Daddy's Little Ghoul™

House of the Wolf Man

2009-07-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

In 1944, "House of Frankenstein" was released, which was followed by "House of Dracula" in 1945. Apparently, "House of the Wolf Man" was supposed to happen soon after, but never did. So director Eben Mcgarr took it upon himself to make that third film, which stars Ron Chaney, the grandson of Lon Chaney Jr (the original Wolf Man).

How very cool!

-c

Back from Disney World

2009-03-25T12:40:00.000-07:00

Getting back from Disney World recently got me thinking about all of the old Disney stuff that I enjoyed so much as a kid.

Here's one of my favorites:

-c

Jane's Addiction

2009-02-23T20:35:00.000-08:00

It's hard to describe how it makes me feel to watch this...nostalgic, excited, elated, exalted... apparently a lot of "e" words. This summer the original line up of Jane's Addiction (yes, Eric Avery is back!!) is touring with Nine Inch Nails. Yeah...I know. What else needs to be said?

Watch all of the videos here.

-c

Almost no one can escape...

2009-02-09T10:43:00.000-08:00

I know this has been out for a while but I just had to resurrect...

"That's just the wheelchair talking!"

-c

Crotched by an American Icon

2009-02-02T09:49:00.000-08:00

Best Moment in the Super Bowl:

zero nine

2009-02-01T21:56:00.000-08:00

Wow...almost a full year, huh? Well, I'm sure I've long since lost any followers I might have had but if anyone is still out there, thanks for checking back in every once in a while.

A lot has happened in a year. Some good, most bad. I buried my cat of 15 years last January and then buried my mother in September. My daughter has grown at least 3 inches and is now a seven year old who just keeps getting more and more beautiful with each passing day. Home brewing became my new obsession. Created my own little brewery under the name Black Cat 13 Brewery, in honor of my sweet cat and partnered with my friend Mike Portscheller last May to create our first(and one of our best) home brews... Milky Chin Cream Ale. Since then, we've brewed 8 different styles, all with varying degrees of success but all have been delicious. My wife and I took our first tropical vacation, which was quite a roller coaster of emotions. We were either having a great time or a horrible time. There really was no middle ground.

Since September, I've taken a sort of sabbatical from...well, pretty much everything. Haven't been working on my own art, hadn't worked on a lot of comic coloring, haven't been working on any new designs or imagery for Daddy's Little Ghoul, in spite of having a wonderful script by my friend John Schirano, I've created labels for BC13 but haven't pursued all of the other things that I want to create for it, lost contact with a lot of people... basically took a break from everything.

I wasn't using my mom's passing as an excuse...rather, a reason to take a step back and focus on the most important things in my life, my family and my own health. And as 08 drew to a close, I was determined to make 09 better. And I am.

I've picked up my pencil again and have been sketching at least one page worth of content a week. I played around with the idea of making myself sketch one thing everyday and post them but..baby steps. But I have been fleshing out John's DLG story and am going to make a children's book out of it, rather than a panel-by-panel comic. www.BlackCat13Brewery.com has been purchased and the website is almost finished being designed. Mike and I have big plans for our little brewery in the coming year and it's very exciting. I've volunteered to be an art teacher of sorts for my daughter's first grade class. Taking our first trip to Disney World next month. Selling our house and trying to buy one that better fits our needs as we move into the next phase of our lives. New president. Transition. Change.

It's going to be a good year.

-C

Hoppy Halloween!

2008-03-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

With the inevitable arrival of everyone's favorite egg slinging rabbit, what better time to talk about Halloween!?

As you can see, Hope was a black cat. Which was a nice change from the pinky princess girly stuff all of the other little ghouls that came to my door were wearing. Next year I'm hoping for a lil' witch or tiny vampire. "Princess of the Night". M did her eyes and I did the rest. Nothing more fun than shopping all the Halloween stores for every variety of black cat ears you can find.

Also, by doing so, I finally scored the fog machine of my dreams. And for half price! I'm just a few tombstone cut-outs and green and blue flood lights away from the ultimate front yard cemetary!

We also had a nice collection of Jack O' Lanterns this year. M, who's pumpkin insides could not possibly be more clean, carved a nice haunted scene. Hope, who hasn't quite stepped up to carving yet, drew a cat (of course) and a happy jack and I decided to step up the creepy a bit from previous years.

What I love about Hope's designs is that I always think, "I don't know if this is really going to work..." and when I'm done cutting them out, they look great!

