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Kirkus Love Keeps Coming for Wistwood
[For inquiries about representation and film rights, email JonathanKieranWriter@gmail.com]
Lovely news just keeps coming into the midst of our secluded Summer idyll. The latest unexpected and inexorably delightful development once again wends its way to my reclusive existence courtesy of Kirkus Reviews, the gold standard for literary criticism in the USA and beyond.
It was honor enough that the Shuriken-sharp and whirling editorial minds at Kirkus bestowed upon Wistwood a thoughtful and glowing assessment. But I have now learned that my chilling novel of metaphysical mayhem and small-town monstrosity has been selected for inclusion (review and all) in the August 15 edition of Kirkus Reviews’ esteemed print magazine.
It has likewise come to my attention that less than 10% of the indie titles reviewed and considered are selected for this particular privilege by the editorial panel at Kirkus.
WHULL!
We are most grateful and possibly even a bit giddy, to put it mildly.
Writing a proper long-form literary work is a lonely business, with no guarantee of validation. Writing such a work well involves the usual shedding of blood, sweat, and tears, along with with that exasperating pound of flesh having been extracted and dropped somewhere along the tortuous path, never to be found again. (Who would want to find it? Think of the flies!) And still there is no guarantee of ultimate validation for one’s prolonged and nerve-shredding effort.
But there’s validation now, baby. Oh yeah.
Thank you, Kirkus editors. Long may your ninja-critiques whirl.
____________________________________________
Jonathan’s oeuvre is stacked upward and to the right of this article. Click on a book cover to learn more or buy something to support his writerly affliction.
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Love for Wistwood from Kirkus Reviews
For over 80 years, Kirkus Reviews has been known as one of the toughest, most respected, prestigious, and no-nonsense sources of serious literary criticism in the world. They remain a bellwether of discerning excellence across a bloated and increasingly chaotic industry landscape.
For an author to get a glowing review from their esteemed masthead and assortment of discriminating professionals is (for this gent) akin to Christmas.
Every.
Day.
Of.
The.
Year.
Look for exciting developments concerning WISTWOOD in the September 15, October 1, and October 15 editions of the print edition of Kirkus Magazine, which remains the industry standard for literary criticism.
Meanwhile, here’s the entire review of WISTWOOD from Kirkus and a link to their official site:
WISTWOOD
An obscure village becomes the site of disconcerting, otherworldly incidents in this supernatural novel.
A lifelong Californian, Nebraska “Brask” Adams has yearned for a “real small-town experience.” Now that he has a book deal with a publisher as well as an advance, he can escape his dour life, including his devoutly religious, condescending older sister. He opts for an affordable cabin rental in the village of Wistwood, somewhere near Big Sur. At the same time, schoolteacher Schuyler Brody, apparently unhappy with her “insufferable” students, is eying an antiques shop there.
But Shep Daltry has darker motivations. He’s a White cop under media scrutiny for savagely beating a woman of color and mother of five. Though his department clears him of any charges, he heads to Wistwood for a new job, which involves sinister “instructions.”
It appears there are two enigmatic individuals with a plan that seems initially vague awaiting these people’s arrivals. Brask is hardly settled in Wistwood when he senses something off—at first, just a store but soon, the entire village. Yet even if he can convince fellow villagers, will anyone be able to leave?
Parts of Kieran’s chilling story are deliberately hazy, with unknown characters discussing cryptic objectives. But detailed backstories ground the narrative, pitting villagers such as former British rock star Lleyton Grayle against something unearthly. Crisp prose gives largely abstract occurrences a visual component: “When she laughed, brief and mocking, the sounds sprang as arrowheads, razor-sharp and dipped in poison from her lips.” Later chapters offer a few revelations, although the author provides enough clues that most readers will have an idea as to what’s unfolding. The final act is disturbing and decidedly more visceral, with a satisfying, open-ended denouement.
An often mysterious but thoroughly horrifying and macabre tale.
