Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to another episode of the Capes and Tights podcast right here on capesandtights.com dot. I'm your host, Justin Soderbergh. This episode we welcome Joshua Milliken to the podcast to talk about his latest novel or novella over at shortwave publishing, part of the Killer VHS series Teleportasm.
And Josh has been a writer for a while here. He's been working as a journalist for Dread Central for a while there. He was the editor in sheet for a couple of years. He also had a talk show on there called Chronic Horror, which explored the intersection between horror movie fandom and cannabis culture, which is pretty cool. You can check that out. I believe it's free online, so you can check that out there. But yeah, no, Joshua is also an author, and so he's come up with a couple of books, deeper than hell septum and a couple other novelizations of old horror movies. But, you know, this latest teleportasm dropped anywhere books are available. But check out shortwavepublishing.com to get this book and a cool gift box. It looks like a vhs and all that stuff. So check out shortwavepublishing.com dot. But this is Joshua Millicent in talking teleportasm of the Killer VHS series over there at shortwave publishing, right here on the Capes and tights podcast. Enjoy, everyone.
Welcome to the podcast. Josh, how are you today?
[00:01:18] Speaker B: I'm great. How are you, Justin?
[00:01:20] Speaker A: I'm good. Doing well. Doing well. Like I said, I feel like we're on episode. Like, this is 173 and views, zoom for like, 170 of them, and I still am learning what to do. And we went through an entire pandemic, and people are still like, is it on? Is it working?
[00:01:36] Speaker B: I love Zoom. I love Zoom.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: It makes it easier. I tell you that much.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: I like the face to face, too. You know, I've had some, like, not business meetings, but I've had some meetings on Zoom where I'm so glad I was able to see the face, because when someone like, you know, like, they can really reveal a lot that you can't tell over texts or even on a phone call. So, yeah, I like looking at people.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: When talking about, I talked to one person who didn't want to be, didn't want their. Their face on our recordings. Like, didn't want it on YouTube or anything like that, which is like, that's fine. I have no issues with that. I do this video portion because I can. It's not necessarily the most. We get mostly listeners, but I like having this visual aspect of it. But I'm like, can we at least look at each other when we talk? And then I'll just not put your video on. And they're like, yeah, that's fine, because it just, it's so much different not being able to see.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you got, you got a strong streaming game with your setup behind you. I try to have a nice vibe on mine, too. So, yeah, you know, I like to just talk as well, but when you can have a video element, I say, go for it. You're gonna, you're gonna get a lot more out of this if you can see my face when I'm talking and, you know, the way we react to each other. Yep. That's what makes certain podcasts stand out, is when they have a visual element.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: I think it's also changed. I mean, I tried a different software than Zoom at one point, and there was a delay and almost felt like I was talking to someone who was like, you know, on the scene of a crime on the news, and they're trying to, like, talk back and forth, and they're like, so how is everything going there? And then they like, wait 30 seconds of like, well, thanks, John. And they like, you know, it was like that. And I was like, oh, the flow got thrown off. So I was like, oh, zoom works so well because it's instant. Yes, I say something to you.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: I think it was streamyard or one of the other platforms. You know, I had to use headphones for it. And even though you couldn't hear it in the audio, I was getting an echo in my headphones. It was the most annoying thing because I get on a flow, you know, like I'm doing right now. I get a little bit of a motor mouth going, and then I'm starting to hear my own motor mouth there and then I'm forgetting the point I'm trying to make. Oh, it was a nightmare. This should be a presumed. They should pay us. This podcast is sponsored by Zoom.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: We could talk all we want, and then all of a sudden I know where our head, voices in our heads are already there, and then we're also hearing more voices in our heads. It's just, you know, screwing. It's screwing with us altogether, but, yeah, exactly. Brought to you by Zoom. There you go.
The fun thing is that you're on one side of the country, I'm on the other. That's the other fun thing about this is that we could do this, we can sit down, have a conversation. I'm in Maine, you're in California. We literally could be. I guess I could be in Maine. You could be in Hawaii. But, like, continental United States, we're as far away as possible pretty much at this point, but yeah, and we get to talk, uh, horror or books or things so on and so worth, but, like, let's get started. Josh, how did you get into, have you been a horror fan since a Wii lad, or have you been, you know, did it come in later in life? How, how did you become a horror fan in general of the job?
[00:04:38] Speaker B: I mean, all, all of the above? There were different phases. You know, I'm one of those eighties kids who walk down the, the VHS aisle, the horror isle of the VHS store, and my mind was blown by artwork, cover art on films like Chud and Pumpkinhead and Fright Night, and just blew my mind. In my mind, they were so much worse than they turned out to be. They were still scary, though. And I loved being scared. I loved being too afraid to watch a movie. I was too scared to watch the Exorcist. I thought if I watched the Exorcist, I would become possessed. I thought it was that easy. Evil. And then, you know, so I challenged myself to watch it, and it was a ton of fun. And then I went to college, got kind of into other things. I was into music and things like that. And then it was when, in the mid aughts, when Netflix had that huge. When they first dominated the online streaming game, their horror library was humongous, you know, basically anything you could imagine. And then there were things that, you know, had gone straight to digital that, you know, you never could have gotten in a video store. Back in the day, there were foreign films, new french extremity, you know, j horror, and, you know, coast to coast and all the different flavors, South America, you know, Mexico. And it just really just blew my mind. And so I'd watch these, I'd stay up all night on Netflix watching, like, martyrs or something. And then the next day I'd be like, oh, man, this, this film and then this. And then they, and then it was all, you know, this cult. And they're like, a lot of my friends, like, you know, I'll never watch these horror movies. I don't like horror movies, but I like hearing you talk about them. You should write about them. So it's a good idea. So, you know, it was back in the day when everyone had, you know, their, their word press, you know, the early days of blogging. And from there, I got a few jobs working freelance for some horror websites. And from there, I got to Dread Central.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: And then you wrote there for a while, and then.
