#jeff rovin

[joe-spookyy]

mfw i’m reading the re-animator novelization and dan cain references universal studios’s 1941 hit horror film The Wolf Man (i love universal’s monster movies and love to see them referenced): 😁

me when the author of the novel misspells larry talbot (the wolf man himself) as larry tolbot and i have to act like i’m not literally seething at this incredibly minor oversight: ☹️

[veryferaldistributions]

Canon about Herbert West from the RA novelization (Before Miskatonic):

* Very likely killed his parents, even if it was accidental. (Chemical fire.) Likely not convicted, as he inherited and then sold his family estates.

* He was 13 when this happened, and spent the next 5 years in the foster system.

* As a child, he developed a stiff neck from hunching over a microscope for so long. He tried to amend this by balancing encyclopedias on his forehead.

* Has an aversion to sound. His parents watched a lot of TV, which held no interest for him. One of the reasons he liked Zurich was because of how quiet it was.

* Also has instances where he takes others’ statements literally. (Very autistic-coded.)

* Poisoned one of his foster siblings, resulting in him having green semen. (How Herbert even KNEW about this side effect is never explained. Yick!)

* From Ontario, Canada, originally.

* Attended New York University for undergraduate. They gave him a full scholarship.

* Studied with Gruber for approximately 3 years before his untimely death. (West was 24 at the time.)

* Wrote a complaint letter about the medical community in a science journal that attracted Hans Gruber’s attention.

* Herbert got everything in Gruber’s will. (How this wasn’t grounds for a murder trial is beyond me.)

* Spent his childhood talking to himself while watching the grass grow through the sidewalks. His parents (unsurprisingly) sent him to a psychiatrist.

* Had an unspoken father/son relationship with Dr. Gruber. (BTW, Hill’s mentioning of Gruber is the reason he’s crying in that deleted scene, not Dan.)

[bivampir]

HUGE WIN FOR AUTISTIC HERBERT WEST TRUTHERS

[moiraiinesedai]

David using Gillian’s book like this is sending me

[cinematic-literature]

Vanilla (2019) by Will Dennis

Book title: 1001 Great Jokes (1987) by Jeff Rovin

[miles-the-man]

re-animator tumblr plz accept this shitty meme

[vintagerpg]

Speaking of encyclopedias, here’s the Encyclopedia of Super Villains (1987), by Jeff Rovin.

What a curious book, sort of an overview of pop culture villains, from everything from folklore to comic books to movie serials. There are hundreds of entries, detailing the character’s history, first appearance, costume and henchman. This is supported by full color plates (mostly of comic book covers) and black and white reproductions of comic pages and film stills. It is quirky as hell.

I adored this book as a kid, even though it was somewhat disappointing (not enough art, really, and it paled in comparison to the breadth of villainy in The Gamer's Handbook of the Marvel Universe). But that cover, by comic artist Ernie Colon, is worth the price of admission alone. How great is it? I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve stared at it, trying to decide what real characters the generics are meant to represent (feel free to sound off in the comments). There’s an accompanying volume dedicated to superheroes, too, but good guys are so boooooring.

In doing a bit of research for this, I learned some interesting stuff about author Jeff Rovin. Remember the How to Win series of tip guides for videogames in the late 80s and early 90s, like How to Win at Nintendo Games? Same Jeff Rovin. He also co-wrote a bunch of novels with Tom Clancy, worked for the defunct Weekly World News tabloid (he didn’t create Bat Boy, alas) and, in 2016, apparently went off the deep end and started claiming to have been a fixer for the Clintons, which earned him a bizarre 15 seconds of fame two weeks ahead of the election. So. Yea.  

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[the-final-sentence]

It was an airship from the lost world of Galderkhaan.

Gillian Anderson and Jeff Rovin, from A Vision of Fire