Bluewater Artist Previews the Impending Leprechaun Comic!

These days, up-and-coming comic book company Bluewater Comics has become a horror fan's best friend. With titles like Vincent Price Presents and the recently spotlighted The Pit and the Pendulum, they've managed to corner the market on horror comics in short order.

Next up is the Bluewater comic series Leprechaun, based on the notorious-yet-beloved film series of the late '80s/'90s starring Warwick Davis. First announced last fall, the first issue is soon to finally hit newsstands (whatever happened to deadlines, all you fancy-pants 21st century comics artists??)

Head on over to Ain't It Cool News' always-entertaining comics column "Shoot the Messenger" for a pretty unique look at the upcoming book. Artist Kris Carter provides exclusive pencil artwork from the first issue, accompanied by his own "DVD commentary" on each panel. Very cool stuff. I never even cared much for the Leprechaun movies, but I may just pick this book up.

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As most of you know, I don't usually make this blog about myself, but something very exciting has happened, which means a great deal to me. The Vault of Horror has been nominated Best Horror Blog in the 2008 Rondo Hatton Awards. Since 2003, the Rondos have been the web's premiere fan-voted genre awards, and last year, when the Vault was brand-new, I made it a conscious goal to land a nomination in the Rondos the next time around. Now it's happened, and on top of that, this is the first year the Rondos has included a separate category strictly for blogs.

I'd like to congratulate Gary D. of Blogue Macabre, Max Cheney of The Drunken Severed Head, Stacie Ponder of Final Girl, Pierre Fournier of Frankensteinia, August Ragone of The Good, The Bad and Godzilla, Curt Purcell of The Groovy Age of Horror, Karswell of The Horrors of It All and Iloc Zoc of Zombos' Closet of Horror, fellow bloggers and friends in horror also nominated in the category. Should you feel inclined to vote in the 2008 Rondos, here's the ballot.

Poe's Work Adapted to Comic Book

Since debuting at Harry Knowles' BNAT film festival last summer, Marc Lougee's stop-motion animated version of Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum has been making the rounds at literally hundreds of film festivals (unfortunately, the main outlet for short subjects these days). It has generated quite a bit of positive buzz in the process.

Now, Bluewater Productions, the same comic book company responsible for Vincent Price Presents (the first issue of which was written by The League of Tana Tea Drinkers' own Chad Helder) will be bringing the film to the sequential art medium.

The comic book has been put together without hand-drawn art--in a clever stroke, it is instead using actual stills from the animated film, which is sure to give the book a unique look indeed. If you don't believe me, just check out these sample pages at Where the Long Tail Ends.

The first issue hits comic book stores February 25.