werewolves | Cavalcade of Awesome

Archive for the werewolves Category

AWESOME-tober-fest 2010: The Astounding Wolf-Man

Posted in comic books, monsters, werewolf, werewolves, Wolf Man with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2010, comic books, Halloween, holiday, pop culture, werewolf, werewolves, Wolf Man on October 5, 2010 by Paxton

Here we are, Day 2 of werewolf comics week. This year’s Halloween articles are focusing on werewolves. I’ll be looking at werewolves in comic books all this week. Yesterday I discussed Image’s Dracula Meets The Wolf Man. Today, I’ll look at another Image comic book, The Astounding Wolf-Man.

Astounding Wolf-Man 1 Astounding Wolf-Man 3

The Astounding Wolf-Man is a comic book written by Robert Kirkman and drawn by Jason Howard. It was launched in May 2007, the first issue being given away during Free Comic Book Day. I actually talked about reading this series back in April.

The story revolves around Gary Hampton, a corporate CEO, who is violently attacked by an animal while on vacation with his family and barely survives. Gary later learns that the animal was a werewolf and he now is cursed to turn into a werewolf during the full moon. Gary meets Zechariah, a vampire, who teaches him to use his newly acquired werewolf abilities for good. Gary gets a costume and starts patrolling the streets for crime as The Wolf-Man (a-la BAT-man or SPIDER-man). Gary can change into his wolf form whenever he wants and has complete control over that form except during the full moon when the wolf completely takes over. He also has heightened strength, speed, senses and a highly accelerated healing ability which is nearly instantaneous when he reverts to human then back to wolf.

While training with Zechariah, Gary’s home life starts to deteriorate. His wife resents his late night adventures and his daughter is afraid of him. After confronting a gang of werewolves one night, Gary learns that he is not an ordinary werewolf. The wolf that attacked him was an Elder Wolf. Centuries old and much more powerful than the mixed breed werewolves running around today. As a result, Gary is also much more powerful than normal werewolves. Gary is left to ponder why an Elder Wolf would attack him as they apparently haven’t been seen in hundreds of years. Many believe they aren’t even around anymore.

Continue reading →

1 Comment »

AWESOME-tober-fest 2010: Frazetta’s Dracula Meets The Wolfman

Posted in comic books, Dracula, monsters, werewolves, Wolf Man with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2010, comic books, Dracula, Halloween, holiday, monsters, werewolves, Wolf Man on October 4, 2010 by Paxton

In 2007 Image Comics started releasing several limited edition comic books based on the paintings of sci-fi/fantasy legend Frank Frazetta. Their first comic was based on one of Frazetta’s most well known pieces, The Death Dealer. The Death Dealer was the subject of several of Frazetta’s most famous paintings. The comic book told the origin of the famous character and fleshed out some of his adventures. When that comic proved successful they decided to continue the series by telling the story behind other famous Frazetta paintings.

(Via FrankFrazetta.org)

In 2008, Image released a one-shot comic book based on Frazetta’s painting, Dracula Meets The Wolfman (see above). The one-shot comic was released with three limited edition covers. Cover A was the original Frazetta painting. Cover B was done by the book’s artist Francesco Francavilla. The third cover was a limited edition sketch by Nat Jones (see covers below).

Dracula Meets Wolfman Cover B Dracula Meets Wolfman Cover C

I recently read this one shot comic and, as for the story, it’s a little thin. It feels like only part of a larger story. Nicolae, who is apparently a werewolf, is in love with a peasant girl. The peasant girl is taken to Dracula who intends to feast on her blood. Nicolae shows up all wolfed out and battles Dracula for the life of the peasant girl. That’s essentially it. The peasant girl is killed and we get an epilogue that fast forwards years later where the Wolf Man ambushes Dracula on the tarmac of a private airport. It’s really disjointed and feels like the middle part of a three part story. I was hoping there were other issues to flesh out the rest of the story but there isn’t. That’s it.

Needless to say, for me, the idea is far better than the actual execution of that idea. I love Frazetta, I love the painting, but I do not love this comic book.

Stay tuned, all week I am looking at werewolves in comic books.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

1 Comment »

AWESOME-tober-fest 2010: 6 Crazy-ass werewolf movies and their posters

Posted in Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, pop culture, werewolf, werewolves, Wolf Man with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2010, Halloween, holiday, movie posters, movies, pop culture, werewolf, werewolves on October 1, 2010 by Paxton

Welcome to Day 1 of AWESOME-tober-fest. A month long celebration of all things scary, weird and AWESOME. This month’s theme is werewolves. So today, to kick off AWESOME-tober-fest 2010, I’m going to look at a bunch of crazy-ass and randomly weird werewolf movies and their posters.

Let’s kick this party off with…

Legend of the Werewolf (1975) – This is a pretty spectacular poster. The white werewolf looks great. Almost like a Polar Werewolf (they live in the Arctic Circle, you know). The red eyes and teeth are striking. I like the font on the title too. What’s up with the hanging corpse on the left? What does a hanging have to do with the werewolf? I don’t remember hanging being one of the traditional ways to kill a werewolf. Does the werewolf actually hang someone? And what’s with the little Jack the Ripper silhouette below the hanging? Is this a werewolf vs Jack the Ripper movie? If so, that’s pretty awesome. Check out Grand Moff Tarkin in the lower right corner.

