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News & Updates
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Chanting Monks Press, Diamond Comics Partner To Offer Retailers Free TV Commercial Chanting Monks Press President and founder Joseph M. Monks announced Wednesday the release of a television commercial that will be made available to retailers free of charge through Diamond Comics. The commercial, which stars The Cool Ghoul--living legend and longtime television horror host Zacherley--is intended to open up TV advertising to retailers who otherwise might not have the means or access to tap the TV market. "We know that TV advertising--from shooting a commercial for your store to buying air time, scares off retailers, so we shot one for them," said Joe. "This way, retailers can go after the XBoxers and the Japanimation crowd and everybody who's been spending more money on online gaming and videotapes because they don't know their local comic store exists." The commercial will have both a .30 and .45 second version, with product shot and fade time for retailers to customize the spot. "If you want, you can even be in it," Joe says. . "You are getting the raw files, so you can run your store logo at the beginning, the end, whenever you want. If you want to open on a shot of your store and go right into the spot, you have the means. If you want to appear to say how great your store is and give the information yourself, bingo, you can do it. We're providing the files on DVD so that with little effort, anybody can add what they wish, and go to their local cable or broadcast station and start booking space." "Most people think TV spots cost thousands each time they run, but not on local networks and cable TV. We know this from experience. Now, retailers can sit back, eliminate the cost of shooting their own spot, and just think about spending a few bucks for some MTV time, or Sci-Fi Channel time, places like that. That's who retailers want to get into their stores, people playing the latest horror video games and renting movies and watching TV. These are the customers they want to reach--but often can't." Starring Zacherley, the figurehead for the popular Zacherley's Midnite Terrors, the spot is pure Zach. Joe directed the spot at the April 2005 Chiller Theatre Horror Expo, a test-run for directing his feature film, The Bunker. The spot will be available soon to view on this site, as well as Joe's official movie site: |
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03/21/05 Ever wanted to appear alongside the Cool Ghoul? Want to impress your fellow darklings? Then this is the opportunity you have been waiting for--your chance to impress all the slugs in the slime pits and be the envy of the bog monsters on your block! Sunday morning at the Chiller Theatre Horror & Sci Fi Expo (http://www.chillertheatre.com) Chanting Monks Press will be shooting a web promotion in which you may be selected to appear with the legendary Zacherley himself. Requirements? Be wearing an original creature costume of your own design (not a trademarked character) that hides your human identity. Got tendrils? We Want You! Coated in a gelatinous membrane? Look like a walk-on from a 1950s era sci fi flick? Then not only will you be a hit at the Saturday night costume contest sponsored by the fine folks at HorrorBiz Magazine, we want you to ooze into our web promo for Zacherley's Midnite Terrors, the comic book hosted by Zach, which will be premiering its third fantastic issue at the April Chiller Expo. For more information, e-mail: editor@chantingmonks.com, or come on out to the show in your shape-changing best on Friday or Saturday and stop by the HorrorBiz table or the Chanting Monks Press table to get in on the action. If selected, you will need to be available in costume for pre-show on Sunday. Free comics for all who come in a creature costume! All ages welcome, minors please be accompanied by parent, guardian or the creature who spawned you. |
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02/10/05 Workin Music Curious about what Joe listens to while working through the wee hours of the night on Chanting Monks and other projects? Well, after talking about it in earlier columns, Joe has finally set up a new area on the JoeMonks.com web site with a list of music (and artists) that is frequently backgrounding his late night writing sessions. Hit the link to catch up with the music and artists Joe enjoys listening to while penning colums, scripting comics, or writing gory passages of mutilation and dismemberment! |
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01/31/05 Joe Monks Takes To The Airwaves Fans of good college radio and blistering criticism of pop entertainment such as Christina Aguilera and Ashley Simpson can catch Joe Monks this Friday afternoon at 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m. on WRGP FM 88.1 in Miami on the Galactic French Symbiance. For those not in the South Florida area, fear not. The station streams its feed on the http://wrgp.fiu.edu web site. Those who read The Monks Word often know that WRGP broadcasts several of Joe's favorite programs to listen to while working, including the goth/industrial/darkwave program Fusion Factory on Wednesday nights from 7-10 p.m.; The Living End (a showcase of 80s and 90s alternative rock) on Thursdays from 10 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.; Anything But Alanis (women who rock sans said former Nickelodeon star) Friday nights from 10 p.m. to 1:00 a.m., and The Spectrum, a program devoted to electronic, goth, darkwave, EBM, etc., which has changed times and is now believed to be on Thursdays at 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., though sports occasionally throws a wrench in the works. Monks will be a guest on the Friday afternoon entertainment talk show discussing horror, the Flowers on the Razorwire DVD, screenwriting, being a blind actor and anything else co-hosts Lamppost & Strangelove raise. For more info on the program, hit the http://wrgp.fiu.edu web site or drop Joe a line at editor@chantingmonks.com This Friday, radio, next time, The View! (Not really, but Joe finds the idea of being blind and appearing on a show called The View too ironic for words.) |
