You know, when we decided to be horror hosts, we knew it would come with its own unique challenges. For one, how do you stand out in a digital world where anyone and everyone with a computer and camera can be a self-claimed host or reviewer? You’ve got everything from talking heads in bedrooms to elaborate green screen productions with some of the zaniest characters emerging from people’s darkest psyches. In the past, horror hosts have been everything from vampires, ghouls, and hillbillies to space travelers and even puppets entertaining fans worldwide with their own zany brand of jokes and criticisms. What had horror fans not seen yet?
We can still remember when we were originally planning on Screaming Soup! being a live action production built in a garage. We were going to take the old school approach with a sad greased face actor playing Deadwest, and Billy would have been a homemade hand puppet. Thank goodness someone slapped us upside the head and reminded us we were artist and should try saving time and money by animating our idea. We researched that suggestion a bit and realized they were on to something. We can’t find any evidence of there ever being a long running animated horror host show. Sure, there are horror hosts with mini-animated adventures like comedy sketches on their primarily live action shows, and the Crypt Keeper even had an animated series for kids, but we couldn’t find a host who was fully conceived for an original cartoon series that poked fun at popular B-movies.
Thus began the thousand mile journey with a single step. Inspired by the quick and simplistic animation style of shows like “Space Ghost: Coast to Coast,” we set out to create a whole world from scratch on paper and the computer. A good 2 years was spent building the essential foundation of the series, doing everything we could while juggling our day jobs and family duties. After drawing, scanning, coloring, and animating hundreds of animation cells for our characters, we then had to teach ourselves how to animate on the computer which resulted in the pilot, Screaming Soup! Deadwest Screams at Deadgirl. We remember how good it felt to finish that first episode and be able to tell we achieved something special. It was even more gratifying to present it to our friends and hear them validate our show’s art and humor.
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
Until we pick this conversation back up, be sure you’re caught up on the rest of Screaming Soup! Season 2, use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
Howdy there, Scream Freaks! Continuing our graphic celebration inspired by Free Comic Book Day at the beginning of the month, we turn our attention to reviewing a more obscure treasure where horror meets comics in “Cellar Dweller,” a page turning tale where a necronimicon knock-off is used for inspiration creating a comic and results in an awesome looking 80’s monster tearing through all walks of artists! Definitely worth a look see.
You’ll see us rummage through some really strange and unbelievable comics while reviewing this movie, and before you ask, they’re all real! Even the Fright comic with the weird moon butt plug cover. How crazy is that shit? What’s also real and crazy, but in every good way possible, is Bob Burden’s Flaming Carrot comics. Those stories are a great read from an amazingly talented guy who had a lot of influence on us and our brand of humor through the years. We highly recommend picking up back issues of that masterpiece however you can!
To follow up this marvelous sequential creature feature, have a read through our Graphic Headstone archives and check out our interviews with some of today’s comic book talents working on independent horrors to mainstream titles. I’m sure some of them wouldn’t mind saving time with a monster that just created work out of thin air!
Oh, we almost forgot to thank TommyNC2010 for his hilarious rap he did for us as the introduction to this month’s episode. An all around cool guy who can now add Screaming Soup! to along with his other accomplishments such as appearances on MTV and Comedy Central’s Tosh.0. Click HERE to check out his Youtube channel.
Other than that, be sure you’re caught up on the rest of Screaming Soup! Season 2, use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
Howdy there, Scream Freaks! We’re still on a comic kick after all the fun we had on Free Comic Book Day, so we thought we’d turn our attention to producing an all new Tribute video to spotlight one of our more favorite comic book heroes, Swamp Thing! Before I was formally introduced to the classic line-up of Universal monsters that were the staples of most horror fans’ childhoods, I was exposed to the exciting world of monsters through DC Comics’ Swamp Thing. He seemed to be everywhere when I was knee high to a grasshopper. He had 2 monster bashing movies, thought provoking comics for a more mature audience, a gimmicky toyline, a cartoon full of colorful characters, and a live action TV series which is the focus of our Tribute.
