Introductions

"Run-of-the-mill" seems like a modestly accurate way to describe myself in terms of horror fandom. In certain respects I find that valuable, since ideally I can make an appeal to those like myself, to those who may be testing the waters, and hopefully to the hardcore horror fans as well. (And I sincerely encourage feedback, especially from the latter.) It wasn't until several years ago, the present time of this writing being December of '09 to give perspective, that the genre genuinely appealed to me and I owe all that to the film adaptation of Stephen King's 'IT'. After that, it was a slow and steady progression that grew into watching more Stephen King film adaptations, then into watching general horror films. In more recent years it's branched from solely films into different mediums, namely: comics (comic books, manga, graphic novels, webcomics, etc.), purely written literature, and different games.

But let's get to the point, shall we? The Darkley Niche is something I've constructed after the comic-in-progress that a friend and myself plan on self-publishing, an anthology of short horror stories much in the same vein as 'Tales from the Crypt' and similar titles. The series centers around a faceless persona we've affectionately dubbed Alan Darkley, the Niche's namesake, and a cast of storytellers whose tales fall within particular subgenres and sister genres of horror. This site is the drawing board, if you will, where everything posted is either a form of research or a roughing out of ideas. It's all relevant in some fashion. By exploring these different horror stories and their mediums a better understanding and influence of the genre, as well as inspiration, can be put into the comic. Even if you have no personal interest in the project, perhaps you can glean something from the reviews and the like. And if nothing else, the Niche will work to serve my own purposes.

Be sure to browse over the column of banners below if you're looking for posts on a particular topic. (And at the very bottom of the blog, if you would like to consult the complete listing of post labels.) Otherwise, scroll down past them to get to the most recent articles. Likewise, refer to the right side for our latest tweets.

Meet The Darkley Storytellers

Meet The Darkley Storytellers

About Myself

My photo
Well, here's yours truly. The name's Drew, in case you were wondering. The Niche is my personal site, while the comic-in-progress is a partnered effort with Don, a lifelong friend of mine. We collaborate on the stories, but my partner's the writer in the outfit while I am the illustrator. This is currently little more than a side project, but we hope to make something of it.

artwork by yours truly

artwork and artist features

movies, short films, TV, webisodes, etc.

frightful films for your year-round festivities

book reviews: consult the niche's necronomicon

comic-related news and reviews

zed in the head randomness

Friday, December 24, 2010

Scary Christmas and Happy Anniversary!

Firstly, for us here at the Darkley Niche, this December is a memorable month. It was one year ago around mid-December that we, pardoning the pun, made our own niche on the internet. Perhaps we haven't contributed as much as we would've liked: occasionally missing certain dates or events, wanting that we had written more movie reviews, et cetera. But we've been learning an exceptional amount, especially from the various blogs that we ourselves watch. That will all prove invaluable when the actual Darkley comic starts to roll towards further development and production. Maybe within the next few months, if things fall into place the way that we hope. Keep your fingers crossed.

Moving on, today is Christmas Eve, so with that in mind we want to wish all of our viewers a very scary Christmas. May Cthulhu Claus bring you tidings of madness and woe!

illustration by Scott Brundage


composed by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society
for their album 'A Very Scary Solstice'

And if you're in the spirit for some holiday horror films befitting of this yuletide time, be sure to head on over to the Niche's Seasonal Horror Calendar. We've even added Hanukkah to the calendar recently, due to talk of a black comedy, slasher movie in the works. So soon there should be something for horrifying Hebrew and ghoulish goyim alike.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

ZotB: Zombie Temp Worker


We here at the Darkley Niche have made no secret for our love of PopCap Games' Plants vs. Zombies. (And in case any of you were wondering, we've played through the full-fledged version and still stand by our original, five out of five garden-variety zombies score.) So when we learned of "Zombie Temp Worker," a series of short videos featuring one of PopCap's zombies at the office, well, we just had to watch. Here are a few, for your own viewing delight.







If you liked these, be sure to also see G4's zombie public service announcement video.