HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!! In case you missed Saturday's post, Scary- Crayon recently acknowledged All Hallow's Eve with Dusty Plastic HELL: The Halloween Special!!!, but on the day itself here's a second festive offering for y'all -- The Five SCARIEST 39¢ Halloween Cards! Not only does the piece feature five spooky cards (and an honorable mention) with commentary, but there's also a special Scary-Crayon card at the end. Sugoi! Oh, have some Halloween-themed fan art while I'm at it.

Yep. That's all for now, then -- but just because Halloween will have "officially" passed doesn't mean we won't keep spooky articles coming! I mean, this is Scary-Crayon. Halloween is every day, hey-ey-ey.

Joy! It's Dusty Plastic HELL: The Halloween Special!!! -- Scary-Crayon's very first Halloween piece! It's also the first official, full-length Dusty Plastic HELL comic since the fifth installment was posted way back in February. And because I'm insane and like to play at being intelligent and pretentious, at the end of the comic is a list of footnotes explaining the various references made in the course of the comic and linking to sources of additional information (mostly Wikipedia entries). Yep. So enjoy... and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Which isn't to say that we won't be back with even more Halloween goodness on Monday, by the way -- keep your fingers crossed! Assuming you care, anyway.

So here's another Scary-Crayon first -- an audio review of Flightplan. I hope you've got some spare time on your hands, because I actually ramble on off the top of my had about how much I despised this movie for almost a half hour (in two separate mp3s), complete with digressions, comparisons to other movies, a whole heaping lot of commentary, and all kinds of other good stuff. Of course, I don't expect too many people to actually listen to the whole thing, so the page also features a two paragraph review of the film that pretty much summarizes my thoughts on the film, minus the detail, rambling, and rampant cursing of the unabridged audio version. Oh, and if you happen to read this before you listen to the files (assuming you listen), try counting and comparing the number of times I say the word "terrible" to the number of times I use some form of "fuck". I think "terrible" wins, unless that wholesale cursing at the end of the first file puts "fuck" over the top.

Speaking of cursing, reader James Davis recently sent in the following:

From: James Davis
To: wes@scary-crayon.com
Date: Oct 21, 2005 1:36 PM
Subject: Bad Language

Hey Odo,
My nine year old daughter found your site and I don't much care for the "F" word hanging out there for all to see - especially her. Clean up your act.

First of all, James, thanks for writing in! Secondly, when you refer to me as "Odo", do you mean the Star Trek character, Odo of Bayeux, Odo of Cluny, Pope Martin V, or some other Odo -- and what is your rationale for doing so? Thirdly, I'm glad that you're being a responsible parent and monitoring what your daughter's viewing online. Rather than attempting to censor me, you should continue to do that. So fourthly, in response to your directive to "clean up my act," fuck off.

Anyway, see y'all next time -- which may be fairly soon!

Yep, today's update is another Hot Flash. I'm sorry about the lack of substantial written updates -- things haven't been going all that well with me as of late, so I haven't felt up to writing a full article, to say nothing of the fact that the room that houses my desktop has been so cold lately that I can't bear to be in it for more than a few minutes -- but at least this one's kinda got a Halloween theme to it, what with the zombie element and all. By the way, this one was more or less inspired by my watching of Return of the Living Dead 4 & 5 on SciFi a couple of weeks ago (which kinda sucked, but still) and the memories brought to the forefront when I employed Primal Rage sprites in Hot Flash #54. Everything comes from somewhere.

To answer Kacy's question in the comments section of the previous entry, the font I use most often in the Hot Flash comics is Comic Book Commando, which you can download just about anywhere that offers free fonts if you do a quick Google search. Another place y'all can go for good comic fonts is Blambot, which has a number of free and pay fonts available for download. Hope that helps.

