Excelsior!

One of my heroes, Stan Lee, reads The Night Before Christmas. Enjoy, true believers!

Free Spooky

The Big Blog Of Kids Comics has three terrific Spooky Comics available to read. Classic stuff by Howard Post including an appearance by 'Bat Belfry'. Man, I loved Spooky when I was a kid! The 'tough little ghost' was always my favourite Harvey Comics' character.

Strange Tales #3 out now

I forgot to mention that my 4-page contribution to Marvel Comics' odd Strange Tales is on the shelves as of last Wednesday. Oh, and I did an interview for the Marvel website, too...

Another Cover

Here's the second cover (Cartoon Network Action Pack #45) to the upcoming 2-part Secret Saturdays story, "The Lost King Of Africa". Shades of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...

Wolverine Vs. Wendigo

Here's a bloody drawing I did for a fundraiser for the non profit Joe Shuster Awards of Wolverine in his original costume attacking Wendigo. Since the awards are for Canadian cartoon talent, and it's Wolverine --the Canadian hero's-- 35th anniversary in print, he was choosen as the subject matter for the art auction. ComicArtFans will post the virtual gallery, and the ebay auction for this stuff will begin in the Fall. I loved Wolverine when I was a kid! And the Wendigo, both the Marvel Comics version and the real Ojibwe legend is one of my favourite monsters.

Finished Cover of CNAP#44

FanExpo 2009

Heads' up-- I'll be appearing at the Toronto FanExpo this coming weekend, August 28th-30th 2009. Come on by if you're in the neighborhood and chat me up. Other cool, creepy guests include legendary horror film stars Barbera Steele and Bruce Campbell, the King of B-Movies, Roger Corman, and Master of Horror Mags, Rue Morgue, with whom I've just talked to for a piece on creepy cartoons that will appear in the October ish. (above: cover rough for Cartoon Network Action Pack #44)

Scary Gary

I'm a fan of Mark Buford's daily comic strip Scary Gary. It's a creepy monster comedy with a dry, and often dark, sense of humor. I haven't seen a dud yet. The strip centers around Gary the vampire and his green, demonic, sidekick, Leopold as they try to adjust to life in the suburbs. There's also a nerdy ghost named Owen and a head in a jar named Travis. From Go Comics: "He's rather burned out on vampirism and is ready to hang up his cape... but Leopold keeps the neighborhood thoroughly terrorized."

Out Now!

The latest issue of Cartoon Network Action Pack (#39) is on the shelves, with a story described thusly, "The Secret Saturdays discover a strange and ancient relationship between a cryptid and an Italian village". It's a good one! And next month, in issue #40, "The Secret Saturdays get to the bottom of a mystery involving a strange species of cryptids called Flying Rods"... featuring the return of Piecemeal!

Strange Tales

Not sure which issue of Strange Tales my four-pager featuring Morbius and The Beast will appear in, but I'm sure glad this stuff is finally seeing print! And check out that cover by my pal Pope on the first issue-- excelsior!!!

TCAF 2009

I'll be lurking around TCAF all weekend, in case you're wondering. All I gotta say is, Yoshihiro Tatsumi is in the hood! Hope to see you there.

Secret Saturdays 'Graphic Novels'

While this news item is super-exciting, it's a little misleading. These books aren't 'graphic novels' in the conventional sense, but are instead graphic novelizations of episodes of the animated series, using screen shots from the episodes themselves. Still pretty cool. From the press release: “With its rich characters and intriguing stories, The Secret Saturdays is the latest Cartoon Network series to achieve widespread international popularity,” says Mutsumi Miyazaki, director of licensing and acquisitions for Del Rey Manga. “We believe that this new film-comic will bring new fans to The Secret Saturdays, and we look forward to building further success for the franchise while expanding our strong partnership with Cartoon Network.”

Alternate Saturdays

Issue #39 of Cartoon Network Action Pack is out in July with a new Saturdays story and cover. Now would be a good time to mention that the stories in the comics have kind of drifted away from what we do in the show. This was mostly out of necessity, due to the tight plotline running through the first 26 episodes. But I thought it was time to point out that the comics are not considered official cannon.

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!

D-Mon!

I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to direct Monsterama visitors to the beautiful artwork on display over at Derek Thompson's blog, but I aim to correct that before the year is out! Congrats to him on the wonder that is WALL-E, but I know you're all more interested in his eye-poppingly great monster sketches. Interview with the man here. Gotta love a guy who works in comic books and animation simultaneously, right?

Roy, Oh Boy!

Time to start musing about the Monster Month! I can't think of a better way to kick of All Hallows than with this stunning piece of spine-tingling art by my hero Roy Crane. Michael Price posted a wonderful interview with Crane last year. I liked this little chestnut: "I don’t worry about the violence. It’s good for children to read something about violence to prepare them for this world we live in. What literature doesn’t have violence? The Bible is full of it. And there was that girl who went through the looking glass, Alice, and the Queen threatening to cut off everybody’s heads!"

Odd and Weird

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? My sharp-eyed daughter was perusing an online game site called Games2Girls when she came across Weirdville, a boring little game featuring a sorry-looking Jetcat knock-off, and quite clearly ripped off from my Oddville comics. I guess I should be either annoyed or happy that someone thought my comics were cool enough to 'borrow' from, but this just leaves me blah. I like a so-bad-it's-good bootleg as much as the next guy, but this is just plain bad bad.

Aw, Shucks

Josh at Creative Loafing has some nice things to say about comics I did over a decade ago. To be put in the same category as the likes of Evan Dorkin, Ivan Brunetti, Chris Ware, and the criminally underrated Doug Allen... some of my favourite living cartoonists, is almost enough to cure my depression. Thanks, man.

Three For Thrills

Here are three things that I'm dying to get my mitts on this fall...Drawn & Quarterly's Complete Melvin Monster, part of their exhaustive John Stanley reprint effort (thanks to all those who wrote in about this one). Even though I have all of these comics, I'm looking forward to a well-designed, one-stop collection of the best kid monster comic ever created. Are you experienced? If not, Pappy's got what you need. My favourite Tezuka creation returns in English via Vertical's complete Blackjack collection. This genre-defying manga features a scarred gothic surgeon in eerily bizarre tales of adventures in extreme surgery. Weird and wonderful! And, lo and behold, Disney is finally releasing a definitive DVD of Dr. Syn, Alias The Scarecrow! If you're unfamiliar with these spooky adventures in Romney Marsh, this is a great chance to blow your mind. To be fair, though, Hammer Films version of the same tale, Night Creatures, is just as awesome.

Saturdays In Print

The first Secret Saturdays comic book story has been out for a few weeks, now, in CN Action Pack #26 (DC Comics), and the cryptid-savvy gang will be appearing in every other issue until their TV debut in the fall. Check out these carefully crafted 'prequel' tales for the first official glimpse of these characters.