The Horror Of Party Beach

That's right, everybody! Get ready to do the Zombie Stomp with the way-out Del-Aires, while bearing witness to a strange invasion from the sea by unusual monsters looking for blood!

Anyone who is even remotely tuned in to the goofier (read "joyous") back alleys of popular culture, is probably familiar with this movie. Long story short, actor and industry gadfly Del Tenney decided to try and cash in on the surf culture craze of the early 1960s and the drive-in draw of monster movies at the same time by making a monster-in-the-surf film; not in sunny California where Gidget was shimmying with the Beach Boys, but in the chilly waters of the Atlantic off the New England coast! It was touted as the first horror musical (which is inaccurate because the infamously dull The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies beat it to the punch by months.) The movie has been dismissed as one of the worst movies of all time, and ravaged by everyone from Leonard Maltin to Stephen King, but darn if it isn't fun enough to survive. 

In 1989, Indiana Junk Rock band Sloppy Seconds included an homage to the film on their album Destroyed, and a decade later the movie gained cult film stock points when it was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Click to watch trailer for The Horror Of Party Beach.

Great, you might say. That's all neat-o and everything, but what am I doing here, on this blog thingy, reading about it? Well, it just so happens that in 1964, a fumetti-style photo comic of the film was published by Warren Magazines, the gang that gave us Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella, and other horror-themed comic titles. This over-sized photo comic essentially breaks the film down into stills, tweaking a few things here and there. For example, in the comic version you can see someone has gone through and painted big scary piranha teeth into the mouths of the monsters. In the actual film, the creature's mouth is full of mollusk-like protuberances that make it look like it's walking around with a mouth full of hot dogs. 

I have a copy this here publication, and thought, since we're dealing with actual horrors and dangerous weather here in the upper Midwest, why not try to bring a little levity and joy into things. Should you be so inclined, the entirety of the The Horror Of Party Beach comic is available for download here, to peruse at your leisure.*

*Note about the files: The magazine was scanned in single page jpeg format. The download is an uncompressed file folder containing the jpegs. 

Ghosting The Waves with The Phantom Surfer!

Howdy from the not-so-Great White North! 

Aside from the usual extreme temperature advisory (we're supposed to have wind chills at or around -35 degrees Farenheit over the next 48 hours), we're also currently under siege by our own government. This isn't a political blog in any way, shape or form – if anything this is my one surcease from the constant barrage of all of that – but I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention it. 

The current luau status: unlikely.

Long story short, there's a lot of reasons folks here in Minnesota are staying inside right now. And, of course, what so often happens here during the most brutal depths of the winter months, at least for me, is that I start romanticizing and longing for the warmer days of summer. 

Well, I can't move May closer to January, so the next best thing (I guess) is to try to invoke a sense of the warmer climes with a bit of summer-related ephemera. And today's comes in the form of a haunting surfer story from Ghostly Tales #71, published in January of 1969 by Charlton Comics.

Aside from the obvious signature on the Jim Aparo cover above, there are no credits to be found in this comic. The story in question, " The Phantom Surfer", is clearly illustrated by Steve Ditko. Whether he wrote the script for it as well, I have no idea. 

The story is ok for what it is. It has characters making odd choices and the ending has sort of a fun conclusion (I almost said "twist") that you can predict the second Larry decides to surf out to impersonate the mythical phantom surfer. Ditko's art here is fine. It's not my favorite period of his. I enjoy a lot of his early pre-Marvel work for horror and dark fantasy titles like The Thing and This Magazine Is Haunted, and of course the initial runs of Spider-Man (whom he co-created) and Dr. Strange (whom he created). In my opinion much of his work that followed appears sloppy and amateurish and the characters he created for DC Comics like Hawk & Dove, The Creeper, The Question and Shade, The Changing Man are silly half-baked embodiments of Ditko's worldview or oddly complicated notions rather than competent or interesting comic book characters. 

