I was still in media dive mode this morning after the debates when I caught this headline:
Now I know this headline is exactly what It says it was, but I hadn’t had my coffee yet. So for a whole five seconds I thought the article was about Baelor the Blessed locking his sister/wives in the Maidenvault.
I confess, while I think Robert Kirkman’s Walking Dead is a solid piece of work that deserves it’s place as one of the modern comic book classics, I’ve yet to get around to watching the A&E adaptation. However as a huge Monty Python I’ll listen to just about anything John Cleese tells me so I just had to share this:
Remember, Kids. Don’t look at the flowers!
With the current urban legend about clown sightings the thought of doing a monster clown isn’t quite as entertaining as I thought it would be… but the first thing you learn about sketch challenges is you don’t argue with the Tupperware.
Rather than make this guy truly monstrous I tried to go for just how a real party clown would be distorted by a five year olds perception… and then I gave him the teeth anyway.
Well for this week of the Halloween season I decided on embracing some of the old classics and and even older cliche with Universal Sudios’ Mummy films.
Our first fillm,The Mummy starring Boris Karloff was the one that I had been the most looking forward to see. Mostly because I had heard that besides the first couple of minutes it does not involve the usual shambling revenant wrapped in linen.
The story starts in an archeological dig in the mid twenties where the Mummy of Imhotep is discovered (knowing a little bit of ancient Egyptian I have serious problems with the name choice) . When the mummy is accidentally brought to life by the magical scroll of Thoth. It steals the scroll and walks out (driving the poor assistant who did it, mad.
Ten years later Imhotep reappears unwrapped unrecognizable as a local guide, Ardeth Bey, to show the archeologists the location of an undiscovered tomb. It turns out this is the tomb of Imhotep’s lost love, Anck-es-en-Amon (played by the lovely Zika Johann.) He had been buried alive for stealing the scroll of Thoth in order to bring her back to life. This is complicated by her being reincarnated as Helen Grosvenor. (Also played by Johan)
This was a nice fun film. I enjoyed Karlof getting to show off his action abilities. As far as the Universal horror franchises go I won’t call it one of the greats but I certainly enjoyed it.
A couple of years later Universal rebooted with a whole new mummy in The Mummy’s Hand. This time the mummy is Kharis, who is buried alive for stealing sacred Tana leaves. A plant that can be brewed into an elixir which can give the drinker mortality. His tomb is hidden and preserved by a secret and ancient conspiracy.
Centurys later evidence of the tomb are found by are dashing, heroic manly man Archeologist Steve Banning (played by Dick Foran) and his best friend and comic relief Babe Jenson (Wallace Ford) After being stonewalled the curator of the Cairo Museum Andoheb (who just happens to be the high priest of the conspiracy) The manage get funding from a traveling magician, and they go looking for the treasure, accompanied by the magician and his beautiful daughter who thinks they’re swindlers.
Naturally the Andoheb sics Kharis the Mummy on them.
Perhaps I’m guilty of looking at this movie with way too modern eyes, but this film was just dumb.(and bad enough I didn’t bother with the two sequels.) I kept pictureing Steve and Babe as a comic duo and wondering just what Abbot and Costello could add to the joke when they did their spoof of the genre a decade later.
The whole vibe was sexist, racist and patronizing (which I’m sure the creators had no problem with) and don’t get me started on the forrest we see the mummy lurching through in the middle of the desert!
Well for today the magic tupperware told me to draw one of the current stars of Japanese Urban Legends, the Jinmenken! AKA the Human Faced Dog. I knew next to nothing about these ones… other than people claiming they saw… or had a friend who saw them, but I’m up for a challenge
When I finally did this they didn’t come off, quite as creepy as I expected. Weird but not creepy.
Wow it’s day’s like this I regret not smoking because after pictures like this one I feel like I need a cigarette!
So today I got to do Edgar Allen Poe’s classic tale of human decadence and divine justice, The Mask of the Red Death!
This was fun… I probably took more time on this due to the size of the crowd… and despite my opinion on some of the choices Roger Corman made in his classic adaptation I couldn’t resist making Prince Prospero look just a little bit like Vincent Price.
I regret not having any place to put the clock.
And speaking of Vincent Price, enjoy his reading of the original story:
