From Zombos' Closet

Mexican Lobby Card: Los Automatas De La Muerte

I don't know what I like more on this Mexican lobby card for Los Automatas De La Muerte, the inset movie scene or the illustration; both are powerful, yet simple, with their machismo.

Comic Book Review: Dark Shadows Year One 1 Putting the Bite Back

Zombos Says: Good

Dark Shadows, although it originally aired on network television beginning in the 1960s, still has a strong fan base and still remains a vibrantly brooding and evocative gothic tale of vampirism, witchcraft, and the supernatural realms. It's a love story, a ghost story, a werewolf story, a revenge story, and a story whose characters are damned or cursed or caught between the forces of both at any given moment.

At its heart is Angelique's unrequited love (or lust) for Barnabas Collins. This is the strongest element that comes through in Tim Burton's reimagining of the tale, and the only one worth our attention in his otherwise lame-o attempt at campy vampy self-indulgence--

--Which is why Dynamite's Dark Shadows Year One series is important. After the bad taste left by Burton's movie, and its sullying effect on newbies to this classic horror story, it's reassuring to see Dark Shadows reaffirmed as a serious entry in the gothic crawlspaces of terror.

And yes, the television series was bit of a campy hodgepodge, but that was due more to a low budget, little rehearsal time and no retakes, and a flair for the over-dramatic, rather than an intentional over the top scheming as seen in Adam West's Batman (which I still love, so don't snipe me on this).

Once you get past the annoying conceit of "Year One" used in comic book titles, and the gimmick of numerous first issue covers to boost sales while you (and me!) waste dollars buying each variant, Marc Andreyko and Guiu Vilanova pen and ink the background of Angelique's curse on Barnabas Collins and its deleterious effect on the Collins clan. Completing the effect is Josan Gonzalez's colors, giving the panels enough smoky lighting and dark spaces to bring us into the tight rooms of Collinwood and the gloomy climate of  Collinsport. Dialog is suitable enough to the age without being ponderous and the smaller panel arrangements provide the necessary emotional momentum, if perhaps a little too quickly paced.

Barnabas's indiscretion is also potentially revealing as to his character before becoming a vampire. Just how much does he really love Josette? How much influence did Angelique's witchcraft play into it? 

This first issue introduces Angelique's malevolence, but not precisely why she finds Barnabas so attractive. I'd like to see more of that in subsequent issues. What does she really want? is the question that drove the television series and will need to drive this series as well if it's to be successful at bringing us into the Dark Shadows ouevre; which appears never-ending, just like its fans.

Movie Pressbook: Radar Men From the Moon

Who wouldn't want a jetpack strapped to their back and be called Sky Marshal of the Universe? Here's the over-sized pressbook to one of my favorite serials, Radar Men From the Moon.

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Mexican Lobby Card: The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake

The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake Mexican lobby card combines creepy illustration with a hint of female in danger and a touch of witchcraft. Great greenish, yellowish colors and strong font lettering complete the "sell."

Movie Herald: An Evening With Karloff

These two theater heralds to promote a five movie marathon with "The Master of Menace" Boris Karloff are colorful. Awesome. I'd hit the marathon stocked up with a bag of White Castle sliders and a malt shake. Definitely.

Movie Pressbook: The Day the Earth Froze

I haven't a clue as to why this pressbook for the Finnish movie The Day the Earth Froze was in Zombos' closet. It's quite underwhelming, but the cover art, at least, is rather exciting, although I can't fathom why the girl's not dressed properly for the weather. Wait a minute...maybe that's why...the cover's cool, even if the movie isn't.

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Comic Book Review: The Colonized 1 A Tale of Zombies vs. Aliens

Zombos Says: Good

In the never ending wishing well creators keep dipping into to keep zombies fresh, IDW's Chris Ryall and Drew Moss manage to get aliens mixed up with animated corpses in The Colonized. The aliens bring one up to their ship but never get the chance to go through their carefully rehearsed formal "greetings earthling" introduction because the dead guy wants to eat them instead of greet them. So much for superior technology in the face of adversity: the aliens have stun rods, but no cool disintegration rayguns. Bummer.

Ryall and Moss are going for a 1950s kind of alien sensibility, even if the local town being visited is going green, which seems to be annoying the local Cabela's shoppers, and the dead are rising faster than the aliens can say "take me to your leader."

The artwork is a perfect match for both the tone and mood of the storyline in issue 1: the zombies are decayed enough, but not too gooey serious, and the aliens act more like chimps dressed in spacesuits rather than predator warriors. The fishbowl helmets they wear aren't very good protection for them, especially when they trip over their own feet. Or whatever they call the things they have stuffed in their boots that work like feet.

No reason--yet--is given for the dead rising, and it appears the aliens didn't have a plan 9 for visiting earth. They're just a bunch of shlubs, like some of the locals, caught up in the moment.  I'm not sure where it will go from here, but I hope the IDW team can keep the momentum going, or this could wind up being another Cowboys and Aliens.

(Note to Ryall and Moss: Come on guys, let's see some rayguns!)

Comic Book Review: Constantine 2 Dead In the Streets

Zombos Says: Good

The foldout cover is not the only good thing about the continuing saga of John Constantine in issue 2 of Constantine; the Spectre pops in to pass judgement on all those nasty happenstances that follow Constantine around, like the escalating body count of his too-close associates who tag along with him. Briefly.