(KIRKUS REVIEWS 7/9/20)
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Revisiting Coppola’s ‘Dracula’ 28 Years Later
Amid the tumult of our addlepated society, millions are hopefully taking little excursions into the realm of entertainment, now and then, to relieve the inner-cranial pressure that threatens to explode with caldera-like potency not seen since Yellowstone’s last prehistoric tantrum.
Even if your diversions are random at this point in time, do try to find the wherewithal to enjoy such jaunts … while you may.
My diversions of late have been markedly random. Aside from writing them, books seem to hold less appeal to me than ever before. Voices crooning and screeching from my music system only serve to remind me that humans exist, and movies, in general, have been off my Recreational Activity List for quite a while, due to the fact that most of them have nosedived into the Abyss of Substandard Bilge, there to take-up murky residence with (surprise!) most contemporary books and musical endeavors.
Adventures into dusty and near-forgotten archives of amusement, however, have yielded more satisfying results. Stylish old horror films, for example, can distract the mind from current existential quandaries while performing the neat trick of “staying on theme,” emotionally: doom, gloom, terror, helplessness, death, apocalyptic destruction, and, well, monsters.
Anyhow, I opted to forge into such territory the other day and find some goddamned movie to occupy my otherwise fevered brain for a couple of hours. With my bandwidth running low out here in the hinterlands, I turned instead to the cobwebbed alternative of an old DVD player and its attendant collection of discs, scattered in a dilapidated cardboard box in the closet. To spare myself the creeping madness of choosing, Choosing, CHOOSING, I committed to the first jewel-case my fingers managed to grab amid the hodgepodge.
It was Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. Or, one might say more accurately, Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
This was a great “random grab,” if for no other reason than the fact that Beverly Hills Chihuahua was also lurking somewhere in that heaving cardboard receptacle. (A friend had loaned that film to me years ago for a “kick.” I never watched it and never returned it. Perhaps tellingly, a return was never requested, despite ample opportunity).
Dracula it was, then.
What a leap back into the quasi-misspent days of my youth. More to the point, what a head-trip to watch it again, no matter the moment in time.
I remember going to the cinema to see this rapturous, doddering epic as a mere lad in 1992, the year of its release. To say that Coppola’s take on Bram Stoker’s classic novel had been highly anticipated back then would be putting it mildly. The expensive adaptation caused quite a stir, as I remember. Hollywood critics were poised with their own vampiric fangs ready to draw blood. One can see why; the estimable Coppola was still smarting from the rickety reception of The Godfather Part III and his tackling of another lavish production, one considered well out of his artistic wheelhouse at the time, did not inspire confidence from the bone-picking set.
General audiences, however, were far more willing to give the film a chance—rumors of a “new, never-before-imagined” interpretation of Dracula tantalized. The cast list didn’t hurt, either, at least at first glance. Gary Oldman was not exactly a marquee-level name in those days, but was still a respected actor and beguiling choice to play the legendary Vlad Dracul. The addition of Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder was irresistibly befuddling, but quite wise from a business standpoint because they were hot box office properties.
The film became an unexpected hit around the globe.
What I remembered most about seeing it on the big screen 28 years ago was the lush, transporting cinematography by Michael Ballhaus, crafted fluidly under Coppola’s determined and innovative direction. The whole production unfurled in visual terms as an ever-dazzling chiaroscuro, a nightmarish landscape of insinuating, erotic colors and equally tempting shadows. Much credit was also be given to the effulgent-yet-ominous and mesmerizing designs of costumer Eiko Isioka, whose work leapt from the screen in brushstrokes evocative of Fellini crossed with Hieronymus Bosch.
Then there was Gary Oldman’s extraordinary performance, a reading that not only broke the mold as far as the titular vampire’s canonical portrayal in film as a caped Svengali wearing a burial suit, but which foreshadowed eloquently the subsequent, sometimes annoying, trend of exploring the wronged, “good-sided” soul-qualities of characters otherwise relegated to the camp of Absolute Evil (think Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West in Broadway’s Wicked or any number of reimagined comic book movie villains that have since been “origin-storied” out of their asses).
