Today’s sketch almost felt like a cheat. When I pulled Black Dog from the Halloween drawing box my immediate reaction was: “But I did a canid on Monday!” And started to obsess about how to make it different from that drawing. But in this case the solution of how to do it was simple: a black silhouette with glowing eyes which was simplicity itself. In fact thinking about this it’s easy to see how this legend became widespread. On a foggy night on the moors with the right lighting anything larger than a terrier would look frightening.
In the end the only thing remotely difficult in this sketch was getting good fog effects with a pencil.
The topic for this week’s halloween feature is one of my favorite monsters, the Werewolf.
The first on my list, Hammer film”s Curse of the Werewolf directed by Terence Fisher starring Oliver Reed, is one I’d been curious about for years. First because it’s based on one of the closest thing to a classic in Werewolf literiture, The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore also as a fan of folklore I was drawn to a werewolf film that didn’t rely on all of the usual Hollywood cliches.
Regrettably while it’s may be a classic of the genre it is far from being a masterpiece. The story is hackneyed, acting mediocre and while the monster makeup looks great in stills in the movie itself there is something sadly lacking about it. The only good thing about it was Reed’s performance. He has an incredible intensity that goes back and fourth between looking like he’s trying to keep the horror in and being nearly mad with guilt
The movie starts off as a big budget high production of the original (which always felt like a filmed play to me.) but in the second act starts to diverge radically with Lawrence Talbot captured and taken to an assylum in London where he inevitably runs ammuck… other changes occur until in the end it is something very different.
I had heard that the screenplay had borrowed quite a bit from Endure’s novel so I had thought that the two movies would make for a good double feature. As I viewed it I found other similarities as well including focussing on relationships between father and son and doomed romances. Another factor about it was Del Toro has quite a passing resemblance to the young Oliver Reed.
I wanted to like it so much. It had some good performances, excellent effects and spectacular sets but ultimately my reaction was “meh” But still it is probably one of the best Werewolf films out there which, regrettably at this point isn’t that much of a compliment.
For today’s sketch we have an old favorite from the genius of Charles Schultz, The Great Pumpkin! When I first envisioned the Great Pumpkin I pictured some sort of shrouded wraith with a glowing jack-o-lantern for a face… but in trying to think of an original approach it occurred to me that something like that would be worthy of a scripture quoting idealist like Linus. So instead I decided to go for a truly great pumpkin risen above it’s peers to reward a young boy for his faith.
Regrettably I think I used all of the good stuff last year, but I’ll try to find some material to keep the mood going.
So let’s start things off with Toccatta in Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach. I’m pretty sure Bach would not have approved of this being considered halloween music but it seems to be the first thing that comes to the mind of every raving madman or vampire as soon as they get access to a pipe organ, and it certainly sets the mood.
I was tempted to go with the Fantasia version but I figured that was a little too colorful for the the season. So here it is performed by Rolf Uusvaly from 1972 in Riga
Okay I knew I would have to get to this one sooner or later… today my Halloween instructions were to draw a Werewolf (there wolf! Sorry.) I’m coming to dislike these more “traditional monsters” not because they’re too easy (When trying to knock off the daily requirement in under a half hour I like easy!) It’s just a case of trying not to do all of the things that every one does. Since I’ve been watching a lot of the “classics” right now I automatically tried to avoid the furry fanged people that are featured in those movies and conversely I’ve been trying to avoid to avoid the furry, frequently digitigrade humanoids with wolves’ heads that are all the rage in a most of the current versions.
For today’s version I went with a more medieval approach with something that was mostly a wolf but with enough human features that it would have to be really dark to mistake it for a real wolf.
Today’s admittedly late sketch (it’s Sunday. Give me a break.) is of one of the stars of Irish folklore, the Banshee! To keep things interesting I did the Scottish version, the Bean Nighe, washing the blood stained shroud of the nearly departed.