Only one man has dared to wear a thick rubber suit in sweltering Florida heat for hours at a time, and his name is Dick Durock. He was there with Wes Craven in the beginning, the charmingly campy sequel, and the 72 episode long series on the USA Network from 1990-93. While heavily dubbed and hidden behind the image of other actors playing Swamp Thing in his human form, Dick luckily got to shine in the TV series as a leading man and costume stuntman. Despite the series’ rocky start with it being more reminiscent of the Twilight Zone with Swamp Thing acting as host in the peripherals of stories, the series finally figured things out by season 2 and threw Swamp Thing more in the spotlight. Of course a hero is only as good as his arch nemesis and Swamp Thing’s is the mad genius, Anton Arcane. Stiffly portrayed by Louis Jourdan in the movies, Arcane was now a much livelier and thrilling character played by Mark Lindsay Chapman whose performance is unparalleled! We’re normally against seeing the good guy fight the same bad guy again and again, but we can’t get enough of Dick and Mark battling it out every episode. While Dick was in the previous movies, it was his chemistry with Mark in the series that inspired this Tribute video we’re proud to present now. Hope you enjoy!
Other than that, be sure to catch up on all the latest Screaming Soup! episodes so far for season 2! Please use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
Howdy there, Scream Freaks! Once again we find ourselves coming face to skull with the curious cats surfing the net wanting a conversation with the web’s #1 animated horror host show, and we were all too willing to shoot the shit. This week we’re interviewed by our friends over at the Earth Station One Network who are hot on reporting all things geek! In retrospect, we probably didn’t talk enough about the show itself which is our bad, but live and learn you know? We’re sure they’ll be more to come. Click HERE to listen to this exclusive interview from earlier in April’15.
This interview was made possible from our brush with ESO co-host Michael Gordon who we first heard about after reading his indy comic “Tiki Zombie” which is a fun story he came up with about a bartender named Tiki Z who is cursed with a giant tiki head and protecting the island he lives on from all types of crazy characters with bad intentions. You should contact Michael directly and get a copy today! Below is our artsy thank you we sent him for bringing us onto the show with Tiki Z having to break up a drunken brawl Deadwest has in his bar. Michael was so impressed, he said he’d print it in his next Tiki Zombie comic he’s working on. Cool, huh?
Other than that, be sure to catch up on all the latest Screaming Soup! episodes so far for season 2! Please use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
Howdy there, Scream Freaks! Free Comic Book Day is mere hours away, and we couldn’t be more excited since one of our favorite passtimes is reading horror comics. We just dig losing ourselves in a good scary read chock full of crazy creepy art that’s as wild and horrific as creators want to be. We especially enjoy franchise related comics that help buffer the dead time between horror powerhouse sequels like Freddy and Jason which seem to take longer and longer to film. We’ve collected and read numerous “Tales From the Crypt,” “Swamp Thing,” “Army of Darkness,” “Hellboy,” and have been recently turned onto other popular long running books like “The Goon.” If you’ve kept up with our Twitter, you’ll see we currently read and give our 2 cents on comics like “Puppet Master,” “The Fly: Outbreak,” “Re-Animator,” and “Big Trouble in Little China” which have all been great revivals of cinematic characters we know and love. This is just a great time to be both a comic and horror fan!
To celebrate comics this month, we will be screaming Tribute to an under celebrated monster TV show 5/10/15, and review a graphic horror movie that’s sure to be a winner of an episode 5/20/15. So, be on the look out for those treats heading your way! And if you haven’t checked out our past interviews with horror comic artists and creators, then click HERE to visit our Graphic Headstone page!
Other than that, be sure to catch up on all the latest Screaming Soup! episodes so far for season 2! Please use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
Howdy there, Scream Freaks! St. Patrick’s Day is a blurry haze of a blacked out memory for most by now, but the after image of Warwick Davis’ sneering face continues to fester in my noggin after watching him in the annual Leprechaun marathons on TV. I don’t know when we’ll get around to reviewing this offbeat series that constantly reinvents itself with every movie installment, but a new Graphic Violence is long overdue and is perfect for expanding horror fan’s knowledge of the franchise. That’s right, this little guy dipped his deformed Irish toes into the inky waters of the comic book world a couple of times with stories that could be argued as either true to the genre jumping munchkin or a stupefying fail to horror fanatics everywhere! Just watch the newest Graphic Violence review below!
Other than that, be sure to catch up on all the latest Screaming Soup! episodes so far for season 2 and watch for an all new Screaming Soup! review coming 4/20/15. Please use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
Screaming Soup! 