Monday, October 31, 2011

THE ORIGINAL GHOST RIDER "League of the Living Dead"

It's Halloween!
There's no hero better suited for the season than The Original Ghost Rider...
...and no better adversaries than REAL zombies!
OK, so not all the zombies were real.
But some of them were!  ;-)
The art was by Dick Ayers and Ernie Bache, who was Dick's cousin.
And, oddly enough, it wasn't the cover story of Ghost Rider # 7.
That honor went to "The Haunted Tomb", which we'll be bringing to you next month!

Monday, October 24, 2011

"The Vampire Goes West!"

You'd think the American West would be the most unlikely place to find a vampire...
...and you'd be wrong...dead wrong!
"Silver bullets work on vampires as well as werewolves?" you ask?
Yep!
There are many methods to kill vampires in the folklore of Europe and Asia.
One of the lesser-known is the use of silver instead of wood to penetrate the vampire's vital organs.
This vampire/Western story is not from a Western comic, but the final issue of Tales of Horror (#13 from 1954)
The writer is unknown, but the penciler is Medio Iorio and inker is Sal Trapani.
Oddly, every comic story Iorio penciled, Trapani inked!
Weird, eh?

What's really weird is that there are several Western vampire films, all quite dissimilar to each other!
The earliest one is 1959's Curse of the Undead, starring Eric Fleming of Rawhide fame as a vampire hunter!
(There might have been an earlier flick had Bela Lugosi lived longer!
Ed Wood had a script entitled The Ghoul Goes West in preparation when Bella died!)
The 1960s gave us the ultra-low budget Billy the Kid vs Dracula, starring John Carradine as the Lord of Vampires.
Though there wasn't a 1970s vampire Western, the 1980s had a contemporary take on the concept with Near Dark, starring Aliens cast members Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein, and Bill Paxton as vampires wandering the Southwest in a van.
But my personal favorite, from 1988, is Sundown: the Vampire in Retreat, a tongue-in-cheek flick starring a host of genre vets including David Carradine, Bruce Campbell, M Emmett Wash, Elizabeth Gracen, Dabs Greer, and John Ireland.

Next Week:
Our Halloween Special...
The Original Ghost Rider
and
ZOMBIES!
(real ones, not crooks pretending to be zombies!)

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

THE VALLEY OF GWANGI Conclusion

Art by Frank McCarthy from the American release poster.
It's 1910, and a palentologist, along with members of a traveling rodeo, have stumbled on a lost valley in the American Southwest that harbors presumed-extinct prehistoric creatures who do not take kindly to strangers!
(You want more? Go reread the previous chapters!)
Let the mayhem ensue...
Though the comic adaptation writer is unknown, the art is by Jack Sparling, who handled everything from Westerns to romance to sci-fi/fantasy, so he was well suited to a movie adaptation with all three elements!
The last half of the movie is a real showcase for Ray Harryhausen's classic stop-motion animation techniques as he handles both real and imaginary creatures with equal aplomb, making them really come alive!
There's a kool site HERE by Jim Rodkey, a serious Ray Harryhausen aficionado, giving all sorts of fascinating background info and pix about the movie!
Oddly enough, the movie is not currently available on DVD, except as an expensive OOP disc from 2003.
With literally everything else by Harryhausen currently out in both solo releases and themed collections, why isn't this flick included?

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

THE VALLEY OF GWANGI Part 2

"He who dares steal from the Evil One is cursed!"
So spoke the old woman after Carlos took El Diablo from the hidden Valley of Gwangi!
(But what is El Diablo?)
Meanwhile, in a nearby town, T.J. Breckenridge, beautiful cowgirl owner of a traveling rodeo, struggles with near-bankruptcy when she meets stunt rider/former fiance Tuck Kirby, who makes an offer for the only asset the show has...Omar the Wonder Horse!
T.J. refuses, saying she's about to unveil a spectacular new attraction that will turn the rodeo's fortunes around!
The next day, Tuck encounters Professor Bromley, a palentologist who claims to have discovered tracks of a presumed long-extinct ancestor of the modern horse!
How do these events tie together?
Read on...
Need we say...
Be here tomorrow for the

Monday, October 17, 2011

THE VALLEY OF GWANGI Part 1

What happens when you combine cowboys and dinosaurs?
In comics you end up with this, which we presented HERE!
In movies, especially ones with SFX by Ray Harryhausen, you get...
A prehistoric creature alive today?
Impossible!
Tomorrow, more impossible things!

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