The Terrors Of Tallarico

Monsters is a nifty 1965 storybook with severely abridged retellings of the tales of Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Despite the appearance of the Mummy and Wolfman on the cover, that's all they had room for. Other than the obvious, what I really dig about this book is the distinctive art by Tony Tallarico. Tallarico is rather infamous for his depictions of Dracula, Frankenstein and the Werewolf, but it isn't this earlier, rather nice-looking book that ties his name to the characters. Oh no. Tony Tallarico is well known in certain circles for one of the weirdest pop culture mash-up's in history... the superhero versions of the three monsters done by Dell in the mid- '60's. The swingin' '60's version of Count Dracula saw the modern 'descendant' (didn't know the dead could conceive, did you?) accidentally drinking some "Bat Derived Healing Serum" he'd been working on, giving him the ability to transform himself into a bat. In issue four he got a female sidekick with the same powers named Fleeta. You know, like 'fliedermaus'? Yuck! The Werewolf was actually the codename/ supersuit owned by former U.S.A.F. pilot-turned-Super-Spy Wiley Wolf. His sidekick was a wolf named Thor. Ahwoooo!!! But my favorite of the three is the all-new Frankenstein, mostly because he's not all-new at all. That's right, this is the original Monster, who is reanimated when a lightning bolt strikes the ruins of Castle Frankenstein. For some reason he is dressed in a bright red leotard, tight blue trunks, and a belt with an 'F' logo on it. All he needs now to be able to go out and fight crime like the others is a secret identity. Oh! I know! How about 'Frank Stone'? Brilliant. This stuff was obviously hacked out at top speed by the creators... Tallarico's linework doesn't come close to his illustration job for Wonder Books. But it's sooo awfully conceived that it succeeds as Camp at it's finest. I'll let these sample pages speak for themselves.

I Wonder How They Taste...

Despite a few shudders over the materials used for such anomalies, I have a soft spot for Fortean taxidermy, as anyone who remembers my post on Jake, the Alligator Boy can attest. Juan Cabana is a talented modern practitioner of this dark art, with some very classic specimens on display. For a modern, rock n' roll approach, check out the grim works of local (Guelph) fiendster The Great Orbax. Lovely things, these.

A Holler For Holley

During the height of the Monster Kid craze, every pop culture character from Fred Flintstone to the Pink Panther was expected to host some spooks now and then. This gorgeous Ponytail cover by Lee Holley captures that period perfectly. Starting out as an assistant to Hank Ketcham, Lee eventually created a syndicated panel of his own about a (then) typical Teen-Age girl named Ponytail, which became quite successful. What I find even more inspiring is Holley's business savvy. Realising that his income from the fickle world of comics wouldn't last forever, he began investing in Real Estate at the height of his career, and is now a very wealthy man... not from the comics, but from his investments. Pretty smart for a cartoonist. Anyway... back to the monsters, no? The title 'Monster Mash' is more than a little misleading, as the Lurch-ing character appears only on the cover and title panel. What we do get, however, is a charming Haunted House tale, complete with a wager to stay the night, attempt at trickery, and real ghosts at the end. Here are a couple of pages...

Mad Monsters

Mad Monsters is brimming with nicely scanned monster mags, cards, toys, posters, and more. Wonderful stuff.

4 little, 5 little, 6 little Weird- Ohs

Lookie what I got! Vintage (licensed?) Weird- Oh masks! Mr. Nostalgia has more if you're interested.

Cartoon Creepies

I highly recommend a trip over to previously mentioned (and delightfully warped) Gruesomestein's Monsters, as Mark and Riccardo have posted all the fantastic Gruesomstein animated shorts for you to enjoy! Free and fiendish!

Your Haunted Mansion

Praise the Spirits! My favorite Dark Ride of all time has some stunning Halloween merchandise for sale! Yup, I can now get a glowing Ezra, Phineas, Gus, and the Bride from Disney's Haunted Mansion (the cool ride, not the poopy movie) from this Disney Shopping site! I can't wait to... $169.00??!? What are they, nuts? Sigh... I'll probably end up buying some anyway. I think I'm an addict.

Make-Up Monster

The previous post about my dear, old Make- Up Monsters book really seems to have struck a chord with you weirdos! Many of you wrote to wax nostalgic about these spooky old face concoctions. Here's a photo of me in the Werewolf make-up. Apparently everything in the '70's was brown, as this snapshot has the same diarreah tone of the book cover. The black cape at left was my kid brother as Dracula, but the '70's also had crappy cameras, and a lot of these photos came out with half the picture blackened. Dracula didn't make the final cut of this one.