Are you still writing for them?
[00:06:46] Speaker B: No. No.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: I thought so. I thought you said you were there. I said, yeah, 2021 ish, right around there. You.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I started in, like, 2017, and then I became the editor in chief in, like, 2019, and I served until 2021, almost exactly two years. And then I had a kid and just didn't want the editor in chief lifestyle anymore. So from there, I switched gears, and now I'm into writing books.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: There you go. And you also had your chronic horror talk show that is now sidelined, obviously, during the pandemic.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: But, yeah, that was, that was also part of the whole dread Central, my connection with that company. And, yeah, things changed with the pandemic. They basically told me straight out afterwards that their business model had changed and they didn't want to produce content from the ground up. They wanted to just distribute pre made content. They wanted to acquire things. It was a bummer, but maybe it'll come back someday in some new form.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny how the pandemic changed so many bad things. But also there are people who, things grew out of the pandemic when there's other people whose things stopped because of the pandemic and people's business models changed and things like that. It's one of those weird things. I had a conversation with someone last week, and they were like, yeah, I mean, I could have, prior to the pandemic, I could have bought a house. And we're like, yeah, that was four years ago. Nowadays we're thinking it was just yesterday, and now we're like, no, that started four years ago.
Yeah, it's funny because it's kind of that. Like, it started in the pandemic, this podcast, but, like, a version of it kind of started during the pandemic because it needed something to do and because of the invention, but the, the surge of things like Zoom and so, like, as the opposite of yours, where yours kind of, like, fizzled out or mine kind of started, and that's where some people are, you know, and why I'm at where I'm at now. It's because I was able to take time during the pandemic to do that.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, dread central kind of hopped on that the best we could. You know, we started doing these virtual reunions and conventions, you know, indie horror films. We'd get, like, the whole cast and the writer and the director back together and just talk for an hour so that was a lot of fun. We did a couple dozen of those, you know, we called them dissecting horror panels, and, you know, usually about a film, but, you know, we also had episodes that were about, you know, special effects or stunts or even wardrobe. I think it was fun. It was a lot of fun. Again, you know, Zoom just kind of changed the game offered, opened up a lot of opportunities.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it's really crazy how that happened. And, like I said, 173. So, you know, or so episodes of this podcast, all because of the fact that I could do it virtually. I don't have to worry about it. The big thing is, too, I think that the virtual part of it, you know, not to. To continue on that side of it, but, like, uh, was the fact that you could show up to this, uh, you know, podcast recording a couple minutes prior, start recording, and then we're done. And we're done. Whereas there's no, like, commute to the studio. There's no, uh, get there 15 minutes early, have a conversation, then, you know, you stop recording, and you have a 30 minutes, 40 minutes conversation afterwards, and. And your. Your 1 hour recording or 45 minutes recording turns into a three hour, four hour endeavor. Whereas this thing is like, I record, um, you know, every couple of weeks with a guy that lives in the town next to me. And we do it virtually still, solely because of that. Because of the fact that we could just start it at 10:00 in the morning, and you stop at 11:00 in the morning, and you guys go on your day. If not, I'd be there from like, nine to 01:00 in the afternoon.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: And I like to talk. That's why I have a podcast.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: I like talking, too. It's been great for me, you know, as a. As a guest. You know, I can do two or three podcasts in a day.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: Mm hmm. It works. It works out well that way, too. But, yeah, you know, so. So you started writing. You're obviously writing for a while about horror, but then you have, you know, doing horror novels or novellas like this, this teleportasm, which is why you're really on here to talk about it. How did that come about being at, you know, the Killer VHS series, at, you know, a shortwave?
[00:10:56] Speaker B: Well, the Killer VHS series is something that shortwave founder Alan Lystufka started a couple of years ago. Now, there are two issues that are out already. The first one, Melon head mayhem, is a creature horror. You'll love it. If you're a fan of humonkey lie horror along the lines of critters and gremlins and things like that. Ghoulies. The second one that came out, I know you know it. Candy Cane kills by our mutual friend Brian McCauley.
And yeah, teleportasm will be number three.
