Mass-Scare-a

They're slimy or pasty or hairy
so make-up for monsters will varyBig bolts in the neck
or hairdos from heck
The thing these things share is they're scary



Another thing they share is Universal Studios' make-up artist
extraordinaire, Jack Pierce, seen here applying his magic to
Lon Chaney Jr (top) and Boris Karloff. Make yourself into amonster and scare the kiddies. Happy Halloween!

Cerebrummed Out

How can I say this in a kind line?
These monsters contained not one fine mind
The docs tried their best
but feebly confessed
they could not create a Frank Einstein

Death be Not Shroud

By torch bearing mobs he was fried
He blew himself up with his bride
His ends were unequaled
but Frankenstein sequeled
and therefore, he'd not really died

Each screenwriter tried to devise
a clever and monstrous demise
But viewers were certain
at each closing curtain
the lumbering lug never dies

Ygor coaxes the monster from the sulfur pit: Bela Lugosi and
Lon Chaney, Jr. in Ghost of Frankenstein (Erle C. Kenton, 1942)
Photo courtesy of Monster Hunter.

House Crawls

The yelling and screaming grows loud
Inside of the house there's a crowd
To Wolf and hunched back,
Add monster and Drac
It's more than the health code allowed.


House of Frankenstein (Erle C. Kenton, 1944). This is where I should link to a song by Crowded House. Photos, from top: Boris Karloff as the mad doctor, with Glenn Strange as the monster (Doctor Macro); Karloff and John Carradine as Dracula; Strange, Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot, aka the Wolf Man. You may recall Glenn Strange as bartender Sam Noonan on the long-running Gunsmoke television show.

When Hairy Met Pale-y

It certainly ain't a "meet cute"
'tween monster and Wolf Man, hirsute
With grunting and growling
and at-the-moon howling
I'd call their acquaintance "meet brute"


Lon Chaney, Jr. is the Wolfman, and Bela Lugosi plays the monster
in Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (Roy William Neill, 1943).
Photos:Top: Shadow Clad; Middle: The Grim Cellar; Below: Dr. Macro

Leopold and Lobe

Mad doctors will never go far
without a fresh brain in a jar
The mind is the feature
without which their creature
will find its IQ is sub par

Ghost of Frankenstein (Erle C. Kenton, 1942)

Playing a Hunch-back

The ghost of the doc implores son
to finish the job he'd begun:
Replace monster's brain
with one that is sane
But to Igor a bad brain's more fun



Lon Chaney Jr. as the Monster, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill and Cedric Hardwicke in The Ghost of Frankenstein (Erle C. Kenton, 1942). Top photo: Shadow Clad

Father's Brittle Dividend

To father's old home the son came
to try and restore their good name
Thought Ygor, "What fun!
Like father, like son
We're back in the old monster game!"


Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Basil Rathbone in
Son of Frankenstein (Rowland V. Lee, 1939).

Blind Man's Puff

The monster's afraid of a match
On fire he fears he might catch
His friend, who is kind
appears to be blind
to danger that roofing is thatch

O.P. Heggie and Karloff in Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 35)

Soupy Sales in the Sunset

His countenance filled with flung pies
brought laughter-filled tears to young eyes
He brought down the house
by dancing "The Mouse"
(Paul Reubens adapted Soup's guise)

Soupy Sales, R.I.P.

Bachelor Flat-top

The monster, who should have been toast
survived, and by love was engrossed
So under the knife
they made him a wife
his love-sickness miss-diagnosed



Colin Clive, Elsa Lanchester, Boris Karloff and Ernest
Theisiger in The Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale,
1935). Photos: Doctor Macro and Frankensteinia. To read
an earlier Bride limerick on Limerwrecks, click here.

.

