Dance Party: Ward-O-Matic is 2!

Yikes! This sort of snuck up on me -- today The Ward-O-Matic turns 2! Expect me now to rant and babble on about how my blog hates its diapers, running around the house willy nilly with a runny snot-filled nose, throwing temper tantrums, crying, poking, biting, pinching...the list could go on and on. Looking forward to it!



Well, to celebrate the occasion, I'm throwing a Dance Party. All you hep cats are welcome. I'll be spinnin' the cool tunes of Bobby Darin, Robert Goulet, Bobby Rydell, Ricky Nelson, some Indian chick and more. It'll be a happenin' shin-dig. Here, check it out: (Click on images to view larger.)







I have to give credit to my good friend Justin (previously) for the old 45 record carrier from 1961 (the records shown above were what I found inside). He gave it to me during his going away party last year. Justin, you're missed on a daily basis down here in the great ATL. Come back to visit soon, won't 'cha? Extra big heaping thanks for the parting gift! You knew that I'd love this thing and you're right. Can't thank you enough for it.

Be sure to visit Justin's site -- he's updated it since I last mentioned it and all of it is wonderful. Look, he drew the Jenkins family back when we consisted of three:


So, The Ward-O-Matic is two. Big thanks for sticking with me this long for all those who've been there from the beginning, and another big thanks to those who are new. I really appreciate all the visitors, comments, emails, contacts I've made since I've started this thing. It's been a ton of fun so far, and can't wait to see what the future holds! Got lots of great things to share with you all. Stay tuned...

Ava Thursday: Alexander was inbarist

Thought I'd do a special Ava Thursday this week with a follow up to Ava's now-famous Love Is Embarrassing book posted last month. In the post I wondered out loud if Alexander would appreciate just how special this gift was that Ava gave him. Would he take the book home and show it to his parents? Would he put it under his bed for safe keeping? Or would he simply toss it into the trash? Well, I found out! Alexander's mother came up to Andrea the other day at school and asked if she was Ava's mother. She just had to tell Andrea that her daughter is an amazing storyteller and that both she and Alexander's father were quite taken by the book. They both know that it was a very special book and that they definitely plan on keeping it. They've already written the date and details on the back, which is proof to me that they truly respect this gift that Ava gave their son.

So, what about Alexander's response? Well, it was quite interesting. His mom told Andrea that they could tell that he was flattered by the gift, but was -- get this -- embarrassed. He was embarrassd because Ava read the entire book in front of class (I found out that her teacher had her read it out loud -- knowing Ava I knew that she wouldn't have volunteered to do this on her own). Not sure if Ava gave the book to Alexander afterwards in front of everyone, or after school.

He did have questions for his mother: Why did Ava give this to me? Well, she told him, she probably likes you or appreciates you. He was really sweet about it and his mother said that he was really flattered by the book and slept with it that night.

I can't tell you how much that means to me. When Ava was creating these books I knew that she was planning on giving them away and I cringed more and more with each creation of a page. The amount of detail given to each book made my heart swell and break because I knew that these precious little paper gems were not going to be here under our roof soon. I was deeply envious of the recipients to these books -- I don't care how that sounds, it's the truth. I admit, I'm selfish when it comes to my daughter's creations. I'd rather all three books be in my possession, no one else's. I even went so far as to seriously think about hiding the books while Ava slept later on that night, but stopped short -- I realized that I can't possibly horde away every single piece of Ava artwork. Part of Ava's enjoyment of creating these books is to give them away to her friends. In fact, she's quite emphatic about giving them out to her buddies, and I applaud her for being that way. Good for her.

It's extra icing on the top for me to know that the new owners of these wonderful little books love them just as much as I do -- so much that they are willing to go to bed with the books by their sides. A way of keeping Ava close to their hearts, I guess.

I wouldn't want it any other way.

Basking in a post-Halloween glow

Boy am I pooped. Last night was tons o' fun, but the kids wore us out. We definitely had a blast -- the kids had fun and looked great (Ava was a cowgirl and Ezra was a skeleton) and it helped that the weather was amazing. There's a neighborhood just down the road from ours that goes all out for Halloween. And when I say go all out, I mean GO ALL OUT. I'm talking full throttle, balls to the wall, no holds barred Halloween fun and mischief all up and down this one particular street. There were dueling houses with each offering their own haunted scenery and environments for visitors to enjoy. We discovered this neighborhood last year and promised that we'll have to return each year. There were tons of people walking through the streets: from kids to teens to adults. There was so much electricity and energy going on -- the scene looked too perfect that it was almost like when you see Halloween shown in a movie. The costumes would look just a tad too good, you know? But this was real. Everyone was in some sort of costume (some of the adults had pulled up their masks to be able to drink) although I didn't plan on putting together anything. Time was limited after work, so no fun & funky Halloween dress-up for me. Maybe I'll recreate that 1978 costume next year. I've always wanted to do that.

