Broken Frontier

Happy Halloween and to celebrate we have two treats for you today! First of all, we have a new feature at The Comics Explorer: Books 2 Comics, exploring the crosscultural pollination of both mediums and second of all, keeping in line with the new feature, we present Move Under Ground by Nick Mamatas, released under a Creative Commons License and readable for free online!

What does this have to do with comics and Halloween, you ask? Why dear reader, many comics writers are huge fans of Jack Kerouac and HP Lovecraft. The former for his freeblazing spirit and experimental fiction and the latter for his horrific and detailed descriptions of the Older Gods, a fictional breed of monstrosities, treated like deities, their origins traced back to the beginning of the earth. And now, Nick Manatas has united both forms of fiction into one amazing book:

It's the early sixties, and Jack Kerouac is hiding from his public in Big Sur, enjoying the company of a Hindu deity in the form of a redhead he calls Marie and waiting for word from Neal Cassady, his and many another Beat's charismatic hero. Word he gets, including some babbling on about the Old Ones rising out of the Pacific and sweeping across America. That sets Jack off in search of Neal and, with Neal and eventually Bill Burroughs, on a cross-country jaunt just ahead, or behind, the advancing dark tide of the Old Ones. Destination: Mannahatta, where the since-separated Jack and Neal have a showdown--with each other!

Visit this page to read Move Under Ground online or visit the Amazon page if you want to purchase a copy of this book