, innovative reckoning with the legacy of the Salem witch trials from one of America's foremost playwrights. Becky Nurse is an outspoken, sharp-witted tour guide at the Salem Museum of Witchcraft who's just trying to get by in post-Obama America. She's also the descendant of Rebecca Nurse, who was infamously executed for witchcraft in 1692--but things have changed for women since then...haven't they? After losing her job for calling out The Crucible in front of schoolkids, Becky visits a local witch for help. One spell leads to another, and then everything really goes off the rails. A darkly comic play about a woman coming to terms with her family's legacy and finding her voice in the "lock her up" era.

They have stalked the horizons of our culture, wreaked havoc on moribund concepts of dead and not dead, threatened our sense of identity, and endangered our personal safety. Now zombies have emerged from the lurking shadows of society's fringes to wander the sacred halls of the academy, feasting on tender minds and hurling rot across our intellectual landscape. It is time to unite in common cause, to shore up defenses, firm up critical and analytical resources, and fortify crumbling lines of inquiry. Responding to this call, Brain Workers from the Zombie Research Center poke and prod the rotting corpus of zombie culture trying to make sense of cult classics and the unstoppable growth of new and even more disturbing work. They exhume "zombie theory" and decaying historical documents from America, Europe, and the Caribbean in order to unearth the zombie world and arm readers with the brain tools necessary for everyday survival. Readers will see that zombie culture today "lives" in shapes as mutable as a zombie horde--and is often just as violent.

In the ancient world the magicians of Egypt were considered the best. But was magic harmless fun, heartfelt hope, or something darker? Whether you needed a love charm, a chat with your dead wife, or the ability to fly like a bird, an Egyptian magician had just the thing. Christina Riggs explores how the Egyptians thought about magic, who performed it and why, and also helps readers understand why we've come to think of ancient Egypt in such a mystical, magical way in the first place. This book takes Egyptian magic seriously, using ancient texts and images to tackle the blurry distinctions between magic, religion and medicine. Along the way, readers will learn how to cure scorpion bites, why you might want to break the legs off your stuffed hippopotamus toy, and whether mummies really can come back to life. Readers will also (if so inclined) be able to save a fortune on pregnancy tests by simply urinating on barley seeds, and learn how to use the next street parade to predict the future - or ensure that annoying neighbour gets his comeuppance.