Oct 14, 2014

Contests!



Cat over at Spooky Moon has been crafting a lot of Halloween goodies and she wants to give them away. She's asking everyone who'd like to potentially take home one of these spooky treats to enter her raffle by sending her a Halloween card. For full details check out the contest rules here.

Whether you end up entering, or not, to thank her for her generosity, and being one of our very own cool cryptkeepers, be sure to check out her blog and leave comments on what you find there.

Also, Ed over at AEIOU and Sometimes Why is holding a giveaway for some pretty darn neat Halloween-y postcards mailed directly from Salem!  Head on over to the site to snag one before they're all gone and you could win a sweet mystery box of fun goodies.

http://aeiouwhy.blogspot.com/2014/10/salem-postcard-giveaway.html

Oct 8, 2014

This Year's Participants



Here we are, once again embarking on a month long celebration of Halloween. As of just a few minutes before launch time there are 197 participants to start with. No doubt more will be added in the next few days. To everyone involved I would like to say thank you. This year was the smoothest in terms of getting this list together. I have been hearing about some email problems, which I've also experienced at my end. If you don't see your blog on the list below, just email me at universalrobots@aol.com and include a link to your blog and how you'd like it named and it will be added asap. For anyone who is coming at this new and would like to join in you are welcome to do so, but please read this post first. 

I know all of you are now in your costumes and feeling the emptiness of your trick or treat bags and buckets. Below you will find the addresses that give out all the best candy. There are a lot of them, and everyone puts a lot of effort into their Halloween countdowns, so try to visit everyone at least once and be sure to leave a treat in their buckets too by leaving a comment for them so they know that their hard work is being seen and appreciated. Remember too to check back here for further posts from Shawn and I. You'll find some unexpected treats here, too.

Let the trick or treating begin!

