First Drive-In of the year! 6-22-20

It was a pretty warm day out and the whole family was at home. While sitting around and working on the upcoming Midnight Magazine I was thinking this is a good night to hit the drive-in, after all I could use a break, and on top of that we all been talking about the various classic movies that will be playing this year, most notably JAWS.  Now I am getting excited because I have never seen JAWS on the big screen and I just had to go! and even more fun is Jurrasic Park is the second billing and a lot of you know I love dinosaurs... so its a no brainer to go see this double feature! I get on the computer to look for the drive-ins around us, from what I find out, the closest ones are only open on Friday and Saturday... so I started looking for the next closest and we decided to hit the road to The MIDWAY TWIN DRIVE-IN in Ravenna/Kent only a 45-minute drive from us.

The Billboard as we reach the destination...

 We left early to ensure us a good parking spot and in case there would be a large capacity of folks, it seems like we were only the second vehicle to arrive! We also had plenty of good parking choices, and for those who want to know about the social distancing, I say it went well, cars had to park one whole spot away from each other, this was a bonus as there is plenty of room to even sit outside if you wanted too.

The sign above the ticket booth...

After parking, we began to talk with each other while we had some time on our hands. Finally, the screen comes to life with old Drive-In trivia and an old black and white cartoon ad for PIC Mosquito Repellent that I really liked.

A mosquito lighting up a PIC repellent and about to die...

After the Various trivia and old ads of Popcorn, Hot dogs and etc... The movie begins...

Feature #1 - JAWS

I was excited like a little kid! I cranked up the Drive-in frequency on my stereo and  I was so ready for the JAWS big screen experience!

Quint is having a little shark problem...

I saw this movie over the years on television and the various media formats, VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, etc... Finally, it was a thrill to experience JAWS on the big screen! Angie and JD were just as thrilled as I was. Various old concession food ads were playing at the intermission, Popcorn, Hot dogs, Ice Cream, you name it! 

Quirky looking character during a popcorn commercial...

We all had some Drive in grub, Angie and I had hot dogs with mustard and deep-fried pickle spears while JD was content with a big ole bag of good ole buttered popcorn.

The Intermission is over, and Jurassic Park begins...

Feature #2 - Jurassic Park...

This is another film that we did not catch at the Theatre or Drive-In so yes, this is going to be another thrilling watch for us, especially for me as I have been a fan of Dinosaurs growing up. ROAR!!!

Yikes! The T-Rex is loose!!!

After the movies were over, we left the lot and headed back home. This was a great night, even though it was late and I was a little tired from all the excitement, I was still mentally perked up from watching all these big monsters on the big screen and was grinning with satisfaction the whole drive home... We will be trying to catch up to as many classic flicks that will be playing at the many drive-ins this summer, I even heard the Evil Dead is one of them... I just cannot wait to take off and do this under the stars again...

Mr. Fright

First Movie Night Under the Stars 2020

It has been a little while since I made any blogs here since the COVID 19 pandemic came on. Just like everyone else, I switched up priorities in order to ensure the safety of the family for work and at home. Anyways, vacation for me started this week and I thought it was a good time to start getting onto the yard work and preparing the movie screen for Dead End Cinema, now while we are all still on social distancing, Dead End Cinema will still be open for our usual number of friends and the family that come out to watch movies with us, we normally have around 5 to 8 people on average. 

It has been a couple years since we applied any new coat of paint, Last year the old tarp had a hole in it and the water ran down the side giving it a big stain in the upper right corner, not that it affected anything we watched last year but a good coat of paint is needed to preserve the wood anyways. We can thank Angie for a job well done! 

Waiting for Sundown...

Thursday, May 27th marks a special day, it is our 25th anniversary! I have been lucky to have Angie, a very special woman in my life and we look forward to many more years together! Now that I got all that softy stuff out of the way... I started the morning finishing up whatever yard work that needed to be done. I am like it was so beautiful outside, I check the weather report and it says the rain was coming in the next few days starting around 2:00 a.m. so I'm like "Okay, I'm going to play a movie outside tonight" When the Babesweets came home, I told her I'm taking her out for dinner, We decided to go to our favorite Mexican restaurant, El Campesinos, Yum! 

Poster

Now, I have read on various social media platforms about this movie, VFW, so we decided to go up to my local Family Video to look for it, lo and behold they had one copy! With all the excitement building up, we hurry back home setting up everything outside and preparing for our first night of the year under the stars starting with this movie. 9:00 pm rolled around and it is dark enough to begin the film. The three of us Angie, me, and my son JD were so ready to enjoy the evening! 

Opening title on the screen...

VFW - Here we have some old war veterans who get together to do the normal drinking and reminiscing of old times and war tales at the VFW club and suddenly, a teen runs into their bar being chased down by punks doped up with a drug called "Hype" under orders of a drug overlord to retrieve the teen, but these veterans weren't having any of that and decided to fight back and protect the teen... All hell breaks loose! This is all I need to say! I recommend this film, I will be buying my own personal copy. Nuff' said. I kept this synapse short and sweet as to not give away any spoilers. Mr. Fright says, Go check it out! With the film being over and it's still nice outside, The little lady needed to go off to bed since she has to work. JD and I decided to play Rocky 3 since he has not seen all of the Rocky movies. We've been watching those and for me, a revisit is always good. Dead End Cinema has an opening night on Saturday, June 13th for everyone. We have not picked out any of the movies yet, Just stay tuned to our page on Facebook for updates.

