Shocktober 10/12/18

When I was a young'un, I was easily scared.

The creepy music from Creature Features (actually Henry Mancini's theme from Experiment in Terror), the shadows cast on my bedroom wall by the nightlight, the costumes on Halloween...all managed, at one point or another, to reduce me to tears.

But one of the most vivid memories from my misspent youth is the sheer terror I felt trying not to look at the cover of Marvel Comics' Tomb of Dracula #1.

The cover artwork was by Neal Adams--much better known for his work on Batman over at DC Comics (Marvel's "distinguished competition")--but the interior art was by Gene Colan, best known for his long run on Daredevil (and shorter stints on Captain America, Iron Man and Howard the Duck, amongst many others). Colan would go on to pencil every issue of Tomb of Dracula--a rarity, then and now, especially considering that the comic ran for 70 issues.

But it was Adams' art that first made me afraid to sleep at night. I'd lie awake in the bunkbed I shared with my brother, hoping that...what? The image on the comic wouldn't come alive and get me? Please don't ask me, all these years later, to explain the fears of an 8-year-old. I have no reasonable answer.

Except...that Marvel obviously hoped that the cover would frighten little children enough to want to buy it.

And they were right.

(NOTE: The image above is not of the actual comic, but of a trade paperback collecting the first few issues of Tomb of Dracula, recently purchased at a local comic book shop.)

Shocktober 10/11/18

One of the best horror comics of the 1980s (or, really, of all time), Swamp Thing was writer Alan Moore's first go at doing a continuous series here in America--and what a series it was. From his first issue, which he ended by shooting Swamp Thing in the head and apparently killing him, through more that 50 issues (obviously, Swampy did not die in issue #20), Moore produced a potent brew of horror, tragedy, and, occasionally, comedy (sometimes all three simultaneously), aided and abetted by artists Steve Bissette, John Totleben and several others.

The photo above is of the first volume of his adventures as written by Moore--all of the volumes are worth a read (several reads, actually) and can be found at your local comic book store.

Shocktober 10/9/18

Remember a few years back, when I wrote about Scary Godmother, Jill Thompson's wonderful series of children's books about a witch and her spooky fiends...er, friends who help out a little girl named Hannah and scare the muffins out of her bully cousin, Jimmy?

Remember also that when I moved out of La Casa del Terror two years ago, I did so in a hurry and had to leave most of my possessions behind, including nearly all of my hundreds of books? Sadly, that included my copy of Scary Godmother.

Well, this weekend, while visiting a comic book shop I'd never been in before in Lincoln Square, I ran into a copy of the complete Scary Godmother collection again.

Just in time for Shoctober reading, too!

Seriously, this book is a lot of fun, especially for those who love All Hallow's Eve like I do.

And while I've been out buying books (to replace much of what was lost), I've landed other volumes worthy of a Shocktober perusal. Look for entries on those stories later this week.

This Week's Transit Reading

Wednesday Miscellania

What better way to get over Hump Day than with random thoughts from me?

*sound of crickets chirping*

Yes...well...anyway...

The last movie I saw: The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. Terry Gilliam movies tend to be glossy messes overstuffed with imaginative, engaging visuals undercut by meandering, unfocused plots. They also tend to be star-crossed, with financing falls though, studios interfering with editing or, in this case, the lead actor, Heath Ledger, passing away mid-production.

Gilliam found a creative way around this sad problem, though: He cast three other high-profile actors--Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Ferrell--to fill in for Ledger in the scenes that take place within the imagination-made-sort-of-corporeal of the good doctor (Christopher Plummer). The device works reasonably well--Depp in particular gets Ledger's movements and vocal cadences down so minutely that it takes a moment to realize it isn't Ledger.

There are delights to be found here, including Tom Waits as a scruffy, smooth-talking Devil and Lily Cole as the gorgeous daughter the Devil here to collect from Parnassus. but the reality of Ledger's death impedes the fantasy and casts a pall over the whole production, especially since the script already contained musings on mortality ("Nothing is permanent," notes Depp's version of Ledger's character, Tony, "not even death").