And I discovered that I reeeeally liked how mine turned out. Thus I took an unhealthy amount of photos of him. Enjoy!

And lastly...the morning after.

So sad.

click...drag...click...drag

2008-03-01T21:34:00.001-08:00

So... tonight.

On the top secret project that I've been on for the last .......forever......I'm creating the biggest colorhold the world has ever seen!!

Mwaha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ack!...cough...wheeze...cough...

Research is Hard

2008-02-26T10:27:00.000-08:00

...and time consuming. That's not to say that's all that I've been doing since September of last year (there's been the procrastinating) but I have been doing a lot of it. Really want to make sure that I'm not unintentionally ripping someone off. At least I know I won't be intentionally ripping someone off...like this: Hot Topic soap t-shirt rip-off.

So there's been the research of that as well as researching/learning CSS. I'd really like to transform this blog into DLG Headquarters, as well as showcase my portfolio, sell prints and copies of books that I've worked on, that sort of thing. So I've been looking at a way of really sprucing it up. I'd love to see it happen within the next couple of weeks...but like research, CSS is hard.

On a wonderfully positive note, we've added a new member to the DLG family. John "Big Daddy" Schirano has joined us on writing duties! He's really excited to be a part of it and collaborating with him has certainly renewed my excitement in the project. We've come up with a bunch of cool new designs and characters and some hilarious situations. I've got around 8 pages of story from him that are absolutely beautiful. I actually got chills when I read the last page.

So far I've thumbnailed out around 6 pages and Hope and I have begun drawing the intro.

Another cool thing about doing all that research, is that I found tons of inspiring artists and blogs out there that I can't wait to share (and eventually put in my "Links" section, whenever I get one).

I give you Aaron Blecha. What an amazing talent! I first got turned on to his work thru Kreepsville's Cereal Killers blog. His ghoulies and beasties are the bestest. Be sure to check out his blog and site and watch some of the sweet sweet animation!

Until next time, Kreepy Kidlettes!

-c

Site News

2007-09-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

I've been working on the new DLG site as of late. Some pretty cool stuff. Javascript, cascading style sheets, lots of bells and whistles...now I just have to come up with some content. ;p
Speaking of content, my comic coloring gallery is back online and is about as up to date as I can make it. Check it out. I'm dying to add some of the pages that I've colored for this project w/Bisley but I still have to keep it under wraps. But man, when the news breaks and I can start showing around some preview images (not to mention the video trailers, posters, soundtrack, etc), it's going to be everywhere!

Everyone will be sick of seeing all this Hellfire from me.

Hope and I are still sketching in between her dance classes and homework (yup, that's right folks, homework in kindergarten). Hopefully I'll get some of those scanned in this weekend.

Also, I've revamped the logo a bit for the second wave of DLG shirts to come out. Just in time for Halloween!

Sacriliciously yours,
c

Halloween...a month early

2007-08-31T12:28:00.000-07:00

Well, tonight's the night...Rob Zombie's Halloween!! From what I saw at SDCC and bits on the web, it's going to be fantastic. The only thing that bothers me is that it's released so early. And while it's Halloween all the time in my head, it just seems too early to watch it. End of September would've been perfect. At least around here, leaves would be falling, autumn chill in the air... ah well.
Speaking of Zombie, Rue Morgue Radio has an excellent 2 part interview with him. And Tomb Dragomir, the demon DJ, concocted a Halloween themed show for the Aug 24th episode. Great stuff.
Another great little horror radio show is Doktor Viktor Von Kreep's Headless Spectre Radio. Tho there hasn't been a new one in quite some time, I can listen to the old one's for hours. Each show is packed with creepy commercials, horror trailers, spooky music, excerpts from films. Always puts me in a Halloween state of mind.
Also, be sure to check out Von Kreep's other projects, Monster Shindig and Cereal Killers!
-c

Watercolour

2007-08-24T09:37:00.000-07:00

Here is a watercolor piece I did when we were coming up with different designs for Daddy's Little Ghoul herself. I was thinking of an almost Charles Schulz type of style. Very simple shapes, only unlike Schulz, very clean lines. Almost as if each character were a 3D model.

I soon discovered that no matter how hard I try, simple and smooth just aren't inherently in me. While I can do it, it doesn't just flow... and I want DLG to just flow from me. I don't want to have to "work" on it. Granted, I'm still trying to keep things as simple as possible for my own sanity but my natural way of drawing has taken her design in a different direction.

Regardless, this was the first time I'd picked up a paint brush in about 10 years. 10 years!!! That's far too long but (hopefully) explains why it looks so amateurish. But man, was it fun.

