Monday, November 23, 2009

Monster PSA: Boris Karloff

sg
This week is the Boris Karloff Blogathon, a week-long celebration of All Things Karloff taking place all over the web. All this week, I will be featuring pieces centered around Mr. Karloff (those of you who follow my work closely are probably wondering how I'm going to pull this off on Thursday--well, be here then and find out!).

Starting off, I thought I'd have my first repeat performance for a "Monster PSA" poster, this time featuring Boris as he appeared in the 1935 Universal film The Raven, an unusual film in that it features Bela Lugosi in the starring role, and Boris as a supporting character (though, this being Boris Karloff, he still gets some cool, creepy stuff to do).

As to the tag line...I don't know, for some reason the opening line from Bob Dylan's song "If You Ever Go To Houston" (from this year's 2009 Together Through Life album) kept reverberating in my head. What it has to do with Boris Karloff, or Boris Karloff as The Raven's Edmund Bateman, I have no idea.

At first I rejected it, thinking it was just too odd, but over time it grew on me. Maybe Boris' Edmund Bateman--looking clearly the worse for wear--had been to Houston, gotten in some real trouble, and was now attempting to pass a bit of wisdom to the rest of us. Perhaps I'm overthinking it.

In any case, I like how it came out, so I decided it was going to kick off Boris Karloff Week!



To learn more about the Boris Karloff Blogathon, click the graphic below to see how other blogs are celebrating the man!
sg


7 comments:

Steve Ring said...

Did you miss a "you" in the caption or was that deliberate?

Wings1295 said...

Cool poster! Very personal addition to the blogathon!

rob! said...

Steve-

I'm an idiot. Yes, I did. Thank you for the correction--that could've been REALLY embarrassing...

Steve Ring said...

No problem. Very nice work!

Steve Ring said...

Er, wait. Should that be "You better walk right?" Or "you'd", even? I don't know. Not a real Dylan fan.

Diabolu Frank said...

Umm... wasn't Dylan just quoting Lead Belly's oft-covered version of "The Midnight Special?"

rob! said...

Frank-

Yes he was, but I didn't see the need to get into all that (I find I write too much as it is).

Besides, it was me hearing the line from Bob that put it in my head at the time, so I didn't see the need to go deeper than that.