Batman vs. The Abominable Snowman: Dawn Of Winter

Forget “Batman v. Superman: Dawn Of Justice,” this update is the real battle for Batman that you comic book readers have been chatting about at your local comic shops for years and wondering when a rematch will happen, or better yet when the movie based on this epic fight will ever make it to the big screen! I am not talking about Batman’s epic fights with such characters as The Predator, Count Dracula, Xenomorphs or even with his regular baddies like The Joker, Bane, Two Face or Catwoman.  No, this battle puts them all to shame as I am talking about his fight with the king of the mountain, the monster of Tibet, the one and only Snowman aka The Abominable Snowman! Wait what? Some of you readers seem not to remember The Snowman, a character who was a thorn in Batman’s side for two issues of his ongoing DC titles in the 70’s. For this update we will not only learn a little about The Snowman but also about the legend of the Yeti and maybe I will try to play and beat a cool custom Batman NES Batman game put out to PacnsacDave! I know it’s the middle of summer and late July, but get your warmest jacket on as we are climbing Mount Everest to become one with The Snowman as we take a look at his two Batman appearances.  So grab some hot cocoa, and let’s start our fun and dangerous hike.

The men and woman of Tibet and the surrounding area have had stories for centuries about a half man and half primate creature that roams the mountains around them that they call Yeti, Meh-Teh and other names like The Abominable Snowman. It’s been recorded that the Lepcha People of the Sikkim region worshipped a being from the Himalayan Mountains they called the Glacier Being and was the god of the hunt. In the 19th century, stories of a wild man who was ape-like carrying a stone as a weapon were told by people of the Bon religion. Throughout the 19^th Century, many strange footprints were found in the snow on the Himalayan Mountains, and tracker B.H. Hodgson claimed that his guides had seen a giant hairy creature while climbing that scared them half to death.  He would later say he thought it was just an orangutan. The mystery of this unknown snow creature grew in the 20^th Century when more and more sightings and footprints turned up in the mountains and of course more rich explorers and scientists rushed to be the first to capture, kill or get proof of the creature’s existence. Many more sightings and popped up through the decades, and the term Cryptozoology became a mainstay in believers’ vocabulary. In the 21^st Century the Yeti has lost some steam and most of the time when it pops up in the news it is done by pranksters and hoaxers who are looking for attention and their 15 minutes of fame. Many TV shows, scientists and hunters have given their thoughts on what the Yeti truly is: an unknown ape species, all the way to just a plain old bear. So what do you readers think, is The Abominable Snowman real or is it a hoax? Check out the picture below that is said to be a true photo of the Yeti in the mountains and make up your own mind if he is really out there.

Back in 1954, a scalp that was said to belong to the Yeti was found at a Pangboche Monastery along with a hand that was also claimed to have belonged to the creature. The monks were very protective of these items and kept them safe from outsiders and thrill-seekers who were on the hunt for The Abominable Snowman, wanting to make a name for themselves in the press. These items were just the kind of thing the Daily Mail, the newspaper who fronted the expedition, was looking for, and after pleading and ultimately tricking the monks, they were allowed to examine and extract some hair and skin tissue from the items. The media buzz around this was huge, and people thought that these samples held the truth of the Yeti’s existence, making the famed footprints look like thrift store leftover evidence. The first test on the hairs proved that they were not human nor ape, but scientists could not truly identify their species of origin, which of course sparked even more of a fever for those who wanted to find out if the Yeti was fact or fiction. The hand was also tested, and at first they claimed that it had Neanderthal qualities sending more people into the Yeti loving frenzy. Years later the hand and scalp were talked about on the hit TV show Unsolved Mysteries.  They tested a sample of the hand and found it to only have “near human” properties, but this episode sparked the hand to be stolen from the Pangboche Monks.  It would turn up in a private collection via the illegal black antiquities market and would pop back up in 2011 when new tests on it found that it had the DNA of a human. So are the scalp and the hand the real deal, or are they some from some poor human and animal? I should also note that besides these two items and the footprints, many other evidence has been found to prove the Yeti real from blurry photos to poop that is said to have belonged to the famed creature of the mountains. I am not sure what to think but would not rule out the existence of The Abominable Snowman as many unknowns lurk in this world we all share.

Anyone who owned a computer in the early 90’s played a free game called SkiFree that was created by Chris Pirih and released as part of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack. The game was originally made by Pirih for his own use, but when his boss at Microsoft saw him playing it, an agreement was made for it to be released as part of their software pack in 1991. The gameplay has you take control of a skier who’s on the side of a mountain and must avoid obstacles like stumps, trees and worst of all, the a man eating creature called The Abominable Snow Monster who will chase you.  If he catches you, he’ll eat you like a chicken wing! I can remember playing this game on my brother’s old PC that he bought with his own money and finding it a cheesy way to waste time. I can remember screaming as the Yeti would give chase to my skier and how annoyed I would get when I could not out run him and had to watch as he gobbled my player up. But as you can see, even with this silly cheap game the Yeti has wormed his way into pulp culture. Check out below for some cool images of SkiFree.

I should also note that the Yeti aka The Abominable Snowman has starred in his fair share of horror and science fiction films over the years with many of them being cheesy classics and some of them being very entertaining! Some are the 1957 Hammer Horror film “The Abominable Snowman” starring Peter Cushing and “Werewolf vs. The Yeti” starring the one and only Paul Naschy. Some of the cheesy ones include “Yeti: Giant Of The 20^th Century” that was released in 1977 and the 1954 goofy classic “The Snow Creature.” Some of the not so good include “Yeti: A Love Story” that was released in 2006 and “Shriek Of The Mutilated” from 1974, a film so bad that I for some reason find myself loving it. Some video game appearances include “Plants vs. Zombies”, “Far Cry 4” and “Tomb Raider II” to name a few. And let’s not get started on all the comic books and novels that he has appeared in, let alone cartoons and toys! So one thing is for sure, The Abominable Snowman is in our culture, and he’s here to stay.

Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world, and many hikers, explores, researchers and thrill seekers have tempted their fate and tried to make the climb to the top of the mountain that is super dangerous and is not recommended for armatures or even for that fact almost anyone! The first people to successfully climb Everest were Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953.  The climb was dangerous but also inspired many people to want to tempt fate and become the second, third, fourth and so on to make it to the top.  Many craved the notoriety of being one of the select few to make it to the top and back down alive. But a sad truth about Everest is that the beautiful mountain is a graveyard for the remains of many hikers who never made it down the mountain.  It’s too dangerous to bring down the dead or injured so many bodies are left frozen in time. You see, many people are not prepared for the climb to the top, and fellow climbers are told that if you find someone in a danger zone, hurt or dying, to leave them behind as those who end up trying to help a injured person end up in danger themselves and 9 ½ out of 10 times more likely end up dead themselves from the elements and brisk cold unforgiving weather. So I would like to take a moment to mourn all those who have lost their lives climbing Everest –  may their souls find peace.  I also would like to show support for all those poor climbers who have had to leave a fellow person behind as I am sure that is a terrible feeling.

We are halfway up to the top of this update so we should take a moment to sit by the fire, warm up, and sip a warm beverage and take a look at a comic that I ordered from Indy Planet some time back and have been itching to read and review.  I think that this update is the perfect time to unleash it on you the readers. The comic is called The Railroad Killer and is put out by a company called Jimmy Daze Comics.  It was one that caught my eye when I placed my last order of independent horror comics.  So let’s sit around and use this issue as our spooky story before we go back on the hunt for the Yeti.

The Railroad Killer # 1  ***
Released in 2009     Cover Price $0.00   Jimmy Daze Comics   # 1 of 1

An old drunk near the train tracks is angered as the train speeds by, but his anger is short lived as someone brutally beats him to death. The next day the police show up and the urban legend talk of the Railroad Killer spreads among the youth who are near the crime scene. Miranda Jr. is one of the cops on the scene, and he has a flashback to when he was a kid in 1985 and he and his brother and friends watched as the local hot teenage girl was murdered by the train tracks by a strange unknown man with a sledge hammer! Miranda decides that tonight he is going to prove that the Railroad Killer is real and waits around the train tracks all night to capture this supernatural killer. Later that night he gets his wish and comes face to face with The Railroad Killer for the last time. After the fatal meeting, we flashback to the year 1881 when a young Chinese rail worker is accused of raping a white woman and vigilante justice is served as he is beaten and run over by a train…and so the revenge spirit of The Railroad Killer is born!

This is a fun quick horror comic read that was a nice mix of slasher and urban legend and was done with tasteful amounts of blood and violence. Our story is simple and effective as if follows a cop who wants to face the town’s local unknown killer and stop it once and for all. Miranda Jr. seems like a good cop who has guilt over watching a young woman get murdered in his youth and not doing anything to help her, but his need for redemption just leads him onto a path of his own destruction. The Railroad Killer is a supernatural killer who was wronged when he was alive and now takes his revenge on anyone near the tracks at night. He is brutal using a big sledgehammer as well as the moving trains themselves to kill and takes pleasure in the act of murder. The very cool part of this one shot comic is the fact they give backstories for both our hero and bad guy and brings the reader into the motives behind their good and evil actions. Besides the story, the art done by Arturo Delgado Molina is really good and brings these characters to life. The most brutal kill of the issue has to be the death of Miranda Jr. who is beaten and then placed under the trail and decapitated! If you’re a fan of horror comics like me, The Railroad Killer is one that you will want to check out as it’s a spooky urban legend about an effective and brutal killer. Below is some artwork from this issue to show you Molina’s style.

That was a fun break, but I can hear the howl of the Yeti in the distance. I am not ready to come face to face with him yet so let’s just sit around a little longer and play a video game! I am on a kick of getting NES carts of “homebrew” or unreleased games, and one of the guys I have been getting items from is named Pacnsacdave who just so happened to have a homebrew game called “Batman & Robin: Shadows Of Gotham” that acts as the third in the NES Batman series that already consisted of “Batman” and “Batman: Return Of The Joker” and hell I guess you can count “Batman Returns.” Each of those games were a challenge so I am sure this one will be no different. Batman: Shadows Of Gotham is a two-player game that lets you choose between Batman and Robin.  The back of the box reads, “Gotham city, a city plagued by crime, violence and villains. The citizens are crying out for help. To cleanse the streets of Gotham…two shadows appear. They are called Batman & Robin, Shadows of Gotham.” I played this game on a RES (Retro-Bit Retro Entertainment System) with an original NES controller and asked my cousin Stephen Alexander if he wanted to join me on this epic game adventure, and of course he said yes.  We did not do an NES Challenge for this game; we just wanted to give it a good play and let you know that this video game is out in the world ready to be played.

We played it on May 14 2016, and the weather outside was very chilly and perfect for playing a video game.  I should note that Stephen and I played one player and passed the controller back and fourth, and of course we picked Batman. The game is a side scrolling action game that has Batman fighting with his hands, batarangs and other gadgets from level to level.  At the end of each level, you of course face one of his major villains, in this order Scarecrow, Penguin, The Riddler, Two-Face and finally The Joker! The Scarecrow and his level offered no challenge as I mastered it in one try.  Steve took on The Penguin and after a couple of tries was able to smack around the umbrella-carrying madman who was hiding in a tank.  I made a quick fight out of The Riddler, and both of us tried and tried and screamed at Two-Face who was trying his best from keeping us from beating the game! It looked like Two-Face was going to be our stopping point, but once we figured out his patterning, Steve was able to smack that two sided coin out of his hand and we were at the last level. The last level is pretty tough and will take you a few tries, or at least it did for us to make it to The Joker who also took us a few tries.  But once again, when we had is pattern down, Steve hit the final blow, and a game that we were just testing became a game we beat! The nice part about this game is that it has unlimited continues and gives you no real reason to stop playing.  The challenge is there and can be frustrating but not enough to turn it off. Over all, it’s a nice addition to the NES Batman games and once more I want to thank Pacnsacdave for this amazing cart. So if you’re a classic NES fan and are looking for a new game to play, make sure to check this one out as well as many of Dave’s other games that include the likes of Gremlins, Big Trouble In Little China, The Lost Boys and Spider-Man 2! So I guess we should start our way back on the journey to find The Snowman, but while we climb maybe I should tell you a little about him.

Klaus Kristin is the son of a Yeti and a human mother named Katrina, and he has the ability to shift between being a human and a Yeti. As the beast, he is called The Snowman and has the power to survive in very cold elements, has super strength, a ice cold touch and can kind of control his surroundings in a winter environment. As a human, he is an albino and has the ability to charm ladies, is an Olympic skier and comes off as a normal rich jock playboy who loves to brag. The Snowman has appeared in three comics for DC that include Batman # 337, Detective Comics # 533 and Justice League Adventures # 12 as he was a part of a group called Cold Warriors alongside Mr. Freeze, Captain Cold and Killer Frost among other cold style baddies. While The Snowman has not been officially in a game, there are two that might be loosely be based on him: the unlockable Yeti character in “Lego Batman: The Videogame” and in “Batman: Arkham City,” inmates are talking about it being cold saying “It’s colder than the Snowman’s heart.”  Rumor is, that was a nod to The Snowman, while others say they are talking about Mr. Freeze. So while not a major villain, The Snowman has made his small mark on the Batman universe, and I just wanted to share a few fun facts about him before we make it to the top of the update and arrive at the review.

As I have stated before, music has been a major part of my life growing up, and I have spent countless hours listening to many different songs from many different artists with them all acting as the soundtrack to my life. Who doesn’t have memories of driving around with friends late at night blaring music or sitting with the love of your life listening to music in your car talking about the future? I have artists that I call my must-buy-day-one-of-release favorites: Motley Crue, Billy Idol, Alice Cooper, W.A.S.P., Jewel, Cinderella, Guns N Roses and Danzig.  The last one this list brings me to a CD that I would like to briefly chat about as I feel the music from the band was a huge part of my teen years. Danzig was one of those bands I discovered on a Public Access music show called Metalmania (and I should also give props to MTV for making the song “Mother” a Buzz video) and became a fan of, as I felt singer Glenn Danzig has an almost Elvis Presley sound and being a fan of The King made this a no brainer that I would dig a harder rock version of that sound. In 1996 when “Danzig 5: Blackacidevil” was released, I can remember leaving school midday and walking to NRM Music at the Town And Country shopping center to get my hands on the cassette and listening to it on my Walkman during classes. Danzig was also a band my pal Jason Gilmore and I would always listen to and chat about our favorite songs and videos. I can also remember being at my friend Jeremy Foster’s house and hanging out while listening to a mix of Danzig and Pantera. These great memories bring me to Danzig’s 2015 release, the 10^th album for the band, an album of cover songs called “Skeletons” that I got for Christmas of 2015 as I had to wait to buy it because of the holiday season. I was pretty hyped to listen to this CD, but lots of things kept me away from being able to pop in the disc and listen to what Danzig had to offer on this release…and I must say that when I got around to it I was pretty underwhelmed! Now I want to stress that this is not a bad album.  In fact, I found myself enjoying many of the tracks on the release like the Black Sabbath cover “N.I.B” and “Lord Of The Thighs,” a cover of the Aerosmith cheesy classic song from the album “Get Your Wings”. While tracks like those were good, there were some that just sounded off and un-mastered, almost like a recorder was placed in a room with a band next to some beer and they said just jam and record and who cares if it doesn’t sound polished or hell even in tune…just do it.  The song “Satan” from the biker film Satan’s Sadists is a prime example of the odd sound that many of this tracks on this CD offer in terms of sound quality.  Again, I want to stress that it’s not a bad song and Glenn’s take on this song is solid…it just sounds very off, as if his vocals was recorded in a living room. Over all Skeletons is a interesting listen but lacks the true sound that Danzig fans have came to expect…if I had to give it a Rotten Ink 1-4 star rating, I would say for me it would be a solid 2, middle of the road.  If the sound issues were fixed, I could see myself giving it a 2 ½ or 3. Danzig still remains a must-buy artist for me, and I can’t wait to see what his next release brings to the table. Well I can see the top of the mountain, and as Butthead would say, “ And it is good”.

We have reached the top of the update, and it’s time to take a look at Batman vs. The Snowman.  I have been on a kick of reading classic Batman comics as of late and can remember reading both these issues in my youth.  When re-buying them, I knew they had to be something I reviewed here on Rotten Ink. I want to think both Game Swap Kettering and Mavericks Cards And Comics for having these in stock, and while the wind is blowing and the snow is coming down I can hear the howl of the Yeti saying “ Remember he grades these issues on a star scale of 1 to 4 and is looking for how well the comic stays to the source material, its entertainment value and its art and story.”  Now let’s snap this picture of the Yeti and get back down the mountain, and we should also get to the reviews of this classic and epic battle issues that pit Batman against The Snowman!

Batman # 337  ***
Released in 1981     Cover Price .50   DC Comics   # 337 of 713

It’s a cold night in Gotham City, and a sporting good store has a robber inside who is shooting at Commissioner Gordon and the cops.  Batman shows up, gets inside and finds that the robber is scared out of his mind and his partner has been frozen solid! When the robber is under arrest and his nerves calm down, he tells them a story of how he and his friend started to rob the place and were attacked by a snow creature he called The Snowman who stole the cash from the store and left the scene as well made him go mad with fear. Batman changes back to Bruce Wayne and heads home as he is holding a huge party.  His guest of honor is playboy Klaus Kristin who is winning the hearts of many of the woman with his tales of skiing, but Bruce notices that Klaus’s shoes have slush on them and the morning’s snow has been gone for hours. The next night The Snowman strikes again, robbing a jewelry store and killing the night watchman! While Batman is in Klaus’ room looking through his stuff, he finds a diary written by Klaus’s mom and his aunt, and it tells of how Klaus is the son of a normal woman and a Yeti, which explains why and who Klaus really is.  After his last crime, Klaus skips town and heads for Austria’s ski resort, and Batman follows and has a showdown with The Snowman on top of a mountain.  While Snowman is stronger, Batman is smarter and with the help of a flare in the eyes of his opponent, the Bat wins the fight when The Snowman falls from a high cliff and to his death.

What an epic battle, right? I mean Batman and The Snowman trade a total of one kick that Batman lands to the back of The Snowman….yep, that’s the fist to fist action you get in this issue! But even though it’s not super action packed and does not deliver an all out drag down Batman fight, it does have a fun entertaining superhero horror story with some entertaining characters. The plot is this: world class Olympic skier Klaus Kristin is a shape shifter who can change into a Yeti and is stealing money from stores around Gotham as he needs cold weather to live and must move around in order to stay cold weather.  His crime spree that leaves two people dead makes Batman spring into action and crack the case. Batman/Bruce Wayne is shocked when he finds the first body of a crook that was frozen stiff, and this makes Batman’s mind work over time as he wants to solve the crime and get this killer off the streets.  This just shows you that no matter how rich Bruce Wayne is and no matter what else is going on around him, solving crime is the most important thing in his life. Batman is truly a master detective as he pieces together who The Snowman is and where he has run to really fast.  Let alone, he make quick and easy work of this man creature in a fight that is in his opponent’s favor. Klaus Kristin is a snooty sort of bragger who thinks that because he won three medals in the Olympics and travels the world to high end ski resorts, he is better than most normal people.  He also has a weird charm that makes woman flock to him as he tells his stories of being a playboy. As The Snowman, he seems to not care about killing to get the money that he needs in order to stay where the cold weather goes, but it makes one wonder if his ego is so big that he would rather kill than to live say in Alaska or the North Pole where it stays cold year round. As always, Commissioner Gordon and Alfred Pennyworth (Bruce Waynes Butler) have cameos in this issue, and both are always great to see. Batman thinks that The Snowman might have thrown the fight as he wanted to be stopped and this was his way of ending his cursed life, but I am not so sure as it’s clear he has an ego.  I think he lost the fight because Batman out smarted him. The issue has two deaths of people who are frozen to death and has the possible death of The Snowman. The cover is super eye catching and has Batman on skis looking shocked as The Snowman, who looks like a giant, is popping out of snow ready for the attack. The story in this issue was written by Gerry Conway, and the art was done by Jose Garcia-Lopez with inks by Steve Mitchell.  All is well done, and that art has stuck with me since I was a kid as has the whole issue. I am sure many comic readers would look at this issue as just a fill in, but to me it has and will always be a key issue. I should also say this issue has a back up story about Robin! Check out some artwork from this issue to see just how massive and abominable The Snowman is, or is that was?

