Red "Undead" Redemption - Undead Nightmare Trailer and artwork!

This has been quite a week for Red Dead Redemption. Rockstar Games has been releasing images and video for their "game add-on" Undead Nightmare all week, and I gotta say I am VERY excited!

If you read my previous post about this you'll know that I LOVE Red Dead Redemption, due to it's story and detail it is quite possibly one of the best Western games ever created....and while taking a very realistic game and adding in a Zombie element might seem mildly weird to the uninformed, it is amazingly clever as well. Fighting Zombies in the Old West is Classic!

The story is this:

Unleashed upon the world of Red Dead Redemption, the Undead Nightmare Pack will feature an entirely new mostly single-player campaign that follows John Marston as he tries to find a cure for the highly infectious zombie plague that has spread across the frontier.

WOW!

Yesterday they released some great High Def screen shots, (including John Marston, the games protagonist, riding a Zombie Horse!) which you can see HERE......but its all been leading up to today, when they released the first teaser trailer for the game.



WOW WOW!!

A lot of fans of Red Dead have been complaining that this is going to ruin the integrity of the original game, but they shouldn't worry, Rockstar has confirmed that the story is going to be a separate from the normal game. Personally, their complaints have fallen on the deaf ears of this Weird Westerner.....although I certainly understand their concerns.

The images and trailer look like they've channeled a little bit of Grindhouse, and a smidgen of some Italian Horror, some great 70s horror in general (the original game channels Spaghetti Westerns nicely, especially in the music) and hopefully this "Episode" will be really scary and a lot of fun!

Rockstar has an official site with everything that has been released so far HERE and its a very safe bet that this wont be the end, so as more info and media is released Ill post it here at the Emporium!

Until then......braaaaaaains......

Merkabah Rider 2 and The Blood Bay!

For fans of Edward M. Erdelac's work, he's back with two more tales from the Weird West!

I hate to admit it, but I have yet to read Ed's first book in the Merkabah Rider series, Merkabah Rider: Tales Of A High Planes Drifter.....but in my defense, I'm a terrible book reader. My mind is always running around, and I'm always doing something. So sitting down to read a book takes a bit of a commitment.....I think I have a bit of ADD (or maybe I just drink too much caffeine).....but regardless, a good friend of mine DID read Merkabah Rider 1, and he said it was GREAT.

Well fans of the series have something to be happy about as the adventures of The Rider continue in Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name

Damnation books describes it like this:

The Merkabah Rider continues his journey across the American Southwest of 1880 in search of the renegade teacher who destroyed his mystic Jewish order in the 2nd volume of this acclaimed weird western series. As the Rider unravels more of the mystery of the Hour of the Incursion, demons are the least of his troubles.

The book is once again an anthology, made up of 4 Short stories, The Infernal Napolean, The Damned Dingus, The Outlaw Gods, and The Pandaemonium Ride. These make up episodes 5 though 8 and tell the ongoing adventures of Erdelac's hero.

The book has been released as an ebook through the publisher's website and should be released in hard copy form within the next few weeks.

Also, for a comprehensive review of Mensch With No Name, head on over to Paul Green's Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns site where he actually reads books and doesn't drink too much caffeine!


And speaking of websites, if fans of Ed Erdelac's work haven't been going over to his blog, Delirium Tremens you are missing out. He writes up some fascinating explanations about his work and the inspirations behind his stories. There is a write up about Mensch With No Name, but what I'm specifically thinking of is the second story he released recently, The Blood Bay.

The Blood Bay is one of the short stories in the new Midnight Diner collection. Erdelac describes the story like this:

My own story is about a boy (Jonas) who comes to live on his father’s ranch following the violent death of his estranged mother in a freak accident. His father has remarried, and although Jonas takes to life on a horse ranch, he cannot bring himself to accept his father and stepmother. Then, in an attempt to win his son’s love, Jonas’ father brings him a skittish, wall-eyed blood colored mare and tells the boy he can keep it so long as he can get it to eat...

He also explains that his influences were John Steinbeck's The Red Pony (the bane of many a High School English students) and the Greek Myths of Diomedes and his Man-eating Mares. Particularly "Xanthos (or Xanthus, meaning ‘blonde’ or sometimes ‘bay’).....whom Hercules captured as his eighth labor."

I don't know about you but I think this sounds like a fantastic idea for a short story.....sort of The Red Pony in Hell! Edward talks about his inspirations at length in his article HERE, or if you want to be surprised the Midnight Diner collection can be found HERE, although I haven't been able to find a release date, but they are taking pre-orders.

UPDATE: Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name is available now in both ebook and hard copy formats. They can be bought HERE

The Dark Tower coming to Movie theaters....AND TV screens!

I don't want to get too excited yet....Ive heard it all before. Everyone has tried to do an adaptation of Stephen King's seven part Weird Western, Fantasy, Horror epic The Dark Tower. First as a TV series, then as a Trilogy, then as a TV series again. Even JJ Abrams tried it....and couldn't.