Travel reading: Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. It amazes me that this book is nearly 30 years old. It further amazes me that, in all that time, I'd never read it. With all the graphic violence and psychological anguish on display, though, it was this passage that affected me the most:

[The note] said Birmingham police had found a cat buried behind the Jacobi's garage. The cat had a flower between its paws and was wrapped in a dish towel. The cat's name was written on the lid in a childish hand. It wore no collar. A string tied in a granny knot held the lid on.

In my case, there was no lid to tie on, only a towel--not a dish towel, but a royal blue bath towel I'd put in the "cat carrier" (really an orange milk crate with a hinged lid) so that Ms. Christopher would be reasonably comfortable. And it wasn't a flower between her paws, butt was her favorite kitty toys--one of those little burlap bags with the word "catnip" stenciled on the side that had long since its potency, though I'd rub it down with fresh catnip to make my Girlish Girl smile again.

Stealth Cattle Cars. This morning, I got a rude surprise on the CTA Brown Line. As I boarded the second car at Francisco, I looked around and realized that I was on a "Max Capacity" car--a car with seats removed to allow more standing passengers aboard, better known among regular riders as a "cattle car."

Usually, when I see that either the first two or last two cars of a train are "cattle cars" I dash to the closest "regular" car, but this time I didn't do that because I hadn't noticed the large orange signs indicating that it was a "Max Capacity" car. At the next stop, I got off and bunny-hopped to the third car of the train, only to discover that it was a "cattle car" as well. Furthermore, neither car had the typical "Max Capacity" signs on the outside of the car.

I didn't try scrambling down to the next car; I simply found a corner of the car, parked in it and fumed all the way into the Loop.

When I arrived at work, one of my coworkers who takes the Blue Line related a similar experience--she also wound up on a stealth "cattle car" and had to ride it all the way downtown.

Is it something CTA is only just doing because of the inclement weather (which usually drives up ridership temporarily), or is this a permanent shift in policy? If it's the latter--if I'm to play the part of livestock for every morning commute--then I'll be switching to Metra (the separate commuter rail system, which has two stops within long walking distance of La Casa del Terror) or trying to put together a carpool.

CTA may say that they don't have any options, that this is the best they can do. If that's truly the case, then their best isn't nearly good enough. Its true in retail, and it's true here as well: Serve the customer, or the customer will go somewhere else.

Monday Miscellania 11/9/09

Travel Reading: The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper. Unlike most books about the gruesome murders in Whitechapel in 1888, The Mammoth Book doesn't push forward a single candidate and scream "HE DID IT!" Instead, the editors lay out the indisputable facts (while simultaneously noting that, among "Ripperologists," there may be no such thing as an "indisputable fact"), flags suspect evidence and turns loose a whole slew of experts offering a wide range of opinions as to who may or may not have done it. It's a great place for a beginner to get an overview of history's greatest unsolved crime. It's definitely better than just about any of the movie versions. (!988's Jack the Ripper, recently issued on DVD for the first time by the WB Archive, is the most historically accurate, though it fudges enough details throughout to place it more appropriately in the "speculative fiction" category. 1999's From Hell is allegedly based on the exhaustively researched graphic novel by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, but bears little resemblance to the graphic novel, much less reality.)

The last movie I saw: The Men Who Stare at Goats. "Military intelligence" has long been accepted as an oxymoron, and nothing in this movie, an adaptation of Jon Ronson's nonfiction book, contradicts that view. However, director Grant Heslov, screenwriter Peter Straughan and most of the actors (Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey among them) put so much emphasis on the wacky aspects of the story of a U.S. military unit that tries to employ psychic abilities in defense of our country that I fully expected Fozzy Bear to come on screen and yell 'WOCKA WOCKA WOCKA!" at me to punctuate the jokes. (As it is, the awful music score by Rolfe Kent pretty much does that anyway.) Only George Clooney, who plays psychic "super soldier" LynCassady, seems to know that with material this potentially outrageous, the smartest approach is to play it with a straight face. Consequently, not only are Clooney's scenes funnier, but his character is far more sympathetic; it's a lot easier to care about the fate of someone who genuinely believes something crazy and is crushed to discover it isn't true than it is to sympathize with someone who constantly winks at you as if to say, "Just kiddin', folks."

