Halloween 2021

The trinity atop the TV in Mom's living room wish you and yours the happiest of Halloweens.

Shocktober 10/30/31

I know I recently wrote about Dick Briefer's interpretation(s) of the Frankenstein Monster in comic books. The book pictured above is a collection of his first tales of Doctor Frankenstein's creation in our modern world. The series started out quite serious, then evolved into a more comedic take. Then? In the 1950s, Briefer took the monster back to his horrific roots. Quite a journey, really. All in the space of 15 years or so.

Shocktober 10/29/21

A Shocktober sky if ever I saw one.

Shocktober 10/28/21

The current desktop photo at work.

Shocktober 10/27/21

This postcard was sent out to viewers who wrote in with fan mail to WGN's "Creature Features" program back in the early 1970s. Would have loved to have received one of these back in the day--or, hell, now.

Shocktober 10/26/21

I know a while ago I mentioned Dick Briefer, a writer/artist in the golden age of comics who produced the first ongoing horror comics series, Frankenstein.

The series changed with the times, going from a scary monster in the early 1940s to a funny monster through the early 1950s to a horrifying, back-breaking monster in the mid-fifties.

The collection pictured above is from that last period, in which the Monster roamed the countryside, getting into various adventures/scrapes with people who refuse to understand the big lug. Some of the stories are heartbreaking. Others are horrifying. All are written and drawn by Briefer with substantial style and flair.

I had this collection ages ago, but lost it when I had to abandon La Casa Del Terror. (Have I mentioned that before? Seems like I have.)

But now? Most of the books I lost from that time are easily attainable now through either Amazon or eBay, mostly for affordable prices.

Now, if only I had somewhere to put them other than the store room at Mom's house.

Some day...

Shocktober 10/25/21

This Jack O'Lantern knows we've less than a week to go.

Shocktober 10/24/21

A yummy mummy cookie bought at Target.

Shocktober 10/23/21

Shocktober 10/22/21

The festive seasonal decorations at the Logan Theater in Logan Square.

Yes, I went there to see Halloween Kills. No, I don't recommend it.

Shocktober 10/21/21

And now? Mego's latest--and, I believe, greatest--Frankenstein Monster figure.

Their first shot at the character back in the 1970s looked more like a jaundiced James Garner than the product of Doctor Frankenstein's laboratory, and their more recent effort looked sort of like Glenn Strange, but also sort of generic, like they hadn't acquired a license for anybody's face in particular.

This one? Is a spot-on likeness of Boris Karloff. And I'm proud to add him to my collection.

Every Picture Tells a Story 10/20/21

An umbrella that didn't survive our recent storms.

Shocktober 10/20/21

"The Bats Have left the belltower, the victims have been bled/Red velvet lines the black box, Bela Lugosi's dead."

Bauhaus, "Bela Lugosi's Dead"

It's somewhat difficult after all these years to think of Bela Lugosi as anything other than a caricature of himself--an outlandishly theatrical actor capable of playing only a narrow range of characters in increasingly cheap productions; when your career ends with you playing the lead in an Ed Wood film, you know you've gone beyond rock bottom.

But, as ever, there is more here than meets the eye.

Lugosi, a new graphic novel written and illustrated by Korem Shadmi, attempts to humanize the caricature, starting with arguably his lowest moment: Checking into rehab for morphine addiction in 1955. From there, Shadmi tells Bela's story in a time-shifting narrative; going back and forth from Bela's glory days in Hollywood starring in top-of-the-line productions like Dracula and Murders in the Rue Morgue (both for Universal) to his ignoble final days acting in Ed Wood movies; his last film, the infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space, was completed after Bela's death using a double who looked nothing like Bela.

Shamdi's approach is even-handed--not reveling in Bela's downfall, but not glossing over his career miscues, either. (Turning down the lead in Frankenstein? Not a good idea.)

Lugosi is a perfect read for an autumn afternoon, when the leaves tumble down the streets and the shadows are especially long.

Also? Today is Bela Lugosi's birthday. So raise a glass of plasma to our favorite vampire.

Shocktober 10/19/21

This collection of stories from EC Comics is the second such collection to come out recently (the first being the Tales from the Crypt volume that came out just a couple of months ago).

Both reprint stories from the 1950s run of EC Comics' horror line, with artwork from some of the best in the business: Johnny Craig (who handled the cover duties for this volume), Wallace Wood, Graham Ingels, etc. And though the artwork has been recolored, the coloring has been matched beautifully with Marie Severin's original work.

