R.I.P. Basil Gogos

I was saddened to hear of the death of painter/illustrator Basil Gogos last week, who died at the age of seventy eight.

His name may not be familiar to you, but if you're a fan of old school monsters like Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman, you'll definitely recognize his work. His amazing and garishly colored illustrations graced many a cover of Famous Monsters Of Filmland magazine during the 1960s and 1970s.

Gogos was born in Egypt (even though he was Greek) in 1939. His family moved to America when he was sixteen, and he attended several New York City art schools.

In the early 1960s Gogos began illustrating lurid covers for various men's magazines, which usually featured scenes of WWII battles and Nazis menacing scantily-clad women.

Eventually Gogos began working for Warren Publishing, and that's when his career really took off. Warren was the publisher of Famous Monsters magazine, and Gogos painted over fifty covers for them over the years.

Gogos' illustrations of classic monsters were quite striking, often utilizing bizarre and unnatural colors. The results were bizarre and gaudy, but somehow it worked!

Gogos left Warren in the late 1970s, devoting his time to fine art (yawn), photo retouching (bigger yawn) and advertising (huge yawn). 

In the meantime, his original iconic monster portraits became highly sought after, prompting him to return to the world of illustrating (yay!). In the 1990s he began painting new monster images for magazines, cards and CD covers.

In 2006 his work was collected in a highly recommended coffee table book called Famous Monster Movie Art Of Basil Gogos. I'd urge you to run over to Amazon and buy a copy, but it's apparently out of print and currently selling for hundreds of dollars. Hopefully with the advent of his death they'll put out another printing soon.

Enjoy this sampling of Basil Gogos monster art!

The Deadly Tofu

Harold shuffled into the dark kitchen to get a drink and take his pills. He reached up, turned on the light and was startled by an object sitting in the middle of the room. When his heart began beating normally again, he saw what it was. It was That Thing again. No matter how many times he and Agnes shooed it out of the apartment, it always found a way back in. 

What what That Thing? Was it some sort of alien creature that found its way to Earth? Was it a cube of pure, undiluted evil? Or a chunk of tofu that sat in the refrigerator for too long, until it became sentient... and hungry.

I thought this was going to be a quick and simple little illustration, but as usual I underestimated the time it would take. I had planned on adding some kind of pattern to the man's boxer shorts, and I just noticed I forgot. Oh well. I spent more than enough time on the thing and I'm not going to go back and add more to it. There comes a point where you have to let go of a drawing and set it free. If it comes back to you, then it's yours. Or something like that.

The text was hand lettered, based on my new all time favorite font, Burbank. I changed the text a bit from the sketch as well.

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.

Here's the original sketch of Harold and That Thing. Pretty rough stuff.

 

Here's the much tighter second digital sketch. 

Famous Monsters Convention 2010

A couple of weeks ago I went to the first annual Famous Monsters Convention in Indianapolis. Apparently the old Famous Monsters magazine is making a comeback, and the publishers sponsored this show.

I went with my nephews Kyle and Aaron, and non-nephew KW Monster (not picture: me). This was Aaron's first ever geek convention. I was so proud (Sniff! Sob!).

Kyle had been to a horror con once before, but fortunately this time he didn't get sick and vomit in my car.

We saw this while standing in line. Don't jump, Kong! Peter Jackson's remake wasn't that bad!

It's Sammy Terry, famous Indiana TV horror host. I drew an illustration of Sammy and wrote a piece on him here. This is actually a statue of Sammy, as he wasn't there in person. He's getting up there in years, and I'm assuming the convention grind is too much for him these days.

His son was there though, and he's spearheading an effort to have Sammy inducted into the Indiana State Museum!

Kyle got to meet Rupert Boneham of Survivor fame. OK, I'm not quite sure why Rupert was at a horror convention, but whatever. Rupert has a charity called Rupert's Kids that helps troubled teens, so I'll give him a pass. He also lives in Indy, so maybe that's why he was there.

Kyle got an autographed photo, book and his picture taken with Rupert.

Yes, Kyle's wearing a Dr. McCoy t-shirt.

Dr. Tongue (from Day of the Dead) and the American Werewolf in London browsed the convention as well.

There were a lot of horror celebrities in attendance, including the casts of Return of the Living Dead (minus James Karen though, darn it), Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, the Lost Boys, and Halloween. Ernie Hudson, the 4th Ghostbuster, was there as well. And Paris Themmen, who you know better as Mike Teevee from the original Willy Wonka movie.

Aaron was most impressed by a group of guys dressed as Ghostbusters, complete with proton packs and ghost traps. He wanted to know where one went to buy a proton pack. I tried to explain that you don't buy them anywhere, you have to make one yourself, but I don't think he believed me.

I was happy to find a rare and out of print art book that I'd been looking for forever, and for a reasonable price. We sat down to rest for a while, then headed for the car. As I got to the car I realized I'd left the sack with my book in it back in the convention. I ran back inside, and amazingly the sack was still leaning against the wall where I'd stupidly left it. I guess horror fans are an honest lot. Soon I'll be forgetting to wear pants when I got out.

As we left the show, we saw Death walking through the parking lot. I'd seen Death before at another horror show earlier this year. We asked if he needed a ride and he said he was good. He bid us farewell, told us to drive carefully, and said he'd see us soon.

See you next year, Famous Monsters Horror Convention!