If you live in a big city, you know how dangerous trick-or-treating can sometimes be, with dodging speeding cars and trucks while you’re trying to make the rounds of your favorite candy-giving haunts—even in the daytime!
In 2022, New York City took steps to try and make trick-or-treating a much safer event, by instituting “Trick or Streets,” an expansion of its “Open Streets” initiative that closes certain streets to vehicular traffic so that NYC residents can walk and bike on them without fear of injury. (It’s a popular program that started in May 2021 as a result of the pandemic lockdown, so that people could finally get out of their homes and apartments to enjoy fresh air.)
Continuing the tradition, tomorrow kicks off Year 4’s Trick or Streets 2025: a two-week festival during which a number of streets will be closed off in Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn, allowing you and yours to hit the pavement and celebrate the Spooky Season with “live music, fun activities, interactive performances, and more.” (Keep an eye on local weather forecasts, though, so you can dress accordingly.)
For more information on the city’s Halloween plans and a list of family-friendly events being held, head over to the Trick or Streets website.
Whaaat? TwoHorror Street entries in the same week? Hey, why not? It’s Spooky Season, after all, and even though this one doesn’t involve street art, my most recent discovery is something all horror fans in New York City should check out, if only for the fun aspect of it.
While wandering around Manhattan this past weekend, my feet took me along West 14th Street where, on the corner of 6th Avenue, I spotted a Spirit Halloween popup store. What I didn’t realize at the time is that this location (for this year, anyway) serves as Spirit’s “flagship store” in NYC, and is home to their theme for 2025: the Madison Scare Park subway station—complete with haunted subway car!
I mean, how could I not take some pictures of such a great-looking display, with its unique passengers like the mutant rat and the electrified corpse?
So, if you’re in the New York City area, head on down to the Spirit Halloween store on the corner of 6th Avenue and West 14th Street, and take a terror ride at Madison Scare Park!
Stay tuned for further installments of Horror Street—there’s plenty of macabre graffiti art to be found on the streets of New York, if you look in the right creepy places! And be sure to check out my previous HS entries: the Brooklyn Vampire, the demonic D-Rod, Where the Gene Wilder Things Are, the beast called Queens’thluhu, the scarifying Ghoulmobile, the regal Griffin, the Spooky Forest, and Beetlejuice himself!
Halloween is only three weeks (and a few days) away, so it’s the perfect time to get in the spooky mood—unless you’re already in it, of course! If you’re not, though, here’s some ways to spark your inner ghoul:
Horror movies! AMC Fearfest, Turner Classic Movies, the SyFy Channel, Movies! TV Network, Freeform, and Svengoolie (on MeTV) are just some of the cable stations chock full of Halloweeny programming during October, and streaming sites like HBO Max, Tubi, and Pluto are constantly adding horror movies to their lineups. There’s a lot to see before All Hallows’ Eve, so as the old saying goes, check your local listings for more information.
Then there’s Countdown to Halloween, an annual collection of blogs (mostly horror-themed) that commit to posting daily entries every day of the month, on a wide range of topics from comic books to toys, classic horror movies to music, and even wanderings through local cemeteries.
There are also the ghoulish deejays spinning tunes over at Halloween Radio and its five channels (Main, Soundtracks, Atmosphere, Oldies, and Kids), which stream year-round—perfect for when you’re looking for background music to play while you’re decorating your home or apartment, carving pumpkins, or working on your costume.
Are you a comic book fan? Then stop by your local comic shop to check out the latest spooktacular offerings this month, including Archie Comics’ Archie’s Halloween Spectacular, DC’s Zatanic Panic and Harley Quinn x Elvira #1, and Boom! Studios’ Hello Halloween.
But the true meaning of horror can be found this coming weekend on the Hallmark Channel, which is set to debut Haul Out the Halloween, an actual Halloween-themed romance movie, on Saturday night! First it was Hallmark’s annual “Countdown to Christmas” marathons during October, where it’s round-the-clock holly-and-ivy-draped programming in an attempt to distract everyone from the ghoulies and ghosties we enjoy, and now they’re horning in on All Hallows’ Eve itself—does their evil know no bounds?!
(Actually, it’s pretty well known that horror and Hallmark have a weird relationship. For all the counter-Halloween programming they do, Hallmark does have a following for their Christmas movies among horror fans, and then there’s the fact that not only have a number of horror writers and directors contributed to the yuletide filmfests (Fred Olen Ray, David DeCoteau, Michael Varrati), but even horror icons like Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead), Natasha Henstridge (Species), and Patricia Velasquez (The Mummy) have starred in them!)
