Whether it be campfire tales, ghost stories, or just superstitions shared by your grandparents, I believe all of us have experienced the bone-chilling fear of hearing a tale that scared us to the core.

Mine, strangely enough, was an elementary school assignment.  This is an American folktale not many have heard of, so in true folktale manner, I will relate the story in my own words.  If you have family near, read aloud, or print this and take it with you on your camping trip.

The Yellow Ribbon

Once upon a time there was a man who dreamed of meeting his perfect mate and prayed to the heavens she would cure his broken heart. One day, he met such a woman. From her radiant skin, to her crimson hair, to the yellow ribbon she wore around her neck, she was perfection personified. She seemed to adore him just as much as he did her. He sometimes would ask her why she wore the yellow ribbon around her neck and she would always change the subject. He decided he did not care, if she liked the yellow ribbon, she could wear it for the rest of their lives, it did not bother him.

When he asked for her hand in marriage, he did it in the most romantic way he knew how.  He drove her up to lover’s lane, held her hand, and as they stargazed, he asked her to marry him. She said, “I will marry you on one condition. Never ask me again about the yellow ribbon.” This seemed like a simple request to him and they set a date.

However, as the wedding drew near, he began to wonder why she would not take the ribbon off, even on her wedding day. Perhaps she loved the ribbon more than him! Though he did not ask her about the ribbon, the subject began to infect their relationship. He thought about it day and night. He began to hate to look at her because the ribbon seemed to be on her neck precisely to mock him.

On their wedding day, as the priest said, “You may kiss the bride.” The man saw his chance. As his wife closed her eyes and puckered her lips, waiting for the heavenly kiss from the man she adored, he pulled the ribbon end. His new wife’s head fell off and rolled down the street. The End.

According to AmericanFolklore.com, this was a tale originally from Wisconsin. Read the tale of The Yellow Ribbon and many more American folk tales at: http://www.americanfollore.com and celebrate this Independence Day Weekend by telling a spooky folk tale of your own.

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An Americanized manga, Sorcerers & Secretaries hooked me with the name. I was expecting a evil-fighting admin assistant with a pen that dissolves evil and a stapler that will fend off the most intimidating magical creature. What I found was something completely different.

Nicole is a receptionist and college student who lives her life in a dream world that she spins through writing sword and sorcery tales. We can all relate to her immediately with issues such as, an annoying mom, annoying job and coworkers, wanting to write instead of work, and everyone in her life putting down her interests by saying “that childish fantasy stuff you like”. This tale started slow for me, but won me over with its cute book references and speculative fiction inside jokes that only we understand. Although the art is very American (circa 1980’s Sunday morning newspaper comics), the drawings of the bookstore are great and had me pause for a few minutes to read the titles. One cover I especially got a chuckle from was “LARP for Beginners”. A new twist in this tale is that the cute hottie at the bookstore actually likes the geeky, book-loving, allergy girl.

The author is definitely in our demographic and should be supported for that alone. However, this is not a tale I would recommend for its excellent fantasy story. This book is not so much a fantasy story as a romance where the lead is in love with the lead character in her fantasy novel. Like Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, the girl is wrapped up in a fantasy tale so completely that she cannot see a real guy who wants to date her. Still, an amusing, quick read and one that despite its cover warning 13+, is safe for all readers. Sorcerers and Secretaries is a great gift for your teenage cousins who are into the fantasy/romance genre.

If you enjoy this manga, you can read more about the series and download desktop images from this site: Sorcerers And Secretaries

Get your copy here from amazon and hlep support the project:

• Sorcerers & Secretaries, Volume 1
• Sorcerers & Secretaries, Volume 2

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Bride of the Water God is a must-own, simply because of it’s elaborate artwork. The fact that it also has an excellent story, is a plus.

The premise of the story is: A village in draught conditions decides to offer up one of it’s girls as a bride to appease the water god so that he will allow it to rain.  Soah, the bride girl is then sent out into the ocean in a boat. She seems to crash and drown, ending up in the land of Suguk, a magical place where the gods live.

Suguk has a large fish-shaped metal airship that floats above, maneuvering through the sky where rocks with waterfalls are suspended. When Soah meets the water god, Habaek, she finds he is just a boy.

