Being a huge fan of Horror and SciFi, I a have fairly large collection of oddball horror themed music, movie scores, and audio recordings that I’ve collected over the years. This show is just a small sample of those scary and humorous sounds from that collection.

To further enhance your Halloween scares I’ve also attached a link to an eight page PDF of a horror comic I created some years ago. It’s entitled “Stricken”
and originally appeared in an issue of “Psychosis” Comic Magazine. (Long out of print, sadly). Click the image to download the PDF.

Happy Halloween and Pleasant….Screammmmmms!

Given what’s occurred in the country recently, I thought I’d make a podcast episode that points out just some of the foolishness of where the United States is and where it might be headed. But I’ll leave the final analysis of these stories for you to decide the meanings.

The Beach

One sunny day, a man drives his modest gas-practical little car to a beach at the shore. He parks his car on a street near the beach and proceeds to walk to it. Upon entering the beach, he then takes off his shoes so he can enjoy the feeling of the sand and sea water massaging his feet.

Meanwhile, another man drives his giant gas guzzling four by four jeep to the beach at the shore. He drives fast and recklessly, screaming at the slower cars to get out of his way. He is looking forward to being on the beach, where he can then loudly play his music while barbecuing steaks on the large gasoline powered grill he’s loaded onto the back of his jeep.

Once he’s arrived to the entrance of the beach he sees there are others just like him who have driven their large jeeps, trucks and SUVs onto the beach. Resembling an encampment of an invading army, or perhaps more like the burning oil fields of Iraq during the gulf war, the other drivers have set up their large grills next to their autos and are enjoying the beach enhanced by the smell of burning meats.

The man admires his fellow gas hogs and then looks down the beach to see a lone man walking on the beach.

He huffs in scorn at he man’s foolishness. After all, why bother to walk to the beach when one can drive up as close to the water as possible?

The man in the jeep then precedes to push his gas pedal to the floor as he charges onto the sand.

Unfortunately, the man has made an error in judgment. Due to all the other jeeps, truck and SUVs also charging onto the beach, the sand at the entrance to the beach has been churned up and softened into a series of lumpy sandy tire traps.

As the man attempts to speed onto the beach, he finds that his Jeep gets quickly mired in the sand.

He tries to put the Jeep in reverse to back out of the holes his tires have dug into the sand, but the aggression with which he uses to gun the engine only sinks his tires deeper into the sand.

The angry man gets out of his jeep to inspect the situation. The oversized tires on his auto are nearly buried in the sand.

He yells over to his fellow Jeep, truck and SUV brethren for help. However, they pay no mind to him, as they’re listening to their music too loudly while filling their bellies full of grilled meat.

Other large vehicle drivers, who are a bit more careful, enter the beach and pass by the man, giving neither a glance his way nor an offer of assistance to him and his hopelessly stuck jeep.

The man tries to call a tow truck but he finds that his cell phone has no service.

Meanwhile down the beach, the man who was walking on the beach has had a sufficient amount of the sand and sea water gently massaging his feet. He decides to leave the beach.

As he walks off the beach he sees the distressed jeep driver and the collection of selfish other drivers. He makes a wide path to avoid them as he exits the beach and heads back to his modest little car parked on the street. Upon arriving at it, he shakes some sand off his shoes, enters the car and starts it up.

As he drives off, the man looks into his rear view mirror and catches a glimpse of the entrenched jeep driver who is now screaming and cursing at his vehicle.

The man smiles and drives away.

Soviet Scissors

Yuri Popovich sat at his boring and repetitive job on the production line in the Comrade Khrushchev Scissors factory. He watched the scissors die-cutting machine stamp and spew scissors to the conveyer belt.

As he sat there he thought about his squalid little state supplied apartment and how it needed plumbing repairs; Its mildew stained walls also badly needed painting. Yuri then thought about how the apartment lacked electricity at certain times of the day, and how the apartment also never had adequate heat during the long, cold Leningrad winters.

He then reflected on his inability to buy a decent loaf of pumpernickel bread, or even purchase a stick of butter, or a jar of jam to smear onto a slice from one of those scant loafs of bread.

It was thinking of a nice dollop of jam on toast, which motivated him to make the slightest of adjustments to the scissors die-cutting machine.