Even diminished on the smaller screen, the film holds up surprisingly well today. The scope is sweeping and perhaps overlong. The script is jerky-jerky at times. Yes, Keanu Reeves is atrocious in the role of Jonathan Harker, exhibiting all the engagement and charisma of that tall, wooden pepper-mill you stopped using in 2003 and stuck in the very back of a kitchen cupboard, towering awkward and alone above other obsolete utensils. Winona Ryder isn’t much better, but quite lovely in spite of her affected, I-just-got-back-from-the-mall-in-Petaluma performance. Anthony Hopkins doesn’t look like he’s enjoying a single minute of his duties, occasionally boisterous but as dead behind the eyes as any vampire might ever hope to be. Still, Sadie Frost is superb as a supporting player and the sets are so deliciously atmospheric that one is happy to dismiss the miscasting issues and simply revel in the dreamscape Coppola has conjured, particularly since the narrative ends up being sufficiently cohesive and faithful to the novel’s peculiar spirit.
All in all, Dracula remains a feast for the imagination, a welcome respite from the vicissitudes of a world at wars seen and unseen, and I felt as if I could have walked right through the screen, onto the blue-chilling snow, and into that coach on the Borgo Pass, hurtling toward doom and an invitation from Gary Oldman to cross the dreaded castle threshold.
There are worse, far less elegant ways to escape the ongoing tribulations. Dig into your own box of oldies. See what cinematic ghosts may perchance arise.
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Jonathan Kieran’s new, dark, and disturbing supernatural/metaphysical epic, Wistwood, a tale of cosmic horror, is available now at all major international retailers and outlets. Buy it in digital form or in print today. Want a short-cut? Click on the link above and to the right. All of Mr. Kieran’s efforts are there stacked, ready to be purchased and voraciously consumed.
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Wistwood Featured by Duffy the Writer
An article I wrote detailing the impetus behind writing Wistwood, as well as delineating some of the novel’s primary themes, has been published on the outstanding Australian blog, Duffy the Writer. Within the context of the piece I also reference a few of my own literary influences and ponder the timing of Wistwood’s release amid the unexpected onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Invisible horrors, whether in life or in literature, are never to be underestimated.
Have a look at Duffy’s fine blog and my particular contribution HERE.
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Jonathan Kieran’s new, dark, and disturbing supernatural/metaphysical epic, Wistwood, a tale of cosmic horror, is available now at all major international retailers and outlets. Buy it in digital form or in print today. Want a short-cut? Click on the link above and to the right. All of Mr. Kieran’s efforts are there stacked, ready to be purchased and voraciously consumed.
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Three Cheers for Goodreads Winners
The Goodreads Giveaway contest for Wistwood has ended and 15 winners were duly selected from a group of 2,109 entrants vying for a chance to acquire a print copy of the novel. The response on Goodreads–the greatest community of devoted readers on the planet!–exceeded expectations, and I’d like to congratulate the winners personally. Your copies of Wistwood are on their way to you via Amazon, with expected arrival dates for each copy slated around May 18-ish, due to the slightly slower priority shipping schedules necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. But you shall have them soon, indeed, and I wish you all a memorable reading experience, whether intrigued by the exalted or the intensely disturbing aspects of this magical, terrifying, and perhaps enigmatic opus. If you like the book, feel quite free to render your thoughts in review; this wordsmith shall remain eternally grateful … perhaps for several eternities.
Otherwise, have a great time meeting Brask, Schuyler, Shep, Marge, The Landlord, and all the other denizens of Wistwood, and (if you wish) be ready to interact with me when it comes to another special contest we’ll be holding in September in the lead-up to Halloween 2020. There’ll be some “extra special” giveaways planned for those who have read the book, those who are reading it, and those who have added it to their lists.
