Yikesgeist is dreadfully delighted to share the 2025 Svengoolie Artist Collection. But first, how about an insidious interview with iconic penciler/inker and Artist Collection designer Terry Beatty?

"Scary" Terry Beatty created cover art for Scary Monsters magazine and its Monster Memories annuals for over 20 years— a legendary run that earned him a Rondo Award and praise from horror hounds all over the world. 

Comic book fans might be familiar with Terry's work co-creating the characters Ms. Tree and Wild Dog alongside writer Max Allan Collins. He spent over a decade inking various animated-style Batman titles for DC Comics, where he also worked on the first year of the Guy Gardner series, which saw the former member of the Green Lantern Corps developing new powers. He also worked on The Batman Strikes with artist and Svengoolie guest Christopher Jones. His horror/noir series Johnny Dynamite: Underworld is now available in book form through First Comics.

More recently, Terry illustrated the Sunday editions of The Phantom for King Features, and he currently writes and draws the daily and Sunday Rex Morgan, M.D. comic strip, published internationally in both English and Spanish.

Terry says painting the Svengoolie crew felt like a return to his Scary Monsters roots. But the real highlight? His 16-year-old youngster, Kirby, grew up watching Sven and is now "actually impressed by something his old Dad has done!"

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Yikesgeist: This isn't your first time designing something Svengoolie-related. Was the September 1993 "TV Horror Hosts" issue your first cover? Was that your first exposure to Sven?

"Scary" Terry Beatty: Although the logo I designed for the magazine had been appearing on Scary Monsters' covers for several issues already, #8 was the first to feature a cover illustration by me. Sven was one of many horror hosts who appeared on that crowded cover. He would show up on the cover again, several times, in the years that I contributed to the magazine. My T-shirt design harkens back to the cartoony style I used on some of my cover paintings.

I think I learned about Sven from the magazine— but I may have heard about him from my Chicago-area pals. I did meet Rich/Sven at a Chicago collectors' convention not long after, though, I'd be hard-pressed to say which show and what year that was. I've attended so many cons, they all blend together in my memory!

Did you watch a lot of horror growing up, and do you remember any horror hosts from when you were a kid?

I adored our local horror host, "Dr. Igor," played by Gene Edwards. He hosted Chiller Theater on WQAD, the ABC affiliate out of Moline, IL, in the early 1960s, where he also played "Jungle Jay" in the afternoons, hosting Tarzan and Bomba movies.

I was just a wee tot back then, but to this day, in my head, I can hear the doctor greeting the viewers with his signature line, "How you are, kids?" When the show ended, he took the act to Denver briefly, then had a long run in Tucson. Tragically, no footage exists of the show.

Scary Monsters keeps the spirit of Famous Monsters of Filmland alive. Did you subscribe to ol' Forry [Ackerman, editor] as a kid? Did you later feel any pressure following in the footsteps of the great cover artists like Basil Gogos?

I never subscribed to FM, but bought it faithfully off the newsstand. I met FJA [Forrest J. Ackerman] at conventions and visited the "Ackermansion" in "Hollyweird, Karloffornia."

There is no competing with Gogos as a monster mag cover artist— his work was remarkable. I knew going in I could never match his quality— but I did outdo him in quantity, for whatever that's worth, creating (including the Monster Memories annual issues) well over a hundred covers for Scary Monsters.

Your Boris Karloff Mummy cover won you a Rondo Award. Is the mummy your guy, or do you have another Universal Monster that's nearer and dearer to your heart? Are you more partial to drawing creatures that scared you as a kid? Which creatures creeped you out the most back in the day?

I love all the Universal Monsters, and would be hard-pressed to pick a favorite. I will say I am crazy for the design of the Creature's costume. Millicent Patrick, Jeck Kevan, and crew outdid themselves when they cooked up the Gillman. I equally admire the performances of Karloff as the Monster and Lugosi as Dracula. It's all wonderful.

