Since the free weekly I was in, The Montreal Mirror, folded in 2012 (as are all print weeklies everywhere), Motion Picture Purgatory has been appearing more in actual books than anywhere else! Case in point; “Recovering 1940s Horror Cinema: Traces of a Lost Decade,” which is being launched as part of Fantasia this Wednesday, July 29, from 5 to 7pm at cafe-bar Kafein, right by the film fest (1429 Rue Bishop), with some copies available at a discounted price! My contribution, an examination of Bela Lugosi’s last vehicle, Devil Bat, is one of the only “images” in this gorgeous, highly academic textbook! Certainly the only cartoon! Come say hi, & then consider checking out a 16mm tie-in screening of Edgar G. Ulmer’s Bluebeard (1944) afterwards at the Visual Arts Building, 7:30pm, #VA-114, 1395 René Lévesque Ouest, corner Crescent! (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

BTW, I’ll be selling FAB Press books as well as my own for the duration of Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival the next couple of weeks (Concordia Hall Theatre, 1455 de Maisonneuve west). Having sold out of Motion Picture Purgatory Volume 2 years ago I decided to have the remaining few boxes shipped from the UK. Pass by to complete your collection & say hi!

The original art for this piece has already been sold. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two available at FAB Press. For original art info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

This month marks the THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY of Motion Picture Purgatory! That’s right; I actually started my movie review strip at The Montreal Mirror in July of 1985. I got kicked out in ‘88 when they decided to blame the perceived misogyny of some of the horror films I was writing about on me. But ten years later, after a complete change in editorship, I got rehired & continued till the weekly was snuffed out in 2012. Here’s the original art of one of my earliest reviews published during my first tenure in ‘85. I guess I wasn’t big on “Spoiler Alerts” back then, but I was already featuring my long-running “Actual Quotes.” As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

BTW, I’ll be selling FAB Press books as well as my own for the duration of Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival the next couple of weeks (Concordia Hall Theatre, 1455 de Maisonneuve west). Having sold out of Motion Picture Purgatory Volume 2 years ago I decided to have the remaining few boxes shipped from the UK. Pass by to complete your collection & say hi!

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Since the tear-sheets & pencils are long gone, original finished B&W inks only (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back). Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two available at FAB Press. For original art info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Body-horror, anyone? Here’s a Fantasia Film Fest Canadian Premiere oldie! TETSUO meets (or should I say “meats”) GWAR meets Cronenberg’s gristle-guns from EXISTENZ meets Cronenberg’s phallic armpit/anus hypodermics from RABID meets CITIZEN TOXIE meets DEAD ALIVE meets HR PUFNSTUF meets HR GIGER meets INFRAMAN! The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 2006 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “Meat-Brawl!” As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

BTW, I’ll be selling FAB Press books as well as my own for the duration of Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival the next couple of weeks (Concordia Hall Theatre, 1455 de Maisonneuve west). Having sold out of Motion Picture Purgatory Volume 2 years ago I decided to have the remaining few boxes shipped from the UK. Pass by to complete your collection & say hi!

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two available at FAB Press. For original art info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

I MADE TIPPI HEDREN LAUGH! I’m really hyped about seeing ROAR (1981) for the first time this Friday at Fantasia. THE BIRDS (1963) star Hedren apparently gets mauled by lions in it instead of birds for a change, except it’s REAL because it takes place on a nature reserve & the experience led her to become an animal rights activist! Maybe that’s how I made her laugh. I met her at a horror movie convention a decade ago & showed her the Motion Picture Purgatory I did that featured her replaying her role in The Birds but instead of crows grouping together getting ready to create mischief I drew primates! I was supposed to be reviewing Tim Burton’s remake of Planet of the Apes (2001) but it looked so stupid I refused to go & just made up this fake review instead! She laughed while autographing the photocopy seen here & looked strikingly gorgeous even in her mid-seventies! It reads; “To Rick, Very funny!” The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 2001 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “Ook!” As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks (but NOT this autographed photocopy!). More deets below or contact me for more info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

BTW, I’ll be selling FAB Press books as well as my own for the duration of Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival the next couple of weeks (@ the Concordia Hall Theatre, 1455 de Maisonneuve west). Having sold out of Motion Picture Purgatory Volume 2 years ago I decided to have the remaining few boxes shipped from the UK. Pass by to complete your collection & say hi!