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12/10/04 Agony in Black Cancelled; Anthology no longer accepting submissions Publisher Joe Monks sent out hundreds of e-mails this past Friday, announcing that the horror magazine Agony in Black had been cancelled. Earlier this year, the title had relaunched with a new issue, Volume II Number 1, but issue 2 was waylaid by creator lateness after issue 3 had been solicited. Having to reschedule the entire series again, and considering both distribution difficulties and workload problems, led to the cancellation of the title. In a letter Monks sent to both creators and news outlets, including a number of writer's market newsletters, Monks cited a lack of sufficient distribution and too many upcoming projects on the Chanting Monks plate to warrant the resources the title required. As of Friday, December 10, all submissions had been responded to. The cancellation will allow Monks to devote more time to completion of the Sex Crimes anthology, the second volume of which is due out in 2005, and other ongoing titles, including the anthology comic book series Zacherley's Midnite Terrors (issue 3 is due out this coming April), and the launch of another continuing series, Dead Meat, due out in Summer, 2005. Also scheduled for release in 2005 is another Flowers on the Razorwire DVD, the follow-up to the Gardens of the Dead portfolio, entitled The Soil's Embrace, the much-anticipated Wulf & Batsy graphic novel, and Monks' novella, The Box, tentatively scheduled for the Fall. A second Goth Babes Calendar is already in the works for 2006. Keep watching this site for more news and updates about these, and other projects being added to the 2005 publishing schedule. |
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11/20/04 Special Animation Announcement! Frank Forte and the crew at Renegade Studios are happy to announce that their new animated show is finally ready for its premiere. The new animated series for kids is called " Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi" (try saying that three times fast after two shots of tequila!) and is slated to premiere this Friday the 19th (at 7:30 pm pacific, 6:30 central) right after Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends on The Cartoon Network. (Check TV Guide for east coast times.) The premiere consists of two episodes, each of which has three seven minute sequences. The two episodes will be rerun again beginning at 9pm Pacific Friday, and they will be rebroadcast on Saturday the 20th at 11:30 am and again Sunday the 21st at 7:30 pm. Frank told us, "We're proud of the show... its one of the few animated series that are completely done here in the US." For additional info and schedules, check out the Cartoon Network website. After the show, hit the site and find the contact form or e-mail address and
inundate the folks at Cartoon Network. Let them know that you want
to see more episodes, and that you wanna know when the toy line will be available.
The more the head honchos at The Cartoon Network hear glowing praise, the more
animation Frank & the boys can crank out, and the more programs may follow
suit with entirely US-based animation teams. Break a leg, Frank! (Especially
since you need the hands to draw!) |
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9/30/04 Newest RIPPERMAN Review Another great review for Ripperman is up and Joe Martino's graphic novel is less than two weeks away from your store shelves or via the mail if you ordered direct from us. What? Haven't ordered one yet? Read the review and then put in your pre-order while time allows. This 64 pager is going fast and the first printing is not going to last long. Read the review |
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08/28/04 RIPPERMAN Review |
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Joe Martino's Ripperman continues to generate waves as more reviewers around the industry take a look. This week, it is The Comic Fanatic's turn to glow about the soon-to-be-released Ripperman graphic novel, coming this October. You can check out the entire review at the link below. "When you read as many comic books as I do in a month, it takes a special kind of new comic book and character to stand out in my mind, especially with my addled memory. The latest standout? Joe Martino's Ripperman!" |
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08/13/04 Goth Babes Bust Out |
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Undoubtedly the hottest product Chanting Monks Press has released since the Gardens of the Dead portfolio, the Goth Babes 2005 calendar is top-quality artwork featuring 14 months worth of ladies of the grave and dangerous femme fatales. Work by some of the biggest names in the industry, including Mark (CONAN) Texeira, Ray Lago, Louis (VAMPIRELLA) Small Jr., Mike (Identity Crisis) Bair, Buzz, Billy (Carnopolis) George, Tim (FAUST) Vigil and more. Plus, Joe Monks dug up fun trivia facts, picked out a slew of his fave creators to share their birthdays with you (ever wonder what day Lucio Fulci was born? Lamberto Bava? John Carpenter? Linda Blair? the day THEM! premiered in 1954?). The calendar is more than a year's worth of sexy girls, fun trivia and celebrity birthdays. To see samples of the Hallmark-quality product, click here... |
08/12/04 A Nightmare from the crypt... |
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Chanting Monks Press has evolved significantly over the past 15 years. From opening the doors as Cry For Dawn Productions in 1989, to CFD/Visual Anarchy, up to the present day Chanting Monks Press, there has been a lotta horror put out by one of the longest-surviving independent presses in comics. Want to get a sampling from the 15 year period including a chance to get rare Cry For Dawn items like a signed Cry for Dawn Vol. 1 first printing? The lavender one-off tearsheet Webster Hall party invite? A copy of The Night Terrors signed by Monks & Wrightson? Everybody gets the special Louis Small Jr. promo poster for NightCry, and the full color trading card featuring Monks' sexy Sirens of Darkness painted by Mike Okamoto. The Nightmare 13 pack is only available for a limited time, (less than 180 remain as of August 9th) so check out the info here... Nightmare 13 Comic Casket |
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08/11/04 Ripperman Gallery opens... Joe Martino's long-awaited graphic novel, Ripperman, ships this October from Chanting Monks Press. But if you want to get a sneak peek at the first five pages, or see the stunning covers by Ben Templesmith and Jeff Pitarelli, check out the brand new Ripperman Gallery. See the RIPPERMAN Gallery |
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| Ripperman Trading Card | |
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| The first printed appearance of Ripperman, on a 1996 trading card. Illo by Joe Martino. | |
07/13/04 Flowers on the Razorwire DVD is Released
Joe Monks has worn many hats since he entered the comic book field professionally in 1989. Writer, publisher, editor, photographer for men's magazines, editor on over a dozen adult magazine titles, and most recently, screenwriter. Monks' short story "Chance Meeting" forms the main story for the first installment of a new film series being launched by Monks' Chanting Monks Press in tandem with outlaw publisher Hart D. Fisher of Boneyard Press. With Fisher directing the first short feature for Japanese publishing powerhouse Bienkasha, Monks wrote in a cameo for his friend and erstwhile publishing cohort. Fisher, in turn, paid the writer back in spades, by casting Monks not in a cameo, but as the co-star for the wraparound sequence. Even more unusual? Monks, who is blind, plays a sighted character.
