Back in 2002 some friends and I decided to each write a Christmas ghost story and then read them to each other that Christmas eve night. My contribution was called Silent Night and I've put it up online here - so go and have a read if you'd like a little Festive Fright!

Last week Murray and I completed our podcast discussions for those ten adventure films I blogged about earlier in the year and you can listen to our chat about Ray Harryhausen's The Golden Voyage of Sinbad at the Adventure Film Podcast blog. We do intend to record an eleventh podcast, an overview of film adventure and to see if any interesting conclusions can be drawn from the films we discussed. Your thoughts are most welcome too!

I wanted to review a small pile of excellent small press titles received over the past couple of months, but have run out of time. Instead, let me point you towards them - all top quality and well worth adding to your reading list: wonderful artwork and superhero drama with Martin Eden's Spandex; stylistic and metropolitan comics antholgy from David O'Connell and friends with Ink + Paper; worthy and marvellous successor to Whores of Mensa, Strumpet; north-east heroics and intrigue with Daniel Clifford and Gary Bainbridge's Sugar Glider. And if you want some excellent comic reading throughout 2012, and you haven't done so already, do yourself a big favour and go and subscribe to The Phoenix - it is something truly special.

Lastly, don't forget that The Rainbow Orchid volume 3, the concluding episode, will be published at the beginning of April 2012 - precisely ten years since it was first serialised in BAM! (issue 22, April 2002). The Dutch edition, De Regenboog Orchidee, will be published in May. In the meantime, here's the completed cover for you.

Have a lovely Christmas!