Werewolf links, news, and reviews
Lest you think the video for Ghosted‘s catchy ode to teenage horniness is merely an “awkward duckling makes good” story, there’s a shot during the protagonist’s “getting ready” montage of some Polaroid photos of handsome dudes with their faces obscured by blood-red ink.
This video’s got some seriously great werewolf effects and gore. Thanks to Somnilux for the link!
Hi! If you’ve been wondering where the heck I’ve been for the past month or two, well, I was very busy working on the latest issue of Werewolves Versus, the digital (and maybe soon-to-be print) anthology I make in collaboration with artists and writers from the werewolf community – folks like you! This latest issue mashes up lycanthropes and film, and I’m extremely proud of the results.
You can get all 167 pages for any price you like, including $0, right here. And if you’re interested in being in the next issue, Werewolves Versus: Fashion, check out the submission guidelines!
Hi hello yes I’ve been away working on my other werewolf project, WEREWOLVES VERSUS, but I’m back now in part because I have a brief gap in the production schedule for WV, and also because after years (literal YEARS) of walking into Michaels to scope their Halloween section and getting angry that they never seem to have good werewolves in their wacky Lemax “monsters doin’ stuff in a monster town” displays, the winds of change are here, and they bring with them the scent of hair spray and wet dog and the sounds of your very favourite club bangerz – those sweet bangerz you crave to hear all night long.
Okay. Deep breath.
Lemax, that famous company we all know and love at the “forefront of the rapidly growing pastime of holiday lighted villages for Halloween and Christmas”, is providing at least two werewolves to you this Halloween 2017. The first, I’m realizing, is actually from 2012, but they’ve re-released it for 2017: the Lemax Spooky Town Werewolf Grooming and Night Spa with Adaptor.
You have to say the whole name when you refer to it. It’s a miniature spa where they turn you into a werewolf, and then they sort out your scraggly pelt with a nice wash and blow-dry. If you’ve been a werewolf for a while they’ll probably give your claws a manicure, too, and help you with the weird halitosis you get from eating too many trick-or-treaters. And when you’re done, you can go chill on the Moon Deck with a cold one. Everything about this concept is so fundamentally delightful to me that I’m giddy. You can get it wherever Lemax stuff is sold – Michael’s, probably although it’s not on their site right now – and Amazon has a few, too. Oh, you plug it in and it lights up and plays sounds, but if you needed those features to push you over the edge you’re not the kind of werewolf collector I’m addressing right now (that is, excitable idiots like me).
What if you don’t want to spend almost eighty bucks on a werewolf spa? Shame on you, but I get it, and Lemax does too. Maybe perhaps instead you might fancy DJ Wolfman, the werewolf disc jockey who somehow looks even more serene than the one chilling on the Moon Deck, even as he crushes your eardrums with Porter Robinson or State of Mind or Run The Jewels (but never Monster Mash – don’t be normative). This dude comes with detached (sadly non-functioning) speakers (one with a jack-o-lantern and one with two crushed cold ones) and can be found online for $7 or less.
If I seem excited about this it’s because I’m a sucker for kitschy knick-knacks, and it’s exciting to finally see Lemax werewolves that don’t look like this or this.
Thank you to my knick-knack-enabling partner Tandye for the links!
There’s nothing I despise more than a tiny-ass art book. Ink all piled up on the middle of minuscule pages like pepper on a playing card because you don’t respect the art? Get your small format reproductions away from me. I don’t want to see it. Get me a nice big tome like this new Thicker Than Blood art book from FPG.
Thicker Than Blood is a three-issue comic series written by Simon Reed, with pencils by Mike Ploog and paints by Simon Bisley. For an overview of the story and an assessment of why the series is considered a stand-out effort, may I direct you to this Werewolf News review from 2011. Suffice it to say that what grabbed most folks’ attention was the art, which is what this new book depicts, at its original size and in a variety of states.
