Scott on Inks...

Scott Shriver, that is! Here are some panels of mine the good Mr. Shriver has inked....

For AC Comics...

 

For Bloke's Terrible Tomb of Terror....

Bond Girls

   I found a series of illustrations for book covers to the Ian Fleming James Bond cycle. I was taken with some of these and I edited them for use as profile pictures (the original versions had the title of the book painted across the back of each girl). Since I like to share things I find interesting, I thought I'd share my versions of these cover illustrations.....

Dr. No

Goldfinger

You Only Live Twice

Moonraker

For Your Eyes Only

Quantum of Solace

Octopussy

Video Cheese no. 3 - CURSE OF NOSTRADAMUS (1960)

Note: This piece is edited from a review originally posted at www.jabootu.net as part of a series called Video Cheese. Re-posted here with the kind permission of Mr. Ken Begg.

CURSE OF NOSTRADAMUS (1960)

    "A vampire has a personal grudge against a scientist for his crusade against superstition."

   If I have my facts straight, there was a Mexican serial about a scientist fighting a vampire. This was bought by K. Gordon Murray and edited into a series of films for AIP-TV. The result is the saga of Nostradamus the Vampire. Curse of Nostradamus is the first of the four films. Given the movies are edited together from the serial, each chapter tends to hit the ground running and end rather flatly. Thus, all our exposition is laid out here, and it's a dilly! 

   The Nostradamus films share much in common with the less-favored Mexican monster pics to reach US screens. The dialog is weird, the actors seem to think they're either on stage or in a silent movie, and things move at a snail's pace. The occasional (though far too rare) nice shot composition just makes the faults all the more evident.

   In short, our story concerns Professor Calderon (I think, after a while I found myself unable to recall the names of these characters, even though I wanted to point out how one character had a completely different name when spoken than when written!). Calderon has set out to remove all superstition from the land so we may progress forward on the wings of science and logic. 

   This all seems to be set at the turn of the century, judging from the clothes and such. At a big party to celebrate the engagement of his daughter to his hunky assistant Tony, Calderon is asked about vampires and monsters. He notes such things are the bunk and we cut to a vampire and a monster approaching an old castle. This is our star and his hunchbacked assistant. 

   (German Robles plays the vampire, and played several similar characters early in his career, seemingly in an attempt to become the Mexican Bela Lugosi. Here, he's one of those vampires from the top-hat-and-goatee school -actually, he wears a high derby instead of a top-hat, but this print is so dark and murky I couldn't see this until I saw the sequel film, THE MONSTERS DEMOLISHER.)

   This gets confusing pretty fast due to the slapdash nature of the dubbing. Murray's imports tended to be direct translations, although this one seems different. At the party, characters have conversations that consisted largely of repeating what they've already mentioned. Facial expressions also fail to match lines, reminding one of an old Carol Burnett sketch about how imported movies are sometimes altered (where we see a scene of lovers kissing with the dialog changed to make this man and woman brother and sister). Calderon at one point bugs his eyes in what looks like fury from an insult, then continues in his genial tone. 

   The back-story on the vampire is one of the most convoluted moments we have. The vampire wanders into an old castle and finds the coffin, and ghost, of the original Nostradamus. I had no clue the European prophet was laid to rest in Mexico, but then I didn't know he was Japanese either (see CATASTROPHE 1999/LAST DAYS OF PLANET EARTH).

   Uhh. Nostradamus was apparently a vicious monster who felt himself superior to all mortal men, not the holy man I'd heard about. Maybe the writers meant this to be Rasputin or someone like that, but thought the name Nostradamus would have more impact? 

