They might not be raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, but that doesn’t mean that we love them any less. Welcome back to My Favorite Things, the weekly column where we grab someone in speculative circles to gab about the greatest in geek. This week, we sit down with Jessica McHugh, whose latest book, Nightly Owl, Fatal Raven, was released earlier this summer from Raw Dog Screaming Press!
What does Jessica love when she’s not torturing her characters? Spoiler alert: lucky dragons, chatty cats, a ’90s cartoon that still holds up, a time-traveling actress, a little bit of spy-fi, and sweeping metaphors. Curious? Read on to learn more!
Favorite Dragon: There are special places in my heart for iconic dragons such as Smaug and Gorbash, and I’d be remiss not to mention my enduring love of Elliot aka Pete’s Dragon, but tasked with selecting a favorite, I keep coming back to Falkor. The luckdragon from Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story is a character anyone would be fortunate to befriend. Not only does the film adaptation give us his squishy puppy face and exquisite pale pink scales, it’s true to the book’s depiction of a loyal and caring companion. He’s also good in a pinch, able to pluck Atreyu from the Swamps of Sadness and whisk him away from Gmork. It also turns out that Falkor’s name in the original German was “Fuchur,” which was changed in the translation because of its similarity to a curse word. I guess it’s appropriate, since Falkor is one wonderful Fuchur.
Plus, I think the schtick holds up to this day. A healthy mix of cat wrangling, animatronics, and primitive CG made Binx the happy medium between Sassy and Salem.
Favorite Disney Franchise: When I was in high school, I’d race home, toss my backpack on the couch, make a snack, and catch the 3:00 and 3:30 episodes of Disney’s Gargoyles. When I was working in a strip club at 19, I’d scrub off my glitter, change into sweatpants, and settle down with a Sheetz sub in time to watch the 1:30 and 2:00am episodes of Disney’s Gargoyles. With a healthy dose of mythology and Shakespearean influences, the show about millennia-old creatures that were stone by day and warriors by night created and sustained both classic and urban fantasy worlds with surprisingly complex backstories and characters that underwent significant change over eons of intertwined stories. Time travel, body horror, sci-fi, and occasional Illuminati-centric cop drama, Gargoyles holds up to this day, and there aren’t a lot of ’90s cartoons that boast that achievement. It is some of the strongest writing, voice acting, and animation to this day. I even have the Phoenix Gate tattooed on my back, so you know my love runs super deep.
Favorite Rachel McAdams Time Travel Movie: Of the four movies in which Rachel McAdams experiences the act of time travel, she never actually travels through time. Apparently, she just likes a really specific type of guy. And despite the ickiness of her character being manipulated and groomed for lovin’ since she was little kid by a dude with a time-traveling disease, I have to go with The Time Traveler’s Wife as my favorite McAdams time travel movie. Not a fan of Eric Bana, I watched this film because of Rachel McAdams and was not disappointed by her performance. It’s heartbreaking and beautiful and bizarrely alluring, and oh my god does it make me bawl like a baby — though not as much as the book did.
But seriously, can Rachel McAdams do her own damn time traveling already? Please and thank you.
Fictional Killing Spree: As someone who owned the dual-VHS Director’s Cut of Natural Born Killers in high school and whose husband calls her “Kiddo” because of a serious Kill Bill infatuation, fictional killing sprees are apparently extremely important to me. Mass murder scenes have appeared in several of my works, notably with a house-party slaughter in Pins and widespread death by kaiju in Home Birth. So this isn’t a choice I make lightly.
Favorite Sweeping Scene: I’ve talked about Disney enough in this list. And I know the Mickey Mouse folks are gonna doxx me for saying this, but… hands down, the best sweeping scene of all time is in part seven of Twin Peaks: The Return. Even without a hint of the typical bizarro and horror elements, it’s one of the most Lynchian scenes ever. It’s so calm, so seemingly needless, and so excellent at reminding us that life, especially in Twin Peaks, is a Sisyphean struggle. We can tidy and beautify the ugly parts of our worlds as much as we like, but there’s always something nasty lurking under the surface, waiting for the right moment to ruin our good work. This is hammered home when, after more than two minutes of boring sweeping, we hear Renault discussing the underage prostitution ring still operating out of the Roadhouse after twenty-five years: the same one in which Laura Palmer got swept up (pun intended), used, abused, and eventually killed. Even decades later, in a more mature and pristine gloss, this town is full of monsters, and trying to clean it up is futile.
Whew! That felt good. And you know what? I’m not even scared of Disney retaliation! Suck it, Sorcerer’s Apprentice! Your reign is over!
*drops broom* (and for Kathy Najimy: *drops vacuum*)
Jessica McHugh is a novelist and internationally produced playwright running amok in the fields of horror, sci-fi, young adult, and wherever else her peculiar mind leads. She’s had twenty-three books published in ten years, including her bizarro romp, The Green Kangaroos, her Post Mortem Press bestseller, Rabbits in the Garden, and her YA series The Darla Decker Diaries. More information on her published and forthcoming fiction can be found at JessicaMcHughBooks.com.
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I loved The Time Traveler’s Wife as a book but the movie was a let-down. I had no idea that Rachel McAdams had been in that many time travel movies. Someone who has both a favorite Disney franchise and fictional killing spree has bound to be interesting person, so I need to remember to look for your books.
Thank you, Kelly! Funnyish story about the first time I read The Time Traveler’s Wife. I was treating my acne with Epiduo at the time and when I reached those gut-wrenching, ugly-cry scenes in the book, my tears reacted really badly with the topical medicine. My cheeks started to sting, but I kept on reading, kept on crying, and ended up giving myself chemical burns. There are some horrible pictures of me with a burned and swollen face because Epiduo + The Time Traveler’s Wife = EVIL. <3
Jess, I love the term Spy-Fi! Congratulations on Nightly Owl, Fatal Raven! Will be reading and reviewing it soon.