It's Saturday

I'm thrilled to pieces about our having Scott Jeralds aboard directing the Secret Saturdays, and not just because he has stories about Iwao Takamoto, Doug Wildey and Alex Toth from his days at Hanna Barbera. Scott and I share the same cartoon influences and predilections, and Mr. Jeralds is a man who really 'gets' this show. The fabulous crew he's assembled in-house seem to be a very loyal to him, as well, and things are looking very very nice as a result. I guess it's also looking good because it's such a fun show to work on. That's what they tell me, anyway. The storyboards for the hour-long pilot episode are nearly all done, and it's looking wicked! Here's a quick peek at a monster transformation sequence by none other than Monsterman Mike Manley...

The Hills Have I

I'm settling down to my first lonesome night in the Hollywood Hills, right across Barham Boulevard from the ol' Bates Motel in the Universal lot. I'm staying at the Oakwood Toluca Hills, about one hundred feet away from where a couple of kids from Illinois started a fire that nearly burned down Griffith Park earlier this summer. The dead, blackened wood jutting out of sun-baked earth gives the place a rather post-apocalyptic look. It's very homey.

Off to Horrorwood

Well, I'm all packed up and ready to go. My U.S. Work Visa finally came through (for more on that drama, please refer to dear Steve 'Tyrant' Bissette's blog), and I'm going to spend the month of August in Los Angeles working on the Secret Saturdays intstead of dealing with all the emailing, FTPing, and Conference Calls that have dominated the last three months. I ought to have time to post every evening, so stay tuned while Monsterama becomes something of a production blog for the next few weeks.

Happy Friday The 13th!

The Secret Saturdays has been so fun to work on so far! Here's some creepy concept art by me from the first couple of episodes, including the fiendishly fun billboard above, promoting our show-within-a-show, 'Weirdworld'.

Breakfast Of Skeletons

The mad mad plans of my petrifying pal Doctor Von Kreep are finally coming to fruition! Cereal Killers will soon be here. Kreep calls it "A spooky, kooky coffin table cartoon art book featuring terrorfying takes on some of your favorite breakfast cereal's." And, yes, I'm involved.

The Beast vs. The Living Vampire

Welp... the news has finally leaked out about the Marvel Comics 'indy' anthology, so I might as well officially confirm my participation. Rather unsurprisingly, my short piece features a couple of characters from the '70's 'monster-hero' phase that Marvel went through during my childhood. Anyone who read the original run of Son Of Satan will get my drift, here. Monsters fighting each other seems quintessentially Marvel to me... as do extended monologues and villainous boasting, which are also featured in decent doses in my offering. I had a fun time drawing Beast and Morbius, I admit it. But it's mostly because I was allowed to draw the vintage versions. Big kudos to Aubrey Sitterson for his ambition here...

Horribly Delayed

So sorry for the long wait between posts. I've been working hard on both the third drawing book (this one about Robots), and the Secret Saturdays cartoon, which became much more stressful and problematic once the Department Of Homeland Security refused me entry to the U.S. to oversee the production in person. Despite the fact that I'm not an employee of either Cartoon Network or the production company Porchlight Entertainment, and I was paying my own way down, I was harrassed, fingerprinted, and photographed at the border and a 'flag' was put on my passport preventing me from "trying to enter the States illegally in the future". All this because they felt I needed a work visa. Well why not just say so? I'm still steamed about it, especially since the recent news that our joint 'border security' effort requiring all Canadians and Americans crossing the boarder to show their passports was recently relaxed for Americans. Only Canadians need the extra scutiny, it seems. Sigh... At least I'm not the only one. After my Gitmo experience, I was told a multitude of other stories by fellow Canadians like myself who had been travelling back and forth from the U.S. for many years suddenly finding their rights and livelyhood under attack since the inaugeration of the DHS. Looks like Canadians are no longer welcome in the land of Freedom, folks. Their loss, I say. Unfortunately, the travel ban caused me to miss my seat at the Daytime Emmy Awards where my show TUTENSTEIN won it's second Emmy for Outstanding Special Class Animated Program. My wife had a dress picked out and everything. Oh well, c'est la vie. The production for the Saturdays in full-speed ahead, and looking great. I'll try and make this a bit of a production blog for the show whenever I find the time. Until then, stay spooky!

Farewell to the Main Masher

The man, the myth, the legend that is Bobby 'Boris' Pickett has passed into the big black. Link "He does the "Monster Mash" no more.
Bobby "Boris" Pickett, whose dead-on Boris Karloff impression propelled the Halloween anthem "Monster Mash" to the top of the charts in 1962, making him one of pop music's most enduring one-hit wonders, has died of leukemia. He was 69. Pickett, dubbed "The Guy Lombardo of Halloween," died Wednesday night at the West Los Angeles Veterans Hospital, said his longtime manager, Stuart Hersh. His daughter, Nancy, and his sister, Lynda, were at Pickett's bedside. "Monster Mash" hit the Billboard chart three times: when it debuted in 1962, reaching No. 1 the week before Halloween; again in August 1970, and for a third time in May 1973. The resurrections were appropriate for a song where Pickett gravely intoned the forever-stuck-in-your-head chorus: "He did the monster mash. ... It was a graveyard smash." He will be forever remembered as the creator of the most famous Halloween song of all time.. and any mad monster creator is an eternal friend of us here at Monsterama. Don't rest too well, Mr. Pickett!

