Death Metal Fanny Pack

As none of you most likely know, in my spare time I'm occasionally an unsuccessful inventor. I'm the Homer Simpson variety inventor, for every halfway decent idea I've come up with there are a hundred that are really, really crappy. But I think I'm onto something here. Not since Clip-On 3-D Glasses (making 3-D movies easier on those who wear glasses, of course) have I come up with something this ingenious. The Death Metal Fanny Pack - For The Indiscriminate Metal Fan On The Go:

Nergal from Behemoth thinks they're cool! (Nergal? Wasn't that Garfield's arch nemesis in the hit comic strip Garfield?)

Weird Science

I think Weird Science would be my favorite of the John Hughes-directed films of the 1980's. Although Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Uncle Buck are quite spectacular as well. I wouldn't say Weird Science was the "best" of the bunch, but it's still my favorite. I've found that a lot of the movies that I ended up revisiting the most feature a couple of nerdy/misfit/outcast friends/brothers in some kind of wacky misadventures. Put Strange Brew, Wayne's World or Bill and Ted, Lebowski (it counts) on in front of me and I will stop anything I'm doing and stay put until the credits roll. (Once I can own it and watch it on a regular basis, the critically maligned Pineapple Express will be added to that list as well.)

In addition to Weird Science being loaded with nerdiriffic shenaningans, there is also some great and hilarious dialog between Garry, Wyatt and their digitally-created Frankenbroad Lisa. I've also always felt there were some great casting choices in Weird Science; Anthony Michael Hall, Robert Downey Jr., Bill Paxton, Michael Berryman and that chick from Night of the Creeps, Return of the Living Dead II and Killer Klowns From Outer Space - that's good casting if I ever saw it.

Anyway, I've said enough for one post, but while I'm talking Hughes, I just need to state, for the record, that it is my opinion that The Breakfast Club has by far the worst out-of-nowhere dance scene in the history of time and space. I cringed so hard the first time I saw that scene that my face has still not fully recovered. It's caused some problems for me over the years. Oh, and Ally Sheedy was much hotter before they Ringwalded her up at the end. Thank you for listening, I had to get that off my chest.

You're stewed, buttwad!

Silent

I think I've just discovered the oddest trailer of 2008. From the director of Trees and Trees 2: The Root of All Evil, comes Silent, a film in which a girl in a silent movie suddenly develops an actual speaking voice. It's a very interesting concept, and if done right this thing could be pretty amazing. I'm anxious to see what they've done with it.

Goodbye Isaac and Bernie

This has been a tough year on celebrities, and over the past couple of days we've lost a couple of great people. Academy and Grammy Award winning musician Isaac Hayes has died at the age of 65 and a day before he passed away, Comedian Bernie Mac died at the age of 50. Both of these deaths pretty much came out of nowhere and I'm tremendously saddened by the loss of both of them.

Read more about Bernie here and Isaac here

As a tribute to Isaac and Bernie, I recommend everyone sit down and take in a double feature of Truck Turner and Bad Santa.

Tuesday Knight - Tuesday Knight

Jason over at NightChillers has just posted Elm Street 4 star Tuesday Knight's 1987 self-titled solo album. It's pretty obscure (I've searched for it for years) and I'm sure some of you will want to check out so I'm mentioning it here so none of you miss it. He ripped it from a cassette copy, but the tape was brand new when he ripped it, so the sound quality is very good.

Of course, don't download it expecting some lost classic, it's just a pretty decent late 80's pop/rock album. I will say that I think track #3, The Harder You Love is a fantastic song though. He even included her song Nightmare, which plays over the Nightmare 4 opening credits, a song that does not appear on her album. Check it out here, and be sure to thank Jason for his hard work. And if you're still hankering for some Dream Master sounds after listening to Nightmare, I have the soundtrack and score right here.

While I'm here, I'd just like to say that I hate when an artist or band releases a self-titled album. Sure that has no effect on the album, and I'll certainly still buy an album I like if it shares a name with the band that created it. I'm just saying it seems like a cop out because no one in the band could think of anything cool to call the album. Who's with me?

Site Undergoing Some Changes...Fear Not!

