By CHRIS HAMMOND
Pete Von Sholly caught the horror bug early on. This, coupled with working in the film industry as a storyboard artist on countless present-day horror films has culminated in a new project: PETE VON SHOLLY’S HISTORY OF MONSTERS!
This unique, hardcover, accordion-style book opens to unleash 18+ feet of illustrated things that go bump in the night. Every well-known and obscure creature and monster is here, with Over 1000 beasts slithering shoulder to tentacle on one continuous mural of madness. Don’t worry if you’re unfamiliar with some of the creepy critters on display, as the book comes with a handy, 16-page Guide to Monsters. This who’s who of terror lists the names and movie titles from which each and every monster hails, with annotations by Sholly talking about each plate!
Indiegogo exclusive perks include:
-A set of four 4″ x 6″ postcards filled to the brim with grinning and snarling creatures. Available as add-on, as well.
-Pete Von Sholly Original Art. Back this “limited to 10″ perk to get a 5″ x 7” one-of-a-kind sketch by Von Sholly. Subject of sketch will come straight from the demented mind of the artist. (No request on this perk).
More perks and add-ons will be announced as the campaign goes on.
Pete Von Sholly was nice enough to answer a few questions about the Indiegogo campaign and his love of monsters:
You have a long history with the horror genre. What is something that budding horror enthusiasts should know about the genre in general?
They should get this book before they’re a moment older! But seriously PETE VON SHOLLY’S HISTORY OF MONSTERS would be a great introduction to the genre. No, really! Monsters and horror go way back and are universally and obsessively loved and created by human beings. Reading some Lovecraft might be good. H.G. Wells provided gigantic concepts that have been elaborated on thousands of times: The Invisible Man, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, for chrissakes! [All] from one writer! Knowing where we came from helps makes sense of where we are and where we might be going.
How did you come up with this book/mural idea?
I think that, unconsciously, I was influenced by the big Rudolph Zallinger dinosaur mural (called “The Age of Reptiles”) which is on a wall at the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven, Connecticut. It was featured prominently in LIFE magazine way back and blew my tiny mind. So, many years later, I got this great idea to do a mural of monster history and evolution. If I’d known how much work it was going to be, I’d probably not even started! But I thought of how monsters are in so many religions and folklore going back to the beginnings of human history and how our earlier ancestors peopled (or non-peopled) the darkness with THINGS… So the story went from those times through to the middle ages with witchcraft and devils and such into early literature. Dracula, Frankenstein, and so many others started out as books, then pulp fiction, then movies, etc, so that the thing just grew naturally. And there’s real history here – monsters are reincarnated from early fiction to movies to animation to remakes endlessly.
PETE VON SHOLLY’S HISTORY OF MONSTERS Indiegogo Campaign is now live. Look for more works by Pete Von Sholly on his website and at the Clover Press online store.
