Welcome
to Needless Things’ annual celebration of the greatest time of year
– Halloween!
In
today’s post I’ll be talking a bit about the site’s plans for
the month, reviewing Zenescope’s Grimm
Fairy Tales
Halloween Special, and presenting the first installment of our annual
coverage of SyFy’s October programming schedule. We will cover
every single day of SyFy’s schedule, with Saturdays and Sundays
included in Friday posts.
All
month long Needless Things will be providing coverage of
Halloween-centric content; from spooky toy reviews to recaps of
haunts and other Halloween events to four creepy episodes of the
Needless Things Podcast (not to mention the annual recording of Earth
Station Boo for the ESO Network!). Five days a week you will be able
to visit the site for new, original, creepy content.
Finally,
we will be publishing R.T.’s newest story in four installments as
part of the Needless Things Spotlight. However, in order to give you
something special on this one, it will be posted every Saturday in
October. Normally we’re a strictly Monday through Friday outfit,
but this year we wanted to get four days closer to actually
presenting 31 Days of Halloween!
So
spread the word and join the fun by attempting to use Blogger’s
awful Comments system or checking out Needless Things on Facebook
and Twitter.
Remember
– every time you share a Needless Things article, a bat-boy gets
his wings! Not really, but we certainly appreciate it.
And
now, on to our first creature feature!
Grimm
Fairy Tales 2014 Halloween Special
FULL
DISCLOSURE – I received this comic book for free as part of
Zenescope’s review program. But you guys know me – I’d give up
free comics before I’d bullshit you.
I
dig this cover. As I’ve been reading more books from Zenescope,
I’ve realized that they embrace their cheesecake factor in a very
tongue-in-cheek (but nowhere else because this is mostly PG-13 stuff)
way. It’s fun. This cover is a great example of that.
Frankenstein’s monster sneaking a peek at Sela’s cheeks during
the group shot is relatively innocent and funny – particularly
given the blush on the monster’s cheeks. Er, face cheeks.
Side
Note: Spellcheck tried to correct “cheesecake factor” to
“Cheesecake Factory”, which made me laugh. And made me want
cheesecake.
This
is the third issue of Grimm
Fairy Tales
that I have read. I enjoyed the other two issues of the main title.
Starting with issue #101 (the first I read), Zenescope has launched a
new storyline with new characters in a school for children from
various fairy tale kingdoms. This one-shot continues developing these
new characters.
This
story is a fairly standard tale of a group of individuals having to
face their own personal fears. It’s a good storytelling device
because it works well with a Halloween issue and it continues the
fleshing out of Ali, Skye, Wulf, Violet, and Hailey; as well as their
teachers. I like that we’re learning about them via stories rather
than huge blocks of text.
Storytelling
is definitely one of the strong points of the Zenescope comics I have
read so far. They use clear narratives and have an emphasis on art
that is both solid and utilitarian. I haven’t run across a book yet
that has been difficult to follow visually. The panels are always
laid out in a straightforward manner and the story flows from page to
page. The artists are very good at making the action clear.
The
Halloween Special is no different. While there are times when the art
feels a bit generic, there is a competence in portraying facial
expressions and action that I really appreciate. It’s not the
fanciest, most detail-oriented art I’ve ever seen, but at no point
did style get in the way of substance.
This
page is a great example:
A
Wraith (which is, again, explained within the story) is attacking the
kids in a cemetery. What’s happening here is clear. You don’t
even need the rest of the book to understand that one kid is down,
another is attacked, and this dude is angry and is going to try to
fight this thing. I bet there aren’t a lot of comics on the market
today that you could just pull one page from and get such a clear
idea of what’s happening.
