Here's this week's latest installment of my Agents of Peril online comic strip. Collect 'em all!
As usual, my advice is that you click on the image above to see the full size piece. Otherwise, you miss all that ink I used.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Creepsville Esoterica - Print Background
Back in the days when I was able to publish a print version of Creepsville, I created pieces of art that you may have seen but never realized you had.
What I mean is that I created spot illustrations, background images and character model sheets to fill empty space if needed.
For example, the piece before you now was what I called a background piece. I used this image, literally, as a background image behind the table of contents of the second Creepsville series, which I published under my Laughing Reindeer imprint. As published, I added a gray layer over the whole piece to make the text boxes jump out.
This is the first time I've just presented the artwork as a stand alone piece. One thing I do know is that you probably don't know who a lot of these characters are. The reason for that is that they were coming in future stories (I had a lot planned, to say the least).
As usual, click on the image above to see a much larger version.
What I mean is that I created spot illustrations, background images and character model sheets to fill empty space if needed.
For example, the piece before you now was what I called a background piece. I used this image, literally, as a background image behind the table of contents of the second Creepsville series, which I published under my Laughing Reindeer imprint. As published, I added a gray layer over the whole piece to make the text boxes jump out.
This is the first time I've just presented the artwork as a stand alone piece. One thing I do know is that you probably don't know who a lot of these characters are. The reason for that is that they were coming in future stories (I had a lot planned, to say the least).
As usual, click on the image above to see a much larger version.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Agents of Peril #18 - ...Limbs!
Sorry about last week's no show for the Agents, but we were doing some rearranging here in the house. I wasn't sure if I would even be able to get to the scanner to get some Agents prepped. I usually like to scan four strips at a time, keeping them on my computer. When I run out, I scan the next 4. Oh, and though it is crucial to what I'm doing here... I hate scanning, because it is so boring.
Like I said 2 weeks ago, the strip is going to get even weirder. I hope you enjoy the ride as we get closer to the bottom dropping out (did I say that?).
Click on the small image above to see the larger image that can be thoroughly enjoyed in all of its gorey glory.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Confessions of a Monster Kid – Rescuing Famous Monsters #80
Famous Monsters not only thrilled me as a kid, but it also made me do something I never thought I would ever do – more brave, more foolish or more crazy an act I had never done before that day. No, I didn’t shoplift one… not quite. Hear me out, this is not a confession of a crime but the story of a rescue and a young man who wouldn’t allow an injustice to happen.
Look upon it if you dare: Famous Monsters of Filmland #80. Obviously, Beneath the Planet of the Apes was the cover story, and was I ever excited to see it. I loved seeing Planet of the Apes at the Plano Theatre… one of the first movies I ever saw in a theatre with cussing in it: “Damn them all to hell!”... or “Take your stinking paws off me, you Damned dirty ape.” I loved the over the top action… and Nova was pretty easy on the eyes, too.
Within the pages, there was also an article about the Al Adamson film to come, Dracula Vs. Frankenstein, before it had been given that name. I have to admit that I wasn’t impressed by what I saw. I thought the Frankenstein Monster was pretty awful. Years later, I finally saw it. It was awful. I loved it!
There was also an article on the Return of Chandu serial, starring Bela Lugosi. It didn’t impress me… no monsters (he said rolling his eyes).
Unfortunately, that’s all I can remember of what’s inside (thanks to the cover blurbs). It’s ironic, really, but let me explain why…
When this issue came out, I was in 6th grade and my buddies and I were monster crazy. We watched Creature Features every Saturday night at 10:30 pm. Throughout the week, we discussed monsters and drew monsters in our school tablets.
We also first started seeing ads for something called Screaming Yellow Theatre on WFLD channel 32 in Chicago, Friday night at 10:30 pm. I wanted to stay up and watch it, but I thought it might affect my ability to watch Creature Features. I imagined I would be given a choice, one or the other but not both. I decided Creature Features was what I wanted. A couple of years later, I finally caught SYT… and well, I’ll get to that in a later Confession.
Anyway, back to FM #80…
My 6th grade teacher was a guy named Mr. Cook. Mr. Cook was one of the few male teachers in the P.H. Miller Grade School in Plano. He was an easy going guy but not in particular very warm. He quietly would laugh when we did something amusing. I remember the time the boys and girls were split up to watch some basis Sex Education films, he laughed out loud at the animated explanation on how the penis worked.
Mr. Cook also never had a problem with us bringing comics or monster magazines to work. He probably was thrilled that we would talk quietly among ourselves rather than being loud and annoying.
