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AWESOME-tober-fest 2015: Scarlet in Gaslight (1987)

Posted in comic books, Dracula, Genres, horror, monsters, nostalgia, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2015, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, Dracula, Halloween, holiday, Sherlock Holmes on October 29, 2015 by Paxton

This week, instead of the Invisible Man, I am revisting some of my earlier AWESOME-tober-fest themes. Today I’m looking back at Dracula, whom I covered back in 2011.

The comic Scarlet in Gaslight was released by Eternity Comics in 1987-1988.

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This comic is a Sherlock Holmes mystery where the detective meets the Prince of Darkness, Dracula. It was written by Martin Powell and drawn by Seppo Makinen. If they sound familiar these are the guys who did the Sherlock Holmes vs Invisible Man comic I talked about earlier, A Case of Blind Fear. They actually did this Dracula comic a few years before they did the invisible man mystery.

Sherlock Holmes SIG03

In style and execution this comic is very similar to A Case of Blind Fear. Only, sadly, it isn’t quite as successful. The story tries to incorporate Sherlock Holmes into the events of the Bram Stoker novel which, like in A Case of Blind Fear, would cause changes to the novel’s events as well as the outcome. In the comic you see Lucy suffering in her room where Dracula has been visiting her. You see Van Helsing trying to help her by covering the room in garlic. We also see Dracula has the look from Stoker’s novel with the mustache, but it just isn’t working as well for me as it would a few years later with A Case of Blind Fear.

Lucy gets a bigger part and you see Sherlock having lots of issues with all of the supernatural things going on. He even has sort of a breakdown in the middle of the comic because his precise mind can’t process what it sees. This stuff is interesting but also, in the full run of the comic I was mostly bored reading. I just couldn’t connect to this comic the same way I connected with the later invisible man story. A lot of that may be my issues I have with the Bram Stoker novel itself, but I can’t be sure. Taken at face value, some of this comic is pretty cool, it just has trouble keeping that coolness flowing throughout the four issue story.

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

AWESOME-tober-fest 2015: Hammer’s Curse of the Werewolf (1961)

Posted in Genres, horror, monsters, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, werewolf with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2015, Halloween, Hammer Studios, holiday, monsters, movies, reviews, werewolf, werewolves on October 28, 2015 by Paxton

Today I’m journeying back to the heady days of October 2010 when I covered werewolves for Halloween. My intention that year was to actually watch and review Hammer’s 1961 werewolf film, Curse of the Werewolf. It was supposed to go right there during that last week after I covered Universal’s Wolf Man movies. However, plans got away from me and I was not able to cover it that year.

Now, I have that chance back. Plus, I haven’t had a Hammer movie review on AWESOME-tober-fest since 2013’s review of The Plague of the Zombies. So, let’s do this.

Hammer’s Curse of the Werewolf starred Oliver Reed and Catherine Feller. It was the only werewolf movie Hammer ever made. It’s very gothic and tragic, lots of sexual subtext and, kind of all over the place.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

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Title cards for this movie. Not quite as cool as the Horror of Dracula cards.

Marques and wife
This is the Marques Siniestro and his new bride. In this opening scene the movie goes out of its way to show you how mean and cruel this Marques can be. Even his wife is looking at him like, “You’re such an asshole.”

Chef 01 Chef 02
The chef brings out some roasted goose for the newlyweds. The Marquesa says she doesn’t like goose, so the Marques actually gets up out of his chair, yells at the chef for not knowing the Marquesa doesn’t like goose and throws the entire tray of goose on the floor. Then while the chef cleans up the mess the Marques pushes the chef down into the mess.
ASS. HOLE.

Beggar 01 Beggar 02
After the chef debacle, a lowly beggar comes to the Marques’ table to beg for food and drink. The Marques offers him a handful of gold to be the Marquesa’s pet. Then, he completely humiliates the beggar by making him dance in front of everyone for some food and wine. Then the beggar is sent to the dungeons anyway.

