Cartoon – The Tories: Nightmares of the Flesh

Here’s another of my cartoons lampooning and attacking their Tories and their noxious leading members. In this case, it’s influenced by a few of the ‘body horror’ films of the 1980s – The Thing, Society and From Beyond, and one of the early ‘Nemesis the Warlock’ strips in 2000 AD, ‘Killerwatt’. Body horror is that part of the Horror genre, where the human body mutates and takes on warped, twisted forms, though I think it can also include the ‘torture porn’ subgenre, in which people are tortured and mutilated.

In The Thing, an American base in the Antarctic discovers a crashed UFO, from which an alien escaped to infect members of the base’s team and their animals. The alien replicates and hides by infecting other creatures, devouring them at a cellular level but copying their form – until it finally reveals itself by twisting itself into weird, hideous forms. As the bodies mount, and successive characters are revealed to have been infected and taken over, paranoia mounts. The horror is as much in the fear and distrust the characters have of each other, as of the grotesque appearances of the Thing itself.

From Beyond, directed by Stuart Gordon is roughly based on the short story, ‘Beyond the Wall of Sleep’ by H.P. Lovecraft. However, the film bears little resemblance to the story that inspired it. In the film, two scientists, Tillinghast and Dr. Pretorius, are using a device, the resonator, to peer into a unseen dimension surrounding our own and its denizens. Tillingast is arrested for murder after one of the creatures from that dimension then appears and bites the head off his superior, Pretorius. He takes a curious policeman and a female psychiatrist from the mental hospital in which he has been confined back to his laboratory, and set the resonator running to show them he’s telling the truth. But each time they switch on the machine, Pretorius appears, in progressively grotesque forms as it is revealed that he’s become a monster of hideous appetites. The slogan for the movie was ‘Humans are such easy prey’.

In Society, directed by Gordon’s collaborator, Brian Yuzna, the horror is mixed with social comment aimed squarely at the class system of Reagan’s America. It’s hero is a teenage lad, Bill Whitney, who finds out that he’s really adopted, and his upper class family, their friends and colleagues, are really monsters. These creatures have total control of their bodies, which they can deform and twist like rubber or plastic. They are predatory and exploitative, feeding on ordinary humans in orgies in which they melt down almost to a liquid state to feast on their victims.

It’s hard not to see this as a comment on the exploitative, predatory nature of the rich business class set free by Reagan and the Republicans.

But these films were anticipated in their horrors by 2000 AD and ‘Nemesis the Warlock’. Created by comics veterans Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill, the strip was set thousands of years in the future, when humanity had moved underground, away from the devastated surface and the planet’s name was now Termight. Ruling Termight was Torquemada, grand master of the Terminators, a quasi-monastic order, who had turned humanity’s fear of intelligent aliens into a religion and led wars of extermination against them. Opposed to him was the alien hero, Nemesis, and his resistance organisation, Credo. The character first appeared in the two ‘Comic Rock’ strips, ‘Going Underground’ and ‘Killerwatt’ in 1980, several years before the above films. In the latter story, the alien chased Torquemada down the teleport wires the grand master was using to get to his capital, Necropolis, after his train journey overland was interrupted by a gooney bird, a colossal bird creature resembling, or evolved from, the Concorde airplane. As the two raced down the wires, they had to cross the Sea of Lost Souls, a nightmare sea of neutrons and twisted bodies created when a gooney bird sat on the teleport wires.

Two panels showing the Sea of Lost Souls from ‘Killerwatt’. Art by that zarjaz master of the macabre, Kevin O’Neill.

In this cartoon, I’ve drawn a similar landscape, complete with surfers, where the denizens of the sea are Tory politicos. They are Boris Johnson, David Gauke, Dominic Cummings, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nicky Morgan and Theresa May. I hope you enjoy it, and that it doesn’t give you nightmares. Oh yes, and what you see behind them is supposed to be giant tongues, in case you thought it was anything else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cartoon: Iain Duncan Smith – Laundry Basket Case

Welcome to yet another of my cartoons attacking the Tory party and its odious ministers. They’re inspired by old Horror and SF films. In this case, it’s Basket Case, a bit of ’80s grue about a young lad travelling around America carrying a basket containing something unpleasant that kills people. It’s his deformed conjoined twin, and the two are on a mission to kill the doctors and surgeons that separated them. The pic’s also based on an incident in which IDS apparently hid in a laundry basket to hide from angry demonstrators. So much for the courage of the man, who once led the Tory party. He also once turned up at a parliamentary inquiry surrounded by armed policemen to protect him, just in case the disabled people and their carers in the public gallery turned violent. He’s a bully and a coward, who has killed tens, if not over a hundred thousand people, with his wretched welfare reforms of benefit sanctions and fitness to work tests.

