YES. Yes yes yes. That’s all. Just check out the fine art on the cover and tell me you don’t wanna get your hands on this issue. Halloween coming early? I’m a’ight with that y’all. Just a few weeks ’til the ‘Con, and hello beautiful.
And they’re not lying about the free high-fives at PLB. Got one last year. Buy horror! Buy local! Exclamation point!
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Image: Baltimore Comi-Con Drink-and-Draw
Hooray, it’s official! Baltimore Comic-Con’s Drink and Draw’s Facebook page has said that this year will definitely see a Drink-N-Draw during Baltimore Comic-Con! Last year was pretty awesome, and so if you’re in town for the ‘con, definitely make plans to grab a pint and some really cool art on the cheap. Yeah cheap. Why? Okay fine; Drink-and-Draw isn’t just about beer & art, it’s also for a good cause. Team Cul-de-Sac raises money to support the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Nice, right?
Looks like this year will have a waterfront view, as the event will be at Hooters Harborplace, a quick & easy walk from the convention center. Wings, beer and artists gettin’ crafty. What more could you ask for?
Okay fine. I’ll take better pictures than I did last year. Promise. Because I have a better camera that’s why mom; stop bugging me.
See you there!
Yeah baby. Love horror comics? I know I do. So you know I’m super excited to see that this year’s Baltimore Comic-Con will host Avatar Press! That’s right. All the good stuff baby. Crossed! Uber! Extinction Parade! God is Dead! Stitched! Night of the Living Dead Aftermath! And you can stand around and beg for spoilers all you want. Just me?
Check out the full press release after the jump!
Continue reading
Summer’s wrapping up; Back-To-School stuff is on store shelves, and did I see pumpkins and bats at the craft store? (Hint: yes.) So that means it’s time for the Small Press Expo to release it’s yearly crop of top-notch small press comic creators that have been nominated for Ignatz Awards! Yaaaay! *flails arms like Kermit*
Straight from their PR folks:
Small Press Expo Announces 2014 Ignatz Award Nominees
For Immediate ReleaseBethesda, Maryland; August 18, 2014 Media Release —
The Small Press Expo (SPX), the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comics, graphic novels and alternative political cartoons, is pleased to announce the 2014 nominees for the annual presentation of the Ignatz Awards, a celebration of outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning.
The Ignatz, named after George Herriman’s brick-wielding mouse from his long running comic strip Krazy Kat, recognizes exceptional work that challenges popular notions of what comics can achieve, both as an art form and as a means of personal expression. The Ignatz Awards are a festival prize, the first of such in the United States comic book industry.
The nominees for the ballot were determined by a panel of five of the best of today’s comic artists, Darryl Ayo, Austin English, Melissa Mendes, Thien Pham and Whit Taylor, with the votes cast for the awards by the attendees during SPX. The Ignatz Awards will be presented at the gala Ignatz Awards ceremony held on Saturday, September 13, 2014 at 9:30 P.M.
Additional information on the nominees and previews (as available) can be found at http://www.spxpo.com/ignatz-awards.
Once again we want to thank our our friends at comiXology for sponsoring the Ignatz Awards. Information on comiXology and their self-publishing portal Submit can be found at https://submit.comixology.com.
Read on for the full list of nominees. And a huge congratulations to all nominees!
Are you ready for some football? Or maybe just wanna see a cool docudrama? If you don’t want to choose between the two, why not check out When The Game Stands Tall, a film based on a true high school football story?
Here’s the synopsis from the lovely and talented PR folks:
Inspired by a true story, WHEN THE GAME STANDS TALL tells the remarkable journey of legendary football coach Bob Ladouceur (Jim Caviezel), who took the De La Salle High School Spartans from obscurity to a 151-game winning streak that shattered all records for any American sport.
I wish that coach had been at my high school; dunno if we ever won a game….
Read on to see how to get a 4-pack of passes for you and yours!
Halloween is just a few months away. Woot! And since Halloween ComicFest announced their titles earlier this summer, you’ve had all this time to drool over the possibilities. Well, those possibilities are a little bit closer now, with previews of a few of the titles. Yeah baby, that’s the stuff right there.