This will be a large hardcover book that measures 12” x 17”. We will take full advantage of this format by reproducing Mike’s graphic pen and ink pages on the left-hand page and Simon’s richly painted artwork on the right-hand page. So, each and every cover and interior page can be compared and enjoyed in both mediums; one right next to the other!
This is a Kickstarter project but it’s already 200% funded with over a month to go on the campaign, so chipping in at this point is essentially a pre-order. Every pledge tier – ranging from $10 to $175 – gets you a copy of the book, so if you’re an interested party, your only quandary is just how fancy you want to be.
Thanks to Doruk Golcu for the link, and apologies to the Internet in general for the following – my first and last foray into the world of Drake memes.
It’s the supernatural Archie spin-off so nice they did it twice! After the success of Jughead: The Hunger – March’s one-shot comic in which Jughead Jones becomes a werewolf and Bettie Cooper a werewolf hunter – Archie Comics is continuing the concept with an ongoing monthly series. Writer Frank Tieri will return, with Pat and Tim Kennedy picking up art duties.
“We purposely left the door open with the one shot, we told you if you made Jughead: The Hunger a hit we’d make more — and since you more than held up your end of the bargain — here we are,” writer Frank Tieri said in a statement. “Fans can expect more of everything they loved about the one shot now as we expand our universe — more werewolf Juggie, more bad ass Betty, more conflicted Archie and more twists and turns than you can shake a severed arm at.”
The series will continue on from the one-shot, under the same title – Jughead: The Hunger – and the first issue will be available in comic stores and digitally on October 25th.
Thanks to @EvilViergacht for the link!
Pop quiz! Which of the following best describes Frank Bruce’s online, free-to-read comic The Marrow Bones? Find the answer at the bottom of this post!
I had a lot of fun reading this. It’s a privilege to see someone’s concept expressed with such diligence, craftsmanship and character. The artwork – generally hand-drawn on Bee Paper products with Sakura Micron ink pens and Copic markers, according to Frank’s site – is mesmerizing, and the story leads down some interesting paths before taking a (maybe kind of expected but still enjoyable) twist.
There’s a ton of captivating art on his site, including a gallery titled “Women & Werewolves” that had me scrolling for a long time. For more of his work you can also follow him on Instagram and Facebook.
Thanks to @EvilViergacht for the link.
Quiz answer: stop reading this and go look at the comic, ya dingus
You and I are alone in an executive office. I am sitting across from you at a desk. Behind me, a smouldering sunset illuminates the skyline through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The desk is massive, gleaming, its dark varnished surface devoid of objects except for my folded hands and an unbranded video tablet. Its screen is illuminated but shows only a white triangle on a black background.
We sit in silence, the steady eye contact between us drawing out for what seems to you like many minutes, until I lean forward suddenly, as though responding to a signal your senses are not yet attuned to detect. My leather chair creaks as I push the tablet towards you with my stiletto-manicured fingertips. Wordlessly, you accept the device, rotating it so that the triangle points to your right in the universal symbol of commencement, fresh starts, new beginnings. But you have been here before, you tell yourself. This is not new. Can this be right?
“WolfCop?” Your whispered question hovers between us like a frightened hummingbird.
I lean back in my chair, folding my hands, and blink slowly. A look of profound serenity settles on my face, as gentle and implacable as the encroaching twilight. You don’t understand, yet. But you will.
“No,” I murmur. “Another WolfCop.”
As the last sliver of sun sinks below the horizon, presque-vu blooms in your mind, heralding a sudden liminal epiphany – too big to comprehend, but eternal and infinitely knowable. With trembling fingers, you reach out and press “play”.
Thank you to @Somnilux and everyone else who sent me a link to this trailer for the long-awaited sequel to WolfCop. If you’re in Montreal you can catch the Canadian premiere at Fantasia International Film Festival at 2:40 PM on July 29th. If you’re anywhere else in the world, keep an eye on this site for release info.
