Countdown to Halloween Day 22: Darling Pumpkinheads, Devil's Brew, Deathnote and Darth Vader Too

Hey! Welcome back! I'm finding the Halloween Goodwill finds to be getting a little sparse at this point, so hopefully I'll have more to write about in another couple of posts... otherwise I'm going to be getting very creative! But luckily, I have this armful of stuff right here still left to write about! 

Gaze at the riot of wonder and color that is this post's loot pile! Let's dig in.

I love pumpkin-headed ghosts. And when they're as cute as this guy is? There was no way this thing wasn't coming home. You don't see enough of these guys these days. There's something very victorian-greeting-card about the design of a jack o' lantern with a trailing ghost-sheet-body beneath. 

I almost didn't pick this pumpkin-headed flashlight thing but I just love that vintage, blow-mold looking face. It's so lumpy! I had a reeeeally hard time getting a non-shiny picture of this thing too. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to keep the head on the black handle or if I will remove it and stick it on top of another jack o' lantern to make them look like piled up pumpkins. We will see.

Found these two in a baggy for a dollar. I probably overpaid but I wanted the Frankenstein's Monster more than anything. There are no markings to tell me when these were made, (there is a 50 cent price tag from Brooks drug on the side of each tube) but the UPC stickers on the tubes don't look old at all so I have a feeling these are fairly recent... but it doesn't matter. They have that cheap, fun feel to them that Halloween should have.

They make great finger puppets too! I love Frankie's sideways little grin here.

This bad boy also has no markings whatsoever. He looks like he's meant to evoke a little bit of Casper the Friendly Ghost but the resemblance is does not seem to be official. There does seem to be a piece missing off the top of the ghost's tail, but I can't seem to find this thing online so I can't begin to tell you what could have been there.

I have no idea if this thing will be worth reading or not, but finding a "Mars Attacks!" novel titled "Martian Deathtrap" was pretty exciting. I don't think I've ever read anything by Nathan Archer before, so I'm going in pretty blind. May toss this in next year's Halloween Read Pile... or I may just pass on it entirely and send it along to someone else.

I'm not a Manga person, like AT ALL. But I when I saw the first two volumes of DeathNote for a couple of bucks apiece, I thought I'd give it a shot. And what better time of year to find a manga about a guy using a magic notebook to kill people, and having to deal with death spirits? I have no idea if this is the gateway book that will lead to my addiction with manga, or if it will just enforce all of the reasons why I've never really gotten into them.

There was also this fun looking activity book "The Halloween Grab Bag" which is your typical "Book of Tricks and Treats" with recipes, crafts, costume ideas, games to try, puzzles to solve, etc. Here's an example of why I picked this one up though:

Look at this s**t! Don't you want to try atomic fireball flavored apple juice with ginger ale mixed in? I know I do! Heck, swap out the apple juice for hard apple cider and you got me going! Devil's Brew indeed!

There was also this little four pack of sort-of-papercraft masks you fold and assemble to wear. I'm giving these to my kids, but I'm not sure when exactly.

I really wanted to get a close up look at the example on the bag to show you how not cool these things are probably going to be. But I bet my boys will love them either way. 

Finally I found a nice Halloween themed anthology. It says "Tales of suspense" but I'm not sure exactly what that means. I doubt many of these will be supernatural in nature... but a guy can hope. It includes Peter Straub's "Pork Pie Hat" which really is an incredible Halloween story, but still not one that has any real ghosts or ghouls in it. So I'm guessing crime stories. This one is definitely on next year's Halloween Read Pile for sure, but I'm goig to keep my expectations managed properly.

Well that's it for tonight kids! I'll be back with more Gremlinish Goodwill Goodies soon enough! Until then, Happy Haunting!

Remember, I'm doing this countdown as a part of the official Countdown to Halloween, so be sure to pop over there and look and see who else is participating this year.

Countdown to Halloween Day 11: Anthologies - Ghosts, Monsters, and... Weenies?

Hey there kids! Today let's flip through the pages of a few short story anthologies I've picked up specifically for this year's Halloween Read Pile. 

