Happy New Monster!

National Geographic has the dirt on the newly unearthed Austroraptor... a huge, five meter long bipedal dinosaur with a slender, pterodactyl-like skull, a find that has upturned the 'canon' on the evolution of raptors. Fernando Novas, the lead researcher behind the discovery says the new raptor represents the "the largest dromaesaurid discovered in the Southern Hemisphere." Fast and vicious like a velociraptor, but way bigger and scarier! Grroaaarrrrr!!!!

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?

Happy 2009

Some updated *official* news on the Secret Saturdays toy line coming from Mattel next year. And speaking of Mattel, this might just be the coolest Barbie ever! Hitchcock is one of my favorite directors of all time... just watched Spellbound again last night, in fact, thrilling all over the Salvidore Dali dream sequence. I think I'll watch Rebecca tonight. My kind of Christmas movies!

Merry Cryptids!

Good Will

Nice interview here with my man Will Friedle (voice of Doyle Blackwell on the Secret Saturdays), primarily about his work on the Brave And The Bold's Blue Beetle, but still pretty awesome. Get ready to swoon, ladies.

Farewell to Forry

The great Forrest J. Ackerman, who spearheaded the original generation of 'monster kids' and single-handedly created Monster Fandom, has passed on to the great Ackermansion in the sky. His often campy, humorous approach to horror was a great influence on myself and many others. The world feels less wonderfully creepy without him.

Ooo! Kreepy!

Say 'hi!' to Mister Guts, Tequila Sparks, and Laffy Blue Bottom... just three of the bazillion cute creeps up for ever lovin' grabs at the Kreepy Doll Factory. Started in Cleveland, Ohio back in 2000, the KDF is composed of a trio of wicked artists: Dan Baxter, Thu Tran, and Jeff Vincent. They make weird, cuddly stuff, and the site is chock full of kooky sketches, loopy comics, and lots and lots of one-of-a-kind plush psychos. Monsterama approves!

Cryptipedia

There's been some discussion on other message boards about the number of cryptids that could or will make an appearance in the Secret Saturdays cartoon. The highest number speculated suggests we could have a couple hundred 'real' cryptids to choose from. I want to assure you that the number is much higher! As a truly geeked-out student of cryptozoology, I was able to cull together a list of 500 mysterious creatures, along with descriptions, habitat, and a note on whether they were modern sightings or folkloric legends. This became the original Cryptipedia database, and has been used by writers of the series, comic book scripters, and game designers ever since. The game will have something like 40 exclusive cryptids alone, plus many more from the show. And my list keeps growing... every year that goes by reveals new unidentified mystery creatures popping up around the globe. Add to that my growing library of books on folklore, legends, monsters, demons, and the like (which can include reports of 'real' sightings of missing creatures), and you get the idea. We have more than enough cryptids to choose from, and plenty for you to discover through our Secret Saturdays universe.

Inside Job

Jim Valeri works for Cartoon Network in Burbank doing in-house design and stuff. Cool job, cool guy. If you click on the above link and scroll down, you'll get a peek at some rare Secret Saturdays related artwork.

Happy Thanksgiving...

...to all my American comrades. Here are a few Secret Saturdays images to see you through the weekend. First, a handful of some of my cryptid designs for the upcoming console/handheld game for Playstation, DS and Wii. This barely scratches the surface of all the new cryptids exclusive to the game. Next we have a cool Secret Sats poster image from the team at CN, with a couple of my personal favourite cryptids lurking in the shadows... and a cool Doyle pose from the in-house design team, too! He's turning out to be a very popular supporting cast member. Lastly, here's what the Globe And Mail had to say about the Canadian launch of the show. It's the only Big Newspaper I read on anything approaching a regular basis, so I'm naturally pretty jazzed.

Zakqette!

Kudos to Ruben Procopio at Masked Avenger Studios for this gorgeous Zak Saturday statue, with paint by Kat Sapene . Muchas Gracias!

