One Last Look Back Before Looking Forward

The world I lived in and the world I live in now are so vastly different that it’s like watching an old VHS tape of yourself as a kid.

On that beautifully grainy screen, you see the past buzzing with excitement. Perhaps it’s Christmas morning, and you’re holding up your newly minted “Best Batman Toy Ever!” Or perhaps you’re at a kid-friendly Halloween party wearing that bloody vampire outfit while all the other knee-highs are dressed as ninjas or cops.

Whatever the case, the point is that the past eventually becomes a memory of a memory.

For me, that’s been happening for some time.

Now, with the accelerating twilight of my Grams’ life, the rise of my daughter’s sentience, and my career as a writer finally kicking off, I am, at long last, getting off the train.

But before I do, before I lay down my pop culture arms, I want to celebrate a little something with you by looking backward so that we can look forward.

And what better place to start than right here?

The Little Website That Could

The Graveyard Machine has been haunting the internet for a long time.

How long? Well, long enough that some of my earliest articles read like they were written by a caffeine-addicted teenager who had just discovered the internet.

Which, spiritually speaking, isn’t far from the truth.

Back in 2016, I was losing my mind over the announcement that John Carpenter would be returning to the Halloween franchise. In my article Blumhouse Resurrects Halloween!, I practically celebrated the second coming of Michael Myers.

A month later, I was singing the praises of The Conjuring 2, declaring James Wan’s supernatural sequel one of the finest horror experiences in recent memory.

And you know what?

I still love that enthusiasm.

There was something wonderfully innocent about writing those articles. I wasn’t concerned about algorithms, search-engine optimization, or building a media empire.

I just wanted to talk about movies.

The Graveyard Machine became my personal playground. A place where I could celebrate the weird, wonderful, sometimes downright terrible things that made growing up in the 1990s such an extraordinary experience.

Horror movies. Comic books. Star Wars. Halloween specials. Forgotten toys. Obscure science fiction.

If it occupied some dusty corner of my imagination, chances are it eventually found its way onto this website.

And over the years, that little playground became something of a time capsule.

The Best of the Graveyard

One of the most enjoyable things about revisiting the archives is discovering how much of my writing was really about memory.

Take Memories in Plastic: The Toys of My Childhood.

On the surface, it’s an article about old action figures.

But underneath those plastic treasures are memories of childhood, family, loss, and the strange emotional power that ordinary objects can possess.

A toy car isn’t necessarily just a toy car.

Sometimes it’s a doorway.

Sometimes it’s a reminder of a person who is no longer here.

And sometimes it’s simply a wonderful little piece of plastic that you desperately wish you hadn’t sold at a garage sale for fifty cents.

Then there were my adventures in the comic book graveyard.

In The Comic Book Graveyard: IBOTS & Tekno Comix, I celebrated one of the great joys of comic collecting: digging through forgotten dollar bins and discovering something completely ridiculous.

We’re talking about a comic book company from the 1990s that once operated a store inside the Mall of America.

A company that embraced the decade’s obsession with futuristic technology, excessive superhero designs, and spelling perfectly ordinary words with the letter X.

God bless the nineties.

I loved researching those forgotten corners of pop culture.

Not because I believed every obscure comic deserved a cinematic universe, but because there was something fascinating about the people who created these things.

Their ambitions. Their failures. Their creativity.

And, occasionally, their spectacularly questionable business decisions.

That curiosity carried over into my reviews, where I could champion a forgotten horror picture one week and enthusiastically defend a blockbuster that everyone else seemed determined to hate the next.

I never wanted The Graveyard Machine to become a place where cynicism masqueraded as intelligence.

There was already enough of that on the internet.

I wanted to celebrate things.

Even the bad things.

Especially the bad things.

A Graveyard Halloween

Of course, no retrospective would be complete without mentioning Halloween.

October has always occupied a special place in my heart.

The decorations. The costumes. The movies. The unmistakable smell of autumn.

And those wonderful old television specials.

Over the years, I revisited everything from the Bugs Bunny Halloween Special to Young Sherlock Holmes, celebrating the movies and television programs that helped transform ordinary October evenings into something magical.

There’s a reason I return to these things.

When you’re a child, Halloween feels enormous.

The entire world seems to participate in this strange annual celebration of monsters, candy, and imagination.

As an adult, you spend years trying to recreate that feeling.

You buy decorations.

You revisit old movies.

You search for the perfect Halloween atmosphere.

But the truth is that childhood magic cannot be manufactured.