Also, while we're recommending sites, Turtles fans may be interested to know that The Technodrome, another cool TMNT fansite, is back up after a bunch of problems and almost a month of downtime. The forums are also a pretty cool place to hang out -- I used to spend a lot of time there a while back, when I had more time to spare -- so I encourage y'all to check it out if you're bored. Anyway, to help welcome Krang and Shredder back to the fold, I've added a link to The Technodrome to the sidebar, replacing the link to Maddox's The Best Page in the Universe. This isn't at all intended as a slight against Maddox, but a) he's been pretty busy with his book lately, so it's been ages since the site's seen an update, and b) what with Maddox's high level popularity, it's not like my removal of the link is going to affect his traffic flow in the least. Anyway, best of luck to Maddox with the book and to Shredder and Krang with The Technodrome's return!

Fun fact, by the way: Did you know that there are no specifically designated "Halloween" pieces on Scary-Crayon? Granted, this may change in the coming week if The Powers That Be see fit to turn on the heat, but at the moment there aren't any articles that were specifically written with the spooky season in mind. However, because that in large part has to do with the fact that SC reflects the somewhat gothic tendencies of its founder and editor guy (er, me) -- like Ministry says, "Halloween is every day ay ay ay" -- that isn't to say that there aren't a number of articles here that fit the monsterrific mood of Samhain's month. And I was about to include a relevant list of articles, but shit, just about everything in the Spectare and Foodstuffs sections is pretty damned terrifying, to say nothing of the horrors like Best Friend Colton and Vampire Pan to be found among the Miscellaneous pieces. Dude, we've even got Resident Evil poetry and haiku.

All for now. Take care, minna-san, and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Yeah, it's time for another Dusty Plastic HELL: Hot Flash. In today's out of order (not to mention out of control...) installment, we see that things weren't always as green, clean, and pretty in the Turtles' city as we'd been led to believe! The idea for this one kinda jumped into my head as I watched the TMNT Season 2 DVD (the screencaps used for the comic come from Episode 18: "Return of the Technodrome"), seeing as how there are ass shots of April all over the place. At first I thought it was me -- okay, I've got a crush on April O'Neil, but it's not like you don't -- but now I'm thinking some of those artists got off on drawing April's hot body in that form-fitting yellow jumpsuit, because every excuse they get to draw her ass you'd better believe you'll see her ass. And she's always doing flirty things, too, which the Foot Soldiers and the Rock Soldiers inevitably fall for... and now I'm pretty much explaining the thought process that went into this comic. Alrighty then.

Oh, and speaking of Turtles, Mikey's TMNT.com -- a great source for TMNT info, news, and media -- has gotten a new layout in recent weeks, so go check that out! Also, Bess Hudson's Gorey Turtles drawing series boasts fun for the whole twisted family.

Oh, and as you may have noticed, the link to Scary-Crayon's Cafepress store has been added to the sidebar, so if you ever feel like visiting and ordering up some merch, there you go! I ordered a few items myself and they look pretty good -- expect photos sometime in the near future. Anyway, that's all for now. Ja ne, minna-san!

Today's Hot Flash isn't just random weirdness, folks -- as you can see here on the Official TMNT Web Site, Playmates is indeed releasing a "Raphael versus The Yeti" set. As far as unlikely matchups go, it's not entirely without precedent -- the Turtles have had adventures with yeti and bigfoot type creatures in both the old comics and the new show -- but memories of working in KB Toys and a visit to eBay all but confirmed suspicions that the new "yeti" is merely a repaint of the Blizzard figure from the old Primal Rage line. And remember how Leonardo already went up against a T-Rex (which we touched on in Hot Flash #15)? Yeah, that's a repainted Sauron (or Diablo) -- so essentially with these sets you're getting two rehashes, given that the included Turtles are more or less the Fightin' Gear figures repackaged with different armor and -- get this -- fewer accessories. It's hella weak.

Yes, I'm 24 years old and the reusing of action figure molds angers me.

Oh, and if you missed Saturday's update, don't forget to check out the second part of the Protégé de la Rose Noire review! Until next time, then.

The second part of our Protégé de la Rose Noire review is up! Admittedly, it's a lot more straightforward than the first part, probably because most of the insane and comment-worthy stuff happened in the initial review. Oh well! Hopefully you'll still be somewhat entertained by the antics of those wacky Twins. And if you think they're as cute as I do, this one's got more images.