Well NBC/Universal has announced today that they signed a deal with Stephen King to have all 7 books adapted into 3 movies and (from what Ive been hearing) 2 TV series'. Ron Howard is directing the first film and the first season, Akiva Goldsman is Adapting it, and Brian Grazer will be producing it. Details on the following seasons and film haven't been announced yet.

I dont think this has ever been done before, The New York Times described it as if Lord of the Rings had had a TV series in between each film to bridge the films.....and I agree, although I wonder if it will all be coming out within a few years of each other......and we can expect the cast to be mostly Unknowns due to the high level of commitment they will need to have. I dont think a cast has had this level of involvement in a film series since Harry Potter.

I believe the source for this is Deadline.com so Ill link to that (although its been fire-storming through the Internet so a Google News search will basically bring up the story from most of the news sites.)

The Dark Tower is one of my absolute favorites, I hope this happens! I'll report more on this as details become available!

The Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns has a second printing!

If you didn't already know, Paul Green's The Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns is THE reference of all things Weird in the Western genre. This is a fantastic book that came out last year, and has now moved into its second printing! If you haven't had a chance to pick it up, you should, its an essential part of any Weird Western fans night table reading.

From automatons to zombies, many fantastic elements have been cross-pollinated with the western genre. This A-to-Z encyclopedia of the Weird Western covers film, television, animation, dime novels, pulp fiction, comic books, novels, short stories and video and role-playing games.

I blogged about it when it first came out last October, and I still love it. Its a great reference for when I'm doing research for The Emporium, or just feel like getting lost some Weird Western minutia for a while.

You can also order the book from its publisher, McFarland and Co. Inc.....and you can visit Paul at his website, The Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns which, like The Emporium, is one of the few sites dedicated to Weird West goodness online; and acts as sort of an addendum to the book.

If you haven't pick this up yet, you should do it today! And Congratulations Paul, you've written a durn fine book there, pard!

New Set Photo from Cowboys and Aliens!

Collider reported today that Noah Ringer, who is starring in Cowboys and Aliens, tweeted a new photo from the set. Looks cool! Kinda.... Is it just me or does this particular shot look like the set from a 2 O'clock Wild West show at Tombstone or Knott's Berry Farm? It looks a little fake, especially the back buildings, with their thin structures....unlike the previous photo which was a great shot from set. I'm sure lighting and camera work can do wonders....or who knows, maybe this is meant to be blown up in the alien invasion! Or.....Maybe I'm just being to picky......We shall see..

You can click on the above Photo for a better look!

New Weird West comic book series The Sixth Gun!

I could honestly kick myself. Doing research for Yesterday's post I came across the cover of a new Weird Western comic called The Sixth Gun from Oni Press. The reason for the self kickage-ness is that they released the entire first issue, absolutely free, on Free Comic Book Day 2010.....which I purposefully missed due to a lack of titles that I was interested in...I suppose I should have done better research...

If you can't tell by the name, Free Comic Book Day is the first Saturday in May when comic book companies release free issues of certain comics to promote them. The Sixth Gun was a good choice because it has just begun an ongoing run last month.

Oni Press decribes the title like this:

During the darkest days of the Civil War, wicked cutthroats came into possession of six pistols of otherworldly power. The Sixth Gun - the most dangerous of the weapons - has vanished. When the gun surfaces in the hands of an innocent girl, dark forces reawaken. Villains thought long dead set their sights on retrieving the gun and killing anyone in their path. Only Drake Sinclair, a gunslinger with a shadowy past, stands in their way.

Nice! and as luck would have it, all is not lost. Robot 6 has posted the entire first issue online for our weekend reading pleasure (in two formats even, you can read it right on the site, or download a PDF of the issue to keep forever and ever).

Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt's The Sixth Gun is 32 pages of Weird West awesomeness...And it can be read right HERE....Enjoy!

The Weird West on Deviantart!

Sometime contributor and friend of the Weird West Emporium, Ashe Armstrong, has started a Weird West group on Deviantart.

I have to admit, I haven't flirted much with the site. Its great for looking up pictures and such of my current obsessions, or for images for the Emporium, and even professionals post their work there. Looking for a certain picture online tends too be eased by going to the artists page on Deviantart and seeing if the picture in question was posted there.....Its hit or miss, but there's no denying that the site plays host some REALLY talented artists.

The weird West group is small right now, but its growing...and the work that's there shows the high quality and talent I was speaking of previously.

This is what Ashe has to say about it:

Over on deviantart, [I've] started a Weird West group, http://theweirdwest.deviantart.com/. It's still in its infancy but come check it out and if you have a dA account, join up and help it grow!

So far I'm liking what I'm seeing, You folks should head on over and check out the group....and if you happen to be part of the site, well..you know what to do!