Today is Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday.
Rosenmeyer’s lithograph below depicts him on one of his characteristic solitary walks; this one is on the High Bridge between Manhattan and the Bronx. For a little interesting background on it, see this entry at the Ephemeral New York website.
I just can’t shake it.
Cue that Rockwell song.
My friend and consummate collector, Steve Miller, is the proud owner of both of these illustrations. Michael Calero sketched the first one for him when he attended a Walker Stalker Con in 2016, Steve later contacted him and requested a companion piece for Hilary.
I’m jealous. Steve has the coolest things.
Oil on canvas.
Do you think you can prevent me from going outside, January snowstorm?
YOU KNOW NOTHING, JAN. SNOW.
Lithograph.
I watched the first episode of Season 2 of “The Exorcist” series (2016), and I’m happy to report it was a fun, scary start. (The season began this past September; its ten-episode arc concluded at the end of the year.) I’d rate the premiere a 9 out of 10, and I’m on board for another demonic outing.
Alfonso Herrera and Ben Daniels return as a kind of dynamic duo of protagonist priests — all the more so because they appear to be on the run from a Roman Catholic Church that no longer sanctions their heroics. (The show is actually well written, and this isn’t as stupid as I just made it sound.) Herrera and Daniels are both terrific, even if an opening action chase scene reintroducing them here was unintentionally funny. (They’re absconding by pickup truck with a possessed woman — her gun-toting country family, who is unaware of their intentions, is in pursuit. I kept thinking this was a like a sequel to 1990’s “Nuns on the Run.”)
Herrera’s character feels a bit more interesting this time out. Six months on the lam as exorcist-knight-errant has made him grim and unexpectedly arrogant — his darker character is more fun to watch than the slightly cloying, pretty-boy apprentice we sometimes saw in Season 1.
There are more things that make Season 2 seem promising, too. It looks as though the afflicted woman that we see (nicely played by Zibby Allen) drives only this season’s prologue. The demon antagonist has its sights set on a foster home staffed by a likable altruistic Dad (John Cho) and his equally likable five charges. (One of them is Brianna Hildebrand, who comic fans might recognize as Negasonic Teenage Warhead from 2016’s “Deadpool.” Is she here after being thrown out of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters?)
This was fun. I’m looking forward to the rest of the story.
Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,
Atop on the topmost twig, — which the pluckers forgot, somehow, —
Forget it not, nay; but got it not, for none could get it till now.
Like the wild hyacinth flower which on the hills is found,
Which the passing feet of the shepherds for ever tear and wound,
Until the purple blossom is trodden in the ground.
“No, no, we are not satisfied and will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Marvel Comics.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 