Investigations and Impressions with Monsters

This was going to be a daunting project with putting words to the ideas in my head.   I had years of grooming... years of influence.  Write what you know is what they say.  I grew up, in my opinion, durring a fantastic time for Television and Movies.  The 80s.  TV made use of inexpensive tricks and limited budgets while Hollywood exposed us to amazing special effects... especially with practical effects and latex appliances.  Ratings seemed less restrictive.  Political correctness had yet to be ushered in.  The world had a bigger problem to worry about... Global Nuclear War.

It's safe to say that that made a huge impact on my outlook and my place in the Universe.  Grim and bleak.  Apocalyptic.  Hopeless.  It seemed I was dead before I ever got to live.  I would become forever a pessimist.  To escape, I would buckle myself into anything that would whisk me away from this plane of existence.  This was the inception to losing a foot-hold on reality and drift head-first into the clouds.  I did a swan dive inward splashing into my imagination.  Don't get me wrong... I didn't become unhinged or have any real mental issues.  This was considered healthy.  An active imagination.  My surrogate parents (TV and Film) didn't seem to mind at all.  In fact, they encouraged me.  They showed me things... things that could never be unseen.

Actually, lot of things shaped me, but it's more important to know what shaped this comic.  Here, in no particular order, is a list of those things...

• The Twilight Zone
• Tales From the Crypt
• The Outer Limits
• Monsters
• Supernatural
• The X Files
• H. P. Lovecraft
• Steven King
• John Carpenter
• Scooby Doo
• Hammer Horror
• Universal Monsters
• Ghost Hunters
• Fangoria
• Cinefex
• Goth Subculture
• Psychobilly Music

That's how this story of mine gets inspiration.  Researching the different story elements took a bit more leg work.  It included fact checking for dialog.  I have a character that uses a lot of popular culture references as part of her vocabulary.  I also had to research the 'science' needed to define the boundaries of the monsters. The toughest research item, I have to admit, was the television studio... a set piece that was going to be featured throughout the series.  It needed to be completely realized.  I didn't have access to one or could stroll up to my neighborhood TV studio to take pictures.  I had to do a lot of Googling to piece together a seemingly operational television studio and set.  In the next post, I'll go over the end result in more detail.