So, thinking nothing of it, I brought my just purchased Famous Monsters #80 to school to show to my buddies. As luck would have it, Mr. Cook was out ill for the day and we had a substitute teacher in his place. I don’t remember her name, but I wasn’t concerned about her. Suns don’t rock the boat. That morning my friends were passing around my FM when this sub came up. She wanted to know what we were looking at. We showed her… and she took it… and she wouldn’t give it back. She said the classroom was no place for something like that. I remember telling her that Mr. Cook let us bring it in, and she told us something like, “I’ll talk to him later about it.”
Then, she took it and opened a drawer in Mr. Cook’s desk and dropped it in there and closed it. It might as well have been in the cave of the 40 thieves. I was damned angry, too.
Now, I have to explain that I was one of the kids who was just a good kid. I got good grades. I didn’t fight. I played baseball. I watched monster movies.
I was mad as hell.
Even in 6th grade we had recess. An idea formed in my little head. I took a lot of stuff out of my desk and put on top, cluttering my desk. The morning recess bell rang and everybody got up to go outside. The sub wanted us doing so in an orderly manner. I delayed, taking my time putting away my stuff. She ignored me and went with the kids out onto the playground.
My heart was beating. Should I really do this?
I waited until everyone was gone, and in the quiet classroom, I stealthily went to the desk and opened the drawer… that drawer. I found my magazine quickly and grabbed it. I took it to my desk and stuffed it into a spiral bound notebook. I shoved that into my desk and quickly ran out of the room and onto the playground.
All day I worried after that. What if she checked in the drawer? What if she was planning on giving it back? What if I got caught?
At the end of the day, I grabbed the notebook and got the hell out of that school, pronto!
I was free, holding my notebook to my chest. I had done something I never imagined I could or would ever do. Fortune favors the bold.
Ironically, a year or two later, my parents got divorced. In the midst of the madness of moving out with my mom, my sister, and my brother, I lost some of my Famous Monsters magazines, including my trophy, #80. I never got that issue back again, years later when I was buying back issues. It was as if I was never really meant to keep it.
Look upon it if you dare: Famous Monsters of Filmland #80. Obviously, Beneath the Planet of the Apes was the cover story, and was I ever excited to see it. I loved seeing Planet of the Apes at the Plano Theatre… one of the first movies I ever saw in a theatre with cussing in it: “Damn them all to hell!”... or “Take your stinking paws off me, you Damned dirty ape.” I loved the over the top action… and Nova was pretty easy on the eyes, too.
Within the pages, there was also an article about the Al Adamson film to come, Dracula Vs. Frankenstein, before it had been given that name. I have to admit that I wasn’t impressed by what I saw. I thought the Frankenstein Monster was pretty awful. Years later, I finally saw it. It was awful. I loved it!
There was also an article on the Return of Chandu serial, starring Bela Lugosi. It didn’t impress me… no monsters (he said rolling his eyes).
Unfortunately, that’s all I can remember of what’s inside (thanks to the cover blurbs). It’s ironic, really, but let me explain why…
When this issue came out, I was in 6th grade and my buddies and I were monster crazy. We watched Creature Features every Saturday night at 10:30 pm. Throughout the week, we discussed monsters and drew monsters in our school tablets.
We also first started seeing ads for something called Screaming Yellow Theatre on WFLD channel 32 in Chicago, Friday night at 10:30 pm. I wanted to stay up and watch it, but I thought it might affect my ability to watch Creature Features. I imagined I would be given a choice, one or the other but not both. I decided Creature Features was what I wanted. A couple of years later, I finally caught SYT… and well, I’ll get to that in a later Confession.
Anyway, back to FM #80…
My 6th grade teacher was a guy named Mr. Cook. Mr. Cook was one of the few male teachers in the P.H. Miller Grade School in Plano. He was an easy going guy but not in particular very warm. He quietly would laugh when we did something amusing. I remember the time the boys and girls were split up to watch some basis Sex Education films, he laughed out loud at the animated explanation on how the penis worked.
Mr. Cook also never had a problem with us bringing comics or monster magazines to work. He probably was thrilled that we would talk quietly among ourselves rather than being loud and annoying.
So, thinking nothing of it, I brought my just purchased Famous Monsters #80 to school to show to my buddies. As luck would have it, Mr. Cook was out ill for the day and we had a substitute teacher in his place. I don’t remember her name, but I wasn’t concerned about her. Suns don’t rock the boat. That morning my friends were passing around my FM when this sub came up. She wanted to know what we were looking at. We showed her… and she took it… and she wouldn’t give it back. She said the classroom was no place for something like that. I remember telling her that Mr. Cook let us bring it in, and she told us something like, “I’ll talk to him later about it.”
Then, she took it and opened a drawer in Mr. Cook’s desk and dropped it in there and closed it. It might as well have been in the cave of the 40 thieves. I was damned angry, too.