Ogoh Ogoh!

Check out this wicked photo gallery of Ogoh Ogoh Monsters! These creepy and colourful Balinese sculptures are made out of bamboo and paper mache. Most represent traditional creatures from the underworld known as buta-kala, but modern Ogohs may also take on pop culture forms, including media or government personalities.

Read 'Em And Creep

Hey, fiends! The aforementioned books I've been working on are finally available for preorder. MONSTERS! is slated to lurch onto bookshop shelves in June. I got my preview copy, and it looks pretty swell, if I do say so myself. HEROES! is due out the same time, and ROBOTS! and MANGA! are coming out in January 2008. That's a long way off, and I guess it's a little early to be posting about these, but what the heck... I'm excited!

Omni-monster! Aieeeee!!!

Mmmm, Kaiju! Geozilla has created what he calls Kaiju Utopia, and I gotta tell you, it was hard to leave the place! Omni-monster is overflowing with cute, creepy vinyl. Just the sort of site to help you kill off a dozy spring morning.

Real Spooky Estate

If you're anything like me, a weekly blog about all things Haunted Mansion is essential. For those unfaithful of you out there who don't believe the subject could possibly merit that much discussion, I point you to the year-old Ghost Relations Dept., devoted to new, obscure or just plain odd information about the Disney Haunted Mansion's. It's just plain awesome!

Happy Happy Dead Dead

Know what I like? Drazen's quiet little Happy Undertaker comic strips. Really beautiful work.

The Full Monster

At midnight tonight, the complete Milton The Monster Show will appear on DVD for the first time, thanks to the folks at Shout! Factory. Don't be scared... the only frightening thing about this collection is the ghastly cover art. This four-disc set comprises the entire catalog of 26 episodes, each running about 22 minutes each, presented in its original full frame format. As if a complete clean print of one of my very favourite cartoons wasn't enough, we get cool bonus stuff like home movies of creator Hal Seeger appearing at the N.Y.C. Toy Fair to promote his characters! Here's a nice review over at DVD Verdict...

Starting to Sizzle

If you scoot on over to the Cartoon Network 'Upfronts' page and click on New Shows, you'll get a bit more buzz on my new animated series 'The Secret Saturdays', including something called a Sizzle Reel. Just ignore the doofy dude in the hat...

Awwww! Hell!

Good Ol' Devlie Thompson has been posting just the sort of stuff we here at Monsterama like to warm our cold hearts on-- juvenile horror drawings. You'll find Star Wars and Batman as well as more sketchy monsters on his blog.

Thimking about Dracenstein

THIMK was a rather awful 'MAD' rip-off that floundered for 6 issues in 1958-59. Following MAD's lead, they had a number of monster themed gags... convieniently located in a MAD-style 'Monster Section' (duplicated the following year by Archie's MAD HOUSE). The cool thing about THIMK is that their mascot, featured on nearly every cover, wasn't some doofy kid with a poop-eating grin-- he was a monster! Otis Dracenstein was actually pretty nifty. The humor centered on the fact that he was a horrible looking monster married to a normal wife with two normal kids-- and he was the kind-hearted one. The 'normal' folks were horrible freaks, and Otis had a gentle soul. It's really not so hilarious now (and probably wasn't then, either), but you must remember that these stories were published years before the Addams Family, Munsters and Bewitched TV shows made nice monsters as common as colds. This site has some cool background info on one of THIMK's contributors... clearly a horror movie fan! Bob Drews from THIMK's "Good Old Bob Drews Department" was also SIR RODGER, host of WTAE-TV's (Pittsburgh) 'Shock Theater' (1958-1962)! Here are some sample Otis pages...

Happy Monster!

So. I'm actually feeling pretty good for once (I'm sure it'll pass). And my pal Evan just made me even happier with this link to a wonderful tune called Clap Your Tentacles. I think I will, thanks.

More Saturdays for Monday

Here are some early impressions on the news of the new cartoon here and here. There's also been some negative blogging connected to the announcement concerning CN's live action experiments, and I want to reassure you all, this one's 100% cartoon!

THE SECRET IS OUT!!!

Yup, it's official. The show I've had in development for a year with the Cartoon Network (formerly known as 'CRYPTIDS') just got picked up for 26 half-hour episodes! You can read some early press here and here. The press release goes like this... "THE SECRET SATURDAYS: Jay Stephens has created a new comedy/action series, in which Doc, Drew and Zak Saturday are a family of world-saving adventure scientists called The Secret Saturdays. Living in a hidden base, they are part of a network of scientists who protect against all the hidden and terrifying things in this world. To The Saturdays, ordinary folktales aren’t just legends -- they are real-life mysteries and adventures. Traveling from the hot Gobi Desert to the icy Marianas Trench, they explore ancient temples and bottomless caves and tangle with twisted villains like the masked madman V.V. Argost and his half-human/half-giant spider." Here's hoping you'll dig it!