Tuesday, December 7, 2021

MONSTER MASHUPS #75


 


I'd mostly forgotten about this mashup until I started paging through old GHOST RIDERS, There's a good reason I forgot it, as it's a pretty formulaic encounter of the Ghost Rider and the Werewolf By Night. About the only interesting thing is that the Rider is more monstrous than the wolf-man.

Monday, November 22, 2021

MONSTER MASHUPS #74



There are fourteen English-language collections of the manga series NURSE HITOMI'S MONSTER INFIRMARY, but reading the first didn't fill me with the desire to check out any more. The titular Hitomi is a cyclops who works as a high school nurse-attendant, in a world where various monsters just pop up every once in a while and all the norms just accept their presence. The stories in Volume 1 are all about the same: a teenager is at odds with his or her developing monster-nature-- invisibility, an elastic tongue, turning into a giantess or a Thomasina Thumb-- and Nurse makes it all better with reassuring words. Not much humor or horror.

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

MONSTER MASHUPS #73




Just reviewed this Mexican monster-mash, mentioning that it includes "not only such usual suspects as a mummy, a wolfman, a tophatted vampire and a "Franquenstein Monster," but also a human-sized Cyclops. There are also a couple of female vampires running around, one of whom tries to seduce Santo, but they're excluded from the fight-scenes."

Monday, October 25, 2021

MONSTER MASHUPS #72

 Thus far I haven't found any monster mash earlier than the 1933 cartoon MICKEY'S GALA PREMIERE, although to be sure this is what I would call an "incidental mash." Mickey goes to a film premiere, where a lot of Hollywood celebs are parodied, including three movie-monsters of the period: Dracula, the Monster, and Mister Hyde. They're only on screen for less than a minute, so if you want a "mash" that has *substance,* you've got to go with 1934's "Waxworks." ("Incidentally," another "incidental mash" I'll probably never devote a post to is the Mighty Mouse cartoon "Bad Bill Bunion," in which Dracula and the Monster make tossed-off cameos.)



Offhand I don't know if any other Disney productions used monster-mashes, but 2021 debuted one that qualifies as more than incidental: A TALE OF TWO WITCHES. It's mostly about two lady witches, Minnie and Daisy, learning magic from Mistress Clarabell, and fighting a spectre named "Pete the Ghost." Mickey, Pluto, Donald and Goofy all appear in monster-forms but have very little to do in the story-- though at least they're around for more than simple cameos.




Saturday, October 2, 2021

MONSTER MASHUPS #71

 I've tried to listen to online episodes of the seventies series HILARIOUS HOUSE OF FRIGHTENSTEIN, but it's just a little too "twee" for me. I don't know if the vampire and the werewolf were ever on camera together since they were played by the same actor, but apparently a witch and a sea serpent were included-- so I guess HHOF qualifies as a mashup.



Wednesday, September 15, 2021

MONSTER MASHUPS #70

I'm still working on early issues of UQ HOLDER, in which a vampire protagonist meets a whole "Yakuza" full of "Yokai." May not turn out to be a big factor in the whole series, though. So far in my reading of the first few collections, most of the characters continue to look like ordinary super-powered humans, and don't switch to the "transitional forms" one sees in, say, ROSARIO + VAMPIRE. 








Friday, September 3, 2021

MONSTER MASHUPS #69

 



And here is my review of the DTV animated feature HULK: WHERE MONSTERS DWELL. Though the Hulk is more "hero" than "monster," a point which the movie itself dwells upon more than once, he and fellow hero Doctor Strange are accompanied for four "good monsters:" Man-Thing, vampire Nina Pryce, War-Wolf, and a zombie version of Jasper Sitwell. There's some "mashi-ness" on the antagonist side as well, when villain Nightmare brings into being three monsters based on early sixties Jack Kirby "kaiju." None of the three adapted-- Rorgg, Sporr, and Zzutak-- have to my knowledge showed up in any medium since their respective Silver Age debuts.