Now, I have to explain that I was one of the kids who was just a good kid. I got good grades. I didn’t fight. I played baseball. I watched monster movies.
I was mad as hell.
Even in 6th grade we had recess. An idea formed in my little head. I took a lot of stuff out of my desk and put on top, cluttering my desk. The morning recess bell rang and everybody got up to go outside. The sub wanted us doing so in an orderly manner. I delayed, taking my time putting away my stuff. She ignored me and went with the kids out onto the playground.
My heart was beating. Should I really do this?
I waited until everyone was gone, and in the quiet classroom, I stealthily went to the desk and opened the drawer… that drawer. I found my magazine quickly and grabbed it. I took it to my desk and stuffed it into a spiral bound notebook. I shoved that into my desk and quickly ran out of the room and onto the playground.
All day I worried after that. What if she checked in the drawer? What if she was planning on giving it back? What if I got caught?
At the end of the day, I grabbed the notebook and got the hell out of that school, pronto!
I was free, holding my notebook to my chest. I had done something I never imagined I could or would ever do. Fortune favors the bold.
Ironically, a year or two later, my parents got divorced. In the midst of the madness of moving out with my mom, my sister, and my brother, I lost some of my Famous Monsters magazines, including my trophy, #80. I never got that issue back again, years later when I was buying back issues. It was as if I was never really meant to keep it.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Down For a Couple of Days, Maybe...
Sorry about this, but because we're rearranging a couple of rooms in the house, including the office I'm in now, I may not be able to update the Blog this weekend. If I can though, I certainly will. That means Agents of Peril as well as a new Confessions of a Monster Kid. Check back, and thanks for your patience.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Confessions of a Monster Kid – Ghost of Frankenstein, Creature Features & Famous Monsters of Filmland #67
If you hadn’t already guessed it, I was (and am) a monster kid. I grew up in the Chicago area on a steady diet of monster movies, horror and sci-fi TV shows, monster model kits, and monster magazines.
I should note here that it was really my mother’s doing… Mom was a fairly young parent back when I was a kiddie and she cultivated my appetite for monsters. She liked scary movies and was often watching them. Of course, as a result, I was very likely to encounter these frightening phantoms on the tube, sooner rather than later.
Way, way back when I was about 3 or 4 years old (yes, I do remember things from that time), I awoke and went into the living room where she was watching TV. She was watching Ghost of Frankenstein. She let me sit and watch it with her for a bit. I was scared by the monster (played by Lon Chaney, Jr.). My mother took swift action. No, she didn’t say, “Oh, that’s just a guy in a costume. It’s fake.” Instead, she made sure the fantasy was left intact by saying, “The reason he is so angry is that everyone is so mean to him.” Very quickly, a scene in the film took place where Lon Chaney sees some bullies picking on a little girl, throwing her ball on a roof top. Lon scares the boys away and picks up the girl. Instead of throwing her into a pond somewhere, he takes the girl up to the roof and gets her ball.
“See,” Mom said. “He’s actually really nice and likes kids.” This was something I understood. From that point on I started to understand these deformed or misshapen creatures for what my mind had determined were simply misunderstood beings.
This being the 60s, monsters were everywhere… especially on TV, courtesy of programs like The Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, The Munsters, Lost In Space, and other great genre programs. My enthusiasm really started to take form at the furthest tail end of the monster boom in 1970 when WGN-TV Channel 9 in Chicago launched their Saturday night (at 10:30pm) horror movie program: Creature Features. Week after week, the program initially showed classic Universal horror films, often with double features. My parents would only allow me to stay up for the first film, but that was okay. I slowly began to learn the pantheon of the monsters one-by-one.
All my friends were watching it, too. Mondays often had a lot of talk about the latest monster movie we saw. While the movies were creepy, the truly scariest part of the show was the program’s opening. It started with a loud screech of a coffin opening coupled with a slo-mo shot of a bat flapping its wings (culled from Dracula), followed by Ray Mancini’s theme to Experiment In Terror playing over a slickly edited (for its time) opening featuring the Universal monsters. There were quick cuts, some in slow motion and even one shot played backwards that had Bela Lugosi as Dracula moving back behind a tree. There was no horror host, per se, but a drawing of Lon Chaney’s vampire in London After Midnight would be superimposed on the screen along with the CF logo. WGN-TV newsman Marty McNeeley (or announcer Carl Greyson) provided a whispering voice enhanced with an echo, reading a poem, as follows:
“Gruesome ghouls and grisly ghosts,
Wretched souls and cursed hosts,
Vampires bite and villains creep,
Demons scream and shadows sleep..