So the first meeting is down, but there’s one more to go.  The first meeting lead Batman to believe that The Snowman was dead, as did all of us readers, so let’s see what happens in round two!

Detective Comics  # 522  ***
Released in 1983     Cover Price .60     DC Comics   # 522 of 881

Batman and a guide named Chi are climbing the Himalayan Mountains looking for the famed creature Yeti as Batman thinks that it might just be his foe The Snowman returning from his supposed death. While climbing Batman and Chi are almost killed by an avalanche, Batman witnesses a tall and strong looking shadow above them, and after this near death experience they decide to spend the night in a near by cave for shelter. In the cave Batman, remembers back to being in Vicki Vale’s office and waiting for her to go on a date.  He flipped through a magazine and spotted Klaus Kristin in a photo, and this is what lead him to this hunt in the mountains. In a small village, Batman spots Klaus, and the two struggle falling into the cold water.  Batman strikes his head on a rock and Klaus pulls him from the water, but when they are back on land Klaus is shot by a villager and stumbles into the cold and disappears up the mountain.  Batman now needs to check on his one time foe who saved his life and follows the blood trail. Batman climbs the mountain and is attacked by the Yeti along the way and finds Klaus in a Buddhist temple as he is bleeding to death.  We soon find out that his dad, the Yeti, was the one who has been attacking Batman while in the mountains, and he takes his dying son into the cold as Batman watches as a father mourns his fallen son.

So the second epic battle between Batman and The Snowman is not really a fight between the two but instead has the Bat tangling with the Yeti, the father of The Snowman. This issue has Batman traveling to the Himalayan Mountains in order to look for his foe The Snowman, who is wanted for not just robbery but also murder, and soon finds that his old foe is not a threat and just wanted to find peace alongside his father! Batman has lots on his mind from drama with the ladies in his life Vicki Vale and Selena Kyle, as well as just being a crime fighter and focusing his sights on The Snowman, but he soon learns that people (or is that things?) can change. Batman also shows compassion as he could have taken down the Yeti, who has tormented villagers for years but instead lets him be with his son in his dying moments. Klaus Kristin never changes into The Snowman in this issue and after faking his own death really just wanted to be left alone.  He also shows that he has grown as a character as he saves Batman from drowning. Chi is a villager guide and acts as a good side character, loyal to Batman and trying all he could to guide him on his quest. The Yeti is in a fury and wants his son’s pursuers dealt with and tries to do all he can to stop them, but sadly he as well has a weakness and that’s bright lights from the likes of a flare. Once more, this issue is not wall-to-wall action.  It feels more like an adventure that pits our superhero not only against his foes but also nature and his surroundings. This issue as well held up all these years, and as I read it, moments came back to me in memories that proved for some reason that the Batman vs. Snowman issues had a impact on this young comic reader’s mind. The cover is fantastic and has Batman on the side of a mountain as The Snowman is lurking into battle. The story was written by Gerry Conway again with art duties this time around going to Iry Novick and Pablo Marcos, and they do a great job of making The Yeti look different from The Snowman. The back up story in this issue is a Green Arrow adventure and is worth checking out if you like that emerald archer. Check out the art below that will showcase the mighty Yeti as well as other art from this fun and entertaining issue.

Was this a better fight than Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice? Depends on your opinion…but I will say these comics made more of a impression on me than the film. While The Snowman might not be a big name villain like The Joker, Killer Croc or The Riddler, he was one I always remembered as a kid, and for some reason I really did think he was a huge deal in my youth. I can remember talking to kids on the playground in Waynesville about how Batman took on The Abominable Snow, and many of them looking puzzled or claiming they remembered with blank unsure look in their eyes. But now that we are off the hunt for The Snowman and made it back down unharmed, I think it’s time that we take a break from comics and once more step into the world of Horror Hosting as our next update will be about an icon who like Commander USA and Dr. Creep helped shape me into the person I am today.  I am talking about Grampa who hosted Super Scary Saturday on TBS! So until next time, read a comic or three, enjoy your summer days and as always support your local Horror Host! See you next update for a Super Scary good time.

Starriors: The Robots Who Ruined Christmas

When I think of the month of December, lots of things come to mind like Christmas, cookies, hot chocolate, family, snow and of course toys! Kids of my generation and before know the wonder of all the cool toys that became the must-have gifts you wanted from Santa or your parents so you could go to school and show off all your new stuff. And in the 80’s robots were super hot, and toylines were very popular and on many wish lists. One line that many kids of my time wanted was Transformers, with a smaller group wanting the likes of GoBots or Robotix, and then there was a toy line that disappointed kids with their cheap appearances and loose arm joints.  Those toys were Starriors. So as you already know, these cheap robot toys made by Tomy as well as the mini-series made by Marvel are the topic of this update. But before we move onto that I want to share some Christmas memories with you about how Marvel and DC Comics were a part of my Christmas mornings as a youth. Do you remember when you were younger on Christmas Eve night, and you were in your bed trying to sleep but you were so hyped for all your gifts the next day?  You’d be ready for when your cousins came over to play Nintendo or ball tag, weather-permitting, and by the time you finally fell asleep it seemed like you slept for only a few minutes before you were up and ready to open your gifts! Most years we would start with our stockings that “Santa” would leave, and they would be filled with such things as Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cookies, Cracked Magazines, magic grow sponge animals and lots of comic books! Most of the time, it would be issues of Spider-Man, Captain America, Batman or Incredible Hulk or some other weird kids comic based on a cartoon, like Little Dracula and Count Duckula. I can remember that it was like clock-work, once Christmas was over and all the family went back home, I would go to my room and sit in bed and read the comics I got so that I could tell my brother and mom about what crazy thing happened to Spider-Man or what new bad guy he was facing. Those early years of Christmas for me were something special and filled with so many good times spent with family who would all gather to spend time together and eat a good home cooked meal that my mom would make. I miss those days, as they seem to be a thing of the past as we all got older and holidays began becoming less of family gatherings.  It’s a shame, but things change. But I would like to say thank you to Marvel, DC and all the other comic companies who made my Christmas day more special and entertained me on a day filled with lots of great memories. Below is a picture of me from Christmas morning 1990 when I was 11 years old and just opened my stocking, and as you can see that year I got Spectacular Spider-Man # 171 among my stack of comics.  Also check out that sweet Beta player, my Joker t-shirt, the warm fire going, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cookies as well as the Sugar Bear ornament on the tree!

Sometime in 2004, an idea was floating around Independent B Movie Studios to have a slasher film made that would be shot in the winter.  Mike Ritchie was just coming off making Farmer Joe and took the project on that was to be called “Long Dead Winter,” and he came up with evil jester mask serial killer called The Jester Killer who was brutal and sadistic and who was attacking people during a massive snow storm leaving a body count.  Mike was not only going to direct this feature but he was also going to write it. One day when hanging around at Mike’s, we began to bounce ideas back and fourth on this film that’s start date was creeping up super quickly, and that’s when we came up with having a second killer added to the film that would be the opposite of The Jester Killer and not enjoy the fact he kills, and we called him The Sadness. The film began production soon after, and Mike Ritchie cast himself to play The Jester Killer, Garrison Kane played The Sadness and the two heroes were played by Matt Hoffman and Josh Weinberg and the film had the budget to add blood, gore and boobs. I acted as the cameraman, and we shot during the winter during and after snow storms to add the right atmosphere to the grim storyline. So I am sure you’re wondering what the film’s storyline was going to be, well let me tell you:  it was set in a small town during a nasty winter filled with blizzard-like weather and a serial killer wearing a twisted court jester mask goes on a killing spree.  Not to be outdone, another masked killer gets mad that his name is no longer in the town paper so he decided to go on a rampage as well.  With each kill, the killers were trying to out do each other. The town’s only hope is a pair of cops who are hot on the trail of the killers, but while they are good cops, do they have what it takes to stop the madness? The film shot for many days and was going pretty well with lots of deaths being shot from stabbings to a hammer to the skull, each done with cheesy backyard effect goodness! Sometimes the creepy vibe of the film was off track as Mike added many lame inside jokes toward friends of ours, and like Farmer Joe 2, the film stopped filming as Mike began delaying production.  Finally the film was scrapped as films like Razor, Who Keeps Feeding Grandpa and Two Seconds Too Late started productions, and Mike never did get back on track getting the film done. The footage we shot sat on VHS for many years and at some point I put it on Mini-DV and even used some shots on a couple of Baron Von Porkchop episodes! The Sadness would go on to get his own film in 2006 written and directed by me, but that’s for another update. At some point I would love to take some of the old Independent B Movie scripts and turn them into comic books, and Long Dead Winter would be at the top of that list! Any takers my comic book-making friends…Jason Young? Bruce O Hughes? Justin Wasson? Eric Shonborn? Below are some screen grabs from the VHS master tapes complete with time code.

Speaking of long winters, this time of the year also makes me think of one of my favorite bands Cinderella and their album Long Cold Winter! Growing up I listened to pop music like Paula Abdul, Michael Jackson, Adam Ant and Janet Jackson, but I also listened to lots of rock due to my Dad, who is a music lover.  At a young age he introduced me to the likes of Alice Cooper, Warren Zevon and ZZ Top and from there wit the help of MTV and radio station 104.7 WTUE I started to find bands from my generation that I enjoyed like Motley Crue, Guns N Roses, Billy Idol, W.A.S.P. and RATT and one of the tops on my list was Cinderella, a band that mixed hair metal and the blues so well with releases like Heartbreak Station. I can remember how hyped I was when I found the cassette of their first album Night Songs at Half Price Books. I took that tape home and almost wore it out from all the times I would crank it on my tiny little boom box radio. In 1988, they released Long Cold Winter, and I can remember seeing it in ads for places like K-Mart and wanting it so badly.  The singles off that album included Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone), Gypsy Road, The Last Mile and Coming Home, all that charted and all of them played on our local radio stations. I was lucky that my mom and dad listened to my wish list and got me it on cassette for Christmas that year and just like Night Songs, I can remember cranking it up. So after writing this, I think I am going to make myself some hot chocolate put on the vinyl of Long Cold Winter and reflect on a time when big hair ruled the music world, and to be honest if you have not heard this album, make sure to check it out!

I want to also talk about something a little more creepy, something that might send shivers down your spine thinking that this thing might be real and wondering the world we all live in. In July of 2007 in Bahia, Brazil, a 15 year old girl was walking alone along a riverbed and woods when she was attacked by a horned monster who grabbed her and was trying to force mud into her face and hair for unknown reasons.  Luckily the young girl was able to escape by knocking this creature off balance making it so that she could flee and take this one single picture of the beast giving chase while in the water. The girl went home, and she and her dad released the photo, and since then another picture of it has been released from another person who saw it roaming around.  This thing is now called The Bahia Beast, and what it is is up for debate. The Beast is believed by Cryptozoology fanatics to be a mud demon, a foul creature who gets pleasure in degrading his victims before eating them. But many people think that it’s a hoax and is nothing more than a man in a cheap Halloween mask and costume roaming around to try and bring tourists to the area to see if they can spot the monster in the woods. I have also heard that some people think that the young girl’s story is fake and that she just snapped a picture of an actor in a costume while an independent horror film was being made. So as you can see The Bahia Beast is an unknown thing/person with an unknown origin, and this makes you wonder is this mudslinging demon out there waiting to make you taste mud?

While we are on the subject of spooky and horror I should take a brief moment to cover a comic book I got off the website Indy Planet that is about a zombie cop hunting a werewolf in the snow! I figured this update would be the best place to cover it as we are talking about the cold month of December, so let’s take a quick look at it.

Corpse Cop: Arctic Wolf # 1  **
Released in 2013   Cover Price $3.00   Black Box Comics   # 2 of 2

Corpse Cop is dropped off in Alaska as something has been killing hunters and the wildlife off and he has been hired to exterminate it. While wandering around in the snow, he finds the corpse of an animal and knows he is on the track to find the monster. Corpse Cop takes shelter in a cave for the night and while trying to warm up his undead body near the fire, he is attacked by a bear and must kill it. After the fight, a woman appears and sits with him near the fire and turns into a werewolf and attacks but is quickly killed as Corpse Cop cuts off it’s head and leaves her body to be eaten by animals.

This comic is too short for its own good with only 12 pages. I didn’t get to build a bond with Corpse Cop nor did I feel the werewolf was any threat to him. The story moves super fast and has the supernatural enforcer being dropped off in the snow doing very little investigating and killing his target, a werewolf, with ease. Corpse Cop seems to be an undead man with a sarcastic attitude and a real dislike for things of the supernatural. The werewolf is a female who seems to be in hiding in the cold caves as she knows that once she turns into the beast anything around her is as good as dead. But what stinks is that the werewolf is killed in seconds as Corpse Cop chops off its head, and the comic ends with it on a stake. While I was not to impressed with the story, I was impressed with the scratch board art of the comic done by Alan Bennett that helps add flare and style to this comic with it’s dark colors. Over all this has major potential for being a cool comic series as long as the next issues go longer than 12 pages and the characters are developed. The artist and creator Alan Bennett does not want you to share images from this comic or so I took it as via his website so out of respect I will not.  So instead I will show off some of my friend Rachel Lare’s sketch board artwork. I think she does fantastic work, and one day I hope that I can work alongside her and make a comic book just for Rotten Ink based on a cool horror film like Night of the Demon or Project Metal Beast! So check out her work below based on some icons for horror.

Does anyone remember those really cool comic catalogs that use to come out via Superhero Enterprises called “The Superhero Merchandise Catalog” that featured stuff like toys, posters, shirts, jewelry and all other manner of goodies that featured the likeness of your favorite hero like Spider-Man, Batman or Conan The Barbarian? It was place where you could order your Mego Toys and Spider-Man pajamas from the same order form. Nowadays, they just don’t do this kind of thing unless you count the giant Diamond ordering book used for customers to place what they want via their favorite local comic shop. I should also note that while writing this review I have been listening to two “Weird Al” Yankovic CD’s “In-3D” and “Polka Party!” and I must say it was a lot of fun going back and listening to his parodies of 80’s pop music classics like “Addicted to Love” by Robert Palmer and even “Beat It” by Michael Jackson and hearing him turn them into juvenile silly songs about food or some other off the wall thing. In 3-D came out in 1984 and to be honest was one of the first vinyl records I owned when I was a kid, and listening to this again after so many years was like listening to an old friend telling you stories that you heard so many times but the way they tell it keeps you happy and entertained. My favorite tracks off In 3-D have to be “Nature Trail To Hell,” a song that is about Friday The 13^th and other slasher camp movies, “The Brady Bunch,” a fun take on The Men Without Hats song Safety Dance that deals with not wanting to watch the Brady Bunch on TV. “Eat It” of course is the take on Jacksons Beat It and is an all time classic Weird Al song, but to be honest this whole CD is packed with great songs and really took me back to being a kid sitting in the room with the NES playing a game and listening to this on vinyl.  Good memories, and this Weird Al album will always have a place in my heart for making me go back to the past. Polka Party! was released in 1986 and was one of those albums that I would see on cassette at K-Mart in the discount bin and for some reason my Dad would always say that we didn’t need that because it had no good songs on it! While I will agree that it’s not as great as In 3-D it does have it’s charm and some of my favorite songs from off the CD are “Addicted To Spuds” as I myself love eating potatoes and “Living With A Hernia” that’s a parody of James Brown’s Living In America is silly and fun but also makes me think of Rocky IV and the death of Apollo Creed! I should also note that this CD also has a Christmas song that adds to this time of the year, and it’s called “Christmas At Ground Zero” and is about a nuke being dropped on the jolly holiday, a grim song that’s done with a upbeat spirit makes for a fun listen. So yeah, I just wanted to share what I have been listening to these days.  I feel that music was also very important to me growing up and help shape me into the person I am today just as much as friends, family, comics, movies, horror hosts and video games did. So next year (2016), once a month I am going to let a friend of mine pick their favorite band or artist and have me listen to their favorite album by said artist. But at this point we should get back our look at The Starriors!

In 1984, Tomy released a toy line with the help of Marvel that was a spin off of Zoids and gave the characters a storyline that involved humans going underground during solar flares and leaving robots up top to awaken them once the disaster was over. The toys were broken up into two lines, one being the good guys called the Protectors who were led by a laser chested bot named Hot Shot and the bad guys called the Destructors lead by Slaughter Steel Grave. The figures’ gimmick was that they would perform actions via windup, pullback or remote control making them more “alive” than Transformers. They also came with mini comics made by Marvel to help showcase the characters and their backstories. The series of figures would last for two waves and could be found at many department stores at the time of release. Growing up, I can only remember having one of these figures when I was super young and that was Hot Shot, but if memory serves me I am pretty sure its arms fell off and my mom ended up throwing it away.  Needless to say, this series of toys was not one that the Brassfield Brothers had to have. None of my school friends had any of these figures that I know of, and the only other people I personally knew who had any were my old Vietnamese neighbors when I first lived in Kettering and my Brassfield Grandparents because my grandma would buy toys all the time to keep at her house for my cousin Nathan from garage sales. Starriors was slated to get an animated mini series in 1985 but production on the series seems to be a mystery as it has never seen the light of day.  This is what makes this toy line so interesting, it had no back up from TV, movies or video games.  All it had was the Marvel Comics and the time put into the story shows that everyone involved believed in them and wanted Starriors to be the next big thing in action figures. I feel that Marvel and Tomy really loved the mythology of The Starriors much like Marvel and Remco loved what they came up with for The Saga of Crystar, and this helps make this toy line all the more fascinating for a person like me who grew up knowing very little about them. While I might not have been a fan or had many of the toys, I am sure some kids of the time loved them and looked forward to getting the figures to play out their own robot adventures. Below are some pictures of the figures as well as the checklist of figures so enjoy.

Before we get to the Marvel Comic mini series I would like for those readers who have had Starriors toys to reflect back to that time and remember all the adventures and battles you had with them during your youth…go on take a few moments, I don’t mind. So are you ready now to travel to a time when Earth is no longer man’s but that of machines that we left in charge? If so I need to remind you that I grade these issues on a star scale of 1 to 4 and am looking for how well the comic stays to the source material, its entertainment value and its art and story. So let’s see if Hot Shot can bring back man and if he can stop Steel Grave once and for all. I want to also thank Lone Star Comics and Dark Star Comics for having this mini series in stock.

Starriors # 1 **1/2
Released in 1984   Cover Price .75   Marvel    #1 of 4

Hot Shot, Crank, Cut-Up, Tinker and Nipper are robots called Protectors, and they are helping rebuild a wall while robots called Destructors (Slaughter Steel Grave, Gouge, Sawtooth to name a few) shout orders and act as if they are slaves to them. Nipper finds a human skull and rushes to show her friends when Gouge jumps down and smashes her to pieces and tells them to get back to work. Hot Shot and Tinker take Nipper’s body to Think Tank hoping he can place her circuits into a new body, and they do. But this has caused a riff between the Protectors lead by Hot Shot and the Destructors lead by Slaughter Steel Grave that leaves Hot Shot using his laser against Gouge who was going to hurt one of his friends and Steel Grave unleashing the massive dinosaur robot named Deadeye to kill off many of the Protectors. In the end a small amount of the good robots are left alive after they flee to look for man, who they think can help them win the war.