Werewolf Woman (1976) – This is the plot synopsis from IMDB:

A woman has dreams that she is a werewolf so she goes out and finds men. She proceeds to have sex with them and then rip their throats out with her teeth. She eventually falls in love but then she is raped and her lover is murdered so she goes out for revenge.

I’m not sure what I can really add to that, except that might be the single greatest movie synopsis I’ve ever seen. Simple, to the point, AWESOME.

Werewolves on Wheels (1971) – This movie looks so ridiculous. A biker gang encounters black robed, Satan worshiping monks who secretly turn one of the female gang members into a werewolf after the bikers trash their monastery. And the hilarity ensues. The other tagline for this movie was “If you’re hairy, you belong on a motorbike!” And I’m seriously not joking.

Continue reading →

9 Comments »

The Cavalcade of Awesome watches Twilight New Moon

Posted in monsters, movies, reviews, Twilight, vampires, werewolf, werewolves with tags monsters, movies, reviews, Twilight, vampires, werewolf, werewolves on May 7, 2010 by Paxton

For regular readers, if you recall, I watched the first Twilight movie last March and was not a fan.

However, thinking back on it, as much as I hated what Stephanie Meyer and Twilight has done to vampires (and literature in general), there were things in the movie that I didn’t hate. Vampire baseball being one of those. The “evil” vampires being another. But I did hate EVERYTHING about Bella and Edward. EVERYTHING. The dialogue, the look, the language, the way they acted with each other. HATED IT. It was a bad Harlequin romance novel, horrible dialogue and all, gussied up with non-threatening “vegetarian vampires”, a weak willed heroine and an angsty, emo pretty boy (who doesn’t wash his hair) as the anti-hero.

Harlequin Twilight book

So, being the pop culture guru that I am, I felt I needed to continue the series and watch Twilight: New Moon, the first sequel, especially if I’m going to continue talking about how much Twilight is ruining vampires for everyone. So I got the movie from Netflix and my wife and I sat down to watch it this past Saturday. Now, to be honest, I wasn’t exactly dreading it. I was totally expecting not to like the movie, but I thought I could enjoy how completely ridiculous it’ll be and laugh the majority of it off. Like watching Battlefield Earth after several shots of Jagermeister and Red Bull. I was wrong.

This movie is so f’n bad that I am ashamed I even watched it. I’m ashamed for the majority of the actors in the movie. This movie makes the first Twilight look like Citizen Kane. It almost makes Battlefield Earth look like Citizen Kane. It is horrible in the same way that someone kicking a kitten is horrible. And I don’t know if I should blame the director, writer, author, actors or just curse God for releasing this upon the Earth.

First of all, I was actually kind of excited to see werewolves get thrown into the mix. The last movie was entirely too full of gay-ass vampires. We needed some thing more awesome, like big bad ass wolves. Well, there were werewolves in this movie. And the wolves were big and bad ass, but look at the guys that turned into the wolves.

Tell me this doesn’t look like the cast of the floor show at San Francisco’s popular nightclub, The Manhole. Are werewolves forbidden from wearing shirts, because these guys don’t wear shirts throughout the entire movie. And why do they all have to wear jorts (jean shorts)? These werewolves are less gay than the vampires in the movie, but that’s like saying Elton John is less gay than Liberace. They are both still GAY. I don’t feel like these guys want to wolf out and murder me, I feel like they want to give me a lap dance. So now Stephanie Meyer is ruining werewolves. Great.

Continue reading →

13 Comments »

AWESOME-tober-fest 2009: Drak Pack cartoon

Posted in cartoons, Frankenstein, Halloween, holiday, pop culture, TV shows, werewolves with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2009, cartoons, Dracula, Drak Pack, Frankenstein, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, TV shows, werewolves on October 14, 2009 by Paxton

Continuing my look at cartoons featuring Frankenstein’s monster. Today I look at Drak Pack.

This show originally aired on CBS between 1980 and 1982 and it was created by the Australian arm of Hanna-Barbera.

The cartoon had a great premise. As descendants of the original monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster and Wolf Man), the three main teens use their monster abilities, and taking orders from the legendary Dracula, to fight crime and atone for their ancestors’ evil doings. Here is the opening sequence that explains the entire premise of the show (like many Hanna-Barbera cartoons are want to do).

This was a very clever series that merged the superhero genre as well as the monster genre. As you can see, the teens appeared normal until they called on their monster identities to fight evil. The three teens are Drak Jr (or just Drak), Frankie and Howler. They each had different abilities in their monster forms. To change into their monster personalities they high fived and yelled “WHACK-O!” (called the Drak Whack). Surprisingly, they went by the same names whether as regular teens or as the monsters which makes you wonder why they used secret identities. But I guess walking around as a 7 ft green monster would be a bit much. To get around they drove a bad ass hot rod called the Drakster which not only looked cool but had a ton of James Bond-ish gadgetry hiding within it.

I remember really enjoying this show. I only ever saw it a few times because the time that it aired constantly changed. I was always on the lookout for it but never could find it. It was released on DVD in Canada, but you can order it from Amazon (it’s Region 1, so you can watch it on a US DVD player). Unfortunately Netflix has not added it to their library just yet.

Definitely worth a look for monster fans as well as Hanna-Barbera fans. Another really great series staring every0ne’s favorite monsters as heroes.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.