Just wanted to take a quick break from my annual holiday hiatus to share this awesome magazine cover that I've been sitting on for far too long.  This was pointed to and provided by the awesome allhallowSteve over at Halloween Addict.  What more needs to be said other than Santa on a lightcycle!?!

This is just carrying on the new tradition here at Branded of showcasing Santa riding some kickass vehicles, like last year's BMX ad…

It has been a crazy and fun year here at Branded (my sixth), and I hope that everyone out there in internetland is having a wonderful holiday season.  Merry Christmas or whatever you celebrate and see you guys in 2012!

Recently the kind folks over at The Nerd Lunch podcast invited me back on the show to geek out on some more of our favorite topics.  The show features NL alums CT and Jeeg, as well as Paxton from Cavalcade of Awesome, and once again I had a blast!

We spend the episode discussing the classic Masters of the Universe toy line from Mattel.  From our first memories of the toys to how we feel about them almost 30 years later.  If you want to hear me wax nostalgic on MOTU, then head on over to Nerd Lunch and give the episode a listen.  You can also find their show on iTunes.

Alright Boils and Ghouls!  We're finally here, Halloween is upon us and tonight lucky kids all over the country will be knocking on doors and stuffing pails, sacks, pillow cases, and bags with all sort of sugary goodness.  Tomorrow is set aside for a million tummy aches, but tonight there will be chocolate!  And fake blood.

For this last post of the season I've decided to share the longest single ad in my collection.  It comes from issue #117 of Fangoria which was printed in 1992.  Featuring witch boobies, corpses, devils, skeletons, silly masks, licensed masks, Aliens, Critters, demons, vampires, Frankenstein's Monsters, gore, and 5, count 'em, 5 different Jack-o-Lantern masks!  This is a crazy blowout sale ad from the folks at Distortions Unlimited, and I love it!

All told, I've shared in the neighborhood of 370 different masks from all sorts of companies, and that's just a fraction of what was available between the late 70s through the early 90s.  I've been wanting to showcase these mask ads for awhile and it feels good to finally have them up on the site.  Now it's time carve my 7th pumpkin of the season, watch a few more horror films, and kick back and wait for some trick-or-treaters to come by begging for candy.  Hope you all dug the countdown this year, and as always…

…if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did! Have a happy Halloween, and maybe tonight will be the night that the Great Pumpkin finally does show up…

We're up to our second to last post for the Halloween season!  Today it's all about Dracula.  Well, Francis Ford Coppola's film version of the novel.  Actually, it's really the effects team and designer's interpretation of Dracula filtered through Morris Studios sculptors work.  Yeah, that's the ticket…

This ad comes from issue #130 of Fangoria from 1994 and features 4 of the more gruesome and creepy iterations of Oldman's Dracula character from the '92 film.  Though Keanu Reeves is horribly miscast in the flick, it still holds up for its amazing in-camera effects work.  Seriously, go back and watch the film.  All those effects are in-freaking-camera.  That's some pretty crazy Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind stuff going on in a Coppola film.  Bananas!

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Just three days left until Halloween, and the beginning of the last weekend in the season.  Today brings the only Cinema Secrets advertisement of the countdown, which was ripped from issue #126 of Fangoria from 1993…

Lots of licensed masks in this one, with few variations thrown in for good measure.  Not sure why they even really bothered with Friday part 9 masks considering the way the movie plays out for the most part, but I'm sure there were undiscerning fans out there that wanted any sort of new Jason masks…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Well, we're up to the last Friday in the Countdown, as well as the last couple of Tony Gardner ads I was able to cull from two 1993 issues of Fangoria.  This one features some more Sam Raimi creations with two variations of Evil Ash from Army of Darkness…

There's also a lot of other gory masks featured, my favorites being Freaky Ralph and the exposed Darkman…

For the last Gardner ad I wanted to showcase in the countdown features something that I haven't really tackled yet, gimmick masks…

Featuring masks within masks and a couple different inflatable scare gags, this ad reminds me the most of the huckstering days of the mail-away products from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.  By far my favorite gag is the double masks with the flip-up faces revealing various grotesqueries underneath.

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

It's day 27. Only 4 more days until Halloween!  I hope everyone has their candy ready, their designs in place for this year's Jack-o-Lanterns, and a pile of horror movies ready to watch.  I know I've been having an absolute blast this year doing my best to keep up with over 270 sites participating in the 2011 Countdown to Halloween.

Today I have my last Death Studios advertisement which I yanked from issue #115 of Fangoria published back in 1992.  Though this ad features a lot of repeat masks, there are a few news ones in the bunch that were well worth posting…

In particular I really dig the Xenophobe and the Danny the Bastard masks.  Both feature fun sculpts and a ton of detail.  I also love the sleek simplicity of the Skull mask in this ad…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

We're up top the last Wednesday in the Countdown this year, and today I'm featuring my third Tony Gardner ad, this time from issue #117 of Fangoria, published in 1992…

This one is fun because it's a bit more on the classic side of things, and is sort of a throwback to the ads of the 50s and 60s featuring the Alterian Ghost Factory's take on Frankenstein's monster, Witch, Skull, Devil, Mummy and Werewolf masks.  Though the concepts may not be new, I do feel that the sculpts on these masks a interesting enough to easily set them apart from all of the other studios offering similar masks.  I'd have to say that my favorite out of this bunch is a toss up between the Skull and the Dirty 'ol Man…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Day 25 brings some more masks from Tony Gardner's Alterian Studios/Ghost Factory.  With a nod that the design was specifically tailored to the desires of gorehounds, these masks upped the blood quotient for Gardner's masks by 700%...

This ad comes from issue #117 of Fangoria, first published in 1992, and was still beating the drum for a little under appreciated superhero horror hybrid movie called Darkman.  If there was ever a film ripe for mask merchandise it has to be Darkman, what with all of the mask making in the actual film.  It was also an opportunity for an enterprising company like Gardner's to produce a Bruce Campbell Final Shemp mask, though I doubt they ever did.  If nothing else I really dig how playful Gardner and crew get with the infusion of gore.  I love the Dinosaur and Brainstorm masks…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

We're up to day 24, and today I have my second to last Death Studios mask ad that was ripped from issue #105 of Fangoria, published in 1991…

This advertisement marks a bit of a departure for Death Studios in that they have a couple of officially licensed masks in the ranks, specifically the two Killer Klowns From Outer Space offerings up top.  I also really dig the Lon Chaney inspired London After Midnight mask on the second row.  One of these days I hope an intact print of that lost film surfaces.  There's a version floating around with a bunch of stills from the set, but it's just not the same.  As for the masks though, some of the other standouts for me were the Tricerotops, Bat Demon & Demon Vampire, as well as the Reptile and Upside-Down Head masks…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Well, we're at the second to last Sunday of the countdown and today I have another entry from Death Studios!

