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Serious Creatures
It’s 1974, Bobby Feckle is fourteen years old and sneaking onto the set of some movie about a shark terrorizing a New England tourist town. The movie will change Hollywood and Bobby’s life.
…If they can just get the damn animatronic shark to stop sinking.
Get a front row seat to the rise and fall of an industry and an art form; all from the perspective of an adolescent iconoclast who helped shaped both before he was even old enough to shave.
Written, drawn, colored and lettered by Tony McMillen (Lumen, An Augmented Fourth, Nefarious Twit) Serious Creatures, Reel One,: Never Been to California collects the first six issues of the horror-adjacent coming of age comedy series along with a generous dose of behind the scenes bonus features.
…If they can just get the damn animatronic shark to stop sinking.
Get a front row seat to the rise and fall of an industry and an art form; all from the perspective of an adolescent iconoclast who helped shaped both before he was even old enough to shave.
Written, drawn, colored and lettered by Tony McMillen (Lumen, An Augmented Fourth, Nefarious Twit) Serious Creatures, Reel One,: Never Been to California collects the first six issues of the horror-adjacent coming of age comedy series along with a generous dose of behind the scenes bonus features.
228 pages, Paperback
Published November 30, 2020
13 people want to read
About the author
Tony McMillen
16 books49 followersTony McMillen makes comic books as well as some books without pictures too.
Even though those usually also contain a few pictures.
He can’t help himself.
He’s behind Attaboy, the new oversized graphic novel disguised as a video game manual. The heavy metal horror novel An Augmented Fourth published by Word Horde, the sci-fi fantasy graphic novel Lumen and Serious Creatures; his comic book series about a teenage special fx artist working in Hollywood, riding the wave of practical effects that carried the blockbuster movie industry of the 70s, 80s and 90s.
He thinks Alien is a better xenomorph movie but Aliens is a better Ripley movie.
His go to karaoke song is “On the Dark Side” by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band.
He has recently started to add cinnamon to his chocolate milk.
Even though those usually also contain a few pictures.
He can’t help himself.
He’s behind Attaboy, the new oversized graphic novel disguised as a video game manual. The heavy metal horror novel An Augmented Fourth published by Word Horde, the sci-fi fantasy graphic novel Lumen and Serious Creatures; his comic book series about a teenage special fx artist working in Hollywood, riding the wave of practical effects that carried the blockbuster movie industry of the 70s, 80s and 90s.
He thinks Alien is a better xenomorph movie but Aliens is a better Ripley movie.
His go to karaoke song is “On the Dark Side” by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band.
He has recently started to add cinnamon to his chocolate milk.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
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March 6, 2023Holy shit. This is the most stylish comic I've read since The Wrenchies. McMillen's art style lends itself perfectly to "coming-of-age" in such a unique way, and Rob Bottin's story works as a really cool frame for everything McMillen does well (and I'm a sucker for the way this works as a faux-film-history piece).
Genuinely one of those rare, "I didn't know comics could look like this," experiences...wow.
Genuinely one of those rare, "I didn't know comics could look like this," experiences...wow.
November 26, 2020
The conventional comics industry sometimes seems as impenetrable and artistically suffocating as film so it's inspiring to see someone taking their art into their own hands with an amazing indie, writing and illustrating six-issue runs of a collision of ideas way too original for the mainstream (even collecting them all with bonus content and supplementary essays at the end of each series). McMillen's new tale, about a teenager who infiltrates the mysterious FX industry after stumbling onto the set of Jaws (er, I mean "FIN", just one of his increasingly clever film title parodies, my favorite probably being A Connecticut Werewolf in King Arthur's Court), combines several of my interests, and even introduces me to a couple more I didn't know I needed. Like he did in his first novel, Nefarious Twit (and probably his music), Tony McMillen explores lost dad/new dad territory, only this time those moments are almost exclusively done through his trademark jagged/kinetic imagery instead of text, which make them no less personal and much more harrowing. And just like the best novels, graphic or otherwise, almost every page has a zinger with a double meaning, like when our hero is involved in a special effects werewolf duel with a father figure turned rival turned friend, and their confrontation resolves with something to the effect of, "I think there was something from both of us in each of our transformations..." I'll read everything this madman does and always look forward to whatever medium he invades next.
March 13, 2023
A great book for people who like Rob Bottin's special effects work, listen to Rush, or were traumatized by Jaws. I just happen to be all three of those things so yeah it's pretty much perfect. Thanks for showing me this one Caleb!
December 4, 2020
The coolest book of 2020. If you are a horror film fan, this is a must. An excellent story inspired by the greats of special effects, and the art is flat-out killer.
October 18, 2020
Yes, I give five stars to every one of my own books but this time I'm right dammit! This is my best work to date. Luckily it's also my latest so I feel like I'm still riding this escalator up.
April 4, 2021
Amazing, amazing book! This is now one of my favorite graphic novels.
The art was so fantastic, I put the book down after 5 pages inspired to work on some of my own stuff that I was putting off.
And the references to other movies? I loved it! He’d reference the Universal movie monsters specifically, but more modern movies were coded. And it was fun to figure out what they were.
That’s when I came across Schlock. I had never heard of it! It was John Landis’s first film.
I’m loving this so much, I don’t want to read it in a single sitting. I want to savor it.
And there’s so much great stuff in here about the creative process.
Check this book out.
The art was so fantastic, I put the book down after 5 pages inspired to work on some of my own stuff that I was putting off.
And the references to other movies? I loved it! He’d reference the Universal movie monsters specifically, but more modern movies were coded. And it was fun to figure out what they were.
That’s when I came across Schlock. I had never heard of it! It was John Landis’s first film.
I’m loving this so much, I don’t want to read it in a single sitting. I want to savor it.
And there’s so much great stuff in here about the creative process.
Check this book out.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews