Dickens: okay listen up, you grinches, i'm about to melt your icy hearts with another tale of yuletide joy
Dickens: it's called the mother's eyes
Dickens: it's about this guy who murders a guy cuz he has a weird eye
Poe:
Dickens: and then his guilty conscience causes him to go insane
Poe:
Dickens: i know what you're thinking
Dickens: 'Charles, how did you come up with such an original concept?'
Poe: that's not what i was
Barker: YEAH
Barker: that's exactly wha...
Charles Dickens: ho ho ho it's me, Mr Christmas!
Dickens: time for more Christmas cheer!
Poe: it's january, charles
Dickens:
Dickens:
Dickens:
Dickens: you know what your problem is, edgar?
Dickens: you don't love Christmas!
Poe: you're lashing out, Charles
Dickens: it's true!
Dickens: why, you're nothing but a…a…
Dickens: you know
Dickens: a
Dickens: a guy who hates Christmas!
Dickens: god, i wish there was a pithy name for that kind of person...
JK Rowling: hello children
Rowling: i finally know why the ungrateful kidss thesse dayss have been rejecting harry potter
Barker: we all figured that out a long time ago
Poe: clive
Barker: oh i'm sorry edgar
Barker: am i wrong?
Poe:
Poe: no you're not wrong
Rowling: you know why the children today don't like harry potter?
Barker: oh this is going to be good
Rowling: it'ss becausse they've fallen out of love with liberalisssm
Barker: ah haha ha
Poe: boy
Poe: boy it's sure been a year, hasn't it?
King: edgar, it's January
Poe: it looks like the regime is letting up
Mary Shelley: how do you figure that
Poe: they demoted greg bovino
Mary Shelley: not good enough
Shelley: i want him [redacted]
Shelley: and also [redacted]
Shelley: [redacted]
Poe: whoa! Mary!
Poe: you can't
Poe:
Poe: well
King: she's not wrong
Poe: i didn't say she was wrong
Poe: it's just
Poe: there might be mods ...
In theory, we were supposed to talk about the Rube Goldberg-penned 1930 film "Soup to Nuts," but we got distracted and instead went through the entire history of the Ruben Award. The important takeaway is that, for a podcast ostensibly dedicated to comic strips, we know remarkably little about comic strips. Mike gets really made about Rhymes with Orange in this episode. 2026-01-26 05:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Dickens: you're all a bunch of humbugs
Dickens: none of you understand the true meaning of Christmas!
Barker: what about Katherine arden?
Dickens: what?
Barker: her book is about the real reason for the season
Katherine Arden: what
Arden: i didn't write anything about Christmas
Barker: no but you wrote about that hot, hot fuckable santa
Arden: i did not write about fuckable santa!
Arden: i wrote about morozko!
Arden: he's a totally different mythological chara...
Charles Dickens: merry Christmas, everyone!
King:
Poe:
Koontz:
Barker:
Lovecraft:
Poe: it's January, Charles
Dickens: not to me!
Dickens: to me, it's always Christmas!
Dickens: who's in the mood for another dickens holiday classic?
Poe: it's not really the season, Charles
Dickens: it's Christmas all year long as far as I'm concerned, edgar!
Dickens: the people want more Christmas stories and by kris kringle i'm gonna give it to them!!
Dickens: cuz ...
2026-01-22 17:00:22 +0000 UTC View Post
Betty Boop is in the public domain now! Well, sort of. The original Betty Boop, where she's a dog, is in the public domain. To commemorate this momentous day, we look at three incarnations of the Boopster: her original appearance in "Dizzy Dishes," her appearance with Little Jimmy in "Betty Boop and Little Jimmy," and the Bill Melendez special "The Romance of Betty Boop."<...
2026-01-19 05:00:33 +0000 UTC View PostPoe: Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of eureka
Poe: this is going to be a little different from my usual stuff
Poe: it's actually a scientific meditation on the nature of the universe
Barker: is this one of those things where you have to be high to get it
Barker: cuz if it is, i want to know now
Poe: no! it's not just some ridiculous navel-gazing drivel!
Poe: it's actually a complete system of cosmology
Poe: arrived at via facts...
[scottish castle]
JK Rowling's agent: hey joanne
agent: you wanted to see me?
JK Rowling: yesss
Rowling: i want to enquire
Rowling: how are sssales of the hallmarked man?
agent:
agent: sales of what?
Rowling: the latesst cormoron ssstrike book
agent:
agent: you're still writing cormoron strike?
