July 2025
My Write Of Passage
by Richard J. Schellbach
When it comes to my writing career, I have most likely learned more from the words of Harlan Ellison than any other writer, living or dead. He was blunt, to the point and full of himself. In plain words, he was brilliant and he knew it. He made me realize that writers got paid for their work… and if someone mentioned that writing for their publication would be good for my career, so I should just be happy and write for free, they were leading me around by the balls. Harlan gave me those nuggets and I live by them to this day. He was a massive influence every day of the 41 years I’ve been a professional Writer. But that doesn’t mean that I’ve learned nothing from my other idols.
Each time I fight an editor to keep something in a piece I’ve written, even though my editor du jour wanted to lose it like a fetid pork sandwich on a hot summer’s day, I think of the way Paddy Chayefsky fought for every word he wrote, no matter the import of the project. Sometimes he won. Sometimes he lost. But he attacked each change with vigor and probably with the mantra “This is the hill I’m willing to die on.”
If I’m caught out in the wild – something I hardly ever do on purpose, unless I’m with my peeps at a convention – and I get a plot idea or a great title for a piece, and find myself jotting it down on a napkin, business card, drink coaster, or anything else I can crumble up and stash in my pocket for the proverbial rainy day, I think of Rod Serling. He was known to write on anything and everything to the point that it was rare to find any of his story ideas on something with actual lines on it. By the way, I’m not stating that I have ideas as often as he did. I don’t. No one does. He made Stephen King look like a slacker… and King is another one of my idols. Keep on reading.
Whenever I come off as a fancier writer than I actually am, I think of Richard Matheson. His work always seemed to have an air of classic literature to it, whether it was by design or not. Take two rather simple tales, Button, Button and I Am Legend. Both have a feel that they have been around forever.
Stephen King once described himself as the writing equivalent of fast food. Now, I have no idea if he was just saying that he was not some hoity-toity author. But I always regarded his use of dialog to be beyond reproach. The gift that King gave me was to make sure my characters always read like they used the right words for the area of the world they came from. His northerners always read like they were from Connecticut and north. His southerners sounded like they came from south of the Mason-Dixon line. And although it doesn’t seem to take much talent, it is extremely important that the reader not be taken out of the story with words that don’t ring true to the character he or she is writing about.
Think what you will about Woody Allen but no other writer makes me laugh like he does. His take on the absurd was what got me through writing the various projects involving ALF… especially the two sets of trading cards I did with Gary Gerani and Topps.
Roald Dahl comes to mind when I’m writing something that appears, on the surface, to be a “nice” story in the vein of a fairy tale that has a dark underbelly. Of the pieces he’s written, like the novel, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, I could always tell that he was flashing a sardonic smile as each word hit the paper. At least that’s how it felt to me.
When I was a brand new writer, finding my way in the literary world, I out and out stole from each of these brilliant scribes. Then, when I found my particular style, I was able to sit back and enjoy everything they wrote, while taking off in my own direction. I’ve been following my personal inner compass for over four decades and still I carry each of my writing idols with me and I so appreciate every lesson they gifted me.
Till next time, Adios! I’m a ghost.
June 2025
Why? Because!
by Richard J. Schellbach
Why the hell would anybody voluntarily do this to themselves?
As I asked myself that burning question I was automatically drawn to a singular answer. Because, if I’m being completely honest here, the answer wasn’t so crystal clear the first time I ever asked it of myself. No, I was way too busy wondering how it was that I came to find my 13-year-old butt seated in the Strand Theater, in Hamden, CT watching a black and white horror movie entitled Night Of The Living Dead? Because that movie rattled the fuck out of me in a way I will never forget or, for that matter, get over.
I was just minutes into the movie when I realized that I was in some deep excrement. There were no white hats in this movie. No black hats either. The cavalry was never going to show up… Well, they would eventually show up but not to do anything constructive. I mean considering they eventually… you know. No, their hearts were kinda, sorta in the right places but an angry mob is, and always will be, reduced to its simplest form… an angry mob. And as I left the Strand for the long walk home, I pondered the whole What?, Why?, and Who? aspects of what I had just lay witness to.
Now you’d think that after seeing Night Of The Living Dead, I would have come to learn my lesson and never allow it to happen again. But, there I was again, sometime later, watching The Texas Chain Saw Massacre at the Milford Drive-In, and back to the Strand for Halloween, the CineMart for The Evil Dead, covering The Blair Witch Project, at the Ft Lauderdale Film Festival, for the Ft Lauderdale Sun Sentinel… or The Autopsy Of Jane Doe at my humble abode, in my home theater.
