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Your short story anthology Dr. Gangrene's Tales from Parts
Unknown - how would you describe it in just a few words?
It’s an anthology featuring 14 stories of
the weird, strange, and macabre, all hosted by my alter-ego, mad scientist
Dr.
Gangrene. People
probably know you first and foremost as horror host Dr.
Gangrene - so what got you into writing in the first place? Fiction
is something that I was always interested in, I just never had the time to
devote to it while shooting and producing the TV show. I do write
with a blog regularly, and have been a columnist for Scary Monsters
Magazine for years as well, so I’ve done a ton of non-fiction work. When
the latest run of the program (Dr. Gangrene Presents) ended, I thought it
was the perfect opportunity to turn my creative energies toward fiction
writing. Since
you have written an introduction to each of your stories as Dr.
Gangrene - where's the line between yourself and that other you? I
kind of struggled with whether to included Dr.
Gangrene in this book at
first. But the more I thought about it the more sense it made to build off
the Dr.
Gangrene brand. I met an artist named William C. Cope at last
year’s Rondo Awards. I won a Rondo for Best Blog, and he won one for
Artist of the Year. He is a fellow Tennessean, lives about an hour from
me. One day he sent me a killer illustration of Dr.
Gangrene that he did
just for the heck of it. I loved it, and at that moment everything kind of
clicked. I decided to use that illustration along with the intros for the
stories. It really tied everything together perfectly. Since
all of the stories in Dr. Gangrene's Tales from Parts Unknown are
horror stories to some degree, how would you describe your approach to
horror as a writer? I am a big
fan of the old Weird Tales books from the 40s and 50s. Writers like H.P.
Lovecraft, Robert Howard, Robert Bloch, Clark Ashton Smith and Manly Wade
Wellman. Some of the most creative and entertaining horror fiction of
all-time was printed in pulp magazines of that time. That is very much the
type stories I tend to write, and the sensibility I try to bring to my
stories. Quite a few of your stories are of
the "weird western"-variety - you just have to give a more
detailed description of this subgenre to the uninitiated!
Think
Clint Eastwood westerns with a horror overtone. The West was such an
untamed time, so much of the world was still undiscovered and mysterious.
Superstitions abounded, and I find that period ripe for horror tales. As
Dr. Gangrene,
I'm sure you had many a trashy movie in your program - so have they at all
influenced your writing? And other sources of inspiration for Dr.
Gangrene's Tales from Parts Unknown?
Definitely!
We’re all influenced by our surroundings, and a constant diet of
decades-long gorging on horror films is bound to have some influence. I
know at least one of these stories has been written into script format and
my partner in grime Cameron McCasland [Cameron
McCasland interview - click here] plans to shoot it. I have another
story (not in this book) that I wrote in script format first, then later
as a short story. So it’s worked in both directions. Anything you
can tell us about audience and critical reception of your book yet? So
far - so good. The people I’ve gotten feedback from have all been
positive and it’s been compared to the Twilight
Zone, EC
Comics, Tales
from the Crypt, Alfred Hitchcock stories and Weird Tales. Pretty good
company to keep right there! Will
you ever publish any more books, and/or where can one read more of your
stories? Definitely. I will
probably put out a second volume of short stories, and I have a few
non-fiction things in the works as well. Folks can follow me at
larrywunderwood.com
and my blog,
drgangrene.blogspot.com.
(Other) future projects you'd like to share?
I’m
working on a novel right now, a story that is kind of a cross between a
heavy metal horror film and the Vincent Price film Theater
of Blood [Vincent Price
bio - click here]. It is
another story I wrote out in film script format first, and am now adapting
into book form. Your/your
book's website, Facebook, whatever else?
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Folks
can find me on Facebook and my website is
larrywunderwood.com. The blog is
drgangrene.blogspot.com.
@drgangrene on Twitter. Anything else
you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? I
have a video series, totally unrelated to the book, called The
Fantastic Films of Vincent Price. I’m going through the films of the merchant of
menace, one by one, in chronological order of release, shooting a short
video reviewing and commenting on each movie. It’s on YouTube and can
also be found at
vincentpricefilms.blogspot.com Thanks
for the interview!
Thank you for the opportunity! I appreciate it!
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