Archive for the ‘Horror News’ Category

Nasty Horror began about a year ago. At which time I invisioned having the coolest horror blog ever with tons of comics stuff. That didn’t happen.

The only real things here were reviews of  Dark Horse’s Creepy Magazine (Creepy, issue #2), and  the most recent Roman Dirge’s original Lenore. That’s not very much.

In reviewing the blog I noticed that I tend to write long posts.  Many of my posts are 1000 to 2500 words long. This made it both hard  for me to write them quickly, and  difficult for people to trudge through them. This prevented me from writing the coolest latest breaking news, simply because I either couldn’t figure out how to stretch it out to 2000 words, or I resisted starting a post realizing how long it would take.

The Day It Changed

How could I write detailed, humorous and informative stuff, and still be able to update the blog frequently? After much kvetching and tap-dancing, I had a revelation. The answer was obvious.  I am changing the format of the Nasty.  I am splitting my horror coverage into two different entities. One will have complete articles and the other, short but powerful nuggets.

The short news flashes and such will be right here.  The longer stuff (the specials) will only be in the newsletter.  It is called the Nasty Horror Newsletter. (I paid an ad guy a lot of money to think that one up) Only people who sign up for it will get it.

I will be posting a link to sign up and a more detailed description, once the first issue is finished.  In the mean time just enjoy the new format of the blog and never pet your cat from the tail forward.  It really pisses them off. (Unless they’re Persians.  It’s near impossible to annoy a Persian.)

Come back soon, because the posts will be much more frequent now.

PS – After looking around at many other horror comic sites, I have taken a solemn vow to never refer to my readers as “kiddies”. I intended it as an homage to Stephen King’s Creepshow.  But I have since noticed that everyone does it.   So I will think of  something else.   I’m a writer.  That’s what I do.

As is my tradition I shall list them in reverse scariness order.

10 Monster Mash–This classic of holiday airplay is probably known to everyone in ear shot of this blog.  I haven’t much to say about it.  It isn’t really scary though.

9 Wildfire-What the fuck is wrong with these people?  Did the horse run away?  Was it taken up by demons? Did the singers girlfriend run off with it? Or was this guy fucking this animal?  Perhaps this was the love theme from Equus.  I mean, WTF!?

8 Honey–A Creepy little Bobby Goldsboro number about a dead girlfriend.  It is just weird.  He is singing so happily about how he avoided killing her through all the stupid shit she did, so that nature could take it’s course.

7 Billy Don’t Be A Hero–This one fell at the tale end of the “my lover died horribly” genre.  It was lame with a capitol B.  And had the most irritating last line of any song ever.  “I heard she threw the letter away”  OMG! How could she do that?  It should have been, I heard she used the letter in her parrots cage.  Or I heard she wiped her ass with the letter.  OR I heard she couldn’t take it anymore and hanged herself with the flag that came with it.

6 D.O.A.–The name of the band was Bloodrock.  The song came out sometime around 1970.  It received much airplay and was quite popular.  I am not making this up.  This song was literally the last dying thoughts of a man laying in an ambulance beside his dead girlfriend and describing the accident he just was in and the fact that his arm was ripped off in it.  Nuff said.

5 Angie Baby–I would love to say that when this slimy Helen Reddy hit came out it gave me nightmares.  But it didn’t.  In fact I bought it. I am ashamed and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

4 The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia–What were they thinking? How did this ever become a hit?  I probably bought this one too, but I am not proud of it.

3 Goodbye Earl–It’s a Dixie Chick song.  I noticed it mostly because Dennis Franze is in the video.  Once you get past that, the main concept of this song is that this woman’s husband is an asshole and she kills him and no one cares.  Pretty horrible I would say.  What kind of message are we sending to our youth?

2 Dark Lady–One of the first of Cher’s break-away hits.  It involves fortune telling and murder.  It is unclear what part of the lady is dark, but you can bet it must be a very spooky part.

1 I almost dare not type the title, but the number one scariest song ever to actually be played on American radio is (was) Elusive Butterfly by Bob Lynde!  There I said it and I feel better.  This song really did give me nightmares.  It is a shitload of metaphors that are supposed to be comparing love to an elusive butterfly (get it?).  But you tell that to a six year old who hears lines like:

You might wake up some mornin’
To the sound of something moving past your window in the wind
And if you’re quick enough to rise
You’ll catch a fleeting glimpse of someone’s fading shadow

Jesus Christ!  and it gets better…

You might have seen me runnin’
Through the long-abandoned ruins of the dreams you left behind
If you remember something there
That glided past you followed close by heavy breathin’

Mommy!  Mooooommm!!!! Make it stop!  Wish it into the cornfield.  Is it to early for me to start drinking? When I was six I had never heard of stalking, but I knew evil when I heard it on the radio.

