Jack & David “American Werewolf” figures from Pop Culture Shock

Via The Toyark, here’s the only psychic damage I’ve sustained this year from visible proof of werewolf stuff I missed by not being at Monsterpalooza again.

Pop Culture Shock announced a range of new figures, including An American Werewolf in London‘s unlucky backpackers Jack Goodman & David Kessler. From PCS’s newsletter, which I’m still not subscribed to:

12″ Jack & David Figures from An American Werewolf in London!
We are still working on getting the likeness right for the David Naughton figure so please dont judge too harshly just yet!

It’s a testament to the sculptor’s skill that I went from “who cares about figures of two floppy-haired dorks in puffy coats who don’t listen to advice re: moors, and staying off them” to “these look extremely cool” in under 60 seconds.

No news yet on release dates, but if you sign up for their newsletter (which, by this point in the post, I can confirm that I have done) you’ll get details as they become available.

If you’re more interested in the version of David Kessler that eats motherfuckers, PCS has you covered there too: the massive 1:4 scale “Kessler Wolf” statue I told you about last summer is now available for preorder.

pcs-kessler-wolf

Apr. 25th 2016

Rich Tommaso’s “She Wolf” could be my comic of the summer

SheWolf-01This one’s got its hooks in me. Following on the heels of his crime series Dark Corridor, writer/artist Rich Tommaso is bringing a new werewolf comic to Image this summer: She Wolf.

Set in New Jersey in the 1980s, “the story follows a teenage girl [Gabrielle] who believes she’s been bitten by a savage werewolf. Soon after she begins to experience feverish nightmares that seamlessly bleed into her everyday reality.”

This interview with Tommaso on The Frog Queen has some great background on the setting and his reasons for writing a book about werewolves:

I’ve always loved werewolves and I’m always disappointed when they’re given such small parts in fantasy/monster movies (Harry Potter is the best example of that). It was just a matter of coming up with something interesting to do with them. Once I thought about my High School years and trying to hide your bad habits (drinking, smoking, etc.) from your parents I felt like I had a good place to work from.

DarkCorridor_06-1The dreamlike nature of Gabrielle’s situation is underscored by the curving elegance and surreal high contrast of Tommaso’s artwork. Frankly, I can’t stop looking at it. This post took an afternoon to write because I kept opening new tabs to check out Dark Corridor original pages. This cover he designed for Dark Corridor #6 is insane. The creative force behind that kind of imagery, applied to werewolves? Yes PLEASE.

She Wolf issue 1 comes out June 22nd, 2016, and issue 2 follows on July 20th. I asked Tommaso on Twitter how many more he has planned, and to my simultaneous delight and consternation, he said “I’ve got it written as a 4-issue series. If it does well, I’ve got more I can do with it.”

Werewolf comic fans, help She Wolf do well because [altruistic: it’s important to support creators] [greedy: I want Tommaso to make as many issues of this as possible]! You can order issues 1 and 2 from your local comic shop right now with Diamond IDs APR160661 and MAY160656, respectively. A trade – presumably collecting the first 4 issues – will be out November 16th, but don’t wait that long to get into it or there won’t be more issues to collect in a second trade.

Check out this io9 post for a look at the first few pages of She Wolf issue 1, or scroll down for some interior artwork Tommaso has been posting on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/RichTommaso/status/722127973562892288

https://twitter.com/RichTommaso/status/721390312984162304

https://twitter.com/RichTommaso/status/717754712951549952

Apr. 23rd 2016

Full Moon Features: Howl (2015)

When we first meet Joe Griffin (Ed Speleers), the protagonist of the British werewolf film Howl, things aren’t going so hot for him. Not only has he been passed over for a promotion at Alpha Trax, the rail company he works for, but the guy who got the job in his stead is a real jerk who makes him take a double shift and he’s shot down by a co-worker (Holly Weston) when he asks her out. Then, to top things off, the dreaded Eastborough red eye (which they’re both on) suffers a breakdown in the middle of a forest infested with werewolves. Talk about your hairy situations.

Writers Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler were on the ball when they named the company Alpha since much of the drama arises out of who takes the lead when things go pear-shaped and the train’s driver (played ever so briefly by Dog Soldiers vet Sean Pertwee) goes missing. Try as he might to maintain his authority, Joe is swiftly undermined by a entitled first-class passenger (Elliot Cowan) who’s accustomed to taking charge and an uptight businesswoman (Shauna Macdonald). Just about everybody takes a turn putting him in his place, though, including a narcissistic teenager (Rosie Day) and the elderly couple (Duncan Preston and Ania Marson) who share her compartment and have to put up with her inconsiderate behavior.

A funny thing happens, though, as the situation grows more dire and everyone comes around to the realization that the threat they’re facing is supernatural in origin: Joe becomes more confident and decisive, and he even gains some allies (starting with the similarly marginalized Sam Gittins and Amit Shah). That this coincides with director Paul Hyett’s decision to show off his creatures more is surely coincidental. After teasing the viewer with fleeting shots of digitigrade legs and twisted claws, once Hyett does the full reveal he keeps his monsters out in the open, while being mindful that the worst villains in these films are often the ones still standing on human feet.

Apr. 21st 2016

Meet steely Sally & her mopey, savage wolf-dad in “Untamed” short

Continuing the “werewolves and music” trend, here’s Untamed, a beautiful, touching and intense short film from a team of 3rd year Character Animation & CG Art students at The Ani-mation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark.

Sally, an introverted 15 year old girl, lives and bears with her wolf-father in the city of New York where Wolf is slipping more and more into his world of wilderness.

Sally still remembers the man he used to be; a brilliant and talented jazz trumpeter. Where did her father go? And can he still be found somewhere within the Wolf?

This got to me. Something bad happened to these two, and not only is Sally coping with whatever it was, she has to deal with her father’s grief/depression/alcoholism induced werewolfism as well. Get it together, Wolfdad.

It was a little strange to see a stop-motion effect applied to a CG world, but the character and set designs were so carefully done, so tactile, that I think it worked. That Wolf is scary.

This link came via Mr. Kate, who you might remember as the musician making werewolf-themed beats last year.

untamed-2

Apr. 18th 2016

When you’re Rick Baker even your “unfinished sketch” of a werewolf makes fans like me lose their minds

Yesterday creature effects legend Rick Baker tweeted what he referred to as an “unfinished sketch” of a werewolf rendered in a style reminiscent of his 2010 Wolfman lycanthropes. Is this Larry Talbot posing with his own tombstone? I like dapper snarly werewolves and this fellow wrecked my damn shop.

Then today Rick followed the sketch up with a self-effacing note expressing surprise at the positive response it got. He “almost didn’t post it because it is so un dynamic”, he wrote.

The person who’s taken home two (2) Academy Awards for his Werewolf Work is sandbagging his own artwork online. The dude responsible for some of the most iconic werewolves of the past 35 years is surprised that fans like me want more. MORE! Your modesty becomes you, Rick, but come on – I could write an entire blog post about that gnarly badass clawed hand alone! RICK. You don’t elongate a palm like that by accident!

Rick’s tweets are embedded below. Follow him on Twitter at @TheRickBaker just in case he posts more of these “unfinished sketches” and you want to get your brain’s werewolf zone obliterated directly by the man himself.

https://twitter.com/TheRickBaker/status/719698309518987266

https://twitter.com/TheRickBaker/status/720025654226333696

Apr. 12th 2016

Inhabit a werewolf in illustrated musical game “Wailing Heights” from Outsider Games

A few days ago I put out a call for submissions to a music-themed issue of the werewolf magazine I edit, and in a pleasant coincidence, I received links from readers to two music-related werewolf projects that are definitely worth your time.

First up, a game. Reader Jake Underwood alerted me to the upcoming Windows / OS X Outsider Games release Wailing Heights, a “body-hopping, musical adventure set in a horrific hamlet of monsters”, “home to the likes of vegan werewolves, hipster vampires, soulful zombies” with “glorious 2D artwork from a host of illustrious comic book talent” and a story by Hector: Badge of Carnage writer Kevin Beimers.

The game features an “original soundtrack of indie, pop, soul and country tunes” but I couldn’t find much on which band(s) are handling the music. According to the game’s development blog, The Aos Sí are “providing the jazzy, soulful music of Ada Z and the Zom Bs”, a band that performs in one of the town’s bars. The music in the trailer sounds interesting and period-appropriate.

This is a game about music but it looks incredible. The in-game art and cut scenes are rendered in feverish comic book detail by artists like John McFarlane (The Revenants), Glenn Fabry (Preacher), John McCrea (Hitman), PJ Holden (Judge Dredd) and Ruairí Coleman (Turok: Dinosaur Hunter). This interview with Coleman hints at a lot of unlockable in-game comics that explore the backstories of Wailing Heights’ resident zombies, vampires and werewolves. There’s a lot to explore in Wailing Heights, but I would be happy to just chill out in this werewolf bar.

wailing-heights-werewolf-bar

With a release date of “Spring 2016”, Wailing Heights should be available to play sometime in the next two months. You can follow its development on Steam, the development blog, or the Outsider Games Facebook or Twitter accounts.

I have another music-related item to share, but I have to watch it first!

Apr. 12th 2016

Sonja Langskjaer animates a stylish, skin-shredding werewolf transformation

Via @Somnilux comes this dress- and skin-shredding werewolf transformation by animator Sonja Langskjaer (YouTube – Instagram). It’s “only 8 seconds” long but it’s animated so well that you’ll probably end up watching it five or six (or a dozen) times to catch all the details.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sonja Langskjaer (@panimated)

 

This nameless lady is a pharmaceutical executive who’s gone from hosting a high-rise penthouse cocktail party celebrating her company’s successful Q2 to preparing to annihilate the Treadstone-style assassins who are enacting some espionage shenanigans in the sub-level laboratories.

Okay, I made that up. But what’s undeniably true is that when she’s done transforming, this werewolf is still wearing her own skin as a stylish belt. You don’t mess with that.

Apr. 7th 2016

You got werewolves in my creepypasta: “Bite of the Werewolf”

Creepypasta (essentially, spooky stories passed around on the Internet like urban legends) is a huge sub-genre of horror, with web sites, wikis and Reddit forums dedicated to its creation, dissemination and discussion.

My experience with creepypasta begins and ends with Kris Straub, who wrote the legendary, often-ripped-off story Candle Cove, and whose work in prose, comics and criticism has had more influence on me than any other creator in the horror space.

There are even YouTube channels dedicated to creepypasta, like Don’t Turn Around, created by Paul (writer) and Eddie (narrator). Paul and Eddie recently emailed me about their narrated story video “Bite of the Werewolf“, which I’m happy to share. The gist:

Jake lives in a castle in the middle of nowhere. He has been told to keep all the doors locked at night, especially on a full moon.

I wouldn’t call “Bite of the Werewolf” a great story, but from what little I know about creepypasta, it seems like a great example of the genre – simple set-up, something scary happens, then a twist ending. I posted a mini-review of it on Twitter last week:

More werewolves in all media, please, including broad, not-too-deep Internet-centric areas like creepypasta.

Apr. 5th 2016

“Arya Stark” actress Maisie Williams to portray “Wolfsbane” in New Mutants film

As reported by AV Club and other news sources last week, Maisie Williams – widely known for her portrayal of Arya Stark on Game of Thrones – has been signed to portray Rahne “Wolfsbane” Sinclair in the upcoming X-Men spin-off film The New Mutants.

Writes William Hughes for AV Club:

As her name suggests, Wolfsbane’s mutant power is basically that she’s a werewolf, something Williams should be accustomed to after several years as the frequently feral Arya Stark.

Williams made her acting debut on Game of Thrones and her work has made Arya my favourite character on the show so far (I’ve only seen up to the end of season 4, no spoilers).

According to Marvel canon, Wolfsbane isn’t an actual werewolf, but only because her lycanthropy comes from “being a mutant” instead of “being magically cursed”. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, as far as this description of her abilities goes:

Wolfsbane is a mutant with the ability to transform herself into a wolf at will, while retaining her human intelligence, or into a transitional form which combines human and lupine aspects; while this ability is lycanthropy, it is not magical in nature, but a complex biological function involving the mutant X-gene. She can change into a humanoid lupine form resembling a werewolf, or become an actual red wolf.

Friends, I’ll take it.

It’s still early days in the production schedule for The New Mutants, so there’s no release date yet, but this might be one I go see in theatres when it comes out. Thanks to Joseph M. Santi for the link!

Apr. 4th 2016

Alexis Ramirez’s “Wolf Mother: Hunted”

New York filmmaker Alexis Ramirez has emailed me every year since 2012 with a link to one of his new werewolf-related video projects. I’ve never posted about any of his work before, but today I’m sharing a trailer, synopsis and link to rent or purchase his latest project, a 14-minute short called Wolf Mother: Hunted.

Here’s the synopsis:

With her strong leadership style, Luperca, a transformed werewolf, is honored the title of Wolf Mother among her family of mutated werewolves. With a family of her own, and away from the human world, everything seems fine. But things takes a turn when a werewolf hunter, from a generation that spans way back of hunting these creatures, wants to kill Luperca and her pack. This demanding, controlling, madwoman, contracts a hunter to hunt down Luperca and her pack. Ironically the hunter becomes the hunted. The wolf hunter, now takes matters in her own hands, to try and get her success and to uphold her family tradition.

I haven’t seen anything except the trailer so I’m not going to attempt a review, although I suspect my opinions and conclusions would be similar to those I had with Angelic Wolves. Personally, I liked the music and the enthusiasm, but not enough to pay $5 to rent or $10 to purchase the whole thing. My poor judgement and taste are on the public record, though, and you may feel differently about Wolf Mother: Hunted.

You can see some behind-the-scenes material and share your comments and opinions on the Wolf Mother Facebook page.

Apr. 1st 2016