Skip to content

universal monsters

Scripts From the Crypt: The Mummy’s Tomb

(Repost with a couple of revisions.)

Out now on Amazon, the 14th in my friend Tom Weaver’s Scripts From the Crypt series… this time with some involvement from me, namely layout/design work on the covers, and the dedication page illustration, plus a few other minor things.

PLEASE NOTE: lest the title deceive you, this is not just a “script” book! It’s packed with essays, info and analysis on the movie too!!

I strongly suggest you buy a copy. Or several copies. See links at bottom of this post!

Mummy's Tomb cover

Read More »Scripts From the Crypt: The Mummy’s Tomb

Moonlight Shadows Cover (What If)

If you’ve been tuning in regularly, you’ll have seen the written extracts from Moonlight Shadows, my unfinished Lon Chaney Jr book (here and here)… recently, by way of producing some new work samples—because I really need to upgrade my portfolio soon—I did a new version of the cover for the book. (No, I’m not thinking about finishing the book off! But never say never…)

Moonlight Shadows 2023

Read More »Moonlight Shadows Cover (What If)

Neal Adams

Really, really sad to hear about the passing of Neal Adams. I think most of us can agree that he’s a highly significant figure in comics history.

I thought Neal was sure to be around for another 10-15 years, and producing decent art more or less till the day he died. The latter is virtually true—he was working on commissions as recently as ten days ago—but sadly, he had been fighting the effects of a sepsis infection for the past 11 months. That’s a tough battle at any age.

His later work is probably the stuff that will come to mind for some folks, and that’s… well, a small part of the story!! Neal’s art, for the past 30-35 years, has been generally solid and consistent, sometimes quite beautiful, if seldom a match for his peak stuff from the late ’60s through mid-’70s. But, it might be his increasingly eccentric writing that’s gained the most attention in recent years.

Batman: Odyssey, from 2010-11, which ran for 13 issues over two mini-series, had a lot of people scratching their heads. The distinctive and occasionally stunning visuals were a given, but Neal’s writing—barely flirting with conventional structure or internal logic—made the series something of a cult item. His writing only got weirder and more esoteric later on!

Batman Odyssey 7

Read More »Neal Adams

Hulk #182 (1974)

“Between Hammer and Anvil”

THIS REVIEW HAS SPOILERS!

Written by Len Wein. Pencilled & Inked by Herb Trimpe. Lettered by John Costanza. Coloured by Glynis Wein. Edited by Roy Thomas. Published in 1974 by Marvel Comics.

Summary: Stanley Kramer Meets John Steinbeck via the Outer Limits.

Let’s talk about one of my favourite comics. There are a few reasons why this is so: the Hulk was the first comics character I really bonded with, for one thing, and it was by accident. My nan used to buy me random comics when I was a little kid, and one of them was a Marvel UK Hulk book—which I doubt my mom would have ever bought me—and I instantly liked him. I already loved the original King Kong (1933), as well as all the Universal Monsters—I was definitely a Monster Kid. The Hulk was somewhere between Frankenstein’s Monster and Kong… today, I also see a lot of Lennie Small (Of Mice and Men) in him. And I do mean the 1970s Hulk—there are a number of spins on him, but the ’70s one is IMO the best.

Hulk 182

Read More »Hulk #182 (1974)

The Defiant Ones (1958)

In Brief: this is the write-up of The Defiant Ones prepared for the on-off book on Lon Chaney Jr, Moonlight Shadows. Feedback is very welcome!

Defiant Ones Poster

Produced by Stanley Kramer for Lomitas Productions, Inc. Directed by Stanley Kramer. Screenplay by Nedrick Young & Harold Jacob Smith. Music score by Ernest Gold. Cinematography by Sam Leavitt. Edited by Frederic Knudtson. Distributed by United Artists.

Technical: 1.66:1, black and white, Westrex mono. Running time: 96 minutes. Production: late February to early April 1958. Premiere: September 24 1958 (NY).

With Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel, Charles McGraw, Lon Chaney, King Donovan and Claude Akins.

Two convicts—one white (Tony Curtis), one black (Sidney Poitier)—in a Southern chain gang are being transported in a van when the vehicle crashes. They escape, and what follows is a story of the tensions between the two, being forced to flee cross-country together―mostly through swamplands―until they find a way of breaking the four-foot chain that binds them.

Read More »The Defiant Ones (1958)