Expect pics soon, most likely on Andrea's Flickr. By the way, check out our Halloween pics from last year.

A couple of links that I meant to list on my Spookish Flotsam post:

Michael Fleming, aka Tweedlebop, just finished the Tweedlesketch's 31 Days of Monsters project on his blog. Great characters! Fleming's a contributor to The Retro Kid and a great artist to boot.

Another Retro Kiddo is Todd Franklin, who goes by the moniker of Neato Coolville. He's got a blog with tons of great Halloween stuff from the days of yore. Very very cool.

In the What were they thinking? catagory, here's a list of The Worst Halloween Costumes of All Time from RetroCrush. Baretta? Chuck Barris? Asteroids? Rubik's Cube??? I mean, I kinda watched those shows and I kinda got into that Rubik's fad (loved Asteroids), but COME ON -- I can't imagine ANY kid wanting to go out dressed as a dorky multi-colored cube. And that "motorcycle enthusiast" from the Village People? That's rich, I tell ya. Rich.

Ghosts of Halloween Past

Happy Halloween! To celebrate this All Hallow's Eve I present to you a tour of my costumes of Halloween past. Hope you enjoy.


We start the tour in the year of 1971. My sister is 1 1/2 and I am (almost) 3. The outfit that sis is wearing is something that Mom concocted with a bedsheet. She had me wear the same thing when I was Amy's age. In fact, there's a photo of me wearing this bedsheet/bunny-thing and I have this strange confused look on my face. Mom tells me that I'm looking at her as she's trying to take the photo but can't because she's laughing so hard at me. (I couldn't find the photo.) UPDATE: Found it! Here, my love for Disney and Mickey Mouse becomes self evident at the (extremely brown) kitchen table.


Next is 1973. Umm, I have to explain this. See, my Dad was notorious for freestyling a costume for Halloween. The more ludicrous, the better. He would dress up in anything that he could get his hands on: in this year's case, it was some old white pantyhose and an outrageous bedsheet. (Just check out that pattern! What could we do? It was the 70's.) Amy is 3, I'm (almost) 5. Lookit, I'm already digging the classic horror monsters: Frankenstein's monster. Amy is another monster of sorts: Barbie.


1976: This is me, our friend Susan, and my sister Amy. I'm some sort of ghoul, not sure what Susan was, sis was a gypsy. This is just as we are about to embark upon our trick-or-treatin' -- I was in full character with that freakish pose. I believe Mom painted on that third eye, probably at the last minute.


Just down the street, our neighbors loved our costumes so much that they took a photo of us. I'm posting this because I find it hilarious that I'm still in character.


1978: I'm saving the best for last. This is perhaps one of my favorite Halloween costumes of all time. I was almost 10 and was so into horror and blood and creepy stuff. I definitely was into full "gross phase" at this stage in my life.

My costume was as follows: I ripped up some old jeans and a sweater and put some fake blood in the rips and holes, I painted the skull on my face myself (complete with fake blood), I had Mom buy some black leggings so I could paint skeleton legs that could be seen through the holes in the jeans, and -- the kicker -- I taped my right eye shut and glued a paper mache eyeball that I had made by myself earlier in the day (with optical nerve, of course). Also, I had a fake rubber hand that was supposed to be in the shot here (it's on the ground in front of me), and with it, I would try to freak people out by dropping it into the candy bowl or whatever as I went out trick-or-treating. Ahh, good times.

That's it for this year's Halloween! Hope you all have a wonderfully spooky time tonight and don't get too stuffed from your annual haunting the neighborhood for sweets and sugar!

My Obligatory Nightmare Before Christmas Post

Hmmm...lessee here...it's October, almost Halloween, the leaves are brown and falling, the air has a slight cold nip to it -- yup, it's time to revisit my two-part review of THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS! Back in November of 2004, when I started my blog, it seemed that I had oodles of time to spare and would work on incredibly lengthy posts. So please, by all means, check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you have gobs of time on your hands. I go into great detail about the design and characters of the film, as well as offer some filmmaker comments that I gleaned from the director's commentary on the DVD.




