For the past couple weeks I’ve been collecting creepy, kooky, mysterious and yes, even spooky links to share with you on Halloween. Consider this post one big candy apple, presented to you by Blog@Newsarama, costume optional. Now let’s get to it …
Over on his blog, Jeff Parker shares a two-page X-Men: First Class story he did with Colleen Coover, featuring the original team and a ouija board. Go check it out.
Other creators have gotten into the spirit of the season as well; Todd Dezago has been sharing scary stories from his readers, while Skottie Yougn shows off the variant cover he did for Cable & Deadpool, featuring — you guessed it — a zombie.
Split Lip has been running horror comics year round, and there’s no better day than today to go check out the 150+ pages of gruesome, chilling and horrorific panels. Like this one, from the latest story, The Harvestmen:
If you’ve been following the Dark Knight marketing site, WhySoSerious.com, for the last few days, then you’ve seen the jack o’lantern that’s been featured on it slowly start to dissolve on one side of its face. Well, the site completely changed earlier this week, as the Joker has dropped clues all over the country for folks to find. Go check it out and if you’re in one of the cities listed, see if you can find whatever he’s hidden around town (if it hasn’t been found already).
You’re familiar with vampires, right? The ones with fangs that like to suck blood? Philly.com says they aren’t so scary anymore:
The species is making a startling shift from horrifying to helpful. And we’re not talking about tame Transylvanians such as Count Chocula or Sesame Street’s Count von Count.
Even the old-fashioned red-in-tooth-and-claw types are getting an image makeover in recent films and TV shows. Take Mick St. John (Alex O’Loughlin) on CBS’s new crime drama, Moonlight (9 p.m. Fridays on CBS3). He’s a private detective who, like every P.I. since Dashiell Hammett’s time, is passionate about justice. But he’s also haunted by dark, obsessive desires that he hides - especially from the dames.
But while the shamuses in pulp novels might spend their nights sucking down quarts of whiskey, Mick has a more unsavory thirst: for blood - straight from the jugular.
The article also references Angel and Blade, two vampires-turned-do-gooders. Interestingly enough, there’s no mention of 30 Days of Night, whose vampires don’t quite fit the good guy image.
The Bat-Blog shares a photo from yesteryear of Bob Kane dressed as Batman:
Bully, the comic-loving stuffed bull, celebrates Halloween by sharing a story about a ghost story. And Ben Grimm.
Via BoingBoing, a two-Hulk Halloween:
Blogger Kevin Church sent out a press release earlier this week about his web comic strip, The Rack, celebrating “Halloweek” with the help of several guest artists:
THE RACK today announced the beginning of Halloweek, a week-long celebration of that most popular of holidays revolving around shoving as much candy as possible into your gullet. This week sees series artist Benjamin Birdie stepping aside and letting guest artists take the reins of the four-times-weekly webcomic for a few days.
“Birdie works his fingers to the bone on this, so getting the chance to provide him with a bit of a break and get some of my favorite cartoonists working on our baby for Halloween seemed natural,” said Kevin Church, the strip’s creator.
THE RACK revolves around the misadventures of the staff of Yavin IV, Southern California’s greatest repository of comic books and comics-related accessories. Debuting in February of this year, the strip has rapidly gained an audience of comic book fans as well as people who just like cheap jokes at the expense of nerds. Monday sees CARL IS THE AWESOME creator Marcos Perez making his debut on the strip, with Tuesday and Thursday’s installments being drawn by surprise guest cartoonists. For the Halloweek event, THE RACK will update five times, with Wednesday featuring the usual weekly comics picks from the cast and Friday offering up a super-sized strip by Birdie.
Here’s one of the strips, by Church and Pat Lewis:
On his blog X-Ray Spex, Will Pfeifer has been reviewing a lot of horror movies; today it’s the Cat People:
It isn’t as scary as THE SHINING. It’s not as groundbreaking as PSYCHO. It’s not as epic as DAWN OF THE DEAD, as transgressive as LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET or as startling as FREAKS. But I’d pick CAT PEOPLE — the 1943 Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur version, of course — as my favorite horror movie of all time. And I’d be the first to admit that it’s deeply personal, not necessarily logical choice — mostly because I’m not even sure if it’s really a horror film.
I didn’t read his review of The Shining, because that’s the one horror movie I’ve never been able to watch again after seeing it on cable as a very young kid. It’s probably my scariest movie of all time.
The Wired blog has a collection of geeky Jack O’Lanterns, including a really sweet Death Star, dragon’s eye and this one, Death of the Endless:
This one isn’t really comic related, but I thought it was pretty fun … I-Mockery.com has released their Ultimate Guide to the Halloween Candies of 2007, which include Tongue Tattoo Scream Pops:
If you’re dressing up like a Fantagraphics character this year or carving a pumpkin based on one of their titles, be sure to enter their Fanta-ween contest before Nov. 4.
Over at Marvel.com, some of their creators share their scariest comic moments, including Matt Fraction:
“[My personal scariest moments] all came from ‘Kraven’s Last Hunt,’ whether it was Spider-Man being buried alive, or Kraven being swarmed by spiders, or Vermin summoning a wave of rats to eat a cop, or Kraven pulling the gun on Spidey and he realizes Kraven’s not screwing around and is actually out of his mind, or Mary Jane freaking out and killing the rat with her boot…man, that whole storyline is chock-full of spooky moments.”
Mark Engblom shares a story from Halloween past, when he found that magical house that gave out comic books for Halloween:
Exactly thirty Halloweens ago, my friends and I strategically chose a new neighborhood for our Trick-Or-Treating campaign. Besides having far more houses to visit, that part of town was also more conspicuously wealthy than the neighborhoods we were used to. Even as knuckleheaded kids, we were savvy enough to understand that Ritzier Houses = Better Candy. Not only did the wealthy folks hand out more candy, but they’d occasionally blow our minds with FULL SIZE candy bars, not the stubby, ironically-named “fun size” candy bars. No lame popcorn balls, apples or pennies from those Big Spenders!
Just when we thought it couldn’t get much better than receiving full-size candy bars and (I swear) dollar bills, we knocked on the door of the Purple House, a large home whose eccentric owners had painted the exterior with a bright, retina-blasting purple. What happened next is kind of a blur. The door opened…then (I think) a Heavenly chorus sang praises while a hand dropped a beautiful, glowing COMIC BOOK into each of our bags. Not lame comics like Richie Rich or Archie, but real, honest-to-goodness superhero comics! Since all of us were avowed superhero comic book fans, you can imagine our joy and dumbfounded astonishment over receiving such an unexpected bounty.
The story wraps up his month-long celebration of Halloween.
I’d be remiss not to link back to my original post on Squashua’s “Give Comics for Halloween” campaign. Hurry; there’s still time to dig out some old back issues you don’t want or hit your retailer’s 25-cent box, and give out some comics tonight when the ghouls show up. Here’s the top ten reasons you should give comics for Halloween.