Little Lady in the Lake

The monster was taking a break
and played with a girl by a lake
Arcadian scene
soon turned Halloween
And now the town's holding her wake

Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931)

Side of the Monster

His plight is pathetic and sad
It isn't his fault that he's bad
He's hounded and burned
and, by his bride, spurned
Can't blame him for getting so mad


Boris Karloff in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931)

Puttin' on the Fritz

Tormented by hunchback named Fritz
the monster's new life is the pits
Afraid of a scorch
from fiery torch
He longs to get Fritz in his mitts


Photos: Doctor Macro and Frankensteinia. Boris Karloff
and Dwight Frye in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

Prometheus Unsound

Doc Frankenstein went to great pains
to prove after death life remains
To follow his thesis
stitched body from pieces
and then all he needed was brains



The doctor now dared to play god
giving life with a lightning charged rod
But plans went awry
when bad brain supply
created a lumbering clod



To greatness the doc had aspired
but down in the muck he was mired
The monster he made
did not make the grade
and then, in a windmill, expired



Welcome to a Frankenstein Fortnight of fright, where we
chronologically crawl through the castle canon to Halloween.
We're just one small part of the Countdown to Halloween
that's running all over the place throughout October. Thanks
to Backthrow and Norm for their help behind the scenes.
Pics: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive and Dwight Frye in the mon-
ster daddy of them all, Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

Bela the Pall

In Dracula's cape, nice and cozy
sleeps Hungary's Bela Lugosi
As thespian, he
was doomed to grade "Z"
and films of Ed Wood, not Joe Losey

Tomorrow is the birthday of horror star Bela Lugosi. Let's all
hoist a glass of the red and wish him a happy and haunted one.
Top: Lugosi as Dracula. Above: Lugosi puts the bite on Vampira.
That is Lugosi, isn't it?

Timm-Id-ity

This Frankenstein's monster has pals
who all have a weakness for gals
Especially those
exposed in such clothes
as shredded, diaphanous veils

Illustration © Bruce Timm 2009

Frankenline

The monster, in shadow and line
has never been rendered so fine
With singular skill
he's inked with a quill
as masters of horror combine



A match made in horror heaven: Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein, illustrated by Berni Wrightson.


Illustrations © Berni Wrightson 2009

One More Thing...

A frog leaps from log into pond
A snake spirals down from a frond
A heron takes flight
and turtles, in fright
all flee from the thing from beyond


Swamp Thing by Berni Wrightson
Swamp Thing is © and trademark DC Comics 2009

Love Me or Leaf Me

The Swamp Thing stood hunched in the door
a horror to former amore
As wife to a plant
she'd love him, but can't
She's human, and can't bear a spore

Berni Wrightson's cover art for House of Secrets #92, which
introduced Wrightson and Len Wein's Swamp Thing. Much
later in the Swamp Thing series, writer Alan Moore figured
out a way for Swampy to bear fruit.
Swamp Thing TM and © DC Comics 2009.

Shadows Master

In corners where cobwebbing clings
his shadows hide horrible things
Each pen and brush stroke
the Gothic evokes
Of moodiness Wrightson's the king.





 More than any other comics artist that emerged in the 1970s, Bernie Wrightson carried on the grand tradition of EC comics. The artistic heir to 'Ghastly' Graham Ingels, Wrightson's style also contains equal measures of fellow EC alums Jack Davis and Frank Frazetta.



All art by Berni Wrightson. Top: 'Jennifer', written by Bruce Jones;
House of Secrets cover and The Shadow ad for DC; Early comics page.

Past Balls

The haunt of Octobers of olde
the field named for Wrigley's grown cold
Faint echoes from bats
of men who wear spats
who late in the season don't fold

This season for Cubbies is toast
As always, they're missing the "post"
There's curses and theories
why Cubs won't host series
They ought to just give up the ghost

Each year the Cubs try to remold
Each year the fan's hope is fool's gold
But millionaire fans
hatch bankruptcy plans:
The team to a diehard's been sold

If you like baseball and poetry, you ought to visit
James Finn Garner's great site, Bard Ball.

Lucky Pike Means Brine Tobacco

It seems that this fish likes to smoke
a habit that makes his gills choke
I hate to pick nit
but how's it stay lit?
His brand must be one that won't soak



Trigger and Baron Barracuda on the 60s children's TV show,
Diver Dan. The title "Lucky Pike" was Backthrow's, and I
embellished it. Here are Backthrow's alternate titles for this
limerick: Puffer Fish, Harbor Lights, Smoke on the Water,
A Sick Guppy, Low Char, (or Low Gar), Hali-butts, and
Fishing Hack-le.