Here we have a group shot of the four books I'll be highlighting, two books each from two different series of books. Bruce Coville's "Book of..." series, and David Lubar's "Weenies" series. Let's dig right in and get talking spooky stories shall we?

In the "Land of the Lawn Weenies" does not look at first glance like it would be a good Halloween read. I think I often passed over the Weenies books over the years because I assumed they were comedy anthologies. But in fact, the complete opposite is true. Lubar's shorter-than-short tales in the two books I'm featuring here are quite effective. They remind me quite a lot of the stories found in "Half Minute Horrors" which I picked up and read last year.

I felt like "Land of the Lawn Weenies," Lubar's first foray into Weenies territory, is a bit stronger than the other Weenies book I picked up, which I'll talk about below. The stories are unexpectedly bizarre, often deliciously mean-spirited, and some of them border on being genuinely disturbing.

Stories like "The Slide" and "Smunkies" stand out for the feeling that dread that Lubar builds up over the course of a very short period of time, and "Join the Party" manages to be just a little spooky while also being kind of an uplifting, bittersweet story. I felt like "The Evil Tree" and "The Language of Beasts" were a little weak, but almost all of the stories were enjoyable and over in the blink of the eye before I was shuttled along to the next.

There are currently seven books in the Weenies series, and "The Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies" is the one smack-dab in the middle and number four. And unfortunately, it feels a little bit like Lubar is writing a bit too much to cater to the format instead of simply writing stories that genuinely creep you out. There's six years between the two books I have here, and it feels like Lubar is kind of phoning this one in. There are still some great sotires to be found, but this one felt a bit more padded with filler than the previous one. He put out the most recent collection, number seven, in 2014, so I'd be curious to see how that one reads at this point.

There is some shivery fun to be found in "The Department Store," "Braces," and a few others I can't even really recall at the moment, but waaay more of these just fall under the jokey or bizarre category, and the story "Dear Author" just feels like a nasty jab at readers who send him story ideas, or who at least claim to have done so. I might still check out some of the other Weenies books based on my great enjoyment of the first book... but I don't expect much from the later volumes.

Bruce Coville is sort of the unsung, poor-man's R.L. Stine. I actually know him best from his "Into the Land of the Unicorns" series, which my daughter adored growing up... but he's also the guy who wrote all of those "My Teacher is an Alien!" books, and a bunch of Magic Shop books involving haunted or enchanted items bought from a magic shop (one of those, "the Monster's Ring" is a great Halloween read, although very similar to Stine's "The Haunted Mask") This "Book of..." anthology series is not solely written by him, which is a series that includes Books of: Aliens, Nightmares, Magic, Ghosts, Monsters, and Spine Tinglers. With many of those topics actually receiving second volumes as well, making for a total of somewhere around 10-12 books total.

This time around, I'm talking about the weaker book first. This "Book of Monsters" was a semi-fun read but ultimately I felt a little cheated by the end. Many of the stories are just kind of weak, or jokey, or feel like advertisements for other book series. And as much as I like creepy folktales, I like my folktales to actually be creepy, not just kind of a bland retelling. Even Jane Yolen's and Joe Lansdale's stories, (which were each a paltry almost-three pages long) while fun to read, and would have made nice pallet-cleansing stories in a different collection, are pretty much just monster jokes. On the other hand...

Bruce Coville's "Book of Ghosts" had a much better pay-off. There weren't many duds in this collection at all. Almost all of the stories had some sort of spook-factor to them. Even Coville's story, which included characters from some other book or story series, felt standalone and had some good moments of creep and bittersweetness to it.

There's some great talent collected together here as well. We see both Joe Lansdale and Jane Yolen again, who are both personal favorites, and the ghost story maven, Mary Downing Hahn contributes a tale as well. "The Ghost in the Summer Kitchen" was a very nice tale, if slightly predictable, and "For Love of Him" by Vivian Vande Velde actually turned up later in a different anthology in my Halloween Read Pile, and I read through the story both times I liked it so much. I recommend this one very highly!

Overall, I recommend Coville's "Book of Ghosts" and Lubar's "Land of the Lawn Weenies" especially if, like me, you like to gather together creepy collections of short stories for your Halloween reading.