Meanwhile, I’ll be checking in with the Goodreads crowd frequently throughout the Summer, so if you have any questions about the book or the Wistwood screenplay I’m currently working on, do not hesitate to drop by for a spell (no pun intended).
Much thanks and respect to EVERYONE for their interest and support!
Jonathan Kieran (“Jon”)
Big Sur, CA
May 11, 2020
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Jonathan Kieran’s new, dark, and disturbing supernatural epic, Wistwood, is available now at all major international retailers and outlets. Buy it in digital or print today. Want a short-cut? Click on the link above and to the right. All of Mr. Kieran’s efforts are there stacked, ready to be purchased, and tantalizingly consumed.
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Wistwood Contest on Goodreads
Well, well, friends and connoisseurs of evocative, disturbing, atmospheric and horrifyingly twisted chiaroscuros in the form of literary epics, take heed! You may soon be able to experience the dual adrenaline floods generated by letting the savory decadence of my craftsmanship soak into your tastebuds AND by winning something for free.
Yeah, you heard me.
Goodreads is currently holding a contest and 15 blessed and highly favored winners will win print copies of my new supernatural horror novel, Wistwood.
It’s Day Three of the contest and already more than 800 fans have entered, eager for their chance to bathe in the baleful blood of Providential reward, but there’s still 9 whole days left to put your name into the mix. If you’re not a member of Goodreads (and you really ought to be) then hightail it to Goodreads.com and sign-up for all sorts of opportunities (but especially for Wistwood.)
If already a Goodreads devotee, fly from this site and enter the Wistwood contest forthwith. All it takes is a magical click of the following link:
Jonathan Kieran’s new, dark, and disturbing supernatural epic, Wistwood, is available now at all major international retailers and outlets. Buy it in digital or print today. Want a short-cut? Click on the link above and to the right. All of Mr. Kieran’s efforts are there stacked, ready to be purchased, and tantalizingly consumed.
Consumers of literature in all of its breathtaking diversity are guaranteed to be found lurking among the virtual stacks at Goodreads.
How lovely it is to receive some early love from the reviewers there so soon after the release of Wistwood.
I never thought that a horror book can have beauty in it. I stand corrected.
Wistwood is a poetic nightmare that will take you on an emotional rollercoaster ride. It is a book that every reader must and will experience in his/her own way, there is no way around it. It is an allegory of life itself, intense and disturbing, yet at the same time full of beauty.
A one in a million piece of craftsmanship that will touch you one way or another.
Danke!
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Jonathan Kieran’s new dark, creepy, disturbing, epic, Wistwood, is available now at all major international retailers and suppliers. Buy it in digital or print today. Want a short-cut? Click on the link above and to the right. All of Mr. Kieran’s efforts are stacked there.
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WISTWOOD: Sometimes …
… the deadliest secrets are the ones we keep from ourselves.
Author Jonathan Kieran returns with the epic novel WISTWOOD, a terrifying, dark fable for darkening days. With a hint of redemption to wash the horror down.
by Roger C. Lindstrom
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Don’t Force the Mix (and sundry)
If you’re the ‘water’ in an acquaintance that simply isn’t working out, get the hell away from the ‘oil’ as fast as your feet will carry you.
If you’re the oil, don’t worry about it. You’ll just rise to the top.
These words (my own) popped into the windmills of my mildly wheeling brain the other night for reasons upon which I shall not elaborate, due to the fact that said reasons are not really worthy of elaboration, and the remark above explains everything in a nutshell … or in a bottle of salad dressing, if you prefer.
Yet, I have no doubt that we can all relate to this truth, no matter which corner of the globe we happen to occupy at any given time, living life as best we can while the whole extravaganza spins onward through space, hurtling like an over-enthusiastic vaudeville act desperate to make an impression amid hosts of competing performers on the vast, star-glittered Stage of the Cosmos.
