The Good Friends of Jackson Elias

We’re back and and we’re geeking out. Main Topic: Nightmare Alley With all the talk about mediums in recent episodes, we thought it might be helpful to examine one from media. Guillermo del Toro’s 2021... The post Nightmare Alley appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and and we’re in the dark. While we’re told that darkness is essential for séances, it does make it tricky to watch when the medium starts dancing. Also, if the spirits are going... The post Séances appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we have an angle. Well, it started out as a curve, but then some bits fell off. It’s outrageous! We’re not sure if that was some kind of fall from grace, an... The post The Hounds of Tindalos by Frank Belknap Long appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re going round in circles. Driving around Milton Keynes has prepared us for such eventualities, although these are temporal loops rather than roundabouts. Then again, what is a time loop but a... The post Time Travel in Call of Cthulhu part 2 appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back with our first special episode for a while. After our recent look into Victorian Spiritualism, Sean F Smith contacted us, offering to discuss the topic from the perspective of stage magic. Sean is... The post Special: Stage Magic and Spiritualism With Sean F Smith appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back, or should that be forward? Time does have a tendency to jump around, and you’re never quite when you thought you were. Days pass in years and years pass in days. And the... The post Time Travel in Call of Cthulhu part 1 appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re glowing. While we’re only too happy to ascribe this to good diet and healthy living, all this phosphorous oil we keep splashing on ourselves may also play a part. It really... The post Victorian Spiritualism part 2 appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re rapping. While we’re sure we could come up with some killer rhymes, we’re letting our toes do the talking today. There’s no reason why messages from beyond can’t come with a... The post Victorian Spiritualism part 1 appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re listening again. Usually, we don’t hold with listening. Most things people try to tell us are things we’d rather not hear. Whether this is advertising, gossip, or sinister secrets about the... The post Son of Listener Suggestions appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re trying to figure out why the hell this film is called “Barbarian“. Learning that the screenwriter doesn’t know either makes us feel better, but not by much. Maybe a nice bottle... The post Barbarian (2022) appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re catching up with our sleep. Don’t worry, we’re still using this time productively, just like Edgar Cayce taught us. Whether it’s diagnosing your athlete’s foot, telling you of your past life... The post Strange NPCs: Edgar Cayce appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re stroking our chin serpents. The Byatis beard care regimen is a strange one and requires a little more anthropophagy than we normally indulge in. Still, it’s hard to argue with the... The post Mythos Deities: Cyäegha and Byatis appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re listening to the strange voices that whisper to us from beyond the veil. Well, maybe they’re whispering from Twitter and Discord, but we’re not sure that’s any less frightening. At least... The post Listener Suggestions appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re pouring ourselves into our rubber suits and orthopaedic shoes. Doing up all these straps can be murder when your fingers are made of protoplasm. We’re going to need a nice, tasty... The post Michael Shea’s “Fat Face” appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re staring in disbelief as our hands fall off. Media Catch-up – TV Once again, we are perched open mouthed before the small screen, gobbling down televisual delights and regurgitating opinions. This... The post Media Catch-up – TV appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re puzzling over titles. If you were making a Gothic horror film about a haunted village, you might wisely consider a name like Curse of the Dead. Hell, if you wanted to... The post Kill, Baby… Kill! appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re skulking around the old ruined abbey. Sure, the place is lousy with ghosts, but they’re not really that important. We’re far more concerned with the weather. If reading Gothic horror has... The post Gothic Horror appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

Our 2023 ghost story for Christmas concludes with part 4 of Nikolai Gogol’s “The Viy”. Good friend of the Good Friends, Mike Perceval-Maxwell (host of Mr Spike’s Bedtime Stories), has once again organised a suitably... The post The Viy – part 4 appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

Our 2023 ghost story for Christmas continues with part 3 of Nikolai Gogol’s “The Viy”. Good friend of the Good Friends, Mike Perceval-Maxwell (host of Mr Spike’s Bedtime Stories), has once again organised a suitably... The post The Viy – part 3 appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re getting on a bit. Turning 250 is a sobering milestone. Worse, we seem to be getting a bit peculiar in our dotage. Or maybe it’s just the world around us that’s... The post Making Call of Cthulhu Weird appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

