Author: Overcoming Adversity | Buteau’s Odyssey

The Phantom of the Opera Graphic Novel Kickstarter Campaign Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of Lon Chaney’s Iconic Phantom: “Legendary Comics, Chaney Entertainment, and Rocketship Entertainment announced the launch of a new graphic novel adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera, featuring the likeness of Lon Chaney to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his legendary performance. The exclusive “Deluxe Opera House Edition” launches TODAY on KICKSTARTER. This special edition includes: The brand-new graphic novel A replica of the original 16-page 1925 Phantom program guide A copy of the original Phantom screenplay Fans will also have the opportunity to: Access limited-edition collectibles available exclusively through Kickstarter, including signed bookplates…

On March 01, 2021, 54 year old Terri Cohee called 911. She had discovered something disturbing in her son’s closet. When asked what it was, her distraught voice choked back tears as she told the 911 dispatcher she thought it was a human head. After being sent out to the Cohee home, Mesa County Sheriff’s Department found a severed head and a pair of severed hands in white plastic garbage bags. The body parts had been in the possession of the caller’s 19 year old son, Brian Cohee. Brian Cohee The recent high school graduate calmly and openly admitted the…

Co-written by Tyler VanderWeele and Jennifer Wortham. Our moral understanding of right and wrong, and good and evil, is fundamental to who we are. Such understanding guides our actions and evaluations and shapes our sense of integrity and wholeness. When our moral understanding is severely disrupted by something we have done, witnessed, or been subject to, we can feel torn apart by the resulting feelings of guilt, shame, and confusion. Notions of “moral injury” or “moral pollution” arising from committing, experiencing, or witnessing wrongdoing are common in many societies, and are given vivid expression in the world’s great literature, from…

As with all languages, English is in a constant state of flux. New terminology, slang expressions, and catchphrases are continually broadening vocabularies and communication styles. Many of these coinages are ephemeral, whereas others prove to have staying power. What seems different about 21st-century English is the speed with which these changes spread and are adopted—at least temporarily—by language users of all ages. Historically, language change was driven by younger speakers and spread relatively slowly from group to group, but social media has greatly accelerated this process of linguistic diffusion. Two new books, both published in July, address these changes but…

Seven decades after Godzilla first stomped onto the big screen, Kaiju fans are still feeling the reverberations of the King of Monsters, and Monstrous Books is celebrating the timeless legacy of Godzilla and other colossal creatures (including Konga and Gorgo) with Monstrous: The Kaiju Issue, brimming with retrospective essays, new comics featuring massive monsters, and all kinds of other Kaiju goodies for readers to devour! With the special issue of Monstrous Magazine now on Kickstarter, we caught up with James Aquilone, Patrick Macias, Samuel Sattin, and Itaru Kinoshita in a roundtable Q&A feature to discuss their unique contributions to Monstrous:…

One of the biggest platforms for Gen Z and millennials is TikTok. It’s so popular that even my mother, who is in her 90s and doesn’t own a smartphone, has heard of it—which gives TikTok the credibility it deserves. In the early days, TikTok was simple: short videos and fun lip-sync/dance skits. Nowadays, TikTok has become messier, more relatable, and closer to our lived experience—and those accounts attract the masses. Not surprising, really. As much as we love our filters and our facial fillers, we still want to be seen, known, and understood. TikTok has become a space where people…

If you’re like me, just reading the word “Anaconda” brings music to my ears, mostly Sir Mix-a-Lot and Nicki Minaj.  But to others it’s that 1997 horror comedy movie of the same name starring a bronzed-out Jennifer Lopez and an off-the-rails performance by John Voight. It’s no masterpiece, but in a way it is a […]

If you feel more relaxed and recharged after a walk in the woods or a day at the beach, there is a psychological reason for that. Interacting with the natural world is not only good for our body, but it is good for our mind and spirit too. What we intuitively know – that getting outdoors is good for us – is now supported by a robust body of research. In the last decade there has been an explosion of studies that demonstrate that interactions with nature lowers stress, reduces ruminations (the negative thoughts associated with depression), and lessens anxiety.…

I’m knee-deep in writing my memoir. I have 350 pages of the first draft written and I haven’t even begun the narrative of my work with my former psychiatrist, Dr. Lev. That’s an additional 11 years of therapy. My writing instructor says the first draft is basically “word vomit,” and then you go back and edit, edit, edit. As the saying goes, every writer needs to “kill her darlings.” In preparation for writing about that time with Dr. Lev, whom I first saw in September 2005 and then was hospitalized six times in the subsequent 18 months for intense suicidality,…

I’m obsessed with urban legends. I love how they tell a detailed story about the people and culture of the those who see them. However, only a few of them fascinate me as much as Spring-Heeled Jack. Not because the story is particularly scary, but because it highlights something we’ve lost in our internet age. The slow burn of a mystery that unfolded over decades. Sure, we still get internet folklore like Slender Man, but most of those dry up after years or even months. Spring-Heeled Jack is an entity in English folklore whose first reported sighting was in 1837. But…