Here’s the Marques leering at his wife before sending the beggar to the dungeons. He just informed her it’s time for them to “retire”. Ugh, shivers went up my spine the way he said it. She’s clearly re-thinking her life choices at this point.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2015: The Dell Comics Monster Squad

Posted in comic books, Dracula, Frankenstein, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, werewolf with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2015, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, Dell Monsters, Dracula, Halloween, holiday, monsters, vintage, Vintage Comic Throwdowns, werewolf, Wolf Man on October 27, 2015 by Paxton

Yesterday, with my review of Dell’s Frankenstein, I finally completed all three infamous 60s Dell superhero monster comics reviews (Here’s Dracula and Werewolf). I love all three of these zany re-imagining of the classic monsters. And as I mentioned in my reviews, the only thing that was missing was a team up. We did see Frankenstein pop up briefly in a one panel cameo in Dracula, but other than that, no other crossover ever happened. It’s time I rectify this situation.

So, issue #10 of Cavalcade Comics features the debut of the Dell monster super heroes in a team up. Finally we get the Dell Comics Monster Squad.

How did this never happen? I’ll tell you how, the comics never sold. It’s why we only got three issues of each title. I would love to see these characters come back in a cool retro reboot. I don’t even know who owns the license to them anymore, but with the right writer and tone, they could be fantastic.

I had only three covers of each of the three heroes to try to make work, but I luckily found Marvel’s Where Monsters Dwell #3 (1970) which works as a really nice base image for this cover.

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I love all those 70s horror comics from Marvel. Such good cover artwork and great to use as a base for these types of Photoshop projects.

The Dell Monster Squad logo was going to be a re-interpretation of some awesome original art by Nathan Milliner.

Nathan created these awesome EC-style vintage comic covers I just love. I really wanted to use that logo, but no matter how I manipulated it, it didn’t fit in the 60-70s vintage comic cover I was trying to create, so I sadly had to abandon it. I then went back to the original Where Monsters Dwell logo and just created the new logo off those letters and I think it turned out pretty good. I’m happy with it.

As for the monster heroes themselves; Dracula comes from Dell Dracula #4, Frankenstein comes from Dell Frankenstein #2 and Werewolf from Dell Werewolf #1.

I also had to change the background a bit and add the night sky with the full moon which I believe I got from Marvel’s Werewolf by Night #11.

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

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2015: Dell’s Frankenstein

Posted in comic books, Frankenstein, monsters, nostalgia, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2009, AWESOME-tober-fest 2015, Frankenstein, Halloween, holiday, monsters on October 26, 2015 by Paxton

Here we are, kids. The final week of October and the final week of AWESOME-tober-fest 2015. It sure has been a lot of fun this year, I hope you guys are enjoying this year’s celebration as much as I have been.

Anyway, this final week, I’m parting with my month long theme of the invisible man. Each day I’ll be revisiting a previous theme from an earlier AWESOME-tober-fest. I’ll use this week to review a few things that were supposed to be included in previous years, but for some reason, got cut from the final lineup. And since I’ve always wanted to do them, here’s my chance.

Today, I’m revisiting AWESOME-tober-fest 2009. That year was the first year I did “daily updates” and is the starting point for what AWESOME-tober-fest is today. That year, I covered Frankenstein’s Monster. On October 23, I talked about a bunch of different Frankenstein comics. Amongst that list was a blurb on an obscure 1960s Dell comic called Frankenstein #2.

The Dell monster comics should be familiar to anyone who reads AWESOME-tober-fest. But, to refresh your memory, in the 60s, Dell Comics acquired the Universal Monster license and did comic adaptations of several of the movies. Then, Dell decided to reboot three of the monsters into super hero comics. I reviewed the Dell Werewolf and Dell Dracula comics in their respective AWESOME-tober-fest reviews. But I never got around to a full review of the Dell Frankenstein comic. Today is that day.

As I mentioned, Dell rebooted Frankenstein’s Monster into a super hero comic in 1966 starting with issue #2 (issue #1 was an adaptation of the Universal movie). Like the other monster super heroes, it would only last three issues. Here are issues #3 and #4.

Similar to Dracula, this one is pretty zany. But in a fun way. I mean, look at Frankenstein up there. His head is GREEN but his arms are inexplicably flesh colored. What?

Origin 1 Origin 2
Here’s Frank’s origin from the first issue. It’s 100 years after the Universal movie. Frankenstein’s Monster is buried beneath the ruins of the mad doctor’s castle. A random lightning strike revives the monster who awakens with partial amnesia.

Birth
Frank realizes that he’s stronger and smarter than 50 men, so he decides to use his abilities to fight crime. And somehow in the last 100 years Frank’s extremities have gone back to their pinkish color while his face remains ghastly green. Also, I guess Dr Frankenstein knew that his creature would eventually fight crime so he left a unitard and some masks for the monster to cover up his monstrous face.

Mask 1 Mask 2 Mask 3
And Frank makes sure to use those masks ALL THE TIME. That’s some Mission: Impossible level mask technology right there.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2015: The Flash vs an invisible man (1991)

Posted in Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, pop culture, TV shows with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2015, Halloween, holiday, Invisible Man, monsters, reviews, TV shows on October 23, 2015 by Paxton

The Flash TV series debuted in September 1990.

The Flash_0E8zqTi

In episode 10, which aired January 1991, The Flash would come up against a villain who had invented a personal cloaking device, essentially turning him into an invisible man. That episode was titled Sight Unseen.

It’s a pretty cool episode. The pre-credit opening shows us a burglary, but it’s being done by someone invisible. We see keyboard keys depress and doors opening without seeing anybody onscreen. Then, after the alarms go off, we see the door open on it’s own and then the thief appears as if out of thin air.

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He looks very Shadow-like in the below shot as he dictates to what looks like a mini-recorder device about his plans. .

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Not sure why he does this right outside the crime scene. Stay invisible, dude, get to your hideout THEN do your “notes to self”

We get the weekly appearance of officers Bellows and Murphy.

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Bellows is the believer (right) and Murphy is the skeptic (left). However, while Murphy doesn’t believe The Flash exists, he spends most of his time trying to monetize the fact that other people do think he exists. Here he tries to convince Bellows to sell $6 shirts to people for $20 a pop.

This show is clearly set-designed by the same team that did Burton’s Batman in 1989. Check out Central City Police Headquarters.

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In the stairwell that leads up to the crime lab where Barry Allen works, there’s a weird “science-y” mural painted on the wall.

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In this episode we get the debut of federal agent Quinn. And he’s clearly an a-hole. He’s very driven and is obsessed with capturing the cloaking device used by the invisible man. He reminds me a lot of agent Milton Dammers in The Frighteners (right) as played by Jeffrey Combs about five years later.

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Several times in the episode we get to see invisible-to-visible reveals of the villain. Here’s a cool one where The Flash confronts the guy’s lair.

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And here’s one where the villain is thrown on the hood of a car and it turns the cloaking device off.

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Finally Barry figures out that he can see the invisible man with specially developed contact lenses with thermal vision.

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Honestly, I thought any invisible man’s downfall would be thermal vision. You may be invisible to light, but you’ll always give off a heat signature.

It’s a pretty good episode. No overt Wells-ian easter eggs. The scientist who develops the cloaking device is called Gideon. Which sounds kind of like Griffen, the protagonist from Wells’ novel. Also like Griffen, he’s British. He’s played by Christopher Neame who has been in a ton of stuff from this to Ghostbusters II, License to Kill and The Prestige. Coincidentally enough, he also would appear in one episode of Sci-Fi Channel’s 2000 TV series, The Invisible Man.

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

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