Not a major adjustment, just a minor twist of the dial. Enough to make one side of the scissors off by just a minuscule 1/10th of a millimeter.

After doing this, he watched the scissors getting pressed and move down the production line. He subtly smiled, satisfied that his adjustment introduced a small bit of chaos to this mundane rundown world.

When his shift was over he was still smiling as he passed his comrade co-worker, Sergey Totopnick, who replaced his position on the line for the second shift.

Sergey wondered what Yuri had reason to smile about. It wasn’t like the interminable routine of this job would offer any levity.

It made Sergey very curious.

As he sat on the production line watching the scissor die-cutting machine, this curiosity wormed its way into Sergey’s brain. He looked around the factory floor to see what possibly could have amused Yuri so much.

Was it one of the other drab, joyless co-workers?

A few meters away sat Doliv Fricktov, a slovenly pile of a man. Was he the one who was somehow amusing Yuri?

Doliv farted as Sergey watched him.

However this didn’t amuse Sergey since Doliv often farted due to his known overindulgence in kielbasa and cabbage.

No, it was something else.

This curiosity started to push Sergey to really resent Yuri. How dare he be allowed even a smidge of joy at this miserable job!

It was then that Sergey was struck with the idea to play a trick on Yuri and the other comrade co-workers.

He made the slightest of adjustments to the scissors die-cutting machine.

Not a great amount but just enough to make a pair of scissors slightly off by a 1/5th of a millimeter.

Sergey derived a great sense of satisfaction at his jest upon Yuri and the others. This elation with his adjustment helped Sergey enjoy the rest of his shift. He even gave a wink to comrade co-worker Boris Clinkonoff as Boris replaced him at the end of his shift.

Boris was taken aback by this wink. He wondered what Sergey’s wink signified? Was it some kind of warning?

Did he know how Boris smuggled a pair of scissors out of the factory?

Boris contemplated this wink as he watched the die-cutting machine spit scissors down the production line.

Paranoia seeped into the cracks of his brain. He worried that somehow Sergey had told the floor comrade about his theft and that he’d be sent to the gulag over his need for a pair of scissors.

It was a perfectly innocent theft. How else was he to shorten the length of of his oversized work pants?

Boris started to panic and nervously scanned the factory floor for any secret police coming to take him away.

It was at this moment that he devised a scheme with which to distract from his thievery.

Boris decided he would make the slightest of adjustments to the scissor die-cutting machine.

Not an obvious amount, but just enough so that when confronted about the purloined scissors, he could quickly distract his accusers by pointing out how the scissors die-cutting machine was off by 1/2 of a millimeter and posed a serious threat to product consistency, the factory’s reputation and the superiority of Soviet Manufacturing!

For the rest of his shift, Boris broke out in a cold sweat as he worried he’d be whisked away at any moment.

When his shift was up he walked hurriedly by Mishka Foopnick, the comrade co-worker who was taking over the seat for the next shift.

Mishka noticed the edgy and sweat-laden state that Boris was in as he passed. This made Misha very worried. He began to obsess over reasons why Boris acted this way and became concerned about his own safety.

By the end of the week, the Comrade Khrushchev Scissors factory flooded Soviet shops with pairs of scissors where no two sides were exactly alike and none of them actually worked.

NEW BONUS ALTERNATE VERSION!

I decided to create a more “Russian” version of the Soviet Scissors story.
If you enjoy really goofy Boris Badinoff impressions you’ll enjoy this:

I hope you enjoyed this podcast and thank you for listening.

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Until next time, have a great week being a non-conformist!
Cheers,

Ed

Did you ever consider what you’d be if you didn’t have any memories? Would you be the same person? Would you have the same values? Would you be without any sense of conscience or morals to know what’s right or wrong?

Think about it.

Memories are the core of your essence. Your experiences and what you remember of t…

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I grew up in the small town of Elmira in upstate NY during the 1960s. This was a time when there wasn’t the internet or Cable TV to connect us 24/7 to the world and all its distractions. Instead we only had 3 local TV and radio stations, a couple of public libraries and a few local news stands.

One of those newstands was Rubin’s Cigar and News Stand in downtown Elmira.

Each week I would eagerly anticipate the trip Dad and I would take to Rubin’s. He would go there to buy a Sunday Newspaper while I would scan the stands for issues of Mad or Cracked.

