Tim Boxell is a writer, director, animator and art instructor, known for his prolific work in underground comics during the 70s and 80s (Commies from Mars, Slow Death, Death Rattle, Snarf). His grisly vision of monsters is beautifully twisted and captures the otherworldly essence of these living horrors which crawl from his imagination.

A new documentary, “Memory - The Origins of Alien,” discusses how Tim Boxells' comic book story “Defiled” (published in Death Rattle vol 1, #1 in 1972 by Kitchen Sink Press) was the origin for the famous chestburster in the film Alien. Dan O'Bannon, who wrote the screenplay, talked about how he took the idea for the chestburster from "an underground comic, published in San Francisco in the far out 1970s. In this surrealistic yarn, drawn and written by the weird-brained Timothy Boxell, an alien critter somehow gets inside of a spaceman, and bites its way out. In this, I knew I had found my central image.” The rest is film history, as the chestburster scene has become as iconic as Psycho’s shower scene in the consciousness of Horror fans. This association eventually led to his work on C.H.U.D. (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers). In tim's own words:

MONSTERS. Why do we want to look at them? Why do we want to see what they have to show us? Teeth. Claws. Eyes that see our fear. Tentacles that coil around us. All threats generating anxiety. All ready to drag us screaming into the dark.We are fascinated by monsters. We like to be scared. We enjoy being repulsed by what these creatures do and how they look. Monsters bring on emotional reactions that we find entertaining even if we have our doubts about seeking them out. We like looking at monsters even if they make us feel fear and horror.

The drawings in this exhibit were created years before American Horror Story began to deliver a frightening diet of monsters on a weekly basis. For me, a fan of fantasy and horror, the chance to be paid to design monsters for a feature film, was a dream come true. To be recommended for the job by Dan O’Bannon, the writer of the sci-horror movie Alien, because of my original approach to monsters, was an honor and an opportunity. O’Bannon saw the possibility of the chestburster at work in my comic book story Defiled, that would later be transformed into something monstrous and brilliant and alien by Giger and Ridley Scott.

Coming up with an interpretation of how sewer-dwelling humans transformed into monsters resulting from exposure to radiation would look, was a chance to show what I could do working in this genre.  The bottom line is that making monsters is cool. What did I do? What monsters did I imagine? You can see some of what I came up with on the walls around you. The monsters of C.H.U.D. Enjoy. - Tim Boxell

( Please note that all drawings are signed and are original concept designs from 1984 cult horror film C.H.U.D.,
Tim signed some of them in 2018 while preparing for this exhibit)

Original Art For Sale (click image for larger picture):