Anyone who has seen any assortment of paperback or men’s magazine covers from the 40’s to 60’s has most certainly gawked in wonder at more than a few that were painted by one of the kings of the genre, Norman Saunders. Saunders was a prolific illustrator who was known for turning out high quality paintings within tight deadlines. He is most remembered for his lurid crime scene type paintings with gun totting tough guys and even tougher gals in dramatically lit poses. But he was able to handle most any design themes the magazine field including combat, westerns, science fiction and even sports illustrations. He also painted a famous series of trading cards for Topps in 1962 called Mars Attacks whose images later inspired Tim Burton to create his film of the same name. He was born Normand Blaine Sanders (he signed a lot of his work Blaine that he did outside his main job at Fawcett) in 1907. He would later drop the ‘d’ from Normand. At the age of three he suffered an accident that left him blind for six months. Luckily his sight was restored after several surgeries and he soon began drawing everything he saw, no doubt in appreciation for his restored vision. He was hired by Fawcett Publications and as the story goes he unknowingly hitched a ride with a couple bank robbers from North Dakota who had the young Saunders keep lookout for cops from the back of their Model-T. He was a hard working artist whose work did not seem to suffer from their rushed qualities. The colors are bright and lurid and the content is consistently exciting and dangerously erotic. It is the because of the work of men like Saunders that the artwork from the pulps now are treasured by collectors over what was produced in the ‘slicks’ of the same period. I could never tire of looking at stuff like this.

MORE OF THE AMAZING ARTWORK OF NORMAN SAUNDERS HERE >>

Most people are probably more aware of the excellent 1995 Robert Crumb documentary by Crumb’s friend and bandmate Terry Zwigoff. That is a film and I was lucky enough to get to see it in one of Seattle’s little art house cinema’s back when I lived there. Less well known but easier to watch than Zwigoff’s often depressing exploration of Crumb’s dissatisfaction with American culture (he is moving to France with wife Aline Kominsky in the film which he considers a nation “slightly less evil than America”) is the one hour documentary produced by the BBC’s Arena Films. Crumb wrote the script for Confessions and the film is full of historical footage and cynical insights but is also a lighter look at the cartoon legend. Like Zwigoff’s film Confessions explores Crumb’s dubious acceptance of his role as a comic book icon and looks at some of the minutiae of his daily life with Aline on a farm. If you’re a fan of the guy’s work then this is a documentary you will want to see. After I moved away from buying and reading the super hero stuff by Marvel decades ago it was the natural progression of events to get into the stuff by Crumb and his peers. I cannot go on enough about how the guy’s work thrills me in terms of his technique and his writing style. His most recent contribution to illustrated stories is a verse for verse comic book rendering of the book of Genesis which is causing a stir amongst religious fundamentalists for its adult themed interpretation of the Biblical book. He spent four years on the project and I have yet to see it but am trying to find a version of it online.  A fascinating personality and talented artist.

SEE THE COMPLETE BBC CONFESSIONS OF ROBERT CRUMB HERE >>

Don’t know too much about Japanese artist Shohei Otomo except that his work is utterly amazing and he does it all in ball point pen. He mixes traditional and contemporary themes in his drawings successfully. A lot of modern Asian art mixes old themes with modern/western images and a lot of it is simply mundane. For example the image of Chairman Mao eating at McDonalds in a painting in China is a little worn out but you still see similar images all the time. Shohei Otomo’s images are hard line, high contrast drawings and the impact is stunning sometimes. He often leaves much of the drawing surface blank and nestles his finely detailed illustration in the center. Other times he fills in the page with painstakingly drawn imagery. He dabbles in Henati and Manga themes and other times takes traditional Ukiyo-e wood cut themes and warps them around a bit. A couple of the images are fairly adult in themes and at least one I was just not comfortable uploading to the site. I used to do some drawing and preferred the pen and ink medium. When I see work like this I have an ambivalent mixture of  inspiration and despair. On the one hand I want to suddenly draw something again and on the other I become more resolved to never pick up an ink pen again. His site called Hakuchi is here and it is in Japanese but easy enough to navigate or just translate using Google.

MORE SHOHEI OTOMO HERE >>

Sorry,  I do not have any real information or trivia on these posters from Thailand to share at this time.  Normally I like to add some researched information to a post but I am a little tired right now and may have to get back with some of that later if I can find out anything. Many of the posters here you may recognize as they are American horror movies staples like An American Werewolf in London and the Evil Dead films by Sam Rami.  Others appear to be some films out of Hong Kong. Others I am not to sure about. Not really sure whcih ones may be actual Thai films to be honest. I could have researched it a bit more but, like I said, I am really tired lately and a bit burned out with blogging. Do hate blogging, just need a breather. Need to just put up an easy post here and get back to something more involved later. I have a big collection of these so expect some more eventually.