The
Wraith is putting the kids into a dream state that forces them to
face their greatest fears (which is where the character development
comes in). I really dig the graphical effect used to denote the dream
states:
Despite
the fact that this Halloween Special has thirty-five pages of story,
it feels short. I didn’t get quite as much from each of the
characters as I would have liked, though I feel that’s probably
intentional. Zenescope wants you to pick this one up and then go and
buy the regular Grimm
Fairy Tales
book. It’s smart. If you’re like me, you’ll walk into your
Local Comic Book Shop during the month of October and buy anything
with “Halloween” or even just a jack o’ lantern on the cover.
This is a smart way to grab potential new readers.
On
its own merit, this isn’t the best Halloween Special. If you’re
just looking for a spooky book, the GFT
Special’s connection to Halloween is tenuous at best. There’s a
Halloween party at the beginning (that’s handled in a fairly
amusing way), but the story itself could have happened at any time of
year. This one feels sort of shoehorned into the holiday.
However,
it is a solid tale and as someone who is now interested in the world
of Grimm
Fairy Tales
I liked where this went and the way it furthered the ongoing
narrative of the book. If somebody asked me for a good Halloween
comic I wouldn’t recommend this one. But as a solid comic that is
yet another introduction into Zenescope’s world the Halloween
Special is a success. If you’re looking for new books to check out
and enjoy stories rooted in fairy tale lore, pick this up. It came
out today.
Needless
Things V. 31 Days of Halloween
Every
October for the last few years Needless Things has provided
commentary on SyFy’s – the television channel devoted to science
fiction (sort of) – schedule. Not because the channel provides the
best Halloween content, but because they provide the most.
Aside from some paid programming in the wee hours of the morning
(because somebody
has to pay for Sharknado
3: Again With This?),
SyFy makes an effort to program content that is at least
Halloween-ish every hour of the month.
It
is for this that we thank them and devote far more effort than we
should into dissecting what they have to offer.
Oct
1 11:00 AM Ghost Hunters, Season 8 A Ghost Of A Marine
Oct
1 12:00 PM Ghost Hunters, Season 8 A Family Of Spirits
Oct
1 01:00 PM Ghost Hunters, Season 8 Haunted By Heroes
Oh,
how I loathe this television program. Not the people on it, mind you.
I admire them for making lucrative careers out of being startled by
window dressings. No – I just don’t like the show itself. I’m
sure if I were actually there participating in their activities I’d
be jumping at window dressings, too. Especially if I were getting
paid.
Anyway,
SyFy trots out marathon after marathon of this nonsense all month
long, so best to get my feelings about it out of the way right up
front.
Oct
1 02:00 PM 31 Days Of Halloween Movie Dead, The
Clearly
we’ve run out of synonyms for “zombie”, because unless this is
actually a documentary about that hippie band that my ESO boss
probably adores, it’s the bottom of the barrel of names for a
zombie movie.
Interestingly,
this is not
a SyFy Original Movie. As you’ll note, there are “31 Days of
Halloween” movies and “SyFy Original” movies. I believe the
former are all non-SyFy productions that released independently of
the television network and might have even appeared in theaters in
some cases.
My
point here is that The
Dead
is a thing that happened with no involvement from everybody’s
favorite producer of shitty genre movies.
Oct
1 04:30 PM 31 Days Of Halloween Movie Dead Season
Oct
1 06:30 PM 31 Days Of Halloween Movie Halloween II (2009)
I
love this movie.
I
don’t love it more than Carpenter’s Halloween
movies. But I love it for being a different interpretation of Michael
Myers and for being extremely
fucking Rob Zombie. It’s weird and scary and has terrible dialogue
and is a blast to watch. Even if I didn’t end up being in it.
Also,
I think this is new to SyFy’s programming. As you’ll see
throughout the rest of the month, they tend to show the same movies
over and over and over again. And over. Again.
Oct
1 09:00 PM 31 Days Of Halloween Movie Freddy Vs. Jason
I
love this movie. The only thing I don’t like about it is that that
hot, slutty girl from Ginger
Snaps
gets killed too soon.
Obviously
I do not mean that the actress is hot and slutty. Just her character.