It can only be remembered.

Or, as I’ve recently discovered, experienced through someone else’s eyes.

My daughter’s eyes, to be precise.

Watching her discover Halloween has become infinitely more rewarding than watching another horror movie for the hundredth time.

And believe me, that’s saying something.

The Podcast Years

Somewhere along the way, I also decided that writing about pop culture wasn’t enough.

Apparently, I needed to talk about it, too.

Podcasting became another wonderful adventure.

From It’s Alive Horror Podcast with my best friend to the eventual Graveyard Machine podcast, I found myself exploring the medium, and just talking about whatever I wanted that had inspired me for years.

In Podcast Power-Up: How Podcasts Helped Me in Real Life, I reflected on the extraordinary influence podcasts had on my development.

Kevin Smith’s Fatman on Batman introduced me to fascinating comic book creators.

Rob Liefeld’s Robservations reignited my appreciation for comic book history, and helped me expand my horizons.

Other programs helped me through difficult periods of my life, offering everything from creative inspiration to practical advice.

And somewhere in that strange audio universe, I found myself behind a microphone.

Those experiences taught me something important.

The best conversations aren’t necessarily about the subject being discussed.

They’re about the people having them.

Looking back, I think that’s what I enjoyed most.

The friendships. The laughter. The arguments. The ridiculous tangents. All of it.

The human connections.

Funny how that keeps becoming the theme of this article, isn’t it?

The Convention Years: One Last Ride

If The Graveyard Machine ever had its own cinematic universe, Fan Expo Chicago would undoubtedly be its Avengers: Endgame.

For several years, I attended the convention with the enthusiasm of a man who had somehow been granted access to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

Except instead of chocolate rivers, there were comic books, celebrity panels, expensive collectibles, and thousands of people wearing costumes.

My first major convention coverage began in 2023 with A Survivor Guide or How Not to Live With Regret.

That article was inspired by one of my greatest missed opportunities.

Years earlier, I had encountered Stan Lee at a convention.

Several times.

And I did absolutely nothing.

Nothing!

The man who helped create some of the most influential characters in popular culture was standing right there, and I let the opportunity disappear.

That regret became something of a personal philosophy.

Don’t miss the moment.

Over the following years, I tried to follow my own advice.

I attended panels featuring extraordinary artists, actors, and filmmakers.

I listened to Frank Miller discuss comics.

I watched Grant Guston demonstrate his famous Flash run.

I saw John Cena deliver one of the most unexpectedly inspiring convention panels I’ve ever attended.

And in 2026, I witnessed something I never imagined would happen.

Kurt Russell and John Carpenter sharing a stage.

For a lifelong admirer of The Thing, it was practically a religious experience.

But here’s the strange part.

Those celebrities aren’t what I remember most vividly.

I remember my stepson enjoying The Boys panel.

I remember my daughter proudly marching through the convention dressed as DogDay from Poppy Playtime.

I remember watching them experience the same excitement that once consumed me as a child.

And suddenly, the convention became something entirely different.

It wasn’t about meeting celebrities anymore.

It was about making memories.

In my article Last Ride: Fan Expo Chicago 2026, I wrote about finally understanding Gandalf’s famous observation concerning the time we’re given.

I had spent years chasing moments.

Now I was beginning to understand that some of the most important moments were happening right beside me.

That article was supposed to be my farewell to convention journalism.

Looking back, I think it was the beginning of something much bigger.

The Writer Emerges

For all my years celebrating the work of other creators, there was always another ambition quietly simmering beneath the surface.

I wanted to tell my own stories.

If you recall, which you don’t, this website was a blog that featured my horribly written shorts and flash fiction.

I’ve always wanted to create something that belonged to me.

In September 2025, that dream became a reality with the publication of my debut novella, House of God.

Seeing my name on the cover of a published book was a remarkable experience.

But it also represented something considerably more meaningful.

For years, I had been standing outside the creative world, admiring the people who built it.

Now I had finally stepped inside.

And while I have an enormous amount to learn, I know this is where I want to devote my creative energy.

I have stories waiting to be told.

Horror stories. Mysteries. Fantasies.

Strange little adventures populated by characters who have been wandering around my imagination for years.

And if The Graveyard Machine taught me anything, it’s that writing requires practice.

Thousands upon thousands of words.

Some good.

Some terrible.

Some that probably should have remained unpublished.

But every one of them helped me get here.

For that, I’ll always be grateful.

