Wondercon 2011:
Rick Baker Covers
Bela Lugosi's Tales From The Grave #2!
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Where have I seen this guy before?
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He has fueled our nightmares. He has won seven Academy Awards. And now ... he has done a cover for Monsterverse's Bela Lugosi's Tales From The Grave.
Friday night at Wondercon, a team of Monsterverse contributors got to unveil Baker's latest work to an admiring crowd. Created using ZBrush
, Baker's strangely familiar sailor got a background from Monsterverse publisher Kerry Gammill to create an awesomely chilling cover that would have fit on the newsstand next to the best covers of Weird Tales or Doc Savage.
It's a logical fit for Baker, who counts among his awards the Oscar for Best Make-up Effects on Ed Wood. In that film, he transformed Martin Landau into ...Bela Lugosi. Obviously, the guy's a fan, and his contribution is one of many for this intense labor of love from some of comics and film's finest talents. (Yes, and despite that pedigree, they still let me participate.)
In addition to Baker's cover, Gammill and West Coast Editor Sam F. Park showed art from the second issue, which will be listed in the May Previews Catalog. Pages by Neil D. Vokes on "Walpurgis Knight" gave beautiful glimpses of a masked luchador who ends up stepping off the mat and into a battle against the forces of Hell.
Also on the panel were artist Chris Moreno ("A Strangely Isolated Place" in issue #1), artist Rafael Navarro and writer Derek McCaw (me), who collaborated on "Eyes of the Prairie". Everyone talked about their enthusiasm for the book, their inspirations and then basked in the art that Gammill put up on the big screen while Park jumped around pointing out different cool elements.
Issue #2 will hit stores in July, with Issue #3 to follow on Halloween as Monsterverse gets it onto a promised quarterly schedule.
If you missed the first issue of this critically acclaimed horror anthology, don't worry. It will be relisted by Diamond Distributors in that same May Previews with the second issue.
Also coming from Monsterverse for Halloween: their first graphic novel -- Flesh and Blood by Robert Tinnell and Neil D. Vokes, described by Park as "... the monster movie you've always wanted to see, but didn't know you wanted to see."
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Two of Monsterverse's finest creators. Photo by Kathryn S. Renta.
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