All Hallows' Eve 2011: A Look Back, and a Look in the Mirror - Finding Light in The Dark

'Tis the Season for Family, both Addams and Grau

As anyone who doesn't still paint the walls with their own fecal matter could surmise, All Hallows' Eve is extraordinarily important to us here at The Cosmicomicon.  In fact, it was just a little over a year ago that I first cracked this minty fresh tome of empty, eager pages, tapped my quill into the electronic ink well, and set off on my bloggish journey as the creator and (current) caretaker of The Cosmicomicon.

It's been one HELL of a year, in all the cuddly and sometimes grueling connotations associated with the word.  But as we again hover just above the specters of the season, The Cosmicomicon and my career as a writer of dark fantasy, horror, and cosmic weirdness have never been stronger, both being hailed and well received all over the globe.  I didn't know it at the time of founding this living and ever-mutating document, but The Cosmicomicon has grown larger than just my own personal dumping ground for inane musings, cool shit, and career happenings.  It's become a HAPPENING itself.  And I owe all of this to you, dear readers, writers, and overall supporters.  I couldn't - and wouldn't - do it without you.  The feedback has been amazing, both published and private.  I'm humbled and proud to be the captain of this interdimensional voyage, and am thankful for all of my crew, including the stellar array of guest bloggers and commentators who have put their hard work and talents into this endeavor.  Cheers to all of you beautiful bastards.

Turning my head from behind toward the mirror in front, we find a Trio of Weirdlings, captured in our near-natural habitat in the image above.  That picture has truly become more than just three assholes mugging in our makeup.  It has become a visual representation of who we are as individuals, and as a family.  Us inhabitants of Grau Haus have truly EMBRACED the dark and the gothic, the monstrous.  For us, it's not a celebration of anything negative or dreary, or even "evil".  We're happier and goofier and more positive than your average bears.  That pictures is an expression of who we are and what we love. 

Basically, we find what could be described as "the dark" incredibly cool.  It brings us comfort, and sparks our imaginations.  It makes us smile, and talk, and create amazing things deep into the wee hours, fueled by this passion born of shadowed places and things that should not be.  It's what we do. 

Indeed, when Ives spends three entire months prepping for a Halloween party, designing and hand painting/adorning/hanging three miles of chic decor when not tracking down bizarre animals skulls, preserved bats, vintage apothecary jars, and industrial bags of webbing, in between banging out pages for her latest horror short story, you know this is no passing fancy. 

When my seven year old daughter takes it upon herself to create a birthday card for H.P. Lovecraft, brings home drawings every single day of strange, hybrid creatures with names and complete backstories, and has focused all of her little girl obsession toward Monster High, you know that it's real.

We're a house devoted to The Dark.  There's no other way around it. 

For a writer of speculative fiction, nothing makes me happier than this organic leap in the direction we've all leaned for so long (including Angelina, who's first non-cartoon crush was on Ron Pearlman's Hellboy when she was just barely three... She'd literally blush when he'd appear on screen).


So, that brings us back up to the present, back to my comfortable chair at The Cosmicomicon and All Hallows' (mentally place the apostrophe wherever it feels the most comfortable) Eve 2011.  This year, the sands in the hourglass are escaping like quicksilver, and writing deadlines loom darker and more foreboding than any lurker at the threshold, so the countdown to Samhain hasn't been as structured, nor as daily, as original intended.  But, we will do our best to celebrate as much as we can the season and the reason behind the shrieks and howls, the moans and the growls.  We also celebrate my choice to not pursue poetry as a serious endeavor, as evidenced by the preceding sentence.
 
Let's kick off our truncated All Hallows' Eve 2011 jubilee with a pictorial array from our recent Addams Family photo shoot, taken in Grau Haus by the dashing photog and classic horrorhead Trever Swearingen, who is another tentacle in our every growing family of Dwellers in The Dark...

The inspiration:  Angelina IS Wednesday

When Ivy swoons, so does the rest of the world

Little Brothers Forever, recently described as "The Lovecraftian Power Couple"

Incredulous, of beauty so creamy and dangerous

It's a dance, a waltz, these steps we take

**** COSMICOMICON EXCLUSIVE!!!  ADDAM'S FAMILY PHOTOSHOOT BACKSTAGE LOOK!!!   COSMICOMICON EXCLUSIVE!!! ****  (can you sense the excitement?) 

Trever, in action.  Me, inert.

Photog and creative director/makeup artist/model entranced by how handsome I am.

L.A. sass, dropping deuces like only she can, cuz...

... my Morticia was raised on Hollywood Boulevard, before it became Disneyland.

It's Friday.  It's nearly Halloween.  Find your best, truest mirror and see what sort of wonderful shadows are cast across your face.  What looks back at you when you truly See yourself, without fear of retribution or damnation.

Loving the dark isn't bad.  The dark can provide shade, a place to rest, a chance to dream.  Things grow in the dark.  You can, too.

Peering into your soul with my One Good Eye