A trio of Hollywood actors from the 1987 cult film The Lost Boys gave their seal of approval to a series of props made by The Northern School of Art’s BA (Hons) Model Making & Visual FX lecturer and creative practitioner John Noble at this year’s Comic Con Liverpool event.

John’s display replicating the contents of the Frog Brothers’ Comic Shop from the film was chosen as the backdrop at the event for the autograph tables of Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander – who played Alan Frog and Edgar Frog respectively.

The project has been a long-standing ambition of John’s and he explained how it all came about: “I’ve been slowly recreating the entire Frog Brothers’ Comic Shop contents, as seen in the 1987 film The Lost Boys. It started out with an intention to produce some framed art, that I’d recreate one shot in the film by purchasing copies of the comics featured.

“The first ones were easy, you could clearly read the cover title and issue number. But I like a challenge, so I looked wider. By studying the corners of comics and blurred imagery, then cross referencing it with Marvel and DC comics sold between the late 60s and 1986, I was able to recreate whole shelves and walls.”

He added: “But that wasn’t enough for me, as by this point, I had elements of every scene in the film, so I kept going! I’m near completion of the second-to-last section and partway through the last element, barely even seen in the film.”

A few years ago, John decided to create a display shelf for his home, firstly from cardboard and wood before he decided to go bigger.

“Over Easter 2022 I began construction of a lightweight shelf and started to introduce myself to Comic Convention organisers. One year later and Monopoly Events advertised that three of The Lost Boys cast were coming to Comic Con Liverpool. I got in touch and was invited to display my collection behind the autograph tables of Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander.

Actor Jason Patric also came along to see John’s shop recreation, giving John the opportunity to show him a bottle of blood prop he had created.

“Jason (Speed 2: Cruise Control, Sleepers) is the heartthrob star of the Lost Boys film, Michael Emerson, who in a vampiric initiation is tricked into drinking from a bottle of ‘wine’ – only it’s actually the blood of the head vampire.”

“There are quite a few fan-made replica bottles inspired by the film online; they’re usually close, but different. I studied the film frame-by-frame to ensure the details were correct from every angle, which meant different coloured jewel adornments around the bottle and even missing gems.

“Jason said it was a really good likeness to the original, which was a great relief. I advised him not to drink from it though, as it was neither filled with wine, nor blood, but bubble bath!”

John added: “I got some autographs and a few pictures and I don’t think this is the last time I’ll be seeing the stars. We had t-shirts printed to promote our Instagram page and I took additional props and costumes that I also showed to the queuing fans. Two ten-hour days on our feet and goodness knows how many hundred people we spoke to about the project and their fandom of the film and the actors’ other work.

“It was a very cool weekend, we’re looking at attending ‘For the Love of Horror’ in November too, so the momentum is growing.”

John has been using the story of this project as an inspiration to students in the BA (Hons) Model Making & Visual FX degree Level 5 Professional Practice sessions “to show how creativity, tenacity and dedication can help realise your dreams and aspirations. The next stage is to set the whole display up in Santa Cruz, where the original was filmed, but that’s another story.”

To see the behind-the-scenes story of  the collection visit the @the_lost_frogs_comics pages on Instagram page and Facebook.

(The photo at the top shows: L-R Corey Feldman (Goonies, Stand By Me, The Lost Boys), John Noble (collector and creator), Jamison Newlander (The Lost Boys, The Blob, The Lost Boys: The Thirst) and Nikki McElwee (designer, social media & travel planning))

Further information about The Northern School of Art’s  BA (Hons) Model Making & Visual FX degree is available here