Countdown to All Hallow's Eve Day 31: HE WHOSE LIMBS SHATTER MOUNTAINS AND WHOSE BACK SCRAPES THE SUN

If there is a King of the Kirby Monsters, FIN FANG FOOM is that king! He is like unto Godzilla that way, and so he is the final of the monsters I decided to show you. You know, I refer to them, as do many, as "Kirby Monsters", but here especially, we have to give Stan Lee his credit. The name FIN FANG FOOM by itself is impossible to forget even before we see the beautiful creature Kirby came up with to represent that name.
I kept attempting to draw this guy on the same sketchpad I'd been drawing all the others on, but Fin Fang Foom was having none of it--he was too big in my mind to even fit on regular paper. Finally, I squeezed him onto a sheet of cardboard and still had to extend his horns in PS to make them work right. (Click on him to get all the hideous detail in FOOM-O-VISION!)

STRANGE TALES #89--Chan Liu Chow had heard rumors of the Communist Chinese invading his homeland of Formosa and decided to make a last ditch effort to save his homeland from the plague of Communism. He knew of the legend of the dragon FIN FANG FOOM, so he headed to the site of the crypt in China where the dragon is said to still slumber to this very day.


There he discovered the legend was true and so he used a sacred herb to awaken the dragon from his sleep. He then lured it toward the troops and ships of the Red Chinese force. Fin Fang Foom destroyed the army and it's weapons and ended the threat of invasion. Chan then lured the creature back to his crypt using another special herb which caused the monstrous dragon to sleep again.


Take note TV viewers, TCM's treats for your Halloween Day:
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 31st (HALLOWEEN)
6:15AM--FREAKS
7:45AM--MARK OF THE VAMPIRE
9AM--THE DEVIL DOLL
10:30AM--THE TERROR
12:15PM--A BUCKET OF BLOOD
1:30PM--TOWER OF LONDON
3PM--THE TINGLER
4:30PM--THE MAD MAGICIAN
6:15PM--HOUSE OF WAX
8PM--HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
9:30PM--THE HAUNTING
11:30PM--POLTERGEIST
1:30AM--THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
3:15AM--A QUIET PLACE IN THE COUNTRY

I leave you with this Halloween Wish:

Countdown to Hallow's Eve Day 30: BOMBU THE WITCH MAN

The tiki-faced, mullet-haired, scaly-skinned, creature you see above is BOMBU, the Witch Man. He is today's Kirby Monster. He is probably one of the more powerful of these monsters, even though he doesn't look like it--weighing in at a mere 5'6"-5'10" and about 160 lbs. He's just not that smart or careful of his own power...read on:

Take note, fair reader, the being who appears on the cover of JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #60 looks nothing like the creature known as BOMBU. Puzzling, no? And if he's not Bombu, then who the heck is he? Well then that is our contest: NAME THAT KIRBY MONSTER! The first responder will get an illustration of that monster (whatever you name him) by me as your prize!


The immortal being known as Bombu settled his spaceship in the Amazon to gather information for his invasion of the planet. Bombu soon insinuated himself into a group of natives, becoming their “witch doctor” after providing examples of his powerful “magic”.

Two men from the outside world crash their plane in the jungle and become captives of Bombu’s tribe. These men were brought before Bombu who reveals his plans for our world and demonstrates his powers to them. The witch man summons forth a powerful storm and is soon struck down by a lightning bolt from his very storm. The two men then learn that the hideous mask the invader “wore” was actually his REAL FACE!!!!


ATTENTION HORROR MOVIE LOVERS:
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30th on TCM (TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES)
6:15AM--THE DEVIL COMMANDS
7:30AM--THE GHOUL
9:15AM--THE WALKING DEAD
10:30AM--THE BOWERY BOYS MEET THE MONSTERS
11:45AM--THE OLD DARK HOUSE
1:30PM--13 GHOSTS
3PM--HOMICIDAL
4:30PM--DR. SARDONICUS
6:15PM--STRAIT-JACKET
8PM--THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME
10:15PM--WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?
12:45AM--MAD LOVE
2AM--CAT PEOPLE
3:30AM--MARTIN SCORSESE PRESENTS, VAL LEWTON: MAN IN THE SHADOWS
5AM--THE LEOPARD MAN

And now for a last minute Halloween Greeting featuring a contemplative witch:

Countdown to Halloween Day 29.5-- DIABLO the DEMON from the FIFTH DIMENSION

Diablo is today's Kirby Monster and he was a bit of a pushover as monsters go. Nonetheless, he is intimidating and the fact that he's a black smoke monster made me think "LOST". He's so vague he's kind of fun to draw. Above, I kind of reinterpret the cover of TALES OF SUSPENSE #9 as you'll see below. Started as a simple pencil sketch, but finished up in Photoshop.

TALES OF SUSPENSE #9--Diablo left his home Dimension promising his people that when he returned, he would hve a new world for them to conquer. For hundreds of years, he journeyed through space until he came to Earth and landed in Mexico. There he stayed for a very long period of time gathering strength from the elements and observing the human race. Aztecs became aware of Diablo and believed him to be a demon.

Stories of this “smoke demon” reached an adventurer who went on a search for the creature. After finding it and hearing it’s talk of world conquest, the adventurer was able to scare Diablo away from the Earth by simply blowing away the smoke from the flame of his cigarette lighter.

As revealled in the MONSTER HUNTER FILES, the unnamed adventurer was retconned to be none other than ULYSSES BLOODSTONE!

IF YOU'RE NOT WATCHING TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES CHANNEL TODAY, YOU ARE MISSING OUT:
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29th
6AM--DR. X
7:30AM--MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM
9AM--THE VAMPIRE BAT
10:15AM--THE APE
11:30--ISLE OF THE DEAD
1PM--THE CORPSE VANISHES
2:15PM--DEVIL BAT
3:30PM--WHITE ZOMBIE
4:45PM--I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE
6PM--CURSE OF THE DEMON
8PM--CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN
9:30PM--REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN
11:15PM--FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN
1AM--FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED

And now, a visit from our friendly Halloween Man:

Countdown to Halloween Day 29: UNIVERSALLY SPEAKING

There's been a slight rain-delay on our next Kirby monster--fear not, he shall be posted before noon later today--and so I instead present you with this pencil, sharpie and cardboard depiction of...
THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

While he's no Kirby creation, he is one of the most visually striking creatures to ever grace the silver screen. Here he seems to be imagining an encounter with a swimming beauty.

Countdown to Halloween Day 28: GOR-KILL the WATER DEMON

I alone know the dread secret of... Gor-Kill the Living Demon! Well, me and a few thousand other folks anyway. I took a picture of a location in Krakow, digitally manipulated it so that it looked to be the middle of the night looking over the river and attempted to draw/paint in Gor-Kill emerging from the water.

TALES OF SUSPENSE #12--A gaseous alien being drifted through space and onto the planet Earth in search of water here. Sensing a vast resource, it crashed into the Krakow Dam near a small village on the coast. There it merged with the water, forming a massive water monster and attacked the town.

After this, the town called it “Gor-Kill” after a local legendary water demon. They were unable to find the creature as they were looking for something of flesh and blood, not water and gas. A wanderer named Hans Grubnik realized that it WAS the water and urged his fellow townspeople to not let the monster reach the ocean where it could bond with the vast amounts of water there. The villagers were just plenty happy that the creature would be moving on.

Grubnik decided to take action himself, taking a round of dynamite, he planted it in the path of the monster and waited for it to step over. It was then that he set off the explosives, dispersing Gorkill into mere droplets of water that were absorbed into the soil.

TALES OF THE UNTOLD--At some later point in time, Ulysses Bloodstone battled the creature known as Gor-Kill, the Living Demon.


Easily one of my favorite Halloween greeting cards...

Countdown to Halloween Day 27: GROGG OF THE BLACK PIT

Today, we greet Grogg, a Fin Fan Foom-type dude. He almost looks like Kirby came up with him the same day as he did FFF. This is merely a pencil sketch as I figured I could show you the behind the scenes of one of these things. Click him once and then again to get an extreme close-up. It's not completely accurate as I believe I gave him a more human face and torso than he originally had (which makes him look a lot like a later Kirby creation, the Demon).

STRANGE TALES #83--The Great Wall of China, it turns out, was built to repel invading dragon creatures such as the one above named Grogg! How’s that for a quick bit of history?

At some point in time, Grogg crawled beneath the Earth to hibernate and there he remained until he was awakend by secret nuclear bomb testing being done by the Soviet Union. When awoken, Grogg attacked a nearby village until one of the villagers told him he should be angry at the nuclear testers as they’re the ones who woke him up.

Grogg then raged against the testers and downed their airplane, picking them off searching for the one responsible. The remaining two hid in a cave, until the Colonel in charge released the lead scientist to Grogg, claiming that the scientist was the one in charge. The scientist narrowly escaped by using a smoke bomb to hide from Grogg. He then left the Colonel to Grogg’s attention.

STRANGE TALES #87--Grogg went on to menace more of the Soviet Union. Eventually, he was lured by the Scientist who escaped him earlier into boarding a Soviet rocket and launched into space destined for Mars. His hope was that should other Russians reach Mars before America, they would have Grogg to deal with. (And America wouldn’t have to deal with him?)

Notice how they altered Grogg's color from the cover of his first appearance to his second on the cover of STRANGE TALES and in the MONSTERS ON THE PROWL reprint cover? They seem to get loose with the colors quite a bit. Color was rarely of high quality in the old days, but you'd think they'd try to go for some consistency--or maybe not...

Now enjoy this fine card that celebrates the season:

Countdown to Halloween Day 26: THE GREEN THING

I decided to go back to my roots, so to speak, and do a speedy sharpie on cardboard drawing as was the case with my first posting of a Kirby Monster this countdown (Googam). These always go fast and I needed to be fast today. And so after a bit of photoshop color, the old boy makes his appearance here on our countdown. The Green Thing is the name of the creature and he made his first appearance in TALES OF SUSPENSE #19 in 1961.

