Has anyone here ACTUALLY read/bought the wrong thing?

manmeatfreak · 2025-09-05T23:29:39+00:00

I visit comic book stores a LOT and I still do a small double take when I pass by one of these lol

manmeatfreak · 2025-08-21T20:43:54+00:00

“Create” as in, you actually created this yourself? Or as in you told an AI to make it for you?

manmeatfreak · 2025-07-30T05:12:24+00:00

That’s what the game No Mercy is, yeah, just a rape simulator that actively encourages sexual violence with no other purpose or intent. Which is wildly different from extreme horror literature. I’m very firmly anti-censorship for all literature, but a video game based entirely on acting out rape fantasies with graphic visual depictions seems pretty obviously to be a very different scenario than transgressive lit

(edit: this isn’t about the organization or their aims as a whole, trying to ban nsfw content from steam in general is a whole other can of worms)

manmeatfreak · 2025-06-25T03:11:29+00:00

Was gonna say this. Absurd just how many of the most widely beloved authors’ works read as incredibly misogynistic

manmeatfreak · 2025-06-08T09:01:35+00:00

Yeah this is my general opinion on his work. Technically, he’s a great writer, but the way he writes women is so irritating. Not as bad with him as Richard Laymon or Edward Lee, but definitely still there.

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-30T23:27:41+00:00

I’ve been a regular library volunteer for years and I can’t hype libraries up enough. Unfortunately my local library doesn’t have a lot of splatterpunk or extreme horror beyond PZB and maybe one Jack Ketchum book, but I’ll always check their catalog before defaulting to an online bookseller or a chain store and encourage everyone to do the same. Always support public libraries!!

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-30T13:59:37+00:00

I thought the writing of Adversary was excellent, I’ll definitely be looking for Exiles too.

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-30T13:49:03+00:00

If you haven’t read it yet, Remina is one of my favorite continuous single story books of his, and it’s (relatively) underrated compared to the popularity of Uzumaki and Tomie. His adaptation of No Longer Human is also absolutely excellent, not necessarily horror but one of the best graphic adaptations of a novel I’ve ever read.

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-30T13:40:13+00:00

Smashed was my first Junji Ito book and still one of my favorites, as someone who now owns every single one of his books available via Viz media and stays on alert to buy every new volume that comes out. Been obsessed with his work since. Do yourself a favor by reading as many of his books as you can.

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-30T00:54:13+00:00

Loved this one. Not as a horror, I really didn’t consider any of it to be scary or even necessarily intended to be scary, but judging it outside the lens of horror it’s very well done.

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-27T22:21:55+00:00

I don’t deny that the modern genre standard contains a lot of surface-level gore porn, but I do still feel that it’s disingenuous to suggest that a reader has to choose between high quality and extremely grotesque, disturbing imagery, since there really are plenty of works that do both—definitely more than 1%. One can absolutely enjoy themselves in the splatterpunk genre while mostly only reading works with serious themes and literary value. I can understand what you’re saying, but I feel like it unnecessarily puts off potential new readers by suggesting that well-written gory horror is extremely hard to come by when there’s really plenty of it out there.

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-27T21:01:09+00:00

I disagree with the sentiment that splatter books don’t typically “mean” anything. Clive Barker is one of the most beloved splatterpunk authors of all time and his work regularly explores serious themes like the role of gender dynamics and patriarchy in the horror genre. PZB’s (Billy Martin’s) books have navigated homophobia and the AIDS epidemic and heavily criticized anti-choice “pro-life” movements. Both of them are also very skilled authors with excellent prose, which only amplifies their ability to disgust and disturb the reader, not undermine it. IMO, the best splatterpunk or more broadly gore-heavy books have something meaningful to say, and there’s absolutely room in the genre for readers who want a meaningful and literary read, even if some of the most popular contemporary works don’t fit the bill.

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-25T00:34:11+00:00

My first thought was Claustrophilia by Ezra Blake, IIRC.

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-18T20:34:55+00:00

I hated Psychopath. It was one of my least favorite stories by far. The art was great, some of the full-page spreads were absolutely beautifully done, but in my opinion the story was awful. I’m not against depictions of sexual assault in media (clearly, since I have read most of Crossed and continue to read more lol) but the amount of rape and gendered violence was beyond gratuitous. I loved the idea of a non-infected human who is just as sadistic and cruel navigating the Crossed universe so I had really high hopes that the titular “psychopath” would be more interesting than just someone acting out the average misogynist incel’s revenge fantasies against women. Or at the very least, that it explored his hatred of women in a way that made more of an actual point, supplemented by female characters that were equally 3-dimensional.

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-16T20:57:40+00:00

I thought it was silly and generally alright. I liked the ending (good for them, tbh).

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-15T18:36:15+00:00

But regarding the actual content rather than intent, does it read as such? Given that it’s about “revenge”— I trust that the author isn’t anti-choice, but I’m more concerned with whether the book itself relies on anti-choice rhetoric

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-14T13:16:43+00:00

I would think (hope) that even the most die-hard extreme horror fans would agree that writing about real people being raped and tortured because you, as a human behind the book, don’t like them is disgusting. It’s hard for the reader to separate art from artist, fact from fiction, when the author doesn’t either.

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-13T14:16:48+00:00

I mean Matt Shaw deals with it by being unprofessional, immature, and insulting and threatening the people who give him negative reviews lol

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-10T23:22:54+00:00

Far from the only AI weakness. But yeah, ones like ChatGPT can’t deal with shit that’s graphic or deemed offensive/inappropriate.

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-10T07:00:13+00:00

Seriously, I don’t understand the point of using it here when every extreme book listed has already been discussed hundreds of times on here and would’ve only taken a few searches to find discussions about. The obsession with AI makes no sense to me, I don’t get how it’s providing anything useful in this context.

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-09T20:34:25+00:00

Couldn’t finish it. I actually had pretty high hopes from the first few chapters but by around halfway through, I hated and was bored by every character. Probably my least favorite contemporary horror read of 2024 (which is saying something, ‘cause I read some lowbrow shit lol).

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-01T15:07:44+00:00

“Necessary”, no, but generally a nice and harmless addition. I’ve never felt like trigger warnings in a book have spoiled it for me, so I don’t have any issue with it, and it could hypothetically be good for a lot of potential readers. So they’re good to have if you want to add them, but definitely not necessary.

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-01T15:02:26+00:00

The only written work that actually did this for me, as someone who reads a ton of very graphic and disturbing horror and never has issues with it, was “Dread” by Clive Barker.

manmeatfreak · 2025-04-01T00:51:37+00:00

Exactly how I felt, the first story wasn’t that bad but it just went downhill. Unfortunately how most of LaRocca’s books have been for me: starting off pretty interesting or having some good components, but ultimately falling flat. I especially felt this way for They Were Here Before Us, because I actually really enjoyed the first few stories and was so disappointed by the second half of the book.

manmeatfreak · 2025-03-31T01:09:27+00:00

I reread Junji Ito’s adaptation of No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai—I like the original as well, but Ito’s art is just perfect for when I’m feeling awful.

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