Bring me the box of Ferrets! or Random Thought Download.

I am going to continue the trend from last week and make this just a random stuff in my craw post.

First up is the Cal McDonald Detective Tales book from Bloody Pulp Books.

It came in the mail on Saturday. It comes in an evidence bag with what seems to be the date that your book was sent out, mine is 4/9/11. For some damn reason I thought this was fucking awesome, it is just a random detail that sticks out to me. As for the contents of the book, I like to call it "bite-sized (pill sized?) Cal". Why you ask? Well let me tell you. It contains 2 short stories - The "Y" Incision and Nocturnal Invasions. These stories are able to be read in about 15 minutes. I have only read The "Y" Incision so far and it is a great read. Mr. Niles has a gift of description, especially when that description is straight up disgusting. When he writes about disembowelment you feel like you are looking at the entrails pouring out right in front of you. That is of course a complement to his writing. There is a point in the story that had me flashing on Invader Zim, which is fan-damn-tastic when put into the context of Cal's world. I would HIGHLY recommend picking this up before it is gone, plus it is only five bucks. I personally can't wait until the next one comes out.


Now for your Hockey playoffs update. The Lighting tied up the series with the hated Penguins on Friday night with a 5-1 trouncing after a sad showing the game before with a 3-0 loss. The next game is tonight. My 6 game Lightning win is still in effect. Tonight's game is being played in Tampa.

Detroit on the other hand is looking to repeat last years effort of crushing the Coyotes hopes of moving to the second round. The Wings are up 2-0 in the series and are not looking to let up as they move to Phoenix for game three tonight.
Stay tuned next week as Ken and I update the playoff beard situation.

Finally I was going to talk about the premiere of "A Game of Thrones" last night. However because I do not have HBO and my totally legal search of the interwebs produced nothing for me this morning, I can't talk about it yet. This makes me sad, so if any of you fine folks watched it let me know what you thought in the comments.

That's it for this week, as always Let Your F'ing Voice Be Heard in the comments or facebook page!

Reading this week: Descent of Angels by Mitchell Scanlon and Cal McDonald Detective Tales by Steve Niles and illustrated by Kelley Jones

Bloody Pulp Books: Cal McDonald: Detective Tales Volume 1

I got some fantastic news this morning; Blood Pulp Books is now taking pre-orders for Cal McDonald: Detective Tales Volume 1. I realize I just threw a bunch of different things at you all at once, some of the names you may recognize and some may be new to you, so let me slow down and go over just why all of this is a very, very good thing and why I already spent 10 bucks before I finished my first cup of coffee.

Bloody Pulp Books is a small book publisher started by Steve Niles and graphic designer Alex Lodermeier. As the writer of 30 Days of Night, Criminal Macabre, Simon Dark, etc…Steve Niles should be a pretty familiar name to F’ing Monkey readers. Don’t think that Bloody Pulp is just going to be releasing comic related books though; their next book is going to be a biography of Lance Henriksen written by Lance and Joseph Maddrey. The book is going to include illustrations by Tim Bradstreet, Mike Mignola, Eric Powell, Bill Sienkiewicz, Ashley Wood, and Bernie Wrightson. How can that not be amazing?

Now that we got Bloody Pulp Books explained, we can go on to talk about Cal. Cal McDonald: Detective Tales is a collection of prose stories about Steve Niles’ famous pill popping detective. This first volume is written by Steve and will have illustrations by Kelly Jones. The book just went on pre-order this morning and only 2,000 copies of this 84 page beauty are being made. The fact that the website calls it volume one makes be very excited because I haven’t even read the first one yet and I already want more.

Now it is possible some people are reading this and saying, Cal who? Cal McDonald is a detective who is routinely pulled into the plots of the paranormal. For some reason it is attracted to him and he sees the things that most people refuse to take notice of. Seeing werewolves and vampires will take its toll on a person and Cal copes with handfuls of pills and what ever other drug he can get his hands on. Take one part noir detective, one part horror movie, and blend them together with a handful of speed and you get Cal McDonald. You can find Cal stories in the Criminal Macabre comic book series or in prose. If you’re looking for the prose, they made it easy on you a few years ago and collected it all in a single volume, Criminal Macabre: The Complete Cal McDonald Stories. I seriously can not recommend that book enough.