Back in 1994, I started making a zine about the things that interested me at the time — Hong Kong action movies, Japanese scifi, noise music, and gratuitous photos of Joey Wong. Called Kung-Fu Girl, it ran for like five or six issues, all of which were presumed lost after flooding ruined most of my zine collection and moving caused much more of it to vanish into that ether where random boxes go in between apartments.

My sister, however, was mining through a pile of my old junk at my parents’ house and stumbled across issues one and three. She sent them to me, and I’m scanning them in for all to enjoy. I am not responsible for any differences in opinion between 22 year old me and 39 year old me. Anyway, here’s issue one. Issue three I’ll try to scan over the weekend.

Kung-Fu Girl #1

A relatively new Website, Daily Grindhouse, decided to rattle my cage and talk about Forever Evil. Yes, the villain still pursues me.

Fans of Jabootu may know this, but Ken Begg, myself, Sandy “Call of Cthulhu” Petersen and often Chris Holland of Stomp Tokyo get together annually to poke at the unsuspecting with movie-shaped sticks. One such get-together happened a week ago. No one was ever heard from again – until now.

Oh, yeah, incidentally, I’m still alive. How are you guys doing?

Look—we can’t help it, okay?

We’re the B-Masters. That’s just who we are. We yiz who we yiz and that’s all that we yiz. And that’s why, when we set out to do a tribute, it sometimes ends up looking like…something else.

Take this month’s Roundtable, for example. You wouldn’t think it would be hard to do an appropriate tribute to Elizabeth Taylor, now, would you? We didn’t think so either. Until we started dibsing films.

National Velvet? Nuh-uh. Father Of The Bride? Not exactly. A Place In The Sun? ‘Fraid not. Cat On A Hot Tin Roof? Well, I’m pretty sure Tennessee Williams is in there somewhere…

Well, look on the bright side. We always wanted this blog to be educational.

So join us as we investigate THE OTHER ELIZABETH TAYLOR – all through August at the B-Masters’ Blog.

Let’s face it – we’ve all got our fetishes.

Here at the B-Masters, we do try not to judge. Rather, we try to create an atmosphere where everyone is comfortable ‘fessing up to those little kinks and foibles that the real world just doesn’t understand. So when one of us – never mind which of us – lobbied for a Roundtable featuring the work of the more vertically challenged members of the acting community, the idea was embraced. There was no eyebrow-raising, no exchanging of significant looks. Because we’re all friends here. Because we all sympathise. Because we all want to help.

Because no-one wanted to tick off a man in uniform.

Oh. Ah. ‘Hem.

Anyway…why don’t you all join us over the next month as we take a look at those films in which some little people play a very big role?

It’s THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS…all through May at the B-Masters’ blog!

OK, so we’re not exactly keeping up with the cutting edge, but the Cabal now has a twitter feed. What will be on it? Only time and how much booze we’ve had will tell. But if you’re the kind of person who has a twitter account, follow us OR BE DESTROYED! Or at the very least, be unaware of what one of us has posted to the twitter account, until such time as that information is repeated here.

@B_Masters_Cabal

Enjoy…ish!

At last, the darksome prophecies are nigh at hand! The first issue of Arcane is available — $2.99 in every conceivable ebook format, $7.99 in print! You owe it to yourself, your ancestry, and your progeny to check it out! More details here.

03/14/11 Update: I’m no longer giving away free review copies, but you can still buy your own — CHEAP! — at several outlets and in several formats, all listed here.

At long last! The Kindle version of The Demon Cross is being processed by Amazon as we speak, and should be available for sale in a couple of days; other ereader formats will follow shortly, and the paperback edition will be available in a week or two.

And with as much as you’d enjoy buying The Demon Cross, think how much more you’d enjoy reading it for free! To generate word-of-mouth and reviews, I’d like email you a FREE COPY of the novel. Here’s all you have to do:

1. Send me an email at nshumate@gmail.com with the subject “Free Demon Cross”. Give me your name, the format you prefer (epub, PDF, HTML) and the address of your website or blog if you have one.

2. Agree to post a review — positive, negative or indifferent — on your blog or website, your Goodreads page, your Facebook page, or the Amazon listing for The Demon Cross in the next 60 days. (You don’t have to buy the book on Amazon to review it there, you only need to have an account).

3. Email me a copy of the review or a link to the post.

I’m only going to honor the first 50 requests — gotta leave SOMEBODY out there to buy it, after all — so get your licks in early!