Birthdays are jungle days

My birthday was last week and a couple of dear friends helped me celebrate with these awesome sketches. The one on top is by Jess Hickman and the bottom one is by Uko Smith. Obviously, they know what I like.

The Monster Maker (1944)

Who's in it?: J. Carrol Naish (House of Frankenstein, Batman serial); Glenn Strange (House of Frankenstein, The Mad Monster); Ray Corrigan (Undersea Kingdom); Ace the Wonder Dog (Phantom serial)

What's it about?: A mad scientist poseur uses a serum to deform the father of the girl he's stalking.

How is it?: It's pretty great for a couple of reasons. First is the twist on the mad scientist convention. Naish plays a madman, but he's actually - Maniac-like - impersonating a scientist that he killed. The backstory is pretty cool. Naish's wife left him for a famous scientist who was pursuing the cure to a rare, deforming disease, so Naish injected them both with a serum that gave them the disease and killed them. He's been living the high life in the scientist's place when he meets a girl who resembles his dead wife. Unfortunately, she and her father are a little creeped out by Naish's unwanted, relentless attention, so Naish uses the serum to force Dad to help convince his daughter.

The other thing I love about the movie is all the familiar faces. Naish played Karloff's hunchbacked partner in House of Frankenstein and was also the bad guy in the first Batman serial. Naish is a creepy-looking guy with a strange, almost Peter Lorre-like voice, so he plays a great villain.

Glenn Strange gets another turn out of his Frankenstein make-up and doesn't even have to pretend to be a dumb bohunk. He plays Naish's giant henchman, Steve. If I seem overly impressed by Strange's being out of make-up, it's because I'm not enough of a Gunsmoke fan to have remembered that he was a regular on that show for like 13 years. Incidentally, tomorrow night's movie also has a Gunsmoke connection, but I'll leave that for then.

For absolutely no other reason than because it's awesome, Naish's character also has a killer gorilla. I was pleased to learn that it's played by Ray "Crash" Corrigan, star of Undersea Kingdom, a goofy serial about some adventurers who get trapped in Atlantis for 12 episodes. And speaking of serials, Ace the Wonder Dog (who played Devil in the Phantom serial) is Naish's pet and the gorilla's nemesis.

Rating: Good.

The Ape (1940)

Who's in it?: Boris Karloff

What's it about?: A well-meaning mad scientist uses the escape of a circus gorilla to cover up the murders the scientist commits to further his research.

How is it?: Karloff is a different kind of mad scientist, because he really does have good intentions. He's trying to help a young girl who suffers from the same paralyzing disease that killed his daughter. To do that though, he needs spinal fluid from recently deceased bodies. The movie does a nice job of showing the progression of Karloff's descent into madness. His first victim actually is killed by the escaped gorilla, but as Karloff needs more fluid, he gets more involved. It's heartbreaking to watch him, especially because the film constantly dangles hope in front of him.

As sad as it is though, it's also got its fun moments. The gorilla costume is awesome and there's also a good police procedural as the local sheriff tracks the ape and tries to stop the murders.

Rating: Good.

Uko Smith draws a mean jungle team

Remember that project that Jess Hickman, Uko Smith, and I came up with after SpringCon last month? Well, Uko's been doing some thinking about it too and it inspired him to draw this. I've started making some inquiries about how to pull off what we have in mind, so stayed tuned for more info.

In the meantime, if you wanna see more of Uko's work, I can hook you up.

The LXB adds to my list of favorite films

I'm going to take the week off from the LXB (I'm unqualified to talk about reality TV treasure hunters), but won't let that keep me from pointing out that last week's Top Ten Movies assignment was super popular and successful.

I especially love the themed lists that three of the members came up with, so I'll list those first.

• Top Ten Monkey Movies [Cool and Collected]
• Top Ten Time Travel Movies [Cavalcade of Awesome]
• Top Ten Vincent Price Movies [AEIOU and Sometimes Why]

But, as predicted, there were lots of movies that could easily have gone on my own list.

• Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Summer School, Back to the Future, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off [Flashlights Are Something to Eat]
• Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Monty Python and the Holy Grail [Life With Fandom]
• Can't Buy Me Love and The Avengers (I debated including The Avengers on my list, but decided I needed some distance from it to give it an objective ranking. I'm glad to see not everyone was that shy, because my feeling is that it deserves to be there.) [Random Toy Reviews]
• Terminator, Die Hard, and First Blood [Movie Hodge Podge]
• This is Spinal Tap [That Figures, who gets bonus points for also picking Night of the Demon.]
• Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Aliens, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and Batman (1966) [My pal Erik Johnson]
• The Crow [Jason Vorhees]
• Lean On Me [Team Hellions]

Some of those were picked by multiple bloggers, so I linked to the one I saw first. Seriously, the LXB roll call on this one is full of great films, so if you're looking to kill some time, you should check them all out.

Read My Stuff: Panels for Primates

For those who aren't familiar with it, Panels for Primates is a charity anthology webcomic on the act-i-vate site that's meant to raise money for the Primate Rescue Center in Kentucky. It's entirely free to read, but if the ape and monkey stories move or entertain you at all, you're invited - but not obligated - to contribute.

I'm a huge fan of these animals, so I was thrilled when editor Troy Wilson invited me to contribute a short, two-page story. And even more thrilled when he told me I'd be working with the awesome Simon Roy. Between the two of us, we packed a ton of action into two pages including giant cephalopods, tiki-men, a sinister elephant, a mad tortoise, slime-monsters, werewolves, mummies, and I'm self-indulgent enough to have thrown in giant monsters, giant robots, and yes, gorillas riding dinosaurs. It also features that most famous of Kentucky primates, Daniel Baboon. Please go check it out.