There are interesting characters living in the world of Suguk such as the fire god, a witch with a cool tattoo over her eye, and a doctor who seems to want to steal Soah away. As the story progresses, we find that the water god can change into a gorgeous man at night. We also meet his mother, who everyone is scared of because she is the goddess of punishment, torture, and disease.
The scariest part of this book is when Soah goes into the forest and sees a dog. She reaches out to him because, like her, he is also a creature out of place in the magical world. Unfortunately, when she reaches out to him he turns into a monster with horrible teeth like an alligator. The gods call him Che, the tiger, ox-tailed monster who barks like a dog and eats humans.

I could go on all day about how much I love this manhwa. I could tell you about the masked messenger Banwang who poses as a dog with wings. I could awe you with descriptions of elaborate formal dress costumes and fanciful architecture, but it’s better you see for yourself by purchasing or previewing these books at Amazon.com.

Manhwa

A little bit about manhwa: It is the Korean version of manga. How do you know you’re reading a manhwa versus a manga? Well, as long as you enjoy the story, it really doesn’t matter, but for you sticklers out there, here are some differences:

• Manhwa’s are Korean-based, not Japanese.
• In the United States they are generally published in the bigger quality paperback size.
• Manhwa’s are read in the same direction as US text (not backwards like Japanese mangas).
• The art in most of the manhwa’s I’ve seen is traditional with beautifully elaborate drawings- the kind you would see on a fan or in one of my favorite books as a child, Tikki Tikki Tembo. By the way, although I know there is criticism about Tikki because of its over exaggeration of Chinese names, it is still close to my heart because it is the first time that I, as a little white girl living in a predominately white community, got to see another culture close up.
• Most of these manhwa feature a few pages in the front or back that are glossy color photos you just want to rip out and hang on your wall.

Bride of the Water God 1

Bride of the Water God 2

Bride Of The Water God 3

Bride Of The Water God 4 (preorder)

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Dead High Yearbook is a hardcover comic book about a pair of dead teens who create a high school year book by matching live photos with dead photos of teens that have passed on. Each dead photo goes with a story and during this yearbook class, you learn about teens, their obsessions, and how they died. A great concept and one that could go further given the proper imaginative writers to work with. As it stands, the art is well done, but I just didn’t find any of the stories that exciting.

Probably the most interesting story is the one titled “Fear Pressure”.  A fat chick and a wimpy boy like each other. They go to a herbal remedy shop where they are promised their bodies will change to their liking. Soon the chick is losing weight and the dude becomes Arnold Schwarzenegger. Both of them are excited and love their new bodies, but then the remedy goes overboard. The muscle man explodes from the pain of his muscles expanding and the skinny chick dissolves into just an eyeball with a tail. In the end, they are together in separate jars, nothing but alien-looking blobs.

Horror fans may dig this book just for the cover. It looks like a real yearbook with a bloody handprint on the front. Who doesn’t want something cool like this to display in their personal library next to their flesh-like Evil Dead journal and vampire coffin kit? As for story, I might pick up later books to see if the stories get better, but this one is plain eye candy with mildly amusing tales.
If you would like to check this book out, they have a preview at Amazon.com here:
Dead High Yearbook

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You know how it is. You see the ads for a new TV show and then never catch it. Or the network pulls it before you can really get a grip on the characters. Or they keep changing times and you can never figure out when it’s on. Or you like it, watch the first or even second episodes, and then one night you miss it and bam… you’re out of the loop. Now with places like Hulu.com and Netflix streaming online, you can catch a lot of your favorites online. Here are my top ten favorite television shows I didn’t watch on the TV box, in alphabetical order:

