People I Like

Just found out that People Magazine named The Secret Saturdays one of "The Best Of The New Kids' Shows"!

Props To Geno!

Shout out to our lovable prop and FX wizard, Eugene Mattos, who handles a HUGE workload of Secret Saturdays stuff with unflagging enthusiasm. Love ya, Geno.

The Invasion Begins!

Welcome news from BoingBoing about a new art book devoted to the great Norman Saunders, a big favourite of mine as demonstrated by my old posts about his tranding card and pulp magazine paintings. This is a long-overdue celebration of a great, ghoulish, American artist, and I, for one, highly recommend it. Compiled by his son, David Saunders, the new 368-page book promises to be "The definitive hard-bound coffee table art book on the artist who created Mars Attacks, Wacky Packs, Batman Cards, Pre-Code Comics, Men's Adventure Magazines, Paperbacks, Pulps and countless icons of Pin-Ups, Monsters, Robots, Mayhem, Nazis, Aliens and Space Ships." Ahhh... how wonderful!

What I Do On My Off Hours

If you're over the drinking age, like to draw, sketch, paint, or doodle, and want to socialize with other like-minded weirdoes, you're welcome to come out to the (so far) monthly Guelph Pen Club. Guelph area artists of all stripes come together to draw for drawings' sake... silly, informal, and without editors or art directors. Very fun. I'll definitely be at the next one.

Frankensteinia

New addition to the links... lets welcome the wonderful Frankensteinia!

Monsters And Children

I've always felt that young minds are more directly in tune with monsters than us older folks. And it appears that Arc Dream feel the same way. So much so that they created a roleplaying game specifically about kids and their monsters, called, of course, Monsters And Other Childish Things. Even better, they got a whole class of 5th Graders from Oak Mountain Intermediate School in Birmingham, Ala., to create a horde of monsters for the game, and will be posting a new creature every school day until Valentine's day. They've even gone so far as to open it up as a contest for gamers to create stats for the weirdos on display! Like the monster called 'Floog' shown above. Man I love everything about this whole thing.

Shadowy Backgrounds

Here's a look at some new background designs by the dynamic duo Eric Clark and Robert Harand, two fantastic creative minds who are, lucky for me, thoroughly overqualified for the position of 'Background Designer' on the Secret Saturdays!

Etched Into My Brain

When I was a kid, my Mom worked nights at the Hospital, and my little brother and I were left in the care of a teenaged babysitter who was a big fan of all things Horror. I know, explains a lot, right? Her equally creep-loving boyfriend, out of the goodness of his heart, gave me a stack of then-current horror mags, zipped into a translucent vinyl bag. I was far too terrified to open it until I was much older, and tossed them under the bed and out of sight. But one magazine on top kept peering at me through the plastic. It was the one above... issue number three of Atlas' short-lived (but undead in my brain) Movie Monsters. This disturbing version of the Phantom kept me up many a night. Just thought I'd share.

The Call Of Cthulhu?

According to Space.com, something is "roaring" from the depths of space. They say "one team of astronomers has found a strange cosmic noise that booms six times louder than expected. The roar is from the distant cosmos. Nobody knows what causes it." The thought that dear old H.P. Lovecraft could've been right is freaking me out (and I wouldn't be the first to have such thoughts)! An awakened Cthulhu certainly puts the current recession into perspective, no?

Monster-Sized News!

It's official... The Cartoon Network has renewed The Secret Saturdays for ten more episodes.

Old Things

To kick off 2009, I've gone back over the last few years of Monsterama posts and cleaned up some faulty image files for you. Now you can browse the nearly 300 entries by date, category, or by searching for a subject. Revisit old posts on the likes of Mr. and Mrs. J. Evil Scientist (here, here, and here.), the weirdest Hanna-Barbera characters of all because they had their own comic book but no TV series! There's a nifty place to follow up on them over at Quasi-interesting paraphenalia Inc., with more info and embedded video! Remember my old posts on Milton the Monster? You can check out Hal Seeger's horrible hick here, and here. Or go back and flip over foreign-made, off-model Frankenstein Jr. stuff (here, here, and here.) Speaking of which, Funko finally put out the first licensed Franky Jr. toy in a looong time with their wicked wobble bank! Click on Tutenstein or the Secret Saturdays at right to instantly get at the whole story behind my own creepy creations. Have fun!