Friday, December 1st, 2006
My brother Kevin Robertson’s new comic American Soil is now available to order in both print and PDF copies. It’s a Horror Comedy Political Satire inspired by the U.S. led “War on Terrorism”, and set amidst an invasion of flesh eating zombies. Fantastic artwork, and a very entertaining script make this a great book for those interested in comics, horror films, and recent political events. I recently asked Kevin some questions about the book, and the process that brought it together.
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Tags: art, books, Family, film, politics, spooky, webcomic
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Sunday, October 29th, 2006
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Tags: designmeme, Family, spooky
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Thursday, January 12th, 2006
John ‘the Cool Ghoul’ Zacherley is still going strong at 88, and updated his site with a message for the holidays:
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It’s been busy for me. I spent some time digging up old relatives in Transylvania. It’s so difficult putting them back. They just don’t like to stay buried.
Then My Dear and I went on a second honeymoon to tour the pyramids of Egypt . . . from the inside. She wanted to see her mummy again, and, well, I’m too nice to tell her, “No.”
...
I never got to see Zacherley’s show on TV, but he collaborated with Rob Zombie on the Halloween Hootenanny CD—which remains one of my all time favourites.
I think it would crazy fun to host a monster chiller movie show, full of campy costumes and spooky old films. I have an second-hand tuxedo from when I hosted the screenings when I was in film school, and a box full of monster masks and halloween stuff. If I ever decide to try my hand at video podcasting, maybe I’ll do that. A monsterific version of RocketBoom. Until then, in honour of the coolness that is Zacherley, here are 13 spooktacular films you can download for free from archive.org. If you want to get them on DVD, the pictures will take you to Amazon.
Enjoy the show… whatever you are.
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The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962)
Starring: Jason Evers, Virginia Leith
Director: Joseph Green
After a car crash, a man keeps his wife’s head alive in his laboratory. As if this weren’t enough, an evil beast pounds and screams from a locked room adjacent to the lab.
More Info
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Bride of the Gorilla (1951)
Starring: Barbara Payton, Lon Chaney Jr.
Director: Curt Siodmak
The owner of a plantation in the jungle marries a beautiful woman. Shortly afterward, he is plagued by a strange voodoo curse which transforms him into a gorilla.
More Info
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The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1921)
Starring: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt
Director: Robert Wiene
Dr. Caligari’s somnambulist, Cesare, and his deadly predictions.
More Info
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Carnival of Souls (1962)
Starring: Candace Hilligoss, Frances Feist
Director: Herk Harvey
After a traumatic accident, a woman becomes drawn to a mysterious abandoned carnival.
More Info
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City of the Dead (1960)
Starring: Patricia Jessel, Richard Barlow, Christopher Lee
Director: John Llewellyn Moxey
A young coed uses her winter vacation to research a paper on witchcraft in New England.
More Info
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Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)
Starring: Antony Carbone, Betsy Jones-Moreland
Director: Roger Corman
American crook Sparks Moran sees a chance to make a bundle when a Caribbean island has a revolution. He plans to help loyalists (and the national treasury) escape on his boat, then kill the men and blame their deaths on a mythical sea monster. Trouble ensues when the real monster shows up!
More Info
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The Mad Monster (1942)
Starring: Johnny Downs, George Zucco
Director: Sam Newfield
Dr. Cameron has succeeded in his expierments with a serum which will turn a man into a wolf-like monster and is ready to avenge himself on the men who caused his professional failure.
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Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Starring: Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea
Director: George A. Romero
A group of people hide from bloodthirsty zombies in a farmhouse.
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Nightmare Castle (1966)
Starring: Barbara Steele, Paul Muller
Director: Mario Caiano
A woman and her lover are tortured and killed by her sadistic husband. The pair return from the grave to seek vengeance.
More Info
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Nosferatu (1922)
Starring: Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim
Director: F.W. Murnau
Vampire Count Orlok expresses interest in a new residence and real estate agent Hutter’s wife.
More Info
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Prehistoric Women (1950)
Starring: Laurette Luez, Allan Nixon
Director: Gregg C. Tallas
See the invention of fire! See the world’s first swan dive! See the prehistoric beauties battle the giant caveman!
More Info
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Rogue’s Tavern (1936)
Starring: Wallace Ford, Barbara Pepper
Director: Robert F. Hill
The body count rises, the phone lines are dead, and the visitors discover that they are trapped inside the inn with no way to escape.
More Info
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The Wasp Woman (1960)
Starring: Susan Cabot, Anthony Eisley
Director: Roger Corman
A cosmetics queen develops a youth formula from jelly taken from queen wasps. She fails to anticipate the typical hoary side- effects.
More Info
Filmography links and data courtesy of The Internet Movie Database.
Tags: blog, film, spooky, web
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Tuesday, December 13th, 2005
I’m not sure if this is some sort of strange sub-culture that I’m unaware of—but I just don’t understand why a group of kids would create websites and message boards where they make-believe that they’re myself and some of my friends. I mean, while it’s true that my life is filled with movie premieres and trips to Monte Carlo to play celebrity poker games, and it’s reasonable to expect people would want to day dream they’re doing that too, these kids wouldn’t know any of that. All they know about me is that I’m a web designer, living in Ontario, and I’ve written some articles on CSS.
Instead of pretending to be civil war soldiers or medieval knights, they’ve got some strange type of web designer / font creator / cartoonist / digital artist reenactment group. Fortunately that kind of “fun” goes against the terms of use of most web hosting companies, and those sites are soon shut down.
But the question remains—why would people do this? While it might not be a realistic goal to one day become a movie star or celebrity poker champion like me, they could easily spend the time they’ve wasted on make believing they’re a web designer or cartoonist—to actually become one. Now that I think of it my friends and I have all written articles that would help people do that too.
Tags: designmeme, spooky, web
Posted in designmeme | 2 Comments »
Friday, December 2nd, 2005
Jeff McCartney and I have been teaching web design at the University of Guelph-Humber this fall. It’s been a good semester and I’ve enjoyed seeing the class move from (mostly) never having published a webpage to setting up their own blogs and publishing their portfolios. I wanted to share a rather unusual assignment from one of Jeff’s students…
Hortence is the ugliest pumpkin in the world and Bill Coleman is a funny guy. Make sure you keep going until the last page, and let’s hope Jeff gave Bill a good mark on this.
Update on the new site: I’ve been adding more 301 redirects for broken links, and I’m hoping they’re all in place now. Anyone who was finding broken links to older articles should be able to find them now.
Tags: design, spooky, web
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Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005
It’s been a very busy fall. Being a new dad, teaching, working on monstrous projects—leaving little time to keep my blog updated. Someone mentioned to me that A List Apart is featuring my Night of the Image Map article as the Editor’s Choice right now. I had forgotten I wrote it with a spooky theme, to complement the spooky project it was developed for.
Hopefully I can start making more time for the blog again. Maybe update the design too.
Tags: designmeme, spooky, tutorial
Posted in designmeme | 1 Comment »