Of the role, Monks notes, "It's not what I expected. In fact, I had originally done the Hitchcock thing for both Hart and myself, and had written in a brief cameo in the main story--Chance Meeting. It was easy enough--the script called for a blind guy to walk through a hallway at night, tapping his cane to amp up the tension. I figured that was a role I could handle." But Fisher instead chose to cast Monks as the male lead in the wraparound sequence, taking full advantage of Monks' bizarre looking, surgically ruined eyes.
"He's supposed to be a writer who is heavy into the S&M scene," explains Fisher, who created the Flowers on the razorwire comic in the early 1990s. "Which is how he encounters the female protagonist and Flowers on the Razorwire figurehead, the sadistic dominatrix Flower. When you see Joe on the screen, you're gonna see his eyes and wonder, 'What the hell kind of crazy hardcore stuff is he into?!'"
The author lost his sight in 2002 due to retinopathy, a complication that arose as a result of longtime diabetes. "Hart liked the fact that I don't have that phony, Hollywood 'blind guy' stare, you know, where the eyes never move? That's not the way it works. My eyes still track sound accurately, and I know what things look like...just not where they are. The hard part was hitting my cues by sound and hoping that when Hinalka (the Hungarian actress who portrays Flower) had her stiletto heel in my mouth, I didn't get my teeth kicked in."
n the wraparound sequence, which introduces the series figurehead and explains to a certain extent how she fits into the storyline, Monks plays a writer who has placed an ad in one of the Los Angeles sex trades looking for a dominatrix. When his Mistress arrives, however, Monks' character quickly finds that all is not what he expected.
"I'm supposed to be some bad boy true crime screenwriter," Monks says. "Some young punk bad-ass, trolling for a Mistress who can handle the fear factor. Flower hunts her prey through the sex trades, and once she gets a hold of you, she puts you in a bad way. You get a choice; tell her a story, a scary story, or she'll kill you in the most hideous manner."
One scene that raised concern among cast and crew was a harsh slap in the face, when Flower, sensing she has been disrespected, unloads on an unsuspecting Monks. "We really thought she was going to have a problem, you know, hitting a blind guy. We had to really work her up to do it in rehearsal. But when we rolled film and it was all on the line, she delivered. On the last take, she really hauled off and came close to breaking my nose."
The wraparound was shot on a four day schedule on location in Los Angeles and Hollywood, using film, instead of indy filmmaking's latest wonderproduct, digital video.
The main story sequences were shot several months earlier on location for the Japanese market. The short feature was wildly successful in the Far East. Adding the wraparound to frame the product for the American audience is something both creators believe will make it more marketable to the American mainstream. One part Twilight Zone and two parts Tales From the Crypt, Monks and Fisher believe the film series has television series appeal.
"We wanted to do this the right way, on film instead of DV," says Fisher. "The look, the quality, the feel of it is that of a real motion picture, not a soap opera. We may be pitching this as a television property, but it definitely looks far beyond what an episode of Friends or General Hospital looks like."
The DVD and VHS are currently available in retail shops and for online purchase. CLICK HERE to ORDER and GET IT SIGNED!
Monks and Fisher plan to continue showcasing the featurette at film festivals, such as the New York Horror Film Festival in Tribeca, where it received rave reviews. The duo are currently planning the second feature. Of acting again, Monks maintains: "I don't have any intention to, but Hart wants me to pop up again in something down the road, so who knows? As long as I don't get slapped around again, he can count on me."
Monks is currently working on another screenplay for the Flowers on the Razorwire series, a follow-up to his critically acclaimed first horror anthology "Stuff Out'a My Head," and several new comic book projects. He is available for interview through Media Services International.
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