So far, the series has been dubbed the modern day Goosebumps. For adults. It's definitely for adults, especially mine, which is so far the most r rated of the series.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: They are. It's funny, right? It's like, almost like they've, you know, progressed a little bit. But yeah, when you get to yours, you don't shy away from, from some of the gruesome things and some of the horror that goes on in teleportasm, that's for sure. I mean, candy Cane cows is a slasher, so there is this like full on in it, but it's not as, you know, gruesome, as potentially as teleportasm, that's for sure.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: Right. Well, you know, Melon head Mayhem's creature horror, Candy Cane kills is Christmas horror. Mine is analog body horror. You know, one of the first horror movies that really blew my mind and scared the shit out of me was David Cronenberg's the Fly, which is like, you know, basically one of the most famous teleportation stories in cinema, at least, you know, both the original and David Cronenberg's brilliant remake. So yeah, my goal was to represent the Cronenbergian, uh, disgusting, goopy side of technology.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: And it's also great because it's in that killer VHS. So all of these killer VHS stories revolve around VHS tapes. You know, a story that comes out of, it's not solely like, you know, um, it's not solely that you are watching a VHS or you're in a VHS or something, something like that. It's. They all revolve around a VHS type thing and that becomes the nostalgic part of it, which is kind of cool because you automatically have that built into the story at the nostalgic part of it. But you, you did go pretty nostalgic in this, in this book, which is pretty cool in my opinion. I loved that part.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: It's pretty, it's pretty cool to see that. And that's one thing you say with melon head and with candy cane kills has it. And I love how you mentioned the goosebumps thing because, yes, it has been dubbed like a modern day adult goosebumps because of the fact that, you know, it has that same feel, but more adult. However, it also is cool, because now on my shelf, my goosebumps collection. And then the teleportasm and candy cane kills and Melanhead mayhem are right next to it. Now, because it's like most of my books, you think on my shelf are alphabetical order by author, like a normal, not say normal person, because people do color nowadays and all kinds of things. But when I had just Melahan Mayhem, it was with, you know, where it should be with the author. And then when Candy Cane kills came out, I'm like, I can't really put two books of a series together yet. That was with Brian McCauley's books. And then once I got this book, I'm like, okay, now one through three, they can go in the killer VHS section. It has its own spot. And now when Cicada comes out, we'll put cicada right next to it and we'll be all good.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, cicada is going to be great. And then there are two more coming down the pike. There's going to be a Bigfoot horror, which I'm really excited about, and then a witchcraft horror coming up. So you got all kinds of different genres. It's going to be a great series. Like you said, they look fantastic together.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Yes, they do. And not to mention candy Cane kills two coming as well from Brian. He's doing a sequel to that, too, and it's really kind of a cool thing there, but like, yeah, so this is so teleport. Why don't you tell a little about what teleportasm is as your little elevator pitch, you would say to someone?
[00:14:35] Speaker B: Sure. In 2012, four friends unearthed a unique vhs tape that, when viewed, causes short distance teleportation with euphoric after effects.
It feels good. It feels really good. It feels too good because they start getting reckless with it and making copies and, you know, people start getting stuck in walls and, you know, turned inside out and shit like that.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: I love that aspect you added with the. A euphoric part of it, too, because I feel like if there wasn't that part of it, you might just. It might have dwindled out. The unsafe. If it's unsafe, people wouldn't would do it as much. But because it feels good, people have to do that kind of thing. It added that like that. Add a little more depth to the story that made it so that there's a reason why you'd get addicted to it, basically.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I'm really proud of that twist to it. You know, I love addiction as a metaphor and drugs as a metaphor. But then I just started thinking how funny it would be like in Star Trek after every time they transport, if they're just like, oh, yeah, oh.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: I need a cigarette now. We need that episode. We need that. You know, once this book comes out, you need a South park episode where they just, they do this episode, but on Star Trek and do a little teleportation on there. No, no. And people end up in walls. People end up in some weird spots and things like that, too. And we wrote on our review, on our website, was that, that it almost. It's one novella, 176 or so pages. Uh, Novella. So it's easy to read. And that's a big thing to me about the whole comparison to goosebumps is that it's like a quick, easy, uh, easy read. This is not a, uh, you know, we love Stephen King here in Maine. Uh, as a. As a king of horror. And his books. Some of his books can be an endeavor. It could be. It could be a, you know, a journey. And with a. With a novella, you get this ability to just quickly read stuff. But it also felt broken up. Not like that. Not broken up badly, but broken up good in a good way. That it was like, I got to read. Like, it almost felt like short stories do. I mean, like, it was big. One big story, but it almost felt like short stories along the way, too, which is kind of cool.
Yeah.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: That's how the Martian Chronicles is set up. Ray Bradbury. You know, each chapter is kind of a little bit self contained, but they all inform each other. So, you know, it's not like you could read it in any order. It's not an anthology. You know, there is the through story. You know, a single night that takes up four chapters, and then that story continues across two or three more chapters. So it's a little more chronological than at first, it seems, flashing back a decade and then popping forward a few years and things like that. But, yeah, that was a really fun aspect of it, to have the through story, but then also be able to kind of look into the future and see the ramifications of the decisions they made that night. Imagine you're just out with your friends one night, having a good time, and you accidentally fuck up the entire world.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: It's a bummer if you could be a bummer. And I will say it also brings in that. That style. This being. We talked a lot to a lot of comic book creators. You always get that question when you're with some other fellow nerds of like, what superpower would you want. Would you want to fly so on and so forth. And teleportation is obviously one of those that comes up, and this is a different. I feel like the conversation would change a little bit is if this is the way it would happen in teleportation. I feel like a lot less people would be like, yeah, I want that. If you end up potentially being stuck in a wall or in a tree or something like that, that might end up being more something that's picked a little less than anything else.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, well, the point of teleportasm is that, you know, teleportation technology is fragile, you know, and you're fucking with something you don't understand. And then you start making copies where you get, you know, a little bit generational decay, you know, or you copy it onto a fucked up tape, you know, there are just a lot of things that can go wrong. And then when you open up, you know, something as colorful and imaginative as teleportation, it was just a lot of fun stomping around in this playground.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: I just, it reminds me when I started reading it and feel stumbling upon a VHS tape like this. I reminded me of, like, when I was a child, or I should say high school student, and I had a bootleg copy of Triple X, the movie with Vin Diesel. Don't judge me at all for my childhood foes, but like, this, uh, this bootleg vhs that, it had x xx on it, Triple X, the name of the movie.