And the ultimate scariest line ever (it really did give me nightmares)
Out on the new horizon
You may see the floating motion of a distant pair of wings

Yes, Billy!  It’s the angel of death coming to rip your terrified young  soul out through your asshole while you’re sleeping!  Goodnight.

Well that’s it for today Kids. Come back next time when I might actually be writing about comics.

PS-I did not see the squirrel today.  It may read my blog.

PPS-Which could explain my lack of comments, because squirrels do not leave comments. It’s a religious thing with them.  Yes.  I think it’s silly too, but don’t try to argue with one of the little gray zealots, or before you know it, you will find all your nuts gone and you’ll be covered in squirrel pee.

Welcome back kiddies. Can you remember all the way back to the second or third article in this series, where I told you that when I got to the second last story. You have to remind me about something? Well this is it. This is the second last story. It’s also my second last article. The Horse at this point has been reduced almost to the point of a puddle. But I do have to get the last couple whacks in.

Then, I can finally get on to some more very interesting comic books that I found recently. The story I’m talking about today, is titled Loathsome Lore “Faustian deals”. It basically is a rambling narrative, which speculates about certain celebrities having been in league with the devil.

It’s interesting comic books stuff. The story is credited as “Haufner, Braun, and Gore. And the art is by Hilary Barta. As I said in a previous article, much of the writing in this particular piece seems to have been lifted from a 1974 issue of Hustler magazine. (That was the one in which they had the article, about Anton Szandor LaVey).

Now I have to complain about an editorial decision made in the magazine. As I said before, I had never heard of Robert Johnson before the story Hell Hound Blues. I naturally thought it was just made up for the story. That story was the second story in the magazine, Faustian deals was the second last. But in it it referenced the deal that Robert Johnson made with the devil.

I believe these two stories should have been switched in position, for two reasons. The first is that it would’ve allowed Loathsome Lore to introduce the concept of Robert Johnson’s deal with the devil before it was used in a story.

The second and possibly more important reason to switch these two stories is that Hell Hound Blues is the best story in the magazine. It should have been second last. Well, actually, it should’ve been last. But second last still would’ve been better.

As for the writing of this particular tale. It seems interesting enough. It is not however a story. I like it. But it really is not a story. The artwork is its saving grace and is unquestionably the best artwork in the entire magazine (not including the frontispiece by Bernie Wrightson).

Hallelujah! Although I’m not quite finished with this horse, yet. I feel are renewed vigor. I’m into the home stretch. There is only one more story to talk about and that one’s going to be pretty easy, because it’s a reprint. Yes kiddies, they didn’t even bother closing with something new.

The tale in question, Daddy And The Pie will have to wait for the next post. Only then will I be able to inflict the final whack.

Be careful driving home, and remember – time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.

I am still doing the ongoing review of Dark Horse’s Creepy issue #1. This is day 5. Today I will be talking about All The Help You need. It is one of the good stories so I don’t need to say much about it.

You may be wondering about the image accompanying this post. It is from the story under discussion. But it is not colored in the magazine. In looking over my last few posts I noticed that all the images have been gray scale. That’s what the book is. But on the blog it gets monotonous (snicker). So I figured screw it, and colored the picture myself. Further down the post you can see a different example that I left alone.

The author of this story is Neil Kleid. He has won awards for being awesome. And in this story he did not disappoint. It’s a great story. He’s a good writer, and if you look him up on Google you can find a lot of his earlier works. I will be seeking more of his stuff.

The other guy is obviously a good illustrator, which you can tell just by looking at this story, but what a lot of people don’t know is that he did not originally start out to be an artist.

Just after the war…

Brian was born in 1953 just after the United States lifted the ban on selling rubber. This was fortunate for his family, because his father had been a freelance rubber salesman before the war.  Since the United States entry into WWII his dad was forced into alternative lines of work such as going door to door and begging for dust. Also, after spending his last money on a mail-order trade school, his father tried his hand at fish grooming, but was unable to get the necessary equipment because of all the fish clippers being sent to troops fighting in the south Pacific.

By the time Brian was 6, his father was back on top of the rubber game. With his father often gone for weeks on end and his mother too drunk to stop him, Brian took a great interest in tap dancing and the making of unusual noises using only his hands.

