A Turkish Monster

A long, long time ago, I used to draw stuff - constantly. Got three big cardboard boxes full of drawings here, as well as a couple of big folders full. Nothing fancy or gallery-worthy, just for the fun of it.

I miss it, I do! A couple of days ago I found myself in the back of a car on a fairly long journey, and I had a spiral-bound notebook and a pen to hand. So a bit of doodling commenced. This is what I did:

Started with the big mouth, then realised I should've done it landscape-wise if I was to continue with the slimy crocodile I first envisioned. So then I attempted to turn it into a pus-filled mutation of the Snapping Turk from Yellow Submarine, but couldn't be bothered with the legs or clothes, so slapped a spring underneath him. And gave him spikes instead of arms.

I'm happy enough with it, now it's just a case of pondering whether the "Doodle Bug" will continue? Or will that be it for another few years?

Some SPOOOOKY Adverts

Two of them!

Still got one of those Casper stickers, somewhere...

Also this thing from the Eagle, profiling the launch of some terrifying sweets:

Will that do? No? Okay, here's Keyhole Kate meeting Freddy Krueger:

All About Ghosts (everything you ever wanted to know about them but were too terrified to ask)

Ah, the Children's Britannica. Published just for schools in 1977, and designed to intrigue and terrify in equal measure. There's a lot of strange things out there in the world, and this series of books was there to tell you how to make sense of it all. In keeping with "the season", here's their guide to ghosts.

The book itself is possessed, just so you know. No matter what I did, the pages just wouldn't scan straight. Spoooooky!

Clean your teeth and suck blood like Dracula

Crivvens and help ma boab, it's October! Ideally I'd like to do what all the other blogs out there are doing - that is, 31 days of "spooky"-themed postings. But I've already missed the first of October, and I'm going away for thirteen days this month, so it's not like it's going to happen. The majority of the posts here have been vaguely (or completely) horror-based anyway, so that'd make up for it a bit.

While we're here though, here's something:

Say, that "free Horror book" looks familiar! Well, that's what I thought before diving over to the book shelf, and then pulled this out:

Well, the cover's sort of similar. Plus, it's by one of my most favourite men in pop-cultural history, Denis Gifford. So it's worth a look.

Sweet Dreams and Monsters

"A Beginner's Guide to Dreams and Nightmares and Things That Go Bump under the Bed" says the cover. An informative, educational and reassuring book about how and why we dream, but that's not the reason I was given this book many, many years ago - it was because it was filled with great monster pictures! Nicely written by Peter Mayle, and VERY nicely illustrated by Arthur Robins back in 1987. I won't be posting all of the text here, just the pictures. Of which there are many.

When Telly Was Good, Part 2

Friday night is telly night! Well, it USED to be anyway. Nostalgic waxing... The Simpsons, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Top of the Pops, 999, Strange But True, Red Dwarf blah blah blah etc. All good shows, most readily available. What you CAN'T get in DVD box-set form are those dedicated evenings that used to be broadcast occasionally. Lots of different things, most specially produced, with a common theme and shown over the entirity of a Friday night.

Last week we had Weird Night, and this week we've got... Monster Night!

Originally shown back in 1998, around the time of the release of that Godzilla film that no-one liked, it's a fun evening. There's a 40-minute documentary about Godzilla and his mates, a Lee & Herring sketch concerning the world's nine scariest monsters (with Carol Vorderman), and the whole thing's separated by three fat men (Bill Bailey, Phil Jupitus and Chris Moyles) and Jonathan Ross's brother placing bets on a few monster fights.

The whole thing's been uploaded to YouTube by various folk, and I've put it into a handy playlist form below. There's a big chunk at the end missing - namely the two films that were shown on the night. So instead I've stuck in the trailers for those films. A poor substitute, I know, but it's an effort. Enjoy!

Is it bad? Nah, It's Wicked!

In the space-age year of 1989, Marvel's UK arm decided to have a stab at DC Thomson's racket with a couple of strange comics. One of those shall be looked at right now, and the other at some other time. This is the first one, and it's wicked - It's Wicked!

Yep, that's Slimer from The Real Ghostbusters on the cover - Marvel already had a Ghostbusters comic out, so they must've thought it'd made sense to launch a new bunch of characters off the back of this ugly little spud. The big orange square is where the free tattoos were displayed - and as I don't have the tattoos to hand, we're left with a deceptively spartan cover! The font up there's an obvious Dandy rip-off, but we'll forgive them that much. The covers for the other two issues I have are less lonesome-looking than this one:

 We've got Slimer's hilarious attempt at body-building on this one...

And some advice to the youngsters about not hiding inside the mouths of lions on this one. Makes sense when you think about it.

Right, let's see what's inside them!

Sidney The Monster

Ah, Sidney The Monster! One of literature's greats. Written by David Wood, fantastically illustrated by Clive Scruton - this is one of my all-time favourites. And it's another one with new things to see on every read-through, which are always the best kind of books. This one even won an award! Says so on the back:

And what's good enough for Nottingham's kids is good enough for everyone, right? So let's read on...

When Telly Was Good, Part 1

A long, long time ago, before everyone had YouTube or 700 channels, there was only four channels to choose from for entertainment, education, information or whatever. Also, if you just stuck a camera in front of a celebrity and filmed them planning a wedding or something, that didn't count as a TV show. No, back then, EFFORT had to be made for television stuff. There was still guff, obviously, but a few times a year, whole "theme nights" would be given over to a particular theme.

In December of 1994, BBC2 showed this:

Weird Night, a whole evening's worth of brand new, specially-commissioned programming focusing on strangeness, alternately presented by Roger Corman and a giant talking baby's head. Beginning with a round-up of the year's strange news (narrated by Tom Conti), there was also a series of talking-head bits of people recounting odd incidents that had befell them, a documentary on America's last travelling freak show, an episode of The X-Files, a short film concerning urban legends, a panel discussion within the Ripley's Believe It Or Not! Museum in Blackpool (featuring Bob Rickard of Fortean Times, amongst other people), and then "weird movies" until dawn.

And here's one of the few good things about modern media - YouTube means that we can watch the GOOD TELLY, again! Some kind-hearted soul out there has uploaded Weird Night in its entirity (minus the X-Files episode and the "weird movies"). And through the magic of playlist-embedding, here's Weird Night, all three hours and ten minutes of it.

So go on, cook yourself a big shepherd's pie, grab an extra large mug of tea and a bag of Liquorice Allsorts and settle down for an evening's viewing of GOOD TELLY: