Night-Monster!

(From Star Publications Ghostly Weird Stories No. 120, Sep. 1953)

(with thanks to Yoc who uploaded the scans to the Digital Comic Museum!)

Cinema Of Stuff Presents...More TV Horrors

I've posted stuff from the old 1972/73 NBC series Ghost Stories/Circle of Fear before, and as I'm still on Jury Duty and this is one of the few decent series still available on Youtube, here's a few more episodes!

Earth, Air, Fire and Water 

Six young artists discover ancient, mysterious bottles in a warehouse which wield an abnormal influence over them.

The Ghost Of Potter's Field

A magazine journalist (Tab Hunter) is almost destroyed by his doppelgänger until he finds out the true identity of a hit man (Darwin Joston) buried in a potter's field.

The Phantom Of Herald Square

Holly (Sheila Larken) is charmed by James (David Soul) and begins seeing him, but as soon as she does, she finds herself terrorized by an old man (Victor Jory). As her relationship with James grows, she is surprised to discover the connection between James and the old man.

Some Horror-Themed British Comic Strips

Still on Jury Duty, so here's a small selection of strip-scans from British comics that have a horror-type theme!

(remember...click the pics to go big!)

Draculass - Monster Fun Issue 1

(Hire A Horror - Cor! Issue 3)

Harry's Haunted House - Whizzer & Chips Issue 1

(The Ghost Train - Whoopee! Issue 1)

Martha's Monster Make-up - Monster Fun Issue 11

(all characters © Rebellion Developments Ltd, I think?)

Keeping Hallowe'en - How To Enhance The Festival (The Scotsman, Oct. 29, 1937)

This post is an excerpt from The Scotsman newspaper dated October 29th, 1937, and gives some suggestions on how to enhance the 'great Druidic fire-festival'.....it also has some interesting theories about certain origins of Hallowe'en festivities! I'll add editors notes (*that will look like this - DPF) or links where I feel it's appropriate. Also, the above picture, and the one with the turnip lantern and cake are original photos from the article, whereas others are added by me......

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Do You keep Hallowe'en in your home? That is, if there are children or young people to entertain. If not, I bid you to tak' a thocht, an' mend. (*take a thought and mend - DPF) Those of us who had the good fortune to be brought up in homes where the age-old festivals were kept know what colour they brought into our lives, and how, in some indefinable way, they linked us with the generations that have gone before us.

Briefly, Hallowe'en derives from a great Druidic fire-festival held in honour of the sun, in whose radiance the earth and everything thereon was believed to live and move and have its being. Druidism was a form of sun-worship peculiar to the Celts; and the Scots, Lowland as well as Highland, are basically a Celtic people. The Celtic year began with winter on November 1st; hence Hallowe'en is the ancient Scottish Hogmanay. 

At dusk on Hallowe'en - or Sam-huinn, as it was known to our forebears - great fires were lit on the hill-tops and sacrifice made with full Druidic rites, partly as a sort of thanksgiving to the benevolent sun for the harvest had just been garnered, and partly for purification and protection from the powers of evil throughout the dark winter months.

Fairies and Witches

The ancient Celts drew no hard and fast line between the world they lived in and the other world, and on Hallowe'en the veil that separated them was believed to be drawn aside. The spirits of the departed visited their old homes on this night, and all the queer, uncanny creatures of the other world were released. It was the great flitting time of the fairies, who moved from one fairy hill to another, while the witches held a great "Sabbath" on bleak moorland or wild shore, whither they flew in sieves or on broomsticks.

Amongst so many mischievous or malicious creatures it was unsafe to be abroad unless protected by fire lit at the sacred flame. Hence the turnip lanterns and the candles stuck in "custocks" or cabbage stalks that the children carry on Hallowe'en; while the grotesque "fausse faces" worn by the guisers (*Scottish Trick-or-Treaters - DPF) denote the queer creatures of the other world, from whom, too, derive the mischievous pranks played by the halflins on their elders all over the countryside.

Hallowe'en was a season of omens and auguries, and two ancient Celtic symbols, the apple and the hazel-nut, play an important part in the divination rites. "Douking for apples" is in all probability a Druidic rite representing the passing through water to Avalon, apple-land, for apples are the food of the immortals. The hazel was "the magic tree that wizards loved," and the nut was revered as the symbol of wisdom.

The Note Of Eeriness

The keynote of the Hallowe'en celebrations should be a combination of eeriness and gaiety. There was plenty of gaiety, but not, I think on looking back, sufficient eeriness at the Hallowe'en revels I used to attend as a student at Queen Margaret Hall. Fancy dress was de rigueur - some of the School of Arts girls, who had a magnificent communal wardrobe to fall back upon, had wonderful costumes - with black silk masks. The proceedings began with a grand march past, during which everybody tried to "spot" everybody else; and immediately afterwards the unmasking took place, amid much merriment. There followed the age-old rites - the douking for apples, the eating of the "champit tatties" to find the embedded charms, the burning of the nuts, the three "luggies" (*a game involving putting your hand in bowls to determine your matrimonial future - DPF) and so forth. The night was then given to dancing, reels and country dancing predominating. The whole proceedings were as gay as a carnival.

"Making Lanterns" - Edward Docker, late 19th Century

The importance of eeriness was better understood at Provand's Lordship, that fascinating seventeenth century Glasgow house, whose rough, unadorned walls and time-stained rafters made an ideal setting. The only lighting permitted by the devotees who foregather there is the dancing flame of the fire and the soft radiance of candles and of the turnip lanterns that hang in a string from the rafters, eyes gleaming in quaintly carved faces. After the usual rites have been performed, there enter the guisers, who entertain the company with speech, song and dance. Auld Nick, (*the devil - DPF), who accompanies them, sits in a corner and plays the pipes or the whistle. Eerie music - there is plenty of it - is essential.

In The Highlands

It was at a Hallowe'en party in Inverness that I saw, to my great delight, the office of Master Of Ceremonies performed by a "Druid." He entered the dimly lit room, a tall, white-robed figure with a floating white beard and a wreath of oak leaves on his head, carrying a turnip lantern in one hand a white Druidic wand (with which to stir the apples) in another. (The Druid really looked like a Druid, and not like Santa Claus in his nightie.)

Later there entered two cailleachs (old women) bearing a little old churn in which they proceeded to make stapag, or cream-crowdie (whipped cream with a little toasted oatmeal stirred in), singing an old Gaelic churning-lilt the while. The usual charms were dropped into the crowdie, which was then distributed to the company.

(Tigh nan Cailleach, near Glen Lyon in Perthshire, Scotland,
where the supposedly carved stones are said to represent the Cailleach and her family)

The further elaboration of the festival, at least when it is celebrated on a big scale, leaves plenty of scope to the imagination. A dance of witches, led by Auld Nick, might be arranged; the "champit tatties" or cream-crowdie might be prepared in the witches' cauldron; there might be a procession of Druids; old half-forgotten divination rites might be resuscitated; whilst out of doors the fire-rites and the dancing round the bonfires might be elaborated.

Druidism is dead; what matter that the solemn rites of far-off times have become the frolics of our own if they serve to attach us to the rock from which we are hewn?

F. MARIAN McNEILL

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On the same newspaper page is a smaller article describing how to make Turnip Lanterns. We always used to have turnip lanterns when I was a kid, and it wasn't until the late eighties or early nineties when I started noticing pumpkins appearing in supermarkets for Hallowe'en, as the slightly different US influences on the festival started to become more widespread. Anyway, here's that article as well, as it's quite a short one....

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While grown-ups have been getting in stores of apples and nuts with which to celebrate Hallowe'en, the young ones - in the country at least - have been choosing turnips and thinking out wonderful designs to decorate their turnip lanterns, Hallowe'en could not be properly celebrated without them. "Dooking" for apples is fun certainly, but there is a much greater thrill in dressing up and picking one's way through the darkness to friends' houses by the light of a turnip lantern.

Great patience is required in the making of them. First, select a nicely shaped turnip, and cut off all roots and leaves. Now cut off the top as for a boiled egg. Next comes the tiresome part of the job - the inside must be scooped out very carefully, leaving the skin intact. Remember to leave a small mound at the bottom with a hole in to hold the candle.

The exciting part can now be begun - the cutting out of the design on the skin. Use a sharp pen-knife and be very careful not to cut right through the skin. All sorts of designs can be cut out, the most usual being a face with eyes, nose, and mouth cut out of the skin. Now pierce a hole near the top at each side and put a string through to make a handle. A short length of candle is now fixed upright in the hole at the bottom.

the lantern, or "lanthorn" as I feel it ought to be called on this occasion, is now ready for lighting. when this is done the design is thrown into sharp relief and the result is most effective.

A.W.M.

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(Thanks to the British Newspaper Archive where I nabbed the page from The Scotsman)

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By the way, I hope you're remembering to check out everybody else's blogs over at Countdown To Halloween? 

Go do that if you haven't already while you wait for tomorrow's post! ;-)

Revenge Of The Haunted!

Biff Stone is a monster mugger who meddles with a mermaid too many, in this freaky feature from Ace Comics' The Hand Of Fate Issue 21 (December 1953), courtesy as always, of the Digital Comic Museum!

Pencils: Lou Cameron (signed) 

Inks: Lou Cameron (signed) 

Letters: typeset (Leroy lettering)

(with thanks to Astrp3, who originally uploaded the scans to the museum)

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For more spooky shenanigans, be sure to check out the other blogs and sites taking part in the Countdown To Halloween!

Click Here!

Countdown To Halloween 2018!!

It's that time of year again already....where a bunch o' us bloggers and web-types join together in a daily countdown to our favourite festival! Every day this month with be filled with festive frights and spooky sights, and as always you can find a large list of everybody involved over at the Countdown To Halloween hub!

Of course, if you've been following my blog over the years, you'll know that whenever I plan anything big, something will crop up to put a spanner in the works....usually when I plan to cover a lot of Gruesome Games....

Well this year is no different, and although I had planned to cover another 100 games in a huge list, I'm probably going to have to scale it back a bit, as I've been called upon for Jury Duty of all things, which means that I'll need to spend a large part of at least the first week of October paying very close attention to a very specific set of details.....

Because of this, a lot of the posts I put up for the first week of the Countdown will have to be scheduled, and as I'm not sure how much time I'll have, these will most likely be of the easy-to-do Hallowen pics and creepy comic scans variety, but we'll see how we go...and if things go well, we should at least start getting to some games by next week! 

I'll also be posting some more old newspaper articles to do with Halloween and freaky stuff, as those proved very popular last year!

Anyway, tomorrow shall start the shenanigans proper and although I might not actually be here, I'll still rather spookily see you back here then! In the meantime, be sure to check out what everyone else is doing over at Countdown to Halloween!

Under The Lens

During today's trip to the Digital Comic Museum, I stumbled upon a strip that shows I'm probably right to have a slight distrust of scientists, who despite often being highly intelligent, often forget to go about things sensibly! In this tale, two of them show a general disregard for common sense...

This comes from Charlton Comics Mysteries Of Unexplored Worlds Issue 1 (August 1956)

Script : Joe Gill?

Pencils : Charles Nicholas

Inks : Vince Alascia

Letters : Jon D'Agistino

Originally uploaded to the museum by fett so thanks go to them! 

As a little extra bonus, here's a page of ads from the back of the comic too! :-) 

Random Retro - Monster Hunter (Playstation 2)

I've had the Playstation 2 version of Monster Hunter for years, but I was told by a friend not long after I picked it up that it was pointless playing it offline, as the whole point of it was online play. Quests wouldn't pay as much offline, and tackling the bigger monsters would be far too tricky alone , so it would be a lost cause and I should probably avoid it..

And so Monster Hunter was stuck on the shelf after a very quick play to make sure my copy loaded at least, and was forgotten about for several years.....

2018 happens, and everybody is going crazy for Monster Hunter World, and as I've yet to get a machine capable of playing this new entry in the franchise, I decided to hunt out my copy of the original and give it another look to see how it plays offline. Just a quick ten minutes or so to see how it's aged, I think to myself....

Two hours later, I find myself struggling to switch off a game that has quickly become a favourite, and one that I realise has obviously influenced quite a few other games I love (especially Dragon's Dogma!) .......

Starring as an up and coming Monster Hunter with big ambitions, you start the game in a small village and obtain quests from the Village Elder, who at first tasks you with collecting meat and food for the village and learning the basics of surviving out in the field.

Soon though, some more aggressive types of monster start to appear than the the herbivores you've been chopping up for steaks, and you'll be asked to dispose of these terrors to keep the villagers safe and uneaten!

Once you've killed these monsters, you can strip them for meat, hides and bones, which you can then use as food to top up your health or as crafting materials to build better tools and weapons to make you an even better hunter! You can find other items by searching under trees, in bushes,etc. or mining rocks, catching bugs with a net or fishing. You can then combine these finds with others to create potions or other items that will also help you be better equipped to take on the larger monsters that you'll eventually be asked to hunt down!

It all makes for a very enjoyable journey through the many different areas, collecting the materials to upgrade and arm yourself so you can access even more areas and take in the sights. I said I put the game on to see how it's aged, and the answer to that is beautifully! I was pleasantly surprised to see the realistic forest settings and nice little graphical touches, such as the shadows of clouds flitting over the mountains creating a very realistic atmosphere, and streams of light shining through the gaps in the trees....

The variety of different beasts is great too, from the very dinosaur-like Apceros and Velociprey, to the very deer-like Kelbi, and the weird-but-cute Melynx, a race of cat people that surprised me by mugging me when I stumbled into a cave and proceeded to steal all my stuff! There's a cool little guy who waddles around near a big tree and takes my monster bones as trade for mushrooms too, and he reminds me of the odd creatures that populated the countless fantasy films I watched as a kid! 

I've only been playing for a few hours, but already I've stumbled upon some bigger creatures too, like the Rathalos, a giant fire-breathing Wyvern who isn't very happy about me trying to steal it's eggs....and this is making me slightly concerned that maybe these creatures might be a bit too tricky to take out playing solo, and that my friend might have been right to say that the game lacks a lot by no longer being online enabled!

But, at the same time, I'm very glad that I've came back and revisited Monster Hunter, and even if I do get absolutely devastated by the Rathalos, or even a small group of Velociprey, at least I can have fun roaming around these gorgeous landscapes, roasting my meat whilst some comical music plays to tell me when it's ready to eat (or, if I stop it cooking early, ready to be used as bait!), crafting my armour and then chilling out with a bit of fishing....

It's actually a huge shame that it's taken this long for the West to wake up to Monster Hunter, and I wish I had discovered it back when I was still able to connect my PS2 online, as it would obviously have been even much more fun then....but even so, Monster Hunter on PS2 is a game still worthy of a visit, especially if like me you can't join in the fun with Monster Hunter World yet! So stick on your leather vest, arm yourself with a bone-knife and go hunt down a copy! Meanwhile I'll still be here trying to shift these bloody Wyvern eggs without breaking them.......and enjoying every controller-throwing, rage inducing minute of it!