The results? Some of the scariest comics ever produced.

The perfect complement to Shocktober!

This Week's Travel Reading, Shocktober Edition 10/18/21

Having started the month with H.P. Lovecraft, I couldn't see myself going through the rest of Shocktober without at least touching on my favorite horror author (and a major influence on Lovecraft): Edgar Allan Poe.

Like Lovecraft, Poe didn't live very long; he was just 40 years old when he succumbed to...what, exactly? There are no records regarding why Poe died, and speculation over the years that he died due to accute alcoholism (or one of the many diseases inherent in that condition), but no one knows with any certainty.

Before he died, though...man, did he conjure up some nightmares.

The Pit and the Pendulem. The Cask of Amontillardo. The Masque of the Red Death. The Tell-Tale Heart. My personal favorite, The Black Cat. And so many more.

As with the Lovecraft volume I recently acquired, this Collected Poe really isn't suited to travel reading--it weighs about 10 lbs. and would wreck my neck and back if I were to tuck it into the backpack for reading on the long train/bus ride to and from the job.

Still, it's comforting to flip through as the days grow shorter and cooler, and the nights grow longer and deeper.

Shocktober 10/17/21

Shocktober 10/16/21

Tales from the Crypt wasn't the first horror anthology comic book published in the United States. It was, however, verly likely the most popular of the many, many horror comics published in the early 1950 before Frederic Wertham, a German-born psychiatrist/author/cruisader against comic books in general and horror comics in particular, turned the glare of the media spotlight on the garishly colored, luridly drawn and salaciously written horror comics.

Werthan's book, Seduction of the Innocent was, according to Wikipedia, "a minor bestseller" that nonetheless had sweeping effects on the comic book industry: Horror comics, for the most part, ceased publication overnight. Where there had been dozens of publications, only a few survived, and those became more tame than the "funny animal" comics or "Blondie and Dick Tracy reprints.

But they didn't go away. Not forever. And not completely.
Initially, EC tried to shift their comic book lines over to black-and-white prose magazines with illustrations drawn by many of their comic book artists, but the effort was too little, too late: the magazines went bust after a couple of issues, and only one magazine out of EC's whole line--the humor-oriented Mad--survived.
But that wasn't the end of the gory story. Oh no.
In the 1960s, Warren Publishing began a line of black-and-white magazines--Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella--that was a direct throwback to the EC Comics line, even employing some of the same artists and writers (Johnny Craig, Wallace Wood, Frank Frazetta, Reed Crandall and Angelo Torres, to name just a few). Since these were magazines, not comic books, they weren't subject to the Comics Code and, thus, could publish whatever the hell they wanted to. And did.
Creepy lasted until 1983 (with a lone followup issue published in 1985). Eerie ended around the same time. And Vampirella? Her original run ended at the same time as they other two magazines, but she was revived in comic books soon after and has rarely been out of print since.

Take that, Fred.

Shocktober 10/15/21

The second volume of the adventures of Morbius the Living Vampire came out earlier this year, and it features much the same as the first: Michael Morbius, turned into a vampire by an experiment designed to cure him of a rare blood disease, wanders through the Marvel Universe, encountering various monsters and superheroes.

Considering that Morbius is slated to appear in his own big-screen adaptation--with Jared Leto in the title role--next year, now might be a good time to bone up on his past adventures.

Shocktober 10/14/21

Samuel "Shemp" Howard is best known for his two stints with the Three Stooges (in the early 1930s and from 1946 until his death from a massive coronary in 1955).

Before that second run as a Stooge, though, he'd made a name for himself with his own series of shorts, plus supporting roles for stars at Universal, including W.C. Fields (The Bank Dick), Abbott & Costello (Buck Privates, Hold That Ghost) and various other movies (The Invisible Girl, The Strange Case of Doctor Rx).

In 1946, Shemp's younger brother, Jerome (best known as Curly), suffered a serious stroke on the set of Halfwit's Holiday and was never able to return to the act (aside from a brief cameo as a sleeping train passenger in Hold that Lion), so Shemp put aside his solo career and rejoined the Stooges.

Once there, Shemp starred alongside Larry and Moe in numerous shorts, including several horror-themes ones like Spooks, which was originally shown in the then-new process of 3D.