[00:19:04] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: And my mom finds it, and she, she takes it away from me because she thought it was pornography. And I was like, first of all, mom, on my computer, summer photos, 1997. That's where the pornography. It's not a VHS tape labeled XXX. Come on.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Let's be real here. Uh, no, it's kind of funny because I could just picture her putting this VHS tape into the, into the VHS or the VCR and then being teleported, teleported somewhere else, thinking that she found some sort of pornography, but it ends up being some sort of teleportation device, and she ends up in another spot. That would be hilarious.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: We have that scenario, and, you know, that's one of the first thing that pops into your mind when you think about, like, an unlabeled tape, you know, potentially in a pile of other tapes, you know, that may or may not be pornographic. And just being like, what could this be? It might be sexy. So, you know, there's a curiosity, but it's also ominous because it might be a snuff film or something that's gonna traumatize you, or it could even be cursed, like, in the ring, and then you're gonna get a phone call and be dead pretty soon. So there are just so many angles to go with a VHS tape, which is the brilliance of the killer VHS series.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: It is. And what's funny is when I first heard about it, I was like, how are they gonna be able to pull this off and be stand? Because they're all standalone, if anybody doesn't know, melon head mayhem, candy cane kills, teleportasm, cicada, so on and so forth, are all standalone books, similar to the idea that he mentioned goosebumps again, to the idea that they're all in RL Stein's world, but they're all individual books, whereas this is the same way with they're all in Alan's, really Alan's world in a sense, and then everybody else gets their own crack at it, but they're fun to read. You'd like them all, I think, if you think if you read one, unless you're not into a specific type of horror, you know, if you're not into, you know, the critters and things like that, maybe you wouldn't want to read something like Melanie Mayhem. But they're all, I think everybody would like every single one of them, if you liked one of them, in my opinion.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: It was really astute what you just said, because in a lot of ways, this is Alan's playground because he's the one. He and I worked very close together to make sure that I was creating something that was going to fit the mood. If you loved candy cane kills, you don't want to read something that's going to go in a total different direction and be totally glum and, you know, just completely different. You want something that's going to have, that's going to be similar tonally, and that's what we work together on, you know, because, yeah, it's really, it's, it's Alan's. It's Alan's baby. It's, it's his brainchild, you know? And I just feel so lucky to have gotten a chance to play in his world.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: Did you have this idea, like, prior to being a killer VHS horror author, or is this something that you worked on with, like, you mentioned Alan, but is this something that, like, Alan, can I give you an idea for, like, how long have you been working in this story, in your mind?
[00:21:55] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I came up with the idea specifically as a pitch for Killer VHS. You know, Brian McCauley and I are both members of the Los Angeles chapter of the Horror Writers association. We met a couple years ago, right after we each released our first novel, and he was working on Killer VHS. And I was like, oh, man, I had heard about it. I was like, I want to get in on that. And he said, well, you know, pitch Alan.
And so I pitched Alan in the first pitch I sent him. It was something along the lines of hellraiser by way of the Philadelphia experiment, where the tape was going to open doorways, but instead of it being quasi religious, it was going to all trace back to teleportation experiments conducted by the government.
But yeah. And it evolved into what is now teleportasm.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: That's so cool, because I know there's other, like, in the comic book world, there's some publishers who nowadays, like, come up with an entire story or a plot, and they say they hire a writer to flesh out that plot and to write that plot into a book. And sometimes I'm like, oh, that's pretty cool. I like that idea. But in the same sense, I also like the idea that each one of these authors in these VHS series books are coming up their own ideas. And that's pretty cool in that sense, too. Yeah. But, yeah, it's still, like I said, it's still Alan's playground, though. We already mentioned that.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: Well, you know, it's still me in the sense that, you know, the two novels I wrote before this are body horror novels with fringe elements of Sci-Fi and, you know, things that meander into the fantastic. So it's still me. It's what I would love to bring to this series. And, you know, working with Alan was just making sure I got the, nailed the tone and that I was really like, you know, part of that world, and I couldn't be happier. You know, it was more collaborative than my other book projects, and I just loved it. And, you know, it was such a fun concept and idea that, you know, we were kind of making changes up to the last minute. You know, there are entire chapters of teleportasm that we just took out and set aside, not because they weren't great, they were fully edited. They're really good, but they weren't as good as some of the other chapters. And, yeah, it's, it's in keeping with, you know, the 30,000 word count, which is, you know, kind of the, the goal for, as you said, you know, a single sitting, something you can just devour really quickly. But, you know, they're. They're teleportasm stories that are still out there. So maybe we can, you know, release a follow up in a magazine or something and expand on the world a little bit more.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Well, it's kind of funny because I don't think they ever plan, and I haven't talked to really, I talked to Brian McCauley a little bit about candy cane kills, too. But I don't think there was ever really a plan originally for Alan to do a sequel in this series. It was just going to be individual. So, like, if this obviously sells a ton of books, there's a possibility where he's like, hey, Joshua, you want to.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: Come rate some more if he comes knocking? Absolutely. You know, like I said, we have ideas that were either taken out or not fully fleshed out of the first one. You know, so I could go back into that world, you know, now that you have a long view, I could fill people in on some things that happened without having to worry about spoilers, and then I can talk about what happens next.
One thing that's great about goosebumps is the way each book, even though I think only one or two of them, has a sequel, each book kind of ends on a cliffhanger. And that's what I did in teleportasm, where I kind of like, dun dun, dun. It's actually just the beginning of something even scarier, and then just leave the reader's imagination, you know, to go to run wild with itself. Um, I don't know where I was going.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: I could just picture at the end of the book actually writing, dun dun, dun in actual words.
