Chugging along with another microcast.  Today features a rambling discussion of odd books including Choose Your Own Adventure style, sitcom adaptations, photonovels, the Pryde of the X-Men graphic novel adaptation of the cartoon pilot, fumetti, and Sadistik (Satanik/Killing) pulps.

In trying to get myself podcasting again I've decided to try and stop being so precious with the recording and research and just do it.  My new idea to is too keep these episodes short, like under 15 minutes.  Micro-podcasting.  Anyway, here's the first microcast which is all about the great golden age we're living in as far as toys are concerned…



In this episode I talk about all the properties and characters that have toys these days like the Goonies, Akira, Edward Scissorhands, Snake Plissken from Escape from New York, Ash from Army of Darkness, the new Matty Collector Ghostbusters figures, the new Matty Collector He-Man figures, as well as some older stuff that could use some new figures, namely the Karate Kid and V.

You can download the episode here.

I just wanted to take a second and point to a cool part of the 40th anniversary celebration of Sesame Street that's been going on for a couple weeks now.   In honor of the milestone (and as a part of the upcoming release of the 40 years of Sesame Street DVD set) their website is featuring a 5 week series of voting polls to pick the best segments of the show.  Each week's voting is themed with a decade, and this week it's the 80s.  So head on over to the site and choose your favorite video (I'm all about the "Making Crayons" video personally…)

Well, I just wanted to do a quick re-cap of this year's Halloween Countdown.  I hope everyone enjoyed the 31 Days of Monsters, I know I enjoyed putting it together.  Though I kind of want to take a little breather, I can't help but think about what I'm going to do next year.  Hmmmm.  Anyway, enjoy the monsters!

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

Now I kind of want to take a 31 day nap!

Welcome back to the final day of my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  I can't believe the month is over.   In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on today, All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster was voted the creepiest by my lovely wife who just couldn't stand the look of it.  This one is a Class 4 free floating spirit of some alien origin and in the episode, the Ghostbusters have to shuttle up to a space station to fight it…



I believe this is the sort of monster that falls into the category of a horror.   It's all teeth and tentacles, eyeballs and biting mouths.  Sort of like the Blob, this kind of monster doesn't seem all that scary until it starts to grow and the next thing you know there's just no running from it.  I guess it's a bit of fear through suffocation, and this guy is a bit more than I'd bet even Steve McQueen could handle.   Lucky for us the Ghostbusters were on the job.   If nothing else this monster is colored perfect for the occasion.



As for this particular cel, it's kind of neat because it's part of a scene in the episode where this monster is obscured by the gang of Ghostbusters who are trying to battle it.  So this is the first time that most of this art has seen the light of day (not that you couldn't see similar shots in other scenes...)  Here's a couple screen grabs, the first on the left with my cel, and a second which is a more natural shot of the creature on the right...

  

So that's it for the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s as another Halloween has come and by tomorrow morning it'll just be a great memory.  There was a lot of great stuff posted around the internet this year, so if you want to find your way to a lot more content you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event.  If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness from me, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the orange banner with King Kong.)  I don't know about all of you, but I plan on kicking back and watching scary movies with my wife all day and into the night.  Here's hoping we get a good lot of Trick-or-Treators, and I hope every one of you has a great Halloween.  Thanks for stopping by!

We're down to the second to last day of 2009's spooky event, the 31 Days of Monsters Countdown to Halloween.  It's the eve of All Hallow's Eve I guess, and I have my second to last set of monster cels to share.  In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on Halloween day.

Today's cel is a really fun one that falls into that category of a more finished image.  The monster is from episode 53, "The Scaring of the Green."  Typically, most background elements are separated out onto a layer of their own, be it a painting on paper behind all the stacked cels, or on a cel layer if there's movement involved in the BG elements.  This cel featuring a huge green saber-toothed cat-like bog hound monster (with super creepy spider-esque eyes) chasing Mr. Venkman is a bit of an anomaly in that the BG elements, as well as both main foreground characters are all painted on one layer…



I can see this presenting all sorts of problems in the process, most involving either syncing up the artwork in the various cels in the sequence to make sure the animation isn't so bumpy and making sure the cels are painted in the proper sequences so that everything is colored correctly and overlaps properly.  Maybe the animators were going for something more crude in a chase sequence like this and any jarring jumps between cels would work towards the tone of the sequence.  Either way, when taken out of context like this it works very well as a stand alone piece of art.