Secret Santa

I've had a bunch of requests and questions regarding Secret Saturdays merch, so I thought I'd post a kind of F.A.Q. response. The Mattel toy line and the console games aren't due out until late next year... it takes longer to manufacture this stuff than you might think. In the meantime, Cartoon Network has a T-shirt available. Keep your eyes on their site for more speciality items in the future (and don't be shy about writing them requests!). The only other currently available Secret Saturdays stuff are the DC Cartoon Network Action Pack comic books in which the Saturdays will continue to appear. Hopefully that's enough to satisfy the kids (or kids at heart) with the Saturdays on their Christmas list.

Tired Of Me Talking Yet?

Janet Hetherington wrote up a nice article for Animation World News based on our interview last week, and it's got a few little details possibly not covered in all the other Secret Saturdays inteviews I've done lately. Anyway, I think it's a good one.

I Heart Coo

Just got back from Kitchener after catching one of the last of this years' flicks in the Waterloo Festival For Animated Cinema, and, wow, Keiichi Hara's Summer Days With Coo was just what I was looking for! A great 'boy and his monster' story with plenty of funny, scary, and tearful moments... like E.T. with traditional legend replacing Science Fiction. It's no secret how much I love yokai (and Kappa in particular) so I went in fairly excited. I'm very happy to say that the film exceeded my expectations. It's impossible to avoid comparisons to Miyazaki considering the subject matter and ecological/ anti-development undertones, but the fact that this film holds up well under that comparison is saying something. From MAP, director Hara says, "Summer Days with Coo is very special to me. It was more than 20 years ago that I first read the original story and a great many things have happened between then and the realization of this film. Throughout my career, the concept has always been in my mind and I am very happy that I have finally had the opportunity to direct it as a film..." Official movie website here with loads of artwork. I sure hope this becomes available on the North American marketplace soon so I can share it with my kids.

It Slayed Me!

I finally saw Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer last night and was utterly thrilled with the funny, gory, old-school monster movie (Rated R, kids). It successfully combines monsters, humour, and psychotherapy... the three things that followers of this blog know have dominated the last year of my life. Watching the film was like closure for me! Kudos to Canadian writer/director Jon Knautz, and the wonderful creature effects by Form and Dynamics. And it was great to see Robert (Freddy) Englund in a campy, yet nuanced, Vincent Price-style role as the Professor/Demon Host! One reviewer described it as Hellboy meets The Evil Dead, which is pretty apt. So if you dig those, and you only plan on seeing one horror flick this Halloween season, Jack Brooks should be it.

Chilling News

Just heard the good news... "The Secret Saturdays premieres on TELETOON on November 7 at 5 pm with that episode repeated on Sunday, November 9 at 8:30 am ET/PT and then
new episodes every Sunday at 8:30 ET/PT from November 16." Get ready for cryptids, my fellow Canucks!

Creature... GOOD!!!

My favourite classic monster is Dr. Frankenstein's creature, as you might have guessed. In fact, I've built a lifesized one myself recently, and not out of paper, either. I hope to get him working (with small scale motion detector stuff) in time for All Hallows... I'll let you know how it goes. Cool Frankenstuff here...

Seeking Hyde

I'm in complete agreement with Kevin McCorry that the 1955 WB short Hyde and Hare is an under-appreciated gem. I quote, "Hyde and Hare is an atypical Bugs offering. In stark contrast to nearly all of Bugs' other cartoons, good does not win over evil. Evil seems to prevail, and the heroic rabbit seems to succumb to it. He falls from grace... He is transformed out of his familiar, noble image and into the look of a ghastly, savage beast." Creepy Halloween animation it most certainly is, and scarier than anything good ol' Gossamer was ever in!

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!"

Secret Messages

Here's a short list of some early reviews for the Secret Saturdays...
The first fan site...
A balanced overview by MakenZero...
How to draw Zak Saturday at Dragoart...
Common Sense Media likes it...
Toon Zone is undecided...
And Racattack has some constructive criticism...