MORE THAI MOVIE POSTERS HERE >>

The only movie from this assortment of posters I have actually seen is the Takashi Miike film Imprint which I reviewed way back in the early days of the Café. Technically it is not even really an actual Asian film as it was made for the English language Showtime series Masters of Horror. But I love the design and like Miike’s work in a general way and a poster showing a Japanese girl with pins jammed through her face is about as Asian as you can get. I love the artwork on these posters. Even on the cheesy schoolgirl vs. zombie stuff from Japan. It can truly be said that in Asian film the posters are typically much better than the actual movie. I am not a fan, for example, of the technically well made South Korean schoolgirl/ghost films that are so popular here in China with students. But the poster art is usually great and spooky. I just don’t see what is scary about a ghostly young girl or child staring through its hair at you but it sends people up the walls here. I have seen my fair share of modern Asian horror (Japanese horror in particular) and the reason I watch the stuff is I am lured in by the promising poster art. The Japanese and South Korean posters are simply nice looking pieces or art and make great desktop wallpapers. Just hope a day comes when most of the films can half way live up to the promises these eerie and haunting posters make.

SEE MORE CREEPY ASIAN POSTERS HERE >>

Recently downloaded a batch of these movie posters from Ghana without having any idea what I was getting into.  it was a horrifically pleasant surprise. Seems that during the mid 80’s to mid 90’s there was in Ghana some thing that has come to be known as ‘mobile cinema’. VHS tapes of western films (and African films as well) were transported from village to village and shown on a television set that was powered by a generator. To promote the shows artists painted images from the VHS cover when available, or from the film if they had the chance to see it or sometimes they created a painting based on what they thought the film might be about without ever having seen it. The paintings were typically done on old flour bags and one see the damage and wear many of them accrued after countless displays in the isolated rural villages where the films showed. The paintings are raw and intense and are in many cases more entertaining than the originals. In particular I like the Cujo painting that really seems to have little connection to the actual film, and the Friday the 13th painting seems to show some woman who looks a lot like Hillary Clinton terrorizing a puppet sized Jason. The mobile film movement did not last long but its brief history is recounted in the book Extreme Canvas: Movie Poster Paintings from Ghana from where these exciting images were scanned. I don’t know what most people think but I find these much more vibrant and enticing than the glossy, Photoshopped stuff you see in cinema lobbies these days. Makes me want to see Hostel and Evil Dead II one more time each.

MORE EXTREME CANVAS FROM GHANA HERE >>

I saw a post over at Gilligan’s My Retrospace and it ignited a little flame in me. I have often found myself searching the net for damsels in distress pictures. I had long had the idea for a them like this and seeing what he did with Monsters Love to Carry to Girls made me realize how much I liked this line of thinking. Maybe even more than my Girls with Guns fetish. Not sure. The image of a hapless female being carted away by a monster or brute is simply an integral part of the horror mythos. It cannot be taken away. It is one of the main pillars that hold up the temple of horror. I did not want to focus my theme only on woman being carried away but decided to find assorted images of women generally being menaced, threatened and harassed by apes, mutants, madmen, aliens and God knows what else. This will probably become a recurring theme and will eventually earn a category listing after another post or two. I guess one day I can go into some deeper analysis of the whole girl over the shoulder of a brute fetish but I would have to admit I am not sure what the appeal is. No doubt there is a lurid and fetishistic nature to some of these images, and what is wrong with that? A couple are publicity stills and seem designed to simply show off the ample curves and cleavage of the frightened females. I have been looking to broaden out what I do here with simpler posts. I simply get worn out doing my long treatises on the films of Al Adamson or Ted Z. Mikels that no one probably reads and want a break sometimes. Maybe will get back to posting more comic book and poster art as well and give myself a rest while I am working on some posts in my drafts folder. Have no fear, there will be more monster and girls themed posts in the future. There is certainly no end to such images to be found online. Also, expect another Girls with Guns post soon as well to keep the balance. Sometimes girls get tired of being carried off and they pick up a big long barreled gun and blow the heads off their tormentors. Both theme have their place here at the Café.

MORE GIRLS BEING MENACED BY BIG, NASTY MONSTERS HERE >>