This advertisement comes from a 1991 issue of Fangoria and features some really awesome masks and appliances.  There are a bunch of repeats on this ad from the black and white one I posted on the 17th, but there are also some new ones that I thought would justify the addition to the Countdown.  Again, we have a couple of Hellraiser inspired masks (including a color image of the Hellspawn and Bite – aka Chatterer the Cenobite), as well as an actual Rat Fink Ed Roth mask.  I really like the Nightmare on Elm Street inspired Demon Chest as well.  Just a nice chest piece that could easily be hidden under normal clothes and would be a great way to freak out co-workers and Halloween party guests…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

It's day 22, and we're starting the last full week of the 2011 Countdown to Halloween here at Branded in the 80s.  So far there have been 266 different masks from all sorts of different companies like Don Post Studios, Death Studios, Distortions Unlimited, Topstone, and Tony Gardner Studios.  Today we can add the cinematic icon of horror, Universal Studios to that list with this 1991 advertisement that I pulled from issue #102 of Fangoria…

Though I like some of these classic monster interpretations, in particular the Frankenstein's Monster and the full body Mutant mask and costume from This Island Earth, I think it's kind of weird how off-model the molds are on these offerings.  Considering these were officially licensed masks, I'm surprised that they weren't more accurate to the original designs by Jack Pierce (looking like the Lon Chaney Wolfman or the Boris Karloff monster.)  I know that Universal was starting a brand new push for their stable of monsters in the early 90s (with Pizza Hut Promotions, coloring books, lunch boxes, and appearances in their theme parks), so I wonder if the idea was to try and create a whole new look for the creatures to try and make them more hip for the kids?  Either way, I wish I had, had the $400 bucks for the Metaluna costume…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Welcome to the end of the third week of the Countdown to Halloween.  There are only 10 days left until Samhain, and I'm really pumped to be in the home stretch.  Today I have one of the last Don Post mask ads in my collection (if not the last) which hails from issue #94 of Fangoria, first published in 1990…

Still the kings of licensed masks, it came as no surprise to me that Don Post Studios would pick up the rights to make Dick Tracy merchandise in the wake of the Warren Beatty flick.  At the time I wasn't that big of a fan of the film, and I think a lot of that had to do with the uber cartoon-y style Beatty and company chose for the look in the wake of flicks like the Tim Burton Batman and TMNT.  I understand they were trying to stick ultra close to the original comic strip, and I definitely give them credit for trying, but for a thirteen year-old kid it just fell flat and felt silly.  It's very rare that this sort of idea works.  Sin City springs to mind, though honestly as time goes by I’m becoming less and less of a fan of the film.  Cartooning invites exaggeration, especially caricature, but in film it just comes off as trying too hard.  What film something in the real world, with real actors, if you're going to painstakingly try to turn the actors into living cartoons?  Why not just make an animated feature?

I digress.  The main reason I posted this ad is to share the masks for Gremlins 2 to book end the post from the 13th which featured masks from the first film…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Well, we're up to Day 20 of the 2011 Countdown and this one is a super monster-sized edition of Halloween Mask Madness!  Though we dipped out toes a bit into the 90s with the last post, today we’re going to backtrack a little to 1988 with the start of some of my favorite Distortions advertisements.  All of these were ripped from the pages of Fangoria and most of these were issued under the Flesh & Blood sub-header, which I'm guessing was a separate series of masks and props…

The first thing that struck me about this ad was that it features three masks grouped together, the skull, witch and jack-o-lantern, that seem to be a direct response to the Don Post masks from Halloween III.  It might just be a coincidence, and it probably is, but somewhere down deep inside I think the company was saying "look, we can do these better!"  I also dig that they were offering stuff that was simple conceptually (like the Chimpanzee), but was still exquisitely executed from a quality standpoint.

Up next is the first of two ads from 1989…

I love that they revisited their witch mask so quickly, updating it with a much more evil-looking incarnation.  I also remember being equally grossed out and excited by the Diseased mask as a kid…

The second ad from 1989 is one of my all-time favorites from the company and features a mask that I distinctly remember circling and begging my parents for, the Licker…

Photon, Frightmare, and the Gargoyle were also favorites of mine that I lusted after but never managed to get my hands on.  I wonder how hard these are to find on the secondary market?

Next up is a 1990 ad from issue #98 of Fangoria…

This one scales the gore back a bit and filled with straight up fun sculpts…

That's all right though, because also in 1990, and possibly in that same issue, was a full page ad of nothing but gore!

This was another favorite ad, and one that my mom hated that I'd pinned to the wall of my bedroom near my bed.  I wanted all of this stuff and it took close to 15 years before I finally had my very own severed head and arm props.  I've made sure to get my money's worth out of them by torturing my wife with them every Halloween…

Last up is a sort of strange entry in the Distortions advertisement collection that features a couple of branded masks for Predator and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre…

So far, licensed products seemed to be Don Post's area of expertise, but I guess every company probably wanted a piece of that branding pie.  I love that they offered a stripped-down version of the Leatherface mask.  It's much more disturbing and "Ed Gein-y" without the hair…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Well, with Day 19 we’re exiting the 80s and entering a whole new decade of monster mask shenanigans on the countdown.  Today's vintage advertisement came out of a 1990 issue of Fangoria (I'm not sure which issue right at the moment), and featured Tony Gardner's Alterian Studios…

What really struck me about this ad is the energy and creativity in the mask molds.  There's been some distinct phases during the 60 odd years since monster masks have been widely available, from the cheap-o Topstone bait-and-switch masks of the 50s to the heavily licensed Don Post reproductions of the 70s and 80s.  If there was one word I'd use to describe the sculpts of the late 80s and early 90s it would be gory, which these masks are decidedly not.  Instead, Gardner has taken these in a much more artistic and illustrative direction.  These masks are more about concepts and clean lines, and it's kind of nice to see a break in the gore to make room for something interesting like the Scream LongJaw or the very interesting take on the human-skin mask with Stitches.

