A Blast from This Monster Kid's Past

The other day I was checking out one of my favorite Facebook pages (Famous Monsters of Filmland) and stumbled across this opening sequence for WPIX New York's Chiller Theater. It brought back so many memories.

As a Monster Kid, Saturdays were a treat. Me, my dad, and my grandfather would go for an early morning breakfast and then hit Cal's News on Central Avenue in Lynn in search of the latest edition of Famous Monsters of Filmland, or Don Elder's in Chelsea to pick up the latest release of Castle Film's 8mm renditions of classic Sci-Fi and horror movies (they were silent and only twelve minutes long, but this was in the days before VCRs, so it was the only way to have our favorite movies at our disposal whenever we wanted to watch them). In the afternoon, I would get my weekly dose of monsters from WLVI Channel 56's Creature Double Feature (the opening sequence is also included below), which was usually about some giant monster or invading alien destroying the planet, and ended the day with Chiller Theater.

As an adult (or at least as an old dude who pretends to do adulty things), I sometimes miss the innocence of those childhood days.

 

 

Cover Art for Yeitso

I'm very excited. This week Blood Bound Books sent me the cover art for Yeitso, which is due out later this summer.

Yeitso is a dramatic departure from my usual zombie and vampire fare. This is my homage to the giant monster movies of the 1950s that I grew up with as a Monster Kid--Them!, The Giant Gila Monster, The Crawling Eye, and so many more. In the vein of those movies, I've toned down the gore and language (no F bombs in this book) and eliminated the sex (except for one brief referral to it in the opening chapter). This is a novel I'd let my twelve-year-old stepdaughter read.

I'm finishing off the final proofs of the manuscript now and, with luck, the book should be available by the end of the summer. When it does, Blood Bound Books will be running a contest to give away six e-book copies and one print version of the book. So please keep watching for further details.

Monster Kid by Dave Lowe

I don't usually promote other websites on my blog out of a sense of fairness; I feel if I promote one author's/artist's website I should be promoting them all. But in this case I need to make an exception. I was trolling around on Facebook this morning and stumbled across the above drawing titled Monster Kid from Dave Lowe's website Para Abnormal. This drawing struck home because it was me as a kid. I had all the Aurora monster and dinosaur models, the posters on the wall (except mine were of Godzilla), and the G.I. Joe with "real hair" and his helicopter. I loved sitting in my room watching old 1950s monster/Sci-Fi movies on TV while reading Famous Monsters of Filmland. Just add curly hair and dorky glasses, and this could be me. It brought back a lot of pleasant, childhood memories. Thanks, Dave. I'll be checking in on your wensite daily now.