This is a pretty cool first issue, but I did find it to be crammed with way too many characters and not enough character development for the main ones. The plot has two different types of robots fighting it out for the fate of their planet.  The Protectors are worker robots who are gentle in nature and are waiting for humans to come back, while the Destructors are mean spirited and bullies who get joy in mistreating and back stabbing. Hot Shot is wise and truly thinks that man can help them.  His main weapon is a laser, and his mentor is Think Tank who gives him advice. Slaughter Steel Grave is a robot who loves the power he holds and enjoys destroying the weaker robots using them as slaves.  He even hates humans and doesn’t want them back as he fears they will take his power away. The rest of the characters as well fit in this generic bad guy and good guy style with only a few being in the grey, who could go either way. I must also say that the names of many of the robots are just silly and not fitting for what they look like. I mean a blind all red robot who looks like a T-Rex is named Deadeye…you get it, because he’s blind. The art is well done and helps make the characters’ personalities pop a little more allowing them to be more deep than what’s been written for them.  It’s done by Michael Chen who it seems didn’t do much work for Marvel after this series and that’s a shame as I think he was a talented artist. So far this is starting off pretty good, and I am hoping that by the next issue they explain more about the characters and that it also packs in a little more fights as this issue was more drama than action. So let’s get to issue # 2 and see what Marvel has in store for us.

Starriors # 2  **1/2
Released in 1984   Cover Price .75   Marvel   #2 of 4

Hot Shot, along with the remaining Protectors, are in the desert to look for man and are climbing a mountain towards a volcano. Slaughter Steel Grave is leading his men to go after them and has given orders to destroy the Protectors and even turns on Sawtooth and buries him under rocks as they leave him and continue their hunt. Think Tank and Crank enter the volcano to try and mind meld to get locations when they are attacked by Deadeye who is in turn attacked by a giant mutant spider! As the Destructors enter the volcano, they as well attack the spider and during this rocks fall on Crank.  As the other Protectors, escape he becomes the prisoner of the evil robots who plan on wiping out his memory and ripping him apart. Hot Shot and his men can’t let this happen as Crank is their close friend and his body also hosts the mind of Think Tank because the mind link was interrupted and didn’t allow things to go back to normal. During the fight Steel Grave and his men capture some of the Protectors and plan on executing them.  This causes Hot Shot and crew to enter the bad guys’ camp save their friends by stealing a powerful transfer ring that gets Think Tank’s mind back in the right body.

This second issue showcases just how much Slaughter Steel Grave hates the Protectors and humans and how he will do whatever it takes to stop them both even if that means killing! The search for the truth and for a better life is all Hot Shot and his followers are looking for, and they have to travel to a forbidden land in order to find the answers as well as escape the evil bots who are after them. This issue is a solid giant robot story, but it is also pretty dull in spots. I think the story is dragging along to fill out the four issues in this mini series, and this issue is a clear filler as the coolest thing that happens is a fight between the good robots, the bad robots and lava spiders.  But while this sounds amazing in words, the battle is too quick and leads to nothing but Hot Shot and his men escaping again. It’s interesting what they are doing with Sawtooth who clearly is not sold on the evil ruling of Steel Grave and is more of a leader than Grave ever will be. Hot Shot is a cool leader of the good guys and while at times he should fight back harder, he still does what he feels is right. The art is done by Mike Chen again and is well done and has a great 70’s comic toy tie-in look. While this issue is not groundbreaking and for all accounts a very mediocre issue, I still can’t wait to see what happens in the third issue so we should not waste anymore time and check it out.

Starriors # 3  **1/2
Released in 1985   Cover Price .75   Marvel   #3 of 4

Sawtooth is warning his fellow robots about the lies of Slaughter Steel Grave about man, and this leads to Steel Grave ordering the death of Sawtooth who is torn apart, and ordering his followers to get the transfer ring back! Meanwhile Hot Shot and his friends are thinking about how they must find man and fight back if they are pushed. The Protectors send Runabout to scout ahead and find the hidden base of the humans as Slaughter Steel Grave sends Speedtrap after her.  The two robots fight and both are left hurt and dying. Meanwhile Slaughter Steel Grave leads a sneak attack on The Protectors that leaves all the good natured robots slaughtered! Meanwhile a robot named Stinger comes out of the base and kills Speedtrap and brings Runabout back to life and tells her that the base had been attacked many years back by Slaughter Steel Grave who wants to snuff out mankind! Stinger gives Runabout a transfer ring, and she rushes back to the Protector camp and finds all her friends slaughtered.  She uses the ring to heal those she can including Hot Shot who tells his friends it’s time to go to war and not only save themselves but also mankind!

This third issue is really cool and has a hint of Transformers to it and that makes the story feel more epic and builds the doom of Slaughter Steel Grave who doesn’t care about anything besides himself. The story in this issue is Hot Shot and his friends are shown to be weak as the Destructors fight them and leave them all destroyed, but thanks to one robot who is kind of a chicken, they are rebuilt because she faces the odds and comes to her friends aid. Slaughter Steel Grave is shown to be even worse than before as he kills his own if they cross him and has a plan to kill off humans because he thinks he should be the one ruling the world! Hot Shot, who is an honest good robot, also finds that he needs to go against his programing and fight for what’s right and comes to see Steel Grave is one evil bot. Motormouth, who is the Protector who is telling Slaughter Steel Grave secrets, is a terrible little robot and when Steel Grave has him ripped apart for being a rat I found myself cheering for him to bite the dust. Mike Chen once more does the artwork, and it’s really good.  As I said before, the story has really picked up, and I can’t wait to see what the fate of mankind is! So with that let’s move onto the fourth and final issue in this Marvel mini series based on a cheap toy line.

Starriors # 4  **1/2
Released in 1985    Cover Price .75   Marvel   #4 of 4

Slaughter Steel Grave and the Destructors are heading toward the base to rid the world of man as Stinger watches on frozen with fear, but things are not going to plan as many of the Destructors turn against orders to attack the base as they don’t want to kill man and the base has some defenses of its own to slow down the attack on it. Hot Shot and the rest of the Protectors bring back Sawtooth who joins them in the fight against Steel Grave, who he looks at as a major threat to the world. The Protectors and The Destructors have all out war that leaves many of them dead as ThinkTank, Deadeye, Stinger and Crank fall in battle, but Hot Shot won’t back down and with the help of the base, they chase off Steel Grave and are able to bring back all the hurt Protectors to life! In the end Hot Shot finds man and brings them back to life where humans and robots make an alliance and decide to stand with each other in the war against The Destructors.

The final war in this issue is filled with so much death and destruction it was like watching a war movie like Saving Private Ryan or Glory! The wrap up story of this issue has Hot Shot getting the good robots ready for war and fighting for their lives as Steel Grave is shown to be a bully, but when clearly they start fighting back, he retreats so not to be defeated. Hot Shot grows as a character by the end of this mini series.  A first, while he is kind of a wimp, he still stands up for what’s right, and by this issue he is filled with revenge and rage and even leaves Motormouth out in the sun to rust showing he no longer is going to be pushed around and has no mercy on bad robots. The Protectors are all pretty cool characters, and all of the main cast had some sort of small storyline going on from a love triangle to friendships, making them all come off human like and not just robots. I also liked how Sawtooth as well as other The Destructors turned to the side of good when they saw that the orders they were getting were that of a madbot! Slaughter Steel Grave is a robot who is on a power trip and uses power to bully and force his fellow robots into doing what he says when he says.  He took so much joy in killing either by his own hands or having it ordered that he remained me of a evil prison warden in those old women in prison movies. The humans do nothing at all, even when they wake up they are dressed as if they are in some weird superhero cult with the lead bearded man looking like he is some new age Charles Manson. I just don’t trust them…all joking aside, they don’t do much and only come into play for the last two pages of the comic. In fact the whole story to me seemed like the creators of the comic and toyline sat at a table and took elements from The Transformers, The GoBots and Mad Max and scribbled them onto a notepad and out came The Starriors, and I am okay with what they came up with for the most part. This was a great way to give these generic toys a backstory and personalities and proved that while they might not have been as cool as The Transformers, they still could deliver an entertaining comic adventure. So if you grew up a fan of these figures or even collect them today, do yourself a favor and check out this Marvel series you’ll be glad you did. Check out a piece of Chen’s artwork below to see the quality of his work and the style that brought these characters to life.

Man this update took us all over the place, and we covered The Starriors, a unfinished Mike Ritchie no budget movie, Weird Al music CDs and so much more makes me really look at and love my blog! Well it’s getting cold in here so I am thinking I am going to crawl under some covers and pop in a DVD movie or watch the WWE Network and relax this night away. I wouldn’t want to get sick! And speaking of, sickness that is the topic of the next update as we take a look at Lifeform, a man who could infect the whole Marvel Universe with an infectious disease and it’s up to the likes of Daredevil, The Hulk, Punisher and Silver Surfer to stop him from doing just that. So until next time stay warm, stay healthy, read a comic or three and have a safe winter.

When Science Runs Amok! The Strange Case Of The Fly

Dang, Science you’re scary! Welcome to another countdown to Halloween update; this time around we are taking a look at a killer insect that will vomit on you and then eat you alive.  This creature is known as The Fly! Science is all around us and was one of my favorite subjects in school right behind history.  We are going to take a look at when science and horror clash and create an abomination to mankind. On July 23^rd 2008, a group of friends were walking along Ditch Plains Beach in New York when they stumbled on the carcass of a deformed animal that had odd color skin, fur and a weird beak-like mouth. Many people thought that the creature was the body of a small dog, sea turtle, rodent or even a raccoon, but many believe that it was a freak of nature, something made at Plum Island, a place that is for science to contain and cure diseases that infect animals and could also infect people. This thing was called The Montauk Monster and made the rounds on all types of news sources making cryptozoology fans go crazy trying to figure out what this thing was! After this, more creatures were found washed up around New York, and the locals began talking about these Horrors of Plum Island! It was even reported that the body of a humanoid man had washed up on the beach and that it was one odd looking person with drill holes in its head and even had extra fingers. No one knows for sure if these creatures are real; only a few claim the story was true, but one thing’s for sure, cryptozoology is one fun thing to be a fan of!

For my update for Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man and Batman vs. The Incredible Hulk, I wrote about horror hosts through the ages and talked about two 50- 60’s horror hosts I would love to see footage of.  One was The Great Zucchini of Supernatural Theatre, played by Bill Miller, and the second was an odd looking host named The Madman who hosted films in Des Moines, Iowa about whom very little is known. The update got some great attention, and I received lots of messages about the horror hosts I wrote about and praise for the quick history lessen on hosting.  A lot of people also commented about the sad passing of Don Paris, the actor who played The Shroud of Nightmare Theatre. But I didn’t get any responses about the two hosts above, and I would like to take a few moments once more to ask my readers for help to track down any footage of these two hosts! I am going to focus on The Madman for this one as he reminds me of a humanoid that could have been found on the Island of Dr. Moreau, and that ties into our subject of science running amuck. I have spent much time on the net using message boards, Facebook and Google to try and find out any information on The Madman and have come up nearly empty handed as all that’s out there is what’s on E-Gor’s Chamber Of Horror Hosts, amounting to very basic and not useful information and one little write up in an issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland that a fan of the show wrote many, many years back. Looking at the only known picture of this host makes me wonder what his style of hosting was like, did he try to scare viewers? Did he fill his show with puns and silly jokes? What did the character’s voice sound like? What was the name of his show? How many years did he last? What was his backstory? Who played him? Did he make public appearances? What station did he air on? So many questions with no answers on this host, and it’s heartbreaking that I may never find any of these answers as The Madman seems like a host that time forgot. The picture of Madman was summited by Don Hinson, who worked for a radio station in California at the time.  He had these words about his favorite host “Among the many Ghost Hosts of Terrorvision Films, such as Zacherley (natcherly), Vampira, ect., one that sticks out in my memory is The Madman of Des Moines, Iowa. I think your readers would appreciate a picture of him.” The issue of Famous Monsters this was in came out in 1960 and was issue # 6. So if you have any info, footage or press pics about The Madman, contact me. I would love to see them and share with my readers. Below is a picture of The Madman and here is hoping that footage will come to the light soon. On a side note, at work we ended up buying a bunch of horror and science fiction films with cut up front covers and some of the titles were good ones like Frankenstein’s Army, Toxic Avenger (Japanese Uncut Version) and Only Lovers Left Alive, to name a few. For some reason I decided to put them in a display box and call them “Madman’s Cheap As-Is DVDs” and used his only image on the sign I made for the box…man, I love the art of horror hosting.

It’s sad and shocking that so many of the world’s horror hosts are forgotten, and their footage and even press photos are just missing, tapped over and lost.  This is something that one day I hope I can help with and make a vault and library that is dedicated to hosts from all over the world to save their episodes and allow fans to relive and discover a horror host of their choosing. But that is just a dream for now as I am sure that I would need lots of help to pull this off and make this dream a reality. It’s time now to move away from horror hosting and take a look at the original Fly movies before we can get into the film series that sparked this comic mini series.

In the 1950’s, horror films changed from Dracula to atomic age monsters, and in 1958, a movie was made called “The Fly” that was directed by Kurt Neumann and starred the likes of David Hedison, Patricia Owens and Vincent Price and follows a doctor who uses a teleportation device that backfires when a fly enters with him and changes him into a half human and half fly creature.  He must hurry to find a way to cure himself before his mind goes the way of the fly! The film sparked a sequel in 1959 called “Return of The Fly” that follows the original doctor’s son and brother trying to pick up the experiment when once more things go wrong and the son is turned into a Fly monster. In 1965, a third film was made called “Curse of The Fly” that follows yet another son and his sons making the same mistakes that were made in the past. These films are considered a great and fun trilogy of films, and the original is well respected and sparked that dreaded word “Remake.”  But as you soon will see, this time the remake is as good, if not better, than the original! I don’t want to spend too much time on these original films as they are not what this comic series is based on, but out of respect they should be talked about.

In 1986, David Cronenberg made a remake of The Fly.  It was more terrifying and ramped up the special effects 100% to shock and terrify the viewing audience. The film follows Seth Brundle, a scientist who is trying to impress a sexy journalist named Veronica with his matter transportation experiment that uses pods to transport one thing to another pod.  When he uses it on himself, an accident happens when a fly enters the pod with him and their genes mix, and over time Seth becomes more and more like a human fly! In the end, Seth loses control, becoming a full Fly creature, and is killed before a cure can be found. The film stars Jeff Goldblum as Seth and Geena Davis as Veronica. This film has so much more to it, but I wanted to just whet your appetite because if you have not seen it, you should do so right after reading this update! In 1986, The Fly was # 23 at the US box office and brought in a total of $40,456,565.00 for Fox and beat out such films as Three Amigos, Little Shop Of Horrors, House, Friday The 13^th Part VI: Jason Lives, Howard The Duck, Legend, Psycho III, Critters, Labyrinth, Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, Haunted Honeymoon and Big Trouble In Little China to name a few. While not a mega hit, The Fly remake made a impact on horror fans and showed that remakes could be great if done well.

Fox couldn’t leave well enough alone, and in 1989 decided to make a sequel to The Fly simply called The Fly II. This film follows Martin, the son of Seth Brundle and Veronica Quaite, who is orphaned after birth.  He was born in a cocoon, which kills his mother who dies of shock. Anton Bartok, the man who financed the experiment that started this mess, decides that he wants to exploit Martin’s odd genes, and this leads to mayhem, backstabbing and murder! During this time Martin falls in love with Beth, and the two find a way to transfer the fly genes into Anton as Martin has become infected and is transforming like his father before him.  This was his only way to become normal. This film has lots more to the plot, but I wanted to sum it up so you at least get the basics. The film stars Eric Stoltz as Martin, Daphne Zuniga as Beth and Lee Richardson as Anton Bartok. In 1989, The Fly II was # 54 at the US Box Office and brought in a total of $20,021,322.00 for Fox beating out such films as Prancer, Shocker, No Holds Barred, Friday The 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Great Balls Of Fire, Halloween 5, Cyborg, UHF, Fright Night II, Toxic Avenger Part II and The Wizard, to name a few. This sequel slipped at the boxoffice and was not as well loved by horror fans.

W.A.S.P. is a band I have followed for many years. I can remember being so annoyed when I was a teenager and was never able to just go into CD Connection (a one time local music chain) and pick up their new album without having to special order it. Or worse is when I was trying to find some of their older albums on cassette and it was as if none of the CD shops around here knew what band I was talking about.  None of them could get them in stock as they were out of print. But I must say I really loved shopping at CD Connection and almost all the staff knew me and my taste in music. I miss that place, and shopping for music just is not the same as almost all the music stores in Dayton have shut down or only deal in vinyl. W.A.S.P. is a hair metal band from the 80’s who captured my attention when, as a youngster, I got their self-titled album on vinyl form Renaissance Music.  The image on the front cover was of lead singer Blackie Lawless and the band sitting on a set that looked like a hell filled with torture! I popped that vinyl on the turntable and my head was blown by just how amazing the whole record was. I soon bought more of their stuff on vinyl, cassette and CD and also enjoyed them in the low budget film Dungeon Master as well as the song they did for Ghoulies II called “Scream Until You Like It.” W.A.S.P. quickly became on of my favorite bands alongside the likes of Motley Crue, Cinderella, Alice Cooper and Billy Idol. So when I heard they had a new CD coming out in 2015, I knew I had to hear it, as I have been a bad fan as of late and missed getting their last two releases…but I made up for it as I got them all now and decided to listen to them as I write this update!

So let me take a few moments and tell you about these rock n roll CD’s! First up is the 2007 release called Dominator that was an album based around the raw feelings of tragic events of September 11^th and the war in Iraq that followed and shows that Blackie Lawless was watching the events with eyes wide open and wondering why bigger countries bully smaller ones. Tracks I liked off this CD include “Heaven’s Hung In Black,” a nice ballad with some rocking moments that has some powerful lyrics and has an epic W.A.S.P. song feel. Other tracks I really enjoyed were “Teacher” and “Heaven’s Hung In Black (Reprise);” both are at the top of the list of tracks on this release. I really enjoyed this CD as I feel like Blackie Lawless had something to say and he did so the only way he knew how and that’s make a album around his message.  It’s very cool album and was worth the listen and price I had to pay to get it. Next is 2009’s Babylon, a CD that for some reason went out of print pretty fast and by the time I got a copy it was $33.00! It shows if you’re a fan of a band, don’t wait to buy their CD as it could be here today and gone tomorrow when it comes to staying in print! This one was a pretty solid album and had some good tracks that showed Blackie still had some rock to share with listeners and at times it felt like classic W.A.S.P. and that is a great thing! Songs I liked included “Into The Fire,” a ballad of sorts that show cased Blackie’s writing and had a classic sound, and “Live To Die Another Day” is a really good track.  It’s heavy but not over done. On this CD they also cover the Chuck Berry song “Promised Land” and do a good job even if they do poke fun at Elvis at the end. While Babylon is nothing special and is a shadow of the stuff from the 80’s, it’s still a good CD with tracks that are worth rocking out to.  It’s also odd as it clearly shows the start of Blackie looking into religion as many songs are tied into Biblical events. For those who don’t know, he is now a born-again Christian, and that’s funny as this band was one of the most hated by Tipper Gore and her PMRC group who went on a witch hunt against music they felt was not acceptable. So these two were a nice way to wait for W.A.S.P.’s new CD, and once I get it, I will share my thoughts with you my friends and readers.  Until then, put on your favorite rock album and turn it up to 11 and bang your head!

