P.L. McMillan & Horrorhound 2018
Evening, ghouls and ghosts!
I wanted to let everyone know that I'll be attending the Horrorhound Convention in Indianapolis this year! I'm not going as a vendor (maybe in the future sometime), just as a guest -- super stoked to meet Robert Englund and Bruce Campbell! I even designed some artwork that I am having printed on a t-shirt to wear, feast your eyes on this (just pretend this blond model with the adorable dimples that the print shop uses to send print previews is me!):
It's pretty awesome ... and ridiculous, but I love it! I'm going to bring a fabric pen and hopefully be able to get Robert to sign it. I am planning to also make a t-shirt based on Bruce's character Ash. I'll post it up here if I get that done for the convention!I actually had a different image drawn out first, but unfortunately I couldn't find a print shop that could do this level of detail printing on a black shirt.
Still, I think my final design is just perfect. I can't wait to see Robert's face!
Also, fun fact. I was thinking over the Nightmare on Elm Street movies as I worked on these designs and I remembered the one death that really frightened me as a kid.
It was the death of Carlos, the deaf kid, from Nightmare on Elm Street 2, where Freddy stabs the poor guy in the ear with a massive Q-tip. He manages to get a hold of Carlos' hearing aid and turns it into a terrible parasite so that, when Carlos gets it back and puts it in his ear, it latches on -- throbbing, throbbing with malicious intent. It amplifies every sound, causing poor Carlos massive amounts of pain until his head finally explodes.I tried to find a video of the sequence, but only found one that captured the very end of the poor Carlos' nightmare death:
The thing was that it wasn't the head exploding that freaked me out, it was everything before. I always got ear infections as a kid. Some of them were so bad that any small sound was like an ice pick stabbing my eardrum. The throbbing of the evil parasitic hearing aid reminded me of the way my ear felt when it was infected.
I was also always scared of getting things stuck in my ear or messing things up so that I caused another ear infection, so the idea of a Q-tip being shoved in someone's ear was absolutely horrific for me!It still gives me the heebie-jeebies to think about it, to be honest.
Well, I found out that that death scene is actually Robert Englund's favourite one! I found this quote on syfy.com in an interview they had with Robert:
It’s such a Cronenberg head explosion. The guys loved doing that. But yeah, what I love is that it’s a real politically incorrect sequence, ya know. And I hate the fact… I know many, I don’t even know what the politically correct term is anymore… I don’t think it’s disabled anymore – special needs actors. Gosh, I work with actors that are in wheelchairs or have problems with their sight, and they don’t just want to play goody goody people all the time. They don’t just have to be the good guy. Or the nice guy. Or the saint. Or the martyr. They want to be bad guys and villains as well. And I love the political incorrectness of that. Freddy’s an equal opportunity serial killer. He doesn’t care if you’ve got a hearing aid. He’ll get ya. That’s my favorite Freddy kill. Because of all the ramifications for it.
I mean, fair enough Robert!
Anyway, so if anyone is also going to the convention, keep a lookout and say hi!
x P.L. McMillan