Keeping on top of Genre, the Dailies

In my Scott Pilgrim trailer post last week I mentioned that I have a specific (and quite possibly compulsive) way in which I keep up to date regarding genre news. At the time I assumed that most people have some sort of crazy schedule they keep to focus on whatever their hobby is, so it only got a small mention. Then my friend Fate (Check out her blog BTW - it's a lot of fun!) asked me for more info on how I keep up to date.

Sitting down to put the schedule on paper - I realized it's a little bigger than just a weekly thing. I have four categories of resources to help keep on top of my genre reading. Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly. So, for the next four Fridays, we'll look at how I keep up to date in genre news.

Keeping up with genre news the Bookmonkey way - Daily

Entertainment Weekly

My first stop for genre news is a morning visit (and to be fair, I tend to pop back at lunch as well) to the mainstream magazine Entertainment Weekly. They focus on all sorts of Entertainment news, so there is a lot about reality television as well, but on a fairly regular basis this is where I will find a lot of my genre news, especially for things that would be tricky to find elsewhere (like casting info for the upcoming Captain America movie or The Walking Dead Television series). Overall, I tend to scan a lot of the articles, but they pay people to keep track of news, so it would be silly of me to ignore them.

Horror / SF/Fantasy

Actually for updates regarding genre fiction, I find the best places to keep a finger on the pulse of what is out there are a number of blogs. There are news sites I go to (we'll focus on those in the post about my weekly habits), but on a day-to-day basis, I just find someone who is passionate about a subject and follow them. For horror, I follow BJC at Day of the Woman, for Young Adult fantasy, I follow the Fickle Hand of Fate, For Gaming news, I recently started to check out Eiglophian Press. In a way they are the best places to go as you can feel the passion they have for their own favourite genre and you can assume they'll be up-to-date on areas you don't know much about.

Comics

On a daily basis, I get my comic book news from my BFF Mike (pictured left), whether over the phone or on his blog. Just as I go to various bloggers for updates in different genres, Mike is my go to place for current comic book news. I do have other places I check out on a weekly basis, but this guy really likes his comics - I mean seriously, he is currently doing a five day retrospective on The She-Hulk for his own blog (which is totally worth the read by the way). Now I know each of you can't call Mike to ask about comics (his boss would get mad), but like me, you probably have friends who are into similar things and you should give them a call - they'll help keep you up to date, and everyone likes getting asked about stuff.

So there you have it, my daily schedule - next Friday we'll look at my weekly one.

Genre Character of the Week: Chris Romero

One of my favourite things about blogging is getting to meet and read so many other great bloggers out there, because when you start finding people with similar interests, you get pointed to movies and books you might never have seen before. Case in point, Night of the Creeps, a 1986 horror/comedy that I had never heard of before, and then was pointed to by Paul Castiglia (who writes the classic horror/comedy blog Scared Silly) and BJ-C (who writes a feminist view of horror blog called Day of the Woman). Thanks very much to both of them I have just enjoyed an incredibly fun film and have found this weeks Genre Character, Chris Romero.

When the film was first brought up to me, it was described as the closest thing you will ever see to Archie and Jughead in a horror film. Our main character Chris is a guy who is still getting over a break up with his high school sweetheart and then sees Cindy. His best friend A.C. (pictured right with Chris) introduces them and it looks like these two cute kids are gonna hit it off.

Unfortunately, first they'll have to deal with a host of zombies, and space slugs, and a serial killer. What I really like about Chris is his ability to freak out like anyone would under these horrible conditions and then he gets the job done anyway. The end of the film is probably one of the coolest zombie stand-offs I have ever seen and along with Cindy (pictured left), Chris really gives it his all.

I love this guy, he comes across as someone you'd really like to get to know, and if alien-infested zombies ever do come calling, you will definitely wish you could have spent some time with this guy.