As always, I hope you enjoy this bit of humour at the Tories’ expense. And please, don’t have nightmares.

 

Cartoon: Margaret Thatcher as the Creature from the Black Lagoon

Okay, here’s another cartoon attacking the Tories, based on old Horror movies. This one was suggested by Trev, one of the great commenters on this blog. It’s of Maggie Thatcher as the monster from the classic creature feature, The Creature from the Black Lagoon. And the human in her arms is Boris Johnson, taking the place of the woman threatened by the Creature in the original movie. Although in this case, if Thatcher was the monster, Johnson obviously wouldn’t feel threatened by her, but be highly delighted that she was bestowing her favours on him. Even if she wasn’t human any longer – though it’s questionable whether she was ever human in the first place.

I hope you enjoy it and it gives you a laugh. And, as always, don’t have nightmares.

 

Cartoon: Taste the Blood of Maggie Thatcher

Welcome to another of my little artistic pieces, in which I attempt to satirise the Tories and Boris’ monstrous government. They’re mostly inspired by Horror movies, and the on which this one is based is Hammer’s Taste the Blood of Dracula. In the cartoon, the blood’s Maggie’s. And the person doing the tasting is Iain Duncan Smith, who, as the former head of the DWP, is responsible for a lot of it.

As always, I hope you enjoy it. And please, don’t let the Conservatives or the vile right-wing press give you nightmares.

Cartoon: The Barclay Twins as ‘Twins of Evil’

Here’s another cartoon in which I try to portray members of the Conservative establishment as figures from ‘Orror flicks. This time the personages being skewered are those two gentlemen of the fourth estate, the Barclay twins. They’re the weirdo owners of the Torygraph, now going down the drain rapidly. I’ve try to portray them as the creepy twin little girls from Kubrick’s The Shining.

Enjoy, and don’t have nightmares. It’s only Tories.

 

Cartoon: From Below Journalistic Standards

Welcome to another of my cartoons satirising the Tories. In this one I try to send up two of the most notorious of their press lackeys – Rebecca Wade and her boss, Rupert Murdoch. The cartoon’s inspired by the 1980s Lovecraftian Horror flick, From Beyond by Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna. Gordon and Yuzna have made a number of films based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, beginning with Reanimator, which remains probably the best known of them. Based very roughly on Lovecraft’s story ‘From Beyond the Wall of Sleep’, The film is about a pair of scientists, who attempt to see into unknown dimensions beyond our own using a device, the resonator, which stimulates the pineal gland. One of the entities attacks and kills the lead scientist, Dr. Pretorius. His assistant, crawford Tillinghast, is arrested and confined in a lunatic asylum. He then attempts to clear himself by taking a policeman, Bubba Brownlee , and female sychiatrist Katherine McMichaels back to his laboratory to show them he’s telling the truth about the experiments. Setting the resonator running again, Pretorius returns, gradually mutating into a terrible monster intent on evil. The film’s slogan was ‘Humans are such easy prey’, which became the comment in the cartoon because of the Murdoch press’ complete contempt for press regulators and their vain attempts to uphold journalistic standards.

I’m afraid the text isn’t easy to see, as the red I used is too close to the background purple. But I hope you can still make it out.

Enjoy!

 

Lookalikes: Eric Pickles and Monster from H.P. Lovecraft

Mike yesterday put up a piece mischievously suggesting that Sajid Javid, the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, bears an uncanny resemblance to the Dr. Who villain, the Collector, from the Tom Baker era story The Sunmakers, and also Gollum from Lord of the Rings. Javid was posing in publicity photo with the new 50 pence piece, which will be issued to mark Brexit. And yes, he does look somewhat like Gollum, shown in a still from the movie in which he peers at the One Ring.

In the same spirit, I’ve also noticed an uncanny similarity between the former Tory minister, Eric Pickles, and a monster in Tim White’s awesome cover painting for the third volume of Grafton’s H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus, The Haunter of the Dark.