Whatever it is you do to get ready for Halloween, have a fun time doing it!
(Collier’s cover image courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Collection)
Fall has officially arrived, and with it comes…well, yes, the annual onslaught of pumpkin-spice whatevers that flood grocery stores and coffee houses, and sure, Christmas decorations have already taken over the majority of shelves at retail stores, but October 1st is still the start of the holiday season celebrated by horror fans and monster kids around the world: Halloween!
So, carve those pumpkins, hoist that 20-foot-tall skeleton decoration high, create a marathon of your favorite horror movies, and ignore the Hallmark Christmas programming! There’s plenty of creepy, eerie fun to be had this month—so get out there and enjoy it!
No? Then obviously you haven’t paid a visit to the Hallmark Channel these days, otherwise you’d know we’re smack-dab in the middle of what’s become known as Christmas in July. (Not that we watch any of the bazillion yuletide romances HC is running, you understand—we’re merely pointing it out for research purposes…)
Anyway, if saccharine-sweet rom-coms aren’t your thing, but reading horror and dark fantasy and straight-up fantasy is, then you should head over to our e-book distributor DriveThru Fiction—and its sister site, DriveThru Comics—who’s definitely in the holiday mood with its annual Christmas in July Sale, during which you can purchase tons of digital books at special prices! It runs from now to July 31st—and yes, you’ll need to set up an account (it’s free) to take advantage of this promotion.
Included among the many participating publishers is StarWarp Concepts (of course), and among the titles we’re offering at a sweet discount, you’ll find:
Carmilla is J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 19th-century classic vampiric tale of love gone wrong. Laura is so desperate for a friend that when a young woman named Carmilla practically turns up on the doorstep of the castle owned by Laura’s father, she thinks her prayers for companionship have been answered. But as she comes to realize, Carmilla isn’t as interested in making friends as she is in spilling blood… Regarded as the one of the earliest female vampire tales—if not the first—Carmilla was an influence on Stoker’s Dracula, and remains a popular character in fiction to this day. Our special edition contains six exclusive illustrations by the super-talented Eliseu Gouveia (The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0,The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1).
The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1 is a 56-page, full-color comic special that features cover art by award-winning artist Henar Torinos (Mala Estrella) and contains three original stories. In “Song of the Siren,” by writer Steven A. Roman and artist Eliseu Gouveia (Vengeance of the Mummy, Lady Death), the teenaged Goth adventuress matches wits with a man-stealing enchantress who’s set her sights on Pan’s boyfriend, Javier. It’s followed by “After Hours,” by writer Sholly Fisch (The Batman &Scooby-Doo Mysteries), and comic-art legend Ernie Colon (Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld), in which a demon walks into a bar to unwind after a long day of scarifying. And rounding out the issue is “Shopping Maul,” a short story by Roman with title-page art by Elizabeth Watasin (Charm School), in which Pan and Annie, along with Javier and Pan’s best friend, Sheena, run into a group of Gothic Lolita vampires out to do more than a little window shopping.
Chasing Danger: The Case Files of Theron Chase is Rich White’s collection of fantasy-noir, pulp-detective tales starring a private eye working the supernatural beat in the city of Calasia. From a sexy chanteuse who literally turns into a beast when the moon is full to a string of pearls that kills its owners, and from the ghost of a dead woman seeking justice to the Grim Reaper’s little girl seeking her stolen chicken, Theron Chase certainly has his hands full—of danger, death, and dames!
And Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings is a general readers’ graphic novel about a group of supernatural-superheroes-for-hire taking on their first case. The team consists of a wizard, a female ninja, a sorceress, a werewolf, and a rock ’n’ roll lighting designer wearing high-tech armor. Sure, they might not be on a power level with the Avengers or Justice League of America—they’re more like superpowered Ghostbusters—but they get the job done. The graphic novel is written by the husband-and-white team of Richard C. White and Joni M. White, and illustrated by Reggie Golden and Randy Zimmerman.
You may have to check the sites over the coming days for availabilty, since it appears DriveThru does the discounts in waves, not all at once. So, if the reduced price isn’t in effect now, it might be later!
Again, the Christmas in July Sale runs now through July 31st, so head over to the StarWarp Concepts publisher page at DriveThru Fiction and DriveThru Comics, and start your summer-reading shopping!
While it’s true that today is Memorial Day in the United States—an annual remembrance of the country’s fallen military members, held on the last Monday in May—it also happens to be World Dracula Day, which was launched in 2012 by the Whitby Dracula Society 1897 (based in Whitby Abbey, England), to mark the day in 1897 when Bram Stoker’s seminal novel was first released by publisher Archibald Constable & Co.