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

It's day 18 of the countdown, and once again this month feels like it's just whizzing by!  For today's vintage mask ephemera I've selected this 1989 Distortions advertistment titled Nightmares.  It hails from issue #86 of Fangoria and is really where Distortions starts to get fun for me…

I'm not sure if it's the realistic (un completely un-affordable) human torso, the icky white goo and unfortunate facial hair of the Death mask, or the uber-extreme gore of the Blasted offering, but this was the stuff that I obsessed over as a twelve year-old who was smack dab in the middle of one of the largest horror-movie-watching phases of my life.  At some point between the end of 1988 and when this ad came out I had convinced my mom to let me start renting horror flicks from our local video store.  I started at A, and rented my way through Z over the next two years doing my best to hit all of the stuff that seemed super gory and scary.  This was also around the beginning of my heavy Fangoria purchasing days, and I can remember ogling this ad for hours when I first picked up this issue of the magazine.  I used to daydream about ways to come up with the 700 bucks I'd need to secure my own Victim torso so that I could creep the living hell out of my parents and sister, but I never did manage to raise enough dough.  I wonder what one of these would go for these days…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

It's well into week three of the Halloween season and the Monster Mask Madness continues today with another vintage ad from Death Studios.  This one comes out of issue #84 of Fangoria, and was published back in 1989…

I was really surprised that this ad was in black and white, since more or less at this point in the game these advertisements were typically always in color to really sell the masks.  Even so, there are a bunch of great sculpts featured here that were light years better than what Death Studios was hawking just a few years prior.  In particular I love the Ed Roth inspired Junk Yard Kid, as well as the Hellspawn mask which I'm sure did wonders for anyone trying to perfect their escaped from Hell (Hellraiser) costume.  Just add that one to an old suit and a white button-up shirt that you didn't mind getting some fake blood on and you were golden.  One of the most surprising offerings on this ad is the way-too-realistic-for-comfort (conceptually) Ed Gein human skin mask.  I suppose in an industry with a ton of Texas Chainsaw Massacre Leatherface masks, this was the way to set yourself apart a bit.

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

After being personally wow-ed by some of the recent Distortions and Don Post mask ads, today's Great CoverUp ad from issue #66 of Fangoria (published in 1987), just seems like one big step backwards…

It advertises supurb workmanship, but some of these masks just look a bit cheap and a little lazy.  I mean was it ever fun to dress up at Hitler?  And if so, did you really need a mask to do it?  I think it's interesting how this ad features a variation on the Chiodo "Elephant Man" mask, though this time it's all bloodied up on the side.  I guess the original didn't push the envelope far enough, or maybe this was around the time when gore was really taking center stage in the minds of horror fans…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Well, we're just about at the halfway point on this year’s Countdown.  So far there have been roughly 177 different masks from the 23 vintage monster mask ads featured and there's a whole lot more where they came from.  Today's post features another Distortions ad that's listed under the Nightmares heading, and it comes from issue #68 of Fangoria published in 1987…

If there's one thing that stands out about these Distortions ads it's that they don't feel like order forms or catalog pages as much as a showcase for the awesome masks and the level of gore the company managed to achieve.  There's more personality to them, which is because of both the graphic design and the simple fact that the Distortions masks look like they're alive!  What's even more insane are the amazingly low prices.  Some of these extraordinarily detailed masks are only $28, which even back in 1987 was unheard of.

As a quick aside, am I just crazy or does that top row of masks (the Xeroid, Mummy and Demon) sort of look like the re-cursor to zombie Star Wars?  The Xeroid sort of looks like the Bith cantina band design, while there are aspects between both the mummy and demon which give the vibe of one of the Sandpeople.  Maybe it's just me…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

It's day 14 and I think it’s time we get back on track with something a little more monsterific!  Today's ad is from issue #57 of Fangoria which was published back in 1986 and features out first look at Massacre Masks…

I'm not sure exactly what company this is, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this is another early ad for Distortions Unlimited, who we’ll be seeing a lot of in the coming days.  There's something about the zaniness and extreme gore of some of these that really speaks to the company's oeuvre.  With this ad I really dig the Decay mask, but I'm also really partial to the extremely gross Bashed, Hack, and Grizzle masks.  Those would have received the most scrutiny had I run across this as a kid.  I also like that this ad offers a lot of additional non-mask items on the order form like props and latex wound sets.

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

We're up to Day 13 of the countdown and today I've decided to share the ritziest of the vintage monster mask ads I've been able to cobble together.  Yet another Don Post as, this one hails from an issue of Fantastic magazine published in 1984…

I sort of saved this one for the 13th post because of all the models wearing tuxes in the ad.  It's a celebration of the second spookiest day in October.  Anyway, this ad is also cool because it features a couple variations on some Gremlins masks, as well as some classic monsters, Star Wars, and the E.T. mask I shared last week.  Whereas I got a little cheeky about the inclusion of the Bith cantina band mask in an earlier Don Post Studios ad, I do have to say that I would go out trick-or-treating as Admiral Ackbar in a heartbeat…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Howdy folks!  We're nearing the halfway point of this year's Countdown to Halloween and I've been having a blast!  Today's vintage monster mask ad comes from issue #39 of Fangoria (published in 1984) and features a couple different sets of Don Post Studios masks…

Up top there are three masks designed in tandem by DPS and Rick Baker.  They're replicas from the Nazi werewolf dream sequence David Naughton's character has in An American Werewolf in London.  This sequence is probably one of the most over-the-top and violent in the film, not to mention one of the more scatological bits (though there are some ties between wolf iconography and the Nazis I guess.)  I think it's interesting that these were even produced as they’re a very small part of the flick and though memorable not the first thing one would think of when recalling it.  I guess they're the most straightforward in terms of translatable, affordable masks though.  I'm sure a full-fledged AAWL werewolf mask that looked like Rick Baker's work would have been too cost prohibitive.

Down below int he ad is a series of concept drawings of masks from the movie The Last Starfighter.  These were probably the biggest part of the film's merchandising outside of the novelization, comic books, and lunchbox.  It's kind of weird that there were so many cancelled products for the film including an action figure line and the most obvious tie-in, an arcade game.  Interestingly enough, there are some people working to get that arcade game into the public though…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Today's monster mask advertisement features the work of Mario Chiodo Studios and comes from issue #37 of Fangoria originally published in 1984…

I really dig these masks, but in particular the one up top because of its references to the Joseph Merrick the Elephant Man.  While I love classic monster imagery, and the story of Frankenstein and his creation (particular the 1931 James Whale film) really touches me, the true life trials and tribulations of Joseph Merrick truly broke my heart.  Granted, a monster mask influenced by Merrick could be in poor taste considering the life he led, I can't help but be yet another person consumed with curiosity about his visage, and therefore can understand why Chiodo would use it as inspiration.  I've spent plenty of time studying pictures of his bones, trying to recreate the texture and intricacy of his unfortunate disfigurement (see below), just trying to understand what it must have been like.  If you were ever curious about the life of Merrick, one of the best books on the subject is The True History of the Elephant Man: The Definitive Account of the Tragic and Extraordinary Life of Joseph Carey Merrick…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Today's monster mask ad is a preview of sorts for a much larger post coming later in the month.  For kids my age that grew up during the 80s reading Fangoria, Distortions Unlimited was probably the company most known for their gory and crazy masks.  I could never afford any of the masks or props in the ads, but that didn't stop me from cutting them out and pinning them up on my wall as a wish-list of sorts.  Below is the earliest Distortions ad I could manage to dig up.  It comes from issue #33 of Fangoria published back in 1984…

I've just recently become reacquainted with Distortions through their reality television series that just started airing on the Travel Channel called Making Monsters.  It looks like they're more in the business of making monster animatronics and props for haunted houses these days, but it's cool to get a chance to peek behinds the scenes.

