Monday, October 30, 2023

Scream Queen

A few months ago I found this very interesting, though seriously defective, art deco styled statue. Noting the beautiful design of the gilt-bronze dress, ivory hands, and heavy as Hell marble base, I had a sneaky suspicion that I possibly just discovered an affordable Demetre H. Chiaparus figure! The price was indeed right, even in this rather poor condition, and googling around for days, I sadly came up with absolutely no information on her. Now the real downside. Her original head (whatever that may have been), unfortunately appears to have been destroyed at some point (not by me), and then someone attempted a reconstructed head (and headdress) made from a ball of wax covered with some type of painted plaster. This clearly didn't hold up either, as the new face apparently crumbled apart (also not my fault), revealing the disturbing weirdness that lies beneath. But you know me, finding something like this just means that it's time for Mr. Karswell to get creative, ie: with a small plastic halloween skull prop (sliced in half) draped in a black veil to give our hideous queen an even more hideous new face-- aka a Face of Screaming Death! Try not to stare at her too long, or you may find yourself screaming as well...

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Heavenly Honey in a Haunted House! (PART TWO)

And now for the second half of the hilarious Bob Hope haunted house hijinx mystery, from the June - July 1951 issue of The Adventures of Bob Hope #9... and be sure to CLICK HERE first if you somehow missed Part One (cuz you gotta read this stuff in order, ya know!)

Friday, October 20, 2023

Heavenly Honey in a Haunted House! (PART ONE)

If you're like me, minglin' amongst the mix of slashers, monsters, and horrors from the grave, you also enjoy some ghoulish gags and spooky slapstickery from the golden age of comedy! Abbott and Costello did it with the Universal monsters. Three Stooges, Martin and Lewis, Laurel and Hardy etc also met their fair share of booin' bad guys 'n creepy crooks in both film and comics! Even 'ol slope nose, Bob Hope got in on the supernatural shenanigans in a handful of truly fun encounters with the eerie, as seen here in the first part of the June - July 1951 issue of The Adventures of Bob Hope #9. It's the old readin' of the will routine in a haunted house again, which somehow never seems to get stale even in todays era of mystery and horror... and CLICK HERE for PART TWO!

What a place to pull the rug out from under ya's, eh?! PART TWO is up next! Stay tombed...

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Robo vs. Holy Hobo

Can a D-cell battery powered, blinky-eyed, cloth robot stand toe-to-toe with a down-on-his-luck, nothin' to lose hobo who in all likelihood is actually probably Emmett Kelly? Hmmmm... let's RE-EVALUATE POST: it's actually Halco vs. E. Simon's Sons Costumes in an epic, dime store brawl of the vintage midcentury Halloween costumes! Annnnd I do believe the battle was over the second our wrinkled robutt blasted a couple of hellacious holes into mister sad sack's frowny clowny face anyway. Not to mention, the real winner here is of course the beautiful, brightly colored box art designs, --though low and behold *SKELETON! SKELETON! --we discover that someone is actually stored in the wrong box! Oh well. I didn't even buy these, just took the pictures as clearly both have too many problems to warrant the whoppin' $27.99 (each!) price tag that both were insanely doomed with. Good luck antique mall seller! Even that awesome off-model Casper the Ghost couldn't stop me and my whispering wallet from being scared away...