Our 2023 ghost story for Christmas continues with part 2 of Nikolai Gogol’s “The Viy”. Good friend of the Good Friends, Mike Perceval-Maxwell (host of Mr Spike’s Bedtime Stories), has once again organised a suitably... The post The Viy – part 2 appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We are delighted to offer you another ghost story for Christmas. Good friend of the Good Friends, Mike Perceval-Maxwell (host of Mr Spike’s Bedtime Stories), has once again organised a suitably eerie performance on our... The post The Viy – part 1 appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re heading deep beneath the earth. We’ve heard that there’s nothing but good things down there in the endless dark. Admittedly, we’ve mainly heard that from the sinister voices that whisper to... The post Mythos Deities – Tsathoggua, Atlach-Nacha and Abhoth appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re getting ready to snip. Our scissors are sharp, our tape is sticky and our minds are made up. This poor film doesn’t stand a chance. Sure, we could censor it carefully,... The post Censor (2021) appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re starting a moral panic. It’s good to have a hobby. While riling up frightened mobs isn’t everyone’s idea of a good time, it certainly helps us unwind after a hard day’s... The post Is Horror Dangerous? appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re taking things easy. Sometimes, after a particularly hectic battle against the forces of eldritch darkness, a bit of downtime is just what the doctor ordered. Literally. What could be better than... The post Dealing With Downtime appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re getting all eclectic. It’s simply inevitable that if you ask the three of us to pick films, our selections will not mesh together at all. Just think of this episode as... The post Media Catch-up – Films appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re taking up a new hobby. Esoteric numismatology isn’t for everyone, however. Unfortunately, eldritch coins have steep prices, and not just financial ones. Our lives have become complicated ever since we picked... The post 30 Coins (30 monedas) appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re in a moral quandary. It’s fair to say that the gods and monsters of the Mythos are beyond human comprehension. The problem is that we are human (or at least that’s... The post Morality in the Cthulhu Mythos appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re sitting in judgement. Unfortunately, it turns out that judgement doesn’t make a very good seat. Next time, we’re bringing cushions. The topic of morality in RPGs shouldn’t be a comfortable one,... The post Morality in RPGs appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re trying our hands at cat breeding. According to these instructions we received from Louis Wain, the secret is electricity. The cats don’t seem to happy about this, even if it does... The post Strange NPCs – Louis Wain appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re catching up with our reading. Until recently, we thought we’d seen the most sanity-blasting fanfic the internet could offer. Between terrible prose, wooden characters, and unacceptable levels of horniness, bad fanfic... The post Y’golonac and The Revelations of Gla’aki appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re holidaying at Deepfall Water in sunny Gloucestershire. The area may be a bit rundown but you can’t argue with these prices. Buying a house here cost us less than a week... The post Mythos Deities: Gla’aki appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re building up our hoards. All this loot is nice and shiny but it’s not especially comfortable. We wonder how dragons can sleep on their treasure without putting their backs out. Maybe... The post Loot appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re making like bookworms. This is easier than it might seem, given that bookworms don’t really eat books — just their bindings — and aren’t even worms. Then again, they don’t read... The post Media Catch-up – Books appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re taking an almost Lovecraftian interest in architecture. While we’re suckers for a good gambrel roof, these blueprints for The Night House are far more compelling. The Welsh maze designs, the oddly... The post The Night House appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re waking up. It’s been a long old kip, but not that refreshing really. Dreams of being chased by hunting horrors aren’t as restful as we might like. On the bright side,... The post The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath part 5 appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re holidaying in Leng. While it’s not everyone’s first thought for a getaway, we’ve found it really quite dreamy. Leng may have had some shocking reviews on TripAdvisor, but we’re not sure... The post The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath part 4 appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re making stuff up. Sure, it’s a bit disjointed, filled with inconsistent characterisation, narrative dead ends, and terrible jokes, but it sort of feels like a story. What do you expect when... The post Creating Stories at the Table – With Gaz Bowerbank appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re lost in reverie. These dreams are really something — so vivid and insistent. We just wish we knew whose dreams they are. Regardless, they’re inspiring us to create strange, wondrous new... The post Mythos Deities: Cthulhu appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re on the lam. Setting fire to all those libraries seemed like a good idea at the time but apparently the authorities disagree. We’ve tried explaining that there are simply some things... The post Breaking the Law appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re in danger. At least, we think we are. Something seems to be at stake, although we’re not quite sure what. Maybe it’s our lives, our loved ones, or some of this... The post Peril in Call of Cthulhu appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re growing sleepy, sleepy, so very sleepy. We are listening to your voice. Only your voice. Yes, yes, we are under your control. We shall do you bidding. What is it you... The post Mind Control in RPGs appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re getting scared. Everywhere we look, there’s something creepy hiding in the shadows. Sometimes it seems like there’s a bit of horror in every game, regardless of the genre. Maybe a nice... The post Everything is Horror appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re trying to work out how to cook this shantak egg we bought. Boiling it seemed practical until we realised we’d need a pot as large as a house. Frying poses similar... The post The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath part 3 appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re visiting the dark side of the moon. Not the most popular tourist attraction, but it does have its charms. The leprous-looking coast and fields of white fungi are particular highlights. We... The post The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath part 2 appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re descending the seventy steps of light slumber. At least we can take a breather in the cavern of flame before we have to trot down the seven hundred steps to the... The post The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath part 1 appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back with another special episode! Our own Paul Fricker recently attended the Dragonmeet 2021 convention in London. While there, he took part in a few panels. This recording is of the discussion about the... The post Special: Rivers of London Panel at Dragonmeet 2021 appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

We’re back and we’re moist. Between all this chicken custard, cow spittle and milk, Gozu has left us downright sodden. We’ve seen films use 3D, moving seats, and even subsonic vibrations to enhance the viewing... The post Gozu appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.

Our seasonal treat concludes with part 3 of “The Canterville Ghost”! Good friend of the Good Friends, Mike Perceval-Maxwell, has organised a reading of Oscar Wilde’s classic ghost story on our Discord server. He is... The post The Canterville Ghost – part 3 appeared first on Blasphemous Tomes.