The proverbial list goes on and on.
Mind you, it hasn’t taken me this long to come up with the answer. I had it pretty much figured out by the time I had walked home after Night Of The Living Dead, all those decades ago.
The simple answer was and still is, because I really liked it! In fact, I loved it. There is just something magical about being scared shitless in a safely controlled environment, whether it’s a small movie house in a hometown, a onetime giant cinema that sported the largest screen on the East Coast, one of the coolest Drive-Ins ever, a large Film Fest that really mattered or now, more often than not, in my living room. Whether you understand it or not, getting my double stuff endorphins all a flutter, makes my trousers a bit tighter… figuratively, if not quite literally. In plain words, I dig the hell out of that feeling. I don’t get that particular feeling to that particular degree at a lesser horror movie, but any good spook show brings it out from a bit to a bunch. And those dam-busting moments are the ones I have come to live for.
Keep in mind, even though those knock-me-over-with-a-feather moments are few and far between, the reason for them can be as different as night and day. They can spring forth from suspense, like in Alien; or thick atmosphere, like Pumpkinhead is awash in. Slow unfurling horror, like Insidious or the “creep up on you” scares in Sinister. Shocks that make you chuckle the way Tucker and Dale vs. Evil does or the vintage kind that has the classic feel of 1934’s The Black Cat.
Just like horror’s goofier stepbrother, comedy, has different subgenres and many different ways of bringing on a chortle, horror has myriad ways to repel you. I just happen to be one of those lucky bastards who loves all of them. All I ask is that whatever kind it is manages to scare me out of whatever wits I still possess after reaching the grand old age of sixty-nine. Horror and I have been friends for ages. We’ve also been business partners for as long as I can remember. It’s been my way of earning a living, and a pretty damned good one at that. I cannot imagine there will be a time when I stop loving the feeling of being scared in a controlled situation. To sit in a room, surrounded by the darkness, and feel fictional beings clawing at my skin with evil intent is nothing short of magical. So, bring it on. The scarier the better. Hey, future filmmakers, show me what you’ve got. Because although I haven’t seen it all quite yet, I’ve seen enough to know that after a fairly full lifetime, I have seen a damn sight more than most.
Till next time, Adios! I’m a ghost.
April 2025
Little White Riding Hood
by Richard J. Schellbach
As Tom Petty waxed philosophically back in 1991,
“Well, I started out, down a dirty road.”
It was back when I first got my driver’s license in 19… You know what? You don’t need that info. Let’s just say I’ve been driving for a long freakin’ time and leave it at that. Seriously, I mean are you writing a book???
But I digress.
Okay, so the week I first got my driver’s license, I found myself on a dirty road in my hometown of Hamden, CT. Keep in mind Hamden is, and was, a pretty big town with small town sensibilities. In fact, that dirty road was about as far from the center of town as possible and, believe it or not, that same “off the beaten path” road was called Main Street. Even stranger was the fact that for some unknown reason, it was the very last road, street, thoroughfare to be paved. That’s right, it was a dirty road mainly for the fact that it was a dirt road for the entirety of my life up till around 1980. It was also the last street to get streetlights. Now if that all sounds boring to you, you’re not alone. Shit, I can barely stay awake as I write this. So let’s get down to the real nitty gritty of Main Street; There were no businesses on there, just residences… and those were about fifty yards back from the street… meaning that the street itself was basically pitch black. Now, the reason I’m telling all of this is because while nothing much ever happened on Main Street, everything that is dark and unholy happened on Main Street… I mean everything. We had a woman in a white sheer nightgown wandering around in the dark, looking for her long-dead lover. Can you imagine the abject horror one would experience if they were driving on Main Street at night and witnessed that ghostly image? Hell, that would have scared the creamy nougat center right out of me. Or what about the small creatures, known as Wampuses, who would dart in front of your vehicle, pretend that you hit them and when you got out to check on the poor little darlings they would hop back up on their feet and begin devouring you. Others would soon appear from a wooded area and join in on the smorgasbord until your corpse had been picked clean. What about the guy who leaves his girlfriend in his car so he can get gas because the stupid bastard hadn’t filled up the tank before their date? The girlfriend keeps hearing noises and when she finally gathers up the courage to get out of the car to see what all the hubbub is, she finds her boyfriend’s severed head on the radio antenna… back when those were a thing. Well, all of those otherworldly instances and plenty more took place on Main Street in Hamden, CT…
Except that they didn’t.