In short: don’t waste time with people who don’t appreciate you. Life is over in a blink.
Be the oil in the equation. A bit of self-preservational slipperiness and “density privilege” can come in handy, every now and then.
In other news, much more important and–at long last–rock solid information about the upcoming novel is forthcoming. There have been a few snags along the route as decisions took unexpectedly different twists and turns at various junctures in the past eight months, but all is well in hand and exciting developments are set to be revealed with aplomb and a slew of firm specifics in the coming weeks.
Much thanks for all patience during the interim, and do stay tuned. It will be rather worth it if I do say so myself.
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Jonathan Kieran’s epic new book, WISTWOOD, is slated for release in Spring 2020. Kieran is also the author of the Rowan Blaize series of classically appointed contemporary fantasy books (Brightbourne 2012), as well as the critically acclaimed (Midwestern Book Review, Manhattan Book Review) Confessions From The Comments Section: The Secret Lives of Internet Commenters and Other Pop-Culture Zombies. In addition, Jonathan creates and draws the irreverent Zanzibar Circus cartoon and comic strip. His work has been featured on The Daily Dot.com and in a plethora of other ‘zines, papers, and alt-weeklies. Click on the book covers above and to the right if you want to learn more about Jonathan’s current and upcoming titles or purchase them at Amazon.com.
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ZANZIBAR CIRCUS 12.25.19
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Jonathan Kieran’s epic new book, WISTWOOD, is slated for release in Spring 2020. Kieran is also the author of the Rowan Blaize series of classically appointed contemporary fantasy books (Brightbourne 2012), as well as the critically acclaimed (Midwestern Book Review, Manhattan Book Review) Confessions From The Comments Section: The Secret Lives of Internet Commenters and Other Pop-Culture Zombies. In addition, Jonathan creates and draws the irreverent Zanzibar Circus cartoon and comic strip. His work has been featured on The Daily Dot.com and in a plethora of other ‘zines, papers, and alt-weeklies. Click on the book covers above and to the right if you want to learn more about Jonathan’s current and upcoming titles or purchase them at Amazon.com.
+ Adventures in American Self-Loathing, Artwork, cartoons, comic strips, comics, Satire, Uncategorized, zanzibar circus
ZANZIBAR CIRCUS 11.13.19
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Jonathan Kieran’s epic new book, WISTWOOD, is slated for release in Spring 2020. Kieran is also the author of the Rowan Blaize series of classically appointed contemporary fantasy books (Brightbourne 2012), as well as the critically acclaimed (Midwestern Book Review, Manhattan Book Review) Confessions From The Comments Section: The Secret Lives of Internet Commenters and Other Pop-Culture Zombies. In addition, Jonathan creates and draws the irreverent Zanzibar Circus cartoon and comic strip. His work has been featured on The Daily Dot.com and in a plethora of other ‘zines, papers, and alt-weeklies. Click on the book covers above and to the right if you want to learn more about Jonathan’s current and upcoming titles or purchase them at Amazon.com.
+ Lovably Bad TV Hall of Lame, Lowest Common Denominator, Magical Childhood, Memoirs of a Demigod, Nostalgia, Pop HazMat All-Time Most Annoying TV Characters, Pop Hazmat Kids' TV On-The-Cheap!, Uncategorized
Lovably Bad Kids’ TV On-The-Cheap: Mr. Dressup
TODAY’S DUBIOUS HONOREE: MR. DRESSUP (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 1967-1996)
GUILTY OF VEHICULAR FANSLAUGHTER: Ernie Coombs (Canada’s answer to Mr. Rogers … only a lot more caffeinated and likely to bounce off the cardboard walls)
RUDIMENTARY ANALYSIS: Nothing touches the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) for producing tatty but creative kids’ shows that were built to last and rife with mangy-looking puppets suffering from Borderline Personality Disorders! As a bumpkin-child in the woods of upstate New York, I couldn’t wait to fill my impressionable mind with that one-of-a-kind brand of folksy Canadian Crazy that the CBC pumped into our living rooms on a daily basis via programming like The Friendly Giant and the legendary Mr. Dressup.