-c

mmmm...Sacrilicious

2007-08-16T06:42:00.000-07:00

For those of you that saw The Simpsons Movie, you probably missed our cameo. We were only on screen for a second. Here's a pic that they took of us on the set.

-c

hrm...

2007-08-14T07:40:00.000-07:00

First and foremost I have to extend my sympathies to the family and friends of Mike Wieringo. He passed away this past weekend at the young age of 44. While I didn't know him personally, I've been a fan of his art and of his humbleness and professionalism. RIP, Mike.

Nothing since March, huh? That's disappointing. Tho, not exactly unexpected for a Chad Fidler blog I guess. What's been going on over the last 4 months, you ask? Well, even if you don't...I'm going to type it anyway.

M and I are both another year older. She's more beautiful with every year that passes. I just seem to be getting less hair and new mysterious pops and creaks in my bones. And speaking of beautiful, Hope has grown so much. She's now nothing but legs! Where'd my bald lil'baby go? Now she's 5 ("and a half", she makes sure to tell everyone) but looking 16. Eep!

My day job as Art Director allowed M and I to attend Comic Con International in San Diego, last month. One of our biggest clients at work is HasbroToyShop.com and at a dinner with them they said that I should come out and help them with the show and I agreed. ;) The show was amazingly huge. I've heard all about how big it is but nothing can really describe it's size. No wonder it's a 4 day show.

Some of the highlights:
- Dinner w/M at the Liars Club
- Getting to see Jim Heffron at the show. Thanks for taking the time to seek me out, dude! In that place, that's a lot harder than it sounds.
- Getting to finally meet Michael Mendheim, the genius behind the mysterious project that I've been coloring. We've been working together for years but had never met in person. Thanks for the beer, Michael!
- Meeting and getting drinks w/my collaborator on the Mendheim project, Simon Bisley! I must admit, after stories that I've heard of Simon, I was a little intimidated... but what an amazing guy. We left the convention hall and went for drinks at an Irish style pub and had the most amazing conversation about self-respect, living life to it's fullest, self-worth...it's hard to describe but I'll be taking what we talked about with me for the rest of my life. What a truly awesome guy. I hope we have the opportunity to meet again.
- Room service w/M Saturday night. We had both had our fill of "nightlife with comic geekdom" so we got ourselves a couple of bottles of wine and hid away in our room for the night.
- The wine guy at the bottle shop M and I stopped at. "You let her breathe...15...20 minutes..." >;)
- Attending the Rob Zombie Halloween panel and then later getting to meet Tyler Dane at the HTS booth. He's playing Michael Myers. Really great (and tall!!) guy.

I'm sure there was more that I'm leaving out... it was a lot of hard work (there are a lot more people out there that want to buy a Stan Lee Spider-man figure than you would think, true believers) but a lot of fun as well.

Beyond that, I've just been trying to enjoy Summer. Treating every weekend like it's a vacation, cooking at least one gourmet meal a week and spending as much time outside as time (and heat) will allow.

On the DLG front. Hope is still very excited about it. She's always making suggestions for stuff to go in it. And we've both started sketching in our sketchbooks. Her's is quite a bit more full than mine but at least I'm drawing again.

Hope everyone is having a great summer!

-c

Hippity Hoppity, Easter's On It's Way!

2007-03-29T13:06:00.000-07:00

The Easter Bunny Hates You.

Sorry for the lack of updates. We're working on the site now and getting some drawing done. Did someone say coloring books!?

-c

Double.oh.seven

2007-01-08T05:17:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, everyone.

The Holidays went well. Too fast of course...and time with my daughter and wife, even faster still. But we did a lot of talking and planning for Daddy's Little Ghoul. To keep me inspired, P even got me a new LENORE sketch book just for new DLG material. So I'm hoping to hold on to this level of excitement throughout the year and really kick this project into high gear.

Thanks for the support and please keep checking back for updates!!

Here's to the New Year!

-C

Christmas time is here...

2006-12-13T06:15:00.000-08:00

As much as I love Halloween, Christmas still comes out on top as my favorite holiday.

I suppose it has more to do with how all of the things associated with Xmas make me feel like a kid again. I have so many great Christmas memories and now, being able to see it all new again through my daughter's eyes, is wonderful.

Speaking of wonderful, it's pretty much all melted now, but Mother Nature graced us with around 18in of snow a little over a week ago. I'm in the extreme minority around here but I love snow! Everything about it...even the shoveling. I'm hoping we'll see some more before the 25th.