He graduated from the East Albert High School with a full tap-dancing scholarship. He then attended New Smithville University where he found himself unable to keep up with the demands of college English.

Although a brilliant tap-dancer, he lost is scholarship his second year due to the English Professor being an “asswipe”. In later interviews Brian referred to that Professor as “the cocksucker [who] had it in for me”.

Dazed, and still a little hung-over, he was wandering from door to door trying to find his girlfriend’s apartment when he noticed a circus recruitment poster in the local drugstore window.

The following morning he enlisted in Barnum & Bailey’s and became Willy the Tap-Dancing Clown.

Unfortunately for Willy, tap shoes don’t work on sawdust. After an agonizing three weeks of stomping almost to the point of exhaustion, just to try to make a sound, he was forced to juggle.

Again his natural talents came to his aid. Although two dead weasels in a burning wet sack could juggle better then he, the strange noises emanating from his hands whenever he managed to actually catch a ball made him a crowd favorite. After only 8 short months on the road he was promoted to King of the Circus and given a hand wash and wax, as was the custom.

By the late 60s the lesser circuses had all but shut down and even his was feeling the pinch from lack of public interest. Then if the failing circus wasn’t enough, he got caught up in an elephant molestation scandal.

A woman that he had fired several months earlier, accused him publicly of fondling the elephants. He denied the allegations, but by the time he was cleared of all charges the circus was unrecoverable.

He hanged himself in his own studio a year later.

His younger brother, Ned, found him still alive. He cut him down and called an ambulance. The doctor on call said that had Ned arrived a few days later, or had Brian hanged himself by the neck, rather than the nut-sack, he would have died.

Brian was placed into an asylum after that, where he remains to this day.

Wait…

That was Brian Chinchilla. The guy who drew this was Brian Churilla. Nevermind.

Point is I don’t need to write anything about this story. It’s great and both the people involved are very talented guys.

Look at the artwork, then go buy the book. I have two more stories to review and they are both good.

Tune in tomorrow kids for Loathsome Lore: Faustian Deals.

Is that brimstone I smell?

No.

I had eggs and beer last night.

Howdy folks. Welcome to day three of the let’s-beat-Creepy-to-death marathon. Those of you with exceptional observational skills Might have noticed that this is actually day 5. It’s supposed to be 3 but sometimes things interfere with my ability to write. (Like not really wanting to.)

It’s kind of amazing how many ideas seem to be good at the time we have them, but once we have to keep doing them for a while they loose there initial charm.

Well let’s get to it. Today I shall ream Hell Hound Blues.

Just kidding! This story was wonderful. It was written by Dan Braun and illustrated by Angelo Torres. I was not able to find out much about Dan. He seems to have done some editing on other Dark Horse stuff, but I was unable to find other writing credits. Judging from how well this story was written, I have to believe that he has done some writing before.

As for Angelo, it’s a weird story. When I first got Creepy issue #1 and started reading it, I was frankly appalled by the piece-of-shit opening story. When I got to the second story in the mag, Hell Hound Blues, I was expecting the worst. But I instantly liked the artwork. It looked very professional. Definitely done by someone who wasn’t just doing comics in their spare time. It also reminded me of the kind of art I had seen in MAD magazine, many years ago when it was still good.  Just take a look a the accompanying images and you will see what I mean. These are all from this story.

I know some of you are way ahead of me here, but I need to write it anyway. After much researching and checking and such, (I had originally looked through old Creepy magazines to find him) I could not. I remembered him, but the copies I had on hand just didn’t happen to have his stuff in them. I have many others but didn’t want to dig through all of them.

To the point, I found out that he started out at (I swore I would never mention them, but…) E.C.! He worked on the horror comics that are generally credited with starting them all. (they didn’t really, but that is a different post. Yes, kiddies, he worked on Tales From The Crypt and Vault Of Horror and such. Additionally and the reason for why it reminded me of MAD, he worked on…MAD.

I will not say that this was the best horror story ever, but it was certainly the best in this book. And it was completely fun and entertaining. I hope to see more stuff from the two of these guys, they compliment each other well. Dan seems to be writing with tongue firmly in cheek and Angelo draws comics that look like comics. It’s a great fit.

If everything else in this issue had sucked, this one story would have made the magazine worth buying.

Fortunately there was other good stuff, and to find out what it was, you need to come on back and read the rest of this series of posts. I will be hitting every story in the book.

Tomorrow’s post is going to be about Chemical 13. It is the story of Nazi hijinks involving poison gas and a room full of naked test subjects. (just keep telling yourself—it’s only a comic book)