Today is the release date for Supergods, a new work of non-fiction by Grant Morrison, author of The Invisibles, and numerous other comics.

Published by Spiegel & Grau (an imprint of Random House), Supergods bears the rather lengthy subtitle “What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human”.

Supergods explores the history and mythology of the superhero archetype. We’ve seen this before, notably in Our Gods Wear Spandex (my review here), but Grant Morrison’s likely to do it in a style unique to himself.

From the publisher’s description:

For Grant Morrison, arguably the greatest of contemporary chroniclers of the “superworld,” these heroes are powerful archetypes whose ongoing, decades-spanning story arcs reflect and predict the course of human existence: Through them we tell the story of ourselves, our troubled history, and our starry aspirations. In this exhilarating work of a lifetime, Morrison draws on art, science, mythology, and his own astonishing journeys through this shadow universe to provide the first true history of the superhero—why they matter, why they will always be with us, and what they tell us about who we are . . . and what we may yet become.

For more, see Scott Thill’s interview with Morrison in Wired.

Despite David Itzkoff’s mixed-to-negative review in The New York Times, I’m looking forward to reading this.

Over at Rune Soup Gordon introduced a book game with the following guidelines:

How would you introduce someone to magic using only books? He or she has a month in a lake house and will read whatever you tell them in the exact order that you tell them to. Not even any peeking at other books on the list.

It’s a good game, for the full list of rules and to participate, click here. You can see Gordon’s picks here. I offered my response in the comments section, but I thought I’d share it here too, with a little more about why I chose these books in particular.

My aim was a little different than Gordon’s, I took the game as a chance to create a new magickian from a complete skeptic, not to create a mini-Psyche – that would have been a different list altogether. Perhaps a project for another day.

Without further ado, here’s my list: Continue reading »

Saturday Signal: sifting the signal from the noise of the Internet’s occultural cacophony.

Happy Samhain, kids!

Vampires are hot, hot, hot. Except in Twilight, where they’re just creepy and bizarre. Stephen Marshe suggests this is because young straight women want to have sex with gay men, whereas Charlie Higson thinks vampires are for girls and zombies are for boys. Even ABE is getting into it with a timeline of vamp lit – things even I haven’t read.

If you find all of this worrying, you can always pick up a nineteenth century vampire killing kit. I know I’d feel safer with one. My kitchen’s always running out of garlic.

• The latest issue of the online occult magazine Rending the Veil has come out, and Patrick Dunn has contributed an essay titled “Ritual and Myth” which looks at the role of myth in our lives and what that might mean.

• Joseph Merlin Nichter wrote about “Samhainophobia vs Samhainsensationalism” in his blog WitchDoctorJoe’s RattleBone. He discusses popular reactions to Hallowe’en, his his own family’s traditions. There’s also a picture of a stone monk in a pointy hat lookin’ fab.

• In a lengthly article in Reality Sandwich Paul Levy asks “Are We Possessed?” and responds with excessive quotations from Carl  Jung. The answer to the question seems to be “Probably”.

Also, Douglas Rushkoff intends to interview Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007) on Monday. Could be interesting.

That’s it for this week, mes amis. Wear your costumes proud and practice safe hex.