Just a quick post to let you guys know I'm trying to fix up the template a bit, so if you notice a massively off center banner or anything like that, try to ignore it.

Phelpster's Custom DVD Covers : Volume 2

Here are some more of my custom DVD covers for those of you who are interested. I had some people who wanted to see more of my covers in the last post so I thought I'd throw some more up here. Click on the thumbnails, they'll take you to the Deviant Art page they are hosted on. Be sure to click on the image on the actual Deviant Art site too so you can see the larger versions of the covers.

First up is The Incredible Melting Man. This one not having a R1 release is a bit of a mystery. MGM owns the rights, and has even supplied a very nice Widescreen transfer for a German DVD release, but for some reason they won't release it in the United States. Weird. Anyway, if they did release it here, I think it'd look a little something like this:

Moving on to the best vampiric musical comedy of 1990, Rockula (soundtrack available here). Starring the always entertaining Dean Cameron, as well as Toni Basil, Thomas Dolby and the late Bo Diddley (no, really).

This is one for Eugenio Martin's A Candle For The Devil (UNA VELA PARA EL DIABLO / IT HAPPENED AT NIGHTMARE INN). I couldn't find a good tagline so I used the film's alternate title It Happened at Nightmare Inn on the back.

Here's Rabid Grannies. Sure Troma put this one out on DVD years ago, but I'm still hopeful that a real company will release it someday. Perhaps uncut, with a decent transfer...

And finally, this is Nightmare Beach (with John Saxon!). This has an official R1 release put out by Lion's Gate under the incredibly vague title of Welcome To Spring Break. But come on, that cover sucks! I don't know how you could take one glance at the original poster I used for my cover and consider using anything else.

CREEPY - But Wait - There's More!

Well, after posting what I thought was my last Creepy post, an awesome individual who goes by the name xinxilla dropped by the comments section and left a ton of links for most, if not all of the missing issues. Just when I think I'm done, they pull me back in! Huge thanks go out to xinxilla for supplying me with the missing issues.

The link below is just for a text file, once you open the text file you will find the links for the issues. Included in the text file are links for issues: 65, 76, 89, 91, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 138, 140, 141, 143, 144 and 146. Plus the Yearbook/Annuals from 1968-1972 and the limited Harris series from 1992 featuring covers by Dan Brereton. I think that about covers everything in the text file:

Download

I think some wires got crossed over at Warren because the cover for the 1972 Spooktacular looks a lot like it was supposed to go on an issue of Famous Monsters. (Now that would be a cool publication to find in CBR format.)

Big Lots 2 : The Reckoning

I've been to Big Lots a couple of times since my last posting and thought I'd show my latest finds. Sure all of these were mentioned in the big list on the last post, but it looks much cooler when you can see a giant stack of savings instead of just reading about it.

I think that most of the stores have just restocked the HBO titles, so now is a good time to check if you're looking for any of the TV series like Lucky Louie or Arliss.

MSRP (Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price) : $454.43
BLRP (Big Lots Retail Price) : $63.00

Heavy Metal - The Adult Illustrated Fantasy Magazine

So, Heavy Metal anyone? Since I've finished up the Warren posts for the time being, I thought I'd try these and see what happens. Sorry to say, I don't have the complete run of these right now, I randomly found some of these in a Rapidshare folder during an unrelated Googling a while back. I don't even know what site the folder came from, but thanks to the individual(s) responsible for scanning and uploading them originally. But hopefully some of you out there who enjoyed the Creepy and Eerie so much will also enjoy Heavy Metal, even if I am missing a lot of the issues.

This set includes 10 of the 12 issues from 1982. Every one except for February and October. Unlike the usual comics I post these are not CBR or CBZ files. Each issue is in it's own folder which has each page as an individual jpeg. But you can still use CDisplay, or whichever comic reader you prefer to view the comics, so outside of the fact that it will take a bit longer to extract it won't really make a difference.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

One cool thing about these issues is getting to see all the movie ads. 1982 had a lot of hits. Well, sure The Thing flopped upon it's initial release, but it's gone on to reach the classic status it deserves.