That's it for tonight kids! I'll be back sooner than you're probably entirely comfortable with to share more Gobliny Goodwill Goodies!

And remember, I'm doing this countdown as a part of the official Countdown to Halloween, so be sure to pop over there and look and see who else is participating this year.

Countdown to Halloween Day 5: Whitman Publishing Horror Story Anthologies!

Hey there! Today's post is going along with the anthology theme AND along with the stuff-I-found-at-Goodwill theme! It's a goocher! Let's take a look at some books I picked up that were put out by Whitman publishing in the 60s! 

Before we move on I just want to take a moment to drink in the covers of the three books together for just a moment. These things were cheaply made and distributed back in the 60s, and I had quite a few of Whitman's books on my bookshelf as a kid, including versions of the Wizard of Oz, Robinson Crusoe, and a few others. They all have the same lightweight feel due to pasteboard covers and bindings that are more glue than stitching. But just look at that cover art! Let's get a closer look.

The first book is called "Tales to Tremble By" and I cannot figure out who the cover artist is but LOOK AT THIS THING.

It's a wraparound cover, but the back isn't nearly as exciting as the bizarre, clawed spirit on the front.

None of the stories are dud by any means. They're all creepy and atmospheric and each one deals with a different type of haunting. I would say the slimy water-logged ghost of "The Upper Berth" and the ever classic "The Judge's House" by Bram Stoker are my absolute favorites though. But honestly, there's not a stinker in the whole bunch. I was very pleased!

I love the introductions to these books as well. You can really tell someone was having fun and wanted to get the reader excited.

The interior illustrations are nothing too terribly exciting. It's probably no coincidence that the illustrations I liked the best came from the stories I also liked the best, but honestly, these are the two most exciting illustrations in the book. Here's one from "The Judge's House".

And here is a picture from "The Upper Berth". The interior illustrations were credited to Shannon Stimweis and while they are serviceable... they aren't amazing. 

The second volume in the Tales to Tremble By series us the ante in almost every way. This cover is INSANE. Additionally it references the stories in the book! Upon reading each story within I would then scan the cover to see where the reference was hidden in the details on the cover. It also helps that the artwork, on both the cover and interiors, done by Gordon Laite, is much more dynamic, animated, and eerie.

This time around there are even some points of interest on the back cover.

And while the first book was good, the second book is even BETTER. Every single story seems to have a bit more bite to it than the last. "The Red Lodge" is a genuinely disturbing story of a family's holiday in a house haunted by some particularly repulsive spirits. "Sredni Vashtar" is a mean spirited little tale with a very satisfying ending. "The Extra Passenger" is a creepfest all around, featuring justice from beyond the grave, and "The Book" was a deliciously dark entry featuring the downfall of a family man due to some late night reading. "The Voice in the Night" is one of the earliest examples of disturbing "body horror" that I can think of. I would say the real star of this volume was "God Grante That She Lye Stille" however, as it spent the most time building atmosphere and had some genuinely shocking twists and turns.

Even the introduction to the second collection kicks it up a notch, suggesting that by simply reading the stories within you may end up summoning the things featured in the stories to haunt you.

Here we have the boy from "Sredni Vashtar" worshipping at the altar of his fearsome "god".

The illustrations from "God Grante That She Lye Stille" were so good I included two of them. Here's the narrator visiting the gravestone that holds the titular phrase. Dig that spooky spirit face watching him though!

The trippy patterns and facial expressions in this illustration just make it gorgeous.

And here we have the father from "The Book" just absolutely losing his s**t. I LOVE the curlicues used to detail his face here. 

Finally we have "SHUDDERS," or possibly the whole title is "Ten Tales Calculated to Give You SHUDDERS" which I love the idea of a bunch of scientists sitting around, deep in calculation on how to make me shudder.

If this book feels cold when I first touch it? Awesome! I love these little details. You never see stuff like this anymore.