I was an avid reader of these magazines and could always cajole my Dad into buying me the latest issue.

But one Sunday I noticed an issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland calling out to me.

Famous Monsters of Filmland was a visual gateway drug

It was issue #52 and on the cover was the vampire Barnabas Collins from Dark Shadows. Dark Shadows was an afternoon gothic soap opera about a Vampire who returns from the grave, and in a nutshell, basically bothers his descendants.

It was a huge hit in 1968 and since Dad knew that I watched it with my Aunt, who would babysit me and my sister during the afternoon, he thought that Famous Monsters was a perfectly harmless Hollywood rag.

Oh how little he knew…

Famous Monsters of Filmland was a visual gateway drug to the bigger world of horror and sci-fi movies, and then comic books, that would twist my little mind into the artist I am today.

Warren Publishing which produced Famous Monster of Filmland also put out Eerie and Creepy Magazine. These were horror comics in a magazine format which exempted them from carrying the seal of the Comics Code Authority.

The comic code authority was created in 1954 in response to a drummed up phony public concern over gory and horrific comic-book content. But thanks to the Code being self-governed by the comics industry publishers who chose to not use the comic-book format were free to have content as gruesome and as ghoulish, and as adult, as they wanted.

I discovered these two magazines, Eerie and Creepy, not at racks of Rubin’s, but at the Drugstore down the block from my grade school, while I snuck out during lunch recess to buy some candy bars with my lunch money.

Yes, back in those days kids could easily sneak out from school to go back home for lunch, or down the block to the drugstore, or to some park…without the threat of abduction…mostly.

Anyways, once my young little eyes feasted on the mind-blowing art between the covers of Eerie and Creepy, I then saved up my week’s lunch money all month to buy each issue when it hit the stands.

Between the Famous Monsters, Mad and Cracked magazines I would con my Dad into buying, and the Eerie and Creepy mags I bought on my own, I was amassing quite a collection. The space under the bed in my bedroom was filling up to the point where it was starting to make my bed kind of lumpy.

However my addiction for horror monster mags was only made worse by Saturday Afternoon TV.

That’s when Channel 3 out of Syracuse would air MONSTER MOVIE MANTINEE. This show would feature schlocky horror and sci-fi movies from the 1930s to 1950s which TV stations would acquire from distributors who marketed these movies in bundles with such great names as “Shock!” or “Sci-Fi for the 60s”.1

Stations around the country who were desperate to fill their airwaves with content (and advertising) saw the potential for success in such programming that would keep a regular audience for weekly late night horror showcases.

This in turn gave rise to the what we now know as the late-night horror host.

While other TV markets had the late night Vampira, or Ghoulardi, or Zacherle hosting the creature features. Channel 3 in Syracuse opted for a Saturday afternoon show which followed Saturday Morning cartoons in order to keep the kiddies tuned in.

The show was hosted by a Dr. E. Nick E Witty and his servant Epal. They really made the program worth watching thanks to their ridiculously low budget and low brow humor, which of course young boys, like myself, found hilarious.

The show opened with a mix of music lifted from the scores to various American International horror movies. See if you can recognize what Film the music is from in the following samples.

As the music played, the studio camera would pan over an obvious model of a haunted house on a hill enshrouded by quickly evaporating dry-ice fog.

The shot would then fade into and interior shot of a single hand playing an organ’s keyboard (or writing in his “book of Records” or from inside a coffin). Each of the hand’s fingers was tipped with comically large and long black fingernails and rings adorned each finger. The hand would start to articulate like a Revlon hand model as we began to hear “Kind Host’s” Dr. E nick Witty’s voice introduce the show. His servant Epal would usually walk on stage as the camera zoomed out.

This banter between Witty and Epal would continue before and after each commercial break as they drew out some overly long cheap gag involving either a magical ring, or brain under glass, or a threat of Epal’s lycanthropy returning.

Truly low-brow magic meant to inspire laughs.

The other inspired magic was the art found in those Warren magazines. It’s what made me want to be an artist. I would drool over the work by Berni Wrightson, Reed Crandall, Richard Corben, Alex Toth, John Severin and others. Warren mags really did have the best artists. I would see magazines by his competitors like Skywald’s Nightmare and Psycho ,or Eerie Publication’s Witches Tales, Weird or Terror Tales, but even then at my young age, I knew they were lesser quality.

Warren publications further amped up their visual wow factor to me when they started using Spanish Artists from the Barcelona Studio of Spanish agency Selecciones Illustrada.

These artists included Esteban Maroto, Jaime Brocal, Rafael Aura León, Martin Salvador, Jose Ortiz, Luis García, José González, and cover artist Sanjulián.2

My god the talents of these artist were incredible!

I would try, and mostly fail, to copy the artist’s work just so I could learn their techniques, as much as any young teen could without any real art training.

The only other comics artist whose work had a major influence on me is that of Will Eisner, who of course I didn’t learn of until Warren reprinted all of Eisner’s The Spirit comics from the 40’s and 50’s.

Yes, I owed a lot to James Warren for introducing me to a world of comic artist talent that was hard to surpass.3

Thankfully I got less of a grimace than my pals did.

Years later, around 1998, I met Jim Warren. It was in a business meeting arranged by a couple of pals. We had dreams of starting up a new Horror/Sci-fi fan magazine, and in our hubris, thought we could pitch the idea to miraculous James Warren.

While Jim was a bit older, he had lost none of his business acumen. Upon meeting us, He knew we had only half thought through our magazine idea and he let us know that in quick order. 4

When he was done berating our half-assed plans, I thanked him for not only the short lesson in publishing, but for also teaching me how to draw.

Thankfully I got less of a grimace than my pals did.

To this day I still have a box of Creepy, Eerie, and Famous Monsters Magazines hidden deep in the closet of my office. Every once in a while I trot them out when feeling nostalgic.

No matter how much they’re starting to molder and yellow, or how musty the newsprint stinks, I can still detect the slightest wiff of the fresh ink smell that I looked forward to every month when the magazine was fresh on the stands.

Or perhaps it’s the last hint of magic.

To read my related comic, click here.

Have a guess on what horror or scifi movie(s) scores were lifted by Monster Movie Mantinee? Put your answers in the comments.

Leave a comment

This podcast episode features a chat with my good friend, Jd Michaels, who is one of the smartest and funniest people I know.

Of course that’s not to say the rest of my friends aren’t smart. No, it’s quite the opposite. All of my friends are geniuses. They only associate with me to gain tax credits for fulfilling a government “Dunce Quota.”

Thankfully Jd, a man of varied experience and good attitude, knows the quicker he placates my half-witted ramblings, the sooner he can get back to creating the multitude of projects which make the world a better and more joyous place.

I thank him for his patience. I also thank you for yours, since you’ll be listening in as he and I discuss what influenced his comedic insight, how fatherhood has helped broadened his perceptions, plus how comedy has helped him confront hatred and racism.

I hope you enjoy the show.

To hear and learn more about Jd Michaels, check out these links:

Jd has recently joined Substack. You can read his columns here:

https://lowerblackpain.substack.com

Subscribe to Jd's Substack

Other links:

Litraedio from CabsEverywhere Productions:

https://litraedio.com/

A slew of wonderful, insightful poetry in the above link. Here’s one of the works below.

Cabseverywhere Productions:
There’s a wealth of info and creative goodness under these links:

• Creative House:

  https://www.cabseverywhere.org/

• Production House:

  https://www.cabseverywhere.net/

A series of short (1min or so) humorous stories guaranteed to make you laugh:

https://thesecretclubhouse.com/

Here’s a fun little bit from a while back but which still makes me laugh:

I have exciting news to share: You can now read Escape from Clowntown | Comics of E.R. Flynn in the new Substack app for iPhone.

Read Escape from Clowntown | Comics of E.R. Flynn in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

With the app, you’ll have a dedicated Inbox for my Substack and any others you subscribe to. New posts will never get lost in your email filters, or stuck in spam. Longer posts will never cut-off by your email app. Comments and rich media will all work seamlessly. Overall, it’s a big upgrade to the reading experience.

The Substack app is currently available for iOS. If you don’t have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.

Here’s a comic which gives you a brief synopsis of how he accomplished that. But listen to the podcast which goes into much greater detail on the surprising revelations from my Father’s past and has new info…

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