Thursday, February 25, 2016

Crossover Cover: Urban Gothic

A group of suburban youths returning from a Monsters of Hip Hop concert (headlined by Prosper Johnson) become stranded in an abandoned house in the Philadelphia ghetto and hunted by subterranean mutants. The kids were present at a Ghost Walk in LeHorn’s Hollow the previous Halloween, but it was closed down after several people were killed inside, before the kids could get in. Leo once lived with the Graco family for two weeks; the father, Timothy, wrote comic books. One of the mutants wears a shirt with the slogan I GOT CRABS IN PHILLIPSPORT, MAINE, and another wears a ball cap with the Globe Package Service logo. One of the mutants, Scug, swears to Ob. Prosper Johnson is a minor, but important, character in Keene’s mythos, figuring most prominently (so far) in his story “Slouching in Bethlehem.” The events behind the massacre at the Ghost Walk are told in Keene’s novel Ghost Walk. Timothy Graco is the main character of Keene’s novel Ghoul. Phillipsport, Maine, first appeared in Mark Williams and J. F. Gonzalez’s novel Clickers; that series (the latter books being cowritten between Gonzalez and Keene) takes place in an alternate universe, but there must be a version of Phillipsport in the CU. Globe Package Service appears in several Keene works, including “Scratch” and Kill Whitey, and is a branch of the Globe Corporation. Ob is one of the Thirteen, and is the main villain of Keene’s The Rising series.

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