I love a good werewolf-themed event hashtag. I even tried starting one myself, to middling success. (Pro tip: don’t expect your art-related group thing to pop off if you don’t really draw anything yourself). Enter #Julycanthropy, the preferred portmanteau of summertime werewolves everywhere.
Originally coined (as near as I can tell) on Twitter last year by Tiffany Turrill, Julycanthropy is a great excuse to draw werewolves for an entire month. It’s like Inktober with all of those pesky non-lycanthrope prompts removed. Participating artists generally post their daily drawings on Twitter under the #julycanthropy tag, where the rest of us can enjoy the wide variety of thematic interpretations.
Collective, decentralized events like this are awesome because anyone can do whatever they like, but for those wanting a common set of prompts to work from, may I recommend Maria Nynfa‘s list:
Starting #Julycanthropy ! Made my own prompt list and everything 🐺 Day 1 is "Full Moon" #werewolves #illustration pic.twitter.com/HTA9nIoPJ7
— Maria Nynfa (@maria_nynfa) July 1, 2017
The featured image on this post (used with permission) is a work-in-progress shot by Ben G Geldenhuys – check out the finished piece here.
All right, put down your hot dogs and sparklers. Put them down. You shouldn’t be holding both of them at the same time. What’s wrong with you? Anyway. Today Image Comics published= the entire series run of The Astounding Wolf-Man in a single hardcover collection, and at 656 pages and 4.4 pounds, you’re going to need both hands to pick this thing up. That’s heavier than the MacBook I’m typing this on.
And pick it up you should, especially if you’ve ever wished that werewolves had their own mainstream comic book series or television show, like zombies got with The Walking Dead. The Astounding Wolf-Man was written by none other than TWD writer/creator Robert Kirkman. While it eschews the monochrome misery of his famous zombie franchise for a more superhero-versus-supervillain type of tale, TAWM has its fair share of narrative shocks and monstrously-derived violence. It’s one of the first comic titles I ever wrote about for Werewolf News, and I’m very glad to see its three-year run and all of Jason Howard‘s awesome art captured in such a lovely artifact.
For the first time ever, the complete ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN is collected in one volume! When Gary Hampton is mauled and left for dead, his life takes a drastic turn! When the moon is full, he transforms into a beast of the night—a werewolf! But this curse will not be used for evil. Witness the birth of the world’s most unlikely new superhero—The Astounding Wolf-Man! Collects ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN #1-25 and INVINCIBLE #57
This big book of werewolf-punching-vampires is available right now in print from Amazon or your favourite local comic retailer (request it with Diamond ID APR170737), or digitally through Image and Comixology.
Many thanks to @JDBoucher0 of Space Goat Productions for the heads-up!
Space Goat Productions is combining three things I love: werewolf comics, Halloween and free stuff. Their very sweet, very fun all-ages comic Moonlighters has joined the 30-title roster of Halloween ComicFest, and will be including a mini-version of Moonlighters #1 (which I reviewed in March) in the spooky version of Free Comic Book Day.
Halloween ComicFest happens on the Saturday before Halloween (this year it’s on October 28th) at your local comic shop. It’s a family-friendly event where you can pick up some free comics, show off your costume someplace that isn’t a cold sidewalk after dark, and maybe win a shopping spree in the Halloween ComicFest costume contest. There are at least two comics in this year’s list that feature werewolves (Moonlighters and this Black Betty one-shot, which looks great), and the commemorative t-shirt (illustrated by Francesco Francavilla) features a werewolf who’s super into Hellboy.
For more on Halloween ComicFest visit the event website, and for more on why Moonlighters is an especially good choice for a family-friendly give-away, check out this Space Goat news post. And lest you think a kid-friendly werewolf comic has nothing to hold your grown-up werewolf fan attention, check out this page from Moonlighters #2, which shows that not every werewolf transformation in the series is of the “sparkle magic” type.