CREEPY - Spellbinding Horror and High Adventure

Here are the last remaining issues of Creepy I currently have. This set includes 126 (listed this in the last post, forgot to include the issue) 133, ,134, 135, 136, 137, 139, 142 and 145, which was the last issue put out by Warren in February 1983. Harris released a single issue, #146 in 1985, but I don't have that issue. If I do happen to come across any of the issues of Creepy or Eerie I didn't post before I will make sure to post them here.

The files are split over 5 parts, those of you without RS accounts should download part 5 first since it's only 473kb.

Part1
Part2
Part3
Part4
Part5

CREEPY - Spine Tingling Tales of the Macabre!

Here is a new set of Creepy. This includes #127, 128, 129, 130, 131, and 132. Be sure to be on the look out by a special guest appearance by Angus Scrimm!

Sadly I actually only have about 1, maybe 2 more sets of Creepy left in my collection, so that kinda sucks. But I've got plenty of other comics, some incomplete EC sets and stuff like that so I'll find some more good stuff to put up once I'm out of Creepy.

I actually tried posting this last night until a very minor mistake on my part made a huge mess of my computer. Anyone who has ever split a large file using WinRar knows you have to put an "M" after the desired file size. For example, if you need it to be split into 100 MB parts, you put 100M. I got distracted and missed the M, so instead of getting 2 files, I ended up with 65,000 very tiny files on my computer. That's right, 65,000. Sure it was only a combined total of about 26MB before I caught the mistake, but having that many files on my computer at once almost killed it. Anyway, I'm back up and running now, so here you go.

One
Two

Mary Shelley Overdrive - "Hideous Sexy"

Here's a cool post that was left over in the comment/requests section. South Carolina's own Mary Shelley Overdrive has released an EP called Hideous Sexy and it can be yours for the low, low price of absolutely nothing because the band is giving it away. Digitally. I thought I'd paste the post here for anyone who might be interested:

"Hideous Sexy is yet another pointless covers album from Mary Shelley Overdrive — available for FREE download. The EP is a collection of cover songs recorded during practice sessions, rehearsals, etc. during the recording of our (as yet untitled) LP.

Included on the album are covers of songs by Blue Oyster Cult, Antiseen, Black Flag, Devo, Bo Diddley, The White Stripes and The Vaselines, as well as an interpretation of the '60s Batman theme. No money should change hands for this album. Feel free to post it on your blog or share it however you choose."

You can grab the album from 2Shared, and be sure to check out their site for future updates. If you have any trouble with 2Shared they have a Megaupload link on their site.

01 The Godamn Batman
02 This Ain't the Summer of Love (Blue Oyster Cult)
03 Hammerhead (Antiseen)
04 Molly's Lips (Vaselines)
05 The Hardest Button to Button (The White Stripes)
06 Gates of Steel (Devo)
07 Who Do You Love (Bo Diddley)
08 Wasted (Black Flag)

Sammy Johns - The Van

Here's my cover for the soundtrack from the 1977 film The Van. Directed by the late Sam Grossman, and starring Stuart Goetz and the world's biggest little person Danny DeVito.

The main selling point to this soundtrack would be that it features Chevy Van, Johns' "Hits of the 70's" compilation mainstay. A bit of an odd song choice for the film as "The Van" in question is actually a Dodge, not a Chevy. But I guess if you've got a movie about a van, you need some kind of van song, so why not the smooth, laidback sound of Sammy Johns' Chevy Van? The whole soundtrack actually sounds very fitting for a movie about driving a van around aimlessly. It could've fit nicely in any number of late 70's/early 80's driving films; Cannonball Run, Smokey and the Bandit, Stroker Ace - hell, anything Burt Reynolds did between 1977 and 1983. The music reminds me alot of what you'd hear in any of those movies. Personally I'm currently enjoying the crap out of track 3, Hang My Head and Moan, definitely recommend that one.

I didn't really like the front cover - a creepy, cartoonish drawing of an apparently hammered and sorrowful Sammy Johns. So I made the front cover using the poster, and reworked the back cover a little bit. Well, I redid the text and lines on the back entirely, but redid them the same as it was before, if that makes sense. Just some touch up work I guess you could say. I've included my new covers, and the original cover scans in the folder.