Shemp never made another movie or short without Moe or Larry, and in 1956 Shemp suffered a heart attack after attending a boxing match and died while on the taxi ride home. He was 60 years old.

Shocktober 10/13/21

Shocktober 10/12/21

Doctor Frankenstein: "Give my creation liiiiiiiiiiife!"

Igor: "..."

Doctor Frankenstein: "..."

Igor: "Um...well..."

Doctor Frankenstein: "LIIIIIIFFFFFFEEEEE!"

Igor: "Er...you sure you wouldn't rather have a copy of Time instead? It comes out more frequently and is much more reader-friendly..."

Doctor Frankenstein: "..."

Igor: "Um...or maybe a bowl of Chex or Raisin Bran?"

Doctor Frankenstein: "..."

Igor: "..."

Doctor Frankenstein: "LIIIIIIIIIIFFFFFFFFFFEEEEEEEEE!"

This Week's Travel Reading, Shocktober Edition 10/11/21

Okay, true confession: This is NOT this week's travel reading.

How could it be? This volume of H.P. Lovecraft's collected stories--picked up at this year's Printers Row Lit Fest--weighs several pounds, and just lifting it is something of a chore, much less carrying it around in my backpack five days a week.

Still, it is something I'm plowing through at home, and I have been since the middle of last month.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born in Providence, RI on August 20, 1890. He died on the Ides of March, 1937.

In between? He wrote some of the most horrific fiction ever committed to paper.

Several of his stories have been adapted for the big screen and the small, with the best adaptations happening during the three-season run of Rod Serling's Night Gallery. Especially good were "Pickman's Model" with Bradford Dillman as a tortured artist working desperately to hide the inspirations for his hideous paintings, and "Cool Air" starring Henry Darrow as a man whose room must be kept at ice-cold temperatures...or else.

At the movie houses, Lovecraft loomed large, especially in the 1960s and 1970s with movies like The Haunted Palace starring Vincent Price and Debra Paget (mmm...Debra Paget...wait, what were we talking about again? Oh, right...Lovecraft), Die, Monster, Die starring Boris Karloff and Nick Adams, and The Dunwich Horror starring Dean Stockwell.

Lovecraft also provided ample inspiration for comic book creators like Mike Mignola, whose Hellboy often encounters monsters and "elder gods" from Lovecraft's writings.

Now, you must excuse me--I have about 600 pages to go...

Shocktober 10/10/21

Target has many fun and festive Halloween cards to send. (NOTE: This photo was taken in August. Too soon, Target.)

Shocktober 10/9/21

Did you know that legendary bloodsucker Count Dracula was based on a real person?

It's true. Vlad Dracul of Wallachia (a province roughly where Romania is now) was, by all accounts, a bloodthirsty ruler who murdered opponents and allies alike in horrible ways--for example, beheading them and displaying said heads on posts for all to see and, um, "enjoy."

The story of Dracula, the vampire, has been told many times in many different media--novels, movies, TV, comic books, stage plays, etc.

But the story of Vlad the Impaler has not been told nearly as often. There was a movie called In Search of Dracula made back in the '70s starring Christopher Lee (a man with no small experience playing Dracula), and I recall a book being published around the same time that explored his old castle and lands. There was even a prologue added to Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula emphasizing that Dracula had started out as a man--a warlord, really, who loved and lost--who became Lord of the Vampires.

Veteran comic book writer Roy Thomas and artist Estaban Maroto, who drew more than a few issues of Vampirella, teamed up to tell the tale of Vlad the Impaler for Topps, the baseball card company that oh-so-briefly had a comic book line a few decades ago.

And now, thanks to the good folks at IDW Comics, Thomas' and Maroto's version of the Dracula origin tale is available again.

Shocktober 10/8/21

Long before Elvira, Svengoolie (either Jerry G. Bishop or Rich Koz), Drive-in Movie Maniacs and Doctor Destruction's Crimson Theatre, there was Shock Theatre, hosted by Marvin (Terry Bennett).

First airing on December 7, 1957, Shock Theatre ran all the Universal horror classics--Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, etc. This doesn't sound like much now, but consider: These were the first times these movies had aired on TV. Period.

Before then, you had to go to your neighborhood movie theater to see them on the big screen--no DVDs/Blu-rays, no cable channels, no streaming services--so getting to see them on the small screen at home was a pretty big deal, even if you had to stay up past your normal bedtime to do it.