   Anyway, the ghost hates science and tells the vampire to destroy it. The vampire is also said to be both the son of Nostradamus and the grandson of Nostradamus! And I guess, other than being immortal, he's still human at this point. He seems to become a vampire here, as the ghost lays out the ground rules and tells his offspring he will sleep in the very coffin the ghost is now occupying. Assuming the mantle of Nostradamus, the vampire reportedly has the power to level entire cities! Obviously, the powers we see displayed will be a bit less earth-shaking, but pretty impressive to us non-vampires. He can turn into a bat, hypnotize people, and take over their bodies. Oddly, we'll never see him drink blood until the climax, and even then it isn't out of a need for nourishment. Who this guy was prior to this, except for being descended from the (now evil) prophet and being immortal because of it (?), we never learn.

   Nostradamus also gets the failings of a vampire, such as being repelled by a crucifix. I don't know if he's in danger from sunlight or not, however, as the sun never seems to rise in this town. He's also amazingly arrogant, as all vampires are, going to Calderon and rubbing his (admittedly smug) scientific face in the fact that Nostradamus is all supernatural and stuff. In a whopper of a scene, Nostradamus tells Calderon that the scientist himself will be the one to stop the vampire's plan! Then, to make sure the Professor knows the gravity of the situation, Nostradamus states he will kill 13 people. From there we see one murder convince Calderon that Nostradamus means business, and then taking action to prevent the other murders, with mostly poor results.

   Being the romantic lead, Tony will do most of the heavy lifting while Calderon figures everything out. In the climax here, Tony chases after Nostradamus and tries to kill the vampire with platinum (?) bullets. He chases the monster down a long series of cramped catacombs, wildly firing each time Nostradamus has just moved out of range. I'm pretty sure he was out of bullets by the time he finally faced off with Nostradamus, but they don't have time to go into this. The chamber they're in caves in and Nostradamus is (for now, at least) buried alive. (I think the idea is that the gunfire caused the old place to vibrate and fall apart, or something.) We don't see Tony go back to his revived love in the main hall, or really get much evidence of his escape. We see Nostradamus' hand poking from a mound of dirt (and it does look dead, I must note) and then its THE END!

  What hurts this one is that it's duller than the dirt Nostradamus is buried in! Ever notice how you can sit in your seat and watch a two or three hour movie without complaint, so long as the movie is really good? And then you pop in a much shorter movie, but it doesn't satisfy, so your tail starts going numb half-way through? This is one of those. For a movie lasting under 80 minutes, it had me squirming and checking the clock from the first murder! Republic serials are noted for their fast pace and blistering action. It would seem Mexican serials played to much less demanding audiences. To think, there are three more of these films! (To be fair, the second film is a step up in quality, and definitely moves much faster, although it's still a Mexican monster movie edited from a serial so it's not fantastic or anything. It's been too long since I've seen the third film to comment, and the fourth installment never came my way, so I can't comment on those two entries.)

Dinosaur Girl in Action!

Some panels I just happen to have scanned, showing Dinosaur Girl in battle. From Femforce no. 156, the story "Mirror Image" written and penciled by myself. Inks are by Mark Heike.

Some Stuff Inked by Jeff Austin

Panel from Betsy the Bookwriter's second episode, the pirate spoof

Ditto

A fresh Preymate

And another

Red pinup as seen in SAY CHEESECAKE 

no.1, published by Jim Main

VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF TEENAGE CAVE-WOMEN

   I am pretty excited about my first feature film, which nears completion. I provided the script, while Joshua (ATTACK OF THE OCTOPUS PEOPLE) Kennedy actually did all the real work, including directing, acting, and editing the picture. 

   I'm, understandably, quite anxious to see the results! In the meantime, here's the potential cover art/poster provided by the incredible Mala Mastroberte! Mala is a pinup/photographer who did everything here herself! Not only is she talented, but she's a wonderful person (and I hear she's got a book in the works too)!

 

Video Cheese no. 2 - THE ONE MAN JURY (1978)

This piece was originally published on www.jabootu.net as part of a series of reviews collectively known as Video Cheese. This version has been slightly edited from that earlier version. I'm posting it here because for some reason I'm unable to post a working link to the original review. My thanks to Mr. Ken Begg of Jabootu for allowing me to post this piece here (and for supplying the video tape from which this review was born)!

THE ONE MAN JURY (1978 - color)

   "Jack Palance is a cop more dedicated to justice than the law."

   And really, what more do you need to know than the above sentence? Palance plays Wade, a plainclothesman who thinks the criminal element is a scum society should actively remove if the world is to be a nice place to live. As we open, Wade witnesses another of his catches escape penalty because he was never given his Miranda rights. Rather than the seething powder-keg about to explode we might expect, however, Wade is quite well adjusted. He doesn't like how softly the system treats criminals, but he works within it because its better than anarchy. His girlfriend is a "bleeding heart" rookie who believes the system is too harsh on victims of society. Wade thinks she's wrong, but he never loses his cool with her.

   The city is being menaced by The Slasher, a serial killer/rapist who has managed to avoid capture. Wade finds a lead, but the only way to follow up on it is to make a deal with a crime-boss to use his contacts to get information Wade can't. While Wade agrees to make a deal (and he sometimes trades information in exchange for looking the other way on minor offenses), he also makes it clear he won't give too much. With the help of the gangster's information, Wade tracks down the Slasher and confronts him. Getting a full confession and finding damning evidence, Wade must decide what to do. Knowing the creep would easily get around the system and be back on the streets to kill again, Wade plants a bullet between the Slasher's eyes.

   That's just the beginning, however. Wade is now both criminal and cop, and must go through the motions of finding the new killer. Meanwhile, he still plans to catch the man who earlier escaped punishment, and he happens to work for the same gangster Wade made his deal with. This can only end in a trail of bloodshed and lifeless bodies.

   Movies like this are appealing for a very simple reason. There's a part of us that enjoys seeing justice acted out. We cheer when Randolph Scott guns down the bad guy, or when the FBI raids a communist spy ring, or when 007 blows up SPECTRE's latest exotic headquarters. Even sixty+ years after the fact, one gets a certain satisfaction knowing Hitler is roasting in hell. We like to see evil get what it deserves, hence the attraction of films like Dirty Harry, Death Wish, and even Billy Jack. Its this instinct that kept me going through the sadistic Trip With The Teacher, knowing that before it was all over one of the scummiest characters I'd ever seen was going to get his. Since I follow a faith that preaches forgiveness of one's enemies, I sometimes wonder if I should so enjoy seeing the destruction of a fictional character as much as a movie intends me to. I mean, that's what Chuck Norris movies are all about!

  Wade takes a life unlawfully, but he doesn't cherish the moment. It had to be done, but he takes no obscene pleasure in doing it. Once he crosses that line, however, blowing away defenseless bad guys becomes easier and easier. Because he's still the movie's hero, though, he doesn't continue murdering murderers because of some insane blood-lust. He's still doing his job, he's just found a cleaner way of doing it. One telling aspect is that he always hesitates before gunning down an unarmed killer, as if he's going over the chances of his potential victim's taking another life and making that his deciding factor on squeezing the trigger.

   The One Man Jury may not be the best 70's rogue cop picture, although I haven't really seen a large number of them for some reason (only within the last year, for example, was I finally able to see DIRTY HARRY -the final film in the series, THE DEAD POOL, I saw just last month and it marks only my second Harry Callahan picture). It worked for me though, and that's all I can really go on. 

   I will say that this picture opens in such a way as to make me believe it was a TV movie prior to the first mutterings of profanity. The picture seems to be formatted to academy ratio, including the credits. The opening music sounds like sort of good but generic theme we might expect from a TV movie, and the credits play out over the opening scene like TV credits. During this we watch a woman changing her clothes and she remains well within the limits of television friendly imagery, as her undies consist mostly of a baggy slip. 

   Check out the cast we get on this one! Jack Palance, Christopher Mitchum, Pamela Shoop, Cara Williams, Joe Spinell, and cameos by Royal Dano, Mike Mazurki, and Vito Scotti!