Blood runs cold in every man,
Fog rolls in and coffins slam,
Mortals quake and full moon rise,
Creatures haunt and terrorize..."
After that, he gave a short intro to the film, usually with minor puns. During commercial breaks, I seem to recall that the host would speak over a title card, but I’m not totally sure on that point. Apparently, WGN lost this opening in the years since, because the only version I see of it these days is a fan re-creation that is pretty good but unfortunately not the real deal.
– []
Though the monster craze may have withering elsewhere, it was strong in the greater Chicago area, thanks to Creature Features and WFLD’s Screaming Yellow Theatre (where Svengoolie was born… which is a story to focus on in the future). Ignoring the passing of a national fad, I watched the monster movies faithfully while keeping an eye out for all things scary. Then something amazing popped up. It was Famous Monsters of Filmland. I was at the Colonial Drug Store looking for the usual comic book super hero fix when I stumbled on Famous Monsters #67. “What is this odd thing?” I grabbed it fast before it could vanish and looked through it, finally seeing the familiar Universal monster faces that I knew from week after week of Creature Features viewing. This other stuff on the cover about “witches and witchcraft” didn’t really grab me, but this magazine was about MONSTERS. I bought it, ran home, read it from cover to cover again and again. Each time, I stopped on the usual back issue selling page, where I was stunned by how long this mag had been around… and wondering why I had never seen it before… and wanting every single back issue. Maybe the drugstore didn’t carry it before, or it got hidden on the large magazine rack the store had, or maybe I had found some 80 page giant-size comics that I just had to have. I do also recall Vampirella #1 was there, too, but I decided it was too weird for me and left it. Anyway, my allowance at that time was only 50 cents a week.
Thereafter, I haunted the magazine rack, too, grabbed an FM whenever I saw a new issue. Not only did the magazine talk about these great movies I caught on Creature Features, it also showed there were many, many more I had never seen.
For example, there was Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, which I saw pictures from in FM… and that great cover from #42. I went monster gaga when an ad in TV Guide proclaimed that the film would be on this coming Saturday night. This was as exciting as catching the summer matinee screening of King Kong Vs. Godzilla at the Plano Theatre. Who could win this battle? I liked Frankenstein, but the Wolfman was my favorite monster. We all know what happened… that damned dam.
Anyway, let’s look at FM #67. Though it was published after what I consider the true Golden Age of Famous Monsters’ publishing history in the 60s (and 100-page issues), it still is a pretty slick package at 64 pages.
A lion’s share of the contents was appropriately devilish witchcraft films as it says on the cover. Interesting, but at 9 to 10 years old, all I really wanted was monsters. The article on the German silent film, The Golem, did the job and showed me a “new” monster. My favorite article of the issue was about film sets of the Universal classics… which had photos of those sets, often with a monster planted firmly in its midst.
There was also a Filmbook of The Black Cat, one of the darkest films ever created by Universal. I do have to admit that even though I knew who Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi were, I had absolutely no interest in it… no monsters here. I had to get older to grasp what was going on to enjoy its dark depths.
I really dug the You Axed For It section, with page after page of monster pix.
Oh, and I was mesmerized by the Captain Company pages in the back with all of its various monster stuff for sale, including (gulp) 8mm films. I could actually own my favorite films and watch them any time I wanted to… though I never bought a single one directly through Warren’s Captain Company.
All combined, this unusual issue got me hooked. The joy I had buying it, lasted for years. Though I would eventually leave it behind me while I pursued girls, parties and whatnot, I kept my old tattered issues.
As a kid, though, I took it very seriously, actually saving up my nickels, dimes and pennies to do what I had never done before: I subscribed to FM… but that’s also a story for another day.
Okay, as you can see, I posted a number of pages from this issue here. Click on them to see the larger versions. Or you can actually download the whole issue by right clicking http://www.roadsidehorrors.com/dst/fm67.cbr. It is in compressed rar format, but the tag says cbr to make it readable through the CDisplay program (which can be downloaded through Download.com). CDisplay will allow you to take the whole document and read it clearly, page by page on your computer. It can still be opened up using Winrar, too.
I must note that the images from Creature Features in this blog article came from an incredible website devoted to the program. Check it out for an amazing amount of info, graphics, video and audio by clicking http://wgncreaturefeatures.tvheaven.com/cfmainmenu.html. You’ll be glad you did!
Coming Soon: More Confessions of a Monster Kid!!!
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Agents of Peril #17 - Itching...
Here's this week's Agents of Peril comic strip. Hang onto your seat, kiddies, it's going to get bumpy, messy and even stranger from here on. "Well, I warned you."
As always, click on the small, unreadable art above to see the clearly visible full size artwork.
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