I don't know that I was ever so much scared of the monsters, as I was fascinated by them— though five-year-old me did have a nightmare about the Mummy "getting me" that caused me to wake up screaming. And it made my parents decide to nix my request to Santa for an Aurora Mummy model kit for Christmas, and get me the Superman kit instead! All turned out well in the long run, as I loved Supes, too, and eventually got the Mummy, and the other monster kits as well. Ah— the life of a "Monster Kid!"

Terry, would you mind sharing with our readers the story of sitting at a banquet dinner at the same table as Ray Harryhausen? What do you even ask a guy like him?! Are there any other genre luminaries your path has brought you to?

Oh, that was wonderful. I was the comic book guest at a convention where Ray was the Guest of Honor. At the banquet table, I sat with Ray, his wife Diana, John Phillip Law, Caroline Munro, and her daughter. Yes, one of these things is not like the others! The big question I had for Ray was a technical one. I'd long wondered how he managed to animate something like the Hydra (from Jason and the Argonauts) with multiple moving parts. Did he keep some sort of chart showing which direction each head was moving in, so he could keep the movements flowing smoothly? Nope. Kept it all in his head, he said. I think I was stunned into silence for some time at that response, trying to process how that was even possible.

I may have also let it slip that I found the genie kid in 7th Voyage of Sinbad annoying— but I'm not going to confirm that.

I've been lucky to have met many of my pop culture heroes, particularly in the comics field. I've managed to cross paths with Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Mickey Spillane, Ray Bradbury, Milt Caniff, Hank Ketcham, Jim Steranko, Harvey Kurtzman, Will Eisner, Dick Sprang, Neal Adams, Jm Aparo, Osamu Tezuka, Walter Gibson, George Romero, Adam West, Frank Gorshin, Yvonne Craig, Paul Reubens, half of the Brady Bunch kids -- and even some guy called Svengoolie! How some hick kid from small-town Iowa managed all that remains a mystery to me!

We're really excited about your art in Return to Perdition, because [the original series] Road to Perdition is so incredible. With a title like that— a sequel to a series which was also adapted as a film— how beholden are you to the art in the original? Do you feel like you're constrained by what came before you when continuing a story in a sequel, or are you able to treat a new project as a standalone thing?

A little-known fact is that I was initially pitched to DC as the artist for Road. Max and I had just come off of doing Ms. Tree and Wild Dog for them, and this would have been our next collaboration. But I was busy inking the animated-style Batman comics by then, and our other projects had underperformed for them (sales-wise), so while they liked the story idea, they wanted to use a different artist. I was disappointed, of course, but gave my blessing to the project and moved on. I had Batman to work on, anyhow, for eleven years. Heck of a consolation prize.

And I did eventually get to draw Return. Being set in the 1970s, it was a very different animal from Road, and I approached it as such. I tried to give it a style that matched the exploitation films of that era— and some of the "grungier" comics of that day. I kept the black and white magazine format Skywald line in mind. Now that's an obscure reference if there ever was one. I should note I did get some help on that book from my The Batman Strikes penciler, Christopher Jones— a name that should be familiar to all Sven fans. Chris penciled a chunk of pages from my roughs, helping me make a tight deadline.

Finally, a bigger picture question: What is it about your art and your process that makes you feel the most joyful? Is it in making the thing or in having the thing you made?

I love what I do— but it is still work. Long hours at the drawing tablet (no longer a drawing board) can wear on a guy. Especially as the decades add up. But seeing the finished work in print is a sweet reward. And seeing my work from years ago, still in print, as with the Ms.Tree series from Hard Case Crime/Titan Books, multiple collections of my Batman material from DC, and the new Johnny Dynamite: Underworld book from First Comics (the latter premiering at SanDiego Con this year— without me, though— writer Max Allan Collins will have to autograph 'em on his own) is incredibly satisfying. The same goes in spades for seeing my work on the newspaper comics page. I still find it hard to believe sometimes when I see my Rex Morgan M.D. strip in a newspaper along with all those other comics, even though I've been at that for well over a decade now. During my five-year run on the Sunday strip of The Phantom, I not only got to see that feature in the "Sunday Funnies," but also reprinted and translated in various formats all over the world!

All this, and they pay me for it, too? What more could I ask?