Categorie: English
Yay! Sometimes it takes a small thing to make me happy. Today my English YouTube channel Amsterdam Comic Geek reached 100 subscribers. That means I can customize the unreadable URL to the name of the channel. That way it’s easier to refer people on Instagram or other places to the channel. So, go check out youtube.com/AmsterdamComicGeek for more comic book related geeky stuff. š
This is me dressed up as The Terrifying Bag-Head. Should this be my Halloween-outfit for this year?
Originally published on July 30, 2016 on HalloweenCult.com.
Leaf blowers are working overtime. Temperature is dropping and nature is making up for it by changing its palette from greens to warm reds, yellows and orange. Fungi pop up everywhere.
There is no mistaking, autumn has returned after a whole year of absence.
With the autumn winds comes the feeling that somethingās in the air and itās not only the scent of decay, itās the feeling that something is coming, something exciting.
Writing these lines I just remembered my first introduction to Halloween. It must have been the movie E.T. The scene where the streets are flooded with kids dressed up and E.T. being guided by his friends hiding under a sheet pretending to be a kid pretending to be a ghost (and meets Yoda).
Immediately I asked my parents to explain me about this festivity and they said: This is Halloween.
Since then I have seen lots of Halloween movies (good and bad), I hear Danny Elfman compositions all through October but I think the scene E.T. and those kids roaming the streets captures the feeling dead on.
The sun is going down and the air is filled with anticipation, a feeling I get every year when the leaves start to fall.
Mellisa Halley (Text and illustration)
Originally published on October 31, 2015 on HalloweenCult.com.
Last year, my girlfriend made me a calendar for October filled with vintage photographs of Halloween witches. Here are my favourite pics:
Most pics are playfully sexy. I love the old fashioned look of the pumpkins. Also, I like the clever use of drop shadows on the walls, suggesting ghosts, cats and other creatures.
Originally published on October 27, 2015 on HalloweenCult.com.
It’s almost Halloween, but lately my mind has been thinking about anything but Halloween.
It’s been a very busy October: I’ve written a couple of articles and interviews about comics and animation. And while I was typing away at my home office, summer became autumn and all of a sudden my favourite holiday is only two weeks away.
Well, I did write up a Top 5 of my favourite Halloween-esque comic books for Submarine Channel that will be published any day now. So, Halloween hasn’t been off the map totally.
But slowly, I am getting into the Halloween spirit. Last week, I walked home from the American Book Center after I interviewed comic book artist Marcel Ruijters. He has just published a wonderful graphic novel about medieval painter Hieronymus Bosch and we talked about it at length for a pretty good crowd of people who were nice enough not to boo me off the stage and buy Marcel’s book.
Walking home, I passed a party & costume shop. Taking a moment to revel at the stuff in the shop window, I felt that old familiar happy feeling I always feel this time of year, return.
Last night, I put up some of our pumpkin lights in my office and put the Halloween calendar counting down to October 31 on the shelf next to my monitor. Let autumn begin for real.
Originally published on October 16, 2015 on HalloweenCult.com.
What’s a Halloween party without some great looking creatures lurking in the shadows? Here’s the making of such a creature by the team of Amsterdam Spook.
Since 2006, Canadian-born Amsterdammer Tamar Bosschaart has organised the most incredible annual Halloween parties that over the years have grown in size and popularity to the point that they attract Halloween lovers from all over the planet to celebrate the unholy festivities in Amsterdam. The Spook Amsterdam posse has grown alongside the party and every Sunday, a handful of the most dedicated crafters gather to make the most amazing decorations from scratch. Just look at this Gargoyle!
Here is the unholy beast in all its glory. Notice that the details have been touched up, both by lighter paint, as well as by filing away at the extremities to stimulate the toll the elements make on gargoyles. This bad boy was created for the party in 2014, together with his brother and several smaller versions. They proved so popular, one of them was stolen at the party. How someone managed to smuggle it out is another mystery. Stay posted for a sneak peek of what’s being built this year on your favourite blog on all things Halloween soon!
Luuk van Huƫt
Originally published on September 09, 2015 on HalloweenCult.com.
https://youtu.be/9yudKq3M9Fw
Recently I started rewatching the excellent Netflix series Stranger Things. And I read the Free Comic Book Edition 2019 of Stranger Things. It raised a couple of questions.
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Categorieƫn
Batman: The Court of Owls
I’m Revisiting Batman: The Court of Owls by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo. Excellent story and great artwork with inventive camera angles and cool page layouts.
Snyder & Capullo manage to add something new to the Batman mythos. No small feat considering that guy has been around for 80+ years.
The story is written for the trade though, so I imagine the reading experience is better when reading the trade paperback instead of single issues. Which is a common “problem” in modern American comics.
MARVEL COMICS OF THE 1980s by Jason Shayer used to be one of my favorite blogs. Although Shayer stopped posting in 2017, all the posts are still online.
Started re-reading Danse Macabre today, written by Stephen King. I didn’t get far into it the first time, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the book itself and everything with my mind getting distracted at every twist and turn for the last few years.
There’s too much going on but not a lot that really matters. So let me curl up on the couch and start reading, while I try to ignore the horrors of our current lives and idiotic behavior offline and online, and finally learn what horror is all about by one of the genre’s greatest masters.