“Interview with a Werewolf” talks to A. Quinton (that’s me)

I’m honoured to have been interviewed by author Stacey Leah Mewse as part of her ongoing “Interview with a Werewolf” series. The interview was conducted question-by-question over email and it took me the better part of the summer to complete, because I had (maybe too much) fun expounding on what I like, love and hate about werewolves.

It’s a long read, and definitely worth perusing if you’ve ever wondered what informs the Werewolf News / AQ “house style” of werewolf fandom. This bit about self-image and identity touches on something I’ve been fascinated by since I was a kid:

Are you still you if your hands are a different shape? If the scar you got at 14 by sliding into third base wrong is obscured by fur, or erased entirely by new skin? What if the temperament that informs your personality was merely a function of hormones that are now completely out of whack because the brain controlling their production decides that “eat ten pounds of living flesh ASAP” is more important than “re-write this buggy code so I can get a promotion”?

For more like this, plus a bunch of text-based hollering on the order of “I like werewolves because they’re fuckin’ nasty-ass monsters“, check out the interview. Thanks very much to Stacey for the opportunity, and for her patience over the summer!

“Underworld: Blood Wars” trailer shows more of the same

The international trailer for “Underworld: Blood Wars” came out today. It features lots of footage from the previous four films in the series, and from the looks of things, a lot of recycled ideas from those films, too.

  • High-stakes, low-investment plot about finally ending the war between vampires and werewolves, for real this time
  • Powerful new villain with long hair
  • Coloured contact lenses and very white teeth
  • Grim pronouncements uttered in aristocratic accents
  • Weightless acrobatic fights
  • Quick cuts away from shadowy CG werewolves
  • Ubiquitous blue filter

The only thing I had no trouble distinguishing from the flashback footage was Kate Beckinsale’s updated appearance as Selene, featuring two-tone hair and a big comfy coat she can deploy as an evasive manoeuvre during combat.

“Underworld: Blood Wars” comes out January 2017. With respect to everyone who worked on this – particularly the technical crews – please, stop. Speaking as a representative of what I have to assume is a primary target demographic, I don’t want this. Nobody I know does. Spend your time and effort elsewhere.

Boof’s Basketball Vest and Bad Dragon: I’m a guest on The Ugly Werewolf podcast

Nodnash, AKA The Ugly Werewolf, invited me to help kick off the second season of his self-titled werewolf-centric podcast in an episode called “Interview With the News”. My suggested title of “An egg allergy, a $6 haircut, and lycanthropy: Scott Problems” was not accepted because I never actually suggested it, but I think we can make it the unofficial secondary title.

On this episode, Nodnash and I cover all kinds of werewolf topics, including tails, Howl Con 2017, and a conceptually dubious Bad Dragon product [link NSFW, discussion only slightly tasteless]. We also do a deep dive on the 1985 Michael J. Fox masterpiece Teen Wolf, for which I took over two typed pages of notes. Did we like it? You’ll have to listen to the episode to find out.

You can get this episode (and all the others) through iTunes, Overcast, the Podbean embed below, or your podcast app of choice.

I love listening to podcasts, and it’s always a trippy honour when I get invited to be on one – especially one this fun. My thanks to Nodnash for having me on!

See “End of the Road” at Dragoncon today & ask about “Bad Meat”

If you’re attending Dragoncon in Atlanta, GA, I have your 4PM appointment for today locked down. Unmanned Media‘s Blaine Moir and J. Taylor will be screening their excellent werewolf short End of the Road in the “Horror 1: Monsters & Mayhem” block of the convention’s film festival.

After the screening, Moir and Taylor be doing a Q&A. If I was there my first question would be “when can we expect to see more Travis Coles because he rules“, but you might like to ask about their next project “Bad Meat”, which will pit two famous kinds of monsters against each other. That I’m mentioning it should tell you what one of the monsters is. What they’ve told me about it sounds phenomenal, especially in light of how good EotR was. Stay tuned for more on “Bad Meat” soon!

If you’re not able to attend Dragoncon, read my review to see why watching it for free here is a good idea.

The best werewolf plush I’ve ever seen is now on Kickstarter

Let’s not mince words: Chloe Borders has designed the best plush werewolf I’ve ever seen, and I want him. This boy is so grumpy, cute and well-designed that I want three, in fact, and the only thing standing in my way is a 35-day Kickstarter campaign.

Writes Chloe (@ZennyBleats on Twitter):

For my first ever Kickstarter, and designed plush, I’d like to introduce the werewolf! The werewolf is 10 inches tall and made from soft minky fabric… All rewards are exclusive to this Kickstarter, so if you pledge, you can say you own something that’s one of a kind!

Chloe has a goal of $11,000 USD and she’s raised over 10% of that in the first few hours. Much like the other plush animal Kickstarter I’ve recently pledged to, this campaign is not bogged down with a ton of gimmicky extras. You can garnish your pledge with some werewolf stickers and/or buttons if you want, and there are some glow-in-the-dark stretch goals, but every pledge level above $5 is focussed on getting one (or more) of these boys into your house (and mine)!

Click over to the Kickstarter campaign for a look at the extras, and for your chance to get one of these werewolf plushes for an early-bird discount!

werewolf-plush-front

Turn into a werewolf whether you want to or not with your own Cursed Ring of Hircine

Hircine’s Ring is an artifact from Bethesda’s game Skyrim that gives the wearer a 10% chance to turn into a werewolf. If that sounds like something you wish you had, good news! Now you can walk around in real life with an expectant gleam in your eye (and on your finger). Bethesda’s online store is selling a replica of the Ring for $95, which is pretty cheap for something that randomly induces a lycanthropic transformation.

The real-life Hircine’s Ring is handmade in (ironic) solid sterling silver by RockLove Jewelry, presumably in limited quantities, since it’s already sold out in some sizes and close to selling out in others. It’s a little too ornate for my taste, but I’d wear one on each finger if it got results.

Thanks to SerivaTiger and Somnilux for the link!

“Werewolves Versus: Music” available for preorder, comes with advance MP3

wv03-advance-mp3The third issue of the digital “werewolves battle everything” magazine I edit, Werewolves Versus, is now available for pre-order! WEREWOLVES VERSUS MUSIC comes out on Tuesday, August 30th. It features over 150 pages of brand-new, never-before-seen werewolf stories, comics, art and essays, and a killer cover by Lew “Viergacht” Delport.

Like every WV issue before and after it, it’ll be pay-what-you-want, including $0, but right now I’m trying something new: if you pre-order it now for a minimum price of $1, you get an instant advance download of “As the Sun Sets”, the song my friend Colin Janz wrote as a contribution. Here’s how Colin describes the song:

This song is based on a character who built himself while I was writing. Every full moon, he transforms; however, he never remembers anything about his transformation, only that it happens. On full moon nights he travels to a grassy hill above his forested town, far away from people, to watch the light fade. But instead of succumbing to a torturous, violent experience, everything becomes hazy, peaceful and quiet, as if he was falling asleep to the sound of wind and morning songbirds.

Check out WEREWOLVES VERSUS MUSIC, or the previous two issues! All paid purchases of Werewolves Versus directly benefit its contributors and support the creation of future issues.

Monster Legacy lovingly dissects the “American Werewolf in London” transformation

I want to show the pain. I want him to be able to move around, he’s gonna pull his clothes off, we’re gonna see the whole body change — so figure out how to do that.

– John Landis describing the AWIL transformation to Rick Baker

John Landis’s An American Werewolf in London is 35 years old this week, and its showcase werewolf transformation scene is still regarded by werewolf fans as the best ever shown on film. Leave it to the invaluable and tireless minds of Monster Legacy to write a 4,000-word essay on the concept, design, planning and execution of that transformation scene, and then support that essay with an enormous photo gallery.

Exclusive: “Blind Liberty” teaser from “Joe Dante Presents American She-Wolf”

american-she-wolf-august-2016

Another full moon has risen, and with it comes a Werewolf News exclusive! It’s “Blind Liberty” by Orlando Arocena, August’s teaser for the upcoming premiere issue of Joe Dante Presents: American She-Wolf.

The issue is a one-shot co-created and co-written by Kris Millsap and Lance Dobbins. Pencils, ink and colour are by Ario Murti, and Keenan Reed lettered it. I had a chance to read it earlier this summer, and even in greyscale pencils it was nasty, rip-your-face-off fun. The partially-transformed lady portrayed in Orlando’s teaser image represents her country very enthusiastically.

