Summer is over, if there were any leaves left in LA after the particularly dry and hot season, they would be turning. The last two weeks saw old forces returning in the form of a new Aphex Twin album!, and a new edition of Space Hulk from Games Workshop! (Try combining the experience, the crackle of vinyl is particularly cinematic as you flame genestealers in claustrophobic corridors.)

The immensely talented author Michael Marshall (Smith) has finally, FINALLY I say, had some of his incredible body of work translated to the screen and the result is The Intruders TV series from BBC America. Now they should just go ahead and produce his adaptation of Clive Barker’s Weaveworld. Speaking of Clive Barker, the gentleman has had three art shows open here in LA this year (or was it four?), and those paintings are wonderful to experience up close, thick paint and scratches, a sight to behold. Come Halloween there will be a release of Barker’s own extended cut of Nightbreed,which is also going to be some occasion.

There should be two music videos coming this year, or when labels decide to hit the go button. They were immense fun to make. They will probably be the last two stop motion films for some time. (I say this every time and then someone shares something too excellent to resist.) Hopefully those previous seven films can be collected at some point. Right now I am working with immensely talented and supportive producers and we are going to go away and make something exciting, and then come back here at some point.

Principal photography for the Killt Spirit film project (Still image above) is done and features performances by Ted Haler (Strange Days) and Kindred Lansdown. This was a really great experience and I am looking forward to the November release. I have signed on to do three music videos, the first of which will start production next week. I am really excited by these three videos which will feature interconnected narratives that span from present day Los Angeles and far, far into the future, to the dark depths of space, and heavy on supernatural horror, noir detective fiction and dystopian science fiction themes.  Also, my short story Human Resources which appeared in the Des Lewis edited short story anthology The First Book of Classical Horror Stories, has received a review by Peter Tennant in Black Static!  He writes:  ‘Music is incidental to ‘Human Resources’ by Karim Ghahwagi, which appears to be channelling Thomas Ligotti’s attitudes to the world of work, with an omnipresent and mysterious company and people engaged in pointless labour, the mood of the piece powerful, dystopian and disturbing.’ I highly recommend this collection which has great stories by Colin Insole, Mark Valentine, John Howard, S.D. Tullis, D.P. Watt and many others. My novella Amerika is available in a limited hard back edition from Ex Occidente Press and you can grab it here and from the great Cold Tonnage Books here.