So, what’s the best way to celebrate the occasion if you’re a horror fan? Well, you could read Dracula, of course, or have your own movie marathon of horror flicks starring the count—there are certainly enough of those to watch, from the original Bela Lugosi classic to Christopher Lee’s Hammer films, and from Frank Langella (Dracula) to Gary Oldman (Bram Stoker’s Dracula) to Luke Evans (Dracula Untold). Not to mention movies in a more comedic…vein (c’mon, I had to say it!): George Hamilton in Love at First Bite; Leslie Nielsen in Dracula: Dead and Loving It; Nicholas Cage in Renfield; and even Richard Roxburgh’s scenery-chewing performance in Hugh Jackman’s Van Helsing.
Or you could purchase a book that helped to inspire Stoker in creating the count’s unforgettable debut—especially when it came to the presentation of his vampirie “brides.” In fact, it’s recently been ranked a “Best of #BookTok” title!
Carmilla is J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 19th-century classic vampiric tale of love gone wrong. Laura is so desperate for a friend that when a young woman named Carmilla practically turns up on the doorstep of the castle owned by Laura’s father, she thinks her prayers for companionship have been answered. But as she comes to realize, Carmilla isn’t as interested in making friends as she is in spilling blood…
Regarded as the one of the earliest female vampire tales—if not the first—Carmilla was an influence on Stoker’s Dracula, and remains a popular character in fiction to this day. Our special edition contains six exclusive illustrations by the super-talented Eliseu Gouveia (Lorelei: Sects and the City,The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1).
“With a cover that looks like it belongs on the paranormal romance shelf in a bookstore and half a dozen illustrations provided by Eliseu Gouveia, this edition stands a good chance of tempting some younger readers to pick up this classic vampire tale…. I wish I’d picked this book up in seventh grade instead of slogging through Dracula.”—The Gothic Library
Carmilla is available in print and digital formats. Visit its product page at StarWarp Concepts for ordering information.
No one seems to know where it came from, or whose idea it was, but today is National Tell a Fairy Tale Day, a time “to celebrate those beloved stories that we all loved as children, those fictional stories that told about characters such as fairies, talking animals, princesses, elves, witches, trolls, and giants,” according to the site Giftypedia.
Well if that’s the case, then perhaps you might be interested in one of StarWarp Concepts’ snazziest-looking fantasy titles:
Snow Whiteis the classic story by the Brothers Grimm, and one of the titles in our Illustrated Classics line. Featuring full-color illustrations first published in 1883 (and they really are beautiful drawings), this digital-exclusive title is available for immediate download for the wickedly low price of just 99¢!
Snow White is a digital exclusive that’s available right now for download, so visit its product page at DriveThru Fiction for ordering information and sample pages.
Hey, book lovers! Today marks what would have been the fourteenth annual Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day. Founded in 2010 by author Jessica Milchman, the event, held on the first Saturday in December, was “about instilling a love of bookstores in children so that they will value and support this most precious of resources as they go on to enter and create communities of their own” (according to its website, which unfortunately no longer exists).
Well, with the holidays fast approaching, there’s no better time than now to get youngsters started on their reading journeys, or to encourage it even more, so pardon us if we continue to keep the TYCBD tradition going. After all, kids + reading + brick-and-mortar bookstores = a great combination!
So, get out there and check out your local bookstore (if you have one) with your kids. But even if you don’t have kids, visiting a bookstore isn’t such a bad idea anyway—after all, books make for great holiday presents!
(Photograph by Circe Denyer, courtesy of Public Domain Pictures)
The Christmas shopping season officially kicked into overdrive, with Thanksgiving Day here in the United States arriving yesterday. Now Black Friday—the biggest shopping day of the year—is upon us, when stores discount prices to generate sales, and Cyber Monday is on the horizon, when online retailers do the same.
E-book distributor DriveThru Fiction—along with its sister sites DriveThru Comics and DriveThru RPG—has joined in on the fun with its annual Black Friday/Cyber Monday WeekendSale, during which you can purchase a ton of digital books and comics at special prices. It runs from now through Monday, December 2—and yes, you’ll need to set up an account (it’s free) to take advantage of this promotion.
Included among the many participating publishers is StarWarp Concepts (of course), which means you can take advantage of some sweet discounts on such titles as the supernatural-superhero graphic novel, Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings; our most popular Illustrated Classic, J. Sheridan’s le Fanu’s vampiric dark-romance Carmilla; the world-building guide for writers and game masters Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination; and the nonfiction comics history From the Stars…a Vampiress: An Unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures.