Marvin was, by all accounts, a whacky character, wearing thick pop-bottle glasses, a black turtleneck with a matching sportscoat and is described on his Wikipedia page as "a demented beatnik."

Sadly, no footage of Bennett as Marvin exists. We only have descriptions from viewers and from Bennett's wife, Joy, who played "Dear" on the show, constantly being tortured by Marvin, but never showing her face until the very last episode in 1959.

Shocktober 10/7/21

Back in the early 1970s, horror comics and characters were relatively few and far between. Marvel Comics would, of course, publish the longest-running character-specific horror comic, Tomb of Dracula, but that wouldn't start until 1972. In the meantime, Marvel introduced the quasi-vampiric Morbius, the Living Vampire, in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man.

I can hear you now, fair reader: "Living vampire? Ain't no such thing." Well, back in the days when the Comics Code, instituted back in the 1950s to curb the proliferation of horror comics, was still enforced, Marvel couldn't introduce a real vampire on their pages, so Michael Morbius--a scientist with a rare blood condition who experimented on himself, as one does--became a creature who needed blood to survive, but didn't have any issues with garlic or crucifixes or stakes and such.

The character was an instant hit and was soon given his own series in the anthology comic Adventures into Fear, which lasted around 12 issues.

But his adventures didn't end there. Oh no. They continued on, as you shall see...another time.

Five Years Ago Today

Five years ago today, I tried to kill myself.

I don't say this with any pride or bravado. Just stating a fact.

Some day, I'll tell the whole story--what was going through my mind at the time, how I did what I did, and the gradual recovery that led me to where I am today.

Not exactly where I want to be--personally or professionally--but the fact that I'm still here, still fighting the fight day in and day out, still typing these words on this blog, still slogging through each and every day in the hopes of better things to come, is, in and of itself, a good sign.

I'm still here. And plan to be for some time to come.

Many thanks to all the friends, near and far, who have suppported me, encouraged me and kept me in their thoughts and hearts all this time. It meant--and means--the world to me.

Shocktober 10/6/21

And now, to help keep those unruly monsters in line, we have the Mego Van Helsing! The spitting image of actor Peter Cushing, this action figure is ready to get to the heart of the matter--as in driving a stake through a vampire's heart!

Shocktober 10/5/21

An amazeballs painting of the Universal Monsters by comic book artist Alex Ross. Poor Dr. Waldman...

This Week's Travel Reading, Shocktober Edition

If you know the name Robert Bloch at all, it's likely either because you've seen Psycho (he wrote the screenplay for it) or The House That Dripped Blood (ditto). But Bloch wrote almost three dozen novels in his career, Lori being near the end of that run.

Originally published in 1989 (and, as far as I can tell, never reprinted since), Lori is the story of the title character who, according to the blurb on Amazon.com, "is plunged into a nightmare of supernatural madness and violence as the birth mother Lori never knew reaches out from beyond the grave to claim her daughter's body as her own and to consign Lori's soul to eternal damnation."

So...light and happy reading, then.

Good to know.

Shocktober 10/3/21

When I was a kid, I was very into monsters--Frankenstein's Monster, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, Dracula, etc. And since this was the case, I was also into How to Care for Your Monster, a slender children's book written and drawn by Norman Bridwell, better known as the creator of Clifford, the Big Red Dog.

How to Care for Your Monster presumes quite accurately (at least in my case) that all kids love monsters and would like to own one, and it runs down the list of monsters and the advantages and disadvantages of owning each type of monster.

I acquired my first copy of this book through Scholastic Book Services, which sold a variety of children's books back in the 1970s through mail order (which meant that you had to get permission from Mom and/or Dad to buy). I held the copy dear for many years--until I lost La Casa del Terror and damn near everything in it, including most of my books.

But thanks to the Internet in general, and eBay in particular, I've been able to reacquire several cherished posessions--including a copy of How to Care for Your Monster.

For right now, I've got it safely locked away in the store room at Mom's house. But whenever I get set up in La Casa del Terror 3, it'll have an honored place in my living room.

Shocktober 10/2/21

Mego's Hammer Dracula would like to know what you think you're doing.

Shocktober 10/1/21

What better way to kick off Shocktober 2021 than with a book by David J. Skal, author of the definitive monster movie book, The Monster Show?

This book is more of a tasting menu than a full entree course--it gives brief outlines of great horror films through the decades, all the way up to Get Out--but that's not really the point.

The point is this: What a great way to start my favorite month of the year!