Monday Miscellania 10/12/09

Last Movie I saw: Whip It. Why did this movie fail at the box office? Was it resistance to the concept of Drew Barrymore as a director? (She does a relatively straightforward job--not bad for a first-timer, but with plenty of room to grow.) Was it a general lack of interest in roller derby? Was it backlash-by-proxy against Diablo Cody because Ellen Page starred in Juno? (At least one review I read felt the need to crack on RS while praising Page--Diablo-as-piñata has become the latest crutch for lazy film critics.)

Whatever. Whip It is an entertaining little flick--the plot is a cliche combo of "teen rebels against tight-assed mom" and "bad-but-plucky sports team becomes good enough to play for the championship," but it's more than slightly freshened by a remarkably deep cast (Page, Daniel Stern, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig, Zoe Bell and Barrymore herself).

If you can't get out to one of the few theaters still rolling it, look for it on cable or DVD in a few months. It'll be worth it.

Travel Reading: Chicago TV Horror Shows: From Shock Theatre to Svengoolie. This history of local TV shows specializing in horror films given to me as a Christmas present by JB a couple of years ago, and it's been an off-and-on travel companion of mine ever since. Writers Ted Okuda and Mark Yurkiw ramble a bit--they could have used a good copyeditor.

They do, however, hit many the high points of my misspent youth, including Creature Features on WGN (with its creepy Henry Mancini theme music and that drawing of Lon Chaney from London After Midnight that gave me nightmares for years) and both the original Svengoolie, Jerry G. Bishop, and his successor, Son of Svengoolie, Rich Koz, who's still on the air every Saturday night, with bad movies and worse jokes. I couldn't think of a better visual comfort food.

Last, But Not Least: The Chicago Transit Authority announced today that as of February 2010, they're simultaneously raising fares (some as high as $3 per ride) and cutting service. So, we'll be paying even more and getting even less! Happy Monday, everybody!

Miscellaneous Miscellania

Last Movie I Saw: None, actually. Time has been tight, money tighter. Hope to catch up the next couple of months with a whole bunch of movies I want to see, like Whiteout, Extract, Whip It and Zombieland.

Travel Reading: The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill. You think the classic movie is hard to believe? The story was actually toned down from what really happened when 76 POWs escaped from a German prison camp during World War II. Just shows how creative and energetic one can be when starving and desperate.

Halloween Harbingers: Last night, I stopped by one of my many neighborhood Walgreens to pick up a gallon of milk and saw the worker bees in the seasonal aisle busily packing away the back to school items and loading the shelves with Halloween merchandise. Away go the Hannah Montana spiral-bound notebooks. Out come the light-up pumpkins and scented candles. In past years, I've lamented this--it's not even Labor Day yet, for cryin' out loud--but this time I'm embracing it. I'm ready. Bring on the skeletons and bats, the witches and rats (sorry JB). Throw open the doors of La Casa del Terror and let the Halloween Movie Bash (actually on Halloween this year!) be festive.

And Last, But Far from Least...A very Happy Birthday to Superbadfriend! Hope you're out doing fun, celebratory stuff instead of staying in and reading this, even though you're one of the relatively few who does!

Hitting the Books

Most of the toys have been put away in La Casa del Terror in a vain attempt to make my apartment look less like a teenage boy's bedroom circa 1975. (Maybe now, girls will like me!!! Or, um, not). Not all of the toys have been put away, of course--I'm not sure I have room in my closets for all of my toys, and I just don't have the heart to shove my Mego Supergirl, my Sean Connery James Bond or my Christopher Lee Count Dooku figures into a box--and all the monster toys will crawl back out of their respective graves come Halloween.

The lack of action figures, however, has created a lot of extra space for books, an alarming number of which relate to bad movies, which would explain how I know so much about the likes of Plan 9 from Outer Space, Robot Monster and Can't Stop the Music.

