Late night a GO-GO!!

Just found out Cult Radio a Go GO is now playing a second repeat of the horror host block tonight/tomorrow morning - if you're a night owl, here's your chance to catch the fun!

The repeat starts at 10:30 pm pacific / 1:30 am Eastern
My show will therefore will be the first in that block!

Cult Radio a Go Go

My latest radio show is scheduled to play tomorrow on Cult Radio A Go Go - it's part of the horror host block of programming on Cult radio a go go. This is the 4th episode of my show, The Cure For The Common Corpse - here's the ad:

This episode is a special King Kong episode to commemorate
the 75th anniversary of the original movie.

Check it out tomorrow at 4:30 central,
then stick around for all the other hosts:

Count Gore DeVol at 5pm central,
Jebediah Buzzard at 5:30 central,
Dug Graves KDOA at 6:30 central,

THEN
at 7:30 - 10:30 it's CultRadioAGoGo LIVE with these guests:

Gilbert Gottfried and Rhonda Sheer
John Waters
Kathryn Leigh Scott
Rob Zombie!!

WOW!! GREAT Lineup. Click this art to enlarge and check out the details.

Scary Tales and the Barnum and Bailey Circus

This time around I'm posting another of the comic books I had as a kid. This is a rather interesting one, as I have three copies of it! The reason for the multiple copies is that I got them free at the circus. Every year the Barnum and Bailey circus would come to town, and sometimes they would hand out packets of comic books wrapped in plastic. If memory serves me - and this is close to thirty years ago now, so it's a bit hazy - these came wrapped in plastic three to a pack and they handed them to you at the door as you entered.

I must have grabbed multiple packs of these comics, probably scooping up discarded ones on my way out the door, and that's most likely how I wound up with three copies. Not sure exactly, but I definitely do remember that this was one of those circus comics. It's from Charlton Comics, and was published in 1981, which would have put me at 13 or 14 years old. Sounds about right

There are three stories here, and there are two hosts for this book. Neither introduces themselves, which is odd, they just introduce the stories. The first host is a blue skinned man with dark circles around his eyes and a purple jacket. We see him at the beginning and end of the first story.

The next is a woman with long red hair. She's the same woman who appears on the cover in a circle next to the Charlton logo. Again, no clue who these nameless hosts are. Guess it isn't important.

The book is even weirder as a circus freebie as all the stories involve Satanism or Satan himself. The most noteworthy name in the book is Mike Zeck, who draws the best and final story in the comic, Hades University. I always liked Zeck's work in Marvel superhero books, particularly Spiderman, and he's clearly the most talented of the bunch in this book, too.

Good ole Charlton comics - you gotta love em. They all have that same flat coloring on cheap newsprint. But they're fun to read nonetheless. Overall this ain't a great comic at all, and really not even a very good one, to be honest. The cover art is merely a blow up of a frame from the Zeck story! But it has memories for me and hey, I have three copies, so I guess I'm covered in case something happens to one of them, right!?

New layout - Comments enabled

The reason for the new layout here is that with the layout I was using I couldn't enable the comments section. I had to go back to a more basic version in order to get the comments link to show at the bottom of the posts.

I thought I'd try adding that feature for awhile, as some of the comments people have emailed me have been pretty interesting. Plus I always enjoy looking at the comments on other folks blogs, too, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

So if you ghouls and gals see something interesting, feel free to comment away - now you can!

Mad science gone madder!!

One of my summer interns decided to go into practice for herself - you see where it got her!

THIS is one I WISH I had - hilarious cover! Love it!

Black Magic

Here's another of the comics I had as a kid. It's a DC book from 1973. This one has stories reprinted from an earlier series of the same name. All the art is by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. The cover is a real knockout!

The stories are interesting in that they're a bit tamer than EC comics, and tend toward less gore and in some cases less supernatural and more naturally explained story lines. Such as the 3 pager "BIRTH AFTER DEATH" in this issue. The tag line says "The incredible true story of a man who was born five years after his mother died...", yet the twist is she was buried alive and awoke when grave robbers opened her coffin.

