Just arriving at newsstands and comic book shops everywhere, the 2019 Halloween issue of Scary Monsters!
Scary Monsters #114
For those that don’t know about SM, the mag touts itself as the REAL Monster Magazine. SM is a classic horror and sci-fi film magazine in the tradition of the original Famous Monsters of Filmland. Great articles about classic creatures from the heyday of imaginative cinema, on pulpy black and white paper.
Issue #114 features an article I’ve written about Super Scary Saturday. SSS was a horror host show that ran on the TBS Superstation from 1987-1989. The host was the legendary Grampa Al Lewis, of Munsters fame.
Gramp Al Lewis
The show introduced me to many monster movies I’ve loved my entire life, especially Godzilla and Hammer Horror, which they featured in heavy rotation! For this piece I was about to track down the series’ creator, writer, and producer Jeff Grimshaw. He gave some fascinating insight into the creation of the show and what it was like to work with Lewis.
There’s lots of other amazing content in the issue. 140 plus pages of content on a wide range of film, television, and even the paranormal. If you’re interested in the ghostly folklore of Maine, you’ll like this one!
If you don’t have a magazine stand or comic shop handy, you can order a copy at ScaryMonstersMagazine.com!
I’m sitting here in my office after a particularly busy weekend. I’m two days removed from the Friday the 13th/Full Moon Downtown West Bend Ghost Walk, where we had the largest, most enthusiastic group ever. Washington County’s dedicated support of their paranormal history never ceases to amaze me.
Bright and early the next day (Saturday the 14th for those keeping track), I headed down to Averno College in Milwaukee for the 2019 edition of the Milwaukee Paracon. I was fortunate enough to present at the inaugural event back in 2015, and I’ve been able to appear at all but one, which I had to cancel due to personal strife.
The event is always a highlight of my year. I got to see a lot of beloved local colleagues, such as Allison Jorlin (milwaukeeghosts.com), Mike Huberty and Wendy Lynn Staat (See You On the Other Side podcast), Jay Bachochin (Finding Jay Bachochin), and MPC mastermind Tea Kurlos (Monster Hunters) to name only a few.
I had originally been scheduled to do a Washington County Paranormal presentation to celebrate the re-release of my first book, but I quickly found myself swept up into a Paranormal Author’s panel with new friends Shetan Noir and Tobias Wayland. While getting a chance to talk about my process for writing Goatman: Flesh or Folklore? I also had an opportunity to learn some methods used by Noir in her new book Lake Monsters and Odd Creatures of the Great Lakes and Wayland’s soon-to-be released book on the Great Lakes Mothman who recently terrorized Chicagoland.
My presentation about Washington County Paranormal did indeed happen, and I had a great time talking about Goatman, and the Old Courthouse Museum’s electrifying spirit “George.”
The biggest highlight was meeting all the enthusiastic people that dropped by my vendor’s table. The nicest thing about being in this field is meeting people and learning what inspired their interest in topics that a lot of people look down upon.
If you missed this year’s conference, please keep an eye on Milwaukeeparacon.com for information on the 2020 event!
Back on August 26th, I had the pleasure of being interviewed on Haunted Heartland, a wonderful paranormal program which airs on Milwaukee’s WXRW! If you missed it, you can listen to HERE!
Just a quick note to folks in and around West Bend! I’ll be making an appearance at the West Bend Farmer’s Market on September 28th, 2019 from 7:30am to 11:00pm!
Drop in to All In Books and visit with me! The store will also be holding a raffle for two free passes to the Downtown West Bend Ghost Walk! See you there!
Details: Saturday, September 28, 2019 at 7:30 AM – 11 AM All In Books 136 N. Main Street West Bend, WI
With the 2019 Downtown West Bend Ghost Walk season kicking off on September 7th, my mind has been wandering back to seasons past. Guiding these walks is a lot of fun for a lot of reasons. It allows me to tell stories, it allows me to meet open minded people, but it also sometimes allows a large group to experience paranormal activity.
Before I get into exactly what I mean, please understand no
guarantee can be made that anyone will experience unexplainable phenomena on a
walk. In fact, most walks happen without anyone reporting anything peculiar. I
especially never experience it, because my back is always to the alleged haunt—though
I’ve had a few occasions where people shriek and take pictures over my
shoulder.
However, usually a couple of times a year, one or more tour
patrons are fortunate enough—or unfortunate depending on your point of view—to
see, hear, or even feel something. I’ve
been waiting to share a particular event for a while, as it occurred between
stops on the walk, thus it is rarely told.
It was a few years back, on an early October Saturday night. It was a very small walking group, thanks to some terrible, unseasonably cold drizzle. Only three patrons had proven sturdy enough to endure the unpredictable Wisconsin weather. As the tour neared its conclusion, the weather began to clear. We left the exterior of the Old West Bend Theater and we marched back towards our meeting place in front of History Center of Washington County on 5th and Chestnut. We were silently walking past the corner of 5th and Walnut when one of the young women cried out. I turned around to see if someone had fell, and she was looking at the other two women who were following a good eight or nine feet behind her, talking amongst themselves.
“Did you just touch me!?” she asked urgently.
I had turned quickly and knew there was no way they could have been within
arm’s length of her, nor had they been paying the slightest attention to anyone
but each other. The two young women looked at each other in confusion, and said
they hadn’t.
According to the alarmed patron, as we got a few feet beyond
the crosswalk, she’d felt a large, heavy human hand rest itself on the middle
of her back, and move to the right, as if brushing something from her clothing.
The woman was very disturbed by the encounter. She’d not
expected to have physical contact with paranormal phenomena, especially when we
weren’t even in front of a (known) haunted location. After having explained
what had happen, she regained her composure and we walked on and finished the
tour. As I told the final story of the night, she remained on guard, as did the
others, who were now nearly as frightened as she was.
I suppose it just goes to show you, when you go out seeking the
paranormal, sometimes it seeks you. One woman found that out first hand, when
she became to first person to experience the phantom hand of 5th
Ave.
Things are really gearing up as Autumn quickly approaches!
I’ll be speaking at the USS Liberty Memorial Public Library in Grafton, Wisconsin August 27th at 6pm! All the details are on the library’s website. The event is free to attend. Please drop by and say hello!
Goatman: The Midnight Delivery #1 by Tim Vargulish! Tim is a hilarious and talented indy comic creator who’s written and drawn numerous comics about everyone’s favorite hoofed crypid super hero!
If you like Goatman, and you love comics, go support Tim’s publishing efforts! Copies of this great comic, and many others can be obtained by visiting Goatman Comics on Facebook!
Summer is winding down, and we’re gearing up for fall here in my home. I assume everyone else is too. So I figure now is the perfect time to announce I’ll be in attendance at Milwaukee Paranormal Conference 2019!
The Con is September 13-15 at Alverno College, 3400 S. 43rd Street! I’ll be there in the vendor area Saturday and Sunday! I’ll have copies of both Goatman: Flesh or Folklore and the recently back in print Washington County Paranormal!
Just another quick note saying thanks to everyone who’s contacted me after appearing on History Channel’s The UnXplained.
It was a wonderful experience, and it was a pleasure getting to appear on the same screen as wonderful cryptozoologists as Loren Coleman, Nick Redfern, Ken Gerhard, and Chad Lewis. And of course, who could forget the legendary host, William Shatner?
If you missed it, check local listings of visit Amazon.com. We discuss Goatman, Mothman, the Chupacabra, the Mongolian Death Worm, and lots of other highly strange entities.
Check out that screen shot of yours truly in the upper left. Now maybe everyone will stop asking me why I always wear a hat.
You’ve likely noticed I’ve been quiet for a long time. Even though the silence here has been deafening, I have not been idle.
I hope some of you had the opportunity to see me on Travel Channel’s new series In Search of Monsters. I appeared in episode #5, which was all about a terrifying creature called the Wendigo.
A huge part of this particular episode was Mindy Rossette’s bizarre encounter near Holy Hill back in 2014. Below is here sketch of the creature she and her daughter witnessed dart in front of them.
Was it a Wendigo? Was it Goatman? I couldn’t say, but hopefully now that the incident is one again in the media, another encounter will occur and provide some compelling evidence.
If you missed the episode, check your local listings or visit Amazon.com.
I believe this is why Holy Hill Basilica is located here. It is some kind of vortex and it’s possible people are seeing interdimensional beings and elementals.
I just finished watching an episode of The Dead Files on The Travel Channel. They helped a family who has a horse farm right below Holy Hill which sounds like it is in this area. The people were being haunted by a shadow figure and Amy Allan had a sketch done of the shadow being and it looked exactly like this. She said that area is a vortex and the land is sacred, yet doomed. It tries to suck people in and make it become part of the land. Several people have died while visiting holy hill. The original owner of these people’s property, last name Wren went insane there back in the 1880’s. The episode is On Demand the 9-26-19 episode.