I do think the hunter green which was chose as the color of the beast was a little unfortunate as it blends in to the black line-work enough to make the shape and features of the creature a little hard to distinguish.  Luckily I have the pencil under-drawing for this piece, thought it was a little damaged by the cel (the paint on the back of the cels sometimes bonds with the paper drawing underneath, probably in the years that these were stored in warehouses.)  You get the basic drift though…



Apparently, the notation NR-5 refers to leaving paint off the cel as it's transparent on my copy of the finished cel.

I was also lucky enough to find a second cel from the same episode featuring this huge bog hound that shows it with a little more definition in the final cel…



I also dig this second one because of the little bits of light yellow green paint illustrating the creature being sucked into a ghost trap.  It's just a nice juxtaposition of a slight painterly style mixed with the clean cel art...



As weird as it might have turned out, I think maybe his spots should have been rendered in another color to help give him some more overall definition.  Anyway...

Also, for any of you Real Ghostbusters fans out there that haven't picked up any of the new DVDs, I've decided to give away a copy of the Volume 1 Steelbook edition of the show!  There are only two days left to enter, so get to the typing...



This 5-disc set contains the first 25 episodes of the series (including the 1st thirteen episode Saturday Morning run) as well as some fun special features.  So what do you have to do to win this beauty?  All you have to do is send me an e-mail (or click on the Creature From the Black Lagoon monster in the sidebar) and make sure to include the following:

-Please put "The Real Ghostbusters Contest" in the subject line.
-List your favorite monster/ghost/creature from the series.
-Include your name.

The deadline for entries is October 31st at Midnight eastern standard time.  I'll be drawing a winner at random from the e-mails, and will respond to the winner via e-mail on November 1st.  Also, if you feel inclined, I would love everyone to spread the word about the 31 Days of Monsters countdown and the contest, so hit up those social networks and tell a friend (my twitter handle is smurfwreck)!

Once again, if you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for the last installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters.   If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  We're into the top three.  Again, as I've been reiterating all month long (imagine I'm saying this next bit super-fast like John Moschitta in a Micro Machines commercial), in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve. Whew…

I was thinking that yesterday's flying toothy head monster would have been my top choice, and it probably would be if just on the frightening scale, but today's is the one I think might take away the award for the coolest.  I've mentioned on the this site before how much I like cephalopods, and even though I haven't really gotten into H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos all that much, I do love squid monsters…



When I first came across this guy it was after finding the cel that's below this one, the close up of a similar creature's face.   So I was so happy when I found this zoomed-out view of one of the other spawn of Cathulhu to give the whole thing a bit more definition.  Also, how cool is it that I found a cel where the squid monster is getting his arm blown off!  As you can see from the pencil under-drawing below the destruction is being caused by a proton pack blast…



In the original animated sequence this blast is obscured by another creature in the foreground, so it's kind of cool to finally get a clear view of this type of action in the cartoon.  Looking a bit closer at the pencil drawing you can see where the animator did a bit of a test with the image by using an exacto knife to cut out the lightning-like charges that surround the blacks from the proton packs.  My guess is that it was testing the backlit animation process, but I can't be sure…



As I mentioned, I first came into contact with this guy when I found this cel below.   At a distance the create looks a lot less alien, but when you do a super close-up it gets very weird looking indeed…



These are both from one of my most favorite episodes of the series, #41 "The Collect Call of Cathulhu." 



It was also written by one of my favorite animation writers, Michael Reaves, who has provided some of the best episodes in cartoon series such as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and Dungeons and Dragons.  I love that for some reason or another he ended up adding the "a" to Cthulhu to differentiate it.  The episode is about as steeped in H.P. Lovecraft mythos as a 30 minute syndicated cartoon could possibly be with all sorts of refrences to the world of Cthulhu like the Necronomicon, Miskatonic University, and the ficticious city of Arkham, Massachusetts.  Just great stuff!



Once again, if you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters.   If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…