Rowling: of courssse i'm sstill writing cormoran ssstrike booksss!
Rowling: it'ss my main thing!
agent: i thought you pivoted entirely to posting? ...
Adam Nevill: Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this the tale of the wyrd
Nevill: it's actually not so much a tale now that i think about it
Koontz: is it more of a story?
Nevill: close, dean!
Nevill: a story is another word for a tale
Nevill: but good try
Nevill: this is what i like to call
Nevill: a dereliction
King: ooo! sounds spooky!
King: i like that
King: "dereliction"
King: just rolls off the tongue
Nevill: okay so imag...
2026-01-12 17:00:19 +0000 UTC View Post
In 1984, Weird Al Yankovic teamed up with Scooby Doo to host a special preview of all the cool upcoming cartoons that kids could see on ABC Saturday mornings that season. For a long time, it seemed like no one had taped that special and it was doomed to be forever lost media. Well, someone finally uploaded it to the Internet, so now we can finally see... 2026-01-12 05:00:12 +0000 UTC View Post
JK Rowling: hello children
Poe: oh hi joanne
Poe: do you have something to
Rowling: I have sssomething to sssay
Poe: is it about
Rowling: iran ssseemss to be unusssually full of gryffindorsss
Poe: oh!
Poe: oh i was not expecting that
Poe: i thought it was gonna be about
Barker: you thought it was gonna be about trans women?
Poe: yeah i really thought it was gonna be about trans women
Poe: this is kind of a pleasant change
Poe: a little odd but pleasant
2026-01-11 18:59:53 +0000 UTC
View Post
Stephen King: guys i just came up with a great idea for a story
King: what if you saw a bunch of mannequins driving a car?
Lovecraft:
Barker:
Poe:
Koontz: whoa!
Koontz: that would be crazy!
King: wouldn't it?
Debbie Dadie: excuse me
Dadie: excuse me
Dadie: well actually
Dadie: i am afraid that i must point out a factual error in your statement
Dadie: mannequins don't drive cars
Marcia Jones: indubitably!
King: think about it
King: usually whe...
[unicorn fuck club]
JRR Tolkien: sorry chaps I can't speak tonight
Tolkien: i'm afraid i'm quite busy at my day job
Tolkien: being a professor at oxford
CS Lewis: wow, a professor AND a writer? must be hard
Tolkien: you have no idea
Tolkien: let me tell you
Tolkien: being a professor is no cake walk
CS Lewis: oh?
Tolkien: yeah, see
Tolkien: there's this one really annoying student
Tolkien: i can't wait to get away from this stupid teaching
Tolkien: an...
In 1984, Weird Al Yankovic teamed up with Scooby Doo to host a special preview of all the cool upcoming cartoons that kids could see on ABC Saturday mornings that season. For a long time, it seemed like no one had taped that special and it was doomed to be forever lost media. Well, someone finally uploaded it to the Internet, so now we can finally see... 2026-01-05 05:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
[white house]
Trump: so we're bombing venezuela now
Trump: no reason, really, just because
Trump: we just had all these bombs lying around
Trump: and we thought
Trump: why not
JD Vance: masterful gambit, sir
Larry Niven: MR PRESIDENT, MR PRESIDENT!
Niven: we heard the news and we came as fast as we could
Trump: who's this
Niven: we are
Niven: SIGMA
narrator: SIGMA is the secret code name for a think tank of costumed science fiction writers dedicated to a...
Damon Knight: holy machine learning process! it seems that people don't AI slop being elligible for the nebula!
Knight: what to do?
Knight: i'll feed the question into the bat computer
Erin Underwood: never fear, erin underwood is here!
Erin Underwood: people don't like AI slop?
Underwood: don't worry, i'll use my methodical reasoning and clever arguments to explain
Underwood: why the issue of submitting to the will of the machine
Underwood: is just the smart thing to ...
Damon Knight: hello citizens
Knight: it's me, damon knight
Knight: science fiction writer, SFWA founder, and vigilante crime fighter
Barker: yeah that scans
Poe: how do you figure that, clive?
Barker: i mean with a name like damon knight
Poe: oh yeah that makes sense
Damon Knight: i founded the SFWA for one purpose and one purpose only
King: was it to protect the interests of science fiction writers?
Knight: no, citizen
Knight: only a caped crusader working un...
In 1984, Weird Al Yankovic teamed up with Scooby Doo to host a special preview of all the cool upcoming cartoons that kids could see on ABC Saturday mornings that season. For a long time, it seemed like no one had taped that special and it was doomed to be forever lost media. Well, someone finally uploaded it to the Internet, so now we can finally see... Saturday Morning Previ...
2025-12-29 05:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostCharles Dickens: holy shit you guys
Dickens: turns out everyone really loved a Christmas carol
Dickens: this whole Christmas ghost story idea is a gold mine!
Dickens: i'm gonna write a new ghost story for EVERY Christmas!
Dickens: and each one is gonna be BIGGER than the last!
Dickens: don't believe me? just watch!
Dickens: ok ok ok
Dickens: you got this Charles
Dickens: how hard can it be to replicate the once-in-a-lifetime success of the story that singlehandedly ...
Charles Dickens: hey it's Christmas!
Dickens: you know what that means!
Clive Barker: Christmas was last week, man
Dickens: it means
Dickens: what?
Dickens: no no that can't be!
Charles Dickens: [throwing open window] You boy! what day is today?
Victorian moppet: oy, what day is it? why, it's the week after Christmas, sir!
Dickens: the week after Christmas???
Dickens: jesus christ
Dickens: what a fuckin fiasco
Dickens: i bet this is hans Christian Andersen'...
Mike and Ethan have got the crew together again! Rocketshark, Fattyatomicmutant and Glumdrop are all here to save Christmas! Sometimes you just want Christmas to STAY. SAVED, you know? I feel like the maid! That's why we're getting together to watch Christmas episodes with the highly specific theme of "Santa is real and the heroes meet him in person", featuring Mighty Morp...
2025-12-22 05:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post[scottish castle]
JK Rowling: ugh! i'm tired of all thesssse people online making fun of my black mold!
Rowling: that'sss it!
Rowling: today isss the day that i do sssomething about it
Rowling: wormtongue! i call you to me!
John Boyne: yes your evilness, right away your rottenness!
Rowling: ah perfect
Rowling: ssee this is what i like about you wormtongue
Rowling: you're sso resspectful
Rowling: not like that other wormtongue i used to have
Rowling: it turn...
It's the holiday season, so it's Rankin Bass time! Rankin Bass made SO MANY holiday specials that were all sort of stealth Christmas specials. They still hold up, especially Jack Frost -- which is fun and also has everyone's favorite asshole Kubla Kraus the Cossack King!
2025-12-15 05:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostKing: you know we haven't seen JK Rowling in a while
King: is she still tweeting?
Barker: ha ha ha oh steve
Barker: ha ha ha ha ha
Barker: ha ha ha ha ha ha
King: what's so funny?
Barker: ha ha ha!
King: c'mon i want to know the joke
Koontz: golly, what did happen to JK Rowling?
Barker: well, ol JK just doesn't come around much anymore
Barker: now she lives alone in her Scottish castle
Barker: high up on miserable mountain
Barker: no humans or animals...
2025-12-11 17:00:16 +0000 UTC View PostGraham Joyce: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of some kind of fairy tale
Joyce: it's about a girl who gets kidnapped by fairies
Joyce: and i know what you're thinking
Joyce: but my fairies are different
Joyce: this girl is kidnapped by fairies but then
Joyce: she comes back
Arthur Conan Doyle: a returnee from fairyland?
Doyle: my god, this could be the biggest interdimensional cross rip since the Jennifer McMahon's story last we...
Matt Maxwell: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of no tomorrows
Maxwell: it takes place back in the cool dank cyberpunk noir future of 1980s Los Angeles
Maxwell: where veteran punk rocker turned cool chick Macready is being cool
Maxwell: when she's not hanging out at cool scene clubs or posing in cool silhouette on fog-shrouded noir streets
Maxwell: cait works as a book restorer
Maxwell: and now she's working on a very special book
M...
A comet is threatening Moominland in this animated adaptation of the beloved Moomin comics by Finnish cartoonist Tove Marika Jansson. Moomin and his pals go to an observatory to get some info about a comet that's going to kill them all. Meanwhile, a philosopher takes up residence in the Moomin household. It's all very cute. Listen to Comet in Moominland.
2025-12-08 05:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostColleen Hoover: anyway i have a fun, sassy little romance for you that i think you'll all love
Hoover: it's totally normal and NOT fucked up in any way
Poe: ok this is really not assuaging me
King: let it go, edgar
Barker: yeah i'm getting real excited for this one
Barker: too fucked up for the romance writers campfire?
Barker: yeah this is gonna be a doozy
Hoover: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of verity
Hoover: verity mean...