Elvira Greeting Card

Well, the cobweb-covered crypt door squeeks open slowly, and the blogger once again emerges into the moonlight, rested and ready to resume spreading the horrors of his collection cabinet. Sorry for being gone so long! Kicking things off again with the first of a series of greeting cards featuring Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, which came out in 1988 from Hallmark. More to come, plus many other fun things!

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Elvira and The Universal Classic Monsters

To honor the spirit of Halloween, here's a full-page reproduction of a painting by Robert Redding, from an issue of Forry Ackerman's 1984 "Monsterland" magazine.

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Elvira's Movie Comic Adaptation Cover

From 1988 comes the cover of the magazine-format comic adaptation of "Elvira: Mistress of the Dark." A nice painting that makes Elvira look about 16, but the details in the crowd faces is where most of the humor comes from.

(Click on image to enlarge.)

Full-Page Ad for Thriller Video With Elvira

From a late 80's large-format video industry magazine comes this full-page ad for Thriller Video featuring the incomparable Elvira!

(Click on image to enlarge... you know you want to.)

"Thriller Video" flyer featuring Elvira

Way back in the 80's, Elvira hosted and hawked the horror "Thriller Video" line. Here's one of the flyers listing the various releases, consisting mostly of episodes of "Hammer's House of Horror."

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More ads for these videos featuring Elvira, coming soon!

Elvira's Christmas Carol

Really, there are no monsters in this story (unless the monsters are, truly US) but since Elvira is all about horror and spooky stuff I feel she qualifies for this blog. So, here for your holiday enjoyment, from the 1986 special Elvira's Haunted Holidays, the story of "Elvira's Christmas Carol." As you'd expect, it's a bit different from the usual (as is Elvira herself) but sometimes that's what we need!

Something tells me Elvira will get anything she wants from "Santa Baby."

In case you'd like to read Marvel's 1978 comic adaptation of Dicken's original story, click here!

Merry Christmas, to one and all!

Thrills and Chills Issue #4

(Click on any images to view monster-size.)

Well, the month-long celebration of Halloween, the Monster Kid national holiday, is underway. It's a lot of fun this year as various blogs take part in the Halloween Countdown, and I'm happy to be a part of it. Today we look back at Issue #4 of the Scholastic kid's magazine "Thrills and Chills," published in 1994. (We looked at Issue #2 in a recent posting.) The awesome cover is a great rendition of an inspired idea. We horror fans would certainly flock to see such a sightseeing thrill!

Each issue had movie recommendations for the month of October, and the spotlight some classics each time. I saw "The Deadly Mantis" when about 11 years old in 1969 on the Saturday afternoon "Creature Feature" which I watched each week faithfully. I saw a lot of the classics there for the first time.

On the back of each issue was a creepily illustrated epitaph from a real headstone... although I'm sure only the epitaph was accurate and that the tombstone didn't resemble the one drawn.

As a bonus today, we look at a fun book that took the "Where's Waldo?" concept and applied it to Halloween. I bought this in 1992, and the densely-packed book entertained me and my then-young daughter for hours on end, as we picked out items in the scenes for the other to find. Try it yourself with the sample page! You could get lost in that cemetery...

And just in case this seems a trifle juvenile to you, for the grown-up kids out there, here is an ad from around 1985 for Elvira's new videos... it makes the "look and find" game more fun and even easier!