I am a huge fan of IDW Comics and have enjoyed many of their horror based comic series like Bigfoot, Motel Hell, Godzilla Legends and IT! Terror From Beyond Space, and I can’t tell you how hyped I was to hear about them making a mini series based on The Fly! So I am really looking forward to reading this series and seeing what they have come up with to continue the story of the Brindle curse and what gross murders will the Fly commit now that budget and special effects are not limited on the comic pages. I need to thank Mavericks Cards and Comics for pulling this series for my file, and I should also remind you that I grade these issues on a star scale of 1 to 4 and am looking for how well the comic stays to the source material, its entertainment value and its art and story. So let’s get our safety goggles on, watch out for fly puke, and see what IDW has in store for us with this horror film inspired series.

The Fly: Outbreak # 1  **
Released in 2015   Cover Price $3.99   IDW   # 1 of 5

Dr. Martin Brundle, the son of Seth Brindle who was transformed into a human fly, is trying his best to cure Anton Bartok, a man who is now a glob of flesh after he was dragged into a Telepod by Martin who, like his father, was cursed with the genes of a fly.  By using Anton to cure himself, Martin left his one time employer a freak of science, but despite all his efforts thus far, he has failed to cure Anton. Martin is still with Beth, but the two are having some issues as Martin refuses to touch his lady without having safe sex.  He does not want to have a child as he fears it will be cursed to have fly symptoms. At the lab Anton turns from a blob of flesh into a full fledged Fly humanoid and kills some workers.  Eventually he comes face to face with Martin and acts as if he is his own son! As Martin tries to get away from The Fly, security shows up, kills The Fly and then informs everyone that they are under quarantine until further notice and that includes Martin!

Sadly, I am not really impressed with this first issue of the comic as I feel that the story is bland and tied so much into The Fly 2 that you would have to know those characters inside and out to keep up with the who’s who and why’s that. That said, the plot of issue one follows Dr. Martin Brundle who is trying to help Anton Bartok be cured of the transformation that he is responsible for.  When Anton turns full fly and runs amuck in the research building, anyone who has made contact with it must be quarantined and that’s where it ends. Dr. Martin Brundle, who is the comic’s main focus, is a man who is plagued with a curse of his father’s past and is fearful of having children as he don’t want them born with traits of a fly. Anton Bartok starts the issue off as a blob of gooey flesh and is later turned into a fly that kills a few people and after his death makes it so all have to be tested for contamination. Beth Logan is Martin’s girlfriend who wants a child and to have affection shown to her, but she also shows understanding to Martin’s odd behavior. The comic has some bloodshed in it as The Bartok Fly pukes on a face of a fellow worker and eats him! But the over all gore in the comic is pretty tame and not nearly as gross as the films it’s based on.  That’s a little of a letdown as I was sure IDW would have delivered the red stuff like they did with Motel Hell. The art in this comic is done by Menton3, and while his humans look like the actors who played them in The Fly II, his fly creature and backgrounds are not very appealing to this comic reader and took me out of the feel of dread that I should have been having while reading. I am really hoping that the second issue gets better and The Fly becomes the terrible puke spewing menace that I was hoping for.

The Fly: Outbreak # 2  **
Released in 2015   Cover Price $3.99   IDW   # 2 of 5

Martin Brundle is in quarantine and is chatting with his wife Beth via a work computer.  As they are talking, he hangs up on her quickly as he is visited by Major Vurvin and Dr. Mayweather, who are checking in on his progress to find a cure or to even see if he has been infected.  He chases them off and says he needs zero interruptions if he is to find a cure. Martin can hear all the people around him blaming him for being stuck with no outside contact to the world, and his only friend is his female lab assistant Noelani who believes that he can find a cure and asks him about the sickness, how it spreads and the symptoms that include being sexually ramped up and anger that is out of control and can be passed via having sex! In this quarantine zone, people are doing just that and some of his co-workers are clearly infected and are being beaten, tazzed and taken away by hazmat suited guards. In the end Martin is talking to Beth who wants to put on a one woman show for him when Noelani enters and tries to rape her boss as she is clearly infected. Martin uses all his wit and knocks her out and tells his wife that he can no longer chat with her as he must now buckle down and find the cure.

Did the second issue get any better?  Sadly, no. I feel that the second issue was slightly boring with very little going on besides Martin telling how the fly infection spreads and the effects it has on a person.  And he spends a lot of time chatting via webcam with his wife, Beth. The thin plot of this issue has Martin in quarantine working on a cure if any of them are infected.  His one time co-workers are super pissed off at him, and his assistant tries to rape him when her feelings and emotions are ramped up because she’s infected.  After beating her down, he tells his wife they can’t chat anymore because he needs to get cracking on the cure. The only action that happens in this issue is when a security guard who’s infected goes nuts and tries to smash Martin with a row of cafeteria tables, and for this violent outburst he is shocked with a tazer. This issue is bloodless and has really no thrills, chills or spills and for the most part, a pretty boring fill-in style issue. No blood and or Fly attacks are to be seen. In this issue, Martin seems like a blank emotionless slate who is cold and uncaring towards all the people his own mistake has infected and made it so they cannot speak to their own families as he sneaks and does so.  In other words, he’s kind of a jerk. Beth still loves her cold husband and for some reason is so sexually ramped up, even wanting to video chat while she puts on a show for him, that it makes you wonder if she is infected with the fly genes.  In fact, why are they turning her into a woman whose main thought is sex? Noelani is a good character who is loyal to her boss, even if he is the one who started the whole mess at the lab, but sadly in this issue they had to also turn her into a sex crazed infected freak who loves Martin. I just don’t get it; almost every female in this series is drooling over Martin! While I am sure that this issue was just a fill-in issue to build up the story, it just lacks anything interesting to make me really excited to see how it all plays out and drags a series that already I was lukewarm about even further down the must read list. Menton3 is once more doing the art, and once more his style is bland and lackluster with some of the humans looking good and his background weak and blank feeling. I can say that I am really not a fan of his art! So to sum it up, this issue is such a throwaway and forgettable so let’s waste no more time on it and move on to issue three.

The Fly: Outbreak # 3  *1/2
Released in 2015   Cover Price $3.99   IDW   # 3 of 5

Martin is hard at work to try and find a cure for all his co-workers that he infected, and with the help of some medication, he is able to bring his assistant Noelani back to semi-normal. Days pass and increasingly the infected start to mutate and become more fly-like. The army is mad at Martin, and they view him as a mad scientist and a failure at life in general as his cure does not work and his research to find one is filled with impossible solutions and dead end trails. The army and fellow scientist, who wear hazmat suits, all begin to turn on Martin as they feel he has not come up with a cure itself nor a logical way to cure the people who are infected. By the end Noelani as well as all the others who are infected turn into full fledged fly monsters and attack the army, and Beth comes to the aid of Martin as she has been watching the building waiting to chat with her husband. The Fly Monsters are loose and heading away from the building as Martin and Beth look on scared and powerless.

Just when I thought this series could not get any worse, this third and boring issue proves me wrong! This issue’s plot follows Martin as he fails at finding a cure for people he has infected, all the while talking to himself like a mad man, coming up with boneheaded ideas and feeling sorry for himself. Martin is just not a likable character, and by this point in the series, I want to see bad things happen to him, but somehow he comes out injury free as many others die and transform…while he cries…I really dislike this character. Noelani, who comes back to normal for a short time, sadly by the end of the issue turns into a fly, and here is hoping she will target Martin and eat his face off by the last issue. For some reason by the end of this issue Beth has broken into the quarantine area with a giant gun and is there to rescue her husband.  Why is she Rambo all of a sudden? The army looks at Martin as a screw up and points out that he and his father have killed many innocent people by doing experiments that were not safely tested.  And that sums up Martin, a spoiled brat who wants to play scientist. This issue also has no bloodshed and by all accounts is pretty boring and only acts as mostly filer until the Flys break free at the very end. There’s not much more to say besides this issue is the worst so far, and besides Menton3’s artwork once more being bland, this issue’s write up is over.  Let’s move onto issue 4 and hope this series picks up!

The Fly: Outbreak # 4  **1/2
Released in 2015   Cover Price $3.99   IDW   # 4 of 5

Beth and Martin are trying to escape the island as human flies and the army are at war, killing each other.  Beth even has to take a human fly life to prevent it from stealing their only escape a boat. Martin tells Beth that he cannot leave and has to stay behind to see if he can find a cure and stop all the killings.  She of course is not going to leave and is willing to help if she can. As the couple discuss what they are going to do, Noelani as a fly dressed as a solider appears and begs Martin to let her go or cure her and threatens both he and Beth with torture and murder. Finally Martin gives in and decides the only answer is for he and Noelani to use the pods so his human genes can transfer into her and cure her of this curse. Beth tries to rush the now human Noelani out of the room as Martin now emerges as The Fly!

Finally by the fourth issue, the series has a pretty good one that has 0% Horror, 1% action and the other 99% is drama, but weirdly, it works. The story of this issue has Beth and Martin coming to terms with how weird their relationship is and even if they don’t spend a bunch of time together, it works for them as they truly do love each other.  It then switches to Martin giving away his humanity to save his assistant Noelani’s life as he turns her human and he once more becomes the thing he fears worst, The Fly. The more I look at Martin and his Fly alter ego, I am starting to see a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde connection as the human side’s main fear is the monster it turns into. While Martin is still whiney, in this issue he does take a stand and puts others’ wellbeing before himself and that to me is a big step for the character as I felt he has been a selfish a-hole this far in this series. Beth, who is a loving woman, for some reason turns into Chuck Norris and is ready to kill human flies! Noelani, who turns into a fly, wants to become human again and points out just how lame and selfish Martin is.  This speech as well as a gun is what forces Martin to use himself to save her from a fly fate. While this issue is better than the others so far, it’s still by no means a great issue but does show that this series has the potential of being a good horror comic and could end on a high note with an amazing blow out in the final issue. The art is once more done by Menton3 and looks the same as always with his style being pretty to look at but not working for the nature of this series as his flies even look more alien-like and not housefly-like. Over all this is an okay issue, and I must say I am really happy we are at the final issue of this disappointing series.

The Fly: Outbreak # 5  **
Released in 2015   Cover Price $3.99   IDW   # 5 of 5

The Fly Martin emerges and is very pissed off at Noelani for threatening Beth earlier and lets her know it, as he is about to kill her.  He snaps back to reality and goes outside and kills human and Fly spawn alike and returns with a plan to transform Beth into the Queen to his lord of the Flies. Beth tricks and locks Martin Fly in a pod and tries to sacrifice herself to save him life and turns into a Fly Goddess.  She is in turn shot in the head and killed by Noelani who enters the pod with Martin, who is back to being a man and tells her she is going to do great things. Flash forward a few years, Noelani is a head scientist now and it’s shown she in secret is keeping Martin Fly alive and well.

The first thing that came to mind when I finished this issue was “I waited five issues for this ending?!” It seemed like a rushed mess with a ho hum closing that was not a shocker nor entertaining.  What should have been an epic Fly moment turns into something bland and boring. The issue’s plot can be summed up like this: Martin as the fly goes and kills, comes back is tricked.  His girl Beth uses herself to try and cure him and dies.  He turns human kind of, and Noelani becomes a big deal in the world of science in the end. It was such a major letdown because when I heard about this series, I was so hyped as I love comic connected to horror films and also love the work IDW has done with similar titles like Motel Hell, IT! Terror From Beyond Space and Godzilla.  While those were good and had a charm to them, this one sadly didn’t and was a very slow and boring series. Martin Brundle for the most part is not a likable character as his self-centered and ego driven attitude makes him come off as a jerk and for the most part his needs and wants outweigh the good of others till the end. As The Fly, he seems to at least have a more level head.  Even when he is killing man and fellow flies, he seems more in touch with the situation. Throughout the series, Beth goes from loving horny spouse to a Rambo gun-caring tough girl, all the way to a Fly Goddess, and with all these changes I think she is one of my favorite characters as she grows and does everything for love. Noelani is pretty cool and does her best to try and stay positive even when her boss is the jackass who infected her and co-workers by being careless. In the end Noelani is also the only one who gets a happy ending as she goes on to be a successful scientist. Anton Bartok starts off as a glob of flesh and grows into a fly and is the start of the sickness as his blood and vomit is what infects everyone.  It’s funny that in the films he was a terrible person and even in this comic series he’s just as bad, even as a mutated freak he still causes issues. The artwork for the whole series was done by Menton3, and while it would be pretty to look at if it was just a single piece of art, as a comic it’s bland and not fitting for a series based on a sci-fi film that’s special effects were a major draw.  I mean The Fly in the film is scary and well detailed…in the comic, not so much, as it looks as generic and bland as possible. To sum up this series, I would have to say that I was really disappointed in it from story to art and while it was bad, I still enjoyed reading it and hoping that it would get better or at least have some wicked Fly kills…that’s another thing it lacked is blood and gore. While it had some, it was far and few. Check out this art from the series that shows what The Flies look like, and see if you agree that it looks more like an alien than the sci-fi icon the comic’s based on.

While The Fly: Outbreak might not have been my cup of tea, it’s still very cool to see IDW take a chance with a mini series like this, and I hope they do more classic horror and science fiction comic crossovers in the future as films like It Follows and The Town That Dreaded Sundown are just waiting to have mini series based around them. Our next update gets us a step closer to October and even closer to our big Halloween update that should be a custom comic made by my friend Eric Shonborn just for Rotten Ink! But before we get into all that, our next update will trade in the giant Martin Fly for an unknown real life serial killer known as The Axeman of New Orleans.  So make sure to come back for that one. Until then, read a comic or three, watch a classic sci-fi film or two, and as always, support your local horror host.

Rob Zombie presents The Legend of Bigfoot

Ohio is known for many monsters, ghosts and beasts, and this is a great thing for a person like me who loves everything about the unknown and Cryptozoology. For those who don’t know what Cryptozoology is, Webster Dictionary has this as its meaning: ” the study of and search for animals and especially legendary animals (as Sasquatch) usually in order to evaluate the possibility of their existence”. From this form of study, one of my favorites is Sasquatch,better known as Bigfoot, and Ohio has had its share of Bigfoot sightings! So in this update we are going to take a look at IDW’s 4 issue miniseries, Bigfoot! This series is written by shock rocker and horror filmmaker Rob Zombie and Steve Niles, the man behind comic series 30 DAYS OF NIGHT. Now I know what your thinking: Matt this is not a classic Star or Marvel Comic, or even a old DC issue, and it’s not even that old only coming out in 2005.  I understand that it breaks the mold that has been set but I figured since this is a blog about my youth and fun stories, then why not take a look at Bigfoot!

Bigfoot has been around since time has been recorded, and many Native American tribes have spoke of a giant hairy man that lived in the woods.  Even outside of the USA sightings and records have been documented about the appearance of this creature. What is always reported alongside this unknown creature is large foot prints, a foul oder, howls and yells and even UFO’s in some cases.The most famous case that even got us quick video footage of the creature is the infamous Patterson Film.  On October 20^th 1967 Roger Patterson (an author) and his friend Robert Gimlin were horseback riding in Bluff Creek when by a creek bed they spotted a Bigfoot. The creature was none combative and quickly retreated into the woods but not before Patterson was able to get his camera and take some footage of the creature. The footage was a media hit and gained Patterson and Gimlin fame among believers, but many people thought the story and film to be a hoax due to the holes in the friends’ story. Patterson died in 1972 of cancer but held strong that his footage is real.  Gimlin, who is still alive and tours Bigfoot conventions as well, still holds to the story. But the debate remains to this day on whether or not this footage is fact of fiction.  I happen to think that it’s very possible that this is in fact footage of a Bigfoot!

But with anything that is unproved without a shadow of doubt, there are hoaxes and one of the most recent ones came in 2008 when Rick Dyer and Matthew Whitton claimed that they found a dead Bigfoot in the woods of Georgia and had the body frozen in a freezer. This discovery lead the two men to press conferences on many major news outlets that included CNN and BBC, and gained them $50,000 from a Bigfoot research team for the body. But when the body was dropped off and thawed it was shown that the frozen Bigfoot was in fact a suit stuffed complete with roadkill animal guts.  The suit was purchased from The Horror Dome, a Halloween online super store. Dyer and Whitton got in trouble for being pranksters and this sparked a rash of more hoaxes. One funny thing that happened after this event was on EBAY the Bigfoot Costume’s head became up for auction inside a cooler.  When this story first broke that a Bigfoot body had been found, I was working for a used media store called Buy Backs, and I kept telling my store manager that they found him.  He had also seen the picture and thought it looked fake from the first moment, but it became our inside joke as every morning I kept saying that we finally got him. While this was a hoax, it still was a fun time that got my blood pumping. 

One of Ohio’s most well known Bigfoot is The Ohio Grassman who is seen mostly in Kenmore.  He is said to be 7 to 9 feet tall and to have huge feet and a more human face. Many claim he is a Bigfoot, while others try to say it’s just a tall homeless human.  But whatever it is, it’s been known to attack people in the wooded areas. The History Channel had a show called Monster Quest, and in 2008 they tried to see if this thing was real.  By the end of the show they could not prove or disprove that the creature was real. Another famous Bigfoot around here is The White Eyed Bigfoot, who in Eaton Ohio in 1977 chased some kids around a bridge and through a open field, scaring the boys half to death. Josh Weinberg and I have traveled to this location in 2003-2005 and looked for this Bigfoot.  We found no footprints or any other evidence that the creature was still around. The area was very quiet, and the site would have been a perfect place for a Bigfoot to hideout. That’s another great thing, besides Josh I have many other friends that use to love to go monster/ghost hunting with me that included my cousin Stephen Alexander, Jason Gilmore, Andrea Seay, Misty Altick, Matt Hoffman, Dave Wean and Kevin Kinsley. And while most of the time we would not find anything, it was the times we did and the fun we had that made those moments outstanding. For season two of Terrifying Tales of The Macabre Baron Von Porkchop alongside Iris and Retina (of the show Mondo Smash A-Go-Go) go on the hunt for Eaton’s White Eyed Bigfoot.

Besides tabloid magazines, Bigfoot has also made his way into film and television and here are some of the creature’s most known appearances. In 1976, a Bionic Bigfoot (played by WWF Wrestler Andre The Giant) was featured on an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man.  This episode proved to be one of the most popular in the TV series run. In 1977, a kids Saturday morning program called Bigfoot and Wildboy amazed the youth for a short amount of time. 1976 showed a slow-paced semi documentary film called Legend of Bigfoot. In 1987, a family film called Harry and the Hendersons showed a gentle Bigfoot and sparked a new love for the creature, especially in kids. And most recently Jack Links Beef Jerky runs ads about messing around with the beast and pulling pranks on it. Not to mention many more films that have been made about the creature and other ones just like it. 

One other quick thing I want to mention before we get into the review for IDW’s Bigfoot series is that we have talked about spottings, hoaxes, local legends, film and TV but let’s talk about toys and merchandise! Yes, if Bigfoot could make money on his likeness, it would be a very rich creature. Bigfoot has had t-shirts, stuffed toys, action figures, board games, video games, lawn statues, stamps, beer, Halloween masks and costumes, books, comics, a monster truck named after him and so much more based on him. Some of the best stuff include the Monster In My Pocket Bigfoot figure, The Bionic Bigfoot action figure, the Bigfoot rubber stamp footed action figure, the Milton Bradley Board Game and the best is Mezco’s figure that came in a line alongside The Jersey Devil, Mothman and the Lochness Monster!