Eric Pickles

Lovecraftian Horror

Of course, there’s no similarity whatsoever between stories of a group of monsters aiming to enslave and destroy humanity, and the creatures of H.P. Lovecraft.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr H Reviews Praising New Lovecraft Movie ‘The Colour Out Of Space’

Something different from politics this time, which I hope will pique the interest of fans of the 20th century SF/Horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. Richard Stanley has directed a film version of Lovecraft’s short story, ‘The Colour Out Of Space’. Starring Nicholas Cage, Joely Richardson, Tommy Chong and others, the film’s due to be released in Britain on the 28th February.

Mr H Reviews is a film news and reviews channel on YouTube, largely specialising in SF, Horror and superhero flicks. The titular presenter is a massive fan of H.P. Lovecraft, who wrote tales of cosmic horror and madness for pulp magazines such as Weird Tales. The film is largely the work of Richard Stanley, who is best known for his SF movie Hardware. This was about a sculptress in a decay future city, whose partner finds the remains of an unknown robot in a radiation-poisoned desert. He brings it back to her so she can turn it into art. When she reassembles it, it is a lethally efficient military robot that then goes on a killing spree to fulfill its programming. The film was extremely similar to a short tale illustrated by the mighty Kevin O’Neill in 2000AD, and Stanley lost the case when the comic sued for plagiarism. Stanley doesn’t seem to have a directed a motion picture since the debacle of The Island of Dr Moreau back in the 1990s. This fell apart, and Stanley was sacked as director, largely because of the casting in the title role of Marlon Brando. Brando behaved extremely bizarrely, making odd demands and requests and seems to have been determined to have the movie shut down. With costs mounting and shooting overrunning, Stanley was sacked and the film completed by another director. The script was also written by Amaris and has superb cinematography by Stephen Annis, who has also made videos for Florence and the Machine.

Stanley is, however, a superb director and Hardware is highly praised. In this review Mr H gives fulsome praise to the movie without giving too much away. Based on the short story of the same title, this is about a surveyor in Arkham telling the story of the strange events in order to try and make sense of it. Something strange falls out of the sky and begins to change the people and environment. The humans suffer bouts of madness, but in contrast to this the environment grows ever more beautiful. The visitor from space is an alien creature, and Mr H praises the work that has gone into it. He says that the film is like Annihilation, which is also about something from space falling to Earth and changing the environment, making it bizarrely beautiful. However, H believes that the Lovecraft film is better. He also states that the creature in it is similar to The Thing, John Carpenter’s classic ’80s adaptation of John W. Campbell’s short story, ‘Who Goes There’. The creature work is excellent and it is more of a homage to the earlier film, rather than a rip-off.

There are a number of Easter eggs in the movie referring to earlier adaptations of Lovecraft’s work. One of these is the name of one of the daughters, Lavinia. I also noted scrawled on the wall in one of the video clips played in this review is the slogan ‘No flesh shall be spared.’ It’s a line from Mark’s Gospel which was used as the slogan for Stanley’s Hardware.

The film’s intended to be the first of a series set in Lovecraft’s universe. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have wide distribution over here and is only showing in Showcase cinemas. But he highly recommends seeing it, even if you have to drive several hours to the nearest cinema.

I’m a fan of Lovecraft’s fiction, which unfortunately has had a very uneven history when it comes to film adaptations. This one looks extremely promising however.

It’s on in the Showcase cinema in Cabot Circus in Bristol, and I shall hope to see it. If you’re interested, then Google to see if its playing anywhere near you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cartoon: Iain Duncan Smith as ‘Nosferatory’

Here’s another cartoon satirising the Tories. As I’ve said in my previous pieces, I’ve taken my inspiration from Horror films and ‘B’ movies. In this case, it’s based on Hans Murnau’s 1920’s German silent version of Dracula, Nosferatu. And who better to be portrayed as the vampire than Iain Duncan Smith, a man who responsible for so many of the 130,000 deaths the Tories have killed through austerity.

 

Cartoon: Tory Flesheaters from Eton

Here’s another one of my cartoons satirising the Tories using the tropes of old horror films and ‘B’ movies. In this instance, it’s zombie films. The two figures in the centre and on the right are supposed to be Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg. I don’t know if Mogg went to Eton, but he’s still a public school educated toff, whose policies are still murdering the poor and so fair game. Hope you enjoy it!