Mr. Dressup was probably the “King” of cheesy children’s TV, at least for youngsters in our region who depended upon the seemingly limitless pipeline of entertainment thrift utilized by producers just across the border — producers who had to stage a show with nothing but four or five Ping-Pong balls, construction paper, two asbestos oven-mits and maybe a ukulele. The brain-trusts in Toronto knew how to BRING IT! I only wish today’s bloated and shiftless TV execs could do in an hour with their $9 million budgets what Mr. Dressup’s team obviously did in 10 minutes for a few bucks and a six-pack of Carling-O’Keefe.
Mr. Dressup ran daily from 1967-1996, amassing over 4,000 episodes packed with wanton childishness. That was the whole point! Like most children’s TV programs since the days of Caesar and Cleopatra, the setting and context of the actual characters on Mr. Dressup lacked verisimilitude. Wait. Scratch that. The set-up made absolutely no freakin’ sense whatsoever. First of all, you had a loner-type adult person with no fashion-sense and no apparent prospects for marriage (Mr. Dressup) living in a tiny house crammed with semi-magical knick knacks and strange outfits that were kept in something called a “Tickle Trunk” while, out in the back yard, a child biologically unrelated to the adult lived in a tree.
Uh huh.
On the Mr. Dressup show, the treehouse-dwelling child was a freckled puppet named “Casey”. Casey looked like an unfinished Lady Elaine Fairchilde marionette stolen from the Mr. Rogers set, fitted with a blond page-boy wig and wrapped in a tea-cozy. A parade of disheveled, disoriented and equally unrelated puppet-people streamed constantly through the door of the little house to visit the adult loner and the boy he kept in the backyard tree. This highly unusual and improbable “family unit” was unexplained and therefore taken for granted by the viewing public at the time. We called it “the magic of children’s television.”
Today they call it “a particularly disturbing episode of Law and Order:SVU.”
But that’s how kids’ programming rolled in the days before unseen parents allowed their irritating real-life children to play in the park unsupervised with an obese purple dinosaur on Zoloft that taught them to chant endless verses of black magic composed by Lucifer, Lord of Hell.
In terms of plot, the Mr. Dressup show was rather formulaic and predictable, which was an attribute beneficial to a developing child’s mind, I believe. That whole dynamic has certainly changed. Mr. Dressup, ever-exuberant in his bow-tie and suspenders, would greet his friends in TV Land and prepare them for a morning of storytelling that always involved the retrieval of some indicative costume from the Tickle Trunk. The costume was usually made out of colored gauze, tinfoil and discarded candy wrappers, but we didn’t care, as kids. Sometimes, to our horror, the Tickle Trunk wouldn’t even open, forcing Mr. Dressup to actually “coochie-coo” the damn thing until it coughed-up the goods. That trunk was a coy little tramp.
Once Mr. Dressup donned the Kleenex cape or the fake beard made out of cotton yanked from a thousand Q-tips, he would tell some brief fairy tale that sent us all off to Imagination Town in our pea brains. After that it was time to head out into the backyard for a visit with Casey in the treehouse. The best part about Casey was actually his constant companion, Finnegan the Dog, who looked like an unlaundered sailor’s sock after a nine-month tour of duty. Finnegan the Dog was great because he was entirely mute. Couldn’t bark a note. Couldn’t growl. Couldn’t talk. He was the only silent creature of Irish extraction I ever saw. Mr. Dressup or Casey would talk to Finnegan or ask his opinion about something and the puppeteer would merely make Finnegan’s “mouth” move silently and he would whisper the answer in Casey’s ear. Casey would then translate/interpret Finnegan’s response. He was the original Dog-Whisperer, that Casey.
