Midnight Pals
Fact: THE MIDNIGHT PALS is my absolute favorite thing on the Internet. If you are unfamiliar with the Midnight Pals, the premise is simple. The world’s greatest horror writers, both living and dead, sit around a campfire and tell each other stories. The series was created by cartoonist Bitter Karella. It took the form of a Twitter thread, and that thread proceeded to take Twitter by storm.
Midnight Pals is fashioned after the classic television program Are You Afraid of the Dark, which features a group of teenagers who call themselves The Midnight Society. Every episode, one member tells a scary story to the group in the woods at night, beginning with “Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story…” and then the title of the episode. For Midnight Pals, Karella replaced the teenagers with (initially) Stephen King, Anne Rice, Clive Barker, H.P. Lovecraft, Dean Koontz, and Edgar Allan Poe. Ostensibly, these titans of terror take turns telling scary stories (always beginning with that familiar refrain) but then often get sidetracked by bickering and non-sequiturs.
Over time, the cast has grown to include such deceased pinnacles as Shirley Jackson, Clark Ashton Smith, Jack Ketchum, and Robert Bloch; living legends such as Edward Lee, R.L. Stine, and Guy N. Smith; and my generation of horror writers, represented by Wrath James White, Joe Hill, Nick Mamatas, Mary SanGiovanni, Carlton Mellick III, and many others.
Oh, and I’m in it, too. I’m in it a LOT…
Which is why I’m very happy to have contributed to SUBMITTED FOR THE APPROVAL OF THE MIDNIGHT PALS — a new omnibus collection of the best of the series, complete with all-new illustrations, brand-new bonus stories, and much more, including an Introduction by myself.
There is an Indiegogo campaign for it taking place right now. CLICK HERE TO CONTRIBUTE. Of particular interest to you, my readers, is the opportunity to be killed in my next book. That’s right — the first person to pledge $500 will appear in my next book as a character, and will get killed in the story. I’ll work with you to find out what you’d like included about yourself, and your name will live on in infamy as a character in my mythos. But there is only one of these opportunities available, so first come, first served!