It's a close shave, sure, but Constantine gets into more of a lather with bad people itching to piece together Corydon's compass. More sinister mayhem ensues, but the issue's 20 pages come a wee short of a pint, so you'll easily wet your whistle, but keep thirsting for more story. Still, the art is consistently appealing and Constantine's consistently unyielding in his steadfast refusal to ignore the sh*t rolling downhill along with him. Man's got nerve: must be the trenchcoat. How can you not act self-assured and hard as nails when dressed in a trenchcoat?

Or carrying it along to Myanmar, anyway, since it's too hot to wear it. Of course he manages to get knocked unconscious. Good timing, though, since he was about to light up another cancer stick. He also must fend off a certain blind sorcerer who doesn't want to hear his jokes, and then deal with the cold, accusatory glare of the Spectre, ready to smack Constantine's soul down hard.

The story moves fast, a tad too fast, and although the principal players are moving into their squares for the middle game to begin, more pages would have made this issue better than just good. What can I say, I'm an old comic book fan. I think 20 pages an issue is too little to tell a great story; but I'll settle for a good one anytime.

Funny thing is I'm hooked on Constantine since his rebirth. I still think he needs more British in him, and his trenchcoat needs to look more rumpled. But Fawkes and Lemire are hitting the right tempo, and Guedes panels are an eyeful. So far this New 52 incarnation of John Constantine is keeping his Hellblazer ghost around for old time's sake, and that's a good thing.

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The Lost Missile (1958) Mexican Lobby Card

Cold War tension and military might make The Lost Missile a child of the past and today, ironically. Here's the pressbook.

Movie Pressbook: Kwaheri: Vanishing Africa

In the 1960s and 1970s there was a fascination with shockumentaries: among them are Mondo Cane (1962), Africa, Blood and Guts (1970), Brutes and Savages (1977), Mondo Balordo (1968) , and Kwaheri: Vanishing Africa (1964). Of course, now you can just watch stuff like this on YouTube. This pressbook is quite impressive. From enticing poster art to using classified ads, balloons, post cards, and diverse "tie-ups" (product tie-ins) with Mobil Oil, Volkswagon, and Chevrolet, this pressbook provides the mojo to sell, sell, sell, this movie.

Book Review: Death's Apprentice

Zombos Says: Good

Meshing diverse story elements from Grimm's Fairy Tales, the writing team of K. W. Jeter and Gareth Jefferson Jones create their own tale of three heroes taking on the Devil, who lives in his dark tower of an office building. Of course I don't need to tell you what business he's in, do I?

Hero Blake is cursed. He's stuck with a raincoat that's stuck to him like his skin, and would choke him lifeless if it wasn't for his determination of will. The curse came courtesy of the Devil and the chance encounter where Blake chose poorly, but still managed to keep his soul intact. Hero Hank is a giant of a man with the strength to match his size and a complete lack of fear that makes him fearless. He's brought into a deal with a gnarly dwarf lawyer who wants him to kill people who may be a threat to the lawyer's unnamed client, but since the lawyer doesn't know who is a threat, specifically, Blake manages to clean up the city's riff raff rather quickly,  taking out anyone he thinks may be that threat. Hero Nathaniel is Death's apprentice, and at only 17 years of age, he's sold into servitude by his father who traded a little more life-- ten years worth--for his son's soul. Nathaniel's point of view makes this a young adult novel, but other points of view kick in as needed. Being a young adult can feel a lot like that--dealing with others' points of view--so it works well for the narrative.

Death likes Nathaniel, even though Death doesn't have the emotion to show it. And Nathaniel likes his job to some extent, even though the divine pins that keep his soul intact are weakening for some unknown reason that not even Death knows why. Which is surprising to both of them. When all three heroes are brought together, they learn their combined weaknesses are actually what makes them much stronger when united, and Nathaniel must choose between Death's direction to live his fate impartially or change it deliberately, but blindly.

And even here the authors have managed to include zombies.

I won't hold it against them. The walking dead work well within the story's context, although they stretch the fairy tale thematic fabric a bit thin with their presence. Then again, who else would you want to go against the Devil and his damned minions? The fisticuffs are directed with the usual ups and downs, tide turning this way and that sort of thing. The novel's style is also written concisely, without discernible highs or lows in sentence structure or cadence that will distract the reader.

While the Devil ponders the dessicated tree of life that suddenly bears fruit in the courtyard beside his tower, a forwarning of the ever popular prophecy angle that was foretold to him, and Death, who can see all the ends of life at all the ends of the world, but can't see Nathaniel's own end ponders why, Grimm City becomes another Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Sunnydale: a location situated in close proximity to Hell, or is a suburb of Hell, or may just be a metaphorical Hellish morass; it's hard to say, and because of that it does present a bit of a learning curve when reading the early pages. Jeter and Jones hit the ground running and the reader will need to keep pace by accepting the premise without question and the goals as they come; further explanation may be forthcoming in the subsequent titles in this series. There are certainly enough loose threads to tie up at the end of this one to warrant more explanation.

Which leads me to the question of contextual integument, you know, the "word stuff" between the larger paragraphs of actions and motives that supports a novel by providing all those little background things that flesh out the world the characters are characterized in, or in this case the city around them. Jeter and Jones are light on contextual integument when they should be heavy with it. I've recently read a few novels where I felt the author needed to trim down the pages; here I felt they needed to add pages. To be fair, many fairy tales are focused in this way, telling their stories with minimal overhead while delivering their moral meanings.

But, then again, they don't normally resort to zombies to beef up their storyline. 

Mexican Lobby Card: The Beast of Hollow Mountain

Cowboys and dinosaurs. You gotta love it.