There's no need to reinstate that I love this movie. It's probably one of my top 10 favorite films -- a list that requires each and every film worth watching a million times over without my tiring of it. I see something different in the flick each time I watch it.

I took Ava to go see NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS in 3D on a very busy Saturday. It was great to see NIGHTMARE up on the big screen again, even if it was because of the 3D gimmick attached to it. I was a bit underwhelmed by the 3D effect, with some scenes that I though for sure would pop out with flying colors become dull and flat; but surprisingly, other scenes that were quite subtle become alive with just the right amount of the 3D touch. Scenes such as in Halloween Town's townsquare where all the characters looked nice and dimensional up against the town buildings and the sky in the background. Another excellent scene that worked for me was the whole sequence of Sally going over to Jack's to give him her picnic basket. Dynamic shots with items moving towards or away from the camera worked really well. Graphic elements worked the best off of the 3D technique, like the 2D animated ghosts, smoke and the new portraits of all the characters during the end credits. Also, the countdown to the beginning of the show with the jack-o'-lantern-in-the-box was fantastic. But I think that that was done in CG -- which was made just for this presentation. So, the 3D was, for the most part, an interesting twist to an already perfect movie, but all in all, I would've preferred to have seen the original movie. It was a classic case of WHY? Just my opinion.

One nice thing about seeing it this past Saturday: there was a young mother sitting behind us who I could tell had not seen the film (the horror!). Since I have seen NIGHTMARE hundreds of times, the newness has worn off on me and I've since forgotten the parts that were funny and fresh the very first time. What parts garnered a response? When Sally's arm hits Dr. Finkelstein on the head as she runs off; Dr. Finkelstein opens up his head to give it a little tickle; Jack hits the Christmas Town sign post; Lock, Shock & Barrell nab the Easter Bunny instead and the Behemoth (big dude with the axe in his head) yells out "Bunny!"; the angel decoration being hung by the string lights when Jack lands on the rooftop; most of the Halloween Town gifts doing their dirty deeds in the "normal" town; the Behemoth and Undersea Gal creating snow angels in the snow. It was great to enjoy those moments again vicariously through this faceless person. Oh, and Ava loved the movie, of course. But she's not one of those kids who talk incessantly about the movie right afterwards. She bounces around a bit as we leave the theater, but she's always been low key when it comes to movie outings.

Hey, since you all are such nice people, especially by being patient with me during my two-part NIGHTMARE review, here's some extra framegrabs that I had sitting in the dark confines of my computer, gathering dust. They were from when I was working on the review and just didn't have enough time to post them. Be sure to click on each to view larger:









Here is the very last sequence in order, of Jack and Sally finally together, which I feel is one of the strongest in the film. Just check out the poses and staging. Excellent shots here:







There were a couple of scenes with panshots and so I grabbed the images and did some Photoshop to see what the whole thing looked like. Here are two (click on images to view larger):



Rats -- Blogger is acting up for me now, and I still have lots more images to share with you. Please come back later on today and I'll have the rest up in the post. Stay tuned...

Tomorrow: see horrors of Halloween past!

little monster

"Give me a scary face, Ava."

She contorts into this pose immediately. She then moves and I take another shot:


There is no sound, no scream. She just posed for the camera silently.

Which makes it all the more creepy.

Ava Thursday: Don't Be a Scaredy Cat

The third and last book that Ava drew for her classmates (see Love Is Embarrassing and Crafts) is "Don't Be a Scaredy Cat," a fun little book for her good friend, Evette. Evette and Ava have struck up a great friendship recently and have bonded pretty tight, playing together after school.

So, just in time for Halloween, here's Ava's little book about two girls who encounter a monster while walking....


"Once upon a time, there was a scaredy cat."

I absolutely love that monster and the screaming girl.


"The scaredy cat was so scared that she screamed."

More great faces here with the girl's tightly shut eyes, arms flailing, mouth screaming. And check out the monster swooping down to get her.


"Then the scaredy cat found another girl."

Uh oh. Looks like the monster is in trouble and he knows it.


"Then the girls turned over and they saw a monster."

Very nice composition here with the girls looking up at the now scared monster.


"But the girls weren't scared."

Ava tells me that the girls are crossing their arms with a "humph!" as they realize that monsters aren't scary. That's a priceless look on the deflated monster, isn't it?


"To Evette, from Ava. The end."

Have a Happy Halloween, all you scaredy cats!

Spring loaded arms...to crush its victims!

