Jonathan L. Howard
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jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
Jonathan L. Howard
@jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
4.8K followers 640 following 6.8K posts
I write novels & games. Johannes Cabal, Carter & Lovecraft, THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS for "Call of Cthulhu," Russalka, Kyth the Taker, Goon Squad, co-wrote BROKEN SWORD I-III, principal writer on ATOMFALL. All my fault. Sorry.
UK. Portrait: Small Robot
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jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
Shurrup and eat your pie barm.
A pie sandwiched betwixt halves of a barm cake, a Wigan delicacy.
November 27, 2025 at 2:36 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
Well, I reckon it's...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Cover of the classic 1st edition DUNGEONS & DRAGONS PLAYER'S HANDBOOK, with a group of adventurers gathered around a grotesque idol. Two of their number are trying to pry out one of the idol's bejewelled eyes.
November 27, 2025 at 1:11 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
The right wing tabloids could at least make a vague pretence of not just transcribing Tufton Street's approved talking points for their headlines. Whichever towering intellect came up with "Benefit Street" must have been braying with joy this morning.
Cover of The Sun. Headline: THE BENEFITS STREET BUDGET. Cover of The Daily Express. Headline: A BUDGET FOR BENEFITS STREET PAID FOR BY WORKING PEOPLE. Cover of The Daily Mail. Headline: SPITEFUL RAIDS ON STRIVERS -- TO LAVISH BILLIONS ON BENEFITS ST.
November 27, 2025 at 10:29 AM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
Four spaceships to introduce me.
Moya, from FARSCAPE (1999). The Liberator from BLAKE'S 7 (1978). Thunderbird 3 in her launch silo in a scene from THUNDERBIRDS (1965). An Eagle transporter setting down on a pad at Moonbase Alpha in a scene from SPACE: 1999 (1975). Yes, it's another Gerry Anderson production, but Derek Meddings and his team just did such great work with the vehicles.
November 25, 2025 at 7:15 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
It seems self-evident to me that Anguirus refers to Godzilla as "Big G," and Godzilla refers to Anguirus as "Spike."
Japanese lobby card (I really miss lobby cards, incidentally) from GODZILLA VS. GIGAN (1972), showing Godzilla and Anguirus swimming through the sea en route from Monster Island to Tokyo.
November 23, 2025 at 2:10 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
*Looks feverishly at you from his incredibly complex conspiracy connections board*

There are no coincidences.

Everything is connected.
Two subsequent reposts in my timeline. The top is about Thomas Massie saying that the FBI is sitting on information that implicates twenty men in Epstein's child sex smuggling operation, including a rockstar, six billionaires, a high profile government official, a prominent banker, and a magician. The story beneath it is about how a magician has lost the password to his hand after an RFID implant.
November 23, 2025 at 12:57 AM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
One of these days I'll finally place this novel. It's not bad, I think. #RichardMalengine
Behind him, Harris looked at the silhouetted profile of his employer – in the special sense of somebody who gives you work to do and pays you as and when he can – with something that approached as close to dismay as his brick-like personality would allow. He'd stuck with Malengine through thick and increasingly thin for reasons that touched both on inertia and an irrational belief that the actor was bound for a greatness far beyond anything Harris could dream of for himself. This was nothing as shallow as reflected glory, but rather the duty of a squire to a knight errant. Perhaps he would end shattered by a blow from a giant's club, or die in some awful wilderness, which is to say, anywhere outside London. But it would be a destiny fulfilled, and Harris was proud to be the only one in his family ever to have a destiny to fulfil, as opposed to merely a criminal record or rickets.
November 22, 2025 at 2:02 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
Major battle to keep it down to four, but:

EXCALIBUR (1981)
THE COMPANY OF WOLVES (1984)
RE-ANIMATOR (1985)
ALICE (1988)