So head on over to the ComicFest site and take a peek. Won’t cost you nothin’. And when you pick up your favorites this Halloween, it won’t cost anything then either. So you can spend your hard-earned on those Daryl Dixon/Sharknado/Toothless Funko POP figurines you’ve had your eye on. Y’know, hypothetically.
Niiiiiiice.
Great book. Great trailer. You’ve seen the second one, right? (Though the song “Say Something” kills me every time. Dammit.)
So. Wanna see this film? Here’s how….
Just a quick few picks from the Ghastly Awards judges. Except for me. I’m lazy. Like the meme says, it’s like regular lazy but I’m wearing a cape. Even though….
Thank you for the reminder, Edna.
Oh, and now that I’m a judge again, expect a Horror Comic Roundup every so often. Not all the time, as again, so very lazy. And broke. Hello blogging! Anyway, on with the picks!
Ghastly Awards – July/August 2014 Update
Don’t forget to submit your book for the 2014 Ghastly Awards!
Horror comics are becoming more and more frequent in our reading culture, and the Ghastly Awards are here to recognize those that shine the brightest. We encourage all Comic Creators and Publishers to take the time to head over to www.ghastlyawards.comand submit your work for 2014 Ghastly Award Nomination consideration.
Creators please remember that you can submit your Horror Comic work throughout the entire calendar year! This month the Judges are recommending you go back and take a look at:
The Creeps #1 (Fall 2014- Warrant Publishing) – This slim, new black and white, magazine sized horror comic is a valentine to fans of Warren Publishing’s mags of yore, Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. I have to give editor, artist and writer Rich Sala props; he nailed the look and even got some new art from some Warren alumni. This first issue has a lot going for it; a cover by Ken Kelly, a page by Frank Brunner and my favorite art of the issue, a four-pager by Rich Buckler! The stories are all short and sweet, though I wish they’d been more straight horror than the excursions into Sword and Sorcery. (It took me years to appreciate the old Dax the Warrior stories.) This first issue is impressive and I hope that if it gets a chance, Sala will veer a little bit away from the Warren cloning and let The Creeps develop its own style. As it stands, it seems to be trying a little too hard for Warrenism, including the pen-name Artie Godwin writing most stories. Less text on the cover would have pleased me too, but ballyhooing some of these great artists is no sin! This is a solid first issue, full of decent-to-great artwork and good stories. Let’s hope The Creeps grows and becomes the black and white horror mag we all NEED in our lives! – Mike Howlett
Morella Presents: Verotika Returns #2 – Demons and more demons– Danzig clearly writes about what he knows, and backed with super killer artwork from Simon Bisley and Garres, you know there’s always gonna be plenty of boobs and blood and satanic muscle to keep all your evil lusts satisfied. Especially interesting is the rise of a new black magic spawned terror– PUMKY, a character formed not far from the same malignant monster mold as Pumpkinhead! Looking forward to seeing where this goes… – Steve Banes
Lenore v2 #10 (Titan) – Just when I thought the best joke in the history of ever had happened in the last issue, here it comes again… and again… and again. What sucks here was the lack of a recap page. The time between issues sucks, and well right now a great story arc is taking place, so a recap would be nice. However I know that it’s part of Dirge’s diabolical plan to have me go back and enjoy the living hell out of issues 8 & 9 again. So touché good sir, you win. The artwork is stunning, the story is above and beyond everything else. Lenore is a must read for everyone, anyone and two aliens sitting on a branch somewhere in Iowa. It delivers time and time again, and seriously… just go read it. – Decapitated Dan
Creators and Publishers please make sure to go over to www.ghastlyawards.com to submit your books for 2014 Nomination consideration! More information on how the submission process works can be found here http://www.ghastlyawards.com/2010/10/submit-your-horror-comic-to-be.html
______________________________________________________Judges:
Decapitated Dan, Mike Howlett, Belinda “Spaced” McNeill, Lonnie Nadler, Bree Ogden, Denise Dutton
Staff:
Steve Banes, Pedro Cabezuelo,Founded in 2011 by Decapitated Dan with the help of Steve Banes, Mike Howlett, Lonnie Nadler and Mykal Banta, the Ghastly Awards recognize outstanding achievements in Horror Comics over a range of 15 different categories. The nominees are chosen by other horror comic book professionals and winners are chosen by a panel of judges.
