Quigley's Chapbooks
Has anyone else here read any of Kevin Quigley's chapbooks (from CD Pubs) focusing on various aspects of the Stephen King Canon? Do you even know who Kevin is? Well I met him at the very first SKEMERCon back in something like 1997 as we tromped around Bangor for the first time, gawking at King's home on Broadway, spending way way too much time browsing at Betts Bookstore and listening to Stu and Penney Tinker and their tales. Chatting at the Standpipe through all hours of the night (with alcoholic persuasion of course)!
Kevin's [Stephen King] knowledge way back then amazed me for such a youngster - he was in his early 20's back then. Now it astounds me. Kevin is my friend and the webmaster at Charnell House which is a Stephen King Fan Site that has lasted for 15 years - he reviews everything King has written and his reviews are frightfully insightful. I went to the Bag of Bones Booksigning at Betts with him back in 1998 (I might add that is where I also met our very own Carlos Detweiler aka Bob Jackson), and in writing of those escapades in a [now defunct] SMEMER Newsletter he dubbed me Bob Ireland, Mr. Mojo Risin, the Lizard King based on the music (including The Doors) I played loudly in the car ride from Boston to Bangor. I did not realize for several years that Mr Mojo Risin was simply an anagram for Jim Morrison who is also know as the Lizard King, but that is another tale.
As to Kev's chapbooks, there are five of them as follows:
- Wetware - talking about all things King on the Internet
- Ink in the Veins - reviewing those that review and digest all things King, or profess to be the most knowldegeable such as Collings, Beahm, Spignesi, Vincent, Furth, Wood, ...
- Blood in the Ears - all things King for the audiophile and analyses of the recordings themselves
- Chart of Darkness - mapping out all things King on the Best Seller lists and making what seems droll to be fun and ingteresting (at least to me)
- Drawn into Darkness - all things King on the Comic Landscape, which surrently seems to be in overdrive
I have Wetware in print and the other four as ebooks - at $0.99 they are a bargain.
I like them all - I think that Kevin's writing is demonstrative of a writer that is good at what he does, that knows his material. If you read The Chart of Darkness you'll understand the amazing amount of research that had to go into the effort.
But what got me to thinking about wanting to write this post follows. You see Kevin asked me for some help on a bit of research, if not to simply provide him with some obscure photocopies/scans, which I happily complied with. What else are friends for anyway! I was pleasantly surprise as I read in Drawn Into Darkness specifically on page 6, the Dedication page which simply reads:
for Bob Ireland, Mr. Mojo Risin'
Thank You Kevin - it means a lot to me! Now you know the rest of the story! (why I have The Lizard King under my avatar)
By the way, he has two books coming out from CD Pubs in the near future, one a Movie Trivia book co-written with Lilja and Brian Freeman, and a second called A Good Story and Good Words: The Many Worlds of Stephen King.