I've seen all of these more times than I can recall.
Poster for EXCALIBUR, tagline reads "Forged by a god. Foretold by a wizard. Found by a King." DVD/Blu-Ray cover image of THE COMPANY OF WOLVES, showing a wolf's muzzle forcing its way out of a man's mouth. RE-ANIMATOR poster showing Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West working at his laboratory bench on a head, whilst the head's peeved body emerges from the shadows, advancing on him from behind. Taglines are "Herbert West has a very good head on his shoulders- and another one in a dish on his desk," and "Death is just the beginning..." Painted Czech poster for ALICE (Něco z Alenky), a painting of the scene where Alice escapes from the doll version of herself. The tiny house of the Duchess is visible in the background.
November 21, 2025 at 2:15 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
This made me think of THE TWILIGHT ZONE again, and my counterfactual where Rod Serling develops a spin-off series DEVLIN & SMITH where Julie Newmar and Burgess Meredith reprise their roles as the devils Miss Devlin and Mr Smith, sent to Earth to spread chaos as a team, but they loathe one another.
Julie Newmar as the diabolical Miss Devlin, fashionably dressed for the early '60s, although the horns are certainly a striking detail. She appears in the TWILIGHT ZONE (1963) episode "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville," teleplay by Rod Serling, based on "Blind Alley" by William Feathersmith. In truth, it's not a great episode, but Newmar makes it worthwhile all by herself. Burgess Meredith as the equally diabolical Mr Smith, seen here smoking one of trademark misshapen black cheroots in the TWILIGHT ZONE episode "Printer's Devil" (1963) teleplay by Charles Beaumont and based on his own short story "The Devil, You Say?" This is more or less the persona that Burgess would later turn up to the extreme as the Penguin in the 1966 BATMAN series.
November 20, 2025 at 12:37 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
"It was just sitting unclaimed in a safety deposit box unopened since 1945, so we thought, eh, whatever, give it to Trump. He likes shiny things."
A literal one kilogram ingot of Nazi gold, bearing the eagle and swastika and the legend DEUTSCHE REICHSBANK.
November 15, 2025 at 2:32 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
"Mr Howard's coffee table bore a copy of a book primarily concerned with the nature of machine intelligence and a learned thesis on a race of genocidal cyborgs. I saw no relationship between the two and did not comment upon them."
The St Michael (yes, Marks & Spencers) DOCTOR WHO AND THE DALEKS OMNIBUS, published in, I'm pretty sure, 1977. Cover of the first UK paperback edition of Roger Penrose's THE EMPEROR'S NEW MIND, subtitled "Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics." This is the edition I have.
November 14, 2025 at 7:10 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
Isn't it gorgeous? Pure functionality lends an air of "rightness" to any design. The Gannet was devised in 1945 as an anti-submarine warfare aircraft and stayed in service for decades after. Its great endurance also made it useful as a courier for lugging mail, gear, and personnel around.
Box art for the Airfix 1/48th scale Fairey Gannet COD.4, showing an example from the 849 Naval Air Squadron returning to the flight deck of HMS Hermes, arrestor hook deployed, in a scene set in 1969. Photo of the completed model in the box art livery (paint schemes and decals are provided for three liveries). It's a large (29cm long), highly detailed model and not really something for beginners, but certainly something to aspire to. It's so pretty!
November 14, 2025 at 12:09 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
Butter pie.
Map of the United States for some reason, and then the rest of the planet as an afterthought. Label reads TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE FROM USING ONLY 2 WORDS.
November 13, 2025 at 7:20 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
*Looks at prodigious "To Be Built" pile of model kits.*

"Well, that should keep me busy for a good while. I certainly don't need any more."

Suddenly...

"Noooooooooooooooooooo!"
Ad for an upcoming SPACE: 1999 model kit release of an Eagle transporter and a Mk.IX Hawk fighter in one box.
November 11, 2025 at 7:28 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
What movie villain is a horrible person, but an absolute joy to watch on screen? (I haven't seen the new FRANKENSTEIN yet and I'm sure Isaac is brilliant, but, y'know, our boy Cushing was no slouch either).
Peter Cushing as Victor Von Frankenstein in FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN (1967). On the run, a price on his head, and only the gallows to look forward to, and yet he cannot and will not give up his researches. It was only when I rewatched this quite recently after several decades that I realised this performance is one of the inspirations for Johannes Cabal.
November 11, 2025 at 7:04 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
It had to be done.

