A Mangled Media Gift Guide! Gettin' EERIE!!!

I really loved my first read through of The Weird World of Eerie Publications by Mike Howlett (available through Amazon at a great price, as well as your local book and comic shops!)-now I'm going through and making notes and marking up the book with a shopping list of things to find and ghastly ghoulish delights to indulge in.  So what makes this such a great gift?  Well...I'll tell you.

Eerie Publications is a truly WEIRD tale of cheap thrills, cheaper paper and monstrously manic tales that will drive any horror fan wild.  Don't believe me, try THE SEWER WEREWOLVES!  After what had to be a brain rending and cheek shredding amount of research, Howlett has created one of the best books on a comics company I've ever read.  It works as a story about how a gun toting exploitation master flooded the newstands, and impressionable minds, with ghastly product ranging from Stenchy Lycanthropes to Savage Sharks and right on to doctored crime scene photos.  It also works as a way to put these books in to context and begin to really explore them, sifting through the reprints and the responsibilities is fascinating.  Redraw this! Reprint that! Repeat Repeat Repeat!

Artists are named, processes revealed and by the end of the book you find yourself wanting more data, more sidebars and a lot more narrative from the author. 
And that narrative is the real treasure that this book provides.  Instead of a diffracted portrait of Eerie Pubs and it's band of not so merry mates told from interviews that provide the story in chunks, Howlett's voice is the star of the show. He is one of the Million Mindwarped March that Eerie Pubs left behind!  And it shows as ripped cheeks (that appear to have milk bones shoved in them at odd angles) are lovingly presented and pieces of art are dissected and examined in detail.  This is a boots on the ground perspective of not only the magazines and comics, but of the experience of reading and enjoying them! The two narratives blend seamlessly into an entertaining whole that not only reveals the nooks of each gore splattered werewolf staking a vampire, but brings the reader into the experience so much that you can't help but get excited to own these...all of these...for yourself. 

Besides, any book that has those amazing covers for me to gawk at over and over and over is a good thing. 
Essential, even for those that may not think they need to know more about Eerie Publications, black and white horror comics or even comic books, because anyone reading this blog understands the underlying obsession of collecting and compulsion of learning exactly what made these weird bits of mass produced mayhem so great. 

Give it as a gift, get one for yourself and be prepared to bid at the last second. Because you'll need to read at least one of these magazines cover to cover!

A Mangled Media Gift Guide! SF Blu Barrage!

This year was an amazing barrage of Blu Ray, and you can't go wrong with the trilogy of Oogy slimy monsters, gore and wild bikini space adventure.  Shout Factory gave us several Corman released films, but nothing can defeat STARCRASH as my favorite Blu of the year.  This is THE trilogy of wacky SF for your trash cinema nerd. 

First we have ALIEN 2 - ON EARTH from Midnight Legacy.  My review will be up shortly, but I can't recommend this one enough for the right viewer.  European Trash Cinema Class 305 will be meeting at your home as you enjoy random psychic alien head explosions and staring at parked police cars.  An amazing disc and one for that "special" collector!  Yeah, I've watched it and rewatched it and still can't believe the quality treatment this EurObcuro title has received.  



Then we have Forbidden World. This was the greatest Drive-In Movie I'd never seen before.  Loaded with nudity, slime, violence and packed with a great transfer and solid extras, you won't regret getting this one!  Your recipient will thank you while they watch the "sauna lovin'" scene.  I sure would! Twice!!!  Shout Factory rules.



And then we have Starcrash.  Luigi Cozzi is one of my favorite directors, and though he will dismiss this as a kiddie film, the handmade look, the fact that it was a rip off of the Star Wars NOVELIZATION instead of the movie and Caroline Munro in a space bikini kicking ass is irresistible.  Shout Factory strikes again!  Easily the most fun film I've seen in High Definition...ever!

A Mangled Media Gift Guide! DC Horrors!

I don't know about you, but I sure do love giving Christmas gifts to all my friends whose tastes run along the lines of my own.  While a sweater may satisfy some, a razor may rile up another and a stack of sweat socks may provoke salivation in yet another, I just love know that the gifts I give will thrill, titallate or shock the recipient for a good long time after the wrapper falls away like Laura Gemser's clothing in an Emmanuelle flick. 
Now, I'm not saying outrageous gag gifts, but the kinds that really deliver an experience worth having...and sharing!

HORROR...AS BIG AS A BALD HEAD!

First up...THE DC SHOWCASE horror volumes! You can get them very easily, and well discounted, via Amazon.com or any comics retailer.  For those that aren't familiar with them, these are budget priced reprints that put an enormous amount of content in black and white for comics readers to enjoy.  The price of collecting many of the individual issues would go beyond "cost prohibitive" in most cases, and with these books, and the Marvel Essentials line as well, you have a ton of history and work available at your fingertips.

So far you can pick up The House of Secrets Volume 1 and 2, The House of Mystery Volume 1, 2 and 3 and the most headclonking of the lot, Secrets of Sinister House (of Love). 
The first two series are truly essential for any fan of horror comics!  While Marvel was reprinting old tales or forging the horror heroes of the Bronze Age in a howl of flaming motorcycles and crossovers with The Thing, DC was going the true horror tales route and getting some of the finest creators of the time to spin tales of bloody mayhem!!  In the nearly 2500 pages of content (which will cost you a little more than 50 dollars via Amazon) you get work from Alex Toth, Bernie Wrightson, Sergio Aragones, Joe Orlando, Gil Kane, Wally Wood, Jerry Grandenetti, Ruben Yandoc, John Albano, Alex Nino, Nestor Redondo, Sonny Trinidad and many many MANY more! 

But if your lucky horror pal loves the strangest of the lot, Secrets of Sinister House (of Love) is the one to get.  Swerving from feature length gothic horror romances (ahem, Dark Shadows rips) to the best of the imported artists, this is a really unique volume.  Be it the utter oddity of Alex Nino and his tale Bedlam or the Gothy groovy of Frank Robbins and Alex Toth's feature length Bride of the Falconeer, every page brings something both cool looking, and more than a little off kilter, to your eyeballs. And those eyeballs shall BURN for your failing to blink as you peruse all 496 pages of this book!! 

Happy shopping, and wait until a box containing these volumes lands at your home, it will be THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP because it is so huge!