That's how I put that there. Yeah. I say big letters. It's like, what is it? Netflix says that to dumb. Is the act actually written out as something? It would be like, same thing, dun dun dun. And then, you know, there you go. But no, it's a. It's. It's your. Were your other two books around the same length?
[00:26:07] Speaker B: No, my other two books are definitely novels. I mean, I think if you google, like, how long is a novel? They'll say 40,000 words or longer, and they're both between 40 and 50,000 words.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. Yeah. I couldn't remember. I was going to look it up, but I just didn't have it off the top of my head, but, yeah. And so, like, was it more of an exercise to do 30,000 words, or was it. Was it, you know, was it easier? Not easily easier, but was it. It wasn't a breeze, I'm guessing.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: No, I mean, here's the crazy thing. It took me, I wrote 100,000 words to get to these 30,000 words.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: Okay?
[00:26:38] Speaker B: So, you know, there you go. Was it easier or harder? I don't know. It was. It was just so enjoyable. That's all I can say. It was supremely enjoyable.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: And actually, I think you probably would interview anybody from this killer VHS series. I think they're all saying the same thing. I think they're all saying that it was enjoyable, that it's a fun exercise in writing, and it's a fun thing to do. And all of us horror fans, like I said, I just finished the devil by name, by Keith Rosen. Rossin. Rossin. Rosen, Rossin. Whatever. And it is phenomenally. It's amazing. It's so good. But it's a lot because there's a lot in it and it's a lot going on. There's a lot.
It's a violent book. It's a book that's just, like I said, you just have to sit there in your own thoughts for a second. Whereas, like I said, this is, teleportasm is written wonderfully. And it's like a. I see a breeze because it sounds like it's just, you're writing for simpletons here, but no, it's, it's a simple story in the sense that it's a novella. And that's, to me, is a huge thing. And I think that's what's cool about short wave in general is the fact that, like, they're just focusing on shorter, concise stories that make sense, that are really good, but that aren't. This is just, like I said, this whole, like, 400, 8500, 600 page journey.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Alan's got a great vision for not just killer VHS before his entire company. And, you know, he's, he's definitely made a name for himself in a short amount of time. And I'm just so thrilled to be on the roster. I'm so thrilled to have had this opportunity to work with Alan. I mean, if tons of you guys out there buy and love teleportasm, I have a feeling he'd come back and say, hey, Josh, what can we do next? But that's on you guys. You guys.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: But I want to put it out. When you said purchase it, I would love to say is that you can get it from a bunch of different bookstores and things, but, like, buying it from shortwave direct is a really cool idea because they send it to you in this box that has, like, obviously some vintage feels to it, for sure looks like a VHS box in a sense. And you put it in there. It comes with the cool thing. Also, it comes with a membership card.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: Like, you're going to bring your own vhs there. There you go.
And you have yours, right? You have it somewhere. Because they don't. They give the authors the first, like, they saved the first. Whatever number of them.
[00:28:53] Speaker B: I have mine. I didn't. I didn't look at the exact number. I think you're right.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: Yeah. I think he wrote, I think Alan wrote that a little while ago about the idea that they have, like, the first 15 or 20 cards they saved. I'm guessing Alan has one. But, like, other than that, it's, like, number two, number three, number either saved for those people in the early writing. So you have an early.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: That's exactly something Alan would do.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: And like I said, and then just the quality of the book itself is great, the feel of it.
[00:29:21] Speaker B: Mark Vulc is the amazing artist. Did you know this wonderful cover along with melon head mayhem and candy cane kills.
Well known in his industry, obviously. He does incredible work. I love how this looks like it's under a blacklight, even though it's not.
Has a real wonderful color palette. When I got to tell you, when, you know, the, the covers started coming together, I actually changed the color palette of the novel to reflect that in some edits. I went back and gave it this kind of, like, black light sort of, you know, purple smoke and, you know, strobing lights sort of feel to it, to kind of reflect the COVID Oh, yeah.
[00:30:04] Speaker A: And as the COVID is great, and I'm a big, I'm a by trade, by day. I'm a graphic designer. So seeing the text treatment, uh, like that, too, is pretty awesome, too. It kind of gives that, that coming out of the tv kind of feel like a tv, you know, blipping a little bit. Kind of feel like you're melting. Something crazy is about to happen, and it is. It's. Something is crazy is about to happen. I'll tell you that much. Um, but I used to not, first two things. I used to not be into horror at all. Like, horror was one of those ones you mentioned, uh, off the top about someone not being into it. You can, you can. I like hearing about it, but I don't want to watch it. Uh, and it was a number of years ago where I just said, you know what? I should start watching these movies. I work closely with some people for some comic conventions, and they were getting some like, like, Kane Hodder was coming in and all these different things, and I'm like, oh, I've never seen Friday the 13th, so I don't really care. And then I was like, I should probably start watching these things. And then I was hooked. I was like, okay, all I want to watch is horror now. My wife is. My wife is like, I'm scared for you now. Like, all you want to watch is horror.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: Horror so big now that, you know, it's not like it was before.
It's crazy when I hear people say, oh, I don't like horror movies. You know, I watched a horror movie and I hated it. You watched a horror movie? It's so big. You know, you can find horror movies that don't have jump scares and slashers, and it's still gonna be an awesome cinematic experience.