The Abominable Pat

One of the contributers to the Wide Awake 666 anthology mentioned below is the lovely and talented Pat Lewis, responsible for loads of funnybook goodness including the Monsterama-relevant PROWL, and ABOMINABLE (about an apathetic ex-scientist named Lisa who saves the day when an unfrozen yeti stalks the halls of a shady research laboratory. Creepy and funny. My favorites!). This is cool, too...

Wide Awake

This anthology of creepy cuteness looks very promising... here's the sales pitch from the site: "This October you’re in for a real treat! Prepare to savor every gooey drop of this deranged collection of drawings, comics and stories from some of your favorite indie artists. Wide Awake is a horror-inspired comic anthology sure to chill you to the bone (well, maybe the funny bone)." Mmmmm... very interesting indeed. And I do so like the inspired minds behind The Students Of The Unusual.

Three...

A trio of old comic book Monster ads...

Two...

Question: What do you get when you cross beatniks with supervillians and add in a touch of 'Weird-Oh' freakrodding? Answer: Two of my favorite comic criminals of all time... The Terror Twins! The Twins' one and only appearance is in the pages of The Owl #2 (1968), created by none other than writer Jerry Siegel of Superman fame. Obviously influenced by the popularity of the campy Batman TV series, These baddies are pure nuttiness! Gangster 'Scarmug' Maroni is deeply disappointed in his deadbeat, Rock N, Roll delinquent sons Rudy and Gilbert until their mom talks them into becoming criminals to humor the old man. They rob a bank wearing the skull-face masks of the Terror Twins, blasing away with their laser guitars and escaping on skelecycles. But wait! There's more! They kidnap one Professor Dalrymple and force him to make a weapon that backfires in the lab and turns the Professor evil. Now he's so bad he takes over and forces the Terror Twins to wreak bigger and better havok... eventually inciting them to steal Abraham Lincon's head from Mount Rushmore! Oh my god it's so stupid. Can you imaging how much I love it?

One...

Halloween Intrigue is one creeptacular new blog. Hope you don't think it's too soon for discussing All Hallow's... if so, you've come to the wrong place!

Boo!

Eeeegaaaah! Ok, so the cryptids project I'm developing for the Cartoon Network is taking up a lot of my time. Everything is going really well, and really fast, which is great... but I'm not going to be able to blog quite as much for the next little while. This batch of putrid posts ought to keep you fiends at bay for the moment.

Impossible, you say?

This British comics Annual from 1968 has some of the worst off-model drawings of Frankenstein Jr. in it. What could have been a very cool line up of stories featuring the likes of (personal favorites) Space Ghost and The Impossibles, it is instead a collection of garishly recolored reprints accompanied by some rather tragic 'artwork' from the Atlas Publishing staff. I can hardly believe this is an official Hanna-Barbera product! Guess it speaks volumes about how important Joe and William felt the British market was. Here's a look at a page from the original 'Frankie Jnr' text story fromm the back of the book, entitled "A Spook In His Wheel" (click to enlarge). I try to look away, but I can't!

Back from the Abyss

Where are all the cool monsters? Where the hell have I been, anyway? Well, fiends, I've been in L.A. on top secret cartoon business. The Cryptids project is now in full-blown development with the lovely and talented Cartoon Network, and I'll let you know how that's going soon. Now back to our scheduled programme...

The last post had me reminiscing about this 1976 book Make-Up Monsters that I begged my mother to order for me through Scholastic when I was a kid. This is my original copy, and it's pretty dog-eared! I tried out nearly all of Marcia Lynn Cox's cool techniques for All Hallows and otherwise... including SKULL FACE, SCAR FACE, COUNT DRACULA, DRIPPING FACE, and my favorite, the WEREWOLF. The last one was so itchy it drove me crazy, but I still wore it twice!

Franny K. Stein

My kids' school had it's annual BBQ last week, and look what I found at the book sale. Jim Benton is probably best known for his annoyingly ubiquitous 'Happy Bunny' merchandise, but this newer childrens' book series is definately more down our darkened Monsterama alley! Franny K. Stein is a schoolage Mad Scientist, with bats for friends. She makes zombie servants out of luncheon meats and she is fabulous. I just picked up the first volume from 2003, Lunch Walks Among Us, and my kids and I loved it. So I have to go and buy the other four books now. You know.... for my kids. Ahem--! Ohhhh! And there's a vinyl figure, and a flashlight keychain, and a glow-in-the-dark T-shirt, and...