Okay while I haven’t quite checked the validity of each of those stories, I feel safe to say that none of that crap took place in my hometown.. they took place in every hometown, city and burg throughout the United States and, most likely, the rest of the developed countries of the world. They are with us over a century later because people love a good supernatural cautionary tale almost as much as people enjoy passing those stories around.
There are about ten thousand of these stories; about 100 or so that are so damned good that, true or not, I’d hate to see disappear. These zeitgeists are called Urban Legends and they’re a ton of fun… as long as you’re not gullible enough to believe them. Because I swear that no matter where you grew up, you had these stories to listen to and the person who passed them to you was just credulous enough to believe them. Are you one of them? Do your ears prick up when you hear about the crying boy or the Andretti curse? What about what happened to Rudolph Fentz or Rocky Colavito? Or if claustrophobic tales make your skin crawl, what about Chimera mansion or the Alto, Georgia spirit house that folds in on itself?
Nothing chills the soul like a good old spooky story guaranteed to raise a few goosebumps in the dark of night. Especially when they’re true. And while I’m certainly no Urban Legends expert, the only one I can personally vouch for is the story about the screaming girl who is still, to this day, the only inhabitant of Downs Road, a one-mile-long road to nowhere in the backwoods of my hometown of Hamden, CT.
Or is she?
Till next time, Adios! I’m a ghost.
March 2025
Lost In Stupidity
by Richard J. Schellbach
A long time ago, when the Earth was in its infancy, there was a TV show by the name of Lost In Space. The original concept was to call it The Space Family Robinson, a takeoff on a classic tale entitled The Swiss Family Robinson. It involved America launching a saucer filled with an entire family, to study how they would get along with each other over long periods of time in outer space. Although I was a little tyke of nine, I thought it sounded great. I was already a fan of The Twilight Zone and especially The Outer Limits. So, this was going to tack one more excellent show onto my must see list.
The pilot was great. It showed a bunch of technology, which is always cool to a kid. The saucer looked fantastic. Simple but amazing. You got to meet the Robinson family. They had an extremely cool robot. BUT (There’s always a “but”) a foreign spy snuck onto the ship, trying to steal classified information and he reprogrammed the robot to kill the family sometime after takeoff. BUT (Really? Again?) the joke was on this spy because he got trapped on the ship and it took off with him as a stowaway. And when the ship took off, he let out a bloodcurdling scream that, to this day, I still remember vividly. This was going to be a great show!
So, things progressed at a pretty good pace. The Robinsons had a space chariot to carry them around the surface of whichever planet they landed on, amazingly cool laser pistols and rifles and, after some reprogramming, the robot became the helper it was meant to be and it didn’t end up killing anyone. Although the inertial guidance system did take a beating before they reprogrammed the robot. Hence the name Lost In Space. As the series progressed, the family got to know the stowaway – just not as the spy he actually was. And to me, the coolest part was the adventures were really good and kept me on the edge of our couch
I was impressed. Good effects, cool adventures, neat aliens and then… “Welcome Stranger”.
I didn’t know who Warren Oates was but he did look a heck of a lot like a guy, with big eyes, I had seen in an Outer Limits episode. But, instead of the guy with the giant eyes, on Lost In Space he was kinda… (How do I say “stupid” without actually saying stupid?) Okay let me put it this way; Warren Oates’ character was really fucking stupid. There! I think that pretty much skirted the issue. This episode, “Welcome Stranger” boasts Warren Oates as a space cowboy. A crappy character years before Steve Miller wrote a crappy song named “Space Cowboy”. I swear to you with that episode the show became absolute trash. Instantly it was a kiddie show. Every aspect of it was groan-inducing. The only saving grace was a two-part episode entitled The Keeper. It starred Michael Rennie, from The Day The Earth Stood Still and he was every bit as good in The Keeper Parts 1 and 2 as he was in The Day The Earth Stood Still. And that’s because a great actor is a great actor, even when the material is crap. Unfortunately, the story was for five-year-olds, if that. So, everything except for Michael Rennie was just plain stupid.