 This collection has one of my all-time favorite stories, which is "Sweets to the Sweet". I was SO excited when I saw this was included! I first read this story as a kid and was completely enamored with it. Robert Bloch really is an amazing writer, and luckily he has two entries here. Again though we have a book full of stories that will not disappoint. I think if I were to cut any story it would have been H. G. Wells's "The Inexperienced Ghost" but only on the basis that it does not really fit the tone of the other stories, not because it isn't a good read. "The Monkey's Paw" is just a classic, and one of my absolute favorites, "Used Car" felt so similar in mood and tone to "The Red Lodge" from the previous book that I wasn't surprised to discover it was the same author! H.R. Wakefield was really very good at instilling dread in his stories.

Also, the introduction to "SHUDDERS" isn't above pretty much just flat-out threatening you with bodily harm. So... enjoy! 

I have to say there are few things I enjoy more than curling up with a good collection of supernatural tales for the Halloween season, and these old anthologies really hit the spot! The next time you're out thrifting, don't discount older looking collection of ghost stories because you think they'll be to dusty or out-of-date. These are some of the best kinds of tales to read as October progresses!

I'm doing this countdown as a part of the official Countdown to Halloween, so be sure to pop over there and look and see who else is participating this year.

That's it for tonight kids! I'll be back soon with more Groaning Goodwill Goodies... so until then, Happy Haunting!

Creepmas Day 5: The Ghosts of Christmas

So this year I'm celebrating Creepmas! 

From the 13 Days of Creepmas website: 

"A reaction to the continuing incursion of Christmas into Autumn and Halloween, CREEPMAS is a good-natured chance for Halloween lovers to exact revenge by bringing some spooky good cheer into the holidays or, more appropriately, the Hallowdays..." Read more about the inspirations behind this 13 day celebration HERE. 

Today I thought I'd feature the one awesome toy I own from "Mickey's Christmas Carol" which is a Christmas special I consider to be a classic, and one that I'd love to have the entire set in figurine form for. This figure is from the original Applause run, and unfortunately, they only have a handful of them, that do NOT feature all of the ghosts in the movie. There was a set released by Playing Mantis back in 2002 that looks amazing though. All 4 ghosts, and most of the relevant cast, including two different Scrooges included. But here's what I've got: 

Not too shabby! A little scuffed up maybe, but still a fun figure for my year-round Creepmas shelf. 

Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" is always a nice reminder that there are ghostly forces involved in Christmas. In this case they watch over the past, the present, and the future. There have been MANY adaptations of the story both in full films and stage plays, and it has been heavily referenced in other media, such as comic book issues, TV episodes, and songs. The story resonates for its themes of redemption and forgiveness at Christmas. But what resonates with me? Ghosts. 

Of course, things usually start with a harbinger. In the tale of a Christmas Carol, things kick off with Jacob Marley or some iteration thereof warning the Scrooge character that to avoid sharing the fate of being bound in chains of greed he must be visited by three spirits and renounce his selfish ways (For each of the following ghosts, I have the versions from Mickey's Christmas Carol, the Jim Carrey CG version, Scrooged, The Real Ghostbusters episode based on the story, and finally a Muppet Christmas Carol) . 

  

  

The Ghost of Christmas Past is usually represented as weaker, or wispier than the other spirits, with the possible exception of the cigar-chomping cabbie of "Scrooged". Even Jiminy Cricket fits the profile, as the smallest of the Disney spirits. 

The Ghost of Christmas Past is usually hale and hearty, a robed giant of varying magnitudes... (again, with the ghost from Scrooged playing slightly against type): 

 

   

And the Ghost of Christmas Future is the specter, the terrifying unknown, usually a Grim Reaper-style character who scares Scrooge into changing his ways (Scrooged only messes with this one a little bit, making the ghost's face a TV screen that changes images to communicate, to help it fit the themes of the movie) although Pete playing the part here I think is mainly just to make the Ghost slightly less pants-messingly-terrifying: 

  

   

Any Christmas tale that manages to rope in a ghostly, supernatural element is just dandy in my book! 

Happy 13 days of Creepmas! I'll be back tomorrow with another entry in the countdown, which may or may not involve a Goodwill Goody! Until then, Happy Hunting!