The rotting automatons we have toiling away on special projects in the basement of the House of Horror may be slow but they’re endlessly reliable, not to mention easy to please.

At long last, due to popular demand, we’re happy to announce that they’re nearly finished adapting Rue Morgue Digital so it can infect your Android platforms too! Since launching with the August 2010 issue of RM#103, Rue Morgue Digital – available in a desktop edition for PC and Mac or as an app for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch through the Apple App Store – has attracted new subscribers from across the globe and enabled current subscribers to go “beyond the page” with tons of additional audio and video content, sample book chapters, embedded trailers, hot links, search functions, and more!

To try out Rue Morgue Digital, simply download the free Rue Morgue app or click here to check out our “Black 100” 13th anniversary issue absolutely FREE!

Coming to Android in 2012.

The folks behind the Classic Horror Campaign, including Rue Morgue’s own Richard Gladman, are taking over the Rock Inn in Brighton, England this Saturday to bring you eight solid hours of horror movies, book signings, giveaways, and all the things that make pubs such wonderful places to be. This weekend’s event, aptly dubbed Frighten Brighton, will feature a triple-bill of fright films, starting with a 2pm screening of 1974′s Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (directed with style by the great Terence Fisher), with a specially-recorded intro by Hammer Horror star Shane Briant…

With The Walking Dead’s heart-rending mid-season finale having just aired Sunday night, I thought it the perfect time to let fans know (if they don’t already) about a fantastic line of TV series-inspired 6-inch figures that will soon be hitting stores. Series One will be comprised of four offerings: Deputy Rick Grimes, fan-favourite Daryl Dixon and two flesh-eaters: the Zombie Walker and Zombie Biter.

[Paul Counelis offers up a new installment of Monster Kid Corner...]

At first glance, this might be a tricky one to try to sneak into the “Monster Kid” category. The short-lived Amazing Stories television series featured a number of horror genre heavy-hitters directing some fairly effective episodes, and it wasn’t necessarily aimed at children. But when Steven Spielberg, arguably the biggest Monster Kid of them all, brought the legendary brand to television for just two seasons, it happened to capture the attention of many fledgling young horror fans. In fact, for some, it was their first real exposure to media explorations of things that go bump in the night.

Good-bye to a true original. It was an a honour to have him at the 2010 Festival of Fear. That’s him in the middle, flanked by David Cronenberg and myself.

More info on Ken Russell’s life and career here, here and here.

R.I.P.

[photo by Ashlea Wessel]

I’ve been going on about how much I like the cover for the first issue of Dark Horse’s adaptation of Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s The Strain — it reminds me of Justin’s art and has that same shadowy, sinister look to the illustration.
Well, lo and behold, I stumbled across this blog post today that shows the evolution of it, which includes the rough first sketches, alternate concepts and, of course, the final product.
Go to the Dark Horse site to see the rest, and try not to think about these creatures making out with your mom…

Zoinks, Scoob’! The folks behind the Year of the Dead calendar, featuring zombie babes in beachwear, are giving away five of their 2012 calendars, so you can tack one up at home or at work and get disapproving looks all year around. If this appeals to your sick bastard sensibilities, all you have to do is the following:

Send an email to theyearofthedead@gmail.com with the subject line Year of the Dead/Rue Morgue contest and tell ‘em your idea for a future Year of the Dead zombie babe photo shoot. For example: “I’d like to see an undead beach babe in a deck chair sipping brains out of some guy’s skull like it was a piña colada.” Or, “Show me a trio of zombie girls washing a hot rod with bloody water.”

Unless you’ve been living under a rock that doesn’t roll you already know that, on 11/11/11, the original line-up of Black Sabbath announced they have reunited for a new album produced by musical game-changer Rick Rubin (Metallica, Slayer, Johnny Cash) and a 2012 world tour. The timing couldn’t be better as we’d just collected ourselves after talking to guitarist Tony Iommi about the band’s evil essence. Click past the jump or right here to watch the new issue trailer, cut and conceived by Rue Morgue Radio’s Tomb Dragomir, for an exclusive look into all the other deadly ingredients we’ve thrown into the cauldron next month!

The Sabbath begins on December 1. Also available prior to newsstands for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch from the Apple App Store and in a desktop edition for PC and Mac from yudu.com.

Well, it’s that time again, fiends. Wait! Don’t run away. This isn’t about that well overdue dentist appointment you’ve been dodging, the favour you owe me for that time I helped you move, or the simple fact that – in the immortal words of Dave Alexander – you’re way past the critical haircut point. Okay, maybe he only says that to me. But I digress…

No, it’s time for you to cast your vote in the poll to decide what the Best Feature as Voted by the Members of the Rue Morgue Message Board is for the R.I.P. 2011 year-end round-up in the upcoming January/February 2012 issue.

We want to hear from you! The nominations have been collected and your ballot is ready to be counted. Click here (you must be a registered member of the forum) to do your annual horror duty. And don’t put this off, you filthy procrastinators. So what if you need to do laundry so badly, you wore a bathing suit under your clothes today? You owe it to your horror-lovin’ peers to do the right thing here! The poll closes Wednesday, November 30, and whichever film is in the lead will win. The documented results will appear in the upcoming Jan/Feb issue of Rue Morgue #119.

The films in the running for Best of 2011 are…(*drum roll*)

The Guillermo del Toro “Fright Nights” silkscreened posters, created by Rue Morgue’s illustrious art department of Ghoulish Gary Pullin and Justin Erickson, are now available to collectors in extremely limited quantities! The standard gold version of the 12×36” poster (limited to 100) is now on sale for $40 and the silver alternate edition (limited to just 30) is on sale for $65. Both renditions are printed with metallic inks on acid-free, heavy art stock, signed by both artists, and numbered. Gets yours before they’re gone from either Phantom City Creative or GhoulishGary.com!