As for the ad above, I really dig the Slugger mask as it really reminds me of the aliens from Peter Jackson's Bad Taste (which had a profound effect on me as a 10 or 11 year-old kid.)  Though these are all really cool, the company would be producing some much more detailed and amazing masks just a few years later.  For those interested though, it looks like you can still get a couple of these masks direct from Distortions…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Welcome back to another entry in the 2011 Branded Countdown to Halloween!  It's day ten, and though today's monster mask ad is a little sparse, it's one of my favorites.  Originally found in issue #25 of Fangoria from 1983, this is another Don Post advertisement for their line of Halloween III Season of the Witch masks…

For those of you not familiar with the Halloween film sequels, part three was the first and last sequel that didn't feature the character or story of Michael Myers.  Long story short, when John Carpenter was first thinking about sequels to Halloween he wanted each subsequent flick to feature a new Halloween-themed story instead of trotting out Myers again and again.  Though it didn't quite work out that way in the first sequel, he and producing/writing partner Debra Hill stood firm with the third installment and thus a departure from the franchise was created.  I have to say that I love the idea of a Halloween season themed film anthology series, and a lot was riding on this third movie to ensure the success of a venture like that.  Alas, because the eventual story was a bit off-the-wall it didn't really resonate with audiences and the idea was scrapped.

Even though it's a weird flick and there's a lot of stuff in the film that's questionable in terms of ration and logic, I love it and in no small part because of the props.  In the flick, monster mask and novelty company Silver Shamrock is seeking to bring about Armageddon through witchcraft and science.  They've discovered a mystical obelisk from Stonehenge that when introduced to the flicking imagery and specific music broadcast through a television set can reduce the human form into a pile of deadly venomous insects and snakes.  The idea is to implant chips from the obelisk into receivers that are attached to their line of popular Halloween masks.  The company then created a give-away promotion airing on Halloween night that would reach into millions of households around the country turning children everywhere into swarms of venomous creatures that would kill their families.

There were three main Halloween masks produced for the film by Post Studios, of which the Jack-o-Lantern was the only new mold specific to the movie.  In conjunction, Post produced a line of replica masks that they hoped would become cult items that kids and teens would want to buy and wear to the movie.  Aside from these three there are a lot of other Post Studios masks peppered throughout the flick, in particular in the Silver Shamrock offices.  As far as Monster Mask movies go, this is probably one of the coolest, if not the weirdest ever made!

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Well, it's the beginning of the second week of the Countdown to Halloween and I've been having a blast so far.  Not only are there almost 25% more sites participating in the 2011 blogging event, but this is the first year in a while where I haven't had some other project hanging over my head keeping me from fully embracing the holiday.  This past weekend the wife and I took a stroll though the Oakland Cemetary for their annual Sunday in the Park festival, which was sufficiently creepy and moody (even during the day.)  We've also been on top of watching a bunch of horror movies and Halloween specials, which has been extra awesome!

Getting to the meat of the post today though, is this 1982 Special Merchandise International monster mask ad from the pages of Fangoria magazine…

I've collected these ads into a rough approximation of a chronological timeline, and this is the one entry that gives me pause and backpedals a bit in terms of mask quality.  Don't get me wrong, these are plenty fun (and quite hairy), but the overall molds and paint reminds me a lot of the unfortunate quality of the mail-away Topstone masks from the 50s (from the very first ads I shared back at the end of September.)  At least the prospective buyer was seeing what they got in this case, but man is there a lot too be desired here.  I suppose if they had anything going for them they're relatively cheap for full head masks complete with hair (though it's totally only available in a teased metal fashion.)  There's a part of me that wouldn't mind getting my hands on that Prickle Puss mask now that I think about it though…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

As an extra bit of spooky fun this evening, I thought I'd share this Tom Weaver interview/transcript of Vincent Price's appearance at the May 1990 Weekend of Horrors convention (where he was interviewed on stage by Joe Dante.).  This was first published in issue 100 of Fangoria at the beginning of 1991.

If there's one thing that stands out in the many interviews I've been able to track down with Price, it's his unending well of graciousness for his fans.  Though horror films were his bread and butter for a number of years, his interests were away from the genre (and filmmaking for that matter), yet he never comes across as feeling like he "had" to appease his fans, or that he was ever bothered by being asked repeatedly about anecdotes from his film career.  He also very rarely had anything negative to say about co-stars, directors, or the genre as a whole, and coming from this jaded age of wall to wall internet complaining, it's refreshing to hear his positive outlook.

At the end of the day this interview reads sort of like the greatest hits of Price's quips and opinions, and rightly so as it was culled from a sort of life-time achievement sort of affair.  One of this favorite jokes makes an appearance here (what he would have called the sequel/remake to the Fly), as well as some hilarious commentary on Peter Lorre.

For the most part the interview doesn’t dwell on any topic for more than a thought or two, but Price does take a moment to pause and reflect on his feelings on the more modern horror of the 80s.  Specifically with David Cronenberg's remake of the Fly and how he felt that it stepped over a boundary in taste and gore.  Price acquaints this trend with films becoming less logical or believable. Granted, it's a matter of perspective, but I think films like the remake of The Fly are actually much more believable than their predecessors, specifically for the reasons that Price dislikes them.  Either way it's an interesting divergence in the interview…

We've come to the end of the first full week of the Countdown and there have been roughly 88 different masks on display so far (it's hard sometimes to tell with the repetition of the Don Post ads…)  Today brings the first ad from a new company to the countdown, Death Studios.  This ad hails from issue #17 of Fangoria, originally published in 1982…

For what these masks appear to lack in intricate detailing they make up for in spades with a very smooth and modern design.  The two stand-outs for me are the Entity (bottom left) and Saurian (second to last on that bottom row), both of which have a nice clean and interesting design.  I also really dig the Carnivore mask as it’s a bit more outlandish and gory than a lot of the masks we've seen so far.  In fact, that mask gives a good idea of the direction that mask-making would take throughout the 80s.  I definitely have more coming later in the month from Death Studios…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

So continuing on with the Vincentennial celebrations, today I wanted to take a look at my favorite Price film, The Last Man on Earth…

For those not familiar, the flick is based on a novella by Richard Matheson titled I Am Legend, and follows the story of Dr. Robert Morgan (Robert Neville in the novella), the seemingly last healthy and living man on Earth after a virus sweeps throughout the world first killing and then reanimating humanity.  In the novella, and to a lesser extent the film, the virus turns the populace into vampires.  Morgan (Vincent Price), spends his days hunting down and killing these undead monstrosities, clearing his city, block by block, and house by house.  At night, he holes up in his home, barricaded from the world listening to records to drown out the din of the hungry undead beating on his doors and windows, the hordes screaming for him to come out and join them…

As we enter the story, Morgan has been at his vampire hunting for well into three years and is reaching the breaking point.  Loneliness, apathy, and ennui are tearing at his mind as he tries to keep his cool and repeat the same horrible day over and over.  Carving and sharpening stakes, checking on supplies, keeping generators running, seeking out fresh garlic and mirrors, and dealing with the undead.  He marks the days on handwritten calendars on the walls while brewing his morning coffee and then checking his intricate city maps to see where his hunting left off the day prior.