Actually,
I don’t think her character is even slutty, but she smokes a lot of
weed and, well, certain assumptions are fairly safe to make.
Oct
1 11:00 PM Syfy Original Movie Battledogs
This
is more like it! BATTLEDOGS.
That is a SyFy movie if ever I heard of one. In the world of real
movies that star Brad Pitt and stuff this title might be on a flick
about a squadron of retired soldiers dealing with the PTSD of their
experiences in the Iraq war. In the world of SyFy, this title likely
denotes a squadron of soldiers led by Screech from Saved
By the Bell
that have to pretend to fight a bunch of CGI mutant dogs with machine
guns on their backs created by Nazi scientists.
I
know which world I’d rather live in.
Oct
1 01:00 AM Syfy Original Movie Witchslayer Gretl
I
am going to assume that this is the original Germanic (or whatever)
spelling of “Gretel” so that the audience understand that SyFy is
for real about this one. No cutesy bullshit here. This chick is a
muthafuckin’
WITCHSLAYER
The
makers of this movie had to get across that Gretl is not just a witch
hunter or a witch finder. She does the deed, man. There’s a certain
guarantee inherent in that title that I appreciate. I look at that
and I think, “Well, heck – I guess I’m going to see some
witches getting slayed”.
Oct
1 03:00 AM Syfy Original Movie Witchville
I
would love
to discover that Witchslayer
and Witchville
were connected. Like, the former is all about Gretl slaying lower
level witches and discovering that there’s a head witch. The movie
ends with Gretl slaying said head witch, except it turns out she’s
in the middle of Wtichville – a whole town
of head witches. Then Witchville
picks up with Gretl trying to escape from the town and kill as many
witches as she can.
See
– this
is why I can’t enjoy things. My brain always comes up with these
cool ideas that are so much better than whatever it is I’m writing
about. I mean, I assume my ideas are better. I haven’t actually
seen either of these movies, but I want to now.
Oct
1 05:00 AM Paid Programming
Oct
2 06:00 AM Paid Programming
Oct
2 08:00 AM Scare Tactics - Basket Case
Oct
2 08:30 AM Scare Tactics - Ghoul Bus
Oct
2 09:00 AM Scare Tactics - Channeling The Dead
I
feel really dumb for liking Scare
Tactics,
but I can’t help it. Tracy Morgan is definitely a big selling
point. Some episodes are more clearly staged than others, and a
lot of
the “victims” are clearly actors, but when it works it works. I
hope it doesn’t make me racist or homophobic or anything, but I can
never get enough of gay black guys dancing around and screaming at
midgets with masks on.
Oct
2 09:30 AM Syfy Original Movie Witchville
And
this is where SyFy annoys me every year. They replay things a
lot.
And it’s not just the number of times, it’s the proximity. In
this case I understand that the same person that wanted to watch a
movie at 3 AM (the last time Witchville
was shown) is probably not looking for a movie at 9:30 AM. But SyFy
has gotten worse every year about replaying movies very close
together. Like, at 6 PM on Saturday and then at 4 PM on Sunday. I get
that there’s only so much budget to license and show so many movies
(I suppose that’s how it works, anyway), but at least spread ‘em
out a little bit.
I
hope you’ve enjoyed today’s introductory Halloween post. Keep
coming back all month long for spooky stuff and please do share the
site and posts on the various social medias.
Also,
buy some spooky stuff from Amazon and help the site out! Running this
thing is more expensive than you might think.
Man, seeing all of the crazy junk on SyFy actually makes me wish I had SyFy (or any tv channels, really). I'd eat this stuff up.
ReplyDeleteBTW, if you like Zenoscope, check out a book the released called the Theater. It was a tales from the crypt/ anthology kind of deal that took place in an old abandoned movie theater. It only ever made one trade, but it was fun!
SyFy isn't the best, but they do try to put on as much fun stuff as they can in October. I appreciate the tone they go for.
DeleteI'll see if I can get a copy of Theater - thanks for the heads-up!