The Festival of Monsters, presented Oct. 15–18 by the UC Santa Cruz Center for Monster Studies, is a fitting annual ritual for the spooky season.
On Oct. 18 at Atlantis Fantasyworld, local artist Cole Lemke will sign copies of his B-horror tome, Savior (2021), from 2–5pm. Think 336 pages of a thick-lined alternative universe, where aliens have invaded and the world gets not the hero it wants, but the hero it needs (and deserves). The Devil. Or, Satan. Or, Grump. He has many names.
Now before you run to your pastor to report a blasphemous crime, consider that Lemke might genuinely be one of the nicest humans you’ll ever get a chance to run into. A classic California kid who graduated from Aptos High and a devoted family man, Lemke might be best known in Santa Cruz for his Squid Banana stickers often seen plastered on the back of VWs.
Growing up in Santa Cruz County, Lemke was a natural-born artist who had alien worlds pouring out of his brain, down to his ink-stained fingers and out through his Micron pen. By a lightning stroke of luck, Lemke found a compadre early on in Shaun Logan, known for his work with the Expendables.
“We met in the third grade, and we’ve been buddies ever since,” Lemke says. “We’d hang out and draw side by side. We drew a lot together. I think one time we actually tried to work on a comic together that didn’t pan out. We had another friend color it. And he did a bad job on the colors. It crushed us and that kind of killed that project really quick. But we always just kind of had fun.”
Savior, on the other hand, is a black-and-white masterpiece in design and execution. For over five years, Lemke would trudge away at completing a page in pencil. Come back later to ink it. And finally return to add the dialog. Through jobs, a sabbatical and Covid, Lemke would return to Savior, working on weekends to finish his grand vision.
Currently Lemke has a job that allows him more time for illustration, band projects and running his own company, Chump Magic LLC, which handles all the design and production of his colorful assortment of stickers as well as sales for Savior: The Day the Devil Saved the World.
Savior is a sleek, shiny book, but it’s not for the swaddled or those with small brains. Why? This shouldn’t be a spoiler alert, but when you think of alien invasions, what do you think of? That’s right. Probes. In the butt. And in Savior, there is a lot of that. Plus at least one orgy scene. And a few curses. But Savior is closer to an R-rated Hello Kitty than R. Crumb.
The Festival of Monsters has other free events, including the keynote speech by David Livingstone Smith on Oct. 15 at 5:30pm at the Museum of Art & History. Taking place Oct. 18 at 11am at Bookshop Santa Cruz is a writers panel titled Oh! The Horror, and at 6pm at Game Santa Cruz attendees can play Blood on the Clocktower.
Meet Cole Lemke from 2–5pm on Oct. 18 at Atlantis Fantasyworld, 2020 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. For more information go to monsterstudies.ucsc.edu. To learn more about Lemke, visit colelemke.com or chumpmagic.com.
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