An assortment of guests would soon follow. An alligator-puppet cleverly named “Alligator” might drop by to yammer-on about God-Knows-What and at least once a week you could count on a visit from Aunt Bird, who was the show’s requisite “dazed and confused” elderly puppet. Poor Aunt Bird never made much sense, always looked like she had possibly been mauled in an alley by Finnegan the Dog’s more aggressive canine relations, and she was a definite candidate for Lady Rogaine or whatever it is they recommend for women with unsightly bald patches. Sometimes in tow with Aunt Bird was her niece, Miss Biz, a bug-eyed specimen who was as neurotic and disconnected as Elaine Stritch. Miss Biz, with only about a dozen strands of pink, wispy boa-feathers protruding from her lumpy head as “hair” clearly inherited the Female-Pattern Baldness gene from her dizzy aunt. I always figured there must’ve been an ostrich or maybe a vulture in that follicle-challenged bird-family’s woodpile. Anyhow, after all of this pointless but riveting Goodness, Casey and Finnegan would go to sleep in the treehouse, Aunt Bird and Miss Biz would fly off to whatever sorry, hair-lined nest they called home and Mr. Dressup would conclude the show with a consultation of the Wise Old Owl, which was a framed picture of an owl that would magically come to life and open its cardboard eyes, roll them, say: “Who, who, to-wit, to-woo …” and then offer some word of encouragement to insecure children all over the world … or at least within a 150-mile radius of Toronto, Ontario.
It’s amazing how such low-budget yet creative and lovingly crafted productions had the power to mesmerize children, once upon a time. These characters became as familiar to us as friends when we were young and life was a bit simpler. It all went down not that long ago — as noted, the Mr. Dressup show racked-up 29 years of whimsical entertainment and over 4000 little episodes before the Tickle Trunk demanded a cut of the syndication profits or went on the fritz and refused to reveal its secrets for the unappreciative ADHD demographic of the burgeoning Cyber Age. That’s okay. When the asteroid hits and the Zombie Apocalypse is unleashed upon what precious little is left of civilization, we’ll all be forced to live in treehouses with pets rendered mute by radiation poisoning. I figure I’ll be one of the few who’s ready.
Thank you, Mr. Dressup.
DEFINITIVE DIALOGUE: “Three little birdies, happy and gay. Three little birdies fly away.” (Classic chart-topping Mr. Dressup lyrics)
WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Ernie Coombs, who played Mr. Dressup for almost 30 years on the CBC, went on to become a popular figure on the college lecture circuit, especially for generations of students who had “grown up” with the beloved children’s program. Ernie Coombs passed away in 2001. RIP, Mr. D. As for the OTHERS …
Casey from the Treehouse …
The discombobulated “Aunt Bird” …
The Tickle Trunk …
Of all the Mr. Dressup cast-members, the Tickle Trunk appears to have fared the best in private life. Tickle Trunk (pictured on the left) is now owned by Lance and Bartholomew, a fabulous Greenwich Village couple who specialize in restoring worn-out receptacles of all shapes and sizes. “We needed a place to keep our collection of damask napkins and, well, we certainly love to tickle,” said Lance. “It was really a no-brainer.”
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Jonathan Kieran’s epic new book, WISTWOOD, is slated for release in Spring 2020. Kieran is also the author of the Rowan Blaize series of classically appointed contemporary fantasy books (Brightbourne 2012), as well as the critically acclaimed (Midwestern Book Review, Manhattan Book Review) Confessions From The Comments Section: The Secret Lives of Internet Commenters and Other Pop-Culture Zombies. In addition, Jonathan creates and draws the irreverent Zanzibar Circus cartoon and comic strip. His work has been featured on The Daily Dot.com and in a plethora of other ‘zines, papers, and alt-weeklies. Click on the book covers above and to the right if you want to learn more about Jonathan’s current and upcoming titles or purchase them at Amazon.com.
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