Did you have as good a time as these guys last night? Prove it: Send us your best photos (in costume, of course) from the weekend and we'll post our favorites. You can e-mail them to brandx@latimes.com, tweet us at @iambrandx or add them to our Flickr page.

-- David Greenwald

Photo: Revelers on Santa Monica Blvd. on Sunday, Oct. 31, 2010. Credit: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

Halloween is this weekend. And if you're anything like us, that Lady Gaga meat costume just didn't pan out.

Gina Elise — producer and star of Pin Ups for Vets, an old-school pinup calendar for charity — offers cheap costume advice with '40s flair.

“I always loved the romance of those bygone eras … and the World War II pinup girls, whose photos boosted morale for our soldiers overseas,” says Elise.

The 28-year-old Angeleno has taken her love of retro and turned it into a full-time fundraiser by posing in tiny dresses and lingerie of all kinds for her one-woman calendar.

Now in its fifth year, Pin Ups for Vets has raised $35,000 for military hospitals and rehabilitation programs for vets, and her 2011 calendar is available online (www.pinupsforvets.com) for $10. (She also sells T-shirts, posters and, for a more personal touch, life-size cutouts, and donates all the proceeds).

More than a calendar girl, Elise goes on the road visiting hospitalized veterans across the country to bring a little old-fashioned cheer.

Elise says with $50 and a trip to the drug store and a second-hand clothing shop, you can transform yourself into a Halloween calendar girl. Here are her tips for a DIY pinup costume -- after the jump >>

HALLOWEEN 2010: As much as we love scary movies, sometimes we'd rather curl up with a good book when Halloween rolls around — a good comic book, that is. We trembled our way through underground legend Charles Burns' creeptastic new ‘X'ed Out' and gathered a trio of spine-tingling comics, new and old, to cover your Halloween reading.

-- David Greenwald and Daniel Siegal

“X'ed Out” (Pantheon)

Don't read this surreal graphic novel before bed if you want a good night's sleep. Charles Burns' first original series since the award-winning and profoundly disturbing “Black Hole,” “X'ed” out applies gorgeous classic-comic-style illustration to a bizarre world of lizard-men, alien fetuses, omelet-making cyclopses and more. Amnesiac protagonist Doug's attempts to navigate the fevered post-apocalyptic landscape are cut with flashbacks to his prior life: punk rock parties, girls, a dysfunctional family. “X'ed Out” is reminiscent of “The Adventures of Tintin” (Doug even has the same haircut as Tintin), but soaked in acid-trip weirdness. The combination of intimate emotion and surreal creepiness would make David Lynch proud. Reading “X'ed Out” will leave you unsettled, entranced and craving answers, and the really scary part is having to wait for the next installment.

Three more picks after the jump >>

 

Old graveyards are eerie enough in the daylight, but this Halloween season, Altadena's Mountain View Mortuary & Cemetery is ratcheting up the fear factor with a vengeful premature burial, a spectral beast from the edge of time and a nest of ghostly goblins.

The historic 128-year-old boneyard will embrace its innate spookiness by transforming key locations such as a mausoleum, a chapel and the burial grounds into unorthodox stages for live theater. Wicked Literature: A Halloween Theatre Festival features live-from-the-graveyard dramatizations of three classic terror tales: Edgar Allan Poe's “The Cask of Amontillado,” H.P. Lovecraft's “The Unnamable” and Charles Dickens' “The Chimes.”

Continue reading after the jump >>

Anything to help the rigor mortis, right?

-- David Greenwald

When the celebrated Chicana artist Ofelia Esparza was growing up in East Los Angeles, her mother would usher the family to Calvary Cemetery each Nov. 2. The children played amid the headstones until it was time to eat. And then the narratives would begin.

Anecdotes about paisanos from their small village in the Mexican state of Guanajuato, about aunts and uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents were retold year after year.

“I got to know my ancestors so well, even though I never met them, through these stories,” Esparza said.

It is a tradition familiar to millions of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans who mark Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, by honoring the deceased. And as the holiday grows and evolves here in the United States, it is increasingly familiar to those who can't boast Mexican lineage.

Continue reading after the jump >>

Kooky cocktailians Alie Ward and Georgia Hardstark — famously known for their viral McNuggetini video — host weekly drink demos on Food2.com to tackle the Monday morning blues. In honor of Halloween, the ghouls decked themselves out as the undead and whipped up a libation called the Zombie Gut Punch. Though the fiery-hued concoction is pretty potent, you needn't fear it sending you to the underworld. It could, however, land you in the drunk tank.

Zombie Gut Punch

Ingredients:

Punch bowl
Ice
10 ounces vodka
5 ounces triple sec
2 ounces bitters
1 cup freshly squeezed blood-orange juice
2 cups black-cherry soda
Grenadine, for rim

In a large punch bowl filled with ice, pour vodka, triple sec, bitters, blood-orange juice and black-cherry soda. Laugh as though you are an evil zombie, and stir. Rim each glass with grenadine before filling with punch mixture, and serve. Stagger around menacingly, and threaten to eat strangers' brains.

Yield: 8 servings
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Ease of preparation: easy

-- Krista Simmons

Photos: Alie, left, and Georgia have a post-apocalyptic party punch for a cocktail hour of the living dead. Credit: Shane Redsar, courtesy of Food2.com

HALLOWEEN 2010: Halloween arrives this Sunday -- or tonight, if you're getting an early start, and you totally are -- and you still don't have a costume. Or worse, the one you bought looks and smells like Robert Pattinson. With our "Star Trek" uniforms still in the mail, the Brand X HQ brain-stormed five easy-to-make, hard-to-beat costumes to save what Cinefamily's Hadrian Belove calls "the New Year's Eve of L.A." 

Christine O'Donnell: Dressing up as our favorite Delaware Senatorial candidate couldn't be simpler: Just put on a black dress, a pointy black top hat, black jeans/leggings, boots and carry around a broomstick. Classy and classic -- just make sure to tell everyone that you never joined a coven.

Alternative: Glenn Beck. Put on a suit, get a buzz cut and start crying. Carrying around a copy of the Constitution is optional but encouraged.

 

 

 

 

Michael Cera in "Scott Pilgrim": All you need is a graphic t-shirt, jeans, a wristband and an expression of pained awkwardness. We were Michael Cera from "Superbad" a few years back and trust us, it killed. Downside: You'll have to answer the question "What's 'Scott Pilgrim?'" about 30 times.

Alternative: Mary Elizabeth Winstead in "Scott Pilgrim." Dye your hair and carry around a "Thor"-sized hammer and a cute purse.

 

 

 

 

Kanye West: Go buy a fake gold chain (or a real one, big spender) with a gigantic Horus emblem, pick up a diamond-and-gold grill, thrift yourself a nice, solid-color blazer and throw on a v-neck t-shirt. The tricky part: Convincing your significant other to dress up as a half-naked phoenix.

Alternative: Janelle Monae. Wear a tuxedo and pretend you're an arch-android. Bonus points for bringing a friend dressed as Big Boi to drop a guest-verse.

 

 

 

 

The cast of "Jersey Shore": This one's almost too easy: Go bathing in spray-tan, draw yourself some fake abs or stuff your bra, then put whatever chemicals you can find into your hair. Oh, and don't forget to do your laundry.

Alternative: The cast of "The Hills." We don't remember what they look like, either.

 

 

 

 

 

An iPad: Put yourself in a large rectangular cardboard box and ask people to touch your apps. On second thought, don't?

Alternative: A Twitter trending topic: Write a "#" on a white t-shirt with the humorous phrase of your choice. We recommend #JustinBieber, obviously. 

-- David Greenwald

 

 

 

 

Photos: Delaware Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell; Michael Cera in "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World"; Kanye West; the cast of "Jersey Shore"; an Apple iPad. Credits: AP Photo/Rob Carr; Universal Pictures; Michael Loccisano/Getty Images; AP Photo/Matt Sayles; REUTERS/Robert Galbraith.

Between the sunshine, surf and medical marijuana, L.A. might not have a reputation as the spookiest city around. But from Charles Manson to the Black Dahlia, the City of Angels has plenty of skeletons in its closet. What's not in dispute is L.A.'s ability to throw a raging party, so Brand X is here to keep you from getting stuck at a night of the living dead this weekend. Sure, there's the West Hollywood Halloween parade if you like following the crowd, but since you're reading this, we assume you'd rather make your own dark, dangerous path. Whether you're looking for a classy cocktail, crazy costumes or just want to dance to some devilish beats, Brand X knows what haunt you should hit up this weekend.

Our top picks in all their spooky glory after the jump >>

HALLOWEEN 2010: Feeling frightfully fabulous? Tomorrow, the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center will host Halloweenie -- a graveyard Halloween bash in world-famous Hollywood Forever Cemetery. The event will have all things Halloween-ish: DJs, dancing, an open bar (!!!), costume contest, free photos and Lady Gaga getups (we assume).

Fred Arens-Duguay started Halloweenie with his husband Jason four years ago as a house party/fundraiser and the event has grown exponentially. Last year's Halloweenie hosted 1,000 people and raised $50,000 for the Center, and this year, they're hoping for a crowd of 1,500. 

-- Jamie Wetherbe

Hollywood Forever Cemetery, 6000 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles; Saturday, Oct. 23, 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.; Tickets are $75 in advance, $100 at the door.

Photo: Halloweenie 2009 at the Music Box. Credit: Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center