I read this quote on a webpage today: The accent was on mood not rotting corpses "It was too close to reality for me," Kirby commented, "I'd just gotten back from the war." (http://www.stevestiles.com/kirby2.htm)


Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the series:

Black Magic is the name of a fifty-issue horror anthology comic book series published by Prize Comics from 1950-1961. Its numbering continued for three more issues as the humor comic, Cool Cat.

DC Comics published a nine-issue series reprinting material from the earlier series by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. The new incarnation featured new covers with the same logo as the earlier issues of the Prize series and ran from 1973-1975. The reprint issues generally grouped the stories by theme; for example, all the stories in issue #1 dealt with intolerance toward human oddities, while all the stories in #4 were about death.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Fun stuff!!

New Horrofic Die-rection for this blog...

It's been awhile since I posted here, and I realize I'm waaay overdue. I don't know why, but I've just had little energy toward blogging over the past couple months. I found Tim Lucas' (Video Watchblog) recent blog on his own struggles with blogging to be very interesting. For me the bottom line is it takes time and energy, two things I just don't always have a lot of.

I've had an idea for this blog that I wanted to try but was going to wait until closer to Halloween to unveil. I thought I'd go ahead and do so here on Memorial day, however, as I just simply don't want to wait that long. I still will post updates on my show and what we're doing as newsworthy events come along, but this is something I'll find easier to update regularly.

What I plan to do is post a cover from a vintage horror comic each post. Now, you might ask what does this has to do with Dr. Gangrene? Well, more than you might think. Before I started hosting movies as the southern fried mad medico of Shackle Island, I was writing and drawing comics. Comic books were one of my first loves as a kid, and they really had more of an influence on me than any other media. I LOVED the horror comics, and still do, really. They influenced me more than Famous Monsters, or Fangoria, or any TV hosts. They were it for me.

SO, to start this off, I present the cover from one of the books I had as a kid, and in fact had several issues of, Crypt of Shadows. Below is the cover for issue #1

(click comic to see larger image)

Crypt of Shadows was a Marvel comic from 1973. It was one of the many EC inspired horror anthologies, but it didn't have a host. This debut issue featured four short stories. All of these were reprints from older horror anthologies... apparently Marvel had the publishing rights to art from Hercules publishing company and Atlas Magazine inc. material, and repackaged it as Crypt of Shadows.

All I knew as a kid was that these were horror stories, and they were on the rack in my Seven Eleven! I used to cut grass in the summers and save up my money, and would walk up to the local Seven Eleven store and spend it all on candy and comic books. Ah, those were the days! I loved the big giant sweet tarts and coke flavored icees best of all, and grabbed all the comics I could afford. I remember cutting seven yards one summer, mostly on the weekends, just so I'd have money to buy more comic books. AND best of all, I still have most of them. Including this one.

The artists in this one are Mort Lawrence, Basil Wolverton, Jay Scott Pike, and Russ Heath. Of them all, I especially like the Russ Heath story, The Scarecrow. It's about a skinny weakling man who finds a unique way to get the body he always wanted... but of course there is a price.

There always is!!

If you're interested in reading this comic online, the folks at BD comics online have posted this one in it's entirety. Download it and check it out, to see this creepy goodness for yourself.
http://rapidshare.de/files/13348857/Marvel_-_Crypt_of_Shadows__01.cbz

Trailer Park of Terror!!

I made it out to last night's showing of Trailer Park of Terror and had a blast. I definitely picked the right night to see this movie, as Director Steven Goldmann was on hand to do a Q&A with the audience after the film. Also in attendance were actors Myk Watford and country singer Trace Atkins, who has a part in this film, and music producer Alan Brewer, all of whom also took part in the Q&A.

I was very happy to see a legitimate horror movie in the Nashville Film Festival. Trailer Park of Terror is based on a comic book mini series of the same name. It's a fun storyline which, while slightly predictible, is still highly entertaining. The movie has a real rock n' roll vibe to it, which is likely a result of Goldmann's previous experience directing music videos. It's fast paced and has a great dark sense of humor throughout, which can be a tricky balancing act to pull off, but Goldmann pulls it off nicely.

**Warning - Spoilers ahead**

The character of Roach, played by actor Myk Watford, is one of the highlights of the movie. He's an undead rockabilly guitar slingin' flesh eatin' sonofabitch - a character you just gotta love!

