National Book Award nominee, critic and one of America’s least compromising satirists, Alexander Theroux takes a comprehensive look at the colorful language of pop lyrics and the realm of rock music in general in The Grammar of Rock: silly song titles; maddening instrumentals; shrieking divas; clunker lines; the worst (and best) songs ever written; geniuses of the art; movie stars who should never have raised their voice in song but who were too shameless to refuse a mic; and the excesses of awful Christmas recordings. Praising (and critiquing) the gems of lyricists both highbrow and low, Theroux does due reverence to classic word-masters like Ira Gershwin, Jimmy Van Heusen, Cole Porter, and Sammy Cahn, lyricists as diverse as Hank Williams, Buck Ram, the Moody Blues, and Randy Newman, Dylan and the Beatles, of course, and more outré ones like the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Patti Smith, the Fall (even Ghostface Killa), but he considers stupid rhymes, as well — nonsense lyrics, chop logic, the uses and abuses of irony, country music macho, verbal howlers, how voices sound alike and why, and much more. In a way that no one else has ever done, with his usual encyclopedic insights into the state of the modern lyric, Theroux focuses on the state of language — the power of words and the nature of syntax — in The Grammar of Rock. He analyzes its assaults on listeners’ impulses by investigating singers’ styles, pondering illogical lunacies in lyrics, and deconstructing the nature of diction and presentation in the language. This is that rare book of discernment and probing wit (and not exclusively one that is a critical defense of quality) that positively evaluates the very nature of a pop song, and why one over another has an effect on the listener.

Tales of Hot Rod Horror: Volume 1 is the new book from Cackling Imp Press. It is a graphic novel anthology featuring work By Rick Geary (Victorian Murder Mystery Volumes), David Quinn (Faust), Attaboy (I Hate Cartoons), Devon Devereaux (Graphic Classics), Christopher (The Ghoulie Boys), Andy Ristaino (Life of a Fetus), Adam Gallardo (100 Girls), and many other talented artists and writers. Volume 1 features 14 original stories that have their own unique take on a supernatural Hot Rod theme. The book features a variety of funny, scary and fantastic art. If you dig Twilight Zone, Tales from the Crypt, Ed "Daddy" Roth or just cool things in general, then you will dig this book. Tales of Hot Rod Horror: Volume 1 features a full color painted cover by Devon Devereaux and retails for $10.00.

NeIL, a very, very dark comedy, or drama you feel guilty for laughing at! Meet Neil, our anti-hero, as he sifts through the maelstrom of his troubled life, looking for meaning in this modern-day urban fable. His life is full of high jinks, love, loss... Drugs do a lot of funny things, but as Neil feels increasingly taunted by his own life and his surroundings, is he going mad? Or is someone, or some thing, out to get him? As his world starts to unravel, the joke stops being funny.