Adventures of a Geeky Vixen
AEIOU...and Sometimes Why
Airless Chambers
and everything else too
Andrew Jones Art
Another CreatureFeature Guide To Hallowe'en On Roku
Armagideon Time
Art of C. Tupa
The Art of Stephanie Buscema
Autumnal
Awake Oh Sleeper
B-Movie Star
Bat N' Kat
Beauty in Ruins
Bluestocking Farm
Branded in the 80s
Caffeinated Joe
Calvin's Canadian Cave of Cool
Cannibal Reviews
Caramel Apple Day
Carol's Creations
Catalogue of Curiosities
Cavalcade of Awesome
Celluloid Terror
Celtic Pumpkin
Cheryl's Journals and Sketchbooks
Chuck Norris Ate My Baby
Church of Halloween 
Cinedelphia
Cinema Crazed
Cinematic Catharsis
CollectingCandy.com
Comatised
Comics Oughta Be Fun
Count Gregula - The Official Site
Count Gregula's Crypt
A Coven of Stitches
Craftypants Carol
Craftypants Carol's Fancy Crafty Stuffs
Creepy Glowbugg
Cult of the Great Pumpkin
Culturally Significant!
Dan Schoening's Halloween Post-Its!
Dark Lord Rob's Terrortorium
Dark Mind of a Feminist
Dave Lowe Design
Deadpan Flook and the Blog of Stuff!
Desdinova the Super Villain of the Ozarks
Destroy//Exist
DI Treasures
Die GB! DIE!
Dinosaur Dracula!
Distinctly Jamaican Sounds
DOCTERROR.COM
The Doo Wacka Doodler
Doo Wacka Doodles
Dragon Patch TV
Dwrayger Dungeon
Earth Station One
ThEpic Review
Euclid Boo Blog
Eva Halloween's Haunted Tumblr
Family Strong
Fantasy Ink
Felt With Love Designs
A Field Guide To Doomsday
Forgotten Films
Frankenstein Forever
Frankensteinia
French Toast Sunday
Fright Connection
Frog on the Pumpkin
From the Brain of John
Garage Sale Finds
Geektarded
The Ghost Town
The Ghoulie Guide
The Goods
Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks
Gravedigger's Local 16
Great Pacific Garbage Patch Radio
The Grim Gallery
Hallowaltz
HalloweenOverkill
Halloween Special
The Halloween Tree
Hallowholics Anonymous
Hallowholics Anonymous (wordpress)
Hallucination Horrors
The Hammer Strikes!
Happy-Halloween.net
Hauntcast
The Haunted Drive-in
The Haunted Drive-in Tumblr
Haunted Eve
Haunted Eve's Halloween Blog
The Haunted Mansion Forum
The Haunted Spookshow of Channel X
Hellowe'en Horror
Hero Histories
Highbury Cemetery
Histories of Things to Come
Holiday Film Reviews
The Holidaze
Hollywood Nuts!
The Horrors of Halloween
The Horrors of it All
Horrors Online
House Cat Emelie's Blog
I-Mockery.com's Two Months of Halloween Celebration
Incense and Cookies
Into The Cauldron
It Came From Beneath My Mind
It Came From The Man Cave!
It's Almost Halloween 
Jackie's Bookbytes
JAZZLANDSCAPES
Jim Fanning's Tulgey Wood
Joe's Rec Room
John Rozum
jointhehyperforcekillxana
Just the Stuff Ya Know
KostumeGirlsCloset
Kostume Kult
Kyle's Astro Lounge
Lady M's Haunted Parlor
Ladydragon Wife
Land of Cerpts and Honey
LimerWrecks
Listing Toward Halloween 
Long Full Moon
The Mad Scientist's Monster's Bride of the Vampires
Maple Grove Cemetery
Mark Harvey's World
Mark's Super Blog
Massive Fantastic
Me and You and a Blog named Boo
Me and You Too
Michael May's Adventureblog
Misfit Robot Daydream
Mixed-Up Monster Club
Monster Crazy
Monsterfink's Midnight Monster Spookshow
The Moon is a Dead World
Moongem Comics
Morbid Tales Archives
Movies At Dog Farm
Ms Misantropia
Music You (Possibly) Won't Hear Anyplace Else
Musty TV
My Briefs
My Outlander Love Affair
My Rotting Brain
My Scary Blog
My Scary Halloween 
My Third Parent
My Two Yen Worth
Neato Coolville
Need Coffee Dot Com
Negative Pleasure
New World Food
Nostalgic Memories
On the Stick
One Dark Halloween Night
Orange and Black
OTIS (Odd Things I've Seen)
Para Abnormal
Parade of Horrorables
Parenthetical Asides
Plaid Stallions
Plasticfetish
Procrastonaut
Pumpkinrot
Punch & Judy Productions
Pure Blather
Radiator Heaven
The Rain Causes Pain In My Brain
Random Acts of Geekery
Rare Halloween Videos
Reading Authors
Redecorating Middle-Earth in Early Lovecraft
RetroRobotReview
Rip Jagger's Dojo
Russian Nerd
Scare Me On Fridays
Scary Mary's Monster Pinup Mash
Secret Fun Blog
Seditiosus
The Sexy Armpit
ShellHawk's Creations
ShellHawk's Nest
SheWalksSoftly
Shingle Creek Manor
Sideshow Cinema
Silent Wierdness
Six Foot Plus
Slash The Zombie
Something Got Me Started
Something wicKED this way comes
Son of Celluloid
Spooky Moon
Spooky Scary
The Spooky Vegan
Step Up to the Mike
Strange Kids Club
SusieBlob
Swing With Shad
Talk Like a Transylvanian Day - Dedicated to the Legacy of Béla Lugosi
Team Hellions
Things To Do In LA
13 Dwrayger Dungeon
31 Days of Halloween 
Toyriffic
Traveling Cats
Triumph of a Man Called Da-Da
Tupa's Treasures
2 Cool Ghouls
Vault of 3d Sculpts
Vraie Fiction
Wag The Fox
We Are Pop Culture!
Whatever Happened to the Transylvania Twist? 
Whatever I Think Of
Who Killed Orrin Grey?
The Windesphere Witch
Wonderful, Beautiful, and Strange Finds
Wonderful Wonderblog
The Writer's Journey
Written in Blood
The Year of Halloween

Oct 7, 2014

Help Support the Countdown to Halloween and get some cool Stickers in the process!

Hey all you Cryptkeepers and fans of the various sites participating in the Countdown to Halloween!  We wanted to take a moment to say thanks for participating and to let you know that we have a special project this year for the Countdown to Halloween.  John and I have been running this site for the past six years and it's not without its costs (both time and monetary.)  But since we're firm believers in a "No tipping" policy for the site, and in an effort to cover some of these costs we thought it would be fun to create a set of Countdown to Halloween sticker packs!

http://cultfilmclub.bigcartel.com/product/countdown-to-halloween-sticker-pack 

Each Countdown to Halloween sticker pack has four premium vinyl stickers featuring artwork by both site founders (John Rozum and Shawn Robare).  The stickers range in size from 2" to 2.5" wide by 2.5" to 3" tall and include an Official Cryptkeeper Badge (with art by John Rozum), a paper-cut portrait of the Creature from the Black Lagoon (by Rozum), an illustrated portrait of the Creature (by Shawn Robare) and an illustration of Stripe from the movie Gremlins wearing a Mogwai hoodie (illustrated by Robare.)

http://cultfilmclub.bigcartel.com/product/countdown-to-halloween-sticker-pack

Stick 'em on your phone case, your Trapper Keeper, your trick or treat bucket, or even your dog!

