Criminal Macabre
Criminal Macabre: The Complete Cal McDonald Stories (Second Edition)
© 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2022 by Steve Niles.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the copyright holders. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is coincidental. Dark Horse Books® and the Dark Horse logo are registered trademarks of Dark Horse Comics LLC. All rights reserved.
Portions of this book previously appeared as Savage Membrane, published by ibooks, Inc., and Guns, Drugs, and Monsters and Dial M For Monster, published by IDW Publishing. “All My Bloody Things” first appeared in Dark Delicacies, published by Carroll & Graf Publishers.
Book design by May Hijikuro
Cover art by E.M. Gist
Cover design by May Hijikuro
Special thanks to Shawna Gore, Jemiah Jefferson, Daniel Chabon, Chuck Howitt, Konner Knudsen, and Annie Gullion.
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Published by Dark Horse Books
A division of Dark Horse Comics LLC
10956 SE Main Street
Milwaukie, OR 97222
DarkHorse.com
First edition: March 2022
Ebook ISBN 978-1-50672-748-6
Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-50672-747-9
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
Foreword
One of my favorite writers these days is Steve Niles, and arguably his most inventive, compelling character is Cal McDonald. You hold in your hands Criminal Macabre: The Complete Cal McDonald Stories.
Cal began life way back in 1990 in a story called “Big-Head.” Let’s just be honest: Cal is a drug addict. He’s also a detective. He also stands with one foot in a world of darkness, magic, and monsters. He stands there and fights back against the forces marshaled against us humans. He is a flawed hero, much like Philip Marlowe before him, and cops really don’t want to work with him. But thank God for us, they do.
Steve Niles is best known for 30 Days of Night, but for my money his coolest stuff is his work with Kelley Jones on Batman and the man himself, Cal McDonald.