Posted By Dan Greenfield on Oct 28, 2024 | 4 comments

MORRISON MONDAYS!

By BILL MORRISON

This being Halloween week, I’d like to talk about a cool horror/humor comic book that I was involved with that came out just in time for the holiday! It’s the Svengoolie 45th Anniversary Halloween Boo-nanza, and it features an impressive roster of talent that all comics fans should know about.

But first, some back story. Like many kids in the 1960s, my gateway drugs to a lifelong monster movie addiction were the Aurora model kits. When I first saw them on the shelves of the local J. L. Hudson department store, the fantastic James Bama box art lured me in, and I resolved that my weekly allowance would henceforth be dedicated to the goal of owning them all!

Naturally, once I started building the kits I wanted to see the films that they were based upon. In Detroit, the best way to do that was by watching Sir Graves Ghastly on Saturday afternoons. In the ’60s and ’70s, every major city had a TV host who would show an old monster or science fiction movie every week, and Sir Graves was our homegrown horror hero! I became a faithful viewer and even started keeping a handwritten list titled, “Monster Movies I have Seen.”

Sir Graves Ghastly

In the early 1970s, Motown monster fans got to watch The Ghoul, a syndicated weekly horror movie show from Cleveland, and I was an avid fan of that program as well. I even joined “The Ghoul Fan Club,” which netted me a black-light poster, a bumper sticker, and a membership card.

As an adult living in Los Angeles in the ’80s, Elvira’s Movie Macabre and Joe Bob’s Drive-In Theater kept my love for TV horror hosts alive. Then, sometime in the twenty-teens I discovered that my cable system carried a channel called MeTV that featured reruns of classic TV shows. But even better, they had a Saturday night show called Svengoolie with a host who showed both low budget and classic horror and sci-fi movies with comedy sketches mixed into the commercial breaks.

The show was irresistible to this ’60s monster-craze kid, and it seemed a lot like the classic horror movie shows of my youth, from the opening credit sequence, to the jokes, puns, and sketches, to the personalities and cheesy makeup of the cast. So, I was not all that surprised to discover that Svengoolie was not just a show trying to recapture the look and feel of a classic horror movie show, it had actually been running on and off, and under a few different names since 1970 in Chicago. It’s the real deal!

Suffice to say, I’m a bona fide Sven fan, so imagine the thrill of being asked to participate in the launch of MeTV’s “Svengoolie Artist Collection” program. That was in 2022 when I was invited to be one of five artists commissioned to contribute artwork for shirts and prints sold exclusively in the MeTV online store! My artwork was later used for the cover of a retailer exclusive edition of the Svengoolie: Lost in Time comic book, for which I also drew two pages that introduced Sven’s sidekick, Nostalgiaferatoo to the world.

Bill Morrison

That leads us to the Svengoolie 45th Anniversary Halloween Boo-Nanza one-shot that’s currently on sale at comics shops. For this follow-up to the Svengoolie: Lost in Time book, publisher and Svengoolie Super-Fan Dan DiDio asked me to draw a cover and 11 pages of the 22-page lead story. Pages 12-22 were drawn by my pal, Scott Shaw! Scott is another rabid Svengoolie fan, and it was so much fun to share the story, “Day of the Doorbell Demons” with him!

I was also lucky to work with the inimitable Tone Rodriguez (Simpsons Treehouse of Horror, Stray Dogs) who inked my pages and gave them a tremendous boost! I even got some coloring help from another old Bongo cohort, Robert Stanley, and 13th Dimension’s own Walt Grogan! Plus, the story was written by Svengoolie himself, Rich Koz, working alongside producers Chris Faulkner and Jim Roche! That is some serious creepy creator-cred!

Scott Shaw!

The book also features three short stories that focus on members of “The Sven Squad,” Nostalgiaferatoo, Gwengoolie, and Imp, all written by the actors who play the characters, Bill Leff, Sarah Palmer, and Scott Gryder respectively. Nostalgiaferatoo’s story is illustrated by the incredibly versatile Joe Staton, known for drawing the Justice Society, Green Lantern and E-Man, and dozens of other great titles since the 1970s.

Gwengoolie’s tale was drawn by Archie Comics’ premier artist, Dan Parent, with inks by Andrew Pepoy (Fables, Simpsons Comics). And Imp’s adventure is illustrated in a gritty, underground style by newcomer Liam MG.

Dan Parent

Joe Staton

Liam MG

The book has three variant covers, one by Scott Shaw!, one by yours truly, and a photo cover, plus there are a handful of great retailer variants, including one by comics’ power couple, Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti! (Man, I’m dropping names like they’re covered in Crisco!)

It was a major thrill getting to contribute to a comic based on one of the GOATs of TV horror hosting! The only thing better would be to actually perform as a creepy character on a horror movie show myself! Oh wait, I did that! I’ll have to tell you about it someday.

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