The Mask Demon

In 1988 I picked up a British horror magazine called Samhain. While flicking through its pages, I spotted an advert for over-the-head style horror masks made by a company called Creepers. The only masks I’d been able to find up until then had been cheap half-masks sold in joke shops. So I sent off for their catalogue and ordered a mask and a set of hands. I also sent a short letter commenting on the mask range. It turned out that the company was a one man affair, the one man being Vic Door. He wrote back saying that my letter had made a nice change from the usual ‘how do I make masks’ ones he usually received. ‘Well, actually…” I wrote back. Vic gave me the basics (water-based clay, hard plaster, and latex) and off I went.

After a couple of years, Vic decided he wanted to sell his business and offered it to me. I bought it, hired a van and picked up almost a hundred moulds. Vic let me have all his customer contacts so I was all set to continue where Vic left off.

I called myself The Mask Demon sculpting and casting and painting as well as working full time. In the end it got too much for me. I was coming home from work, having something to eat, and spending the rest of the evening getting orders out. The kitchen was a nightmare of moulds, bags of clay and plaster, paints, compressor and airbrush. I don’t know now how my wife put up with it all.

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