So now that we have some quick facts about this famed creature, let’s take a look at a comic series that peeked my interest back in 2005 when they were released.  This makes only my second time reading this mini series since it came out so I am hyped to see what I think of it this many years removed from its first run. Remember I grade these comics on a 1-4 star ratting, so with that let’s get to the reviews!

Bigfoot # 1  ***
Released in 2005   Cover Price $3.99   IDW   #1 of 4

It’s 1973 at Happy Trails Camp Ground, and Billy Fuller is a 9 year old boy on his way to a fun time with his mom and dad. At night Billy is hearing weird noises that are filling the night air around their cabin.  Scared by this he goes to his Dad, and the two make plans to go fishing early the next morning.  As Billy goes to bed his mother and father decide to mess around, but this fun time is cut short as a Bigfoot busts in and attacks the couple.  In the fight the father is able to take out on of the beast’s eyes as Billy and his pet dog enter and the dog goes on the attack. The fight leaves his father and dog dead, and his mother is dragged off by the creature. When Billy is found the next morning he is in shock, and the cops walk into a bloodbath that they claim is nothing more then a bear attack. But one cop seems to know it’s something more. The issue ends with Billy waking up years later and older having a nightmare about his mother being raped and Bigfoot being his new father!

This is a fun take on the Bigfoot legend and turns what is suppose to be a gentle beast into a blood thirsty, perverted meat eating killing machine.  This first issue is a nice way to build the story and has main character Billy being 9 years old and shows the event that has tormented him throughout his life. The pace is very quick, and in fact this seems like a very quick read (only 23 pages) and goes for broke when in the first few pages Bigfoot slaughters a deer. The Bigfoot looks great and scaring up his eye helps add a more menacing look to an already large intimidating beast. This issue also keeps me wondering what is going to happen in issue 2, and makes me want to ask questions like was Billy’s mom ever found and if not is she still alive? What does the cop know that he’s not telling? And what is Billy going to do now? All these questions make for a comic that has captured my imagination. The art for Bigfoot is great but the humans are just too “modern” and strange looking for my taste.  Many times they look like the have been hit by Joker’s laughing gas. The cover is a nice take on the old Patterson Bigfoot footage and that’s pretty kick ass in my book. Great first issue to kick off this limited series that makes me look forward to re-reading issue 2. 

Bigfoot # 2  ***
Released in 2005   Cover Price $3.99   IDW   #2 of 4

It’s now 2004, and a man is driving down the road when a 900 pound bear’s carcass is thrown at his moving car crushing him.  When the cops arrive they find that the man’s body is missing. Billy is now a man who has some major issues and is still haunted by the image of Bigfoot making him want to buy a big shotgun. Meanwhile in the woods Bigfoot has attacked two young girls and a pack of boys who are riding four wheelers and goes ballistic and blood thirsty on them, leaving only one girl alive. It’s nighttime as Billy packs up what he needs and leaves his wife and son behind to head back to Happy Trails Camp Ground.

Issue two is more sizzle than steak as most of the issue is spent on Bigfoot attacks, and I am okay with this! While Billy is still the focus and it,s shown that he is a man with lots of issues, he gets the nerve to take a stand and go after the one thing that scares him. I like where this is leading as Billy is now more focused and wants to hunt his tormenter. The cop is now a sheriff and we’re shown that he is going to try and cover up the bear crash. Bigfoot in this issue is one mean S.O.B who spends most his time brutally killing innocent people.  He is also shown now to be super fast as he runs and catches up to a four wheeler and gives the driver the best kill of the issue as he pounds the injured kid into the ground and splats him like a grape. The plot of this one is a nice follow up to the first issue and still in the process builds a little more to the story that we are reading to unfold. Great cheesy horror film style plot, blood and gore, decent art and a wicked cover makes issue two a fun time.  Let’s see if issue 3 keeps this pace up. 

Bigfoot # 3  **1/2
Released in 2005   Cover Price $3.99   IDW   #3 of 4

Hicks (the cop from issues 1-2) is in the woods and finds a rotten body of a human as a female deputy comes for him to tell him they captured a man with many guns in the woods, and that man is Billy Fuller.  Hicks leaves the deputy there as Bigfoot comes calling and eats her face off.  In a jail cell Billy speaks to Hicks about his parents’ death and why it was covered up.  Hicks opens up to Billy and tells him about when he was a young boy he also had a run in with Bigfoot that left him scared of the creature in the woods. Billy tells Hicks that they both need to face the creature and kill it once and for all. As Bigfoot attacks a family’s camper, Billy and Hicks are preparing for the ultimate hunt.

This issue slows down a bit and while still good seems to be a little more filler than the last two issues. This issue’s main focus is Hicks and his fear of the beast and his patching things up with Billy who he made to look like a liar so many years ago. In this issue Billy seems to be the button pusher who wants to get help on his hunt from a man who he feels owes him. Bigfoot has only two kills in this one, the best being when he eats the female deputy’s face! This issue keeps the story going but is a little less impactful as the past issues, making this one an average issue that seems to be more about keeping the story going to make it to the four issue mini series deadline. Not much much more to say about this issue: okay plot, good art, eye catching cover and Bigfoot going ape shit once more sums up this issue that made the series loose a little steam.  Let’s see how the final issue plays out, shall we?

Bigfoot # 4  **
Released in 2005   Cover Price $3.99   IDW   #4 of 4

Billy and Hicks alongside a rookie deputy go out into the woods to find the missing deputy and Bigfoot, and they don’t have to wait long as Bigfoot attacks them knocking Hicks off a cliff and sending the rookie running for his life.  Billy must face the beast one on one and hits the creature with some major blows as the beast takes a shotgun blast to the back and a knife to his skull but this seems to not even slow down the Bigfoot! During the battle Billy falls down a hole and lands in a cave were he finds that the Bigfoot and a mate and kids.  Billy hides in a small section of the cave as Bigfoot comes to his family’s aid and tries to reach the human to protect and kill. Billy uses his flashlight and shotgun shells to make a bomb that blows the cave up, and then bashes Bigfoot’s brains in with a rock and knocking its body off the cliff. In the end Billy finds Hicks who is still alive and suspended from trees, and the nightmare has ended for them both. While in the cave a baby Bigfoot is under some rocks as a adult Bigfoot hands remove it.

This issue seems so rushed, and while the fight between Billy and Bigfoot is cool, it just seems very thrown together and not as epic as what you would hope for and what was built up to be. The whole build up is well done, and when they finally get out to the woods two out of the three characters are not used and not even killed off, and given this Bigfoot’s track record of murder I don’t see how Billy really stood a chance. The issue is more fighting action with the art being bigger, showing, in my opinion, that they ran out of story line and used the bigger art to take up pages. I do like the fact the Bigfoot took a shotgun blast and a knife to the skull and still came after his target showing that this creature was a true fighter and protector. A neat aspect of the issue is the Bigfoot family members who are in a cave that is scattered with human bones showing that when it killed, it brought home the human meat to feed its family. But over all this is a lackluster way to end this 4 issue mini series and for me was a huge letdown. The cover art on this one is also pretty well done.

This series started out with a bang and looked as if it was going to be a fun solid Bigfoot horror book that was done in the same vein as “Night of the Demon,” an old 1980 movie where Bigfoot goes around murdering people. The character build up is well done in the first three issues and let’s you a little inside the mind of Billy and even Sheriff Hicks, two men that live in fear of the one eyed Bigfoot. One thing I did notice as well is issue 1 seemed to pull no punched with the blood and gore while the rest seemed to have blood and gore, just not so in your face with it. The storyline is fun but a little weak for four issues; this could have been easily wrapped up in 2 or 3 at the most, in my opinion showing that they made this last 4 for the sake of a contract or money. The art is hit and miss with me.  Bigfoot looks great, but the people look like big mouth freaks who have been zapped with Joker’s laughing gas! I am sure that one of the main reasons I have a soft spot for this comic series is the fact I am a Bigfoot fan, but it’s one I will sum up like this: it starts with a bang and goes down with a mere yell. 

Oh, I also wanted to share with you this picture of me with some friends at a Halloween party, and yes, I am the one dressed as Bigfoot! These guys are also my co-workers and are all around kick ass people. I also dressed up as Bigfoot for an episode of Terrifying Tales of the Macabre, and both times dressing up as the creature I had a blast!

Well let’s take a look at 2001’s One Second Too Late and its 2007 sequel Two Seconds Too Late more films put out/made for Independent B Movie! As I have stated, Josh Weinberg was in a class with my brother Bryan taught by Andy Copp and one of the classes project was to make a short film.  While my brother made the trippy stop motion film “Nightmare,” Josh Weinberg set out to make a slasher film that followed a crazed man who escapes from an asylum and kills as a detective tracks him.  He set out to make that film but really made a film about a young man who’s dad is a drunk and beats and shoves him down stairs, and the aftermath of this warps the direction of the film. Weinberg armed with a VHS camera and tripod came over for his first day of the film shoot and cast himself as the troubled young man also named Josh and cast me as his best friend.  We shot this at 10 Wilmington Place, a retirement home as we chatted in the car about him needing to move out of his father’s house, and Josh’s worries of doing so. The first day of filming was a breeze and took no time to get right. The second day of filming was more of a pain as my brother and I got into a huge argument before Weinberg came over, making me not help on most of the shoot and sit in my room playing Baseball Stars on the NES.  My brother was casted as the Drunken Father, and the tripod was used as the cameraman as Josh and Bryan acted out this emotional look at child abuse that lead to Josh being pushed down stairs or better yet running down stairs breaking my parents banister and having one of the worst “stunts” in our company’s history. The fall leads the Josh character into a nightmare world of murder and suicide that ends with a shockingly. From there Josh went home and shot some scenes of his own that involved suicide. The film’s camera was off center in shots making crotches and stuff the center of shots, but some how this worked! Weinberg during editing left the chroma key effect on given the finished project a dirty yet some how appropriate look. The film played in Copp’s class and a film class Josh was also taking and earned him a good grade in both classes. This film and Werewolf of Ohio were written about in the Dayton Impact Weekly.  While the rest of Independent B Movie snubbed the film, I for one think Weinberg did a great job.  Sadly this is the least selling movie on VHS and DVD. 

A few years later Weinberg started a sequel to his film that had a group of kids being haunted by the Ghost of Josh, but after only two days of filming the film was canceled. But in 2004, Weinberg started it up again, and this time it followed his best friend (once more played by me) and his girlfriend (played by my then girlfriend Misty Altick) trying to hunt down and find Josh who has been missing, while the drunken father tried to throw them off the track. The film’s shooting was plagued with setbacks and took years to get finished, and after it wrapped, Andy Copp edited and did the music score for the film that was released quietly on DVD with the original. While these films might not be huge sellers, they still have a place in the history of Independent B Movie and mark the first two films Josh Weinberg directed.

This is the most violent comic series we have looked at so far and won’t be the last.  One of the things that I loved in my youth and to this day is horror films and with more horror film-inspired comics out there then I can shake a stick at, look for every once in a while a update about them.  So be prepared for Halloween, Night Breed, Werewolf, A Nightmare on Elm Street and so many more! We also took a quick look at Josh Weinberg’s shot on video classic. And with that let’s get back to basics and take a look at another great series from Marvel Comics based on a cartoon and toy line on the first mutated super hero from New Jersey and a rag tag team of freaks.  This means I could only be talking about The Toxic Crusaders! Thanks to Mavericks Cards and Comics for this review who stocked this title in 2005 and put every issue into my pull file. See you next blog entry for a toxic good time.

Should Have Beens From My Friends

Welcome back to part two of the wish list of what should have been made by Star Comics/Marvel.  With my top 10 picks done, let’s take a look at a few others people’s thoughts and wants. This is going to be a long update, so sit back, scroll down and have fun looking at these picks down memory lane!

First up is my brother, Bryan Brassfield who is only three years older than me and also grew up through the 80’s and 90’s. Bryan is a collector of movies and toys and also enjoys a good comic. In fact, when we were younger he used to make his own comic called “Weird Tales of Waynesville,” a fun horror comedy look at our home town. Bryan has also directed a few no budget films that include Twisted Batman and Nightmare.  He also was making a film called The Kenny Rogers Project that fell into development hell. Bryan also has acted in many Andrew Copp films that include Black Sun, Atrocity Circle and Quiet Nights of Blood and Pain, and played a drunken abusive father for Josh Weinberg in his One Second Too Late series. Bryan now is married and lives peacefully with his wife and daughter in Germantown, Ohio. So without further ado, let’s get on to his top 5!

#5

Most people wouldn’t give a shit, but I would have loved to seen a Sucker-man comic book with him being a crime fighter!

#4

Hey WWF and WCW had their own comic books, why not the AWA! Imagine Sgt. Slaugher, Rick Martell, and Greg Gagne battling the likes of The Road Warriors and Baron Von Rashke.

#3

Gross out humor comic that would be a combination of Mad/Cracked magazines with the Garbage Pail Kid gang. This would have been really cool.

#2

Another comic book that would have a good cast of characters who could have dealt with the mythology and back story. If I’m not mistaken, I think it also had a Manga based on it.

 Note From Matt: Small Publisher BlackThorne had a 4 issue run of Battle Beast in 1988.

#1

They probably made a Magna out of this, but I think they could have done one for American audiences that would feature Muscle Man and his “Thug Busters” battling Teri-Bull and his “Cosmic Crunchers.”

The second to share his list is my cousin Stephen Alexander II, who just so happens to also be one of my best friends.  At a young age Stephen lived for Bon Jovi, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Horror Films, and Nintendo, but he was terrified of Chucky from Child’s Play that lead to many pranks that I am sure warped him to this day. Nowadays Stephen is one of the founders of a beard & mustache club in Dayton called the Gem City Gentlemen of the Guided Beard who have been seen on the IFC show Whisker Wars. Stephen also is a no budget actor who has starred in such films as Wolf Hunter 2, Vampire Peeper of Greene County and Bark at the Moon: Oliver to name a few. He also enjoys a fine glass of beer and repairing old smoking pipes. He also is responsible for helping me to find and dig up Baron Von Porkchop to host the show Terrifying Tales of the Macabre. So let’s get to his top 5 list!

#5

To me this is a no-brainer, you have just the right amount of disgusting mixed with a cast of crazy characters to make a great comic.  They could have literally done anything with this (besides make a crappy movie).  A comic would have been a perfect route for this franchise.

#4

This one may take a little bit of imagination, but it could be done. The way I picture it is you follow a main character or several main characters that are on a quest to defeat arena Pog masters all over the world to be crowned Pog king or champion or whatever. While he/she/they are on their quest they run into all kinds of insane Pog warriors. I think it would have made a great series of comics, and hell I probably would have owned the whole set.

#3

I think this was another huge missed opportunity on it’s creators part. This could have been an epic journey through the mind. As a mad scientist creates these nasty Crawlers to take over the world, but one hero/heroes stands in his way. Every edition could have different ways the mad scientists makes new Creepy Crawlers, and the hero/heroes have to find a way to stop him. It would have been comic gold!

#2

I loved this show as a kid, and it would have translated into comics amazingly. They could have just continued the travels of Mike and the robots through space, and we could have caught a glimpse of what happens when they don’t have to watch a terrible movie. Every comic could even be a continuation of one of the shows even. It would have been something I would have owned for sure.

#1

One of my all time favorite Nickelodeon shows. This could have easily translated into a comic. They would just take the Midnight Society and make them do what they do best, tell ghost stories. It practically writes itself, and they could do more with the comic that the show maybe wouldn’t allow, effects and that kind of jazz. Drawing it the pages of a comic would be much more cost effective I would think and it would have been a great comic book line for kids of all ages.

Next up is Matt Hoffman a friend of mine since high school and one of the co-founders of our no budget film company Independent B Movie. Matt is a comic fan and some would say a super fan of Superman.  Matt used to have a crush on Britney Spears and is one hell of a good cook.  Matt, known to his friends as Hoffman or Hotch, has been in many no budget films like Teen Suicide, Vampire Peeper of Greene County, Werewolf of Ohio 2, Bark at the Moon: Scars, Farmer Joe and is known for playing The Wolf Hunter in numerous films as well as writing and directing two films so far in that series. Hoffman no longer lives in Ohio but is still hunting wolves in Colorado. He also worked at Mavericks Cards and Comics as an early teen. Hoffman is a great friend and has picked some franchises that have had comics, and some odd choice ones for kid comics, but who am I to cross the Wolf Hunter! 

#5

I would have love to see this in a comic book form because it really reminds me a lot of a mix between Starship Troopers and Avatar.  Both has its own merits , but if you took both those concepts and visual graphics, it would have been a cool concept to make as a regular series. Imagine the story would continue from the first game that then leads into the second game where its a terran all out battle. The last remaining of the hive enslaves the photos to destroy the terrans last stronghold before total annihilation.

Note From Matt:  Publisher WildStorm had a 7 issue run of Starcraft in 2009.

#4

The movie left out a lot of details and information as of how things really happened and what happened there after the peace between man and the machines. I would have loved to seen the different aspects of the creation of it to the total enslavement of all humans as batteries. I see the comic story breaking into several different titles given focus on certain characters like Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus along with Agent Smith. I can see one off branch giving the pre-story while others follow each character as it leads into the movies while even finishing the story after the movie series end.

Note From Matt: Small Publisher Burly Man had a 2 issue run of Matrix in 2003.

#3

Hear me out on this one. With all the folklore and myths about the end of all supposed humanity and life will never be the same again based off of 1000 years old testimonies of a forgotten tribe, you could really have played with in so many ways. The movie was okay , but the comic could show different parts of the world or even how the world gets destroyed. The story could involve characters from all parts of the globe and how their civilizations and countries are preparing for an unknown disaster and not knowing how to prepare for it. Mass chaos would erupt and violence and devastation would rule the land. And it comes down to the exact moment, and the series ends just like that. 

#2

Now tell me that isn’t self explanatory . The story is awesome, you can go with different stories, different levels. The action and the graphics are killer and just overall it’s my favorite game of all time. I don’t really have to create to much imagination just to have it continue on where the games and movies have left off. I would love to have known more about Leon and Claire and the town of raccoon city before it got hit with the T-virus to during the initial onslaught of the zombies. Kind of like The Walking Dead but with those characters instead.

 Note From Matt: Publisher Marvel had a 1 issue run of Resident Evil in 1996 that was a free give away. In 2009 Wildstorm had a 4 issue run and then a 6 issue run that started in 2000.

#1

Now I know you expected this one to pop up. The story behind the movies are so in-depth that they really can’t be translated to film as well as into a comic form. The vast amount of characters and villains would be ample amount of writing material to create a graphic novel/comic series. I see it picking up from after Armageddon to find that The Wolfhunter has been left blind in one eye and one of his hand has been ripped off from his battle with Ravenger. Malice has been killed and Ravenger disappeared.  The government has created a lethal army to hunt down and kill all remaining werewolves and to capture the Wolfhunter. Oliver was able to transform back to human form and is aiding in the capture efforts of the Wolfhunter. Duke and the Wolfhunter guild are in hiding while trying to regain forces to make one last stand against the Werewolves den. The Wolfhunter trains his apprentice to carry on his legacy as he fights his last battle.

Note from Matt – In 2008 a Wolf Hunter comic book was in the works and was being worked on by local comic artist Justin Wasson. The series while not fully dead in the water, is on the back burner and has been there for many years now. But never say never that this series might see the light of day, below is some art for the comic, so enjoy!

