The much anticipated ‘Girlz and Gorilla’ issue of BIG OLE FACE FULL OF MONSTER has finally hit the press and is now available to my fellow gorilla suit freaks. Raymond Honeycutt has penned a great overview of Charles Gemora’s life and career, extending beyond his suit work, to encompass his other contributions to Sci-Fi film history as well. Raymond had the opportunity to converse with Charlie’s widow, Isabelle, about his career before she passed away. For me personally, I was thrilled to discover that someone had the opportunity to add a few more pieces to the puzzle. Information about Charles and his fellow Gorilla Men is sparse – every new anecdote or film credit we can track down is critical to preserving their legacy.
Not to toot my horn too much – but I am also quite excited that I was able to contribute a pair of gorilla suit oriented sidebars that accompany Honeycutt’s article. Firstly, a tongue-in-cheek breakdown of GORILLAMEN.COM’s Top Eight Ape Films and also a piece about the evolution of Burlesque Gorillas entitled GORILLAS PREFER BLONDES. The second item was inspired by a fantastic two page spread of Emil Van Horn menacing maidens onstage from a 40’s issue of LOOK magazine – I will have to post it here sometime in the future. In the sidebar, I also mention the peep show short GORILLA AND THE MAIDEN, which I will post below for your salacious consumption.
The cover of BOFFOM features Bananas Barofski and Anna Matopeia, characters from the brilliant comic UNTAMED HIGHWAY, created by Noah Snodgrass and Shawn Dickinson. I fucking love this book – I have to get Tarantino here to avoid multiple !!!! UNTAMED HIGHWAY incorporates all that is best in retro culture and delivers it with sharp writing and art evocative of MAD, RAT FINK and REN AND STIMPY. I am in the process of interviewing these two fine, degenerate mad geniuses about their book and hope to have it posted very soon.
The lead page of Raymond Honeycutt’s article features artwork that may be familiar to Gorilla Men readers. Over a year ago I chatted with Robert Scott about his unique portraits and the Gemora piece he created for this issue.
Issue #4 of BIG OLE FACEFUL OF MONSTER also features articles on Horror Burlesque, author Tim Lebbon, Horror Host, Penny Dreadful, zombie artist Rob Saccheto in addition to a Pin-Up spread, Horror Fiction, and film, music and print reviews.
My thanks to Mitch Smith for his invitation to reach beyond cyberspace and actually have my thoughts see ink and paper. Mitch and his wife, Jenni Morrison-Smith are a rarity in genre journalism. Trying to reach the public through printed matter is more difficult than ever and those who dare do so out of a deep and abiding love for a vanishing art form.
You can get your hairy mitts on Issue #4 at the BOFFOM website here.
UPDATE 03-10-2010
From what I can see BOFFOM is d-e-a-d. If your looking for a copy give Ebay a whirl. All links in this article have been removed - the boffom site is no more.
GORILLA AND THE MAIDEN
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