BLADED VAMPIRES, CRITTERS AND REAPERS TOO!

Another group of sketches from the month of October,

a pretty good mix of vampires, monsters and aliens

for your viewing pleasure!

Count Orlock of NOSFERATU fame hanging out waiting for a manicure...

Vampire Hunter D prepares for battle.

A particularly nicotine addicted Critter from the CRITTERS franchise.

Grim from the cartoon--he appears miffed at one of those young'uns!

Morbius the Living Vampire prepares to pounce on a passerby!

A reimagining of Blade the Vampire Hunter--given a more funky look.

Autumn Cleaning

Just a sampling of more sketches completed in the month of October...

click on any one image to see it embiggened.

SKETCH DUMP: NOVEMBER 7, 2013

This series of sketches was done ramping up to this October and in the early days of October--most of which were done for Outcast Studios' Daily Sketch Challenge.

(It's always good exercise to sketch a little something each day to keep up your skills and further develop them.  Or, at least that's what they say.)

Here we have Marvel Comics version of Bram Stoker's eternal enemy Dracula from the longest running comic book series starring a villain, TOMB OF DRACULA.  Nearly completely done by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, it was full of gothic atmosphere which I tried to covey a little bit of here.

(Click these for Enlargement)

Swamp Thing contemplating knowledge and how it can be both a good thing and a bad thing.  Just me having some free time at work with ballpoint pen and cardboard.

The Atom punching a guy in the face and Panthro of the Thundercats on a jaunt. 

Crusher Creel, AKA The Absorbing Man between absorbing something--

I really like this sketch and I'm not sure why.

Etrigan, The Demon, Jack Kirby's horror based fantasy hero--a demon from hell damned to do good by Merlin the Magician.  I don't really like this one.

The daughter of Dracula: Lilith. 

This is from Marvel as well--their attempt to tap the Vampirella market, apparently.

Profile shot of Mephisto, Marvel Comics' version of  the devil.

THE COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN: DAY 31.5

(Oh, and one more thing...)

Of course, you know, it couldn't be over that easily!

There has to be the grasping hand, reaching from the grave,

that seemingly dead killer's eye opening up,

that last brain eating zombie that comes out of nowhere,

that one last thing that makes you jump, 

that wink and nod to let you know

how much you, the viewer

are appreciated.

Here are a dirty dozen different takes on the vampire from the traditional blood-sucking variety to those of a very different species

that THE GOODS guarantees to be...

good reads!

LOST SOULS

by Poppy Z. Brite

SUNGLASSES AFTER DARK

by Nancy A. Collins

THE PASSAGE

by Justin Cronin

SALEM’S LOT

by Stephen King

THE STAKE

by Richard Layman

NECROSCOPE

by Brian Lumley

I AM LEGEND

by Richard Matheson

THEY THIRST

by Robert R. McCammon

INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE

by Anne Rice

CARRION COMFORT

by Dan Simmons

CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT

by Dan Simmons

THE KEEP

by F. Paul Wilson

THE COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN: DAY 31

(Stoker's Story)

So here we are on the final day of the Countdown to Halloween and, again, I have to say it's been a fun, if somewhat harrowing, ride getting here!

(A photo of the award itself)

It's called the "BRAM STOKER AWARD" for a reason--the award granted to the authors of the works in the Horror genre voted best of the best each year by the Horror Writers Association.

With his novel, DRACULA, Bram Stoker changed the face of fiction.  Defining the vampire for the world for over a century and creating a villain the likes of which had rarely been seen before or since. 

Knowing the history of the myths and legends of vampires and knowing DRACULA itself backwards and forwards via viewings and readings and alternate takes over the years is one thing, knowing about the man who created the Count as we met him in his castle is quite another.  So I checked out a documentary entitled DRACULA: THE VAMPIRE AND THE VOIVODE

and found it to be quite a good look at the life of Stoker,

the wheres and whens and hows of his life

and his work as a writer.

Highly recommended and you can watch it streaming on Netflix...

but here's the trailer c/o the YouTubes:

A book like DRACULA gets published in every language, but let's concentrate only on the English editions I could find pictures of after a few days scanning the hills and valleys of the internet.

Over the years, see what wonderful variations there are...

Besides his masterpiece,

Bram Stoker wrote eleven other novels and three collections of short stories

and some other tales that hadn't been collected.

For anyone interested in any of his writing, much of it, if not all, is available for FREE at:

BramStoker.org

And don't forget:

TCM

HALLOWEEN DAY

OCTOBER 31, 2013

6AM -- The Curse of Frankenstein

7:30AM -- The Mummy (1959)

9AM -- Horror Castle

10:30AM -- The Castle of the Living Dead

12:15PM -- Dracula, Prince of Darkness

1:45PM -- The Devil’s Bride (The Devil Rides Out)

3:45PM -- Dracula Has Risen from the Grave

5:30PM -- Horror Express

8PM -- Pit and the Pendulum

9:30PM -- The Haunted Palace

11:15PM -- The Masque of the Red Death

1AM -- The Abominable Dr. Phibes

2:45AM -- Twice-Told Tales

5AM -- The Tomb of Ligeia

6:30AM -- The Conqueror Worm

8:15AM -- Theatre of Blood