Now it’s time for a dear friend of mine named A. Ghastlee Ghoul, a local horror host from Dayton, Ohio. Ghastlee has been hosting his show “The Ghastlee Movie Show” since 1989 and has tickled the funny bone of late night TV viewers. Ghastlee also has appeared on many other shows such as New Shock Theater, Terrifying Tales of the Macabre, Media Only and many more. Ghastlee is the godfather of the Horror Host Underground, a show trading network that allows hosts to show fellow hosts in their area. He also hosts Weird Web Theater, a YouTube horror host show, and has done Friday Monstercasts on The Monster Channel. He’s also been nice enough to have me on his show to play his “son” or a crazed guy who says he is his son! Ghastlee has also directed movies like “Joe Nosferatu Homeless Vampire” and starred in films Black Sun, Songs in the Key of Satan.  He’s written books and short stories and plays music in two bands! His band Splattertude is also the official band of Cinema Wasteland Horror Convention. Ghastlee also loves a good cigar and is a master of the Karaoke arts.  I call Ghastlee Father and great friend, and a man who has inspired me in ways to create.  So let’s get into his top 5 because I could go on forever on the legend A. Ghastlee Ghoul!

#5

“One of my favorite games as a kid. Robots punching each other until their heads pop off. How cool is that? Long before Robot Jox or Real Steel, the Marx toy company knew how cool it is!”

#4

“A bizarre late 60’s/early 70’s cartoon by Dave DePatie and Friz Freleng. Vibrant, surreal art and smart writing. The show only ran for seventeen episodes, but the concept has so many possibilities. In the right hands it could still make a great comic book series today. Maybe they could write in a robot.”

#3

“Classic sci-fi. I’m surprised it was never turned into a comic. The Krell, monsters from the Id AND Robby the Robot?! Yes, please!”

 Note From Matt: Small Publisher Inovation had a 4 issue run of Forbidden Planet in 1992.

#2

“It’s a concept you could have as much fun with today as we did on Saturday mornings when I was a kid. Pre-Power Rangers stories where the kids are heroes…and, oh yeah, there are robots and things blowing up!”

#1

“A given for me. My childhood hero! I could see Creep as your gentle, wry guide through the world of the macabre, and then at the end of every vignette he shows up and kicks the bad guy’s butt with a mighty HOO-HAH-HAAAAA!!! The best of all worlds! And Big Robot from Clubhouse 22 could even make a cameo!”

Next up is my pal Louie Lerma who is known around here in Dayton for being a founding member of the lucha surf rock band Team Void and for also being Retina on Horror Host show Mondo Smash A’ Go-Go! Louie is one cool guy, and we have worked on many TV shows and concert events together. In fact Louie is also the uncle of one of my friends, Bruce.  So without anymore wait, let’s get to Louie’s List!

#5

1960’s – Starting with one of my heroes Ray Dennis Steckler. He was an actor/director/ camera man/writer/ producer. He worked on low budgets. Ray Dennis Steckler was inspired by and used what was around him: friends/ family/ location/ costumes. He believed shooting without a script freed up the storyline which made his movies better. Scripts and props especially crippled movies because once you chase a script and must buy certain props you have stopped the movie’s creativity.

Ray’s Movie List: Wild Guitar. Thrill Killers. Incredibly Strange Creatures Who died And Became Mixed Up Zombies. Lemon Grove Kids. And so many more…

I would like to see this comic based on him as he is making one of his crazy movies. Each movie that he made is the issue title. Depict Ray putting together his movie and convincing other people to become part…. as the comic unfolds you will see the full feature itself. Just like in Ray’s movies such as the “Thrill Killers,” it starts out as an intense thriller and ends as a cowboy chase on canyon roads… wild ride plot twists always surprising and fun!!

One of my favorite Ray Dennis Steckler movie is “The Adventures Of Rat Phink And Boo Boo.” It starts out as a hostage movie, then the characters become superheroes by jumping into a closet to save the day! Leading up to the “Incredibly Strange” issue that would be a monster musical. You never know where each adventure will take you, loose storyline written as we draw up this comic using his stan!

#4

1970’s – A comic based on horror show host, Svengoolie from Chicago on his show Screaming Yellow Theater. The comic would be drawn in R. Crumb style and follow Svengoolie as he hosts a mondo crazy movie. Each issue would open up with a special guest sneaking over to his coffin -knocking ever so gently to wake the star up!

The comic must highlight Svengoolie’s quick wit one liners firing off to the audience, draw them in left and right directions across the page, go wild with the comic like his style joke delivery. It would have to have him waving around a rubber chicken and having fun while having a blast with his guests, sketches sick parodies breaking out. Include commercial page inserts of products to use during his movies as funny jokes for breaks…

I would like to see this one made because I’m a horror show host myself and love Jerry G. Bishop as the original “Svengoolie” funny cool style.

#3

1980’s – A fly-on-the-wall comic based on H.P. Lovecraft’s “Herbert West” and drawn Brian Yuzna style. Lead character likeness of 80-s actor Jeffrey Combs. The issues would be printed black/white using textured highlights in Re-animator neon green and bloodiest reds.

Issues begin at private research laboratory as Professor Grubber goes all through West’s career coming to experiment at America’s unsuspecting colleges. Feature his curt wit working through daily wicked routines. A day in the life of Re-animator: who he befriends to conduct experiments and his enemies due to his demoralized ethics. Have to feature taking off the Dean’s head; the head becomes a voice for devils advocate to West’s gruesome fun.

 Note From Matt: Small Publisher Adventure Comics had a 3 issue Movie Adaptation in 1991, and a 4 issue run in 1992 followed. Dynamite Comics had a 1 shot issue in 2005.

#2

1990’s – Twin Peaks -The Comic Saga. This was one of my favorite shows through early 90s. I love mysteries but I do believe David Lynch and the writers were messing with everybody! In this series the comic will explore Laura Palmer’s death affecting all Twin Peaks neighbors: quirky characters that knew and loved her.

The comic would be taking place in Twin Peaks after Laura’s death, narrated by Special Agent Dale Cooper, FBI speaking into his voice recorder to his secretary, Diane. Interjections by D Lynch via intercom speaker, telephone, one final cameo in front of the camera.

Twin Peaks soundtrack brings the dark mood: reverb resounding echoes of everyone’s life and thoughts. Too bad you cannot hear the music while you read the comic! (2012? Yes, easily the comic cover would have a CD insert/i Phone code/ recommendation for the reader to listen to the score by Angelo Badalementi as you feel this twisted story.)

#1

2000’s – Based on true facts for paranormal and supernatural unexplained phenomena. Name this comic “Uncovered True Paranormal; Ghosts, UFO,s USOs, Mothman, Bigfoot, Sea Creatures, All Strange Creatures And Mysterious Landmarks As We Discover Them.”

Each issue would follow three cases/ encounters and their witnesses in regional proximity to each other. Maybe discover links as the comic explores the topics.

Each situation would feature experts to the scenario and bring the reader knowledge about each witnesses experiences. I would really love to see this comic use all new, latest technology invented to investigate these claims. A compelling comic series dealing in facts that keep growing as people learn more about all these phenomena and our world.

If anybody wants to take on these comics with me, please do. Thank you for reading my thoughts about the 5 decades of my life for comic books. This goes out to my buddy Matt Brassfield who inspired me to write this page.

Yours truly,
Luis Lerma

Chris “Bizcuit” Corwin is next up, and I have know this man since I was in my late teens when he was one of my managers at Blockbuster Video, and one of my favorite co-workers. Bizcuit nowadays works for a movie theater in the Greene and is also a stand up comedian that can been seen on the stage of The Funnybone Comedy Club! Bizcuit is a film lover and a comic book reader who has also was an extra in the Sylvester Stallone film Driven. So with that in mind let’s get onto the funny man’s picks for his top five should have been comics in his youth.  Oh yeah, and he was a rebel and could not keep his picks to 5.  So he did 8, and I am okay with that!

#8

I think this would be great because there were so many more stories that are to be told and situations to get out of using everyday objects, gum, and paper clips. It would be like a “How To” guide if you were ever held hostage or had to defuse a bomb with only 30 seconds left.

 Note From Matt: Publisher Image had a 5 issue run of Macgyver in 2012.

#7

Crooked small town sheriff and his inept deputy who moves like a jungle cat (watch the show to get that joke) and their misadventures solving crime. With guest appearance occasionally by B.J. and the Bear. I liked Lobo even though he was flawed he tried to do good.

#6

This just screams comic to me. Writers could delve in to Magnum’s history and his time in Vietnam. What is Higgins’ background? He could be a super badass and you would never know. How about Rick and CC? Plus as an added bonus it is set in Hawaii so comic book girls in bikinis.

#5

Stephen King’s IT terrified me as a novel but as a movie not so much. IT took the form of Pennywise more than once over its lengthy existence. I want to know what that tale is. What is IT? Where does it come from? Why the clown? I feel there is way more horror to be expounded upon.

#4

The what? The Shirts Tales. It was a cartoon from the 80’s that starred a panda (Pam), tiger (Ty), mole (Digger), raccoon (Rick) and an orangutan (Bogey- who was voiced with a Humphrey Bogart impression) and were a group of super agent spies with all the gadgets that lived in a tree in Central Park. Seriously, do I have to say more?

#3

Aliens use a video game as a test to find the ultimate fighter pilot and then come to Earth to take him back so he can save their world. Spoiler alert: he totally wins. Is that it though? I mean there are a lot of bad guys in the universe. There is as many stories as there are stars.

 Note From Matt: Marvel Comics Did a three issue movie adaptation of the film in 1984.

#2

Perhaps the greatest kids movie ever made. My apologies to Surf Ninjas but you know it is true. I wanted and STILL want more Goonie adventures. They live in a coastal town there has to be more treasures find and bad guys foil.

And the number 1 thing I would have like to seen turned into a comic book is…..

#1

The French Chef with Julia Child! I know you just read that and said WTF?! Yes, I said Julia Child. Why? Well quite simply I loved watching that woman cook. Yes I know they mad a crappy movie about her. Do you know what they left out of that movie? That Julia Child was a spook, a spy if you will for the Office of Strategic Services which in WWII was the forerunner to the CIA. She was Jane Bond and she could handle a knife and she could cook. She travelled the world under the guise of THE celebrity chef and was spying on people when she did it and no one saw her coming. Would anyone suspect her? Um no, because she is Julia F’n Child. It practically writes itself. Julia travels, cooks and spies. Throw in a bad cooking pun for some comedy whilst she is killing a bad guy or two and pesto! ( see what I did there) instant comic book heroine. You also get a positive role model for young girls. For those who like to cook you can put a recipe on the last page or two.

So, that is my list. I hope you enjoyed it and thanks to Matt for asking me to do this. I had fun.

I have known Jason Young for a very long time and met him via Mavericks Cards and Comics in Kettering Ohio.  He was always trying to help me to find classic back issues and Topps comics when I was a teen shopping at the store. Jason is an award winning comic book artist who makes his own bio comics called Veggie Dog Saturn that comes out via his own comic company Buyer Beware Comics. Jason is also a no budget actor and has been in many films like Werewolf of Ohio 2, Slashers Gone Wild, Wolf Hunter 2 and Cocktober Blood to name a few. Jason also loves the 80’s hairband Poison and even has the band’s logo tattooed on his arm! Jason also does a podcast with our friend Eric called Gutar Trash. I also lived with Jason for a few years, and he was a great roommate and a good cook of tofu and eggs! Jason is a man who loves comics and movies and hates Magic the Gathering and with that let’s take a look at his top 5!

#5

This TV series from the late ’80’s was more like a cartoon than the live action show it actually was. It featured not only a semi truck that could turn into a helicopter (I know right?!?) but also the Australian bodybuilder “Jacko” who used to do commercials where he screamed at the top of his lungs and burst through walls all in the name of selling Energizer batteries.

I would have bought this comic. It would’ve been drawn by Rob Liefeld and featured foil embossed covers. It maybe even would’ve included a trading card bagged in issue #1. It would’ve been so bad that it would’ve been amazing. So, so amazing.

#4

This was a super short lived toyline that me and my brother went crazy for… and then it disappeared. It was like a cross between M.U.S.C.L.E.S. and G.I. Joe. They were tiny little metal army guys each one with distinct personalities (the fat bearded Harley was my favorite). Although Wikipedia says there was a comic I don’t believe it. I’ve worked at a comic book shop for more than two decades and have never seen one. There were six panel comics on the back of the action figure packages and those made me long to see a full length book!

The comic would’ve been pretty much like the ’80’s G.I. Joe comic. I mean let’s be honest here… Eagle Force was a G.I. Joe rip off pure and simple (they fought a terrorist organization called RIOT which featured soldiers and ninjas and was led by General Mamba) but it still remains one of my favorite toy lines ever and I would’ve absolutely loved to read a comic book about them.

#3

This was an amazing cartoon from the late ’80’s based on Martin Short’s character from SCTV and Saturday NightLive. It was bizarre and subtle at the same time and featured science lessons by the Amazing Gustav Brothers and the live action horror host Count Floyd. This show could be an adult swim show… truly ahead of it’s time this thing was.

 The comic most likely couldn’t have captured the vibe of the show but I still would’ve bought it. I definitely would’ve wanted all the different segments from the show as those were some of my favorite parts (The Gustav brother are responsible for my to this day only using unwaxed dental floss).

#2

What young man in the ’80’s didn’t love the Garbage Pail Kids? The grossest, weirdest most hilarious trading cards ever to exist would’ve been great as a comic book! I mean, look how sweet the movie turned out? Okay, so the movie is kind of hard to watch but a comic could’ve been great especially since Art Spiegelman (a brilliant comic book writer/artist) came up with the series!

 In my mind the comic would’ve been a series of short stories involving no more than a handful of G.P. Kids at a time. Maybe like those old Richie Rich, Casper and Hot Stuff comics where you’d get a few stories each issue. That way they’d be short and sweet… and hopefully gross and hilarious!

#1

(Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere) : This would definitely be the ’80’s property I’d most liked to have seen made into a comic book. There were just so many great characters (like the evil Michael Jackson glove!) that it was mindblowing! When I was a kid I loved wrestling, monsters,robots and toys so this line was a no-brainer as it included all of those things. It was basically a toyline of two inch tall characters that would be right at home in a GWAR stage show… simply amazing.

I guess what I’d like to see in the comic would be quite simply: Mondo Violence! Sure you could throw in some comedy and perhaps some allegiances between some of the characters but I have to say the violence would be key. Since their name suggests they’re tiny little creatures maybe the intergalactic wrestling could take place under kids’ beds as they watch in delight while they should’ve been going to sleep… I don’t know. As long as it was uber violent and funny it would’ve been great to see.

Eric Shonborn is an amazing artist who back in the day worked on books like Razor Baby, and nowadays has his website Shonborn’s Carpal Tunnel where he gives his thoughts and shares a sketch a day. Eric has tried his hand at acting as well and has been on episodes of Terrifying Tales of The Macabre and starred in a movie called All The Marbles. He has also worked on many DVD covers that include Werewolf of Ohio for Warlock Home Video, Vampire Peeper of Greene County for Independent B Movie and did many covers for the releases of New Shock Theater on DVD. He also has three podcasts that include Gutter Trash, The View Masters and The Stupid Sexy Podcast in which he and his co-hosts talk comics, movies, TV shows and many more fun topics. I met Eric via Mavericks and became friends with him thanks to Jason Young and am proud to call him a friend! So with that let’s take a look at his top 5 picks!

#5

My favorite sitcom as a kid, and quite frankly, as an adult. I still find it to be an absolute delight. I don’t think it’d be a great comic, but it’d be a weird comic, and 8 year old me would be all over it. During the later seasons, Night Court got more wacky and over the top and was almost like a living comic book anyway. In an actual comic, the sky would be the limit and nothing could be held back. The comic book adventures of Harry Stone and The Criminal Court Part 2 could be in session anywhere, anyway, anyhow. 

#4

Max Headroom was such an oddity. An ad campaign for Coca-Cola that took on a life of its own as a weird Britishy/American 80s vision of the post-apocalypse sci-fi tv show. Admittedly as a comic, Max would lose it’s greatest asset – actor Matt Frewer. But like Night Court, with comics there’s no budget or human limit to adhere to. The comic could up the ante in the sci-fi and apocalyptic imagery and go places the show could only have dreamed of.

#3

It’s weird. I’ve never thought of myself as a sci-fi fan, and yet so much of what I loved as a kid was rooted in it, much like John Carpenter’s rebuttal to his own earlier movie, The Thing. He wanted to create a positive, friendly alien movie and in the process created the sympathetic and heroic Starman. There was a short-lived TV show that followed the movie. I’d imagine the comic would pick up from that, and maybe even gear the lead character to be a stripped down, low-level superhero of sorts while still playing with the Stranger in a Strange Land themes.

#2

Man, this cartoon is so dumb and ridiculous. Even as a kid, I’m pretty sure I thought that, but I still loved it. I remember watching it all the time, but can barely remember it outside of the origin of the character. A young kid gets in an accident and fuses with his car, which he then can transform into. It’s so weird. The comic would just be a continuation of the cartoon, and it would be weird and make no sense and I would devour every issue and beg for more.

#1

This is one is kind of a cheat. There was a three issue comic released in 2008 written by William Katt himself. There’s also a great parody/homage comic from the early 2000s called “Truth, Justin and the American Way”. The show was itself a sort-of knock off of Green Lantern. Aliens give a worthy human a powerful tool to save the world, but he loses the instruction manual. Wackiness ensues. The comic would be the show, but bigger and bolder. More comedy, more action, more emphasis on the haphazard superheroics of Ralph Hinkley and his friends and perhaps more superpowers. So like I said, there eventually was a comic, but not when I was a kid – when I wanted one and when I would have loved one.

Next up is my good friend and fellow co-worker at Mavericks, Jeremy Hoyt, who is a man who loves almost everything from Japanese culture that includes everything from Godzilla to Manga. Jeremy also is a super fan of Voodoo from the super hero team Wild Cats and also is a man who loves the Muppets and owns a few life size replicas. He is also a fellow member of the board game club I belong to and is a fellow PS3 player that has helped me beat such games as Resident Evil 6, Lost Planet 2 and Aliens Colonial Marines. He has also acted in a few no budget films that are not completed like Long Dead Winter and Frankenstein vs. The Werewolf. Hoyt is a living legend and one cool guy to call a friend, so let’s take a look at his top 5! 

#5

This was a great action game on the NES back in the 80’s and would make a great “period piece” comic series. I enjoyed the game and the art sensibilities of those 80’s video games would really make it stand out in the market today. A smart licensor could pair it with promotion of that show “The Americans.”

I see the story developing as a cross between political intrigue and all out action, think “Ghost in the Shell” meets “Rambo.” A group within Russia makes the calculation to launch a covert war against America and our allies and only one man, and his team of tactical advisors and espionage experts, can stop them.

#4

This was one of my absolute favorite cartoons back in the day, mid 80’s. I and my little sister would stop whatever we were doing when it time for the show, and it dominated our lives for an entire summer.  Fantasy adventure with a hint of a history lesson thrown in, what’s not to love.

The comic adaptation could follow the adventures of some of the secondary characters or maybe take place years before the show as a prequel. Fantasy and ancient technology merge in the midst of the Spanish conquest of South America and the subjugation of its people. Add in a possible alien invasion and boom instant classic.

#3

This is one of those no brainers that I’m amazed never came to be. Yes, there were Metroid villains in “Captain N” and Metroid manga in Japan, but here in the states in the 80’s we got left out in the cold by Nintendo when it came to Metroid merchandise.

