Crossover Cover: The Laurel and Hardy Murders

Would-be detective Hilary Quayle and her private eye boyfriend Gene look into the murder of a comedian at a banquet held by the Sons of the Desert, a nationwide Laurel and Hardy fan club of which Gene is a member. One of the club members suggests calling in Nero Wolfe.

Crossover Cover: Killer Instincts

William Lynch is trained in his quest for vengeance by a mysterious man known as Richard.
From the hints dropped in the novel, Richard must be Richard Joseph Camellion, the Death Merchant. William’s grandfather, Thomas Lynch, is the protagonist of the World War II-set series Commando (Operation Arrowhead, Operation Bedlam, Operation Cannibal, and Operation Dervish) and the side series Commando Resistance (The Train to Calais.)

Crossover Cover: Daemons are Forever

The second novel in the Secret Histories series. Eddie Drood, now leading the Drood Family, must find a way to drive out the Loathly Ones, demons that were brought to Earth during World War II to help fight the Nazis, before they summon the Hungry Gods to destroy the world. Appearing or mentioned are: a Hirondel sports car (from Leslie Charteris' Saint novels); Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat (from Green's novel Shadows Fall); Merlin’s Glass (from Green's Nightside series); Vril Power, Inc. (a reference to the Vril from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race); Harry Fabulous (also from the Nightside books); a ghost named Ash (Leonard Ash from Shadows Fall); a minor Norse godling (Jimmy Thunder from Green's Drinking Midnight Wine); the Many-Angled Ones (a term originally used by Grant Morrison to describe the Lloigor of the Cthulhu Mythos in the superhero comic book Zenith, which must take place in an AU, but it has been adopted by other Mythos authors over the years); the Celestials (an alien race with untold cosmic power appearing in various series published by Marvel Comics); Renfield’s (named after Dracula's zoophagous servant, of course); a couple of Baron Frankenstein’s more successful creations; Melmoth the Wanderer (from Charles Robert Maturin's novel of the same name); Dracula; a French demon hunter named Mallorie (possibly a reference to the French horror film Bloody Mallory); the Kandarians (from the Evil Dead films); Dr. Syn’s Fly by Night Delivery Service (a reference to Russell Thorndike's Dr. Syn novels); “this American gentleman and his giant rabbit” (Elwood P. Dowd and Harvey from the movie Harvey); Giles Deathstalker (from Green's Deathstalker series, which takes place in one of many potential futures for the CU); a giant mechanical spider confiscated from an American mad genius in the Wild West (from the film version of The Wild Wild West); the Kessel run (from the Star Wars films); and an Old One (from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.)

Crossover Movie Poster: The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D

In this film directed by Robert Rodriguez, a bag of Big Kahuna Burgers is seen on the dock where Max first encounters his imaginary superhero Sharkboy, who has been brought to life. Big Kahuna Burger is a fictional fast food chain that is best known for its appearance in Quentin Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction, and has appeared in several more films made by Tarantino, Rodriguez, and others.

Crossover Cover: Remnant

In this e-novella, ghost hunter Simon Feximal and his biographer and lover Robert Caldwell join forces with visiting American scholar and sorcerer Percival Endicott Whyborne and his own partner, ex-Pinkerton Griffin Flaherty, to investigate an occult menace in England. Feximal reads a news story about Whyborne’s visit that says that he discovered the tomb of the pharaoh Nephren-ka. Whyborne looks at a drawing of an Egyptian tablet in his notebook and recognizes Apep, the serpent of chaos, who is sometimes associated with Nyarlathotep. Whyborne and Flaherty initially speculate that Caldwell may be a member of a cult called the Eyes of Nodens. Feximal and Caldwell later take Whyborne and Flaherty to a private club called the Remnant, run by the Hesselian Society of Occult Investigation. It is said that one may meet the ghost-finder Thomas Carnacki at the Remnant on his usual storytelling Thursdays (which are best avoided), and that Dr. Silence always takes one of the small bedrooms on his infrequent trips to town. Feximal snaps at Whyborne that the Saaamaaa Ritual is not sorcerous. This story is a team-up between the occult detectives of  K.J. Charles’ The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal series and Jordan L. Hawk’s Whyborne & Griffin series. Nephren-ka is from H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos tale “The Haunter of the Dark.” In Lovecraft’s Mythos fiction, Nyarlathotep is one of the malevolent Great Old Ones, while Nodens is a benevolent Elder God. The Hesselian Society of Occult Investigation is named after Dr. Martin Hesselius from J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s short story collection In a Glass Darkly, considered by many to be one of the first occult detectives in fiction. Thomas Carnacki is from William Hope Hodgson’s collection Carnacki the Ghost-Finder, while Dr. Silence is from Algernon Blackwood’s collection John Silence. The Saaamaaa Ritual is from the Carnacki stories “The Gateway of the Monster,” “The House Among the Laurels,” and “The Whistling Room.”

Crossover Cover: Too Old a Cat

Devlin “Trace” Tracy and his girlfriend Michiko “Chico” Mangini join the New York private investigation agency run by Trace’s dad, ex-cop Patrick “Sarge” Tracy. Sarge’s office is above Bogie’s Restaurant & Bar. A Mafioso who hires Sarge to look into his wife’s involvement with a cult says, “I heard there were some private eyes hung out downstairs in the restaurant.” Sarge replies, “One’s a broken-down pug and the other one’s a one-armed communist.” Detectives William “Tough” Jackson and Ed Razoni investigate the murder of the cult’s guru. The “broken-down pug” is Robert J. Randisi’s private eye Miles Jacoby, while the “one-armed communist” is Michael Collins’ P.I. Dan Fortune. Both detectives hung out at Bogie’s (a real restaurant popular among mystery writers) in their respective series, and ran into each other there in Randisi’s novel The Steinway Collection. Razoni and Jackson were featured in another series of novels by Murphy that were published from 1973-1974.

Crossover of the Week

2005

BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON

            Aspiring slasher Leslie Vernon seeks to follow in the footsteps of the great slashers that came before him. Footage is shown of Camp Crystal Lake, the town of Springwood, Ohio, and Haddonfield, Illinois as places that have suffered slasher attacks. Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and Chucky are mentioned by name as existing. A Lament Configuration can be seen in the house of Leslie’s friends Eugene and Jamie. Leslie has a bottle of Stay Awake medicine on his mantlepiece.

            2006 horror film. The references connect Vernon to most of the important slasher series: Friday the 13^th (Jason Voorhees and Crystal Lake), A Nightmare on Elm Street (Freddy Krueger, Springwood, and Stay Awake), Halloween (Michael Myers and Haddonfield), and Child’s Play (Chucky.) The Lament Configuration is from the Hellraiser movies, based on Clive Barker’s story “The Hellbound Heart.” Of interest, one deleted scene has Leslie mentioning that he spent some time in Texas, helping a fellow slasher who was trying to “reinvent his thing,” a reference to Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, and a nod to both the originals and the 2003 remake. Some references in the film do seem to imply that slashers lack supernatural powers, but this can be seen as Leslie simply using showmanship and stage magic to make up for abilities he lacks; this is backed up by a reference to Leslie Vernon in the ghost-slasher film Hatchet II.