Mr. Scarol

Another vintage monster ad from the pages of BATS.

Mystery Of The Cryptids- Part 4

Well, I'm back from L.A. with some ghoulishly good news... my oft blogged cartoon project about Cryptids
is in development at Cartoon Network. I'll keep you posted on how things are going, if and when I can... The Network may want to keep this under wraps a little, which means you faithful fiends are in on a juicy secret!

A Couple Of Things

I'm off to L.A. for a few days, so I won't have time to post. Thought I'd leave you with a couple of my favourite things... Mad Monster Party and this amazing print by Tim Biskup of my hero, Ogon Bat (the original version, even!). While you're waiting for more monsterous blogging, please check out the links to the right... well worth a waste of time!

Hip... Hip... Hipira!

What do you get when you cross mangaka Katsuhiro (Akira, Steamboy) Otomo with production designer Shinji (Lupin III, My Neighbor Totoro) Kimura? How about a short, sweet, spooky children's book about a city of vampires? Yup...Hipira is a book about a naughty vampire kid who likes to pretend the sun is coming up in the forever-dark town of Salta. He makes friends with a unformed sprite and a voracious demon baby, and generally makes vampirism look weird and fun. Did you know that if a vampire drinks the blood of a sprite it gets to go to hell? Me neither. Apparently hell is heavenly for vampires. Dark Horse has recently released this lavish picture book in english, and you can take a peek at the gorgeous artwork here.

The Emmy Returns

I'm so proud! My little dead boy is nominated for another Daytime Emmy Award this year for Special Class Animated Program. He won in 2004 in the same category, and I honestly thought that was the beginning and end of it. Good luck, little Pharaoh, as if you needed any more golden trinkets.

Still Beating Hearts

Enjoy the reddest day of the year with this monsterous love-life article by Crystal Guillory at Horror-Wood, these Universal monster valentines, and this disturbingly named 15" Monster Love Bear.

GeGeGe Game

This superbly detailed overview at bog leech of the Konami GeGeGe No Kitaro game isn't just an analysis of the game, but serves as a terrific recap of Kitaro's origin, and an incredible list of a weird host of Yokai! From the site (in case you missed my previous posts about Shigeru Mizuki or Kitaro) ... "More or less the most beloved cultural phenomenon in Japanese history, Gegege no Kitarou tells the story of a one-eyed "goblin boy" who protects the human world from the supernatural and vice-versa as a free-lance hero to any who seek his aid. He is accompanied by Medama Oyaji or "Old Man Eyeball"; literally the walking, talking eyeball of his dead father. Mixing eerie horror elements with childlike innocence and humor, the manga debuted in the late 1960's and has since spawned four animated series, several movies and videogames, its own museum, and even a street adorned with bronze statues of its entire cast."
Thanks to Jonathan W.

Miss Monster

Anyone who draws creeptacular pictures, sculpts howling monsters, makes plush creratures, creates spooky streetwear, and builds their own frightabulous monster costume definately ranks high in Monsterama's books! Miss Monster (a.k.a. Melita Curphy, former WB animator) does it all and does it well. A must-see site!

Mystery Of The Cryptids - Part 3

By popular demand, I now return to discussing the evolution of my animated cartoon concept, Cryptids. In Part 1 I discussed the original concept, and why the anthropomorphic version didn't fly, and in Part 2 I wrote about my interest in cryptozoology more generally. Now then... one particular network who shall remain nameless loved the basic concept of the Cryptids pitch, but was looking for an "action-comedy, not a comedy-action" show. Now, I love a good adventure cartoon as much as the next guy, and I told them I thought I might be able to rework the pitch. I immediately went for a kind of Hanna-Barbera action show look from the mid-'60's... like Mighty Mightor, Space Ghost, Galaxy Trio, and especially Jonny Quest and the Herculoids. I absolutely love the work of Doug Wildey and Alex Toth... great monster drawings! So I drew up a bunch of creature sketches, and reconceived the team as human adventurers. The basic story was the same... our stars were Cryptid-friendly heroes who, instead of solving mysteries like Scooby-Doo, wanted to keep them a secret. The network loved the idea and I spent some weeks rewriting and sketching... all on spec and without a development deal, of course. Getting a network to cough up seed money is like getting blood from a stone! You know how this ends. They passed on the show after several months of suspense. But it ain't over yet...

Diaz of the Dead

My Spanish is terrible, but you don't need to read Espanol to see how wonderful the work of Felix Diaz is. Of particular interest to Monsterama readers are the gruesome little 'Hollow Boy' comics that he does for Vulture Mag. You have to dig through the blog to get to the gross stuff, but it's well worth the trouble, and every little drawing is a delight. (Thanks to reader 'jq- cisne negro' for the link)

R.I.P. Grandpa Munster

The wonderful Al Lewis, best known for his role as Grandpa on the Munsters television program, passed away on Friday. No word on who gets the Drag-U-La.

Monster E-Mail Order

What a thrill! VXX-FX is in the business of recreating creeps from the distant past. Their beautifully gruesome masks include a faithful recreation of the Devilman mask from the cover of Famous Monsters Of Filmland #2, an uncanny Swamp Zombie mask lovingly copied from Al Feldstein's cover to Tales From The Crypt #24, and remakes of the legendary fright masks from the back pages of all the old monster mags like The Ghoul, and the Shock Monster!

I Want My Mummy

Hans van den Berg's Wepwawet site is an elaborately detailed look at the history of Ancient Egyptian films, with, naturally, an emphasis on living mummies. Despite the disappointingly small graphics, Wepwawet stands out as the best source for all things shambling from the sarcophagus. If you like undead pharaohs as much as I do, this is a real treat.

Aww... Wittle Daikaiju!

Immediately go and check out my new facvourite cartoonist, Matt Putnam-Pouliot, over at his Knucklehead Komics website. My lord, is there a lot of nice artwork on display, but the very best thing for us Monsterammers is Matt's creation The Littlest Daikaiju! Listen, Matt... more more more of Rexsor, Bokko, and the gang!

Little Eyes, Big Monsters

My five year old son, Desi drew this awesome gang of monsters the other day, and I told him I liked it so much I would let everyone see it. The doodle got me thinking about Dave Devries and his delightfully deranged Monster Engine project, where creepy kids art is reworked by Devries into even creepier paintings.

The Shannon Knows!

The frighteningly clever Shannon Tindle designs the multitude of wacky weirdos that populate the crowd scenes in my favouritist cartoon currently on the air, Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends. Just look at the stuff on his blog, man... crazy good monster drawings! Fun and weird, just the way Monsterama likey. I'm not sure if the Imaginary Friends on the show technically qualify as 'monsters' or not, but have you seen Eduardo? I mean, c'mon! A lot of those thingies are definately creepy.