What I really love about this film is that it's a very clear bridge between the gothic and campy horror of studios like Universal and Hammer, and the independent realistic horror boom of the late 60s and 70s (films like Night of the Living Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.)  For Price, this is a vast departure, at least where his typically horror output is concerned.  The tone of the film is much darker and more nihilistic than the majority of the horror that came before it, and it's strikingly personal due to the diary-like aspect of the original source material and the heavy use of narration in the final film.  Much like a similar film (in tone at least) The Flesh and the Fiends, which was released just a few years earlier, the depiction realistic corpses on screen is quite disturbing.  Seeing bodies drug and heaped in piles wasn't the standard for horror at the time for sure…

Similarly, watching as Morgan gathers up the lifeless corpses of extinguished vampires so that he can cart them down to a massive pit filled with a constant pire of charred remains is quite ghastly.  This is heightened by Morgan fitting himself with a gas mask so that he can withstand the smoke and fumes of the burning dead…

Another aspect of this film that I really love is the scientific approach it takes to dealing with the vampire mythos.  Matheson's been quoted as saying that when he worked on the book he wanted to make the creatures as realistic as possible by taking the little aspects and finding some factual reasoning as to why they were present.  So with the idea of killing a vampire with a stake, it wasn't so much about piercing the heart in some sort of mystical and iconic way, but rather piercing the skin, breaking open the sealed human body and exposing the virus to the open air which destroys it.  In the novel it didn't matter where you staked a vampire, or with what as long as you exposed the virus to the elements and destroyed it and the body it kept alive.

Ultimately this leads Morgan to discovering that he himself is the cure to this "disease" of vampirism.  After meeting up with who he believes is another survivor, Morgan gives the lady a blood transfusion curing her of her condition.  This was no doubt very influential in another of my favorite horror films, Near Dark, where Kathryn Bigelow uses the same concept to cure fledgling vampires…

I alao think that Price does a remarkable job at portraying a man on the very edge of sanity.  Watching him go from laughter to weeping and back again is completely believable and not nearly as hammy as the screenshots below might make it seem.  It might not be as vivid a loud of a performance as Chuck Heston would give a few years later when he helped adapt the story a second time for the screen (in the Omega Man), but it's just as entertaining.

The story has been adapted three times in the past 50 years, the third of which was the accurately titled I Am Legend, but The Last Man on Earth is by far the closest to the original source and un my opinion the best by far.  Unfortunately, Matheson doesn't agree.  Even though he wrote for Price a number of times during their communal time with American International Pictures, Matheson felt that Price was miscast and that the film strayed too far from his story.  Even though he wrote the main draft of the screenplay, he would request to be credited under an alias to distance himself with the project.

It's a pity because I think at the end of the day The Last Man on Earth is probably one of Vincent Price's best performances and is well worth examination…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

It's day six of the countdown and once again we're dipping into some familiar territory with another Don Post mask advertisement.  This one hails from issue #14 of Fangoria from 1981 and brings the scale down a bit from the Starlog 1979 AD I posted earlier in the week…

There are some of the same classic masks returning, in particular the Hammer and Universal Dracula's and the Star Wars masks, but there are also some new sculpts that are pretty darn awesome.  First though, I know Star Wars was huge, especially back in '81, a year after Empire hit theater screens, but one of these masks seems a little weird.  Was the outcry ever so great for secondary Cantina scene character masks that Don Post Studios really felt the need to produce a Bith mask?  See, I'm betting most of you wouldn't be able to describe who Figrin D'an or one of the Bith were by their name or species alone.  Even though the band in that sequence is sort of iconic, was it ever so popular that six friends pooled $300 together so they could rock their neighborhood to the sweet dulcet tones of "Mad About Me"?

Anyway, some of the stand-outs in this ad, at least for me, are the weird, mouth-tentacled Alien (#905) and Gills (#814), a really interesting and subdued take on the Creature From the Black Lagoon (both were also on the 1979 ad from Starlog, but now much easier to see.)  Even though it's in high shadow in the picture, mask #2020, Spock from Star Trek, is also a bit interesting, if only for the unfortunate amount of un-life-like paint application.  I wonder if that’s zombie Spock?  I'd also like to point out that mask #304 is the same Devil mask as in the 1977 Marvel Comics Halloween mask ad I shared at the beginning of the countdown...

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

It's day five of the countdown, and I thought I'd take a look at some more Don Post masks with a couple more ads from Starlog.  First up is a 1980 ad for an Empire Strikes Back Yoda mask…

What obviously struck me when I first flipped to this page in the magazine was Yoda's inner sadness brought out in the sculpt.  Just kidding, it's the fact that Don Post Studios chose a wonky blue color scheme for the mask.  I know that depending on the print f the film Yoda's green hue changes a bit, but I can't imagine that they ever saw anything that went past the mint green spectrum all the way into Smurf territory?!?  There is some concept art that depict Yoda with light blue skin, but at the time he looked completely different, so this is far along enough in the process that they landed on the final on-screen visage that this sort of error seems pretty weird.  I'm wondering now if this is more of an error in the advertisement.  Anyone out there ever come across one of these in person?  Also, there was a Ben Cooper costume that tended towards the light mint green, light blue area as well…

The second ad I wanted to share today is way more screen accurate and features some Don Post E.T. and Dark Crystal masks.  It was originally published in a 1982 issue of Starlog…

Though I'm sure there were other masks in the series, I find it weird that they chose to highlight Aughra and one the little frightened Podling people in stead of say something like a Skeksis or one of the Gelflings, Jen or Kira.  I know Aughra was really striking in the flick, so I guess that's why.  As far as the E.T. mask goes, I most familiar with this version from the flick Mr. Mom (one of Michael Keaton's lady-friends is dressed up as E.T. in the trick-or-treating sequence.)

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

One of the reasons that I wanted to try and have two running themes this month (Halloween masks and Vincent Price) is because not all of the Vincent Price content is going to be specifically Halloween-y.  This morning I posted about some monster masks, and this evening I'm going to talk about cooking some crazy 60s-ish era food (which when I stop and think about it could be frightening if only for the amount of butter and eggs in the following recipe!)  Vincent Price was anything but simply pigeonholed as a horror icon.  A veritable renaissance man who loved art as much as acting, and could cook as well as most chefs of his time, there wasn't a lot of stuff that he wasn't interested in.

