Happy Thanksgiving 2008 from Grim Reviews!

Last year, I lightheartedly complained about the lack of horror related images created for Thanksgiving. The situation hasn't changed much a year later. Yet, I did find one particularly good Thanksgiving themed comic strip that casts a shroud of horror over the holiday--and weird horror at that. This innocent bird is tormented by far more than merely the prospect of having its head lopped off by a fat farmer or industrial chainsaw.

The shadowy "Darkness Turkey" looming around the bird appears more than a little Lovecraftian and Ligottian. Is this bird afflicted with a ghost of some sort? Or is this a turkey whose tiny, reptilian eyes have been forced open to its own mortality; mercilessly plunged into an obsession with death? Hard to say, but this possibility is especially dreadful! Pessimist philosophers with an influence on weird writers like Thomas Ligotti have argued one of the greatest injustices of existence is the foreknowledge of death unique to humans. If it's bad enough for us, what would it be like for a turkey operating on less than half our brainpower? It would be a soul gnawing nightmare. Imagine a turkey capable only of thinking about death in addition to its basic instincts. This would be a true prison, even worse than our own, since at least we're capable of distracting ourselves from our irreversible doom with things like weird fiction, art, music, video games, or Thanksgiving Dinner.

I've mused over a simple web meme long enough though. In all seriousness, enjoy tomorrow's feasts and gatherings without the torture of philosophical blackness--nor a Darkness Turkey--looming over you.

-Grim Blogger