In the world of DLG things have been progressing slowly. Very slowly, unfortunately. After Wizard World Chicago, work on Athena Voltaire kinda blew up and in still trying to keep the Bisley project moving, I had to put DLG to the side. Of course, none of these things affected my daughter's production. So I have a ton of new drawings from her to get posted up.
Also, we're still making plans...so 2007 is the year for Daddy's Little Ghoul!!

And hopefully I'll get the chance to post more before the 25th but if I don't, Merry Christanukkawanzaa and Joyous Yule to all and to all a good night!

Bah humbug!

Wizard World Chicago

2006-07-28T07:06:00.000-07:00

Well... a week from today I'll be in Chicago for the Wizard World Convention. Since DLG is still in it's infancy I won't have my own table in Artist's Alley this year but hope to make a big splash there next year.

I will, however, be in the Ape Entertainment Booth in the new "Small Press Area" for the majority of the show. I think they'll have scheduled signing times and stuff so look for me there and get a Daddy's Little Ghoul postcard or ask to see my sketchbook.

I'm also putting together a slide show of some of the pages that I've colored on my laptop. Hopefully I'll have some table space to set that up.

I decided against Cafepress.com. Yes they do black shirts now but they're not as customizable as I'd like and you have to open a new shop to do more than one black shirt design. Instead I'm going with Zazzle.com. I've already gotten my shirt from there and it is awesome! Great quality, great printing and great turn around time. I'll probably be wearing it to the show on Saturday, so look for it! ;)

You can order it here.

I know it's pretty steep to pay for a t-shirt but you won't be sorry.

If you do pick one up, be sure to drop me a line. Or if there are products that you would like to buy, let me know!

See you in Chicago!
-c

Products

2006-06-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

So... things are moving. Slowly, but they're moving.

I'm currently setting up a Cafe Press shop, mainly so that I can make t-shirts for myself ;)

I'll let you know when it's up and running. In return you guys will have to let me know what sort of products you'd like.

-chad

666

2006-06-06T20:31:00.000-07:00

Happy 06/06/06 Everyone!

-c

Randomness

2006-05-31T12:42:00.000-07:00

Trying to keep the updates a little more on the timely side. Here are a couple of character sketches.

It's been really nice to draw again, even though I'm under the gun with a couple of coloring deadlines. So if you're really jonesin' to see something new while waiting on DLG news, head on over to Geekenweizen. John and I are constantly updating with new art and beer reviews.

As always, drop me a comment. Let me know what you think.

-C

What Was

2006-05-18T10:22:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd start out by telling a little about the project and posting the two page story that I did.

She's a character that is inspired by my 4 year old daughter. Who, in the upcoming episodes, will be doing a little writing and drawing of her own for it.

The story behind DLG started with me coloring a book for Lawdog Comic's Jim Heffron, called Territory 51 (you can check out some pages in my Gallery section).

In the process of making that book, Jim and my family became good friends. When I brought up an idea that I had about a character based on my daughter, he told me that he was going to be putting together a "jam book", the Lawdog Primer, and he basically made me draw the 2 pages that are in there. ;)

I had talked to my wife about my ideas but was having a lot of trouble thinking of a way to tie them all together, and she stepped up to the plate and did all the writing. And those are the 2 pages that appear here as well as in the Primer.

After the book was published, we talked a lot about how we didn't want to put another "Wednesday Addams" clone out there. There are enough little spooky "goth" girl characters. We really want DLG to stand out. So we've completely revamped the premise! Turned DLG's world upside down and I'm really excited with the new direction.

So...even tho I'm a little embarrassed by these 2 pages, if it weren't for them, this project wouldn't be where it is today.

-c

Daddy's Little Ghoul™ © 2006 Chad and Marni Fidler. All Rights Reserved.

Beginning

2006-05-17T11:36:00.000-07:00

Here it is. Hopefully, the first of many posts to keep everyone up to date with the latest happenings of Daddy's Little Ghoul.

We're completely reworking the core concept of DLG and I couldn't be happier. New direction, new characters...new everything. Unfortunately it's pushed the launching of the site back a bit but it's definitely going to be worth it.

Our goal is to have the site up and running by this year's San Diego Comic Convention and have merchandise for sale at Wizard World Chicago .

In the meantime, keep checking back here for exclusive sketches and designs as we count down the days.

-C&M

Daddy's Little Ghoul™ © 2006 Chad and Marni Fidler. All Rights Reserved.