1. Cleopatra 2525 – Complete Series, 2000
   Ok, so I know this is a little corny, but I love it. An exotic dancer in for plastic surgery in 2001, wakes up in the year 2525 to find the world has been taken over by evil robots. This show brings you scantily clad beauties with arm bands that shoot lasers and help them repel down giant elevator shafts and a freaky bad guy in clown makeup and extensions. It doesn’t get better than that.   Watch it streaming online on Hulu
2. Dead Like Me, 2003
   A college dropout is killed by a toilet seat that falls from a space station on her first day at a temp agency. Upon death, she finds out she is has been chosen to be a grim reaper and take people’s souls just before they die. The bad news? She still has to work for a living! Some of these scenes are so close to real office life, it’s scary. Can anyone say collate?
3. Eureka, 2006
   The best minds in the US are tucked away in a remote town where they build futuristic inventions for the government’s benefit. A US Marshal gets stranded there and decides to becomes the next Sheriff after the old one is injured from a science project gone wrong. Quirky, fun.  Watch it streaming online on Hulu.
4. Firefly, 2002
   In the distant future, Captain Malcolm ‘Mal’ Reynolds a former soldier for the independents, is now a smuggler and commander of a small spacecraft with a loyal hand-picked crew. They travel the far reaches of space in search of food, money, and anything to live on.  Along the way, they encounter life-threatening missions and a cast of interesting characters. Must see. Watch it streaming online on Hulu.
5. Jericho, 2006
   When bad boy Jake returns to his Kansas small-town home, Jericho, everyone is preoccupied with petty private business and family matters, but that changes drastically after an unexpected explosion hits. It soon becomes clear there has been a nuclear attack, but no one knows by whom or to what scale. Jericho inhabitants gradually discover the USA is disintegrating. Life becomes complicated for these small town folk when needs such as food, fuel, and self-defense against invaders become the main task. Jake proves extremely resourceful and a smart hero saving the town many times and changing the resident views of him. Watch it streaming online on CBS.
6. Kindred the Embraced, 1996
   Julian Luna, prince of the kindred (vampire), clans in San Francisco, has his job cut out for him as he must try to keep peace among them while not being afraid to apply ruthless justice against those who would break kindred rules. Infractions that merit “final death” include the taking of human life and changing humans into vampires who have not volunteered for the transformation. This show was an exciting and perplexing moment for all of us hard core vampire LARP’ers.  We were thrilled at the fact that mainstream took notice of something we enjoyed, puzzled the changes they made, and disappointed when it was cancelled just as the series started heating up!  I remember being upset that my favorite clan, Tremere, was not represented and hoped that season 2 might have brought them out of the woodwork. The tragic death of Mark Frankel (Julian) after Season one, caused all of us Masquerade RPG’ers to lose faith in another season.
7. Moonlight, 2007
   A vampire is a private investigator and falls for mortal woman who he saved from dying as a child.  This show has been ridiculed by fans of the 1980’s series Forever Knight.  It does seem like some of the shots used in Moonlight are very familiar to us Forever Knight fans and even some of the themes they use are very close to the other show.  However, I feel that Moonlight brings a sexier, up-to-date feel to our favorite “do-good” vampire role. I’m not saying it’s better, it’s just more vampire fun.
8. My Own Worst Enemy, 2008
   As an agent for a top-secret government agency, Edward agrees to let the government insert a chip in his brain that can be turned on and off.  When he is turned off, he is Henry, an efficiency expert, who lives a typical suburban life right down to the wife, two kids, dog, and minivan. In contrast, Edward is a lethal, multilingual operative. Somehow the chip breaks, making it impossible for the government to control when Henry is “on” or Edward is “on”.  I caught this on Hulu.com and loved it so much, I bought the DVD.  This is sort of a 24 meets Alias meets Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. TV aficionados will recognize many members of the cast and Christian Slater does a brilliant job of playing the innocent family man who could never harm a soul trying to come to grips with the fact his life is a sham and the lethal killer who will do anything to stay alive. Watch it streaming online on Hulu.
9. Red Dwarf, 1988
   Three million years ago, a radiation leak killed the crew of the mining ship, Red Dwarf. The only survivor was Dave Lister, the chicken soup machine repairman. He spends his time on the ship with a holographic projection of Arnold Rimmer (his dead bunk mate), Cat (a life-form that evolved from Dave’s cat), Holly (the ship’s senile computer), and Kryten (a service mechanoid).  BBC comedy good for hours of fun.  If you haven’t heard of this one, you’ve been under a smegging rock.
10. Sanctuary, 2007
    Amanda Tapping stars as a unique woman (possibly immortal?) who runs a Sanctuary for all kinds of creatures and monsters.  This show follows her and her team as they find new species and try to help them.  They also have their enemies.  I’m anxious to see what this show becomes… if it’s renewed. Watch it streaming online on Hulu.

You can check out a lot of these gems at Hulu.com.  If you’d like to purchase them, you can do as I do and shop Amazon.com.

So, now that I’ve given you some to catch up on, what are your favorites?

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