I was recently honored by SF Signal, today, one of the oldest and most successful fanzines on the internet, by having them post one of my articles. “The Appeal of Grimdark” is an article by me discussing, well, the appeal of Grimdark.
To me, grimdark is a state of mind and really can be achieved any multiple number of ways. Not the least bit being, “this is a situation where the point is not for the hero to make the world a better place but to simply stand up to the world, no matter how many punches is being thrown in his face.”
It’s an attitude which influenced both The Rules of Supervillainy and Esoterrorism both, though the former at least does have superheroes. They just don’t hang around in Falconcrest City. For Esoterrorism, it’s a Crapsaccharine World (thank you TV tropes.org) where the beauty and glamour of the Red Room covers up the violent power of monsters as well as how genuinely awful humanity’s ignorance is.
I hope you’ll check out my article, I had a lot of fun writing it.
C.T. Phipps 