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two available at FAB Press. For original art info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Since I’m doing the merch table for Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival the next couple of weeks, every once in a while I’m gonna post some MPP oldies I did for Fantasia screenings of yore. I’ll be selling FAB Press books as well as my own at the Concordia Hall Theatre (1455 de Maisonneuve west). Having sold out of Motion Picture Purgatory Volume 2 years ago I decided to have the remaining few boxes shipped from the UK. Pass by to complete your collection & say hi!

The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 2010 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “Nostalgie De La Poo!” A play on words with the term “Nostalgie De La Boue,” AKA “a yearning for mud; an attraction to what is unworthy, crude, or degrading” according to Merriam-Webster. As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for more info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two available at FAB Press. For original art info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

I dig me some Fleischer Bros. I’m old enough to have been weaned on the classics during after-school TV shows aimed at kids like me that would feature mishmash segments full of unregulated cartoons from decades previous which were originally created for theatrical releases before TV even existed. They were presented sort of the same way Pee-Wee Herman’s “King of Cartoons” did it, which hit the boob-tube many years later. Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Tom & Jerry, et al would all make appearances, but the stuff that haunted me most were the somber B&W Fleischer Bros cartoons like pre-code Betty Boop & early Popeyes. The 1930’s background cityscapes always featured run down parts of town, vacant lots, & cramped, shabby apartments with cracks in the walls, & the jazzy scores & cameos were something else too; a whole unknown universe for a tot growing up in sheltered suburbia. Gulliver’s Travels is somewhat vanilla in comparison but still irresistibly, unmistakably Fleischeresque. The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 2003 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “Satire? Well whatever satire remains in our version is thickly sugarcoated” -Dave Fleisher. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two available at FAB Press. For original art info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Happy birthday to the late, great monster movie making genius Ray Harryhausen. I had the opportunity to interview him in 2005 when he was in Montreal for the Fantasia Film Festival. Among other things, we discussed animation model tie-down holes & how they dictated trajectories, Marcel (Mighty Joe Young) Delgado’s cotton & latex build-up technique for constructing puppets as opposed to foam rubber injection, Harryhausen’s 3D experiments & the 3D Viewmaster reels he worked on, & the problem of strobing during animation & the Go-Motion process to rectify it that led to CGI. The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory strip which originally appeared in a 2005 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “‘God Complex,’ Hallowed Be Thy Name!” (To see image full-sized, & believe me, you will wanna see it large since it’s so crammed with text, click on it here to open in a new window & use whatever magnify function your browser provides).

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes the pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two available at FAB Press. For original art info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

The Germs were & still are one of my all-time favorite bands. In the late seventies, when punk was getting tired after The Sex Pistols broke up & what was left started morphing into somewhat drearier “post-punk” and/or goofy “new wave,” I still wanted to hear really fast music fueled by outrage, & The Germs certainly fit the bill. They & many of the other LA bands from their milieu paved the future of “punk” for me after it was supposedly declared dead. In Montreal, I was such a fan that every time I’d see someone wearing a Germs blue circle logo it’d be an excuse to gab whether they liked it or not, even if they were complete strangers. That’s how I first met future Montreal music promoter Dan Webster when he was still a bike messenger. The only other person I remember wearing Germs insignia back then was the late Alex Soria of the Nils. When The Germs reunion band with the actor in the movie playing Darby Crash in the actual band with the actual surviving members was slated to play Montreal around 2008, my band The American Devices was going to open up, but the show was cancelled when one of the Germs wasn’t allowed across the border! The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory, which originally appeared in a 2008 issue of The Montreal Mirror, was; “Homosexual! Up the ass! Homosexual! Darby Crash!” –Angry Samoans. The quote was from the lyrics to the song “Homo-Sexual” from the 1982 LP “Back from Samoa” by Angry Samoans. Can someone please explain to me what their intention actually was? (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two available at FAB Press. For original art info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

One of my earliest Motion Picture Purgatory comic strip film reviews done for The Montreal Mirror back in 1985 when the free weekly was just starting. This image was taken directly from a tear-sheet of the published version, hence the yellowing. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

Original art not for sale because it vanished long ago. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two available at FAB Press. For original art info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.