In this second animated episode of MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY BLABCO, I deconstruct one of my autobiographical comix from my Conundrum Press book REPRESENTED IMMOBILIZED! I’ll be @ the Conundrum Press table briefly, noon this Saturday, November 20, 2021 to sign copies @ the official Expozine Montreal book launch @ S.A.T. (1201 Saint-Laurent)! Come say hi! Click HERE or on the screencap below to watch!

Winter lockdown’s gonna be lonely so I made myself an imaginary friend to talk to about movies! In this very first animated episode of MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY BLABCO I look at the “Godfather of Gore” Herschell Gordon Lewis’s take on the swinging sixties: SUBURBAN ROULETTE (1968)! Making these quick & dirty because the sooner the better when it comes to movie reviews & this is my prototype/template so far! Lemme know how I can improve future episodes & what movies you’d like to see me tackle next! Click HERE or on the screencap below to watch!

Ah, that time I decided to review the Montreal Casino’s tribute to the art of film, which coincidentally became my two-hundredth comic strip for The Montreal Mirror. “What better way to celebrate my two-hundredth Motion Picture Purgatory,” I opine in my longwinded missive, “than by seeing the whole history of film encapsulated into a song & dance routine adjusted for feel-good familiarity, reaffirming my belief that there’s about as much chance at getting the general public to genuinely give a rat’s ass about ‘the cinema,’ let alone this strip, than there is of me winning big at the slots!” The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 2002 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “If you think you can control the outcome, you’re putting yourself at risk! -Loto-Québec brochure.” As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two from FAB Press still available. For original art & book purchasing info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

I made a massive Motion Picture Purgatory Floridasploitation cartoon map via author/programmer Kier-La Janisse for director Nicolas Winding Refn’s film archive site (Drive, Neon Angel). Now it’s finally being offered for download in high-resolution! Go to the “DOWNLOAD HD VERSION” link HERE to get it. You have to sign up to Refn’s BYNWR site to access the file but it’s free, no strings attached, & it’s well worth it because it gives you access to tons of complete ultra-rare/obscure trash films to watch, along with essays about them by renowned cult film critics. When they first published my map I was unhappy with how low-resolution it was because it made some of the text impossible to read. It was also meant as an interactive image which they decided against at the last minute. 

Though it’s not essential, here are my details on how you can trigger the interactive aspects of this comic: Download both images & open them up in whatever image-editing program you have. In Photoshop, for example, once you have both images opened, copy/paste image A over image B, creating two layers. Zoom in as you see fit, read the film & location descriptions in the legend on the left, find the proper numbered cartoon scenarios with the numbers that correspond to the descriptions, then alternate between layers by turning image A on & off to unlock the secret gags hiding underneath in image B!

Below is a teensy-weensy animated GIF excerpt depicting how the interactivity works with the cutaway portion for “Satan’s Children.” (If the image doesn’t animate here for you, just click on it & it’ll open in a new window where it does). Each of the films listed below get two illustrated entries, one in plain view & one in cutaway, plus the actual, still-existing locations where the scenes were filmed are addressed so you can take a walking trash-film tour of Florida & visit them yourself! TWO THOUSAND MANIACS (1964), HOLLYWOOD MAN (1976), SATAN’S CHILDREN (1975), EMPIRE OF THE ANTS (1977), SHE-DEVILS ON WHEELS (1968), ZAAT (1971), THE AMAZING MR. NO LEGS (1978), I EAT YOUR SKIN (1971), FROGS (1972), IMPULSE (1974), DEATHDREAM (1974), SHOCK WAVES (1977), MAKO: JAWS OF DEATH (1976), NUDE ON THE MOON (1961), & JIMMY, THE BOY WONDER (1966)!

That time I went to see Alice Cooper on acid! That time Freddy Krueger sprouted hypodermic needles from his fingers to torture an ex-junkie’s puckering drug-holes! Both around the same time! Here’s an ancient Motion Picture Purgatory I did, originally published in The Montreal Mirror early 1987, killing two birds with one stone; Alice Cooper live at the Verdun Auditorium & A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors! As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back). Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two still available. For original art & book purchasing info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Shot at the Sidney Mines in Nova Scotia, “the stubbies-&-back-bacon accents are thicker than Thirty-Weight Motor Oil on a cold morning & the characters are thoroughly convincing & refreshingly provincial, at no time does the cast seem like a bunch of Toronto or Montreal actors in rural drag even though that’s what they were”! -Caelum Vatnsdal; It Came from Canada: A History of Canadian Horror Cinema. The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 2006 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “Hosers Are Dead, Violets Are Blue…” As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two still available. For original art & book purchasing info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

“Now with more topless girls plus GPS systems that break down!” The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 2009 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “TCh-Tch-tch… HAw-Haw-haw…” As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two from FAB Press still available. For original art & book purchasing info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

I’ve got an incredibly soft spot for this raunchy actioner cuz it was filmed on the skuzzy streets of late-70’s Montreal & every urban exterior reminds me of aimlessly booting around downtown as a teen! And the fact that many of the locales get pummelled by legendary Rémy (James Bond) Julienne’s stuntmen is just icing on the cake! When a deliberately unlikeable gruff cop’s free-spirited sis gets croaked at a chichi party, he swaps protocol for Dirty Harryesque emotional outbursts trying to solve the convoluted whodunit! Robbery & murder complicate his quest when witnesses start getting picked off one-by-one! This mix of Italian giallo, poliziotto & stodgy US cop thriller hilariously unleashes one bum steer after another as blatant excuse to foist gratuitous thrills & set pieces in our faces! Mission accomplished! The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 2009 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “Wildest Montreal Car Chase Scene Ever Shot!” As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two from FAB Press still available. For original art & book purchasing info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Interview with the late NFB experimental animator Ryan Larkin! He was a fixture on the Main for decades. Living at the Old Brewery Mission, after panhandling on St-Laurent & Napoléon he would often wind down on the couch at S.W. Welch’s secondhand bookstore where I found him mourning the recent death of store mascot Rosie the Cat. He was the subject of CGI animator Christopher Landreth’s Oscar-winning short film Ryan where both interviewer & interviewee sprout Day-Glo Cronenbergian coral-reef tumors like mood rings. I asked Ryan to elaborate… The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 2005 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “Bitter-pill eye-candy!” As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

SOLD Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two from FAB Press still available. For original art & book purchasing info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Oh that Samuel L. Jackson, what a scenery-chewing card! Here he’s an over-the-hill 28-year veteran LAPD cop with race issues, who got that way forever bullying gangstas on the streets, & tho he moved to the burbs to separate his ugly day job from family life, once an interracial couple moves in next door his wires get crossed & he embarks on a campaign to scare them the hell away! The heading for this Motion Picture Purgatory which originally appeared in a 2008 issue of The Montreal Mirror was “What a (race) card!” As always; the original art’s for sale @ 100 bucks. More deets below or contact me for info. (To see image full-sized, click on it to open in a new window & use the magnify function).

Original art for sale for $100.00 CAD. Includes three items total: The pencil art preliminaries, the original finished B&W inks (signed & dated by author/artist Rick Trembles in pencil on the back), & a color newsprint tear-sheet (or B&W gray tones, depending on when it came out) from where it was originally published. Postage & framing not included. Motion Picture Purgatory Volumes One & Two from FAB Press still available. For original art & book purchasing info, contact Rick Trembles @ ricktrembles (at) hotmail (dot) com.