The Awards were named for acclaimed comics creator “Ghastly” Graham Ingels.
Starting in 2013 the Ghastly Awards switched over to a Submission based process. Comic Publishers and Creators can submit their books for nomination consideration throughout the calendar year. The top five nominees in each category will be chosen by the Judges, and will then be voted on by the Judges, Creators and Fans to decide the winners.The Ghastly Award Judges work strictly on a volunteer basis. There is no paid staff and the awards are completely funded from the generous donations of its sponsors.
As someone who used to live thisclose to the Discovery Channel building, Shark Week is a big deal for me. (Miss you, Chompie!)
So to celebrate the sharkiest time of the year, let’s drink! Don’t do booze? Works just fine with soda, tea or whatever. Probably better, as you’ll actually remember the episodes the next day….
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The In No Way Official Shark Week Drinking Game
* Drink every time you hear an Australian or South African accent. If that person isn’t Australian or South African, finish your drink. (#faildrink)
* Drink every time a shark’s dorsal fin protrudes from the water.
* Drink every time a narrator uses the phrase “feeding frenzy.”
* Drink every time there’s a overly-dramatic reenactment of a shark attack. (Note: ALL Shark Week reenactments are overly dramatic.)
* Drink every time you see someone in a shark cage.
* Drink every time an expert mentions chum, a shark attack statistic, or a shark fact (note: once per expert, or you’ll be on the floor in the first 5 minutes.)
* Drink every time the camera shows a surfboard or person underwater in the same frame as a shark.
* Drink if they show a chewed-up surfboard, raft or sea kayak.
* Every time a new person is interviewed, drink.
* Drink every time someone says, “this species of shark is normally very peaceful.”
* Every time a person is declared a “shark expert,” drink.
* Finish your drink at the end of the episode. Should you not finish between the end of the episode and the start of the new show, chug an extra beer.
* If they mention the state you live in, or grew up in? Drink.
* Drink every time the show references a new type of shark. If the shark does not attack humans (nurse shark) drink three times.
* If a shark attacks something, drink. If that something is a seal, finish your drink.
* Drink every time someone mentions punching a shark in the nose or eye to stop an attack.
* Drink every time some one mentions “Jaws”, if the “Jaws” theme music plays, or if there’s a clip from the movie. Then say “we are going to need a bigger boat”.
* When a shark attack victim talks about the attack, drink.
* Drink every time shark attack odds are given.
* Drink for every limb the shark victim lost. If it happened to be their genitalia, the least you could do is finish your drink.
* Drink every time you see a subdued shark being poked, prodded, or given a tracking device on a boat.
* When a great white gets air, drink. Beware: do this one during Air Jaws marathons at your own risk.
(cobbled together & edited from Drink Nation, Bro Tips, and other sites on the interwebs.)
Nutshell: I give Into the Storm a C. It’s a passing grade, but only just. I was pulled into the action and loved the FX, but couldn’t get past the fact that this was a run-run-run film with little to no character development past getting out of the storm. Which is understandable in a disaster movie, but still too basic a premise to get more than a simple nod of approval from me.
TwitView: Cool FX! Lukewarm characters. Boom! C*
Into the Storm deals with a Big Bad tornado, what would be called an EF-5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale (which in and of itself is fascinating stuff) Originally called a “Category 6” tornado film — a wording snafu as the Fujita scale goes from 0-5, making the sixth category E-5 — other titles were bandied about ‘til Into the Storm stuck. Don’t worry though, there’s plenty of damage and destruction in this film. But Twister still stands as the #1 tornado film, thanks to it’s deeper look into the lives and motivations of it’s characters. Those things felt tacked on and hollow inInto the Storm.
Welcome to Kansas. Home of Dorothy, sunflowers and badass tornados. Into the Stormfocuses on that last one, in case you haven’t seen the “plane-nado” trailer that’s been in heavy rotation of late. But this film has no trailer park, but instead focuses on how the middle class struggles with having no cell phone reception…and no roof over their heads. Okay, there are a few yahoos here for comic relief, but mostly this deals with two groups; a local kid and his brother prepping for the year’s HS graduation ceremony that they’re filming for their Vice Principal dad, and the scientist stormchasers that are looking to make a ton of moneydocumentary of a superstorm.
The elder brother Donnie (Max Deacon) decides to ditch his filming responsibilities and instead help his crush Kaitlyn (Alycia Debnam Carey) re-film her summer eco-internship film, which got corrupted because technology sucks. So they head out to the abandoned, decrepit old paper mine to get footage. What could go wrong? Younger bro Trey (Nathan Kress) sticks with dad (Richard Armitage, taller and less hairy than he is in The Hobbit). Dad tries to talk the Principal out of holding the graduation ceremonies outside; looks like there’s a storm coming. But the Principal poo-poos him. What could go wrong? Meanwhile, storm-nerds Allison, Pete, Daryl, Jacob (Sarah Wayne Callies, Matt Walsh, Arlen Escarpeta and Jeremy Sumpter) desperately try to find a storm before their financial backing gets pulled. When Allison sees that a storm is building in Silverton Kansas, which is where the HS graduation/abandoned paper mill happen to be. But don’t worry, their TARDIS Titus tank of a car can lock down in winds up to 170 MPH; only E-5 tornados go faster than that. What could go wrong? Yop, you bet’cha.
Everybody bands together to avoid the super-storm that threatens to destroy the entire town. Well, everyone except the two drunk-ass yahoos who feel more like bits of real life thrown in. Because really, who hasn’t seen ijits doing stupid stuff on YouTube? Still, Kyle Davis and Jon Reep throw themselves into the roles of Donk and Reevis, the good ol’ boys that decide the best way to prepare for Tornado Apocalypse Now is to strap cameras onto their motorcycle helmets and get rip-roarin’ drunk. That plays out exactly as you’d expect, and their banter does liven up sections of the film that would be a bit too dour otherwise.
Does this stuff actually happen? Well, ask any Midwesterner. Or just Wiki E-5 tornadoes. Most recently there’s been an E-5 in Central Oklahoma, and an “outbreak sequence” in the Southern/Midwest US. And then there was the 2007 “outbreak” in Florida. So yeah, Into the Storm may have touched on those storms and built things up from there, though with tornadoes there isn’t much that needs to be made up. One particularly spectacular scene involves a tornado made up of fire, or “fire whirl”. So much Hollywood make-believe, or so I thought….
Now don’t get me wrong, I love me some CGI mass destruction as much as the next person. But without that connection to characters, disaster films feel like endurance tests where you see how much awesome you can absorb without spinning out yourownself. Did Sarah Wayne Callies, Richard Armitage and Matt Walsh turn in great, believable performances? Yes. But their characters didn’t “hook” me, and that’s poor editing/storyline choices rather than a failure of talent. Director Steven Quale blew me away with Final Destination 5, but even back then he skimped on characterization. Sad that in that regard he’s learned nothing in the last three years, though he’s still top-notch when it comes to bringing chaos to the big screen. Screenwriter John Swetnam probably put all his love and attention into his other project opening the same weekend; the art-house classic Step Up All In. At least it feels like it here.
With films like The Impossible, Aftershocks and hell yeah even 2012 and Day After Tomorrow, there’s more to disaster movies than demolishing shit. Get me to care about the characters beyond simply not wanting to see a human get kerblooied. But if I’m two beers (or half a bucket of popcorn) down? Into the Storm is a fine way to watch Hollywood spend money like water. Just dont’ expect more than eye-catching FX and you’ll be fine. I mean kinda fine. You might want to hide under your seat just in case.
* -- this movie should not be confused with the award-winning TV miniseries of the same name starring Brendan Gleeson as Winston Churchill. Just so you know.
Got a dollar to spare? A quarter?
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – 
Atomic Fangirl 