[00:31:21] Speaker A: And I feel like horror as a genre, it's like the same thing. We deal with a lot of the superhero genre. I feel like the superhero genre has so many subgenres to it, you know, like Marvel has like, you know, an ant man movie, which is like a heist movie, and then you have, you know, other movies that are funny movies and comedies and so on. And horror is the same thing. I think horror is an overarching genre, but there's so many subgenres to it. And there could be ones that are just like, wow, is that really a horror movie? I guess it was a horror movie. And then there's ones that are like, that's a horror movie. And I think that there's such a mixture that I feel like I'm not sitting there watching a Halloween over and over and over and over again. I'm watching a variety of different horror movies. It's the same thing now, getting into more reading horror novels and novellas and things. Uh, there's just so many different versions of what horror can be. And then I also wasn't into reading, like, I read comics, and that's about it. And it wasn't until a couple of years ago where I'm like, I guess I should sit down and read a few. Not, I guess I should do that.
[00:32:16] Speaker B: I've been having a reading, uh, Renaissance myself. You know, I was so thoroughly immersed in cinema for Dread Central. And before that, you know, when we're talking about my, am I a horror guy? My love for horror, where all that came from. But yeah, it's great getting back into reading books and that immersive world and having it be my own internal cinematographer. It's a lot of fun and it informs and enhances my own writing.
[00:32:45] Speaker A: The crossover between reading more and a horror has been such an amazing thing. I read books now also as a. Having a, you know, background of the way I started out reading horror, having horror in my life has been cinema. And seeing the reading a book being like, oh my God, I would love to see this as a movie. Like, I'm sure you would too. Like, I definitely think I could see this in something with the VHS series. All of them just scream that because of the fact that it's a visual plot. Like, the idea behind the VHS tape is already great movies.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: I think someone in Hollywood should be knocking on some doors and, you know, making some proposals, making some offers.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: Yeah, see, there you go. Or even like mini series in a sense. Like, you know, those one, like the three episode miniseries of some sort where like, it's a killer VHS series. You know, each, each book has three episodes or something like that in. It would work too. But like, there's something about seeing, wanting to see this and already seeing it in my head. I think there's some books I'm like, that's probably gonna be made into a movie just because it's famous. But then there are some books where I visually start seeing in my mind what this would look like on a screen. And I think that you did a good, extremely good job in this book, writing things to make me visualize them. And that made me go, oh, I want to see this on the screen. But then I'd be pissed because whoever would take it on wouldn't do it justice.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: I mean, it probably wouldn't be as good as in your head, but, you know, you could do a lot. And, you know, one of the fun things I did with teleportasm, you know, I did, you know, really flex my muscles in terms of describing these gruesome body horror events. But I also, initially at least, I left a lot up to the imagination. You know, you have this scene where it's a couple of nurses just kind of like decompressing over coffee after work. And it was a fun way for me to tell a really gruesome story because I wasn't this omniscient narrator. Kind of like, you know, blandly, you know, you know, recording it like on a court reporter machine, you know, this happened, then this happened, then this happened. It could be kind of like people explaining to each other and having the emotional responses. That was a lot of fun.
[00:34:50] Speaker A: And having people be like, you can't be right. It's not true. That's. That's a tale. It's a tall tale. And having me to be like, no, this is really what happened. This is what's really going on with this person. This person teleported. There's. They're stuck. They died because there's a piece of plywood in their head or something like that. Yeah. And then the special effects to it would look amazing in that sense of it. And I would want practical effects, obviously, as the vintage, as a nostalgic part of it, you'd want more practical effects.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: You could do a lot, though, with some subtle CGI, because the people who teleport sometimes change dramatically, sometimes change subtly.
The more you teleport, the more pronounced these uncanny, unnerving changes may become. So there's a lot of room for some good CGI, but, yeah, and with teleporting, the actual, what would it look like to just kind of go up in a puff of purple smoke, you know, and then, you know, pop up somewhere else in the same sort of state? You know, there's a lot of fun love room for digital manipulation there in a way that I think it would actually work and benefit. But, yeah, there's some body horror scenes there, you know, where I really would want people to, like, see the viscera, the. The goop dripping, you know, you can't see that.
[00:36:04] Speaker A: And I would also want a really orgasmic sounding reaction, like, I'm really, really over the top. Like, this is. This is too much for. This is. Oh, my gosh. And someone be like, can we watch that again now somewhere? Like, you're watching it in the other room, and your other. Someone else in your house is like, what are you watching? That's what I was telling a CJ lead about me. I listened to baby fly on audiobook, and I was talking to her, and I was like, I listened to audiobook, and it was almost too loud in my car. And I was at an intersection on an upward hill in my city, and I was at a stoplight, and I was just thinking to myself, I'm like, I guarantee you someone can hear this in the car next to me because of how loud it is. And it was some of the more gruesome, more, more gruesome, but also more just over the top scenes she has written into that book. And I'm like, this person next to me is like, what the hell is this guy listening to? And so you'll get that with a book. You know, it's all in your mind. You're reading it no one can hear what you're reading. But I'm like, an audiobook is like, it's, you can hear it. And I'm just thinking to myself, there's a couple of scenes, if anybody's read Mayfly, there's a couple of scenes in that book that are pretty graphic. And that was one of them. And I was just like, she's like, oh, my God. I can imagine. Just like cruising the strip, you know, someone's listening to music or whatever. I have the windows down. Listening to Mayfly, yeah, that's an experience for sure. But will they do this? I know Candy cane kills ended up on an audiobook, but do you know if there's any plans for having audiobooks or any of the other ones or.
[00:37:37] Speaker B: I'm not sure.
That's Alan's wheelhouse. My first two books have audiobooks. Deeper than hell has an audiobook that's out now. And my follow up septum, the audiobook is currently just being polished up and will be released shortly.
[00:37:57] Speaker A: I'm a hybrid.