And before we go, a couple plugs. If you look at the bar, there's a new addition -- Krazy Larry (a comic I really liked but hardly ever sees any updates these days) has been replaced by Interrobang Studios, a new site with a different strip for every day of the week! (Excluding weekends.) They're just getting started, but they've already got some great content and more on the way, so get over there now you can say you read them FIRST when they're hella popular and stuff.

Also, Dyslexic Penguin's button is new and improved, so go visit that site too! And apparently something happened with Hazard Labs, which has now become Snipe Hunt Media. I'll get around to updating their button soon enough. They don't have a whole lot of new content yet, but I guess you could wish them luck with the new site or something.

Anyway, that's all for now. Seeya next time!

Okay, so we don't have the second part of the Protégé de la Rose Noire review for you today (patience, minna-san!), but we do have Dusty Plastic HELL: Hot Flash #53 to entertain you for all of fifteen seconds. For those of you unfamiliar with the event to which the comic refers, check out this news story. And doesn't that look like something Rattle would do? He's not a smart snake, but he knows what love is.

First, a reminder -- you can buy Scary-Crayon apparel at our Cafepress store! If you care to, anyway. I'll have more links to the store on the site soon enough. And maybe even folks modeling it. So if you think you're sexy and you buy something, SEND PHOTOS! I'll post 'em. Yep.

Anyway, today's update is the first part of our full Protégé de la Rose Noire review. As noted in the article's introduction, you really should check out the piece on The Illuminated Lantern about the Black Rose's complex history if you'd like to learn more about the titular heroine, because it really is interesting stuff. I do find it a bit strange that the more recent Black Rose flicks basically take a classic HK film icon and render her absolutely stark-raving batshit mad, though! I mean, we Yanks know that Batman's pretty nutty, but we'd probably call foul if a new film depicted him trying to hack his latest houseguest to death.

Also, as noted several times in the piece, I think this article contains (at least) the first documented online usages of the term Castraticon, meaning "castration robot". Good lord.

And that does it for this update -- join us next time for the second part of our Protégé de la Rose Noire review! Ja ne, minna-san.

P.S. If you've got any Twins CDs you don't want, please let me know.

We'll address those in reverse order. First off, happy birthday to ME! You know, one of the trickier things about managing the site and the blog is that a lot of my comments actually get sent to moderation -- because when I start using HTML and whatnot in my replies the system thinks I could be a malicious user. But since I posted them myself, I rarely think to check the moderation queue for my own posts, and generally I don't discover them until some other comment (usually something from a spambot) comes under fire. Case in point: Scorn asked me what folks could do if they wanted to celebrate my birthday, and I responded with this -- which unfortunately I didn't discover in the queue until this morning! Ah well, So obviously it'd be a little late to send stuff now, but if you want to send things to wish me a belated birthday, you're more than welcome to do so. And of course, donations to the site are always welcome.

Speaking of which, thanks Molly. Alligator Juice is a worthy read as well! I particularly liked the recent article entitled Beware of the Bus, though unlike Mols I totally advise the lot of you to go on a lengthy Greyhound bus ride at least once in your lives. Oh, the stories you'll have to tell when you return!

So onto today's updates. First, there's Dusty Plastic HELL: Hot Flash #51, which takes us back to the SNES game Tuff E Nuff for a look at desperation moves in the distant future. It kinda came off the top of my head, but I hope it's mildly amusing for what it is. And then there's Hell Nooooo Nurse!, a feature which I'd actually hoped to get posted elsewhere but apparently wasn't good enough for them so I'm posting it here. Which is no big deal, really, since that's how Scary-Crayon got started! Seriously, I had so many articles that I'd submitted elsewhere and that nobody wanted to post that I thought, "Fuck it, I might as well start my own site and post the shit there!" And, as you see, I did. Perhaps that explains the site's lack of popularity -- and admittedly, the humor here isn't mainstream even among its genre audience -- but I hope you find it to be worth a few yuks.

And now I'm off to try to do something fun for my birthday. Ja ne!