As I mentioned in my sneak preview this past Friday, one of the ways that I found a very personal connection to him has been though his love of interesting culinary concoctions, specifically through the publication of his two cookbooks (which he co-authored with his second wife Mary), A Treasury of Great Recipes and Come Into the Kitchen.  I've been searching for inexpensive copies of both books for years and finally managed to snag both this past winter (check eBay as they've been popping up fairly cheapy lately.)  From time to time, when I've been in a particularly experimental and unhealthy-eating mood, I've taken these down from the shelves and tried my hand at replicating some of the dishes.  Today I'd like to share one of these gastronomical experiments with you.  Culled from A Treasury of Great Recipes (originally published in 1965), I present Price's rendition of Spoonbread with Virginia Ham.  Since there's nothing inherently frightening about his recipes, I'll do my best to come up with some spooky titles (ala the pun-y fun that the Cryptkeeper has in naming the stories in Tales From the Crypt.)  I'll call this one, Sp-boo-on Bread and Villianlicious Ham!

From the description and the ingredients I was basically expecting this to make some sort of giant cornbread muffin with ham mixed in that you "spooned" out of a casserole dish and served in a rustic style.  But will it turn out that way?  Lets see...

The recipe calls for: 1 Cup White Corn Flour, 1 teaspoon Salt, 2 teaspoons Baking Powder, 1/2 cup chopped Virginia Ham, 4 cups Milk, 2 tablespoons of Butter, and 3 Eggs…

Alright, first pre-heat an oven to 350 degrees.  Next, bring 2 cups milk to an almost boil in a pot on the stovetop.  Mix in (slowly) the salt and corn flour until thick.  Take off heat and set aside.  It'll make a thick porridge-like mixture which needs to cool to luke-warm.  While the corn meal mixture is cooling, heat a sauté pan over medium to medium high heat.  Add the butter and sauté the ham until heated through and lightly browned…

Mix the ham with the cooled corn meal, and set aside.  Next, crack the eggs into a large bowl and beat with a fork until thoroughly mixed.  Slowly add the corn meal and ham mixture to the eggs.  Once combined, add the remaining 2 cups of milk to the mixture.  Last, add the baking powder and give the bowl a quick stir to combine it.

Pour the mixture into a buttered 10x10 oven safe baking dish.  Place in the pre-heated oven and bake for one hour until the mixture rises and browns on top.  Remove and serve immediately…

So this was a very weird dish at the end of the day.  While I was expecting some sort of ham-y corn muffin loaf, in actuality the Spoonbread is much more like a crust-less quiche.  While this was still quite tasty, it was way more rich and hard to power through than I had anticipated.  In fact the dish is screaming for smaller portions and a side salad to help balance the richness of the egg-y spoonbread.

Though it's not my favorite of the Vincent Price recipes I've tried over the past year, it's probably the most interesting one I've attempted, with the most surprising results!

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more Halloween mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Welcome back to day four of Branded's Countdown to Halloween!  Today's ad is really cool because it features a ton of masks, and for the first time in the countdown they're in glorious full color!  This two-page spread of Don Post masks comes from a 1979 issue of Starlog…

If you look closely at the thumbnailed pictures in the ad you'll probably recognize a good chunk of these from previous Famous Monsters of Filmland and Creepy ads that I posted last week (the Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi Dracula masks, the multi-colored werewolves, and Uncle Creepy to name a few.)  But there are a lot of new additions to this advertisement, in particular a series of non-monster entries like the Sheik, Mr. Kool, the Pirate, Fatherhead, and the Mad Scientist (which looks more like a pissed off Moses mask if you ask me.)  There's also a smattering of branded offerings like a few from Star Wars, the Wizard of Oz and the 70s Hertzog remake of Nosferatu…

On a side note, that Nosferatu mask and gloves show up in some scenes in the 80s vampire flick Fright Night.  You can see them incased in glass (just like in this ad) in the background of Peter Vincent's (Roddy McDowell) apartment.  This ad is also pretty fun as it illustrates a story from an old episode of the Art & Story podcast, where Mark Rudolph and Jerzy Drozd were reminiscing over some Halloween memories that involved seeing that Alien Facehugger prop in a local store when they were kids.  I saw a lot of cool masks in Spencer Gifts as a kid, but never any props as cool as that facehugger!

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

For day three let me present an ad for Dick Smith's iconic Space Creatures make-up/mask kits from the very first issue of Fangoria published in 1979!

Granted, these kits required a little more effort than just pulling an all-in-one mask over your head, but for what they lack in ease of use, they make up for in spades with awesome moveable jaw pieces and originality.  Well, sort of original.  That Vorkan kit is an obvious rip-off of the Darth Vader mask design, but it's still pretty darn cool!

I also wanted to share this ad, even though it's not strictly for masks, because it comes from the pages of Fangoria.  That magazine was a big horror touchstone for me growing up in the 80s, in particular for the many mask ads that littered the pages of each issue.  So I thought it would be cool to share something from the very first issue to help set the tone for the rest of the month.  I'd say that about 80% of the ads I'll be sharing this month come from the pages of Fangoria or its sister publication Starlog.

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Welcome back to the Month of Monster Mask Madness!  For today's feature I thought I'd share the remaining ads from my Famous Monsters of Filmland collection (which I started this past Thursday.)  I don't have a lot of issues of FMoF, but I really dig the ones I've managed to get my grubby little hands on.

This first ad comes from the July 1975 issue of FMoF, and features a lot of the same masks from the 1968 Creepy ad I shared last week…

The main difference is that this ad has omitted the Dracula mask in favor of the unfortunately Out-of-Stock Zombie mask.  What I liked though was that they added a section of monster glove accessories that you could pair up with the masks to better complete a spooky ensemble…

Next is an ad from August of 1976…

This ad was neat because it features some non-Universal horror icons, namely some of the characters from the Planet of the Apes flicks, Dr. Zaius, Cornelius, and a warrior ape!  These are paired with some of the classic cheap-o monsters masks, like the Frankenstein's monster mask that FMoF was peddling since 1959.  At least readers finally got a chance to see what was in store before they purchased them this time around…

Last up today we have an ad from November of 1979…

I really dug this ad because it was one of the first to really stray away from only offering Universal monsters.  Don't get me wrong, I love their stable of monsters as much as any monster kid, but there is a whole wide world of other creatures to celebrate.  In particular I was happy to see the Sargoth the Cobra and the very realistic visage of a Mummy.  I also really dig that screen-accurate Christopher Lee Hammer Dracula mask.  I did think it was a little odd to be offering two variations on the Werewolf mask, especially since they were so close in description (one being grey while the other was snowy white)…

Anyway, come back tomorrow for more mask tomfoolery, and if you're looking for a ton of Halloween content all through the month of October, make sure to stop on by the official Countdown to Halloween site and check out the list of participating blogs for 2011.  You'll be glad you did!