The story begins in Australia as a scientist goes to a remote island to test a serum he's developed that should increase the intelligence of plants. He can't seem to find the particular plant he's looking for--the rare Ignatius Rex--so he instead gives his serum to a weed. The weed grows giant-size, becomes highly intelligent and reveals to the botanist that he plans to give the serum to other weeds so that it can take over the world.

After a chase and confrontation, the man finally stumbles across the Ignatius Rex plant and gives it the serum. The more highly developed plant then defeats the "green thing" and tells the scientist not to meddle with the way of things. Ignatius Rex decided to stay put on the island for the good of mankind. The Botanist is now afraid of plants.

The Green Thing appears a bit differently inside the comic than he does on the cover (his head is colored yellow and he has leaves for hands as opposed to the cover). The hero of our story, Ignatius Rex, is hard to find a depiction of here online.

And now for something you'll really like:

Countdown to Halloween Day 25: Nothing can stop... GOOM!

Father of Googam, Goom, is the choice for our latest visit to the world of Marvel Monsters Kirby style. Went with a straight to pencils version of Goom and tried to stick to the Kirby formula for his look and how he would move. Goom made his first appearance in TALES OF SUSPENSE #15...

Before we share with you the story of Goom, a brief reminder of Stephen Hawking's warning against humanity contacting an otherworldly intelligence as it could turn out badly for us. And now on to the tale...

Goom, a criminal on his home planet--Planet X, a planet in our solar system, but hidden from our knowledge by way of time and space warps--, is contacted by an Earth scientist using radio waves. Seeing our world as easy pickings, the helmet headed monster steered his space ship in our direction. Once he arrived, he caused all kinds of mayhem, finding himself to be much more powerful on our planet than his own. He then held the scientist's wife hostage while the Earth's leaders were led to him to surrender.

As a show of might, he took one of the men and placed him in his "time machine" and de-aged the man to his infancy. Secondly, Goom used his telekinesis to lift an entire city. Just as the Earth men were about to give up hope and surrender, the scientist who had originally summoned the beast contacted Goom's home planet again, begging them for help. They soon arrive and take Goom back with them to their home planet to be punished. Little do they know that Goom has left a son behind on Earth to continue his ways...

Here we have the card of the day:

Countdown to Halloween Day 24: TABOO OF THE MURKY SWAMP

Now we come to the muck monster of this bunch of the Lee/Kirby Marvel Monsters and there are a few things you should know. Of course, all monsters without skeletons owe a debt to The Blob, because that guy was huge (literally). Anyway, I began drawing another muddy monster who originally went by the name "The Glob" whose name was changed in the '70s reprints to "Glop" so as not to be confused with another character who'd taken on the name in the years since the original Glob had been created. I personally don't remember anything using that name, but that was probably a wee bit before my time. So I thought: since I'm going to be drawing Taboo anyway and he and this Glob/Glop guy look the same, why not go with him instead.


Taboo's tale was told originally in STRANGE TALES #75 & 77 and it goes a little something like this...

Taboo's spacecraft crash landed in the Amazon rain forrest many, many years ago. He remained in the swamp for someone who could help him. In the centuries since he crashed, his existence caused the natives to come to call him "swamp demon".

Finally, novelist Lewis Conrad comes across the stranded alien mud monster and, upon hearing his story of being a peace loving alien in need, decides to help him out. Taboo asks for a device containing all of Earth's knowledge. However, when he gets this device, he boldly announces his intent to use this knowledge to return and conquer the planet. As Taboo took off for space, a hydrogen bomb hidden in the device exploded, blasting the mud giant into a million pieces, because humanity had not been as trusting as Taboo expected.

Later, Taboo's body reformed from across the globe and reassembled in New York City, where the monster began a rampage. It was at this point that a new space ship containing more of his people arrived and stopped the mayhem. They condemned his behavior, called him "sick" and took him away after repairing all of the damage.

And now, Glob/Glop for your amusement.



Hey look a card-again:

Countdown to Halloween Day 23: GROOT - MONSTER FROM PLANET X!

Tonight, we feature the Monarch of Planet X, Groot! I thought I'd give my Pitt brush pens a go with this bark-covered Kirby Monster. I think I made him a little more pissed off than he was in his original appearance, but you get the idea.

The alien tree creature known as Groot first came to Earth to abduct a human village. He was to return with it to his home planet for his scientists to experiment on the people living there.

Leslie Evans, a biologist, discovers this and tries to warn the small town of the intentions of this creature, but they don't believe him. When Groot attacks, Leslie unleashes a colony of mutated termites on him. The termites seemingly destroy him before he can accomplish his mission.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Groot is a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy after having served a brief stint with Nick Fury's Howling Commandos.

Learn more about the MIGHTY MARVEL MONSTERS OF JACK KIRBY at...
Monsters of Jack Kirby
Monsterblog
ComicCoverage
ComicMonsters

Consider yourself carded: