Yamasei (mountain sprite), Illustrated Book of Japanese Monsters, 1972

Nostradamus (Psychics of the World, 1974)

Tenjō-sagari (ceiling dweller), Illustrated Book of Japanese Monsters, 1972

Above is just a handful of these unusual illustrations. You can view more of these creepy pictures by visiting the original Pink Tentacle article. Useful for inspiration in the horror department.

Zombies! Supervillains! Cowboys! Strange creatures! Stick-Men!

The Seventh Issue of the Temple APA digital comics showcase is now available to download as a completely free pdf file. 56 pages of artwork and strips featuring contributions from the likes of Dave Hailwood, Dirk Van Dom, Matthew McLaughlin, Simon Mackie, Paul Eldridge, Dan Butcher and Adam Grose amongst others and I’ve got a few pages in there too. I also put it all together and did that cover right there.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A COPY!

OR CLICK HERE TO VIEW ONLINE AT MYEBOOK!

The Gorbals Vampire

It’ll be available to listen to for the next six days. To read the comic strip which may have started it all, click the link below…

The Vampire With The Iron Teeth

When asked, they told the constable that they were hunting a 7ft tall vampire with iron teeth who had already kidnapped and eaten two local boys. Children returned to the graveyard on subsequent nights to continue their hunt.

The incident was quickly blamed on American horror comics, such as those published by E.C., despite there being no evidence to suggest any of the children had ever read any such material. Nevertheless, the government responded to the moral outcry by introducing the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955, which banned the sale of magazines and comics portraying “incidents of a repulsive or horrible nature” to minors.

BBC Radio 4 will be broadcasting a documentary about the incident at 11pm on Tuesday 30th March, which will be available on BBC iPlayer.

More details of the story here…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8574484.stm

Update : Cartoonist, Lew Stringer has posted a blog entry on the subject which includes a number of interesting newspaper clippings…

http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2010/03/1954-year-britain-got-horrors-over.html

The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael from w3bz on Vimeo.

The (somewhat overdue) sixth issue of Temple APA is now available to download as a free pdf file. Almost 100 pages featuring artwork and strips by Adam Grose, Dave Candlish, Dave Hailwood, Paul Eldridge, Simon Mackie, Tony Suleri and there are a few pages by me in there too. There’s also a feature on FutureQuake and a Small Press Directory, all put together by John Kirkham.

This is actually John’s final issue and someone new will be taking over from issue seven. Hopefully this new bloke won’t make a total mess of things or sully the memory of what has gone before. This is of particular concern to myself because I’m the new bloke. So, I’d like to take the opportunity to wish Mr. Kirkham well in his future endeavours and I promise to try my hardest not to ruin everything.

To download Issue Six right click here and “Save Target As…” or “Save Link As…” if you’re using Firefox. File size is 50.6 MB.

If you’re a UK based comic artist/writer who’s interested in joining the Temple APA, then more details are available on the site which you can visit by clicking this link… http://templeapa.ning.com/

Ideal submissions should be horror orientated and must be weird or spooky to make the final cut. We are mainly looking for completed comic strips between 1-7 pages in length. Script submissions should also preferably be around 1-7 psges in length. Eerie illustrations and artwork along with interesting horror/comic articles, scary short stories, petrifying poems or anything just plain creepy will also be considered.

If you’re an artist looking to illustrate a script, get in contact and we’ll give you details of what might require your skills.

We’ll also consider material previously published elsewhere, as long as the contributors own the copyright.

Completed artwork can be either colour or black and white, and should preferably be A4 (21cm x 29.7cm) 300 dpi jpegs.

Submissions can be sent to malcolm_iain_kirk@yahoo.co.uk or you can join the ning group and upload stuff there if you prefer.

As this is a non-profit, small press publication, contributors will not be paid but they will retain copyright on any material submitted.

DEADLINES :

Scripts, articles and text submissions : Saturday 24th July

Artwork : Saturday 9th October

Completed strips : Saturday 23rd October.

The finished issue will be available online for free on October 31st.

The Alton Towers marketing team have been in overdrive this past week promoting their new ride ‘Th13teen’ officially due to open next month.  Billed as a psychoaster Alton Towers claim the ride is a mix of physical and psychological terror but it’s he technology behind Thirteen that gives it a ‘world first’ status.

In what is surely marketing bluster, the park say it “will potentially make the ride so frightening that the Resort is considering introducing a controversial age-rating.” This is almost certainly a device to build hype for the ride, as opposed to a credible proposal.

I wonder if the Thirtennth Floor’s Max had anything to do with

Visit the official Thir13 site here.

David Gordon of My Excess Publishing and Underground Overkill is putting together an exciting project titled ‘Babes,Bullets and Blades’. Check out his mission statement below:

With the response to our last little project (Underground Overkill) a massive success, here’s a new one. We’re looking to do a book of pin up art, entitled Babes,Bullets and Blades, there’s no restriction on content other than the fact there has to be a babe at the core of each page. No strip work just pin ups.

This is a promo piece, each artist featured gets a wee bio listed at the back of the book with everyone else. No cover artist as yet, that’ll be decided at a later date, asuming of course enough of you come forward, I’m looking to move on this soon, in time for the mart in April, so a closing date of March 6th should be ample time.

Already confirmed are:
Dave Alexander – Macbam Brothers/Viz
Curt Sibling – Total Fear/Nexion
Adam Gomm – Nexion
Stephen McShane – Nexion
Dave Gordon – Myexcess/Nexion
Andy Lee – Nexion

Helen Taylor

Nulsh,

Neil Bruce -Nexion
and many more.

The book itself will be A4 150+ pages BW/ Grayscale interiors, available through Lulu and Amazon. Unfortunately as I’m funding this, there is no money involved but your work will be seen by a great many people and be available through Waterstones as well. Copies of the book will be available to everyone involved at cost. So, if anyone is interested or has suggestions email me at newdoll18@hotmail.com.

Sounds damn cool and exactly the sort of topic that interests me. Contact Dave to get involved.

Certainly not fresh news (in fact it’s so old it smells like a rotting corpse) but I had to post this as it’s proper exciting. Hit zombie survival comic ‘The Walking Dead’ is to be made in to a TV series!

Personally I think the story is perfect for a TV adaptation and I’m a big fan of good quality tv shows. My current faves being Lost, Heroes, Flash Forward, True Blood and I’m sticking with the BBC’s Survivors even after last nights poor start to the second series. Also there is certainly a gap in the market for a zombie based series as the genre shows no signs of dying off yet.

‘The Walking Dead’ is a big favourite here on Back from the Depths and many of our readers love it too. Sometimes the story can go off track a bit but writer Robert Kirkman has an uncanny knack of keeping this series exciting. One simple way he acheives this is by constantly killing off main characters and reshaping the surving group dynamics. This would lend itself perfectly to a high quality TV series as guest appearances by big name stars would always be extremely short lived.

As if this news wasn’t exciting enough then hold on to your seats for the next bit. Signed up to helm this new venture is none other than Shawkshank/Green Mile/The Mist director Frank Darabont. Joining him is Alien/The Terminator producer Gale Anne Hurd with Kirkman himself in an executive producer role. Surely this can’t be anything but a winning formula!

I’ve not seen any release dates yet for the project but it’s certainly worth keeping one ear to the ground regarding this project. Keep listening for the zombie herds!