Art Show: On my own like Tarzan Boy

Tarzan



By Pascal Campion.

The Beastman Stalks!



By Frank Frazetta. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Sheena



By Jessica Hickman.

Exciting!



By Alex Schomburg. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories

Jungla



By Pierre Alary

The Glob.



By Walt Kelly. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Hulkasaurus Rex



By David Resto. [Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs]

Not So Abominable



By Enosh Bar-Tur. [Art Jumble]

Alien Jungle Girl



By Craig Rousseau.

Gorilla Warriors



By Tim Hamilton. [Drawbridge]

Art Show: Give the ape a hand

Daughter of the Forest



By NC Wyeth. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

APE!



By Craig Wilson.

Cavegirl! RAAAA!



By Kelly Matten, who writes, "I've never really drawn dinosaurs before but I'm pretty sure this is what they looked like." Me too, Kelly. At least, I hope so, because those faces are awesome. [Girls Drawing Girls]

Art Show: Too Many Dinosaurs!

The Great Fury



By Ken Kelly. [Illustrateurs]

Space Jungle Girl



By Gene Gonzales.

Jungle Girl



By J Scott Campbell. [Comic Art Community]

Man-Thing



By Tom Fowler. [Comic Twart]

King of the Dinosaurs



By Michael Berenstain. Michael is the son of The Berenstain Bears' Stan and Jan, which is where I sort of got the title of this post. When David was younger, we read a lot of those books to him and noticed that Too Many... or Too Much... was a recurring title formula. It was usually followed by something awesome like TV, junk food, or action figures. I have a feeling that Mama would have found something to disapprove of about T-Rex too. (I'm mostly kidding. While Mama was sort of a buzzkill, we obviously liked those books or wouldn't have read so many of them. And there's evidence that perhaps Mama was tolerant of Brother's dinosaur obsession.) [Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs]

Art Show: Gorillas, Tigers, and Smilodons. Oh my.

Trails in Darkness



By Ken Kelly. [Illustrateurs]

The Tigress



By Ken Kelly. [Illustrateurs]

Ka-Zar and Zabu



By Alex Horley. [Illustrateurs]

Art Show: Sugar... ah, Honey Honey... You are my Jungle Girl

Judy of the Jungle vs. Something That Almost Looks Like a Shark



By Alex Schomburg. [Shanna the She-Devil Blogger]

Jungle Jamboree!



By Dan DeCarlo in homage to this. [Shanna the She-Devil Blogger]

Wonder City



By Alex Horley. [Illustrateurs]

More apes, monsters, and jungle girls after the break.

Art Show: Was He Beast... Man... or Vampire?

Baby Aquaman



By Oliver Nome. [Justice League Detroit]

Luthor vs. Grodd!



By David Finch. [Illustrateurs]

Fire Monster Approaching!



By Scott Willis, Kevin Dart, and Joseph Holt. [Concept art for Genndy Tartakovsky's new giant monsters vs giant robots show Sym-bionic Titan.]

After the break: The Rocketeer, Assassin's Creed, Nick Fury, Black Widow, the ladies of Marvel, the Hulk, and the Son of Dracul.

Pass the Comics: Heads on Vases!

The Jungle Twins on the Island of Dr. Strangekind



[Gold Key Comics!]

Rulah vs. The Cat Killers



[The Comic Book Catacombs]

Futura vs. The Tyrannical Decapitated Heads That are On Life-Support



Also, there's an underground city, animal-men, and roboty secrets. The awesomeness continues. [Lady, That's My Skull]

Welcome to Atlas

I couldn't be prouder. Thanks, Jeff!

Flash Gordon Meets Bono (and Other Stories)

I feel kind of bad that I haven't had any Christmas-related stuff on the blog this year. My original idea for an Adventureblog Christmas became Plump Sister and I never got around to a solid plan for replacing it. Ironically, Christmas busyness got in the way, but I do hope everyone's having happy holidays if you celebrate them.

Captain Splint's Hairy Helper



The other day we got pirates and a jungle girl. This time 10c Dreams brings us pirates and a gorilla. Oh, if only someone could combine all three into one marvelous tale...

Princess of the Sea



It's not often we see mermaid comics, but the mermaid experts at Never Sea Land have come through.

Know what would be cooler than a pirate-jungle girl-gorilla comic? A pirate-jungle girl-gorilla comic with mermaids in it. Good thing Jess and I are working on one.

Rulah vs the Ape Women of Antilla



The keepers of all things Rulah at the Comic Book Catacombs have the whole story.

Rulah and the Whispering Wires of Death



This one too.

Steps of Doom



Maybe Flash doesn't meet quite as cool a Bono as he could have, but it's still a nifty story. [Comic Book Catacombs again]

The ABCs of Awesome

Since finishing that huge music meme, there's a hole in my Sunday blogging. Not sure what I'll eventually fill it with, but for today, I've totally gacked this idea from Cal.

Apes



Barbarians (fighting Apes)



Cephalopods



Detectives



Elasmosaurus



Frankenstein's Monster



Giant Things



Head Kicks



Islands



Jungle Queens



Keira Knightley



Lost Civilizations



Musketeers



Namora



Obelisks



Pirates



Quetzalcoatl



Ray Guns



Space Girls (with Ray Guns)



Treasure



Underwater Cities



Valkyries



Wonder Woman



X-Ray Vision



Yeti



Zorro