HackArtober Continued #26 (Scanned In Shocking Detail) (Patreon)

I saw Shocker when it was released to theaters. My friends and I all hated it. 

I drew Horace here because I knew I could do a halfway decent job of it, after failing several times at a few other characters. I like doing these card drawings as warm-ups or as breaks, but sometimes I'm frustrated by my drawing limitations because I can't pin down a costume design or character likeness. Tonight I tried drawing one of The Slime People, from a ludicrous but entertaining (imo) old no-budget black and white mess. The costumes are very early Dr. Who or Corman in design, and they're a mess. And my literal way of approaching things. I find it very hard to break objects down into shapes or masses, and when I try to draw something with a lot of detail I lose track of the overall design. I end up with something you can recognize -- if you recognize the dumbass Slime People -- but which isn't a good drawing. Part of the problem is laziness, I'm trying to do these horror movie sketches quickly, and don't pencil any kind of solid structure when there's a complicated design. Which is why I mostly draw people and have put off monster suits. The Matango drawing took me multiple attempts, defeating the whole purpose of drawing for fun. Anyway, I can't figure out how to translate some things well, so here's the stupid villain from Shocker.

I decided to overwork it just like Wes Craven did when he tried to force a horror icon on audiences to make up for not owning Freddy Krueger. Craven pretty much has two settings, good and embarrassingly bad. Shocker is the latter, a fairly creepy opening sequence followed by four or five movies' worth of dumb ideas and lousy jokes, often cribbing Craven's own work, largely Nightmare on Elm Street. It's a craven attempt to spark a franchise, ha ha, see what I did there? Well, it's about as funny as one of the killer's quips from Shocker. If someone else did it they'd be sued. The best I can say about it is that it's better than The Hills Have Eyes 2. It's not boring. It gets tedious -- it's too long -- but it's not endlessly boring.  

I'm fond of Shocker only because it's become a sort of in-joke with me and my friend Paul Yellovich. I won't explain it, it makes no sense unless I go into a lenghty explanation of in-jokey stuff that never means anything to anyone outside the social circle. So I'll leave it there. But Shocker getting a mention always makes me laugh, sometimes before or after I roll my eyes and make some disparaging remark. 

About Shocker. 

Because, it's fucking Shocker. 

Yeesh! 

Can you tell -- ? I don't like Shocker!