Next 2 PSAs

Here are the next 2 PSAs that we put together - they are slated to start airing this following Monday, the 16th!

PSA press release

Here's the press release New Valiant sent out about the PSAs:


New Valiant Goes Green With Dr. Gangrene

For immediate release:

Nashville Filmmakers Fight Littering With Mad Science

Nashville, TN (06.06.08) New Valiant Production's Filmmakers Michael Creason and Cameron McCasland have teamed up with Dr. Gangrene and Nurse Moan-Eek from WNAB Nashville's CW 58 Creature Feature to produce several Earth friendly Public Service Announcements that will begin airing later this month under the campaign "Go Green With Dr. Gangrene".

Larry Underwood who portrays the Mad Scientist Dr Gangrene stated, "It's important that we take care of our city and our environment. Even little things can add up to a big difference if we all take part. The "Go Green with Dr. Gangrene" Campaign is our effort to help promote environmental and safety tips. If everyone works together we can have a safer, cleaner city for everyone to enjoy."

New Valiant Productions plan to premiere the series of newly completed shorts (produced by Michael Creason and directed by Cameron McCasland) on Creature Feature's home station WNAB Nashville CW 58 as well as on the web through their official web page www.newvaliant.com on the New Valiant Myspace page, www.myspace.com/newvaliant and Youtube channel www.youtubecom/newvaliantprod .

When asked about what brought this project together director Cameron McCasland stated, "This is our attempt to think globally and act locally. I think most people know they should be doing something to help make a cleaner planet, but have no clue where to start. As filmmakers, we wanted to provide information to viewers, while being entertaining. We tried to blend both the horror and comedy themes that Dr. Gangrene and Nurse Moan-Eek are known for while educating people on simple tasks that are good for the planet as a whole. The Creature Feature crew was responsive to our ideas for Going Green With Dr. Gangrene and it was a lot of fun using a zombie apocalypse as a metaphor for saving the planet."

The initial rollout includes three shorts titled "Bonehead" which tells the importance of safety belts. "Two Lane Trash Stop" that explains the dangers of highway litter. And "Trash Day Of The Dead" a tongue in cheek commentary on the evils of litter, set in downtown Nashville, TN. All three were produced locally in Nashville by Michael Creason, and directed by Cameron McCasland. They follow Dr. Gangrene (Larry Underwood) and Nurse Moan-Eek (portrayed by Linda Wylie) as they remind us to pick up our litter, as well as buckling up for safety. Later this month a new website www.gogreencrusade.com will launch with tips from the good doctor on how to stay safe and help protect the planet. And more short subjects will follow in coming months.

Producer Michael Creason had this to say about the classic cinema perspective spun with the new shorts. "With the ever growing emphasis on a global movement, we at New Valiant hope to do our part by capturing the attention of the people and families of middle Tennessee with a classic theme on a very contemporary concept. I think our Public Service Announcements relay the messages of safety and "Going Green" to a broad spectrum with some comedic relief. If people get the message and it sticks with them, then we have done our job. Everyone who worked on this project has a great sense of accomplishment and I am proud to be a part of it."

In a world where even Mad Scientist do their part to save the planet, we may have finally turned the corner for a better tomorrow for everyone. New Valiant Productions and Dr. Gangrene invites you to "Go Green With Dr. Gangrene" visit them on the web at: www.newvaliant.com www.drgangrene.com and the newly launched www.gogreencrusade.com

About Dr. Gangrene, Nurse Moan-Eek, and Creature Feature
Dr Gangrene, Physician of Fright, has haunted the scarewaves since 1999. Together with his faithful assistant Nurse Moan-Eek he continues to provide chills throughout Middle Tennessee. Creature Feature is set to broadcast new episodes in September of 2008 on WNAB CW 58 Nashville, TN. For more information visit www.drgangrene.com

About Cameron McCasland, and Michael Creason
McCasland and Creason are Nashville based filmmakers who work under the banner of New Valiant Productions. Their last collaboration "Fashionable: A Music Video For Quiet Company" won the "Best Music Video" category at both this years Crossroads Film Festival in Jackson, MS and Fearless Film Festival in Ft. Worth TX, as well as the "Silver Remi Award" at the Worldfest International Film Festival in Houston, TX.

New Valiant Productions is based in Nashville, TN and is owned and operated by Michael Creason & Cameron McCasland. For more information go to www.newvaliant.com

PSAs online now

We shot a series of PSAs a while back, and the folks at New Valiant have done a fine job putting these together. Here's the first of the psas now for your enjoyment:

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!