Monster Factory!

Introducing the amazing Kevin. He is one of many huggable weirdos to come out of the smoke and mirrors of the Monster Factory. Take a tour of the factory floor for drawings, plushes, and also... funny movies. Oh, yeah, Rhya and her co-workers also have a blog. Grrr!

Old Haunts

Do I ever love this new blog of Keith's! Old Haunts is described as, "Old photographs of Halloweens long past. Faded, out-of-focus snapshots. Far away memories of the chilly Autumns of our childhoods. Turn of the Century, to the '60s & '70s." Ahhh...

Kreepsville U.S.A.

Monsterama's good pal Von Kreep is stitching together a gruesome cartoon show, with spooktacular design work by Darryl Young. Check the blog regularly to see if anything twitches. Mwa Ha Ha Haaaa!

Tell You A Secret

Kirk Demarais is a weirdo after my own black heart. His Secret Fun Spot is full of all kinds of monster stuff and retro goodies, and the new Secret Fun Spot Blog is a must-see thriller! Go now or get lost!

The Color Of (J.) Evil

I just got ahold of this rare Mr. and Mrs. J. Evil Scientist color guide from their 1962 Snooper and Blabber appearance, and thought I'd share it with you loyal creepsters.

More More Monsters

It appears that the previously blogged Mr. Rozum has gotten his charmingly creepy children Daphne and Dashiell into the family act. Monsters and More is another great gallery of kid monster drawings... some fiendishly familiar faces such as Hedorrah the Smog Monster (my favorite Kaiju, too, Dash) and the Creature from the Black Lagoon alongside some nasty new nightcrawlers.

R.I.P. Alex Toth

One of my biggest heroes passed away this weekend. Alex Toth was a giant in both comic books and animation, a genuinely unique talent with a gorgeous drawing style. Toth's smooth, inky minimalism looks so effortless, but, as I discovered myself aping Toth's Superfriends designs in Evan Dorkins Worlds Funnest project, and his Scooby Doo monsters for a video game project, it ain't as easy as it looks, folks. How obvious is it that I like his monster designs? Since my inlaws all speak Hungarian, I'd like my final words will be in Toth's native tongue... Nem nehéz kitalálni, honnan kaptam az én inspirációm… köszönöm szépen, Alexbácsi.

Homer The Happy Ghost

What do you get when you cross the talents of Marvel Comics maestro Stan Lee (co-creator of Spiderman, the Hulk, the X-men, Fantastic Four, etc.), Archie Comics legend Dan DeCarlo (creator of Josie and the Pussycats, Sabrina, etc.), and the runaway success of Casper the Friendly Ghost? Why, you get the best Casper imitation of them all, of course... Homer! Yeah, it was a blatant rip-off, but it's not like Casper was all that original to begin with. Instead of 'Friendly', Homer was 'Happy'. Instead of a tough, streetwise pal with a bowler hat named 'Spooky', Homer had 'Dugan', the Dead-End Ghost. Instead of a witch pal named 'Wendy', Homer had 'Zelda' (who would later show up in almost identical form in DeCarlo's Sabrina the Teen-aged Witch). The only relatively new addition was Melvin the Mixed-Up Ghost... a complete idiot with consistantly annoying behaviour. I really like Melvin a lot. Homer The Happy Ghost debuted in 1955 and lasted 22 issues, plus two issues of an offshoot series, The Adventures of Homer Ghost... a very good run for a monster kid book, actually. 'Stan and Dan', as they billed themselves on these stories, were already really strong talents, and the stories have a lot more pluck than the decidedly insipid Harvey originals. This Robot cover from 'Adventures of...' number 2 (1957) is one of my favourite covers ever! Inside, Homer and the gang battle Doctor Doom and his sinister robot assistant, Monstro. See for yourself... (click to enlarge) For another story in which Homer battles a robot, check this out.

Doubly Diabolic

Speaking of monster cards, it's been awhile since I first brought your attention to the macabre Diabolic Monsters blog by 'R', and I think you ought to check in. Especially if you like unlicensed pics of Darth Vader with blood pouring from his mouth (#41. "Robot Galactico").