Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Dream Phone, and McDees Pizza – three things I recall being as clear as Crystal Pepsi on my then five-year old pop culture radar in 1993. Being little over thirty years now, an interest in discovering (or re-discovering) the ‘90s is evident – it’s a fascinating decade that went through considerable changes by distancing itself from the pastel ’80s to a chrome-toned future of dial-up internet.
After completing a few entries in the Here Lies Halloween Companion series, I aspired to create a new non-holiday-themed collection that would be set during the summer months on specific years. The “Summer of” series gives you the experience of what it was like watching late night TV on a hot summer eve during the ’80s and ’90s – my first entry is 1987, which was picked because many had recollected to me about it being the best year of the 1980’s in their adolescence. But let’s stick to the era of Dunkaroos because I want to focus on the 2nd installment – Summer of ’93.
To date, this is the most difficult tape I’ve created, as not only did I have to stay true to the obvious shift in aesthetics but also nail the final result in capturing the feelings that a five-year-old me had experienced. Per usual, I avoid revealing the contents of my tapes so that your brain receives all the endorphins it can get when recognizing a commercial it hasn’t processed in a long time. But for this article (which I am very grateful Nightmare Nostalgia has let me pen), I gotta delve into a few aspects due to their personal relevance.
The 6hr Summer of ’93 begins with home video footage of a holiday being narrated by an enthusiastic Dad, specifically interested in getting a close up of a sunset as he refers to someone named Heinz. There’s a pan across the horizon where a windsurfer cruises the Atlantic Ocean, and then the camera gives us a look at the campsite – likely a familiar display for many, right down to the Coleman 4 Slice Toast ring. A silver Mazda MPV sits parked nearby as a cemetery eerily looks on from the other side of a fence. We then see a kid helping wash dishes at a picnic table, pulling out a plastic McDonalds spoon and exclaiming to the camera in a jingle-tone “McDonalds TO-DAY”. Cut immediately to a McDees Pizza commercial as we start off a block of YTV content.
This footage is actually from my family’s June 1993 trip to Prince Edward Island, and I am the McDonalds crazed kid. The cameraman is my Dad and Heinz is my Opa – who happens to make a few cameos on the Here Lies Xmas Companion VOL 2. The YTV block that follows is as close to exactly how I remember watching that channel – a kids station out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada – right down to the Maniac Mansion promo and anti-drug PSAs that back then I didn’t understand.
The finished result is six hours worth of capturing a feeling of innocence that co-sides with an abundant sense of optimism that went hard in ’93. An over-reliance on technology hasn’t kicked in just yet, but it’s coming. In the meantime, all the chips are in for environmentalism and stranger danger in the form of various colored vans. Stay alert and stay safe.
This Summer, relive (or see for the first time) what 1993 was like – it’s a fascinating year from the ’90s that captures a distinct shift in aesthetics and consumerism, while continuing to encourage recycling and exercise. Summer of ’93 can be found over at www.here-lies.com in all its 6 hour VHS glory with a free Bonus Digital copy so you can watch it on anything you wish!
Ahh. The glory days of 1980’s horror film advertising!
Set for a time-appropriate release this October 9th, 2018, former Fangoria Editor-in-Chief and current contributor at Rue Morgue Magazine (among his many other ventures), Michael Gingold brings us a glorious 248-page, full-color, hardbound book that features more than 450 rare, vintage ads pulled from Gingold’s personal archive entitled Ad Nauseam: Newsprint Nightmares From The 1980s.
Edited by former Rue Morgue editor-in-chief Dave Alexander and presented by Rue Morgue, 1984 Publishing title Ad Nauseam will highlight a golden age of horror movie ads, and really, is there anything more nostalgic than retro horror film advertisements?
Per the press release:
Growing up in the ’80s, the future Fangoria writer and editor would carefully cut out ads he saw in local newspapers, leaving him with a collection tracing horror movie history via both blockbusters and obscurities.
“I’ve wanted to assemble this collection of movie-advertising madness in book form for many years, so 1984 and Rue Morgue’s publication of Ad Nauseam is a long-time dream come true,” says Gingold, who’s also a contributor to Rue Morgue, Birth.Movies.Death, Time Out, New York, and Scream, and the author of The FrightFest Guide to Monster Movies and Shark Movie Mania.
“These are the horror films I grew up with, and this volume is a celebration of that classic era of the genre.”
