In 2019, I was going to turn fifty and had my midlife crisis by wallowing in the comic books I loved as a kid.I started buying comic books again. Not new comics. Hell no. I was keyed into old comics.The shit I read when I was a kid.When I was a teenager in the 1980s, I spent all my money on comic books. I would go to the local shop on Saturdays and buy a large wedge of books and spend the next week reading them all.I loved all of them, but would they all stand up?

Contents: 45 brief stories. None are deep. None are wise. Some are funny.. Some just thing they are funny. The only thing the stories have in common is that they were inspired by the titles to 45 books by Joyce Carol Oates. The stories are not inspired by the books. They just took her titles and did their own thing. You will like these stories. You will not like these stories. You will read this description and wonder why anyone would waste their time with this book. Or you can buy this bo...

Santo was the greatest luchador that ever danced in the ring.His moves were so good they were like poetry.And that is why we present a book of poetry.Most are inspired by some of his great movies, where he fought vampires, werewolves and robots.These poems are irreverent and sometimes touching.There is a world to explore in the films of a masked wrestler fighting Aztec Mummies. There is a world of poetry in the saga of Santo.. We are brave enough to ...

David Macpherson writes every day. He does not write a lot every day, but small amounts go pretty far.For this year, he kept a written record of what he was writing and how it was going along. He get to see the story ideas that floundered and those that made it to the end. You will read the frustration of projects that are not coming together. You will also read of the summer where everything he worked on was completed and he was happy with all of it.It is a year in the lif...

The universe is a woolly place.The universe is made of felt.The Big Bang was a soft though consistent annoyance.Dogs chase after runaway planets.When planets collide, it is okay because everything is felt.Neptunians are always cold and really just want to wear something cozy.And that's the thing. We want to be cozy.This issue of The Ekphrasis Take-Out is a cohesive collection of felt and the universe.This zine will be made of ...

You are a writer?That's awesome. I'm not a writer, but I have a great idea for a book. You should take my idea and write it and we can split the insane amount of sales this book will no doubt produce, in half.Here is my idea. I know, I should not share it with you because you might just run off and do it by yourself and leave me with nothing, though the idea is mine and we all know the idea is So much more important than the actual writing of the book. You better not run of...

People weep at the movies. If an old guy goes to a movie by himself, there is a chance he will be crying by the end. No matter what kind of movie it is, he will be crying.David Macpherson is that old guy crying at everything.In this personal essay, he attempts to understand the joy and art of crying at the movies.What movies do you cry at?Should men hide their tears away, because crying at a movie is a such a girl thing to do?Or is it universal?...

There was a website about monsters. It was all about monsters.Sounds fun. But don't bother looking for it. It's gone.The internet is like that.The website is gone but we have the FAQ page. And in honor of anyone who remembers that there used to be a monster website that didn't completely suck, we are publishing this relic of an older internet.The FAQ is a strange thing. Does it really answer the questions everyone asks, or is it more random than that?

The world of old time radio is a fantasy land where you take the voices and make an entire world. Nothing is better.This collects six forgotten masterpieces. And yes. They are real. Why would you even think to say that we made this shit up? We would never write something ourselves and call it masterpieces. We are too humble for that.Six masterpieces. Well, you can decide.There is the episode of Doctor Jeckyll's Two Face Saloon where a man comes in to play Hangman wi...

David wrote two similar memoirs in the form of lists. One was all the monsters he loved before he was 13. The second memoir was all the heroes he loved before he became a teen.This collects both 100 Monsters and 100 Heroes. What makes a hero you love? What makes a monster you love? Can they be the same character?These two little books were meant to be together.And now they are

Who did you idolize as a kid? Who did you see as a hero?David Macpherson has asked that question to himself and assembled 100 heroes of his from before he was 13. When you are a kid, you are the most open to having a hero.Each hero gets a little essay describing why they mattered. Some of these are funny and absurd. Some are moving. There are a good deal of comic book and television heroes, but some of these were real. All too real.What David Macpherson has given yo...

Time is not a river. Time is the ticking of the clock. Time is not a loop where people run around and repeat the same day over and over.No.Time is a highway.It is a long well paved highway that goes from the start of creation on until the end of everything. Don't be alarmed. There are offramps along the way. You can drive the Time Highway and get off at your favorite eras. You just need to be able to be on the Highway.Like any major thorough fare, there are ...