History of Midnight Magazine - Issue #2

Issue #2

Yes! After the release of the first magazine, The question was "How often do I want to publish this?" after much thought, we decided on two times a year and stay as consistent as we can to get them published, the months chosen are January and July. The reason I preach consistency is I noticed a few zines so far behind their due date that many people began to lose interest, and I wouldn't want to do this to any audience we may have. The extra months gives many of us enough time to research and do articles and get them submitted in a reasonable amount of time while we work our paying jobs and time to do our extracurricular activities. Anyways, Issue #2, If I recall right, we had someone to do the cover art that did not come through, so I reached out to the amazing Colin Rodgers of Eerie Crypts and Naked Chicks to see if he could come up with something in a short amount of time, lo and behold, he had some incomplete art that only needed some added touches and details and this became the cover! This issue has the white interior pages as opposed to the cream we used in issue #1, slightly thicker paper stock for the cover than the interiors instead of card stock that was used for issue #1, the issue grew to 74 pages of art and contents and these are the reasons for the changes to be able to make it all cost-efficient for all of us. Many of you who bought this mag will notice the big changes in the formatting and set up compared to the original first issue run, this was the first step in making this magazine better. We have movie reviews/recaps of Alucarda by Lenny Buccellato, The Devils Rain by John Shatzer which is also a Blu-ray review for Severin films, Rockula by Mike Simms, Happy Birthday to Me by Vanessa Alucarda and The Blood Spattered Bride by Rick McKinney. We have book reviews, Death Tour by Mike Howlett, this was done on notebook paper as if it was an assignment in school, Reign of the Dead by John Shatzer. Fiction stories, The Silent City by Graham Swanson, The Widows Walk by Lenny Buccellato, An Occurrence at Franklin Hill Cemetary by Ed Holmes, Playing Possum by Terry Alexander. There are comic reviews by Kimberlee Jandreau and Doug Randazzo. Interviews with Jason Stephenson and Mike Mongillo. There are many other interesting articles, fan stories and paranormal stories by many folks mentioned above along with Denise Hargrove, David CJ Bunn, Christina Viruet, and myself. The Artists in this magazine feature works by Colin Rodgers, Doug Randazzo, Allen Koszowski, Matt "Putrid" Carr, Greg Mattson, Scott Brokos (Inked By Tony Fero) Erika Wright, Jeff Lamers, and Myself. This issue contained a few grammatical errors that I noticed much later which has made us much more diligent on looking for errors and such for later issues. Issue #2 is the lowest print run of the entire series, The reason being was I had worked out a deal with the print shop to do an "X" amount of books every now and then, as they run low, I will order 40 more, almost a "print on demand" as many of you will call it. When it came time to get the final 20 books, suddenly, without warning, the print shop was "Out of Business" so I left it at that...

Back Cover by the legendary Allen K.

There are 37 Contributor issues with the Green Cover variant and 143 regular issues with the white cover at 180 total. In conclusion, it was the toughest one to put together due to my learning the ways of an editor. Many folks I had heard from later on said they were sure I was going to be a "One and out and didn't think we had it in us to keep it going", for whatever reason they thought this, I wouldn't know... Being the "new kid on the block" it was an exciting time, I just needed to know how to network and keep it going, sales were slow yet pretty good to keep moving forward.

If anyone is still looking for this copy, you might get lucky and find one in the aftermarket like eBay or in the comics groups...
This concludes this History of MIDNIGHT! Magazine #2. I hope you all enjoyed it.
Mr. Fright~

Check out available products here... 

https://midnightmagazine.bigcartel.com/

Midnight #5, Have your heart ripped out for Valentines Day!

MIDNIGHT! #5 - Fantastic cover by Emanuele Taglietti of Zora La Vampira ripping your heart out for Valentines'! If you haven't gotten your filthy claws on this issue...
What ya waiting for???
order it here...

https://midnightmagazine.bigcartel.com/product/midnight-issue-5

Protect your loose action figures with Stasis Case!

I was at the local comic shop looking around and the subject of loose Star Wars toys came up, and while I was saying all my loose toys were in these baggies... I was given a RED FLAG and then they led me to these affordable cases they have at the shop...

Stasis Case - The Next evolution in the protection and storage of your action figure and toy collection...

Ok... I took some cases home and I really like these, they have 2 sizes and both fit Star Wars and G.I. Joe action figures, they can also fit many other toys such as Micronauts, Cereal premiums, and etc. The cases themselves are adjustable for toys that stand pretty tall, it also comes with a case label and an accessory storage packet... I recommend it.

For more information on Stasis Case, email Stasiscase@gmail.com or go to their 

Twitter page here: https://twitter.com/CaseStasis   or 

Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/Stasis-Case-2309582575963365/

Check out the pictures below for visual details. 

Mr. Fright

Happy Birthday Frank Frazetta!

Remembering the most influential fantasy artist who ever lived. 

The icon, Frank Frazetta (February 9, 1928 – May 10, 2010)

Here are some of my Warren magazines and EK Horror from Yugoslavia.

Domestic & International Postage Increases...

Yes, they did... while working on the first batch of orders I noticed small increments higher in the media and first-class or priority postage cost, but it wasn't anything for me to worry about, now the international orders, there is a BIG difference... while mailing one book under one pound overseas or across the border, the cost is up really close to what I have set in place to cover, I was ok for the moment... now, here is the killer... if you order more than ONE BOOK and this will put the package over one pound and you are from the UK or anywhere in the world it almost DOUBLED what it cost to ship a single book!!!

I had to play "Suck it up Buttercup" and take the hits on a few orders. I went on to the Big Cartel and sadly had to adjust the shipping cost accordingly. All I can say for our fans around the world is there isn't much any of us can do, I know you die-hards will always be around to pick up an issue. My best advice is to buy only one at a time in intervals, The magazine is only 2 times a year and the digest is once. If you must have bulk orders, Contact me at midnightmagazine2017@gmail.com for a quote on a package and ill see what I can do.

Sincerely

Mr. Fright