Ario’s character designs are great, and I wasn’t the only one who really liked the look of this particular American She-Wolf. In a recent email to me about the comic, Kris had this to say about Joe Dante’s reaction:

When I showed Joe the first round of pencils, his exact words were “THAT is the werewolf we wanted on The Howling!”

If that’s not the gold standard endorsement for werewolf aesthetics, I don’t know what is! If you’re near Paris in October, you have a chance to share your own werewolf opinions with Joe in person – he’ll be at Paris Comic Con.

This one-shot will be available digitally this autumn, and even more American She-Wolf will hit the shelves in 2017. For more information, keep an eye on the Caption Comics site.

Full Moon Features: I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) and I Was a Teenage Werebear (2011)

Of all the werewolf movies that have yet to come out on DVD — and at this late date, there aren’t too many that haven’t — the most bewildering case has to be AIP’s I Was a Teenage Werewolf, a slavering beast that was first unleashed in 1957. It’s the kind of film where even if you haven’t seen it, you at least know of it, and there are many people who, almost six decades after its release, continue to seek it out. Amazon has multiple listings for the 1993 VHS release, which can be bought new in the original shrink wrap for the low, low price of $75, but on DVD it is decidedly M.I.A. Heck, even the 1997 Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode in which Mike and the Bots savaged it has yet to surface on home video, a sure sign that someone, somewhere is sitting on the property, hoping for a huge payday that has thus far been far from forthcoming.

Anyway, I Was a Teenage Werewolf is a typical AIP quickie, perfunctorily directed by Gene Fowler, Jr., but when it proved to be wildly profitable they rushed several follow-ups — including I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, which was released less than five months later — into production. Even Roger Corman’s Teenage Cave Man from 1958 could be said to be one of its progeny since it was shot as Prehistoric World before AIP changed the title. As for the film itself, it probably would have faded into obscurity if not for Michael Landon’s subsequent fame and his feral performance as tortured teen Tony Rivers (with more than a little James Dean in his DNA) who becomes the title character under the questionable care of hypnotherapist Dr. Alfred Brandon (Whit Bissell), who somehow believes that regressing mankind to a bestial state is preferable to having angry young men pick fights without provocation and throw milk bottles around.

As the film opens, Landon is involved in just such a tussle with a fellow student (Tony Marshall) who merely slapped him in the shoulder. This is enough to get the attention of kindly police detective Donovan (Barney Phillips) who recommends he see a psychiatrist about his anger management problem, but Tony isn’t having any part of it. Even Arlene, the nice girl he’s going with (Yvonne Lime), can’t convince him that he needs help, but after one too many blow-ups he’s placed in the care of Dr. Brandon, who injects him with an experimental serum and, using hypnosis, regresses him back to a time when all people were werewolves or something. (You remember that from your history books, right?) Brandon’s assistant (Joseph Mell) is skeptical about what this will accomplish (“You call it progress to hurl back the human race to its savage beginnings?” he quite reasonably asks), but the proof of the pudding’s in the eating, and soon enough Tony is sprouting fur and fangs and chowing down on his classmates.

Something similar occurs in “I Was a Teenage Werebear,” Tim Sullivan’s contribution to the 2011 horror/comedy anthology Chillerama. In it, closeted gay teen Ricky (Sean Paul Lockhart) finds out why he isn’t interested in his hot girlfriend Peggy Lou (Gabby West) when he’s bitten in the rear by leather-jacketed tough Talon (Anton Troy), forever dooming him to become a fur-faced leather bear whenever his libido rises. (Doesn’t sound so bad to me.) It takes a while for Ricky to come to terms with his new sexual identity, though, even after Nurse Maleva (Lin Shaye, channeling Maria Ouspenskaya) helpfully clues him in by reciting “Even a boy who thinks he’s straight, yet shaves his balls by night, may become a werebear when the hormones rage and the latent ways take flight.” Oh, and did I mention the whole thing takes the form of a beach musical set in Malibu, circa 1962? (Sample song titles: “Love Bit Me on the Ass” and “Do the Werebear (And Let the Werebear Do You.”) What’s most refreshing about it is that Sullivan ends on a note of tolerance and acceptance, which is in sharp contrast to Tony Rivers’s ultimate fate.