Halloween is coming...

... and there'll be a different horror short film every day for you to be spooked by over as the annual 31 Nights of Halloween celebration returns to the Terror Titans blog!

 And while the short film embedded below didn't make the cut over there, it's being featured here, because it's kinda fun, and the kids who made it recognize that the vast majority of truly great horror movies are in black-and-white!

Tommy (2009) 
Starring: Becky, Liam, and Rachel
Director: Natalie
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

NUELOW Games Cover Art Gallery, Part One

I've been threatening to do a gallery post of the "artwork" I've created for NUELOW Games's "ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters" for some time now. Well, today is the day.

The following illos are all collages that were made using existing art or by running photos through Photoshop to make them look like they are drawings. They were made using art I have license to use, or that is in the public domain. (I have, literally, over 1 million illos that I have licenses for.)

If the guy who did the Obama "Hope" poster gets to call himself an artist, and people who slap captions on photos and post them to Facebook get to call themselves artists, then I guess I'm an artist, too!

And yes... I am available for commissions! (This will be the first in an irregular series displaying my "artistic efforts"... unless you folks out there tell me to knock it off. And make me cry in the process....)

Click on the links in the titles if you want more information about the product the picture was made to illustrate, or to see it in place on the cover with the other design elements.

"Red Robin vs. The Editor & The Clones of Romney"

"Escape From Eden"

"The Fireman vs. The Firewitch"

"Supermodel Slapfest"

"The Breast Hope for Peace"

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The Milla Jovovich Quarterly:Time for Resident Evil: Retribution!

On this Friday, September 14, Milla Jovovich will be kicking zombie butt as Alice in the latest installment in the "Resident Evil" horror/action movie series.

The film is once again directed by her husband, Paul W.S. Anderson.

September 11, 2001

The Groucho Monthly

More outtakes from "You Bet Your Life", from a blooper reel compiled by the show's sponsor.

Contestant to Groucho: Have you ever been made love to a Frenchman?
Groucho: [Pause] Not that I can recall.

Groucho Marx and Eden Hartford

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Steranko

How did I get this far without featuring Jim Steranko here at Shades of Gray? While it's true that there is a bottomless pool of pictures for me to post, and movies and graphic novels for me to review, I'm a bit surprised at myself for not having at least gotten around to SOMETHING he'd done.

But, thanks to the prodding of loyal visitor (a Steranko fan who has designed this excellent, content rich site dedicated to his work), I'm rectifying that oversight now with a small Picture Perfect Wednesday gallery. (And I really must get around to writing a review of "Essential Captain America" one of these days, as it features some of Steranko's finest comic book work, outside of his "Nick Fury, Agen of SHIELD" issues.)

And speaking of Nick Fury...

The Henri Trilogy by Will Baden

Who says YouTube cat videos aren't serious filmmaking?

Henri I


Henri II


Henri III

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Your Guess Is As Good As Mine

Actually... I can give an explanation for this one. Scroll down a bit if you really want to know.









The picture was taken by Carlo Polito in June of 1958. It's of 17-year-old Bianca Passarge of Hamburg dressed up as a cat and dancing on wine bottles in June 1958. Her performance was based on a dream. She practiced for eight hours a day to do this.)

Joe Kubert dead at 85

I just learned that another legend of comic book art (and art in general, frankly) has passed away.

Joe Kubert, artist, editor, teacher, and story-teller with talent on an epic scale, has died at the age of 85. I think its safe to say that the comic book art form as we know it today would not exist. And I'm also noticing that of the few younger artists out there who seem to understand how to tell a story properly through pictures on a page, most of them seem to be graduates of the Joe Kubert School.

Here's a small gallery of Kubert art from varying points in his career, in honor of him.

Maybe I'm just a grumpy old guy, but I see all these massive talents passing into history... and so very few with the talent and skill to take their places.

The Groucho Monthly

Here's a compilation of outtakes from 1950s game show "You Bet Your Life".

("Let me explain something to you Pat," says Groucho at one point. "This audience is even filthier than I am.")

Groucho doing more than just dreaming of Jeanie with Barbara Eden