the dover demon

okay...

i am a total fanboy. always have been. i am starstruck when i meet favorite actors, bands, writers, etc...
years ago i met and got a chance to hang out with kurt russell (incredibly nice guy). i have an autographed photo from tina fey and amy poehler that i cherish (thanks scott!). and as a "professional" (whatever that means) comic book writer for the past 12 years, i've been able to meet, work with, and drink with, some of my absolute favorite writers, pencillers, inkers, letterers, colorists, and editors. maybe it's the 'fame' thing, but i think it's got more to do with thanking the people who've entertained or inspired me over the years and throughout my life. whichever...

two posts back i gave the cliffs notes version of the story of my favorite cryptid, the dover demon, gleaned from the various accounts i've read in books and interviews over the past couple years. i'm a writer by trade and we are known/allowed/expected to take a little creative license, prose it up here and there to make it more of a story, build the suspense. that's what we do. we try to set the mood and the stage for events to play out the way we imagine them. i projected what i thought people were thinking or feeling as the story unravelled. i always do my best to make sure that the facts are accurate and that i haven't misrepresented anything--or anyone--along the way. (as with anything, but especially in regards to these tales of the unknown and the unexplained, sources are sometimes less than reliable.)

but how thrilled was i when i got an e-mail from none other than loren coleman himself, the foremost cryptozoologist in the country (if not the world) and the guy who christened the little critter "the dover demon" in the first place!

i had corresponded with mr. coleman briefly back in the fall to request information on his cryptid museum and hopefully make some arrangments to visit it. we had a nice back and forth of e-mails and he told me that much of the museum is currently on loan to bates college (see loren's website for more information on times and directions. www.lorencoleman.com), and so i decided to try to get to see it there.

but while loren says that i got most of the story of the dover demon right, he pointed out that i was inaccurate in saying that mothman prophecies author john keel was part of the original investigation. (though i knew i had read that somewhere and was pulling my hair out trying to track it down--only to find that, when i did, it really WASN"T the most reliable of sources...)
it was mr. coleman and a few other local investigators who first checked the stories out and, as i said, loren who gave the entity it's name.

my apologies, and thanks to loren for pointing this out.

if you want even more of the dover demon, check out loren's book, "mysterious america".

all that said, i wanted not only to give you the background on the creature, tell the tale and show you the original drawings, but then show you craig's take on it, 'cause you know...



...he's on his way...


more later~
todd