Well, it probably didn't, but I did it anyway in a spirit of pure awkwardness. #DEVO
The phrase "Duty Now for the Future" rendered in the style of Zohran Mamdani's "Zohran for New York" posters.
November 9, 2025 at 7:06 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
For a change of pace, rather than watching kaiju kick nine shades out of one another, I cued up THE LOST WORLDS OF GERRY ANDERSON and watched the pilot (and only episode) of THE INVESTIGATOR (1972) for the first time. I suspect there won't be a second.
Gerry... mate... Wtf?
Image from THE INVESTIGATOR (1972) showing Julie and John, the protagonists. They also happen to be puppets. They're meant to be miniaturised human teenagers, but everyone else is human and they're puppets. It's wrong. Just wrong. At no level, philosophical or artistic, is it right. It's wrongness clangs down the decades like a cracked bell the size of Norwich. Their car's pretty cool, though.
November 6, 2025 at 10:26 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
Morgan Freeman voiceover: It was, in fact, about a sandwich.
"We're not just talking about a sandwich," Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael C. DiLorenzo said. "This isn't about a sandwich."
November 6, 2025 at 5:07 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
I meant to illustrate my point about ma boi Caesar perhaps not being the most awe-inspiring kaiju with a pic. He looks meaner in his post-Showa era appearances, but here he looks like a dreadful accident in a dog grooming parlour.
King Caesar up on his hind legs and doing his level best to look threatening. Is he succeeding? Not detectably, but what a feisty lad for trying. Good giant dog/lion thingy. Have an enormous Bonio.
November 1, 2025 at 11:04 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
Hold on... hold on... wait just a minute...
A Schofield tank with its wheels deployed between its tracks, giving it a certain familial resemblance to... ...the Tumbler Batmobile, seen here in the undercroft of Wayne Enterprises in its first appearance in THE DARK KNIGHT (2008).
November 1, 2025 at 2:32 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
The divine sense of lightness that accompanies that most holy of moments, the wazzing of the MS at your editor.
The words THE END at the end of a manuscript.
October 31, 2025 at 11:18 AM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
Heh. Apparently copies of the Daily Mail are being given sly wraparounds by activists. Most accurate cover story it's had in years.
Copies of the Daily Mail in a retail display unit. They've been wrapped in fake covers (that get the DM house style spot on). It reads NEW TRUE EDITION below the banner and then the headline WE BLAME MIGRANTS SO YOU DON'T BLAME BILLIONAIRES. The sub-head reads "Revealed: we want you looking the other way."
October 28, 2025 at 2:50 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
It would, of course, be cynical of me to think the real concern here is the resale of empty upscale properties bought as investments which may now be a tad harder to sell on in future. A moment, please, while I fetch my tiniest violin.
October 28, 2025 at 12:08 PM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
Well. Two days later the the Mail still thinks this story is of concern to anyone but its owner and its Editor-in-Chief. You will be astonished to learn that this "Havoc" the headline speaks of has gone unreported elsewhere, and the estate agency they quote deals primarily in London mansions.
Cover of the 28/10/2025 edition of the "Daily Mail," with the headline THREAT OF A MANSION TAX SPARKS HOUSE MARKET HAVOC.
October 28, 2025 at 11:17 AM
jonathanlhoward.bsky.social
At what point do those who partake of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday realise that its concerns are only ever accidentally theirs, but really reflect what exercise the ire of the owner - the Viscount Rothermere - and his very wealthy Editor-in-Chief and attack dog, Paul Dacre?
Cover of the October 26th 2025 issue of "The Mail on Sunday," with the headline REEVES IS PLOTTING MANSION TAX RAID ON HOMES.
October 26, 2025 at 9:37 AM