Svengoolie: Lost in Time

Beloved horror host, Svengoolie, makes his comic book debut in this one-shot special from Frank Miller Presents. 

The mad scientist who lost out in auditions to Svengoolie has a plan to steal the host job. He'll create a robot version of Sven to go back in time and stop the horror host from getting hired by MeTV to host his weekly Saturday night movie theater series. First thing the Svenbot must do is prevent Svengoolie's sidekicks Kerwyn, Tombstone and his talking casket Boddy Sorrell from becoming a part of the show. Then with the help of the evil robot, Mr. Mad Scientist will swoop into present day Svengoolie studios and take the hosting job for himself!

Only there's one problem. The Svenbot is so good at hosting the show on it's own, the mechanical menace steals the job from the mad scientist as well! Besides, not needing to pay a robot will help MeTV make a huge profit! Now it's war as the mad scientist must go back in time and stop his Svenbot from changing horror movie theater history or else all TV shows might be hosted by robots that will work for nothing!

The story started off kinda flat. The jokes, much like the ones Svengoolie tells on his show, get lots of groans. But I think the roughness of that opening segment was more because of the medium. Rich Koz, the Sven-miester himself, wrote up the dialogue with story assists by Chris Faulkner and Jim Roche as well as Franco Aureliani. Spreading out a corny opening joke about Godzilla over 2 pages and several panels made for a jest that was just so hard to follow. But once we got into the time travelling portion of the story, things really gelled. 

I loved getting to witness the origins of Kerwyn, Tombstone and Boddy Sorrell. It was a nice touch having different artists illustrate those scenes which take place in different time periods. Art Baltazar, along with Jill Thompson and Christopher Jones draw up a trio of distinct eras of Svengoolie history. 

There was a follow-up story starring a new member of the Svengoolie family. Nostalgiaferatoo. That tale is supposed to be the character's origin story. But it devolves into a commercial for the Svengoolie show, which if you ask me is what this whole special was in the first place. There's also an informative history about Svengoolie. I would have preferred more space devoted to that than that unnecessary Nostalgiaferatoo 2-pager.

From what I understand, this is the first of 2 Svengoolie comic book specials. I enjoyed this work enough to look forward to the follow-up. Might I just suggest to write the story as a comic and not a TV show. Also, bring Art Baltazar and Franco together. I was excited to have both beloved creators working on this book. It's just not the same not having these two working in tandem as the all-ages comic dynamic duo that they are. Join Rich Koz with Art Baltazar and Franco- that's a team-up I can't wait to see in comics!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

The 25 Baubles of Pop Culture! Advent 2022 Day 8

No. You haven't gone back in time! The calendar is right. It's December 8th.  I know that this might sound oxy-moronic but there actually are Christmas ornaments based on the classic monsters of Universal Horror. Let's take a quick look at a few...

You can depend on Christopher Radko to have an official line of blown glass ornaments based on the Universal Monsters. This set of 6 includes Frankenstein and his Bride, Dracula, The Wolfman, Gill Man and the Mummy. Being blown glass, I am sure it is down right impossible to get the likenesses just right. Yet, I think the Mummy looks just like Boris Karloff did in the 1932 film.

For some really quality looking likenesses, look no further than at Oriental Trading Company. They've got several officially licensed mini-busts ornaments that appear that straight from the movie! My favorites are of Claude Rains' Invisible Man and Lon Chaney's Phantom of the opera.

It seems that I can't do an Advent post about holiday ornaments without making a small trip through Hallmark village. In 2014, the greeting card company released a bauble in honor of 1931's Frankenstein that was designed for your tree. It's a beautiful rendering of Boris Karloff, if such a thing can be classified as such.

On the Etsy route, I just couldn't believe my eyes with this handmade ornament crafted by the seller LTCPinball. I first thought it was actually made by Bally. Second, I could not believe that this was not officially licensed stuff. It's museum quality!

While the pinball ornament is fantastic, it's also a bit pricey. On the more affordable route, seller HomemadeHorrorStore has a set of handcrafted ceramic ornaments based on the Universal monsters. The seller also has modern monsters. But it's the old school characters that capture my eye like the Bride of Frankenstein.

Lastly, I want to pay tribute to the late night horror hosts. Though these guys (and occasion gal) weren't officially licensed by Universal Studios, if not for them reminding the next generation of movie buffs of these creatures of the night, characters such as the Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon might be lost to time. In honor of these hosts being the keepers of the flame, I want to honor my favorite of the bunch, MeTV's Svengoolie. Here's a handmade trinket in which its shape could also pay tribute to Hanukkah.