THIRTEEN HITS FROM HELL BY SAM RICHARD

You know the songs. They’re etched into every punk’s brain. Not just because they’re catchy, but because there’s something else there. Glenn Danzig’s lyrics evoke intense imagery. Beautiful, dark, monstery imagery. There’s poetry between the whoa-oh-ohs. There are stories in those songs. They just need to be told. Now, underground fiction’s most talented fiends have created a series of tales inspired by the Misfits. In these pages, an astro zombie contemplates the life she left behind as she goes into flesh-ripping battle. A team of organ harvesters shows just how violent the world can be. A wannabe true crime reporter goes on a grisly road trip that takes him a little too close to his subject matter. A mysterious set of skulls pushes a young woman to create a collection of her very own. A teenager from mars excavates the fetid product of his earthly lust. These new twists on the songs you love are sure to surprise, startle, sicken and force you to see this timeless horror punk in a completely different light.  Read on to find out why MP Johnson and Sam Richards decided to create an anthology dedicated to the most horror of the horror punk bands The Misfits.  

About this time last year, MP Johnson and I were in the early stages of piecing together what would be our second literary anthology. Our first had been the disgustingly fun Blood for You: A Literary Tribute to GG Allin, which put the Scumfuc supreme in all varieties of bizarre situations – a book strange enough to be included on Max Booth III’s Lit Reactor article ‘5 of the Weirdest Themed Anthologies To Ever Get Published.’ But where do you go once you’ve put out a book brimming with every bodily fluid, crammed full of all manner of fucked up violence, and decidedly super goddamn fun to work on? After thinking it over for a little bit, the obvious answer hit us: the Misfits.

Buy why the Misfits? Both being lifelong Misfits fans, it seemed a no brainer to combine the surreal, violent world(s) that pour from Danzig’s lips with horror, bizarro, and sci-fi fiction short stories. Their songs are filled with surreal images, vintage haunts, monstrous transgressions, and creatures from both the vast beyond and the dark unknown inside us all. B-movie cliché transformed into nightmarish hellscapes with no sense of internal logic; 60’s cultural icons elevated to the levels of gods and conspiratorially ripped back down again as we play in their fresh blood and revel in the mess; paranoia and madness intertwined with technology and overwhelming lust. That’s why. These songs have legs, and they’re ever following you down dark, harrowing street.

From the moment the submission call went out we were floored with the quantity and quality of what all these fiends had dreamt up. From that mountainous stack of outrageous, interesting, and hallucinatory submissions, we found thirteen stories begging to be included. The most difficult part was rejecting all the other stories that so gracefully captured the spirits of other songs. It was a tight finish, but given our self-imposed guidelines, these thirteen stories (plus MP and I each including a Bonus Track) were exactly what we needed them to be.

One of the important things about Misfits songs, both lyrically and sonically, are their commitment to the weird in so many aspects and shapes, textures and atmospheres. One of our main goals was to capture that variety by choosing stories that capture the eerie feelings and sinister vibes of the songs influencing them, without too much overlap in theme and flavor. So the pulpy, sci-fi-horror of Matthew Vaughn’s “Exterminate the Whole Human Race” and the mad-cap, prison horror insanity of Ross Peterson’s “Prison Food” are able to balance nicely with Glen Damien Campbell’s twisted, Lynchian “Helena Drive” and the creepy, patient madness of Jose Cruz’s “American Gods, American Monsters.” All different aspects of the weird that the Misfits tapped into, all written with different intentions and desires, and yet all are Hybrid Moments.
​
Released late 2016, it’s still too early to say if we were successful in our mission of merging Misfits songs with the varieties of the weird in literature. I know both MP and I are immensely proud of this book and are amazed by the incredible work done by the contributors, but only time and feedback will tell if we got anywhere close to where we were aiming. And with that, I ask for you to give Hybrid Moments: A Literary Tribute to the Misfits a try, and let us know what you think. It would be our pleasure if you would choose to come scream with us.