Ad Nauseam: Newsprint Nightmares from the 1980s goes year-by-year through Gingold’s archive, and includes rare alternate art for Gremlins, Child’s Play, The Blob remake, and the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street franchises. Oddities covered include Psycho from Texas, Dracula Blows His Cool, Blood Hook, Zombie Island Massacre, and many more. He provides personal recollections, commentary and includes snippets of contemporary reviews, to reveal what critics really thought of these movies at the time. To get a better sense of horror’s business side, Gingold also interviews the men behind legendary exploitation distributor Aquarius Releasing to learn how they built buzz for shockers like Make Them Die Slowly and Doctor Butcher M.D. The regular version of Ad Nauseam retails for $34.95 USD and will be available online via Amazon and local bookstores worldwide. Details on a combo pack from the iconic horror merch designer Fright-Rags, which will include a signed book and a specially-designed T-shirt, are forthcoming.
Make sure to grab this sucker to proudly display on your coffee table, just in time for Halloween! Pre-order your copyhere at Amazon!
It’s time to crack open the forbidden tomes of Eibon, faithful followers. Here we bid a long farewell to our flesh. Beyond this point, there shall be no return. The mind will melt and the soul filleted as such oozing spectacles assault our vision from the Beyond. Forsake ye all hopes for a restful grave at the sure ending of life, because a hideous power, one of wickedness and dread, this way quickly comes. Eibon has been reopened forthwith ushering us into fresh circles of Hell.
. . . The Book of Eibon, that strangest and rarest of occult forgotten volumes … is said to have come down through a series of manifold translations from a prehistoric original written in the lost language of Hyperborea.
—Clark Ashton Smith, “Ubbo-Sathla”
Eibon Press is proving themselves to be the unrelenting future of horror comics. With a lethal eye trained for macabre details, they are undoubtedly the undisputed masters of their craft. By blending gruesome art with fiendish tales they masterfully weave new layers of terror into some of our most cherished exploitation films and cult classics, thus ensuring their secured place in horror history.
image via Eibon Press Facebook Page
Horror naturally prospers in comic book form, mainly because the MPAA can’t step in with their bitchy attitudes and erase away any sight of blood, guts or sexuality that might make them blush with a bad case of the vapors. Many of our favorite horror franchises have suffered needlessly beneath the rigorous afflictions of uptight censorship, thus ruining some perfectly good horror movie opportunities in terms of those messy little meaty details. Friday the 13th, at least the later films, were systematically abused by the righteous endeavors of the MPAA. Luckily, the grimy halls of comic books are unspoiled by such convictions and their haunted halls are rife with maniacs who freely kick down our doors, raise their chipped hatchets and cleave our puny good sensibilities into a bloody and gurgling pulp.
image via Eibon Press
Now, if you’ve had a chance to read anything from Avatar Press – I’m thinking especially Wormwood, but especially Crossed – or just about anything by Garth Ennis, you’ll know immediately what I mean here. Comic books are not safe, and woe to any who thinks differently. No one who appears in such macabre volumes shall be spared. Their eyes will melt and their flesh decay, no one, not even our most beloved of heroes, are safe beneath the ink of those given to this expression of Art. These writers and artists will not hesitate to shove us down and kick our teeth in. Oh no, horror comics are not safe, and they never should be.
image via Eibon Press Facebook Page
This is an unshakable fact Eibon Press knows about very, very well. In the hands of these master sadists, the Art has taken a new form in order to distribute the Evangelium of terror. To gross someone out is honestly not in the least bit complicated, and believe me, many have (failingly) attempted to gain an audience by simply defiling their readers’ eyes through shocking gross-outs. But to craft an engaging story, to make the Art come to life, to beget something that will continue in the minds of their audience long after the reader puts away the book is only a thing masters of the craft can accomplish. It takes truly insidious talent to breathe something into existence that invades our normal everyday lives, plaguing us with visceral images and ghoulish scenes we won’t soon forget. Not just anybody can achieve this level of the Art. Junji Ito is able to do this effortlessly and has been my reigning favorite horror artist until I met with Eibon Press and witnessed what they have to offer.
Just like horror movies have many genres, the same is equally true of horror comics. In the case of Eibon Press, they’ve skillfully dominated the sodden field of exploitation experiences. Be it a grimy alleyway with dripping echoes of sweltering lust and shame, perhaps the humid gates of everlasting Hell, or a restless cemetery where the rotting dead rise out of the mire and mold – Eibon Press depicts some wonderfully dreadful landscapes you will traverse once you crack open their pages. Violence awaits and there will be no turning back once you enter. It is a horror fan’s paradise.
image via Eibon Press
They make gritty somehow beautiful. Ascetically brilliant, they make full use of color to accentuate the full volume of gore at hand. I can guarantee gore hounds will not be disappointed! And as for tone, well this is like the equivalent of your favorite death metal albums in illustrated form. There will be slaughter and lots of blood.