Actually, I found all of the undead to be better fleshed out and developed than the human characters in this movie. Nichole Hiltz in particular really does a terrific job as Norma the trailer park queen. They're a fun bunch of ghouls. It was also neat seeing Trace Atkins in the movie, and he did a good job. He's a big guy in person - I am 6'5 and he's every bit as tall as me, and has about 30 pounds on me, too.

The makeup and special effects are top notch - really great gore effects in this film. I hope Trailer Park gets the attention it deserves as it's a really fun ride - why there's even a pair of horror hosts at the beginning of the film to kick things off southern style! The print we saw was a rough cut, as they had rushed to finish it for the festival circuit. There are still some effects and cgi work to be added. I look forward to seeing this again in it's completed form.

There's only one thing that would have made this better, and I almost asked Steven about this in the Q&A but decided not to. Everyone knows trailer parks are a magnet for tornadoes - if the park had been whisked away by an approaching supernatural twister at the end that would have been the perfect icing on this gory cake!

Trailer Park of Terror

Tomorrow night in Nashville they are showing Trailer Park of Terror as part of the Nashville Film Festival. I can't believe they accepted this one, but I ain't gonna miss it! Zombies in a redneck trailer park - hell yes! Here's the trailer:

the Doctor is in... again

Well I took a little unintentional hiatus from the blog here over the past few weeks, due mostly to a very busy personal life. This is what killed my blog last time around, too - it takes a high energy level and committment to do this daily, and sometimes life gets in the way despite our best intentions. My goggles are off to those of you who manage to do this regularly. I am going to try and get back to a somewhat regular schedule here again, if at all possible, though.

The weather is warming up now and I'm lovin' it! Nothing like sitting on the front porch with a cold beer or early morning cup of joe enjoying the sunshine. Good stuff. Warms my mad scientific heart.

The big news going on right now is the announcement of a new addition to the Creature Feature family. Our director, Cameron McCasland and his wife Jessica just had a new baby girl born earlier this week. Our congratulations and warmest wishes to the McCaslands. Very exciting!

Lone Wolf tattoo show

Nurse Moan-eek and I made an appearance at the Lone Wolf Body Art Full Moon Tattoo and Horror convention this past weekend. Had a great time, and met a ton of friendly fans, like the one in this photo, Twiggy. Thanks for sending the photo, Twiggy, and great meeting all the fine folks at the horror show. Was especially nice seeing Ken and Pam Kish and getting a chance to spend a bit more time than usual talking. Looking forward to Wonderfest now!!

Midnight Syndicate's The Rage

I finally got the chance to sit and listen to the soundtrack for a new independent horror film called The Rage. This soundtrack was scored by Midnight Syndicate, who have been making horror soundtracks for the past 11 years. The Rage is an independent film produced by Precinct 13 Entertainment starring Andrew Divoff, from the TV show Lost. It is a classic mad scientist tale complete with Franksteinien creature that runs amok, causing havok for his creator (as all good monsters should). It is distributed by Screen Media Films and Universal Home Entertainment.

This is the first actual movie soundtrack that Midnight Syndicate has scored, and it really has a different feel from previous Midnight Syndicate work. Their previous releases were a collection of individual songs all based around a central theme. This time, however, the music was written specifically to follow the action on the screen. That isn't to say it's any less enjoyable... matter of fact, it is every bit as atmospheric, dark and suspensful as previous Midnight Syndicate releases.


I haven't seen the Rage yet, but the soundtrack is really first rate. If the production values of the film are up to par with this soundtrack this will be one to see. Midnight Syndicate should have a successful soundtrack future ahead of them, as they're a natural to score horror movies.

Frank Dietz draws the Doc!

This year is the second consecutive win for my buddy Frank Dietz as Artist of the Year in the Rondo Awards! I'd like to congratulate Frank, and thought this the perfect time to share a drawing of myself that Frank did and presented to me as a surprise gift at Wonderfest 2007. He and Nurse Moan-eek gave it to me during the Monster on the Campus live show. As usual, Frank did a terrific job with this piece. Thanks again Frank - you're the best!!