From The Crypt Halloween, 4: The Other Monster Squad

10/6/89. At least this one was started around Halloween time.

Not much to say about this one- my favorite monsters, in color! My sister had gotten me colored pencils for Christmas past, so I was trying to put them to use. Not much to say about this one, other than I don't know why the Mummy appears to be floating, and for whatever reason I always remember drawing Dracula like that- Bela's outfit, but completely different face. There's a reason I drew that face, but I can't remember what it is. So there you go.

I'm tired.

See you tomorrow.

Music: "Monster Mash" - Bobby 'Boris' Pickett

From The Crypt Halloween, 1: We Still Belong Dead

8/20/90.

At my Mom's this past weekend, I came across a huge collection of my old drawings. Instead of shuffling them to the bottom of whatever box they came out of like usual, I decided to bring them with me and look through them again, just to see if I've made any progress since then. I thought if nothing else, I could maybe find some choice ones and post them, just to show how bad I used to be way back in the day. Funnily enough, I ended up coming across a bunch of Halloween-themed (or genre-related, at least) pics and thought, since I didn't have anything new to post for Halloween, and I've been running old pics already, I could combine those two and post these REALLY old pics. Not even from the crypt so much as the old burial mound... But, there will be, with luck, a post for each night this week. Rejoice!

So this first one, I hope you can see, is Frankenstein's Monster and his Bride. This pic looks like it was influenced by an old photo or scene from the movie (the poses feel familiar) but I don't think it was a direct drawing of a photo. As you can see, I was a fan of the Universal Monsters going back quite a ways. Not much to say about this picture, though looking at the green ink, it reminds me of the time I spent drawing, then using the different color ink pens to ink the drawings instead of just plain coloring them. And, if you look at the Bride and squint really hard, she kind of looks like Madeline Kahn.

More tomorrow.

Music: "Tubular Bells" - Halloween Soundtrack

In the Blood

Dracula, of a sort.

This was really just done as a very sketchy sketch. Basically, I was just trying for the arced lines rather than anything particularly accurate or intentional. It turned out alright for what it was meant to be, and I like the solid colors of it. This is probably my... third?... Dracula picture on here, and it's probably only appropriate that each one is radically different from the last, as the character of Dracula has been interpreted and reinterpreted in a nearly endless variety of fashions.

Dracula is probably not quite so readily recognizable as Frankenstein's Monster (thanks to the makeup, Frankie is pretty much one of a kind; unless you look just like Bela Lugosi (or Joe Flaherty), it'll take a second or two for someone to realize the evening suit makes you a vampire). However, Dracula as a literary character is second to none when it comes to a life beyond his origins, and world-wide recognition. I personally own more than 20 books featuring just the character of Dracula, each of them portraying some different version of him, sometimes incredibly different, sometimes very familiar. One of my favorite books ever, Anno Dracula, features a Dracula based directly on Stoker's novel, but also manages to create an entirely new mythos around the vampire. Tremendous reading for anyone, in my not so humble opinion.

Of course, the many facets of the literary Dracula are equaled or exceeded by those shown in the movies. Each actor who steps into the role brings something different to the character. And naturally, neither of these paths take into account the many, many different types and stories of vampires in general to appear in both media. The character's continued success probably stems from any number of reasons: the "dark romance", the supernatural, the underlying themes of the character (which seem to find new relevance through every age), even just the idea that living forever is pretty cool. There are as many different reasons for loving Dracula as there are interpretations of him. From a pop cultural point of view, Dracula will never die.

So that's the big three, insofar as the classic Universal Monsters go. Certainly, three of my favorites. Next up, a couple of pictures of two of my personal favorite movies... One is a remake of the other, both based on a single short story, both completely different in tone and character, and both tremendous movies.

Music: "Killing Moon" - Echo and the Bunnymen

Werewolf of Hogwarts'

Welcome back- yep, it's the return of Harry Potter pictures.

I really didn't have any particular plan for what to post tonight- I usually don't know what will get posted until I fire up the computer and find what kind of mood I'm in. Do I feel like posting just a sketch, or do I want to color something? I have a number of sketches already scanned in, just waiting for me to do something with them.

As it turns out, ABC Family Channel had a bit of a "Harry Potter" marathon on today, so that made it a bit easier to decide what to post. Even more so in that the last movie to air was "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", my personal favorite of the movies. Yes, yes- I know you PoA haters out there think it's the worst of the bunch for various technical offenses, but to me it's one of the best because it really shows the characters as people, rather than as pieces to be moved through the plotline and setpieces. The writer and director took the time to give more thought to the characters and how they feel than the previous entries, and the story was straightforward enough that they didn't have to pass along massive amounts of information in two and a half hours (which is why the remaining movies would all benefit from either a three and a half hour runtime or two-volume releases). Anyway, it's a favorite of mine.

Oh- the reason this post relates to 'PoA' is that one of the new characters introduced is Remus Lupin, Defense Against the Dark Arts professor and (spoiler warning!) werewolf. As long-time readers may know, werewolves hold a special place in my blackened little heart, right along with vampires and other such nasty beasties. Lupin is a fantastic character in the books (who's not given nearly enough time) and is well-played in the movies by David Thewlis.

When I decided to draw Lupin, I knew almost immediately what he looked like to my mind's eye. He's described in the novels as looking a bit shabby, often with scratches and such about his face (apparently he doesn't have supernatural healing while running about on all fours). So, I knew he'd look a bit rough around the edges, plenty of scars and whatnot on his face. My drawing here is really an homage to Universal Studio's first screen wolf man, The Werewolf of London. Released in 1935, The Werewolf of London was much closer to Mr. Hyde than the Lon Chaney, Jr. wolf man we all know. So, I took the two ideas, the books shabby, scarred professor, and London's Hyde-like wolf man and combined them into the picture above.

Hope everyone's weekend was good, and I'll be back Wednesday.

Music: "Werewolves of London" (what else?) - Warren Zevon

Posts of Halloween, Eight

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Who better to celebrate the holiday with than three of the biggest 'names' in Hollywood horror: the Wolfman, Frankenstein's Monster, and Dracula! Three of my favorite movie characters, to be sure. I hope you like this latest addition to my Halloween lineup.

This picture has been the most difficult of every one I've worked on. Not the drawing itself, but to bring it from the sketch initially done to what you see above. It took me about 6 hours to get it to this point. And that, kids, is why I'm inking my drawings from now on. But don't get me wrong- I loved putting the picture together, especially since I could put the old Universal Studios logo in the background. Oh- as to why they don't look so much like the movie characters? Eh- I just wanted to have some fun with them.

I hope everyone has a wonderfully haunted Halloween, and come on back tomorrow (yes, tomorrow!) for some extra Halloween images. Why?

BECAUSE HALLOWEEN ISN'T OVER UNTIL I SAY IT IS!

(I mean, seriously, if 'The Simpsons' can run their treehouse of horror episode on November 4th, i can post more Halloween pictures.)

Music: "The Monster Mash" - Bobby 'Boris' Pickett