But all is not just blood, guts and eroticism. These guys are better than that and build upon plot and focus on the characters who must face all the horrors Hell has to offer. If you think this is just an-all out splatterfest…well, you’d be correct! It gets very sticky as you turn the pages, but I assure you it’s the stories they’ve released that will keep you turning those pages.
Eibon Press specializes in embellishing upon the beloved cult classics of Lucio Fulci, and I love them for that! I’ve always been a Fulci fan so I approached these comics with a critical eye. I was not disappointed, but very much the opposite. I was impressed by how much love and care they handled the material with. It didn’t take long to realize these guys love Fulci’s work as much as I do.
image via Eibon Press Facebook Page
I did say they embellish on the stories. For example, when reading Gates of Hell (City of the Living Dead) we get a lot more details of the evil priest who hangs himself at the beginning of the movie. With the use of some good narrative, the team gives us a fuller and broader story to the lores we already love and know. If you think you know everything there is to know about Zombi, think again. There is so much more to glean from that vicious story, and with the comic Zombie, Eibon proves this to be true. For example, you know how Zombi 2 ends? Well, Eibon extends the story and takes us right into the chaotic-strewn streets of the city. Put on your big boy pants because it just keeps getting more and more savage.
In case that’s already not enough to have you ready to order their entire line of comics, let me tempt you even further. In their epic Gates of Hell title, not only is Eibon giving us the hellish story of City of the Living Dead, but this is only the start of the Saga of the 7 Gates line. A series that begins with CotLD and will involve both The Beyond and House By the Cemetery, mummy! And I’m pretty sure Bob won’t be anywhere near as annoying in comic form as that little shit was in the movie. “Mummy, I see a girl in the window, Mummy! Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!”
Ok I got it out of my system. That fucking voice though! Screw you, Bob!
They have also adapted both Maniac and Laserblast into comic form. Laserblast, people! I never in my sickest fever dreams would have ever expected that to be a comic storyline! Oh, you’re uninitiated into the silliness of Laserblast. Here, check this out.
Isn’t that just glorious? Only diehard fans of horror would take the time to adapt a movie this spectacularly cheesy into an art form and share it so a new generation may discover it. And after a speaking with these guys, I know they are indeed fans of the genre.
As a bonus feature for both of these (Maniac and Laserblast) you can get a truly unique VHS sleeve. Oh, that’s another thing, not only are we treated to some of the best gore in comics today, but, just like any great DVD release, we are also given loads of bonus content with every comic purchase. Bookmarks, fliers, collectible cards and (in some cases) music tracks. Yeah, they give codes for exclusive music content relating to the comics. When’s the last time Marvel did that? These guys treat the fans!
I can’t kiss the publisher’s ass enough. And no, I didn’t get a special deal from them. I’m still paying full price plus shipping, and that’s fine by me. I’m just a fan who wants everyone else to know what they’ve been missing. So let’s hurry up and fix it.
image via The Dead Walk
Eibon also has a totally original run called Bottomfeeder which is as pretty as a truckstop outhouse. That’s not a criticism either. It’s a story set in the 80’s and features some all-time favorite cult faces who regularly make cameos throughout the story. You can call it detectivesploitation as our asshole anti-hero is set against Roger Corman’s Humanoids From the Deep. Holy shit! Just typing that line was exciting.
image via Eibon Press Facebook Page
These guys go for the jugular and never apologize for it. These are wickedly dangerous comics and you’ll need your manliest pair of britches to get into them, but you will not regret it. Fair warning these are in no way safe for work or around kids. There is explicit nudity in them all. And if child death affects you I would advise you stay away. Like in any good Fulci film kids are known to get a bad case of dead here.
image via Eibon Press
Out of all the horror comics to choose from out there these guys are my absolute favorite. You cannot find these titles in stores, however, so be sure to visit their website here and don’t be scared to buy. Already Zombie is in its third printing and sells out like mad. Pretty sure I’ll be doing a review of that run fairly soon.
I’ve been talking with Eibon on the possibility of there being a Madmancomic, and the idea is out there. So fingers crossed.
This has been Manic Exorcism once again hoping you stay scared and dare to open these forbidden Gates and unleash a little Hell.
Nightmare Nostalgia 