Category: Horror

Dracula by Roy Thomas and Mike Mignola Rises Again!

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Most folks know Mike Mignola as the creator of Hellboy.  Because of Hellboy’s success and Mignola’s popularity, many if not most of his previous stories have been collected and reprinted over the years.  One that never got that treatment was the adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that Mignola created with writer Roy Thomas.

Until now.

On September 18th, Bram Stoker’s Dracula adapted by Roy Thomas and Mike Mignola will become available once again!

The comics adaptation created by Mike Mignola and based on the film from Columbia Pictures (Sony) and Zoetrope Studios returns to print after a decades-long absence.

Mike Mignola is one of the most popular comic book artists of the past thirty years, known for such important works as Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, Cosmic Odyssey, and, of course, Hellboy. Considered to be among Mignola’s greatest works, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was his last project before Hellboy launched and was originally released as a full-color four issue adaptation of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 movie released by Columbia Pictures (Sony). Unavailable for nearly 25 years, and collected here in gorgeous black and white, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a book fans have long been clamoring for… and the wait is finally over.

I’m looking forward to Bram Stoker’s Dracula by Thomas and Mignola especially because it’s being released in black and white!

Midnight Mystery by Bernie Gonzalez

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Midnight Mystery is a four issue mini-series that looks to appeal to a lot of folks.  Written and illustrated by Bernie Gonzalez, Midnight Mystery…

… is a suspense/horror comic book series that follows the strange adventures of detective Ezekiel “Zeke” King.   It’s a mix of Supernatural, X-Files, and film noir movies told in the style of Batman: The Animated Series and Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier.

That’s enough to get me on board.  But if you want more info, in the first four issue mini-series…

Zeke King’s latest case goes from freaky to fatal when he’s hired to find the lost son of a deceased horror host! The mystery begins in this new supernatural horror series!

Still need more?  Click over to Midnight Mystery and you can sign up for the newsletter, see preview art and more.  I can’t wait for this one!

10 Colorful Facts About “The Munsters”

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Me-TV presents 10 Colorful Facts About The Munsters.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. The idea dates back to 1943.
The idea for a family of comedic Universal monsters dates back to the heyday of Universal monster pictures. In the early 1940s, the studio was still flying high off its monster franchises. It had recently launched The Wolf Man and The Phantom of the Opera. Lon Cheney Jr. was shambling along in The Ghost of Frankenstein. In 1943, Bob Clampett, an animator who worked on Looney Tunes cartoons, pitched the idea of a funny Monster family to Universal. After a couple years developing the concept, nothing came of it for two decades. Even in the 1960s, as interest picked back up, some at the studio believed it should be a cartoon.

8. The original Marilyn quit acting after 13 episodes — and a third Marilyn was used in the movie.
No Munster family member changed like Marilyn, Lily’s niece. Initially, Beverley Owen (pictured here) filled the role. Midway through season one, Owen quit the business entirely, to get married and focus on her family. She would later earn a masters degree in Early American History. Pat Priest popularized the role of Marilyn thereafter on the show. However, Universal recast the character for Munster, Go Home! The studio inserted Debbie Watson — 12 years younger — into the role, in hope of building the contracted starlet’s career.

9. The Drag-U-La was made with an illegally purchased coffin.
Reportedly, according to legend, a real coffin was used to make the awesome DRAG-U-LA hot rod seen in Munster, Go Home! The only catch that it was supposedly illegal to purchase a coffin without a death certificate in the state of California at the time. Richard “Korky” Korkes, the man who built the dragster, claimed he passed money under the table to a funeral home in North Hollywood, who left a coffin for him outside the back door.

 

Jonathan Maberry Going Down George A. Romero’s “Road of the Dead”

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Remember last year when George Romero announced his next zombie film, George Romero Presents Road of the Dead?  While I was glad Romero was taking part in a new addition to his zombie films, I wasn’t thrilled with the concept which to me sounded like Death Race 2000 meets Dawn of the Dead.

Then in July of last year, Romero gave an interview talking up George Romero Presents Road of the Dead and more.  Sadly, three days later he died.

Today at Comic-Con, IDW announced that Jonathan Maberry will write a 3 issue mini-series based on Romero’s Road of the Dead.  Maberry is the perfect choice for this project having worked with Romero on Nights of the Living Dead anthology last year.  That and the fact that Maberry is a fantastic writer.

In addition to Maberry writing the series, I was pleased to see that my pal, Drew Moss will be providing covers and interior art!

Source: Bleeding Cool.

 

10 Facts About Steven Spielberg’s “Duel”

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Sean Hutchinson and Mental Floss present 10 Facts About Steven Spielberg’s Duel.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. THE MOVIE WAS INSPIRED BY A REAL-LIFE INCIDENT.
Author and screenwriter Richard Matheson based his original novella, which first appeared in the April 1971 issue of Playboy, on an actual road rage incident. Matheson had played a round of golf on November 22, 1963, the same day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. On his car ride home, and in a daze after receiving the terrible news, he was ruthlessly tailgated by a truck driver.

Matheson initially pitched the idea to TV producers but, after it was rejected numerous times, he decided to put his real-life incident into prose form. In order to gather details of the open road, Matheson set out from his home in Ventura, California with a voice recorder in hand and simply described what he saw. Those descriptions of the desolate landscape ended up in the novella.

3. DENNIS WEAVER’S WORK WITH ORSON WELLES GOT HIM THE LEAD IN DUEL.

For the lowly protagonist, David Mann, Spielberg hand-picked character actor Dennis Weaver because he loved his performance as the jittery and feeble hotel night manager in Orson Welles’s 1958 film Touch of Evil.

Weaver drove more than 2000 miles while shooting his scenes, and did many of the stunts himself, including the dangerous phone booth scene at the “Snakerama” gas station in a single take.

Of working with the rookie director, the veteran Weaver later said, “I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I said, ‘There’s no reason for me to judge him because of his age. Let’s see what he does.’ And he did extremely well … I really think it’s one of the most creative jobs he’s ever done.”

10. SPIELBERG HAS REVISITED DUEL MORE THAN ONCE—AND PEOPLE HAVE STOLEN FROM HIM, TOO.
Duel was something of lucky charm once Spielberg’s career began to take off, and he’d continually reference parts of the movie in subsequent films.

The Snakerama gas station seen in the film also appears in Spielberg’s 1979 World War II comedy, 1941, with actress Lucille Benson again appearing as the proprietor. The two elderly people Weaver tries to flag down in a car also appear as helpless motorists in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

But it wasn’t all good luck. Spielberg was not happy when stock footage of both vehicles was later used in an episode of the television series The Incredible Hulk, titled “Never Give a Trucker an Even Break.” The recycled footage was completely legal since the show was also produced by Universal