RSSGet original monster artwork on the cheap from Monster By Mail
Here’s a cheap way to get some original art: for $25, cartoonist Len Peralta will draw you a monster based on your suggestion, then mail it to your home address. Add ten bucks more and he’ll film it and send you a link where you can watch the magic happen on YouTube. You’ll probably want to spend that extra ten bucks–just look at these examples below:
The Zombie Anthology Showdown!
With the pop culture zombiepocalypse still in full swing, although maybe finally waning a little bit, it’s no longer a pleasant surprise to walk into a comic shop and see a zombie staring back at you. Everyone is publishing zombie crap now. It’s a proven niche, apparently. Or maybe this is just what happens when two generations grow up on Romero, Fulci, and the others; the zombie is our monster, from our modern era, and so our love for it won’t die until we do.
…Well, unless so much crap is published that it kills off the public’s appetite for good, well-written zombie stories. That’s why I’ve decided to review two zombie anthologies at the same time, to separate the fresh brains from the maggot-infested ones. It’s time for a littler arbitering of taste for busy consumers of zombie comics–like you!
Review: “Rotting In Dirtville”
“Rotting In Dirtville”
Writer: James Callahan
Artist: James Callahan
Published by Gigantic Graphic Novels (www.giganticgraphicnovels.com)
There’s a lot to like about James Callahan’s “Rotting In Dirtville,” beginning with the painted-velvet intensity of the cover art, and extending to the back-of-book copy–which, instead of a long-winded, cliché-ridden synopsis, simply says, “It wasn’t human! It ate the dog’s face and started vomiting these little robots!” Now THAT says “Buy me!” better than any full paragraph of blurbs.
This short, black-and-white comic is chock-full of weirdness, cruelty, quirky humor, and a bizarre combination of teenaged angst, small town bullies, thwarted young love, 1950s teen movies, atomic monster movies, 1990s skateboard culture, killer robot-cyborg things, and of course the living dead. Oh, and it veers off into Boschian levels of fantasy violence and horror near the end. It’s pretty awesome.
Callahan has done a great job creating a cohesive world that looks peculiar but familiar, like something from Ray Bradbury’s short stories crossed with Stephen King’s warped sense of “funny.” Everything has a slightly cartoony, exaggerated shape to it, which makes the whole thing veer on the edge of “too kooky” at times, but it works.
It’s bleak and violent, and the violence is brutal and comes unexpectedly. The main character suffers some real brutality, both emotionally and, halfway through the story, physically (there’s a reason he’s got bandages all over his face on the cover), and yet he remains a compelling, sympathetic character who never crosses over (too far) into action movie territory.
I think the last quarter of the book is a little harder to enjoy–either you like where this story takes you, or you go “you’ve lost me, sorry” and start rolling your eyes. As over-the-top as the graphics get, they follow a consistent logic for the story–if aliens are using alien technology in alien ways to turn us and our machines into weapons, there’s no reason to think that they’d obey our rules of aesthetics or sense of scale, for example. Still, trying to imagine a full-sized helicopter made out of a giant skull is so strange that it can tire your inner cinematographer after a while. Especially if your inner nerd is fighting for attention by wondering just where in the hell the aliens found that much calcium, and/or whether the density of these oversized organic creations are the same as their smaller counterparts.
Copyright 2008 by Chris Walters
Do not re-use without permission!
Resist Your Body Hole!
“The Enigma of Amigara Fault” is a short comic from Junji Ito, the author of several well-known volumes of Japanese horror manga. This one appears at the end of “Gyo,” and it’s a short, weird story: an earthquake reveals a fissure riddled with human-shaped holes, which perfectly match the shapes of specific individuals and exert a powerful control over them. It has a surreal, dreamlike logic that almost approaches that nightmare feeling of some of Lynch’s work (like the “Llorando” scene in “Mulholland Drive”).
Unfortunately, it sort of fizzles out at the end–taken to its logical conclusion, the concept becomes a bit silly instead of disturbing. But it’s worth reading for the overall tone and imagery, and the spookiness of the first three-quarters of the story.
If you can’t find Ito’s books in your town, you can get them through Amazon (the link will take you to the Monkeyskull affiliate page, where you can click the “Comics – Japanese Horror” section to see all the Ito comics I was able to find). You can also find many of them via a little Google searching. “The Enigma of Amigara Fault” is available in multiple locations online, so you can read it immediately:
“The Enigma of Amigara Fault” – Location #1 | Location #2 | Location #3
Experience the terror of a Muppet haunted house story
What happens when Muppets spend the night in a house chock-full of ghosts and monsters? Why, they wear out their welcome, of course! These scans from a 1980s book, posted over at BrandedInThe80s, feature some weirdly drawn versions of Kermit, Miss Piggy and the rest (Kermit seems kind of middle-aged and pensive throughout), but the story is still amusing and captures that irreverent outsider-vibe that the Muppets were so good at celebrating.
The best part, as usual is Gonzo—in the very first panel he’s already hitting on his chicken lover, and later in the story he reacts to a ghost with his usual blend of fearlessness and enthusiasm.
Halloween, Muppet Style… [Branded in the 80s]
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