Yearly Archives 2015

The following contains spoilers. Anyone who has not seen Doctor Who, Season 9, Episode 10, “Face the Raven”, then skip this right now. Or don’t, but be prepared to be spoiled.

In the premiere episode of Capaldi’s Doctor, he said, “I’ve lived for over two thousand years, and not all of them have been good.” In fact, some of them have been down-right tragic. In those two thousand years, The Doctor has had roughly 54 companions (the count varies, depending on who is arguing the point). Of those, five had died before the events of “Face the Raven”. And now we add Clara Osbourne to that list.

To be honest, I’m someone who had grown tired of Clara’s character. I loved her as the Impossible Girl, helping to clear up the Doctor’s timelines of all of his regenerations...

This weekend, I went to Monsterama Con, and got to meet one of my idols, Ricou Browning. Ricou played the Gill-man in 1954’s Creature From the Black Lagoon, 1955’s Revenge of the Creature, and 1956’s Creature Walks Among Us. He is the only actor to have played the gill-man more than once and is the last surviving actor from Universal’s classic monster series. Ricou told me he got the part because he could hold his breath longer than the other actors up for the part. I asked him what it was like to swim with that suit on, and he told me, “It was like swimming in mud.”

Ricou went on to become an underwater director, running the second unit underwater scenes from movies such as Flipper and Caddyshack. What a thrill to meet one of my favorite monsters!

Christopher Minori and Cory Bytof will be appearing on Oct 16th and 17th at Arts After Hours’ Texas Chainsaw production. They’ll be having a Q&A session after each show; Their answers are always informative, often hilarious, and typically on the offensive-side. If you haven’t bought your tickets yet, now’s the time to do it. And for the first time in the history of the show, Christopher and Cory will be sitting in the splatter section. Come see them get wet and yucky! Grab tickets HERE.

Got to meet C. Martin Croker at Monsterama! What a terrific animator, voice actor, and nice guy. He’s most well know for playing Zorak, from “Space Ghost, Coast-to-Coast”, but he’s also been in and animated The Brak Show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Assy McGee and others. We talked for awhile, he, an experienced animator; me, a burgeoning one. By the end, we had really connected. Plus, he sketched these out for me:

————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

SEPTEMBER 19, 2016 – Just got the news that Clay passed away two days ago from food poisoning. He was 54 years old. My heart is broken. Not only has the world lost an amazing voice actor and animator, but it also lost a hell of a nice guy. And I lost a friend. RIP, Clay. We’ll miss you!
Read all about...

I was fortunate enough to meet Michelle Gomez at Timegate (Doctor Who convention). She was awesome in season 8 last year as the Mistress (The latest regeneration of the Master). One thing I don’t understand is how the Mistress got this regeneration from. She had used up all of hers and was forced to steal other Timelords’, but with Gallifrey missing…?

Timegate usually happens in May. Find out more here.

Ralph Bakshi is a personal hero of mine; the grandfather of independant adult-oriented animation. In an interview at Dragoncon in 2011, he makes his premonition of the future for independent animators.

“I think everything (animation) is moving to the internet. Low budget animation will move to the Internet. I think Google, and Youtube, and Netflix will all be paying for their own product. That’s where the future is.”

And he’s right. Four years later and Hulu is producing its cartoon “The Awesomes”. Netflix produced an additional Season of “Clone Wars” and has their exclusive adult cartoon series, “Bojack Horseman”. And Bakshi himself is producing his own independent film, “Last Days of Coney Island”, created entirely on computer. What a great time to be an animator!

Here’s the full inter...

“The Texas Chainsaw Musical!”, written by Christopher Minori and Cory Bytof, will be produced by Arts After Hours, October 9 – 31, 2015.

The show is the story of a handsome serial killer, his overly affectionate momma, the woman he loves, and the pantywaist runt that ruins everything. It is not based on the 1974 horror film, but on the same events that inspired The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, and Silence of the Lambs: Wisconsin serial killer, Ed Gein. In the musical, Eddy Gee has been tormenting the residents of Plainfield, Texas since he was a child. After killing his mother, Eddy snaps and goes on a rampage, but things get problematic when he falls in love with one of his intended victims. The show was named one of the top 10 shows of 2012 by The Cleveland Plain Dealer...

Doctor Who fans will rejoice that Steven Moffet has confirmed the return of Dr River Song in Season 9. “It’s Christmas Day in the future and the TARDIS is parked on a snowy village street, covered in icicles, awaiting its next adventure,” a brief synopsis that came with the announcement reads. “Time traveller River Song meets her husband’s new incarnation, in the form of Peter Capaldi, for the first time this Christmas.”

Since Capaldi was announced as the 12th Doctor, I’ve suspected he would turn out to be River’s Doctor, especially as she told both the 10th and 11th Doctors that her Doctor was much older. Now we’ll get a chance to see if I was right.

Read all about it HERE.