You can see that my copy is in pretty rough shape. Some of the pages couldn't be scanned straight on because of how deteriorated the spine is, but please do enjoy this spooky, summery surf tale via Steve Ditko and magazine host Mr. L. Dedd. I've included the ads from this particular issue because I thought they might be enjoyed as part of the nostalgia of the reading experience.

Surf's up!

To Zine Or Not To Zine! [with 2 Free Zines!]

 That is the question! 

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of overhead and effort with no promise of dissemination, or to just say, "Yeah, I really like making them and sharing them, but they're just going to sit in a closet somewhere until I recycle them in eight months, because ain't nobody giving a toot about what I have to say about what I give a toot about!"

It's a conundrum that's puzzled the minds of creative types for centuries. That's why Hamlet ultimately scrapped his zine, Moody Leotard Lads, and decided to upend his royal household. I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I do love me a good zine, though. I made them in high school and college, sought them out at comic conventions and record shows over the years, and even held long-standing subscriptions to a few (does Video Watchdog count as a zine?).

So, about a week ago I had what I deemed a great idea for a new zine; I'd settled on the titles Junk Drawer or X-Ray News. I thought Junk Drawer would be a good title because it could metaphorically encompass the scattershot menagerie of seemingly unrelated interests I would include: everything from record reviews and other music highlights, vintage comic book history, film insight, jabber about literature, art, graphic design and, well, who knows what else. Certainly not me! X-Ray News was gleaned from a Hercule Poirot book – The Labors of Hercules (1947) – and I thought it sounded cool. Almost like a Richard Sala comic or an obscure The Fall b-side or something. 

I'd even mapped out the first two issues. One would be about beach/surf culture, specifically from a Midwesterner's perspective ('cause you know we got 'em here, too), and would include reviews and info about my favorite surf records, spotlights on some fun beach-related films, etcetera. The second issue I had started to sketch out was related to party planning. What? That seems abstract and pointless, you might say. Back when VHS was king of the home media and companies needed a constant flow of product to spice up quickly stagnating production catalogs, all kinds of needless (and downright odd) novelty videos were released, providing everything from the opportunity to get fit with grannies to learning how to be a hit at any party. There were apparently a whole lot of "How To Party" adjacent videos produced, and a heck of a lot of them are up on the internet for casual consumption. So, obviously, someone needs to uncork this magic and get it out to the world, right?! Pair that with some of the most bizarre party snack recipes from cookbooks of yore, and tips on making the perfect party mixtape, and BAM: you got yourself a very niche publication that might appeal to...only you.

And then that voice that sneaks in when you're caught up in the gusto of a new creative endeavor, filtered into my thoughts; y'know, the one that says "No one wants this! You're going to spend a chunk of change to make a publication that isn't saleable. Why don't you divert your time to a worthwhile hobby and take up clog dancing or something?" 

"Isn't this blog a digital version of that idea, already?" you might say. Yeah, I guess. But I'm sort of stuck on physical media and the artifact is kind of the charm of the medium.

So here I sit, concept in hand and unsure which definition of "execute" I should pursue with it. I'll probably just continue with this here online thingy, because that's free and I can include video and audio media, I guess.

Aside from using this blog to ruminate on my own artistic insecurities, I thought it might be a novel idea to include full copies of two of my most recent zine productions. One on pinball and another on...well, the goal was to have all original material with the set parameters of it making me laugh while I was making it. They were both produced under the title 4PM FRIDAY, with the idea that 4 PM Friday is the gateway to the weekend! So, y'know, fun times were ahead and whatnot. That hasn't actually been a reality since I was sixteen years old, but it wasn't the worst title idea I'd come up with when workshopping it.

If you read these and like them, feel free to download and share them. Please just give me credit when you do so.

Enjoy!

* You can download/read 4PM FRIDAY: PIN BALL ZINE here.

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* You can download 4PM FRIDAY "BEACH STAR" ZINE here.