Welcome to the first day of Branded in the 80s 2011 Countdown to Halloween!  This year is all about monster masks (with a little bit of Vincent Price to liven things up.)  Check back here ever day through the month of October for some fun vintage monster mask ads and more!

This first advertisement comes from the pages of Marvel comics back in 1977.  I though that this would be a fitting place to start as it's the year that I was ushered into the world and represents my first Halloween ever.  It's also the only mask ad of this type that I was able to find in my collection of older superhero comics…

For a measly $3.19 ($3.94 with shipping and handling) you could own one of seven different monster masks, or even a complete Ben Cooper Spiderman or Hulk costume!  For big spenders, there was also a Wolfman mask complete with sewn in hair for a whopping $10.53!  I loved the Ben Cooper costumes growing up, though I didn't get a chance to wear many of them.  My mom tended to make my costumes, which were always cool, but there was still a tangible allure to those bright and vivid vinyl costumes that was hard to ignore.  Sure, it never made sense why the Hulk costume has a picture of the Hulk on it, but it was still pretty darn cool.

For more creeptacular fun, check out the official Countdown to Halloween page for a list of other site participating in a month-long celebration of all things Halloween!  You'll be glad you did...

Alright, the insanity officially starts tomorrow.  You can head on over to the Countdown To Halloween at midnight tonight to get the full list of the 2011 blog-a-thon participants, and stay tuned all month long for daily Halloween-y articles.  As I mentioned yesterday, I've run out of spooky monster animation cels to share, but I have plenty of fun in store.  Along with my daily selection of vintage monster mask posts, I've also decided to pepper the month with some observations about Horror's renaissance man, Vincent Price (considering 2011 would have been his 100th year on the planet.)  Granted, the Vincentennial was technically this past May, but I think the world can do with a bit more Price-y reverie.  As a sort of sneak peek I thought I'd share this reminiscence that I wrote earlier in the year for the Strange Kids Club…

Growing up in the 80s, my first introduction to Vincent Price was most likely while watching re-runs of the 60s era Batman TV show where he guest-starred as the dastardly Egghead, but he was always around haunting the odd corners of the pop culture zeitgeist.  Whether it was his turn as Vincent Van Ghoul in the 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, as a pitchman for everything from monster vitamins to Tilex, or as the lonely aging Geppetto/Dr. Frankenstein-esque character The Inventor in Edward Scissorhands, Price has always been lurking in every dark shadow waiting to delight the world with his macabre presence.  It wasn't until a few years ago that I really started taking an interest in his work (on and off the screen.)  In fact I'd never actually watched one of his films until I turned 30 and decided to dig into one of those mega-50-horror-movie-DVD-sets that you find floating around the discount bins during the Halloween season.

I'd settled on The Last Man on Earth as it sounded like a fun flick to watch on a Saturday morning, something that Elvira or Grandpa Munster would have shown on one of the UHF stations when I was a kid.  I figured this would justify the $10 bucks I spent on the set, and I'd finally get to see what all this Vincent Price hoopla was all about.  86 minutes later I sat in front of the TV in stunned silence.  I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but I was taken aback at how good this flick was.  The story shinned through the horribly scratchy and faded public domain quality print of the film, and though you could tell that this was a very low budget production, Vincent Price elevated the film with his masterful presence (even through the dubbing and voice-over.)  Originally released in 1964, the film bridges the gap between the Technicolor schlock and gore of Hammer and Herschell Gordon Lewis and the solemn gritty reality of Night of the Living Dead, helping to usher in a quarter century of amazingly influential modern horror.

This wasn't the first time Vincent Price helped to change the tide for horror.  Films like House of Wax and The Fly were pivotal in endearing a new generation to monster movies in the 50s, years after the luster of the Universal heyday had almost faded away.  When you also consider his short stint as the Invisible Man (in the first sequel to the 1933 film, as well as a cameo in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein), his work with gimmick maestro William Castle, and his time with Roger Corman and American International Pictures (bringing the work of Edgar Allen Poe to the screen), you can see what his reputation is cemented as the master of horror.

Though I love all of his contributions to the genre (having devoured his catalog in the last three years), I've found a much more personal connection to the man outside of horror.  Through a myriad of surviving audio interviews and his long out-of-print autobiography I've come to know Vincent Price as a true renaissance man.  His love of art knew no bounds and he spent a lifetime collecting and making it possible, though his partnership with Sears back in the 50s and 60s, for everyone to be able to own affordable works by centuries of masters.  Take a second and listen to his records narrating a trip through the Louvre, and you'll be infected by his passion.

Strangely enough it was though his love of cooking and the culinary world that I connected with him the most deeply.  Vincent Price and his second wife Mary authored two cookbooks, A Treasury of Great Recipes and Come into the Kitchen, both featuring a wide variety of food spanning both the history of American as well as adapted recipes from restaurants all over the world.  Price also narrated a series of international culinary records that takes the listener all over the world as well as into his home with all sorts of tips, anecdotes and advice.  Though the style of cooking is firmly set in the 60s with absolutely no concern for "healthy" eating, there's no more visceral way to connect with someone like one can over the sharing of food.  I've taken a cue from a couple I know and reserved special occasions as an excuse to pull the Price Treasury down from the shelf to concoct some gut-busting gastronomical wonders.  His reworking of the classic Sardi's Meat Sauce recipe has completely changed the way I think about pasta with red sauce, and it's a dish that I've cooked numerous times for friends and family.

Through a vast body of work I've gotten to know Vincent Price over the last few years, and it's been a journey that's changed the way I look at life.  I know that may sound weird and cheesy, but it's not that often that a life examined yields so much insight into what it means to truly live.  He's also reminded me of one of the key things that helps to keep me pointed forward and exploring.  To paraphrase the great Price, one has to be interested in everything in order for oneself to be interesting...

Well, there are just two short days before the official beginning of the 2011 Countdown to Halloween and I couldn't be more excited.  Though I've run out of cool Real Ghostbusters monster animation cels to share (like I did in 2009 and 2010), I do have a bunch of fun stuff in store.  The main countdown theme at Branded this year is going to be Halloween Mask m-AD-ness, where I'm going to share a bunch of vintage monster mask ads throughout the month.  Now, I don't consider myself any sort of authority on the subject (for more in depth mask blogging see the Blood Curdling Blog of Monster Masks), quite the contrary in fact.  My interest in monster masks stems from the amazement I felt as a kid when walking into a Spencer's in our local mall during the Halloween season.  There'd be a wall of masks and props that would keep me enraptured for hours while my mom did her shopping.  We could never really afford any of those masks back then, but I could afford the odd copy of Fangoria or Starlog which tended to have mask advertisements in every issue (except 1985, but I'll get to that later) that I'd sit and study for what seemed like days at a time.  So I thought it would be fun to go through my collection of mask ads and share my thoughts.