This is easy because I think, to me, it's like one of those things that, again, 100 and 7680 pages is an easy read. But I also like for something that's a little bit longer, a hybrid reader. So a lot of times I like, I'll read it in the car on an audiobook, and then I'll like, before I go to bed, I'll pull the actual book out, find out where I was, read the book, just because I can get more books in and finish more things. And so it's nice to have that. But again, this is one of those ones that you literally could just, like on a Saturday, curl up on the couch and just read it. Yeah, it's a, it's one of those things, but yeah. And so are you planning. You have more books? Like, are you looking to write more? I'm guessing. I'm guessing this is not in this part, but like, just in general. Are you writing something currently? Not that you have to say it, but I'm saying, are you currently writing? Are you thinking of things? What's going on?
[00:38:44] Speaker B: Well, I've got another novelization. I wrote a novelization for the film forbidden zone, that cult film from the eighties. And I have another novelization coming out this November of circus of the dead. It's more recent than forbidden zone. It's about ten years old. It's a very violent clown movie, has a huge cult following out in Texas. I don't have an agent or anything. Hopefully if teleportasm is successful or if there's an agent listening. I have about three manuscripts. One is almost ready to be published. The other two need a little work.
But I'm ready to go. I'm ready to sign my next contract.
You know, get, get my next work out there. So, yeah, hit me up if you're on the, if you want to scoot me up and attach yourself to the Joshua Milliken company.
[00:39:39] Speaker A: Company. The train. The trains rolling. You want to get moving up on the train. Yeah. And I do think that's one of those things that Brian McCauley and I forget who, who's the first person who's the rooted villain? Alix. Yes. Abstinence, those two. And you had similar voices, which was nice in the sense that it has to be in for these things, but you also had your own unique vibe to it as well, which is good. One of those things you set yourself apart, but also it was within the same vein, so people wouldn't be completely shocked going from one to two or three. They're not like, this is a completely different novel. I don't want this anymore. But no, like you mentioned before, Alan did keep it. You know, it's, it's a train that's going, and it's had multiple books on it and they all sound at least similar, but you have your own stamp on it, which is cool.
[00:40:28] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:40:29] Speaker A: So that, you know, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone wants to pick up something else from you, Josh, for sure. That's, that's, that's. I would read it, I'll tell you that much. I'm going to be, I mean, now, now that I've read these, and then I have some time diving into your other books as well. Yeah.
[00:40:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Good. And the audiobook encyclopalypse is a great up and coming brand. You know, they started as a niche novelizations company, but they do fiction, original fiction as well. And, yeah, they released two of my books. I'm going to release a second novelization with them this year. And I just love those guys to death as well.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: Jeff, that's awesome. I'm pumped for that. So, yeah, I mean, so it's out technically when this episode we're recording the day before it comes out, but it's actually releasing the day after it comes out. So you can grab teleportasm again. I would highly recommend, you know, buying it directly from shortwave because you get this, this, you know, like I said, the audio, this membership card, and you get the box that it comes in. It also has a list of all the other stuff you also get. I got a coupon for 15% off my next order, too.
[00:41:30] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:41:31] Speaker A: See, there you go. And it actually has Alex's Melanin mayhem book on there, too. Yeah, cover up my QR code there so no one steals my 15% off. No, I go to use it. It's like it's already been used. What the hell?
And they have all kinds of other cool stuff over there at shortwave, too. I know Clay McLeod has a book coming out, and there's.
Yeah, they have some other stuff that's coming out, too, which is pretty cool. That are not part of the Killer VHS series. There are still those novellas.
[00:42:02] Speaker B: It's still going to be a great killer VHS year because, you know, teleportasm comes out tomorrow, and then you have two more in 2024. So, yeah, it's a great time to find out if you love this series, because if you read teleportasm, you immediately have two more to read that you can order right now, and then you have three more to look forward to in the coming, you know, 18 months.
[00:42:27] Speaker A: I'm so excited because Alan sent me last week or the week before that, Cicada digital, so I can read that one, too. So that's on my list to get going to get.
[00:42:37] Speaker B: You should have Tanya. Tanya Pinal on the show. You should get. You've had Brian, you should get Alex, and, you know, have a whole killer VHS playlist.
[00:42:48] Speaker A: We'll have, like, a series that you can go along, read the book, listen to the episode. It's one of those things. I like talking because I like the little insight on things, and I like to talk to you about what's going on in the book, but it's like one of those things, I don't want to spoil it either. So, like, that's why we don't talk.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: We can spoil it, I tell you. You know, as a writer, you know, I worked on this for, like, you know, almost a year and a half, and the only one I talked about it with was Alan, you know, and now that I'm allowed to talk about it, I love talking about it. It's like the damn burst, and, like, I'll gush on it. So whatever you want.
[00:43:18] Speaker A: So I feel like what we should do is I wish it plan is an episode. There's, like, three or four of you on writers from it where we all just spoil it, and it's a spoiler episode, but with this being, like, with the idea that this episode, this. This literally comes out right when the book comes out. I want people to listen to this and then go, oh, I should go pick the book up. Instead of being like, oh, I've heard of the book.
[00:43:36] Speaker B: We can tease aspects of the book.
[00:43:38] Speaker A: The teasing of it is, yeah, don't. Don't get too excited by teleporting, because you might not have it in a wall or in a tree or something, and you might scare the shit out of your parents or feel so good.
[00:43:50] Speaker B: You're just like, fuck it.