I don’t really need to say why this would be cool do I? Bad ass bounty hunter Samus Aran combs the galaxy fighting space pirates and monsters while in search of lost alien technology and the truth behind the living weapons known as Metroids.

#2

To be honest I don’t remember too much about Robotics other than its amazing theme song…ROOOBOTIX, robotix… Anyway, it was a cool build it yourself toy line of giant robots.  Transformers meets Legos. Yes, there was one issue made back in the 80’s but that was it, no series, no resolution.

Simply put I love robots, kids love robots. The possibilities of launching a franchise on the scale of Transformers would wet any executives’ appetite. Technology run amok, terrorists with giant robots to back them up, and a rag tag group of heroes working with sentient machines for the good of Earth. Oh, and a killer theme song… uhh, comics don’t have theme songs you say. Well, as a bonus the first issue could come with a soundtrack CD.

#1

Yes, there have been manga, but as with Metroid, back in the 80’s we got none of that here in the states, and to be honest, there isn’t a Final Fantasy presence in comics today. It’s a huge franchise with limitless possibilities.

The story could literally go anywhere. Medieval fantasy epic, check, futuristic cyberpunk, check, alternate reality hoping, check, time travel, check.  You name it, and it could happen in this book. It could even be an anthology series with different creative teams and different worlds for each story arc.

Bruce O Hughes is a local comic artist who I met via Mavericks Cards and Comics thanks to my friends Jason Young and Eric Shonborn.  I quickly became friends with this talented man. Bruce has worked on many great local comics like Clobber Vance, Iron & Ink and Razor Baby, and has done many great DVD covers that include Terrifying Tales of The Macabre, Goatman of Maryland and episode 4 of The New Shock Theater. Bruce also does a comic podcast called The Break Ins where he and fellow local comic artist Justin Wasson talk about all things nerdom. Bruce has also tried his hand in acting and has been in All The Marbles and Missing. Bruce works for a local TV Station and also does some animation for Minor League Baseball Teams.  So in short Bruce is your go-to guy when it comes to your artwork needs! So let’s get a few words from Bruce and then go into his top 5.

I was born in 1978 & prone to reading comic books on the many 4 hours drives to see my Granny in Kentucky once a month so I am no stranger to Star Comics. Many of its short lived titles such as Silverhawks, Heathcliff, Madballs & Count Duckula were right up there with Spider-Man & Batman for me. I loved being able to take their adventures with me where ever I went & having the oppurtunity to sit down & study exactly what they looked like as well as the world around them. Truth be told, I probably make my own comics because of the comic books that my dad bought me at the Hook’s corner drug store before every car ride down south. Thank Gawd I was an impatient child!

#5

This is a movie I watched many times in school for some reason. I think it’s one of the few VHS tapes that the school owned so anytime we could not go outside for recess this, got crammed into a tape deck & rolled out in front of us. The story is simple in an unnecessary kind of way. There is a reason for the characters to spend some time together at odds with one another, then once they have achieved their goal they move on… but what if this was made into a Star Comic back in 1986, what would have happened after the credits rolled? I’d like to think the comic would have ignored the second half of the movie where David gets to go back in time & live a semi-normal life with his family & new alien pet. I’d like to see the comic start with Max & David showing up in the future, or an alien world, anywhere but where they wanted to go. The stories could have been about them trying to get David back home or Max completing his mission or even them returning all the other aliens on the ship to their homes. Each issue a different planet, a different problem. I would have bought this on sight!

#4

What started out as a spin off of the Filmation Ghostbusters gave me an appreciation for not only westerns but also good old fashion sci-fi! I remember coming home from school to see the namesake Marshall & his horse, Thirty-Thirty, keep New Texas safe from Tex Hex & all the other no-count outlaws. It was perfect. There was that sense of old-timey home spun morals mixed with robots, aliens & even a time traveling Sherlock Holmes! These stories ended after 65 episodes & a failed movie… but what if they continued? There was a BraveStarr comic series but it didn’t last long & was in 3D. I’m talking old school blue & red 3D. Who liked that? Yuck. I like to imagine that the adventures of Marshall BraveStarr, Thirty-Thirty, Deputy Fuzz & JD would have translated to a universe spanning epic. There could have been other Marshalls, more of the legal system could have been explored, what happens when all the ore has been mined? It’s such a broad canvas to explore.

#3

The teen drama that should be given credit for almost every CW show! Doogie was a super smart teen doctor. That’s it. The show had a straight forward concept but it used it to explore so many social issues… such as racism, sexism, insurance & its prices, aging, losing your virginity, spousal abuse, etc. This was a much deeper show that we would all like to admit & it ended abruptly. The last thing we ever saw was Doogie quitting his job & heading off to Europe. He was unhappy with the direction his life was going & had made the decision to leave it all behind & see what he could do with his natural talent besides make money & save a few while a majority suffered. If this story ever continued it could be the equivalent to “a hero’s journey” tale. Our young, once doctor, could travel around the world looking for something bigger than himself, stopping here & there to improve the lives of others along the way. It lends itself well to a monthly comic but even better a series of graphic novels. Hell, this may be the one idea on my list that could come back on television if done right!

#2

First Teen Wolf was a movie, then a cartoon, then a TV show… why not a comic book? The cartoon differed a bit from the movie.  For one, Scott Howard was still hiding his Wolf-ness from the town.  The second big change was that he had more family, two grandparents & a younger sister. The cartoon only lasted two seasons & none of the episodes pushed the envelope when it came to new or original ideas. But… if there had been a comic I’m sure someone would have seen this for what it could have been; awesome! Think of a world that already has Werewolves, now why not other “monsters”? Vampires, ghosts, zombies, etc. could have all made appearances in the Teen Wolf world. This was ripe for new stories!

#1

What can I say? Michael J. Fox was a big part of my childhood! We’ve all seen the movies, we all know the characters, there was even an animated series for a few years. Time travel will always lend itself to endless stories & in comics the budget is a lot less for a lot more than you could get out of a movie. Imagine if the story continued after Doc Brown & family drove off on their flying train (ignoring the animated series for a bit). Where did they go next? What did they do? Who did they meet? Why hasn’t there been another movie already?!?

Note From Matt: Publisher Harvey Comics had a few issues of the animated Back To The Future in 1991.

Garrison Kane is a friend I meet via Fairmont High School who was in the media class ahead of me, and one the the first times I met him, he was doing a prank call on the school radio station’s phone! After school I worked with Garrison at two jobs: Krogers and Blockbuster Video, and he works with me again currently. Garrison is a man who collects Nintendo products, Legos and Masters of the Universe vintage figures. Garrison is also known as Dr. Gakman to his friends and many video game forums, and has also been in many low budget films like The Sadness, Vigilante C: The Hunt For Man-Beast and Wolf Hunter 2. Gakman is also a member of the board game club and has been a great friend for many years so before we get to his top 5, here are some words from the one and only Dr. Gakman.

Hello, my name is Garrison Andrew Kane, and I’m here with my list of 5 franchises that never had a comic book series. It’s not really a “top 5” for me as I just came up with these rather quickly to put together for a friend upon his request on short notice. Also, as such, this isn’t going to be a comprehensive/descriptive list of what I’d personally want or think is needed to become a comic as most things that I really would want to be on a “top 5” list is probably already a comic.

#5

This one is kind of a throw away which is why I list it first (I guess #5). As an ‘80’s child I can tell you it was HUGE for me and a lot of kid’s back then. As with anything that kids like and makes money it was a target for persecution by the powers that be (the “we hate _____ ‘cos it’s ruining our children” police, the media, hell…parents). Eventually they put an end to the fun, but not before Topps continued with GPK series’ reaching double digits, responding with an even more radical (and more violent) “Dinosaurs Attack” trading cards set to the theme of the old “Aliens Attack” cards before them (both of these also deserving of a comic) and then finally a Garbage Pail Kid’s major motion picture. If anyone remembers this would’ve been an easy conversion to comics as many cards had comic-book like panels on the back featuring silly stories about the gross characters from the universe.

#4

If you know me you know I had to put in a Japanimation-themed franchise up for an American comic. There are TONS of Japanimation franchises, but I wanted to limit myself to one for this list. I looked up whether or not there was a Robotech (AKA Macross) comic (mind you, back when the cartoon first made it’s way to American TV circa ’85) in America and there actually was so I went with something less-known and Ronin Warriors (AKA Samurai Troopers) popped in my head. Now there certainly is a Japanese manga of this series, but nothing adapted into an American comic like was done for the Robotech cartoon. I think this one could make a cool comic mainly ‘cos of the armor and weapons…I imagine a really good artist could get lost on the details there. 

#3

Speaking of detail SSSF had amazing detail in the animation and character designs and again, this would translate best in comic for with the right artist. This entry is probably very obscure/unknown to most, but it was a short-lived (and equally short-loved) ‘90’s American toon that appeared soon after the “Con: The Adventurer” cartoon series was done and featured many of the same people (including voices) from said Conan cartoon. It seemed to follow the ‘80’s toy/cartoon formula much like say…He-Man or TMNT and the like, but it didn’t work as well. It was mean to be deeper, darker…more grown-up than those cartoons before it, but just never was a hit.

#2

Mentioned TMNT already and that started as a comic and had the Casey Jones & Usagi Yojimbo spin-off comics too…but never a Neutrinos spin-off. So yes, I would like to find out more about these hot rodin’ teenagers from Dimension X (in fact, that should be the name of the comic, hmm: HRTFDX or maybe HTDX?). In this case it wouldn’t be so much about the art or even detail…but just to read what these far-out futuristic ‘50’s inspired daddy-o’s would say and where a hover car & dimensional portal would take them!

#1

I’m a Nintendo nut…and my favorite franchises from them or…from anyone, is Metroid! Yes there was a Super Metroid comic in Nintendo Power magazine and there was a Japanese manga, but I would like more. But not too much more really…sometimes certain things are better left to mystery…so we can use our own imagination. When it comes to the Metroid games, I think it is better when there’s not too much story in it and likewise if they were to adapt it into a cartoon, movie or comic I would say just show the action…less story please! Too many sci-fi themed franchises spend too much time explaining everything and look ridiculous or boring as a result, with something as precious as Metroid is to me…I’d want the opposite. Metroid is at the top of any list you throw at me, but at the same time, I’m torn as to whether I’d want something like a comic or movie based off my favorite franchise ever to tarnish it. If either were a go, art (great special effects or 3D if a movie) like lenticular pages, holographic images implanted into certain panels of the comic or add glow-in-the-dark ink to find “secrets” while reading the comic in the dark would be what I’d want along with very detailed art. Action and art being the focus NOT story…leave that to mystery…which is part of Metroid’s charm.

Next up is my girlfriend Juliet Fromholt, a young lady who puts up with all my weird loves in all that is nerdom and who also loves all this geeky stuff! I meet Juliet at a used media store where she worked called CD Connection, and after a few years of being friends we ended up dating and are going on five years now.  Juliet is a bright young lady who got a degree from Wright State and ran their Radio Station for 2 years. Juliet now works for a local NPR station as a reporter, DJ and webmaster.  She can also be found as a movie and video game reviewer for Bloodline Video, and also acting in local no budget films like Quiet Nights of Blood and Pain and episodes of Terrifying Tales of the Macabre. Juliet is a great friend to the local media art scene and is a supporter of all things local, and a lover of theater arts. So with that let’s take a look at her top 5 picks. 

#5

They’re lovable; they’re huggable; they’re Pound Puppies! I was the proud owner of several Pound Puppies and Pound Purries (their feline counterparts) as a child. My 4^th or 5^th birthday was actually Pound Puppies themed complete with a pin-the-tail-on-the-Pound-Puppy game and a cake topped with figurines of Cooler, Nose Marie and the rest of the gang. I also still own the VHS of 3 Pound Puppies cartoon adventures including The Newborns at Camp Okay Boney. That story alone would make a great comic book, but really there are so many things they could do with the Pound Puppies characters all the while helping make a case for adopting shelter pets (and of course, the non-profit employee in me even envisions the proceeds going to help real-life shelter animals).

 

#4

Based on the classic Universal Monsters, Count Chocula & company have become pop culture icons in their own right. They’re so iconic in fact that I can recite many of the commercials that aired during my childhood, without having actually eaten the cereal until I was well into adulthood. I was actually really surprised that there was never even a single-issue, prize in the box/mailaway comic created for these characters. When Matt asked me to make my Star picks, this was one of the first franchises that came to mind and it’s because of one particular commercial. In 1988, the Fruity Yummy Mummy and his accompanying cereal were introduced. The Yummy Mummy was, of course, another try at a mixed fruit flavored cereal, the first mascot thereof being the Fruit Brute. In the commercial, we see Count Chocula and Frankenberry exploring a pyramid. They fall through a trapdoor, into the tomb where the Fruity Yummy Mummy emerges from his sarcophagus and sings to them about his cereal (and yes, you can see this on YouTube). An expanded version of this story alone would have made a really fun comic – it’s like Indiana Jones meets Universal Monsters meets a well-balanced but sugary breakfast. While I don’t particularly think a series based on Count Chocula would have lasted more than 3 or 4 issues, I could dream up a wealth of story lines to keep it rolling for a while including sugary parodies of each monster’s Universal film/legend and the traditional Addams Family/Munsters-style haunted hijinks. 

#3

The California Raisins were born in 1986 when a member of the California Raisin Advisory Board exclaimed in a marketing brainstorm session, “We’ve tried everything except singing, dancing raisins!” So what did they do? Created singing, dancing raisins. The first appearances of the California Raisins were in claymation commercials and the Emmy-winning Claymation Christmas special, which is still one of my favorite TV holiday specials of all time. The Raisins made a few more claymation appearances as the individual characters were developed, and then they made the leap to Saturday mornings with their own cartoon. The cartoon only lasted 13 episodes, but it certainly made an impression on me as my mom and I still talk about the episode where the punk rocker Lick Broccoli (who was a guitar slinging stalk of broccoli) tried to steal the girl Raisins’ (The Sweet Currants) new song. Like that episode, most of the cartoon’s plots were based on the musical adventures and mishaps of the Raisins, and a comic based on the characters could certainly do the same. One of the things I always remember about the cartoon was the clever use of other fruits and vegetables for the supporting cast of characters. I think that would be so much fun and could have been done so well in a comic. One relic from the California Raisins brief media saturation is a really great line of Raisin figurines, similar to the Smurf figurines that made their way from Europe to the US in the 1980s. I have a fairly decent collection of the Raisins, but just learned that some of the side characters from the cartoon are also lurking out there somewhere. But that’s probably an issue to take up in a different blog.

 Note From Matt: Small Comic Company BlackThrone Did a five issue 3-D run of the raisins in 1988.

#2

It was just a given in my mind: there are He-man comics, therefore there are She-Ra comics. But we all know what happens when you assume….you’re wrong and you get no She-Ra comics because they don’t exist. Someone was seriously missing the boat on this one. I could actually see a comic version of She-Ra being almost like Sailor Moon in terms of franchise: a multi-arc book based on the title character and her universe with plenty of room to explore side characters either in their own arcs or even their own books. While there are certainly more female comic characters, especially in the hero’s role, today than ever, I still don’t feel like there are necessarily a lot of comics geared towards girls, and this franchise could have easily filled that void. I could see the series following the cartoon closely to appeal to younger readers, or, again, following the Sailor Moon model, it could taken the base action/adventure/fantasy storyline a bit deeper to appeal to teenage/adult readers. They could even follow DC’s Teeny Titans model with super kid-friendly stories about Adora, Glimmer and Madame Razz for the younger set and then a regular, more adult series. There’s of course, crossover potential with He-man characters and stories, and I could even see some of the She-Ra side characters getting their own mini-series/one-shots. A smart comic company with good writers could actually probably still make this happen with some success today – banking on nostalgic young ladies of the 80s like myself and then introducing the She-Ra characters to a whole new generation of young women. There’s such a wealth of stories to be told….if anyone needs me, I’ll be re-watching the cartoon series and taking notes.  

#1

Glamor and glitter, fashion and fame – Jem is truly outrageous…and much cooler than Barbie. The dolls were incredibly fun and each came with his or her own cassette tape featuring original music “performed” by the characters, and if you were super lucky, you’d play those cassette tapes in the built-in player in Jem’s toy limo. The cartoon series, which was recently released in its entirety on DVD, was also really fun and so of its time with lots of 80s rock and roll fashion and the popstar vs. punk rock vs. new wave story arc. As with the aforementioned ideas for She-Ra, a Jem comic would have been an awesome way to get more young women reading comics from an early age. The lead character has your classic comic trope of the alter ego – Starlight Music owner Jerrica Brown is really international rock sensation Jem. How does Jerrica balance her two lives and with whom does she share her secret? Throw in some amazing villains who are as loveable as the heroes in the form of the Mistfits and the Stingers, super computer/holographic helper Syngery and poor confused Rio who can’t decide if he loves Jem or Jerrica, and this book writes itself. It’s crazy that this wasn’t a comic, and even crazier when you consider that Marvel Productions had a hand in the cartoon.

Josh Weinberg has been one of my best friend since I moved back to Kettering when I was in the 9^th grade and was one of the first kids to go out of his way to be friendly to the strange guy in his Evil Dead T-shirt. Weinberg and I have worked many jobs together that include Krogers, Blockbuster Video and Game Swap and have worked on many films as well that include Andy Copp’s Black Sun, Matt Hoffman’s Wolf Hunter, and he has starred in many of my own films like Werewolf of Ohio, The Sadness and Cocktober Blood. Weinberg has also made his own films that include One Second Too Late, Two Seconds Too Late and Bark At The Moon: Oliver. He also spends holidays around Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny as he works the photo sets located in the malls around here. He is also a sports nut and loves both the Cincinnati Reds and Bengals. He also loves to hunt ghosts and Bigfoot and doesn’t mind roaming the backwoods of Ohio trying to find the legends with me. He also is a fellow music lover and has been to many concerts with me that include seeing bands like Motley Crue, Alice Cooper, Cinderella, Poison, Dokken and Kiss to name a few. He is married to his wife Lisa, and I was his best man in the wedding.  Josh is a kick ass guy that I am happy to call friend and with that let’s get into his top 5.

#5

Number five on my top five would have to be Tony the Tiger. Growing up I would always love to see that tiger come on the screen to advertise his cereal. Nothing wrong with sugar coated cereal in my opinion. I think it would have been cool to make Tony the Tiger a super hero. Kind of like Batman or Superman in the sense that he would have an alter ego as the cereal selling tiger but by night he would be out fighting crime. He could even team up with other mascots to aid him in this. The possibilities for this are endless as far as story lines.

#4

Number four on my top five list would be Secret of the Nimh. Growing up this was one of my all time favorite movies. I used to watch it over and over again just to see what would happen. As if anything would change each time I watched it. I think it would have been cool to see maybe some adventures that the characters could have had exploring the world of Nimh after the second movie. They would just go off and explore the rest of the world. Mix in maybe some more back story into the main characters of the first film that did not survive.

#3

Number three on my top five list would be Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Same thing as Secret of the Nimh, this was another childhood favorite of mine. To this day I still love this movie and hated to see it remade. The movie portrays all the diferent types of people that are in the world all the way down to your average good person that may or may not have everything they want but make the best out of everything. Proving that hard work and dedication as well as some morals really do pay off. If I was writing the comic, I would love to see where Charlie takes the chocolate factory after he takes over. To see if he would open it up more or keep it just as secret as always.