Here, then, is a sampling of reading materials from your humble correspondent's less toy-intensive shelves:

The Golden Turkey Awards and Son of Golden Turkey by Harry and Michael Medved. Most people don't remember these books because they've been out of print for some time, but the original Golden Turkey Awards may have been the single most infuential text in the history of the appreciation of so-bad-it's-good cinema and may have been the first book to declare Plan 9 to be "The Worst Movie Ever Made" and its director, the immortal Edward D. Wood, Jr., to be "Worst Director." I recently landed a copy of this after years of trying (eBay is my friend), but I'd read it cover to cover years before while freelancing as a proofreader at an audio/visual company that made 35mm slides for corporate presentations. (Such freelancing was necessary after I quit my first job out of college because "I didn't like it" without having another job lined up, right on the cusp of a recession--yes, I was young and dumb.) And while waiting to read slide after slide of boring corporate earnings (or lack thereof), The Golden Turkey Awards gave me hours of entertainment. And please don't hold it against the book that one of the authors is Michael Medved, co-host of the excruciatingly lame Sneak Previews (after Siskel & Ebert left to go do At the Movies, which they left later to go do Siskel & Ebert & the Movies, which Siskel left because...well, because he died, which made it hard for him to see new movies and thus review them).

Classics of the Horror Film and More Classics of the Horror Film by William K. Everson. To be honest, Everson's more than a bit of a tight ass, turning his nose up at modern classics like The Exorcist ("a cheap and shoddy picture") and The Wicker Man ("overrated"). But without his first book, which I read over and over again during study period at Lane Tech instead of doing actual homework, I'd never have sought out the likes of James Whale's Brilliant black comedy The Old Dark House or Carl Dreyer's strangely hypnotic Vampyr or The Ghoul, a Boris Karloff flick that's neither brilliant nor hypnotic--just good old creepy fun.

Graven Images by Ronald V. Borst. Not only is this book filled with gorgeous horror film posters from the silent era through the '60s, but it also has lots of tasty tidbits of trivia: Did you know that Bela Lugosi was the first choice to play "The Monster" in Frankenstein, but turned the role down because it wasn't a speaking part, even though he didn't speak English and had to memorize his lines for Dracula phonetically? Or that H.G. Wells hated both Island of Lost Souls and Metropolis? Neither did I.

Nightmare of Ecstasy by Rudolph Grey. Ed Wood may have been talentless--at least his movies don't betray any discernable gift for telling stories, writing dialogue or even being able to tell night from day--but he was, first and foremost, a dreamer who worked his angora-clad ass off to make those dreams come true. And, to a certain extent, he succeeded: while other, better directors have long since been forgotten, Ed Wood's name is instantly recognizable to damn near every movie fan. Gray interviews many of Wood's close associates--his wife, his friends, actors and drinking buddies--and uses Wood's own words to paint as compele a picture of an artist as you're ever likely to see, even if it's not a pretty picture.

The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film and The Psychotronic Video Guide by Michael Weldon. Throw these two books together and what do you get? More than 6,000 reviews of weird, wild, wonderful movies--from Abbott & Costello Go to Mars to Zontar, the Thing from Venus and lots and lots of strange shit in between. Weldon introduced my mind to benders like The Manster, in which a man grows an extra head (not too Freudian) and Soul Vengeance, in which a convict takes revenge on those he blames for putting him behind bars by sleeping with their wives and then strangling the men with his dick (no, I'm not kidding). Both books celebrate the great, the bad and the just plain odd. And I love 'em all.

Bad Movies We Love by Edward Margulies and Stephan Rebello. It's remerkably easy (and fun!) to kick around below zero-budget celluloid trainwrecks like Plan 9 and Robot Monster, but these guys go after people with actual talent--Oscar-winning actors like Gene Hackman, Bette Davis and Al Pacino, and lauded directors like Otto Premminger, John Huston and Douglas Sirk (whose color-saturated, hyper-melodramatic style Todd Haynes so ably imitated in his Oscar-nominated Far from Heaven)--who just happen to have made some really shitty movies. Most of their choices are high camp trash like Mommy Dearest ("Tina--bring me the axe!") and Valley of the Dolls ("You've got to climb Mount Everest to reach the Valley of the Dolls"), but they also love disaster movies with lots o' stars (The Towering Inferno), needless sequels (King Kong Lives, Staying Alive) and terrible musicals (Xanadu). And any book that gives an extra kick to Exorcist II: The Heretic is required reading for me.

Then again, all of these books qualify as "required reading" for me. Any one of them can be found at my bedside at any given time, and all of them are heartily recommended, though some of them are out of print and might be a bit hard to find. They've taught me a hell of a lot about good movies, bad movies and "what the fuck was that?" movies. And they've taught me that even the most miserable losers can be loved.

There's always hope, then. Always.