Land of Bliss and Shadow

  They are on their way! 11" z 8 1/2" paperbacks are in the mail and should be received next week! Available through Zelle or personal check. Contact me for details: karapinarpatty@gmail.com. Hardcover will be available soon from Amazon.

My sketch of the Dark Shadows Collinwood foyer sets "stained glass" windows for Stuart Manning's charity fanzine Daytime Gothic II, available now from Ten Acre Books: https://tenacrefilms.bigcartel.com/product/daytime-gothic-ii-celebrating-tvs-supernatural-soap-opera-dark-shadows Also included is my essay about attempting to replicate the 1841 Parallel Times storyline's red velvet gown worn by actor Joan Bennett and custom designed by costume designer Mary McKinley. It was not easy!  

  I'm excited to share that my upcoming book Sy Tomashoff: Dark Shadows by Design , will be available soon - hopefully within the next couple of months.  For now - I have my very first ISBN number! This is a first-of-its-kind illustrated historical biography of groundbreaking television set designer Sy Tomashoff. Recipient of seven Emmy Awards, Tomashoff's career spanned five decades of detailed, bold and inventive sets that set the groundwork for modern multi-camera television production design. He is perhaps best known for his inspired and beloved sets for the daytime Gothic serial Dark Shadows. This book celebrates Tomashoff's career with many of his original design and production drawings, set photos and illustrative episode stills from Dark Shadows. It also provides rare illustrations from his prior and subsequent work and insights from those who knew him best. I hope that fans of Dark Shadows , television and soap opera history, and set design in general will love ...

 

 THE POND OF DOOM A flamingo sunset spreads over the Everglades. Walter sings with happiness and wiggles his toes on the wet lilypad that gently floats in his home pond. Mating season is here! He can feel it in the balmy air. Taking a deep breath, he puffs up and sings as loudly and as enticingly as he can, for there is a female on a nearby lilypad that he has fixed his sights on. She is a beauty, with a green-gold slimy hue and shining golden eyes so enticing he can barely contain himself. But how can he reach her safely? The deceptively tranquil pond is full of nocturnal perils below, above, and all around. Friends and rivals have disappeared one by one, mysteriously and not always silently; sometimes with a scream or a gurgle cut short, then silence. Once, he saw part of a leg much too like his own floating past him, bodiless. Just yesterday – Walter shudders at the memory – a familiar blue eyeball bobbed in the water trailing sinew and gore, turning black and dull as he looke...

I recently wrote my first Shakespearean sonnet as a submission to James Aquilone's Shakespeare Unleashed horror anthology, whose Kickstarter campaign I donated to.  Sadly it was rejected, but you can't win them all.  It probably wasn't horror-ible enough.  I look forward to reading the anthology when it is published.  I know it will be fantastic. This sonnet is based on Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Richard III, proposal to Lady Anne, and is inspired by Jonathan Frid's timeless portrayal of the vampire Barnabas Collins on the original Dark Shadows TV series.  Frid portrayed Richard III in the 1965 Penn State University Summer Festival of Professional Theater, and has said it was his favorite role. Publicity picture, Jonathan Frid as Richard III Summer Festival of  Professional Theater, July 1965