I've got to hand it to my Mom: she reluctantly bought me this Alien figure for Christmas of '79. Mom, God bless you. I love you forever for this act of love. Never mind that you went through 9 months of carrying me in your belly or going through hours of labor to birth me or years and years of having to raise both me and my sister. The day I tore apart the gift wrapping to see the evil dark face of Alien staring back at me (on a beautiful Christmas morn no less), I knew that you truly loved me.


The second set of teeth extend out by pushing a lever in the back of the Alien's head. Cool.

The Kenner Alien 18" figure from 1979 is one peculiar toy. It has become an extremely rare collectible, with prices going as high as $500 for mint-in-the-box. Check out this page to read more about it. It was basically a marketing ploy that backfired -- who in their right minds at Kenner would think that kids (or their parents, for that matter) would buy a figure from an R-rated sci-fi horror film? A film that featured a baby alien bursting through the chest of John Hurt? Now, you gotta realize that this was WAY before the big rush of specialized movie merchandise that you can buy all the time at stores like Suncoast or online. This was directly aimed at kids. And it bombed big time. Thus, the high price it garners from collectors. And add the fact that the things were made quite poorly: there is a spike in the back that broke off all the time (I still have mine), the rubberband that gave the arms that "spring load action" would deteriorate in time (mine has), and the translucent head dome was often lost (still got mine). My Alien is in okay condition -- save for the rubberband and spike -- but with a good spring cleaning I'm sure he could look just like new.


My Alien figure's arms hang limp by his side. His days of crushing victims are long gone.

I remember the box packaging in particular, mostly for the shots of the Alien and its "spring loaded arms...to crush its victims!" You gotta love that. And check out that kid on the side there: you know he's now holed up in his mom's cellar, watching the ALIEN Quadriolgy non-stop and surrounded by the bones of his recent "purge." Oh yeah. He's a John Wayne Gacy just waiting to happen.

Click to view the box in all its alien-y horror!

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Did you know? I did the animation for Mail Call's new show open. It's that show on The History Channel that has the incomparable R. Lee Ermey as its host. My pal Clay Croker was visiting Primal a while back when I was working on the open and said to me, "Hey man, I've got that R. Lee doll that you can get on his site! You wanna use it for reference?" Even though it doesn't really look like the guy, it did have some freaky elements to it, so I took some shots of the guy with dramatic lighting out of curiosity. Thus the posting of the pics here. I thought that they looked freaky enough for the Halloween-themed entertainment this week. Hope you enjoy.



They spent an unusual amount of detail on the teeth. Freaky teeth!


R. Lee wants you. And your soul.


"Prepare to die, you scum-sucking maggot!"


Awww, yeah.


Tomorrow: Ava shares her Dad's love of all things Halloween for Ava Thursday!

Spookish Flotsam

I love Halloween. And to prove it, I'll post some Halloween-based items leading up to the big day. For starters, how about some linkage?

I'm a big fan of fellow Drawn! pal Jay Stephens' blog, Monsterama. The dude has dug up my beautiful horror-lovin' past in all its undead glory by posting about almost-forgotten cultural oddities like The Groovie Goolies and -- oh my horrors -- this book! Man, I loved the "Make-Up Monsters" book! I remember ordering it through Scholastic and being so excited when it was delivered to me at school. I studied every single page, eating up the pulpy black & white photos of the creepy make-up concoctions with fervent glee. I seem to recall wanting to recreate that bug-eyed creature that's featured on the cover there. And I recall that I didn't do it successfully. The photos of the kids with their home-crafted creature faces always seemed to be so etheral and spooky to me. I loved it so.

Did you know? Kyra Schon, the nine year-old zombie girl from George Romero's original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD has her own website called Ghoul Next Door. Oh yes, she's got a zombie blog, too. Careful, don't get too close.

More zombies: A while back, Michael Sporn mentioned Jason McDonald, who has a pretty cool & gruesome online comic, My Living Dead Girl. Somewhat minimal and monochromatic, I like the way Jason draws his characters. All I can say is...*gak*!

The Zombie Survival Guide: probably the most important book you'll ever read. In the cellar. Or in a damp, old bomb shelter. Or in a remote, secluded place. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of flesh. Or something like that.

My pal, Clay, has some great spooky posts on his Argle Bargle blog. Be sure to check out posts on Bruce Timm's creepy work, a whole buncha Black Lagoon creature stuff, movie poster artist Reynold Brown, and black & white B-movie monsters in full blown color. Lotsa pics to look through. Perfect for Halloween reading.

And lastly, Jeff creeps me out.

Coming up: pics of me back in the day, in full monster-glory!