There's also an option to add a 3"x4" original color marker sketch by Shawn Robare!

http://cultfilmclub.bigcartel.com/

The sticker packs should be ready to ship in about a week or so and I'd just like to say thank you on behalf of John and myself in advance for your support!  We're looking forward to an awesome Halloween season reading everyone's articles, posts and scoping out your photos and art. 

You can find the sticker packs in our store by clicking here or on the sidebar link!  

Thanks again and happy haunting!

Sep 13, 2014

2014 Badges have surfaced from the depths of the Black Lagoon...

The new 2014 badges are here! This year marks the 60th anniversary of the release of The Creature From the Black Lagoon so we thought it was a perfect opportunity to celebrate with the coming of the new Halloween season.  Maybe this year folks will theme their parties with an Enchantment Under the Black Lagoon theme...

**Also, real quick, I wanted to add some noise to the suggestion by Dex of AEIOU and Sometimes Why about the idea of participants grabbing these images and hosting them yourselves.  Least year there was a hiccup with my image hosting provider that caused the badge images to break based on the html I posted.  So if anyone desires, please feel free to grab these and host them yourselves.  I have addressed the image hosting issue, so as far as I know it shouldn't be an issue again.**


Badge #1 (featuring the Creature from an old Dell Comic)...

150 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:


200 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:




Badge #2 (featuring the Creature in 3-D)...

150 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:


200 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:




Badge #3 (featuring the gorgeous paper cut art of John Rozum!)...

150 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:


200 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:



Badge #4 (featuring a silly drawing by Shawn Robare)...

150 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:


200 pixels wide...

Just Copy and Paste the following html code:



Sep 12, 2014

Dusting the cobwebs from the site...

Hello Boils and Ghouls, just wanted to give a heads up that the Countdown site is in the midst of gussying itself up for the 2014 Halloween season, so please don't mind the mess while we tinker.  We should have new Countdown badges ready within the next week or so.



In the meantime check the below post to see how you can join the Countdown, if you dare! (insert maniacal laughter here)


Sep 10, 2014

Calling All Cryptkeepers




If you plan on participating in this year's Halloween Countdown, please read this post in its entirety in order to assure your place on the list of participants. 

We have just over two weeks until this year's Countdown to Halloween is set loose upon the internet. A new banner, and new badges will be available soon, so please keep checking back. 

So far, this year's Countdown has gone smoothly, as each year gets us closer to working out all of the bumps and obstacles revealed in year's past. 

Everyone that I have contact information for should have received an email from me by this time. If you've emailed me back already, you've been added to the list of cryptkeepers for this year. I thank all of you for your quick responses, and for providing links and so forth making this process easier than it has ever been. You are all excused from reading the rest of this email. 

If you haven't, please check your email. I did wind up with a few mailer demons infiltrating my inbox pertaining to old, outdated email addresses that could no longer have mail delivered to. If anything has changed, please let me know. 

IMPORTANT: 

If you haven't heard from me, that means I don't have a current email address for you. Please email me at universalrobots@aol.com. Put Halloween Countdown in the subject line. In the content of the letter please include a link to your blog(s) and the name you would like to see it listed under (since this is often different). You will not hear back from me unless there's a question I have. Once I receive an email from you I will automatically add you to this year's list. Also, inform me that you did not receive an email from me. Having an email from you also means I'll be contacting you directly next year, hopefully making the whole process even smoother.

If you are planning to participate as a cryptkeeper this year, DO NOT simply leave a message in the comments box. Please email me. There are so many participants now, that it's easy for someone to get overlooked in the comments box, especially when Shawn and I are both trying to keep everything up to speed, manage our own blogs, and our everyday lives. There are occasions where we are unable to check the comments box for several days in a row. Neither of us want to keep anyone waiting, or put them through the stress of wondering why they haven't been added to the list yet. By emailing me directly, you can be certain that I'll get you added asap, probably within just a few hours.

Also, if you only contact us through the comment box, we have no way to reach you directly if there's an issue with your link, or any other matter.  As October proceeds, we will be posting other things at this site, and things get lost when left in the various comment boxes, especially when those boxes don't have anything to do with the participant list.

The goal here is to make everything run as smoothly as possible and for everyone to have fun.

Please use the comments box for any questions or comments you might have as to this year's countdown otherwise.

Finally, the Countdown to Halloween is not an invite only sort of thing. If you know of other blogs that might want to be part of this, please let them know, and direct them to this post. 

Now go let the skeletons out of the closet and get ready.