Though this will be the main daily theme, I'm also going to try my best to cover another topic as well, but look for that sneak peek tomorrow.  Also, I'd like to mention that the great Plaid Stallions site was gracious enough to let me use some of the imagery from their Ben Cooper catalog scans in order to make the mask banner above.  You should check them out for all your fun 70s fashion faux pas and nostalgia memories, in particular this coming month when they'll take part in the 2011 Countdown to Halloween!  Alright, lets take a look at some really vintage mask ads to get the tone set for October!

I'm not sure when the first modern Halloween masks (rubber, latex, vinyl, or even pressed and molded plastic) crept into pop culture, but I'm pretty sure that the fad was going pretty strong during the initial publication of Famous Monsters of Filmland in the late 50s.  The first few ads I have here are from that wonder of a monster magazine, like this one from issue #4, first published in 1959…

I love these old ads because of the artwork used to illustrate the products.  These illustrations in particular strike a chord with me because my own artwork has naturally tended in this direction…

I also love these illustrations because I know that they were so much cooler than the actual masks were!  You can see the difference more clearly with this next ad that was also featured in issue #4 of FMoF…

My all time favorite mask rendering in an ad has to be the illustration for the Shock Monster.  That drawing took on a life of it's own and eventually became a mascot of sorts for Famous Monsters.  Mirek over at Shock! has a great write-up about that mask and the illustration (which was done by Keith Ward.)  Similarly striking is the androgynous visage of the Girl Vampire which also pervaded these magazines and the ad pages of comics for what seems like decades.

Rounding out the Famous Monsters mask ads is the one on the above, right from issue #41 originally published in 1964.  This one mixes the tried and true illustrations of the classic offerings with a selection of masks inspired by the Universal stable of monsters (as well as a side section with some Munsters masks, even though it's illustrated with production stills instead of actual masks.)  This one cracks me up because it touts that the UM masks are the same ones used by Universal Pictures.  I seriously doubt these masks, or anything like them were ever used in any film productions.  Maybe on the back-lot during tours, but the implication is otherwise.  This ad also featured the weirdo Mystery Man mask (top of the ad), which looks a whole heck of a lot like a cross between a gimp mask and the faceplate Hannibal Lector wore in Silence of the Lambs!

Last up today are a couple of ads from the Famous Monsters sister comic antholy published by Warren called Creepy.  These are from issue #18, originally published in 1968…

The ad on the left featured a bevy of Universal Monsters masks that much have been super expensive back in '68.  Heck, just 4 years prior you could order similar masks from FMoF for a fraction of the price.  Granted the level of detail on these is better, but I wonder of there was an extreme case of sticker shock when kids saw the $34 price tag.  Dang, it would have taken me months to save that much money even back in the 80s.  I'm guessing maybe these might have been aimed at a more adult crowd then?

The ad on the right is fun as it features the Warren comic anthology mascots Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie in 3-D mask form.  Now that's a level of branding and merchandise that really warms my heart.  This one also features some different pictures of the Mystery Man mask I mentioned earlier, complete with gimp-like removable mouth covering.  So freaking weird.

Well, hopefully that'll begin to give you an idea of what the next month will be like.  I hope you come back and take a gander at some of the awesome ads that I have in store.  Also, come back tomorrow to get a sneak peak at the other Halloween topic I'm hoping to cover throughout October.  You can also wander over to the Countdown to Halloween for a list of over 150 sites participating in Halloween-y blogging all month long!

Well folks, the month of October is almost upon us, and before I slip into a daze of daily ghoulish shenanigans, I thought I'd squeeze in one more PCP update.  I feel very lucky to have gotten a chance to meet a bunch of people because of this website and the projects it's led me to, but there are still a handful of folks I've yet to meet in person.  Of these people I'd really like to get a chance to say hello and give a hearty handshake to is the one and only Ted Seko!

Probably one of the most sincere and thoughtful people in comics, Ted is really one in a million.  I've been listening to his creative process podcast, the Idiot Engine, for almost three years now and I'm always taken by his perspective on creating comics and telling stories.  He's also one hell of a cartoonist, both in comics and animation.  His style is energy and excitement personified in a way that's so much more instinctual than a lot of his contemporaries.

I could literally gush about this man's work for hours, but I wanted to point to how much of a mensch Ted is when he pitched in to help out the Up! Fair last year.  We had put out a call to artists and friends about donating pieces of art for a gallery showing and an auction to benefit the show and Ted surprised us all by sending in a one of a kind comic book that was completely illustrated and bound by hand.  And it was awesome.  That was way above and beyond and it's just another example of how cool this guy is. 

If you get a chance, I highly suggest heading on over to download some episodes of his podcast, watch some of his cartoons, and take a look at his artwork.  This guy is the real deal!

Alright, it's about time for another Mail-Out session of the Branded in the 80s Post Card Project!  This time around I have a special treat just in time for the Halloween season as I've scored a copy of the 1985 Fangoria Magazine postcard issue!

It took me awhile to find an affordable copy of this beauty (when I was scoping it out copies were selling for upwards of $50 each, though now it seems they're popping up at more reasonable prices.)  Anyway, I was really excited to get my grubby little hands on these vintage postcards, though to be 100% honest, I was a little confused by what I found between the covers.  This issue boasts at offering "24 Incredibly Gross Full Color Postcards!"  I can vouch for their full color-ness, but the gross to not-so-much-so ratio is a bit off.  Anyway, that isn't to say that these aren't a batch of fun cards, because they are in fact really fun.

I have decided in the interest of those with weak constitutions and those with inflated expectations of gore, that I should temper this mail-out with some catagories to pick from.  Basically I've deemed that there are 13 fun horror themed cards, 7 truly gory cards, and 4 cards that are barely scraping by to be considered horror or Halloween-y related at all (these four were filed under the Scream Queen category in the magazine, but even so the picture choices were very weird.)  So, on a fist come, first serve basis I'll be sending these out, but it's important that when requesting a postcard you state whether you want a regular one, a gory one, or one of the not-so-horror scream queen cards.  I'll keep this post updated with what's available below...

So if you'd like to received a bona fide 26 year-old vintage horror postcard in the mail directly from Branded in the 80s, send me an email with "Fangoria Postcards" in the subject line.  Be sure to include your name and snail mail address, as well as which type of postcard you'd like to receive.  As with the first and second wave's participants, if you'd like to take some photos with the postcard, you can send 'em in and I'll post them here and on the Branded Facebook page with a shout out to your blog or website.

Normal Horror = 3

Really Gory = All Gone

Scream Queens = All Gone

Oh, and in case you were wondering why Fangoria decided to release a postcard issue, the explanation is below in the magazine introduction.  Apparently it had something to do with the convergence of 80s rock, the WWF, horror movies, and aliens?!?  At least they gave us a flow chart to try and understand the reasoning…