Oliver Postgate.

Oliver Postgate the creator of The Clangers, Ivor the Engine and
Bagpuss has died at the age of 83.

Some of my most deeply ingrained childhood memories are wrapped up within those shows.

R.I.P. Sir-

Bagpuss gave a big yawn, and settled down to sleep.
And of course when Bagpuss goes to sleep, all his friends go to sleep too.
The mice were ornaments on the mouse-organ.
Gabriel and Madeleine were just dolls.
And Professor Yaffle was a carved wooden bookend in the shape of a woodpecker.
Even Bagpuss himself once he was asleep was just an old, saggy cloth cat.
Baggy, and a bit loose at the seams.
But Emily loved him.

Thanks to Burning wellies for alerting me to this.

Barbie of the Dead.

Originally sourced from boingboing, available here: www.paranaiv

Kevin O'Neill Interview

Available here: Goshlondon

Thanks Anton-

Childhood Fears 1

"There's a monster in the closet."



I received this issue of Creepy at a very young age. I don't know exactly know how it fell into my possession -I can only speculate that it was bought by my parents as they were always buying me the odd comic here and there, never truly checking the content as they were under the impression that comics were quite simply "comics" aimed solely at young children:Marvel UK, Beano the like.

However why they would buy me something such as this with such an obvious graphic and rather disturbing cover image is beyond me. There is a possibility that I bought it myself from one of the local newsagents with my very limited pocket money, as even then I was always leaning towards these type of magazines and as long as it wasn't porn I'm sure the newsagent wouldn't have had any moral objection in selling it to me (Things in the seventies were a little more relaxed after all, come to think of it if I had said "A *Razzle please mister, it's for me da" He probably would have winked and passed it over "Okay son, but no peaking under those covers alright?")

Now there is also the possibility that it was bought second-hand and I received it a little later than the cover date of April 1975 suggests. If not I was five years of age when perusing this wondrous delight of horrifying horror.

Bad parenting? I think not- but it is strange how this must have looked beside my Beanos and Dandies!

Anyhow, however it may have fell into my grubby little mitts it turned out to be one of those prepubescent shock moments, enlightening and inflaming a curious young mind whilst opening a door into a much darker corridor of the human condition.

But I digress:

I can only imagine in hindsight, how I must have reacted to that cover image and let me say for the record that it -was- more than anything else, mainly the cover that struck me - like a hammer to the front of my freckled little forehead. The interior comics held some interest, but it was that cover- that strange almost hypnotic cover that had me completely captivated.

The red eyed ape man staring straight at me, the bloody knife, the gaping wound on the chest of the victim and that strange smile on the woman's face! I am sure I did not pick up on the obvious eroticism of the piece at the time: the red bedsheets, the open window and the almost welcoming arms and seemingly "orgasmic" expression of the lady in question. She seemed to be quite utterly relishing the moment of her own death. So many questions?

But as I said that perspective came a little later,as when I viewed it through a child's eyes, my main thoughts on the art were, "Big monkey man with massive knife, coming into bedroom and killing woman!"

It had gotten to the point whereby I was so scared of the image that I had to remove it from sight, my childlike rationale being that the more distance I could put between it and me the safer I would be. So I put it in my comic/toy cupboard situated at the end of my bed and closed the door. You see I couldn't throw it out, as even at that age I had the collector mentality. I mean the cover was fantastic, it was a work of art and as with most things that we fear- it brought along with it a terrible sense of excitement and danger.

However even though I had placed it behind a wooden door, completely out of sight,the fear of the image did not lessen in its intensity. It just meant that the big monkey-man was just sat behind the door even more pissed off at me for locking him up in a dank dark closet. He was probably in some magical way pealing himself off the cover at that very moment, as his body like some kind of fleshy balloon was being pumped up to a monstrous life size version of its comic book self, his red eyes glowing hotter and hotter somehow penetrating the confines of the wooden door and just watching and waiting for the moment to strike.

So after a few torturous nights of spinning out prayers to the Lord God above to keep me safe whilst wide-eyed and listening for any sound that may be emanating from the closet area, I decided to rethink my plan of action; so I opened the wooden doors half expecting "Old red eyes" to jump out at me. I then grabbed hold of the "devilish scripture of evil" and ran to the garden shed, flung open the door and placed the magazine on the highest shelf that I could reach while also moving an old tool box and a few gardening tools firmly on top to hold the bastard in place. I closed the door firmly behind me and returned home quite satisfied with solving my monkey problem.

At night I would still lie awake and ponder over the red eyed monster in the shed, but days turned to weeks and I slowly moved on (probably on to The Savage Sword of Conan or Evil Knievel or some other seventies distraction -God, those were the days !)

Until one night while rolling the skin back and forth on my Six Million Dollar Man's arm (again the erotic significance of this pastime didn't hit me until much later-)
I heard a strange shuffling noise from downstairs. As a child I always made sure the bathroom light was left on as I had an almost psychotic fear of the dark and its warmth helped reassure me that as with most children, everything was alright. However this night it held no such respite, but only helped to exaggerate the shadow figure that was slowly moving up the stairs directly to the open door of my bedroom.



....... No wonder I get Carpal Tunnel, talk about a bloody ramble. You bored yet?
I just downloaded a Xmas episode of Porridge, that's what I should be doing, watching that. Who reads this crap anyway?

...


Okay, I'll continue....


So there I am wide eyed, panicked, sweating like a little sweaty thing with blankets pulled high resting softly against the bridge of my nose. The light from the bathroom flickered as the shadow passed by to come to a halt outside my bedroom door. The door itself was only slightly ajar but I could sense whatever it was just standing there waiting. I could almost smell its fetid breath and hear what sounded like a soft grunt or growl -was this thing human? I lost the use of my tongue, I was frozen unable to move or to cry out for help. I knew my mother and father were downstairs, but why weren't they coming to ... "Oh God! What if this thing had hurt or worse still -killed them and now it was coming for me."

I watched the door praying that the shadow would just move on and... I dunno- go to my sisters room and kill her.

Then it happened...........

A hand reached around the door, but this was no human hand it was covered in brown fur almost like - THE RED EYED MONKEY MAN.

I stifled a scream.

Slowly the hand pulled the door closed and then the bathroom light went out.

....

Who is this strange monkey man? Is it the comic book primate come to life to reek revenge for being discarded like a dirty old shoe, or is it something else- something so horrifying that you dear reader will go completely insane, possibly even BLIND from learning the truth.

Find out Thursday...








*Saucy old Brit porn mag,which I may have accidentally browsed through in my early teens........ for three years.

Astronautalis

Forrest J. Ackerman

Very sad to hear that Forest J. Ackerman has died.
Let's hope someone has the good sense to create a museum in his name to house his incredible collection of memorabilia.

John Rogers, The Associated Press - Via: The Vault of Buncheness
LOS ANGELES - Forrest J Ackerman, the sometime actor, literary agent, magazine editor and full-time bon vivant who discovered author Ray Bradbury and was widely credited with coining the term "sci-fi," has died. He was 92.

Ackerman died Thursday of heart failure at his Los Angeles home, said Kevin Burns, head of Prometheus Entertainment and a trustee of Ackerman's estate.

Although only marginally known to readers of mainstream literature, Ackerman was legendary in science-fiction circles as the founding editor of the pulp magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland.

He was also the owner of a huge private collection of science-fiction movie and literary memorabilia that for years filled every nook and cranny of a hillside mansion overlooking Los Angeles.

"He became the Pied Piper, the spiritual leader, of everything science fiction, fantasy and horror," Burns said Friday.

Every Saturday morning that he was home, Ackerman would open up the house to anyone who wanted to view his treasures. He sold some pieces and gave others away when he moved to a smaller house in 2002, but he continued to let people visit him every Saturday for as long as his health permitted.

"My wife used to say, 'How can you let strangers into our home?' But what's the point of having a collection like this if you can't let people enjoy it?" an exuberant Ackerman told The Associated Press as he conducted a spirited tour of the mansion on his 85th birthday.

His collection once included more than 50,000 books, thousands of science-fiction magazines and such items as Bela Lugosi's cape from the 1931 film "Dracula."

His greatest achievement, however, was likely discovering Bradbury, author of the literary classics "Fahrenheit 451" and "The Martian Chronicles." Ackerman had placed a flyer in a Los Angeles bookstore for a science-fiction club he was founding and a teenage Bradbury showed up.

Later, Ackerman gave Bradbury the money to start his own science-fiction magazine, Futuria Fantasia, and paid the author's way to New York for an authors meeting that Bradbury said helped launch his career.

"I hadn't published yet, and I met a lot of these people who encouraged me and helped me get my career started, and that was all because of Forry Ackerman," the author said in 2005.

Later, as a literary agent, Ackerman represented Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and numerous other science-fiction writers.

He said the term "sci-fi" came to him in 1954 when he was listening to a car radio and heard an announcer mention the word "hi-fi."

"My dear wife said, 'Forget it, Forry, it will never catch on,' " he recalled.

Soon he was using it in Famous Monsters of Filmland, the magazine he helped found in 1958 and edited for 25 years.

Ackerman himself appeared in numerous films over the years, usually in bit parts. His credits include "Queen of Blood," "Dracula vs. Frankenstein," "Amazon Women on the Moon," "Vampirella," "Transylvania Twist," "The Howling" and the Michael Jackson "Thriller" video. More recently, he appeared in 2007's "The Dead Undead" and 2006's "The Boneyard Collection."

Ackerman returned briefly to Famous Monsters of Filmland in the 1990s, but he quickly fell out with the publisher over creative differences. He sued and was awarded a judgment of more than US$375,000.

Forrest James Ackerman was born in Los Angeles on Nov. 24, 1916. He fell in love with science-fiction, he once said, when he was 9 years old and saw a magazine called Amazing Stories. He would hold onto that publication for the rest of his life.

Ackerman, who had no children, was preceded in death by his wife, Wendayne.

Village of the Damned.

Rob Cullen's pic of one of my all time favourite movies Village of the Damned. I just posted a few days ago in regards to one of the films actors: George Sanders.

I used to work with Rob back in the day in Fred wolf Films/Dublin. Brilliant artist-has his own company now bouldermedia.tv

Rob always reminded me a bit of Matt Lucas (but with hair- and an added ciggie dangling out the side of his mouth) >by saying that I have obviously just ruled out any chance of working with him ever again...

Rob always said I looked like Hugh Jackman -but slightly better looking, with more defined calf muscles-and not such a shit accent!

O Lucky Man!