The Twilight and the Dawn

Now comes the difficult part.

My grandmother is ninety-six years old.

For as long as I can remember, she’s been one of the great constants in my life.

A living connection to my childhood.

To the people I was.

To the world that existed before mortgages, careers, responsibilities, and all the other wonderful headaches of adulthood.

But time, that merciless old bastard, eventually catches up with everyone.

Over these past months, I’ve watched her struggle with health problems that have forced our family to confront difficult questions about the future.

Questions I wish we didn’t have to ask.

And yet, while one generation approaches the twilight of its journey, another is just beginning.

My daughter is nearly seven years old.

Seven!

I can barely comprehend it.

She’s developing her own interests, discovering her own favorite characters, and building memories that will someday become the foundation of her own nostalgia.

And I want to be there for all of it.

I want to take her on adventures.

I want to watch her discover the world.

I want to introduce her to the things I loved while giving her the freedom to discover things I know absolutely nothing about.

Even if that means enduring endless conversations about Roblox, Minecraft, and whatever bizarre digital creature happens to dominate childhood this week.

Because here’s something I’ve finally begun to understand.

My grandmother gave me memories that have lasted a lifetime.

Now it’s my turn to help give my daughter hers.

And somewhere between those two generations stands me.

A man approaching forty, looking backward with gratitude and forward with a mixture of excitement, uncertainty, and perhaps a little fear.

But that’s life, isn’t it?

The Graveyard Machine Lives

So where does that leave us?

Well, dear readers, after considerable reflection, I’ve decided to retire from pop culture journalism.

No more chasing entertainment announcements.

No more feeling obligated to review the latest blockbuster.

No more organizing my weekends around convention coverage or worrying about whether I’ve written enough articles to keep the website alive.

That chapter is finished.

But The Graveyard Machine isn’t going anywhere.

In fact, I think it’s finally becoming what it was always meant to be.

Something personal.

Something creative.

Something that grows alongside the person writing it.

I’ll still talk about movies occasionally. I’ll still celebrate Halloween. I’ll still collect comic books and lose my mind whenever something genuinely exciting happens in the worlds I’ve loved since childhood.

You don’t simply abandon those passions.

They’re part of who you are.

But I no longer want to spend my life reporting on someone else’s imagination when I have an imagination of my own waiting to be explored.

Going forward, The Graveyard Machine will become a home for my writing, personal reflections, creative adventures, and whatever strange discoveries life happens to throw my way.

Perhaps I’ll write about fatherhood.

Perhaps I’ll share the challenges and triumphs of becoming a published author.

Perhaps I’ll document some peculiar family adventure or revisit a childhood memory that refuses to disappear.

And perhaps, every now and then, Sad Dracula will crawl out of his coffin to complain about a terrible movie.

Some things never change.

But the important things do.

And I’m ready to change with them.

One Last Look Back

There’s something profoundly strange about growing older.

For much of our lives, we’re desperate to move forward.

We can’t wait to become teenagers.

Then adults.

Then independent.

Then successful.

But somewhere along the way, we start looking back.

We revisit old neighborhoods.

We search for forgotten toys.

We watch movies we’ve already seen a hundred times.

We try desperately to recover the feelings that once made the world seem so enormous.

And sometimes, if we’re lucky, we succeed.

For a moment.

But those moments are fleeting.

The VHS tape eventually runs out.

The screen flickers.

The picture disappears.

And we’re left sitting in the present.

For years, The Graveyard Machine was my way of pressing rewind.

Now I think it’s time to press play.

Because my grandmother is still here.

My daughter is growing.

My family needs me.

And somewhere, buried beneath a mountain of unfinished manuscripts and half-formed ideas, there’s another story waiting to be written.

I don’t know what the next decade will bring.

I don’t know what this website will look like five years from now.

And for once, I don’t particularly care.

What I do know is that I’m enormously grateful for the journey.

For the movies.

For the comic books.

For the conventions.

For the friendships.

For the readers who stopped by this strange little corner of the internet.

And for the countless memories that helped make me who I am.

So consider this the closing credits of The Graveyard Machine’s pop culture era.

Not the end of the story.

Just the end of its first act.

New horizons lie ahead, dear friends.

Places I’ve never been.

Stories I’ve never told.

Memories I’ve yet to make.

And for the first time in a very long time, I’m more excited about what lies ahead than what I’ve left behind.

The Graveyard Machine lives.

We’re just done haunting the past.

Until next time, dear friends.

-Sad Dracula