The Macabre Motel

Written by Frank Martin
Art by Alper Gecel
Colors by Sercan Sarikaya

Self-published.

(Currently not on the market for sale, but you can possibly contact him through his Kickstarter profile HERE to get a copy)

"Most vagabonds I knowed don't ever want to find the culprit
That remains the object of their long relentless quest
The obsession's in the chasing and not the apprehending
The pursuit, you see, and never the arrest."

-Tom Waits. "A Foreign Affair." (song)

A man stops at a motel -The Macabre Motel- and experiences some weird things. He goes there because he's all alone, driving late at night to see his fiancé's family. Stopping at a motel that's just on his way to freshen up for the night sounds like a good idea.

I like the off-the-cuff nature of the writing. Frank Martin has a good ear for dialogue and characterization. The Macabre Motel would make a great stage play, the setting is dark and off putting, things don't fall neatly into place. Stuff issues forth like from Frank's dreamworld. Whether or not it makes for good drama doesn't matter. It just exists in the subconscious. That's where a writer sometimes takes some risks, not knowing if their dreamworld will connect with any readers. There comes a point where a writer just has to trust their gut.

I put TMM in the same category as a David Lynch film. An earlier Lynch film, like Eraserhead, with all its unknown or unexplained sounds in a night-time maze of connecting hallways and corridors. While there's no baby calf fetus wrapped in gauze here there's plenty other things that are disturbing.

I made an earlier post about how I have this 'recurring city' that I seem to come back to in my dreams. I don't know why that happens, perhaps it's the subconscious mind's way to simplify things with a structured backdrop so one can quickly return to where they left off the night before. TMM feels like a 'place' like that for Frank Martin, somewhere he returns to time and again. Fortunately for us, he's hired an artist and put this down on paper.

As an added bonus I got a special keychain fob, the kind they hand you for your room.

A pleasant surprise was a quickie black and white story 'Empty' about a guy left all alone.

Coming down later from Frank is an underwater story called The Polar Paradox, which is live on Kickstarter by the way and closes TONIGHT, Tuesday February 2 9pm Pacific Time, so HURRY!

Next Tuesday:

'Raven Menace' by David Crocker.