SONS OF SATAN, THE ALL-FATHER and RICK GRIMES

The three sons featured today are all children of men who have made powerful names for themselves in their own ways...

You can enlarge any of these images for further review--it's fun even!

(Carl Grimes, son of Rick, a survivalist family during a zombie plague)

(Hellboy and Thor measuring each other up--it's a hero thing.)

(Thor looking as pissed as usual.)

(Hellboy's hunting down some kind of nasty sumbitch)

SPIDEY, GANDALF, CLAYFACE, KRAMPUS, TOO!

This weeks collections of drawings and sketches of which there are four...

click on any of these and view super-sized...

(Clayface of Batman: The Animated Series)

(The Christmas Krampus--he who handles the naughty children, quite severely I'm told.)

(Gandalf the Grey unleashes one of his "fireworks".)

(That thar Spider-fella swinging around town!)

THE ANGEL IN A RED CAPE & DRAGON IN GREEN SKIN

Supergirl sketch in pencil on paper.

Silver Age vintage.

(Click to Enlarge)

Iron Fist ballpoint on board sketch.

Bronze Age vintage.

(Click to Enlarge)

OLD MAN LOGAN

As fun as regular modern Wolverine is to draw, I've just found out how much funner, wrinkly old Logan is to draw from the 'Days of Future Past' storyline.  Gray hair, bomber jacket, holstered gun all add up to equal more mutant manliness for your bottom dollar.

(Click to embiggen and embolden)

(Always fun to stretch my Byrne-fanboy genes)

COMFORTABLE DOWN SOUTH

Like the fantastic advertisements for Keystone beer a few years back that featured my favorite alcohol-related character of all time (Keith Stone), this ad campaign has spoken to me in some strange way.

If I were a liquor man, I'd be a Southern Comfort candidate as of seeing

this commercial for the very first time:

or

Whatever's Comfortable (Southern Comfort) from DTan on Vimeo.

It is brilliant in its singular purpose of making that man the viewer and making the viewer WANT to be that man!  Carefree and happy to be who he is, burgundy swim trunks and penny loafers on a beach and all!  He is who he is and enjoy the view ladies and gentlemen!  Or so he seems to think.

There is one other thing that this commercial taps into that I'm almost certain they weren't intending to make a connection to and that is old-school RASSLIN' or wrestling for the uninitiated.

You see, this guy looks an awful lot like he BELONGS in a wrestling family... one that is legendary, one that dominated a period of wrestling alongside a few other greats by being half of the greatest quartet of all time: THE FOUR HORSEMEN.

I'm talking of the Anderson family, of which there was Ole and Arn and this Southern Comfort ad fellow seems like he should be right in that family, the younger brother with the looks of Arn and the brains of Ole.

 

Same trunks, same build, maybe a little bit more tanned, but he's in there.

And lest we forget the oldest Anderson brother, Gene... alongside Ole earlier.

Gene may be a little further away in the gene pool, but that familial sense of fashion clearly started with him!

Nonetheless, the Southern Comfort man proudly carries on the tradition!

AUTUMNAL IMAGES

My annual look at the fallen leaves from around my abode... thrown on the scanner and manipulated in the ways of color and arrangement.  All of which make interesting backgrounds and screen-savers for the home computer.

(Enlarge any of them or download them and enjoy)

 

TRYPTOPHAN HULK-OUT

The Hulk having THANKSGIVING DINNER...

(HULK ALWAYS GET DRUMSTICK AND 'TATER SALAD ON THANKSGIVING!)

SWINGING SWAMP MONSTERS

Just wanted to post some doodles I've been doodling--gotta start back somewhere... btw, feel free to click on any of the images below to enlarge them for better viewing--go on, it's fun!

(Spidey swinging his usual route--came out alright for a ballpoint on cardboard sketch.)

(Me and a ballpoint feeling out a particularly vicious looking Frankenstein Monster.)

(Finally broke down and started penciling in a sketch for a SWAMP THING sketch cover--I like it so far... we shall see.)

