Giallo Meltdown Is A Year Old

Hey, Giallo Meltdown fans! Do you have Giallo Meltdown? If so, THANK YOU! Do you like it? Do you hate it? REVIEW IT! If you have a blog, I'd love to read what you have to say about it!. If you have a podcast, I'd love to hear what you have to say about it! If you have a vlog, I'd love to see what you have to say about it! So yeah, if you have the book and haven't posted a review of it on Amazon, please do. Good or bad, all reviews help me out immensely.

But the main point of my bloggin' this blog post right now is that I want to say how much fun I've had since putting the book out. I've been able to appear on some cool podcasts and some really nice people have reached out to me to say that they liked Giallo Meltdown. I've also had some really stellar reviews from some very nice folks! These kinds of things mean the world to me.

As for negative criticism, there's been only three things so far. The first one that really embarrassed me was the first bunch of copies went out with a ton of typos. I stupidly got too excited and released the book within days of getting my proof copy. Wow, yeah. Huge mistake. I revised the book and quietly re-released it. Now the only version available out there is in 120% better shape. What can I say? Rookie mistake!

The second thing that happened is that one reviewer took me to task for spoiling the films. I never reveal the killer or the ending of the movie in the book but someone still got mad because I revealed too much about the plot of The Crimes of the Black Cat. All I can say is "Sorry, man." It never occurred to me that revealing the killer's modus operandi would be a huge spoiler. I guess I'll have a disclaimer at the beginning of part 2 to watch the movies before you read about them in the book!

Lastly, two people had a problem with the cover. They both said I should have used a more familiar giallo movie poster so that the book would sell better. To that I say, "No shit, Sherlock." I like giallo posters and all but I wanted something on the cover that reflected the personality of the book. My wife LeEtta, who drew the fabulous art for Giallo Meltdown (and tons of other stuff for me over the years), was there for all these moviethons and she knows what I like. Plus, she's amazing. Why would I want a poster of Bird with the Crystal Plumage or Torso or frickin' Who Saw Her Die? on the cover? I prefer originality.

And you know what? There are a couple of references to gialli in that book cover! I sent her some reference material and asked for a very specific look to the straight razor on the cover. Does it look familiar to you, giallo fans? It should! So to the haters, don't worry, I will continue using LeEtta's awesome art for all of my projects. Deal with it.

So anyway, the planning of the next volume of the book has almost reached its end. Let me tell you a little more about it. As you may or may not know about me, I'm very liberal with what is and isn't a giallo. What I want to explore in the second volume are threefold: key giallo titles that I missed in the first book (New York Ripper, The Stendhal Syndrome, etc.), films that inspired the giallo (Psycho, Blow Up, etc.), and films that were clearly inspired by the giallo (Friday the 13th, Berberian Sound Studio, The Editor, etc.).

Though I tried to make it clear with the first Giallo Meltdown, this is a book from a fan and not a scholar. I want to talk about this up front so people don't pick up my book thinking that I'm the guy whose gonna say in black and white, "this film is a giallo" and "this is NOT a giallo at all" with some authoritative posturing. I definitely want to have fun which has been my intention from the get-go. I want people to come with me on this journey no matter what ridiculous things get along along the way.

So let me just beat this to death right here. If you bought my book, thank you one million times over. If you're a Kindle subscriber and you got it for free, thank you too! If you killed a dude to steal his copy, why'd you do that? That's messed up, bro. But thank you! I've got some fun projects in the works (like the coming VERY soon Cinema Somnambulist book and another issue of Fang of Joy).