#2

Number two on my top five would be the video game Montezuma’s Revenge. I remember this game growing up because it was on the first video game system that we had, the Atari. It was contained on the floppy disk. I just remember sitting there for hours playing this game and not getting bored but somewhat frustrated with it, trying my hardest to beat it. The comic for me would be simple; just show the adventures Panama Joe would have while trapped in the temple. The whole goal would be to escape the temple and free himself and his people.

#1

Number one on my top five list would be the Cincinnati Reds, especially the 1990 squad that went wire to wire. Growing up I was like most kids, loved sports and playing outside. Then came the 1990 Reds. They are the reason I still love the Reds to this date. They had so many characters on that squad that just made you want to watch. Everyone from Chris Sabo (which I had a book as a kid where he was my coach) to Eric Davis, Paul O’Neil and of course Barry Larkin. I would have loved to be able to have read a comic based on that year. Then going on into Reds history in general. There is a lot of rich baseball history in Cincinnati. Even though most of those players did not last very long in the majors. That year and that team to me remain one of the best in baseball history.

Kipp Poe Speicher is a fellow no budget filmmaker that I met in my days of traveling to horror film conventions, and we quickly became friends. Kipp Poe has made the short film Dreadful and has worked on many other films that include Werewolves of the Relic, Cult of the Jester and Church of the Eyes. Kipp is also an author of digital books now and is one all around great guy. Kipp also is the man who filmed Josh & Lisa Weinberg’s wedding! So with that in mind, let’s get to Kipp’s Top 5!

#5

Max A Collins Nathan Heller series made into comic form as the Private Eye revisits popular True Crimes of history and gives us an alternate reality of them as he tries to solve them.

#4

Universal Monsters was a big influence on my childhood I didn’t watch many cartoons but always loved it when Super Host would have on any of the Universal Monster shows on. I think a comic book of them teaming up would have been a cool read.

#3

It was an album that formed my life and I could see a series based on it as a youth and being alienated and building a world around you of Art and noise.

#2

Manos The Hands of Fate …Why because it would have to be incredibly awful and a total trip.

#1

A comic book series geared towards crimes that happen in today’s world and the steps that Law Enforcement takes to put an end to it. The series would give insight to children what cops do and hopefully bring social acceptance between youths and Police. This would also work with Adam 12.

I meet Rick Martin via my brother Bryan and friend Andy Copp and quickly became his friend. Rick is the owner of RMM Agency that put out Ultra Man, Cannibal Ferox and Best of Shock Theatre on VHS.  He is also one part of the team that brought Dayton horror host icon Dr. Creep back to TV with The New Shock Theater. Rick was also Dr. Creep’s manager and close friend. Rick Martin loves board and role playing games as well as horror films, Godzilla, Samari Cinema and the hit BBC show Dr. Who. He also is one of the original team members who put on Horrorama, an all night horror movie marathon for charity! Rick also taught classes at Sinclair Community Collage about classic horror films and is currently teaching classes at SWORD about the films of Kurosawa. I am proud to call Rick and friend and with no further ado here is his top 5.   

#5

The action figure and toy line called Horrible Hamilton. These toys were of giant space insects and the humans who are fighting them off from world domination. They toys were amazing and a comic would have rocked!

#4

King Zor was a giant space dragon toy from my youth. A comic series about his exploits, conquests and battles would have been a child of the 1960s dream!

#3

I would have loved to have seen a comic book of the Rat Patrol TV series. Watching those soldiers fight Rommel’s Africa Corp on TV was fantastic – a comic could have been even more so!

 Note From Matt: Publisher DELL had a 6 issue run of The Rat Patrol in 1967.

#2

I always wanted a comic series following the exploits of the Universal Monsters. It would have been cool to see them all meet up and fight!

#1

Last but not least, I always wanted to see a regular comic book series following the adventures of my favorite anti-hero of the movies – Peter Cushing’s Dr. Frankenstein from the Hammer film series! Imagine him moving from town to town trying to perfect his perfect creation while the church and the judicial authorities try and catch him and make him pay for his unholy experiments!

The titan of no budget fright, The Warlock is next! I met The Warlock thanks to Chris Seaver and came to respect him for his love for low budget cinema. The Warlock, for those of you who don’t know, is the spokesghoul for Warlock Home Video, a company that puts out shot-on-video films on both DVD and VHS. I have even had the honor of being interviewed by The Warlock about making Werewolf of Ohio and The Sadness! Now be warned, The Warlock lives and grew up on the darkside so his picks are a little more sinister than most! So here is a few words from the man and then let’s take a look at this cool ghoul’s top 5.

Greetings Horror Fiends, The Warlock here from Warlock Home Video. While resting in my crypt, I came to contemplate why so many amazing things in this world have not been turned into ghoulish comics. Here is the Warlocks Top 5 list of things that should have been comic books:

#5

Who wouldn’t want to read about the comic misadventures of one of the most beloved psychos of all time?

#4

Invading naked aliens dropping weird space slugs on to earth, creating zombies out of college kids+Atkins= MAGIC!

#3

Our hero’s come back to try and take over the world from those pesky kids that get in the way.

#2

Angela throwing more parties from hell would be a charming bedtime read for any young goblin.

#1

The Warlock! There has yet to be a comic of the most feared and revered member of the occult. I would be a perfect fit for the pages of a devilish comic. Eat your heart out, Archie. I am coming for you!!!!!!!!

Mike Ritchie is a legend and is one of my only friends that when you speak of him we all use his full name. I met Mike Ritchie some years back when I was a teenager and he worked at Blockbuster Video.  Later I also became an employee, and we worked the same store for a short amount of time.  We became friends over the fact we both love old school pro wrestling and horror films. Mike Ritchie has also done a few acting bits for such films as Wolf Hunter 2, The Sadness and Farmer Joe, a film he also wrote and directed. Nowadays, Mike Ritchie writes concert reviews for Dayton Most Metro and a few other news websites.  He also works a factory job and looks a lot like The Son of Hercules from the horror host show Terrifying Tales of The Macabre. Mike Ritchie is a good and loyal friend and has picked a few odd choices and some modern ones, but no one tells Mike Ritchie about rules! So with that let’s look at his top 5 picks. 

#5

The Ring with a Grudge tie in-two rare movies that creeped me out, maybe have characters encounter each other and have a final battle ala Freddy vs Jason. The video could be watched in the grudge house to start things off.

#4

I was really disappointed when this got cancelled leaving lots of unanswered questions. I don’t know if they had already written out the reason the prisoners were coming back without aging or not but I’d read them if the series continued.

#3

Some people hated this show (which had nothing to do with the movies) but I really liked it and thought it was cool and spooky. Each issue would be based on an episode and they could continue where the series stopped. As a wink wink joke the comics themselves could be put into a vault.

#2

Two potential versions 1.Satisfying his dark passenger Dexter travels through time stalking and killing histories most infamous mass murders and serial killers either before, after or during their storied kills. 2. Dexter imprisoned for life trying to avoid being shanked, having no choice but to control the urge as well as he can, must resort to imagining/dreaming his kills, spending time in the library reading about histories greatest serial killers. He could get so obsessed he starts imaging prisoners as these killers or use the code to figure out which inmate deserves to die the most.

#1

The Boogie Man-WWE-he wasn’t a great wrestler but I liked his makeup, entrance and character. He’d make a great comic guy, good or bad. The worms could be the symbolic swallowing of souls if he was a bad guy.

Next up is Chicago area Horror Host Count Gregula, who besides the hometown hosts like A. Ghastlee Ghoul, Dr. Freak and Dr. Creep welcomed Baron Von Porkchop and myself into the horror host family with open arms and blood soaked fangs. Count Gregula began his show “Count Gregula’s Crypt” in 2005 and continues to film episodes from time to time. Gregula is a huge fan of all things Grandpa Munster, Svengoolie and cheesy horror films.  He lives and stalks the streets of Illinois and is an all around cool undead blood sucking ghoul! One fun time I had with him was when at a Horrorhound Weekend Baron Von Porkchop, Viola Poison, Susie The DJ and myself had dinner at a small diner with Count Gregula, and the looks he got for his full-on vampire appearance were the stuff of vampire folklore. So with that, let’s get to this vampire horror host’s top 5 picks!

#5

Loved them back in Da Day! These characters from my favorite animatronic band of the 1980s could have individual lives in the comics along vith a background story of how they met to form their famous band!

#4

I loved this cartoon as a little vamp! Read the comic adventures of Inspector Gadget panel by panel and see in living color all his gadgets go crazy in the process!

#3

The 4 band members of this show are comics so for them to be made into a comic is just the next step. The comic can even be more of a lampoon than the show and maybe include an actual monkey in the mix!

 Note From Matt: Publisher DELL had a 17 issue run of The Monkees in 1967.

#2

He is a perfect living character to make a comic because he defends the earth vith his ever present rubber chicken by his side. FYI, Alex Ross actually did put Sven in the Justice League graphic novel JLA: Liberty and Justice.

#1

Comic Munsters vould be right up my dark alley! The misadventures on my favorite Family of Fright in print!

 Note From Matt: Publisher Gold Key had a 16 issue run of The Munsters in 1965 and in 1997 TV COMICS! had a 4 issue run.

Todd The Fox is a great friend who happens to also be one of my favorite local musicians! I met Todd via my friend Henrique Couto, and this led to a friendship that has had us working on a number of projects that include concerts like The Baron’s Ball and A. Ghastlee Night at Gilly’s, both at Gilly’s Jazz Club in Dayton as well as in-store shows at Game Swap in Kettering. Todd has also acted in and been interviewed on Terrifying Tales of the Macabre. Todd is a man of a thousand talents as he is also a Civil War re-enactor and hosts open mic nights at a local bar. Even though he is a busy man, he always makes time for his friends and that’s why I say Todd The Fox is one hip cool cat to have as a friend! So let’s take a look at his top 5 picks.

#5

A series of children’s books based on the adventures of Leroy “Encyclopedia” Brown were released beginning in the 1960s. Brown is a boy detective Leroy Brown known for his intelligence and knowledge of many wide-ranging topics. This allows him to open a neighborhood detective agency and solve crimes for “25 cents per day, plus expenses – No case too small.” He is aided by partner and bodyguard Sally Kimball.

The mysteries range from finding lost items, helping other children outsmart bullies and con men, and even helping his father (the police chief of Idaville) solve crimes while at the dinner table. The books usually had ten or more mysteries divided into chapters. The stories always contained enough clues to allow the reader to solve the puzzle the same way Encyclopedia would. A graphic novel series could introduce a whole new level of sleuthing by adding visual cues to the various crimes.

#4

Released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990, “Time Lord” was a side scrolling action game. Set in the year 2999 Earth has been attacked by an alien race called the Drakkons. They have sent their armies to various historical time periods and you, the Time Lord, must travel back and defeat them using weapons of the time; also you must collect five power orbs to return to the future and defeat the Drakkon leader. Since the game features 4 different times in human history it would make a great four-part mini-series comic book.

#3

I always thought it would be interesting to follow the legends of various tribes and nations of Native Americans. If this was turned into a comic series we could use the artwork to tell the story. Powerful, vivid images with no dialogue would lend a certain sense of timelessness and power to the stories while allowing a stylistic interpretation.

#2

How cool would it be to see a comic that follows the early career of the man who creates all the gadgets that allows Comdr. Bond to survive and overcome the most extreme situations. The genius with the code name Quartermaster (or Q for short) heads up Q Division, but we never really knew much about his past. How cool would it be to have a graphic novel to flesh out his history?

#1

An interesting comic could be made from the details, stories, and tales surrounding legendary bluesman Blind Willie Johnson. Blinded by his mother at age 7 during an argument, Johnson went on to pioneer a style of music that influenced the blues, folk, and even rock ‘n roll. Artists such as Son House, Led Zeppelin, The White Stripes, Depeche Mode, and many others have covered his songs.

Although very influential Blind Willie remained poor his entire life. After his home burned down he had no place to go. He eventually died from a fever contracted by sleeping in what was left of his bedroom.

The story could even take a sci-fi turn since Blind Willie’s song “Dark was the Night” was included on the Voyager Golden Records, which were mounted on both of the Voyager I and II spacecraft. Currently they are just outside of our Solar System. That means his music is part of the farthest man-made object ever sent into space.

Brett Prescott aka Felix Wussington is a fellow Waynesville townie who happens to also now live on the street I grew up on! Brett as Felix plays punk rock horror pop and travels around spreading his music. Brett is a shopper at Game Swap and that’s how I met him because he has a love for classic gaming and loves himself some NES game carts…in the box complete. Brett also loves cartoon character Felix The Cat and works more hours at his job than any other human I know! So let’s take a quick look at his Top 5!

#5-1

There were an unlimited amount of things that I got myself into as a child, and if I had to sum it up to 5 things for some reason…… I’d probably have to start with the few things that I did every week.  Which was dig holes, play 8 bit Nintendo, watch a lot of media, take things apart, and drink a lot of soda.

 So, let’s say someone had asked me how I would have combined these amazingly fun things into one entity. Now to start, obviously, I’d have to figure up a character, that was all these things.

 So I know this guy named Rick that in his day to day life, you know, his 9-5 life. Rick is a grave digger, and in his spare time loves to fix old electronics and other types of manly things. All of his friends and family always call him when stuff doesn’t work. And, being such a swell guy, always comes through on fixing anything that’s broken. Lucky enough for everyone else, Rick never asks for anything in return.. because he loves doing it in the first place. People always ask him why he doesn’t just get out in the world and fix things for a living, you know… get out there and be a handyman! Well.. Rick is addicted to digging up the earth, and he found his profession already.

Now Rick himself hates coffee.. But he has an amazing need for different types of cola. You could say he is a Cola Savant. He loves them all, but goes to ridiculous lengths to import home brews and oddities from around the world. If it comes in a bottle or can, has a high sugar and caffeine count.. Rick is in. You might say.. without it.. Rick can get a bit on the “Hyde” side of life.

 But! What Rick doesn’t know, is that he also has the power of none other than Gumby Himself. And I know you are all thinking.. oh he is rubbery and claylike. WRONG! Rick will soon find out that he can travel into any sort of multimedia and live out the experience of a new character in the world.

So what worlds will this grave digging, cola-holic, media junkie get into?

 EVERYTHING AND EVERYWHERE.

Wow, is your mind in overload with all these ideas and missed opportunities from comic companies to cash in on what the youth of each generation would have loved to read ongoing issues about? I noticed that many of my friends and family picked Garbage Pail Kids and a few picked M.u.s.c.l.e, Metroid and Universal Monsters, making them the winners when it comes to impacting a childhood. I Also noticed that only one of my friends picked a same choice as me when Count Gregula selected The Rock-A-Fire Explosion, and while the same pick, we had different ideas on what the comic would have been about. I want to thank all my friends who took time to send me top 5 lists and would like to hear from you the readers: whose Top 5’s did you like and which ones mirrored your youth? Our next update we will be taking a look at Star Comics Defenders of The Universe! Until then. pick up a comic or two and enjoy whatever adventure awaits inside.

Beware the Inhumanoids!

Do you believe in monsters? How about the unknown and things that we do not and cannot understand? Well if you do, and you were a kid in the 80’s, then I am sure you loved the Inhumanoids, the giant monsters that were set free and want to destroy the Earth. That will be the Star Comic series we will take a look at in this update. One thing I have always been into is the unknown and cryptozoology. Ohio has its share of ghosts, ghouls and the unknown, but the one that has always made me chuckle and yet I am still totally fascinated with is the Loveland Frog. I am sure many of you don’t know the story of the Frog Man that was spotted in Loveland, Ohio so let me give you a brief rundown of the story before we get into the Inhumanoids.

In May 1955, a business man on his way home from work spotted some 3 foot tall frog-like men under a bridge. They had the features of a frog and had leather-like skin. One is said to have held up a metal rod that shot out sparks. Many years later on March 3^rd 1972, a policeman named Mark Matthews is said to have seen a 3 foot tall Frog Man on a bridge over the Little Miami River. The creature looked at him and as the officer pulled his gun and fired, the creature leapt over the guard railing and into the cold unforgiving water below. That same month a local farmer claimed to see the Frog Man riding a bike near his home. Then the case went cold and no other major sightings have since been reported, although some claim that in the early 80’s the Frog Man did show itself again and was chilling on a family’ front yard while they snapped pictures of the confused creature. What is the Frog Man; is he some unknown species? Is he an alien from another planet or could it even be a human that is so badly deformed that his facial features are twisted? Many, many years ago when I was a teenager, my friend Kevin and I drove to the bridge and hung around for awhile. Sadly we never did see the creature, but the feeling of waiting for the unknown was amazing. I remember that we went on a very cold December night and the sky was black and water below seemed so uncaring. But enough of the Loveland Frog, let’s talk Inhumanoids!

The Inhumonoids started in 1986 as both a cartoon and a toyline. My first major introduction to the characters was seeing the giant 14″ versions of D’Compose, Tendril and Metlar at Hills Department store and wishing that I could take these giant monsters home to fight with my Imperial Godzilla! Hills, much like Big Bear & Hearts, was an amazing place for me to get toys. They would stock the shelves full of all the newest action figures and would sell them at amazing prices. One of my alltime favorite toys came from Hills, my Marvel Secret Wars Captain America figure that I had all the way up to the age of 17. By then the paint had worn off and his shield was long missing. I gave the toy to my next door neighbor in hopes of winning brownie points with his hot blonde sister. I think it worked a little! But for those who don’t remember Hills toy department you are missing something special as they always had end caps with huge clear bubbles that had toys set up inside with giant play sets showcasing just what you could own if your parents would fork over the cash. It still makes for one of the best marketing ideas I have ever seen. Besides toys, Hills was also known for the free popcorn that they would give to their customers. Imagine walking into a store and smelling fresh popped popcorn and then someone handing you a bag for free – now that’s what I call customer service. Also Hills is where my brother and I would get our WWF shirts and is where I got many of my Ultimate Warrior t-shirts. Sadly in 1999, all the Hills stores closed though for my area it was sooner then that. But much like the now gone Big Bear, Hills will always be one of the coolest places to shop.

That was one thing about moving back to Kettering that made things a little easier was the fact that the girl who lived next door was (and still is) the amazing cute girl next door. When I moved from Waynesville, I still was very much hung up on that one girl I wanted to ask out, and even during the move and while starting a new school she was all I could think about, though given the fact I was a teenage boy that’s really no surprise. But while my dream girl was still on my mind, I meet Sarah, the super cute and sweetheart girl that was a few years younger then me that lived next door, and spent much time trying to get her attention from blaring loud music such as Billy Idol, Motley Crue and Guns N Roses from my bedroom window, to walking her to a friends house late at night to make sure she was safe. Sarah helped a lot at the time for I was a young man filled with rage who would start a fight at the drop of a dime, and she was the one person who kept me level headed and kept me out of trouble. Sarah was a big part of my teen years, and while I never did get a date, I did get a friend for life who I care about. So this is a big thank you to Sarah for being the person she is.

Onward to Inhumanoids! In 1986 Inhumonoids started out as mini 7-minute cartoons on a show called Super Sunday alongside Jem and the Holograms, Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines and a few other shows. The short episodes impressed kids and were then converted into a full 22 minute series. The series followed Earth Corps, a group of scientists, and a band of elemental monsters called the Mutores that teamed up to defeat Metlar and the other Inhumonoids who wished to bring the Earth down. You see, the Mutores banished the Inhumanoids deep into the Earth and now that they are free they are pissed off. The cartoon only lasted one season and had 13 episodes. Even with the short run, the series and toys gained a cult following. The cartoon series has never been put out in a full series in the USA on DVD, and the two DVDs we got were cheap ones from Rhino that are now out of print. I remember watching this show and loving when the monsters were on, but was always bored when the human Earth Corps were on.