AMAWIO! Week Three – Missing: Wynter

A Monster a Week in October continues with this illustration inspired by Missing: Wynter, a new musical that premiered here in Portsmouth at The Player's Ring.

The show is a musical allegory about a young girl who disappears without a trace, never to be seen again and her father’s struggle to find her, and ultimately, himself.

Billy Butler wrote the music and lyrics; he's an actor, director, and writer originally from Portsmouth. He wrote music and lyrics for Gay Bride of Frankenstein, which was a top selection in the 2009 New York Musical Theatre Festival.

AMAWIO! Bonus: Creepshow

Long before comic book adaptations clogged the movie multiplexes and grossed billions of dollars, there was Creepshow.

Creepshow (1982) is the work of Stephen King, director George A. Romero, and special-effects wizard Tom Savini. The movie isn't based on a particular book but rather on a comic book genre: 1950s horror comics. The film consists of five different tales that come to life through the animated pages of a discarded comic book. In the live-action stories, Romero uses comic book imagery for dramatic and humorous effect – in these sequences, Creepshow is truly a comic book brought to life.

The movie was catnip for a comic book and monster obsessed boy.  But when I discovered the comic book adaptation of the movie, I was in horror heaven – I loved that book even long after the pages broke away from the glued binding.

In the episode The Crate, an unwitting academic awakens this long-dormant fanged monster, who promptly goes on a killing spree. The prof resolves to rid the world of the beast – but not until he uses it to solve a small problem that's been nagging at him. If you like horror movies with extra pulp, you will love Creepshow!

AMAWIO! Week Two

What do this gnarly toothed beast and Little House on the Prairie have in common?

Both starred Michael Landon! Before he was the patriarch of the long-suffering Ingalls family, Mr Landon was the "I" in I Was a Teenage Werewolf.

I have no memory of seeing the movie. I might have seen it when I was really young, on channel 56's Creature Double Feature – or maybe I merely saw movie stills in Famous Monsters magazine.

But I do remember donning my brother's too-big-for-me Patriots letter jacket and pretending I Was a Pre-Teen Werewolf. I lumbered through the neighborhood, hunched over and snarling, waiting for my chance to pounce on an unsuspecting cat, dog or gymnast.

My first sketch. I call this I Was a Geriatric Werewolf.

My final "pencil" drawing before adding color.

Garrrrrrr! I shot a quick iPod movie of myself going through some werewolf poses and used this still as reference for the final illustration.

AMAWIO! Bonus: War of the Worlds

AMAWIO! Bonus illustration from the vault. This alien from the George Pal production of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds (1953) terrified me as a kid. Perhaps because the alien had no discernible humanoid features – unlike so many other other movie monsters of the era that were obviously a man in a rubber suit.