I’m really pleased how today’s prompt, “Franken Friday” turned out. I got an early start on it and the initial sketch flowed really well. If it wasn’t for a comedy of errors regarding the pen I’ve been using for this challenge and having to go replace it I would have finished it about an hour earlier than previous efforts.
At risk of starting one of those clashes of pedants, to me, Frankenstein is the doctor end of story. So when I have to do Frankenstein the doctor has to be there. (Not that I don’t enjoy drawing the creature as well. While there are obviously other great Frankensteins, for me it’s a toss-up between Colin Clive and Peter Cushing. While with Clive’s performance, I keep finding myself wanting to slap his doctor upside the head, I still find myself leaning towards his well-meaning doofus Frankenstein, rather than Cushing’s hubristic villain. In a way, Clive’s Frankenstein is one of the only “good” mad scientists in media.
Despite that I find myself using Cushing’s Frankenstein as a model for my version of Dr. Pretorious. Thanks, to James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein and to a lesser extent, Cartoon Network’s Mary Shelly’s Frankenhole I’m finding the Doctor as important to the myth of Frankenstein as Igor. In the version I’m imagining right now, Pretorious is Frankenstein’s lab manager who both supports and enables him. He’s far more amoral than his boss, but at the same time, while more grounded lacks Frankenstein’s inspired mad brilliance… I think I’m going to play with this train of thought more.)
I was not looking for to today’s prompt, “I know a Sarcophoguy”. Mainly because ever seeing the Mummy’s Hand, I’ve been sick to death of gauze wrapped, shambling revenants. The problem is when you’re doing these quick sketches there’s really no other options. Still, I keep trying to come up with better ways to deal with that limitation.
For this week batch of vampire films for Halloween, I went back to what I was trying to do last week with arty foreign vampire films. To sweeten the pot just a little bit I added “ones with a slight science fiction angle about them” to my description.
The first film on my list, from Mexico, was Guillermo Del Toro’s Cronos. This tells the story of a mysterious alchemical clockwork device, that looks a bit like a golden beetle that is believed to hold the key to immortality. It found inside a wooden statue by an aging antique dealer Jesus Gris played by Federico Luppi .To his shock, he discovers that the device has spikes and once it latches onto someone, it injects its victim with a mysterious solution. Soon Jesus finds himself growing younger and healthier. The downside is he finds himself developing a thirst for blood. To make matters worse others are after the Cronos device and they’ve sent their personal thug, Angel, played by Ron Perlman to get it.
This was fun. I’ve always enjoyed Del Toro films because of his use of medieval imagery as well as his love genre that turns the most ridiculous ideas into fine art. I hadn’t seen any o his traditional horror films, even though I’d heard good things. Cronos is his first feature film and while it’s very good, still comes off as a journeyman piece to me… though not in a bad way.
The next on my list from Korea, Thirst, tells the story of a Catholic priest Shin Sang-Hyun (played by Song Kang-ho) who volunteers for an experiment to find a cure for a deadly blood disease. It fails but Sang-Hyun is somehow the only survivor of all of the patients. In the process is transformed into a vampire. He tries to get access to blood without killing anyone but his need grows. In the meantime finds himself hounded by people who believe he is a saint because of his survival. Among them are Kang-woo (Shin Ha-kyun) an old childhood friend, his mother the domineering Lady Ra (Kim Hae-sook) and his wife Tae-Ju (Kim Ok-bin). Sang finds himself drawn to Tae-Ju and the feeling is mutual.
When I’ first heard of the Thirst. All I knew about it was that it was a Korean Vampire film. When I discovered that it was by my favorite Korean director, Park Chan-wook.. I couldn’t wait to watch it.
Regrettably expecting another Oldboy effected my enjoyment. Still, it held up fairly well going back and forth between drama, humor and of course, horror.
Day Twenty-Five’s prompt, “Do as I say not as I Voodoo, had me scratching my head. For the usual reasons, I was having trouble thinking of ways to do do a voodoo image that said voodoo. The biggest problem is, to the casual observer, the voodoo zombie is indistinguishable from Hollywood zombies, and I’d already done them. I had an idea for a Voodoo Lady conducting a ritual in the swamp, but she would have been too similar to the two witch images on this list.
I eventually went with having two Loa, Baron Samedi, and Maman Brigitte watching zombies walk up a dirt road. I decided to focus on Maman Brigitte because I didn’t trust myself to turn Baron Samedi into a one-man minstrel show.
Having said that I’m really pleased how this one turned out.
The “real” Ariane is still providing footnotes with her side of the story. Here she tells us how she and Brian got to the party before the events of this strip. With Brian’s driving, it’s a miracle the cops didn’t notice.