NOBODY calls Dugan a TURD!

Phelpster's Custom DVD Covers

Here's something I wanted to do on my Space Bastard site, but never got around to doing. As you have seen a few times before, I like making DVD covers for the MST3K episodes, or the occasional movie I post, and CD covers for my compilations. So I thought I would post some of the covers I've done for movies that have yet to see a DVD release, or customs of ones that do have a DVD release. Some of the covers I do are pretty much just straight conversions using the VHS cover art, and sometimes I try and do something original. Of course mine are nowhere near the quality of say, the guy over at Bunny Dojo, but I'm trying.

This is something I like to do sometimes in my free time. As it turns out, having no life really gives you a good deal of free time. I would love to do something like this as a profession, but I know that's a long shot, especially living near 4 major universities filled with trained graphic designers. But, since I make these things and have no one to really give me feedback, I thought I would post some here to get some comments or suggestions. Do keep in mind that I have yet to take any design classes (or any classes for that matter), so if you find these to be of tremendously poor quality at least tell me why, or what would improve them.

You'll notice that they might have the credits from Zombie or Escape from New York on the back. Just ignore that, I have templates for different studios and sometimes I'm too lazy to actually fix all the credits accordingly.

First up is 1981's The Amazing Mr. No Legs, the story of a Handicapable Badass named Lou. This is a rare example of the short-lived Handicapsploitation subgenre. I think there's pretty much this one and The Crippled Masters, not really much of a subgenre. The Amazing Mr. No Legs is kind of like Death Wish, if Bronson had fallen off of his roof before wishing death upon his enemies. Okay, it's actually not like Death Wish at all. I made this cover when I downloaded the movie a few months back, but I still haven't actually watched it yet so I can't really say what it's like at the moment.

Moving on to the much maligned slasher from 1976, Drive-In Massacre. There is a DVD for this one, but I don't really like the cover, so I made this one. I just noticed that one image is on the back twice. Don't know how I missed that, I'll update that sometime later, those were the only screenshots I was able to find.

Endgame is one of the countless Italian post-apocalyptic films of the 1980's. So ridiculous, yet so entertaining to watch. If this cover is any indication, in the future, football is going to be AWESOME!

There is a DVD for this one also, but I wanted to use this old VHS cover with a pretty strange design of some lacerated arms seemingly growing from within the soil.

And the last one of this first batch is Mausoleum. The batshit insane "demonic possession of a bossomy trophy wife" classic from 1983.

I'll stop there, but if anyone wants to see anymore I'll post some more.

Bart Simpson's - Treehouse of Horror 1-8

Simpsons comics anyone? I personally don't really care too much for most of the Bongo Simpsons stuff, but these annual Treehouse of Horror issues are actually pretty awesome. They're great because they have other writers and artists who don't usually work on The Simpsons have a crack at a Simpsons story. I really enjoy seeing an artist incorporate their own style into a pre-existing character or series. I'm not sure why, but I guess it's just cool to see someone breathe some new life into something that you're so familiar with. In fact, I'd say that the War of the Colossal Beast inspired cover from issue #8 is possibly my favorite piece of Simpsons art I've ever seen. If it were I shirt, I'd strongly consider purchasing it. This one isn't too bad either:

Some of the artists featured include; Hilary Barta, Jeff Smith, Jim Mahfood, Jill Thompson, John McCrea, Mike Allred, and Sergio Aragones, just to name a few. My personal favorite is Hilary Barta's Power Plant of Pain, the artwork is just incredible. Here's a little sample:

This set is only for the first 8 issues, from 1995 to 2002. I am working on getting the remaining issues that came out between 2003 and now, I'll post them if I can get them. These scans (and the scans of none of the comics I post, actually) were not done by me, but I thank the scanners who did all the dirty work.

Download

Just to let everyone know, I will have some new music up here soon. I'm putting the finishing touches on an unoffial soundtrack from the movie Spun, and the music from 1977's sophmoric sex romp The Van should also be up soon - Featuring the smash hit 'Chevy Van'! Check back for those in the next couple of days, along with whatever other stuff I may or may not get around to posting.