[00:43:51] Speaker A: I'm a risk it. You know, I think that's my favorite part about it. It sounds so weird, but, like, I think the favorite part about it is, is that it's euphoric. That there is this. This extra special feeling to doing is not just teleporting, because I feel like most teleportations, including. Or things that bad body manipulation, things are painful and actually doing it, whereas, like, this book, it's not painful doing it really. It's euphoric doing it. It's painful, potentially, with the outcome at the end where you end up teleporting to could be painful, but the actual feeling of teleporting doesn't seem like it's painful. Am I correct about that? That's where the euphoria comes in.
[00:44:31] Speaker B: You know, teleportasm is actually a word that I made up for the effect of teleporting. It's, you know, the state of euphoria and excited delirium that follows a teleportation event. And it's unlike anything you've ever felt, but it doesn't last forever. They're in. The problem is that the.
[00:44:51] Speaker A: When you're done in bed and you're laying next to the. Next to your partner, you're like, why did I do that?
[00:44:59] Speaker B: Are you asleep yet?
Let's do it again.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: I want to teleport again. I want to do it again and again and again. And the fact that it involves a VHS tape is just even more cool. And the funny thing is, it's like, my son's three, right? And so by the time he's old enough for me to be like, you should read teleportasm, he's gonna be like, what the fuck is a VHS tape?
[00:45:18] Speaker B: Right? They're gonna be in the Smithsonian.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: That's the best part. To me, it's like, at least, you know, nowadays, I could probably. People. There are, like, some people that I know that are just more like. They don't. They never held one. There are people like that. Haven't held one or haven't had a VHS player or vs VCR in their house and so on. But there's going to be a point where it's more along the lines of like if I mentioned to someone in high school about a laserdisc, I mean this, oh, I can't see it over here, but this over here is a fivel goes west laserdisc. And when I showed some people the laser disc, like what the, the laser disc, I'm like, this is how you used to watch movies. Or they tried to make it so you could watch movies. I remember in school they had like, the teachers would bring in like, basically it was like a documentary on a laserdisc and they'd stick it in the laserdisc player. It's like, got one little scratch on that thing, you couldn't watch it, right, right. They had like the Titanic was on like six of them because almost no time.
[00:46:10] Speaker B: Huge thick DVD looking things.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: That's Philip Glasser, who voiced Feiglia, signed that for me at a local convention here. And it was funny when I walked up there, go, is this the first time he goes, actually, no. Someone actually has also brought me a five of goes west beat laserdisc. I'm like, God damn it, I wanted to be the only one with one of these things. But no. And VHS tapes mean a lot to me because I grew up on VHS tapes. I'm guessing you did too, being an eighties kid as well. And so that's why if you see behind me, a lot of that, a lot of times if I go to a convention, we give a couple in Maine and I work closely with, and when I go to a convention, a lot of times I bring a VHS, if they've been in a VHS related thing and have them sign that. Because to me it's like that, I'm never going to likely play these things ever again. But there's something so, I don't know, less meaningful behind like a DVD than there is for some reason about a VHS, you know? And I have a buddy of mine.
[00:47:03] Speaker B: They'Re just so, and the smell, the smell of the cardboard specific too. It almost has like a stale bread smell to it. There's just something really special about these little suckers.
[00:47:16] Speaker A: My buddy Bob tackic me give him a shout out there. He's an artist, a comic book artist for Maine, but he does these things, which is pretty cool. He does illustrations on VHS. And so every time I see him at a convention or something like that, I have him do a new one. So this is my copy of Stephen King's it. And I also have Jurassic park. He did one for Jurassic park. And I have over here a spawn one for the spawn tv show that he did spawn drawing on. And so, yeah, that's. That's my also other collected thing is, like, this VHS thing. So I have a stack of them where I'm like, I kind of want Bob to do an illustration on these. So, yeah, VHS tapes. There's nothing more nostalgic to me being an eighties kid than a VHS tape, in my opinion. And that's what's cool about this series. One of the cool things about the.
[00:47:58] Speaker B: Series, another part of alan's genius, you know, is, you know, creating a collectible experience that really hearkens back to the VHS itself.
[00:48:07] Speaker A: Things you level, you, like, level on top of each other. Goosebumps love.
Horror love and nostalgic VHS love. And you got, like, you hit, like, such a great Venn diagram for a bunch of people born in the eighties and potentially image into the nineties and things like that. It's awesome with these things. And then you throw over there, you know, something about orgasmic teleportation is even better than that.
So. But yeah, it comes out June 25, which is obviously yesterday when this episode drops. So check that out. You can get it on Kindle, too, if you want a digital copy. But come on, people, you want this physical copy? Like, you can get on kind of.
[00:48:47] Speaker B: See, you want that box, man.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: You want the box. You want the physical copy. You want this. This is gonna be the next goosebumps, guys. I'll tell you this right now. 30 years from now, people are gonna be like, you have a first edition killer VHS. And I'm like, yeah. And I've got the membership card to go with it. So, you know it's also used as a bookmark, right?
[00:49:02] Speaker B: Yeah, of course.
[00:49:04] Speaker A: But, yeah, check that out. And then check out Brian's other. Brian's. I said Brian. Just thinking about Brian McCauley. Check out Joshua's other books as well online, and check out all your stuff. I can't wait to read more from you.
[00:49:16] Speaker B: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
[00:49:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I appreciate you taking time out of your day to come on chat horror and books and all kinds of things, you know, we'll have you back on when you write another book. Sound good?
[00:49:25] Speaker B: Fantastic.
[00:49:27] Speaker A: Thanks a lot, man.
[00:49:29] Speaker B: Thank you. Here.
