Bookmonkey's Top 5 Holiday Stories

I'm sure everyone has them, holiday books, movies or TV shows that come out each December. As a kid I can remember re-reading The Night Before Christmas every year around Christmas. It was a simple poem that got me excited for Christmas morning and after a few years of reading it around this time of year it became a habit for my entire childhood.

These days, I've still got a few fun Christmas treats that make their way onto my shelf each year, but they have definitely gone beyond the classics.

Bookmonkey's top five Genre stories for Christmas

5. Nicholas Was...

For my first seasonal story, I like re-reading Neil Gaiman's 100 word poem, Nicholas Was. Like many of my favourite stories, it takes a common concept (Santa Claus), and shows it to you in a different way; a horrible, horrible way. I actually found this as a christmas card a few years back and sent it to many friends - some of whom still talk to me at Christmas.

4. A Very Nerdy Non-Canonical Captain S Christmas

I'm a pretty big fan of the Angry Video Game Nerd, so last year when I was working my way though his videos I came across this bizarre little gem, wherein he teams up with Captain S to save Christmas, I had to check it out. If you haven't heard of Captain S, start watching the series now! It is incredibly fun, and for those Sega Genesis fans out there, it is simply awesome. You can see the Christmas video here (just scroll down to the 5th video).

3. The Nightmare Before Christmas

I've been showing this movie to my kids since there were toddlers as a Christmas movie. It's great fun and if you have an edition that contains them, check out Tim Burton's Frankenweenie and (my personal favourite) Vincent, after you watch this freaky, but funny holiday flick.

2. The Nostalgia Chick's Top 10 Disturbing and Inescapable Christmas Songs

Every year my wife and I attempt to do all of our Christmas shopping before the end of November, why? Because we hate the non-stop Christmas music you are constantly attacked with at every store in December. When I first watched the Nostalgia Chick's (pictured right) video on these songs I couldn't stop laughing. I love the way that this video focuses on the frightening and creepy side of these holiday classics.

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1. Hold Me

This is actually a John Constantine: Hellblazer, comic (Issue 27), that takes a deeply scary concept - a ghost which whispers "Hold me" and then sucks the warmth (and life) out of its victims, and a full-time a**hole (John Constantine), and brings them together in what ends up, for me, to be a story that says everything that the holiday season should be about.

So there you have it, five quick views or reads that help put me in the holiday spirit!

Bookmonkey's Top Five Scary Comic books

As we get closer to Halloween I try to read or see some new scary stuff as much as I can. This is the one month of the year where you can proudly read all sorts of horrific titles on the bus and nobody minds. My biggest problem is actually selecting which stuff to read as there is so much of it out there. My solution - categories.

Two weeks ago I looked at the 5 horror novel classics I figure everyone should check out, today I'm going to look at comic books. So here goes, my five favourite horror titles in comic books:

5. Arkham Asylum, by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean

This comic was actually the first graphic novel I ever purchased. Flipping through it on the shelf at the comic store, I was simply in awe of the artwork; Dave McKean's painted panels freaked the hell out of me, each character looked different than the standard comic book versions but way WAY scarier. The basic idea is that the inmates at Arkham have taken over the Asylum and will only see reason if Batman comes to play. This story is a little hard to read, as each characters word balloons are very different, but believe me, it is totally worth a visit (or revisit) for Halloween.

4. Swamp Thing #1:Saga of the Swamp Thing, by Alan Moore

Really all I can say here (because if you haven't read it I am not going to wreck it) is issue 21 "The Anatomy Lesson." Go get Saga of the Swamp thing #1 (issues 20-27) and start reading. This is some of the freakiest, scariest stuff I have ever come across and for you first time readers I am completely envious of you, this stuff is simply comic gold.

3. Sandman, by Neil Gaiman

Like probably half of the comic book readers who started in the early '90s, this is were I started too. These books are so good I have difficultly trying to break it down into a synopsis. I think my friend Mike described it best as saying "In every issue there is at least one panel that I would classify as Nightmare batter." From Serial Killer conventions to the Cuckoos to the Devil himself, this comic has it all.

2. The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman

I started purchasing this series for my brother-in-law Jeff as he is a big fan of zombie stories, but while they were sitting in my house waiting for his birthday or Christmas to come around I would take a peak, and then another, and then I got hooked. Done entirely in Black and White, these comics go beyond the end of every zombie film you've ever seen and attempt to answer the question "What happens next?" I've been following the survivors of this zombie plague for the last five years and I don't want it to end!

1. Hellblazer, by Jamie Delano

This comic is one of my favourite titles over all, but with one simple rule. Read the comic issue by issue, rather than purchasing the graphic novels. I'm not exactly sure of what DC is trying to do here, each graphic novel is a collected story, but there isn't actually any attempt to label them vol. 1, 2, 3, etc. so if you want the whole story of this very broken, talented bastard, you will have to read them issue by issue. Frustrating, expensive, but totally worth it, as hands down Hellblazer is the scariest comic I've ever read.

So now that you have my top five, how about the rest of you? Any scary comics I should be reading? I'm always looking for more.