Aug 29, 2012

Strange Kid Comix Magazine #3


Strange Kids Club, the fantastic pop culture website which should be familiar to most of you as one of the regular participants in the Countdown to Halloween has put up a Kickstarter campaign for Strange Kid Comix Magazine - Issue #3

Described as being in the spirit of MAD, Heavy Metal and Plop! is a crazy blend of pop culture nostalgia, zaniness, and fine art. This issue sees Strange Kid inflicting all sorts of crazy mayhem on a bunch of 80s and 90s television shows as he invades their worlds. 

Among the talented contributors to this magazine are some other names and fellow Cryptkeepers who should be familiar to anyone who has been following the Countdown to Halloween. This includes myself, fellow Countdown to Halloween organizer,  Shawn Robare (Branded in the 80s), Paxton Holley (Cavalcade of Awesome), Brian Adams (Cool and Collected).

All sorts of great incentives are also being offered for people willing to pitch in a few dollars to help make this magazine see print, so take a look at the video and help out if you can

Aug 14, 2012

It's Almost That Time...





October is only a month and a half away. I've begun to put together the list of participants for the upcoming Countdown to Halloween, and I have to say it's making me excited about discovering what 2012 will bring.

Please read the following as it will save Shawn and I a lot of extra work and guarantee that no one gets left off the list of Cryptkeepers this year.


If you are planning to participate this year, please email me with a link to your blog(s) website and the names you would like them listed as. Please list Halloween 2012 or Countdown to Halloween in the subject line. Emailing me also allows me to put together a master email list of everyone, so that I only have to send out one big call to participate to everyone in the future. 

Some of you have emailed me already. If you aren't sure if you have, please feel free to contact me again. If you've already chimed in on a different post on this blog, please email me anyway, or chime in here. I'd hate to miss anyone. 

Many of you have more than one blog. In this case, please be specific as to which one(s) you'd like to have included. I'd hate to have to guess and choose the one that you don't intend to participate with and leave out the blog that you'll be putting all the hard work into for October.  

Participation is open to anyone who wishes to join in. To get a better sense of what's involved here, please read the "Become a Cryptkeeper" bit on the upper left hand side of this page as well as this. I also recommend taking a look at any of the sites listed under "Cryptkeepers" to the right and visiting their October archives.

If anyone from last year is reading this and won't be participating, please let me know as well. You will be missed, but we understand that this is a big time commitment and that all of us may not have it every year. Remember also, there's no pressure to post on a daily basis. This is meant to be fun. Trying to maintain that schedule, as all of us have learned, can be aggravating, draining, and suck the fun out of this. We don't want that. If you can't participate this year, you are always welcome back in the future. 

Shawn has created some amazing new Countdown buttons that you can add to your blog so that everyone knows you'll be participating this year. You can find them by scrolling down to the previous post.  I'll be back with the complete list of this year's cryptkeepers at Midnight, October First.

In the meantime, if you have any questions, please ask.

Aug 9, 2012

2012 Countdown Participation Badges are here!

The new 2012 badges are here earlier than I anticipated! This year I took my inspiration from the 50th anniversary of the cheesy but fun flick The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, so with one exception, all the badges this year are featuring some fun, undead severed heads…


Badge #1 (featuring Virginia Leith as Jan in the Pan from The Brain That Wouldn’t Die)...

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Badge #2 (featuring the Formalde Heidi Garbage Pail Kid painted by John Pound)...

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Badge #3 (Boris Karloff from Black Sabbath)...

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Badge #4 (from The Thing That Couldn’t Die)...

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And just in case severed heads aren’t your thing (or you want something more Halloween-y), Badge #5 (Jack-O-Lantern)...

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Aug 7, 2012

Please excuse the mess...

...while we're tinkering with the new site design.  All you boils and ghouls can expect some new 2012 badges in the next month or so...


Aug 3, 2012

For those pining away for the Halloween-y season...

...You might want to check out Yankee Candle this weekend as their Halloween displays officially go up in stores on August 4th!  Now, I know what you might be thinking, Yankee Candle, really?  Well yeah!  Even if candles aren't your thing, I've always had a fun time scoping out the displays and getting into the seasonal mood.  Strolling around stores during the season, looking at plastic and ceramic skulls is a beloved pastime for me, what can I say.  Anyway, if you are interested in seeing the new crop of fragrantly waxy accoutrements, you might want to swing by on Saturday because if past years are any indication this stuff sells out fast (sometimes by noon...)

I have my heart set on the wicked Angler sub!