Roll over, “Rocktober” (you tired, tired warhorse of a coinage). Let us now move on to “Gothtober,” more specifically Gothtober.com — an advent calendar for the grue-lovin’, candy-corn-pervertin’ set. Commandeered by one Juliana (JP) Parr and co-animated by a tag team of cheeky CalArts grads and other talented assemblage, the site isn’t Goth in any black-lipstick sense, but it is full of irreverent grotesquerie in the spirit of the season. In anticipation of what for many misfits and malcontents is hands down the best holiday of the year, it has a snazzy new short for each day of the month: Go to www.gothtober.com, click on today’s door, and receive an animated, Halloweeny Flash treat for your trouble. As with those neighborhood candy raids, you just don’t know what you’ll get: A live-action ghost story? A priapic ghoul (aka Smilee Barnacle, occasionally found on the Discovery Channel’s Monster House, and thus Gothtober’s “official TV celebrity”)? An installation on the politics of pumpkins? A giant-sounding kitty lusting for meat? Or maybe Rosie the potbellied pig (and the most fetching one in the world, let me tell you), trying out different costumes for the big night? That’s just in the first few days, man! They’ll keep posting one a day until what’s sure to be some crazy Hell Night climax. It’s silly, it’s scary, it’s oh-so-merry. Just don’t blame them if giant purring cats haunt your sleep. You’ve been warned.
This article appears in October 17 • 2003.