What I Do On My Off Hours

If you're over the drinking age, like to draw, sketch, paint, or doodle, and want to socialize with other like-minded weirdoes, you're welcome to come out to the (so far) monthly Guelph Pen Club. Guelph area artists of all stripes come together to draw for drawings' sake... silly, informal, and without editors or art directors. Very fun. I'll definitely be at the next one.

Frankensteinia

New addition to the links... lets welcome the wonderful Frankensteinia!

Monsters And Children

I've always felt that young minds are more directly in tune with monsters than us older folks. And it appears that Arc Dream feel the same way. So much so that they created a roleplaying game specifically about kids and their monsters, called, of course, Monsters And Other Childish Things. Even better, they got a whole class of 5th Graders from Oak Mountain Intermediate School in Birmingham, Ala., to create a horde of monsters for the game, and will be posting a new creature every school day until Valentine's day. They've even gone so far as to open it up as a contest for gamers to create stats for the weirdos on display! Like the monster called 'Floog' shown above. Man I love everything about this whole thing.

Shadowy Backgrounds

Here's a look at some new background designs by the dynamic duo Eric Clark and Robert Harand, two fantastic creative minds who are, lucky for me, thoroughly overqualified for the position of 'Background Designer' on the Secret Saturdays!

Etched Into My Brain

When I was a kid, my Mom worked nights at the Hospital, and my little brother and I were left in the care of a teenaged babysitter who was a big fan of all things Horror. I know, explains a lot, right? Her equally creep-loving boyfriend, out of the goodness of his heart, gave me a stack of then-current horror mags, zipped into a translucent vinyl bag. I was far too terrified to open it until I was much older, and tossed them under the bed and out of sight. But one magazine on top kept peering at me through the plastic. It was the one above... issue number three of Atlas' short-lived (but undead in my brain) Movie Monsters. This disturbing version of the Phantom kept me up many a night. Just thought I'd share.

The Call Of Cthulhu?

According to Space.com, something is "roaring" from the depths of space. They say "one team of astronomers has found a strange cosmic noise that booms six times louder than expected. The roar is from the distant cosmos. Nobody knows what causes it." The thought that dear old H.P. Lovecraft could've been right is freaking me out (and I wouldn't be the first to have such thoughts)! An awakened Cthulhu certainly puts the current recession into perspective, no?

Monster-Sized News!

It's official... The Cartoon Network has renewed The Secret Saturdays for ten more episodes.

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!

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.