DROOLING GHOUL

(This here guy was drawn for the blog's Halloween Countdown--a kind of ghoulish feller.  Didn't really get anywhere with him.)

OCTOBER LEAVES

Whenever October ends, I go through a kind of lull as the bestest holiday of the season has already passed and it just seems like an ending.

Which is the point of Halloween, in a big kind of way, I suppose.

Anyway, just gathering the energy to start posting again and figured a good place to start is where I left off:

that thar Frankenstein monster feller!

Some unposted sketches that I figured would develop into final pieces that pretty-much just stayed sketches...

(These sketches were just too big for the scanner, but you get the gist.)

(This is where you can see the torch in the monster's hand--fire not so bad!)

(You can tell I fell in love with this profile of the creature and that black hair as described by Shelley
and perfected by Wrightson.  Here the monster carries a club and strangles a magistrate or official.)

Well that's all for now, back soon as I expect to have time to sketch again shortly.

MONSTER-MONTH: A COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN (Day 31)

I've given Frankenstein's Monster the evening off as he's had a busy month and I figured he may need to recharge his batteries, so to speak.  Tonight we take a look back at some fairly recent history and history pertaining to fear of the other.

Fear of the extra-terestrial.

Fear of the invader.

And in particular:

The Martian.

SEVENTY-FOUR.

That’s the number of years it’s been since Orson Welles broadcast THE WAR OF THE WORLDS as an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air and was a production of CBS radio.  It was an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1898).

The first forty minutes of the hour long broadcast were presented as a series of news bulletins, which convinced some in the public that an actual alien invasion by Martians was under way.  Another contributing factor for this misunderstanding was that THe Mercury Theatre on the Air was a show without commercial interruption.

Despite some accounts, it is unclear the extent to which listeners were panicked.  In the days that followed the adaptation, there was widespread outrage and panic by certain listeners who had believed the events on the radio were real, however.  The program’s format was described as cruelly deceptive by some.  This secured Orson Welles’ fame.

Here’s the broadcast as it was heard those many years ago:

HIstorical links examining the event:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/welles-scares-nation

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1855120,00.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0617_050617_warworlds.html

FIFTY.

This is the number of years it has been since TOPPS put out a series of fifty-five trading cards depicting an invasion of earth by extra-terestrials from Mars.  MARS ATTACKS was thenameof that series. And it is one of the most controversial card series in history.

The cards depict the invasion of Earth by cruel and ugly Martians who try to take over by violent and terrible means.  Futuristic battle scenes between ray gun toting Martians and soldiers with conventional weapons.  The story of the card set ends with a combined Earth invasion fleet attacking Mars and completely annihilating the planet.

The cards were popular with kids, but their gore and implied sexual content caused an outcry from parents and lead the company to halt production of the series.  The cards became sought after collectors’ items.

Wally Wood, Bob Powell and Norm Saunders were the artists for this beautifully depicted science fiction horror show.  Wood providing the layouts and designs, Powell mostly finalizing the layouts and Saunders providing the paints.

After a series of cards that continued the tale of he original set, comic books and a 1996 film by Tim Burton, merchandising and popularity of the card series boomed again.

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the card collection, a reprinting of the originals has been done as has a very nifty little hardcover book depicting the art of each card in great detail and with insightful introductions and examinations of the pencil art behind the painted art, cards that were cut from the set among other things.  The book is entitled, simply, MARS ATTACKS and was put out by Abrams.

And don't forget:

 Wednesday, October 31, 2012 on TCM

6:30am - LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT (1927)

7:30am - THE GHOUL (1933)

9am - HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS (1970)

11am - REPULSION (1965)

1pm - DEMENTIA 13 (1963)

2:30pm - THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964)

4pm - THE DEVIL BAT (1940)

5:15pm - WHITE ZOMBIE (1932)

6:30pm - THE BODY SNATCHER (1945)

8pm - FRANKENSTEIN (1931)

9:30pm - SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939)

11:15pm - THE WOLF MAN (1941)

12:30am - THE MUMMY (1932)

2am - THE MUMMY’S HAND (1940)

3:15am - ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1933)

4:30am - THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933)