Now I know what you’re thinking, “They botched up a two-part episode starring Michael Rennie? Man, that must be scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel”.
Nope. Not even close.
Before Lost In Space finished its run, it had gone three seasons and had a whopping 83 episodes. For those keeping track, that’s even more episodes than the original Star Trek series. Those episodes made the first six episodes look like absolute genius by comparison. Seriously. I kid you not.
Now, I’m not going to go into why these next few episodes are on the bottom rung of the Lost In Space ladder… or should I say step stool… The synopses speak for themselves.
The Questing Beast: A space knight chases a space dragon around the galaxy.
Mutiny In Space: A space pirate kidnaps Will, Dr. Smith and the Robot.
The Great Vegetable Rebellion: Dr. Smith lands on a planet where vegetations are the highest form of intelligence. When the Robinsons follow, they are immediately captured by Tybo, a giant carrot. His plan… You know what? I’m not doing this anymore! I mean really! If the past synopses aren’t enough to make you want to puke in space, I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to steer you clear of Lost In Space.
So, instead, I’m going to just get lost… in The Outer Limits again to help take the stink of that dreadful Lost In Space series off of me.
Oh, the pain… the pain.
Till next time, Adios! I’m a ghost.
February 2025
Drawn To Them
by Richard J. Schellbach
Artists tend to piss me off. It’s nothing personal, just an envy thing. You have to have a lot of special talents to be a successful artist. But I would suggest that of all of the special traits, you need to be able to have your eyes see that something you want to draw or paint and then it has to go into your brain, out of your brain past the shoulders down your arm into your hand down to your fingers and those fingers have to guide a brush, pencil, charcoal or myriad other drawing utensils and when it hits the paper or the canvas, it needs to look damned near perfectly like what your eyes picked up. I don’t know precisely what to call the process, but it is as foreign to me as quantum physics. And believe me I am no scientist… mad or otherwise. Now, I know a fair amount of artists. Big ones. I mean they all have been involved with drawing for books and magazines. The books and magazines that have always been the most important to me. You don’t hear of their pieces hanging in museums. Which is fine. That shit doesn’t impress me anyway. No, their work appears on the covers of monster magazines and books. And with me being a super geek, that’s exactly where I want them to be.
If Famous Monsters Of Filmland Magazine had an O.G. artist, it was Basil Gogos. I loved the guy. He was so friendly and engaging each time we met at a show and he was freaking funny. I don’t know how many saw that particular side of him, but I saw it plenty of times and I never tired of it. Like I said, he was the O. G.
Everyone else I know came after Basil and respected the hell out of him.
I’ve known Bill Selby the longest of the artists I know. He is very much a brother to me. And when I went to San Franscisco, I got to see his amazing house. That was a magical day, considering I was starting to think I’d never meet him. It was about five hours of pure joy and if I died tomorrow I’d be a happy man just from knowing him. He did me a great honor a few months later but I can’t discuss that right now. Soon. But not now.
Right up there with Bill is Mark Maddox. When I see him, thankfully more than once per year, I always have such fun. He’s what my grandparents would have called a “cut up”. Odd little phrase but if you know Mark, it fits perfectly. When I’m at a con and I see him, that ridiculously wide smile I have on my face is completely legit. I’m always so damned glad to see him.
Frank Dietz is probably best known as a caricaturist to some of the greatest stars in the history of horror (and so much more.) He drew my column’s banner when I wrote for Famous Monsters Of Filmland. So, I already know your next question. If he’s the caricaturist of the incredibly famous horror stars of the past 103 years, what in the blue fuck was he doing drawing the likes of you? Well, kids, that one will have to wait. I have limited space here. And much like Steven Tyler, you don’t want to miss a thing.
I have known Kerry Gammill for ages, courtesy of The Classic Horror Film Board and we’ve met in person a few times. I have always been impressed with his work. Never as much as a Famous Monsters cover with Bela as the Sayer of the law from the Island Of Lost Souls. I still see that glorious cover right in front of me, if I close my eyes… or better yet, when I look at my FMOF collection.
Last but certainly not least, a gentleman whom I finally got around to meeting about two years ago, Neil D Vokes. Neil’s work is absolutely stunning. I never tire of looking at it. These are just a few friends whose work borders on perfection.
I will never know how they do it. That talent completely escapes me. But it also never ceases to amaze me.
Till next time, Adios! I’m a ghost.