Countdown to Halloween Day 16: Ceramics and Blow-molds and Wax! Oh my!

I would like to officially welcome you to the hump day of October. We are officially halfway to Halloween! To celebrate, let's look at some crap I picked up second hand for the season! 

Here is my obligatory loot pile shot. Let's paw around in it to see what's in there though, okay?

Let's start with the ceramics. I think I love the pumpkin headed child holding the pumpkin between its legs the best. It has a weirdness to it that feels a little cute, but also a little eerie as well. The big green alien head is an incense burner where you put the incense in the tray under the alien's head and the smoke drifts out three holes in the top of its head. I'm not a huge alien fan to be honest, but LOOK AT THIS THING. How could I not bring that thing home? And look how sincere that pumpkin on the right looks. Sincerity as far as the eye can see. Had to buy that cute little guy. 

A couple of cool licensed kids' books with some Halloween themes to them. "Doug's Vampire Caper" takes place on Halloween, and involves Doug genuinely believing that his middle school friend has become a vampire. While Baby Kermit is apparently Afraid of the Dark. Can you blame him with that night-light?

Check out these blowmold pumpkin guys! The pail on the left is nice, sure, and I do love it... but that guy on the right? He takes it HOME. I love his top hat, and the fact that he "works" according to the pricetag. 

I also picked up some "kids walking by haunted houses" chapter books. I haven't cracked the spine on either one, I literally picked these up for the covers alone. "The Clues Kids: The Ghost of Shockly Manor" has THE best Halloween-y cover of almost any book I've picked up this season. I'm not sure what "Magic Word Mysteries" I'll be solving myself either, but I hope they all have a creepy slant to them.

These things are ridiculous, and they feel fun and festive and crafty. Their enormous underbites invite folks to fill them with candy and these things are just gorgeous. I really don't have a ton more to say about them than that to be honest. 

A couple more spoooky books. I thought I might add "Eerie Animals" to next year's Halloween Read Pile, and I might check out "Demon Keeper" a bit sooner than all that.

Really kicking myself for not getting a picture of the backside of these guys because they are some of those weird rubber finger puppets like the ones you used to be able to get forever ago that looked like a cross between vaudeville performers and those guys from "The Hills Have Eyes". Except, these ones are Halloween themed!

These are a couple of shrink-wrapped candles from Topstone. This is a company that also produced a lot of cheap versions of more expensive hollywood-style horror masks. And that really sums up everything I know about Topstone. I love that the guy on the left sort of looks like he had herpes and is wearing a gimp suit. While the guy on the right seems to be one of those cheap imitations of Madballs that they used to sell in quarter machines back in the 80's, except done in wax.

I almost didn't buy this, but come on. It's Beavis! TP for my bunghole! Corn-holio! Are you threatening me? All the good times.

And finally, my 4 year old LOVES Hello Kitty, so I bought this for him. I haven't given it to him yet, but when I do, he is sure to lose his little MIND. I am excited.

So that's it for tonight kids! I'll be back son with some Gnarly Goodwill Goodies! 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 8: Garfield, Lego Monster 4, and More!

Welcome back! Today we're looking at some more cool Goodwill finds I brought home to celebrate this Halloween season! 

Just a small pile of items today, so here's your first glimpse... Let's dig in!

A couple of book pick-ups include a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories in "The Tomb and Other Tales" and "The Eye of the Warlock" by P.W. Catanese. I read "The Thief and the Beanstalk" by Catanese, and really enjoyed it. This Eye of the Warlock book is somehow related to the tale of Hansel and Gretel in the same way the other book was related to Jack and the Beanstalk.

Next up we have this Monster Maker card game from Buffalo Games. This one looks like fun, and one I can maybe even play with my kids!

Each of the 5 monsters you try to assemble as a part of the card game gets their own biography that lets you know a little bit about each of their likes and dislikes.

Can't wait to try this one out as it looks silly and fun and not too hard to learn.

I also brought home a stuffed Garfield toy because I almost never say no to Garfield. He is such an integral part of my childhood and of my Halloween that I consider this guy to be a bit of a Halloween decoration in and of himself. Here he is sizing up my little Halloween Garfield PVC figure (I got that on eBay and he is a German import apparently... that figure is one of my most prized possessions.)

Finally, I picked up a copy of LEGO's Monster 4, which was miraculously COMPLETE! No missing pieces or materials whatsoever!

The game was already mostly assembled for me, so it didn't take too much effort to get together.

 I figured that even if I didn't end up liking the game, I could use all of the monster heads included in the box as game pieces to build monster mini-figures, and there would be no loss either way.

Turns out, the game is pretty great, and simple enough that my 4 year old picked up the rules very quickly and BEAT ME two out of three times! Turns out it's a slightly more complicated version of Connect Four.

There's a die you piece together, and a spider that hops around the grave yard, scaring your monsters away. It's a lot of fun, very fast paced, and can be as simple or complicated as you make it, depending on what you roll and where you place your pieces. Very happy I picked this one up for several different reasons!

That's it for today kids! But I'll be back soon with more Grody Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Haunting!

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 6: Bendy Skeletons and Aargh!

Welcome back! It's day six of the Countdown to Halloween! Today let's take a look at a haul I brought home from the official Halloween section at Goodwill. 

Here's the usual "look at my pile" shot. But let's dig in and take a closer look, shall we?

One of the cutest finds in this lot is this lady right here. At Christmas the Goodwill Geek family likes to collect Nutcrackers. We pick up at least one new Christmas nutcracker per year. Well, we also own a Mummy nutcracker that we display for Halloween and THIS year he has a lady friend!

We also like to set up a sort of Halloween village on one of our bookshelves, and these two pieces will go very nicely in there! (Ever notice how a lot of modern Halloween decorations are basicaly just bastardized Christmas decorations? Nutcrackers? Christmas Villages? But Who Wore It Best?)

These bendy figures were MUST haves. The skeleton on the left is beautiful. He is the most absolutely perfect bendy skeleton I have ever seen. I am so happy he's mine now. And this sassy little pumpkin guy is pretty rad too. They've both got a lot of panache.

Only a couple of masks really spoke to me out of the ones available to choose from. I'm not entirely sure what the lady on the left is supposed to be exactly, but she's eerie and beautiful and sort of gypsy-ish but also kind of flapper-ish... It's probably just suposed to be some sort of unsettling "The Strangers" style mask... but I liked it. And this eye guy! Man! I love a guy with 6 eyes (or 8 if you count to two eye holes for your actual eyes)!

I found a couple of Halloween-y books in "Ghoulish Gags & Giggles" by Phil Hirsch, and "Running With the Demon" by Terry Brooks. Ghoulish Gags is the typical monster-themed joke book fare, pretty tame and mostly lame, but it did give my kids a couple of chuckles. Running is a sort of urban fantasy tale, written by the Shannara guy, it was released back in 1998 and I've been semi-pseudo-aware of it since way back then, and just never pulled the trigger.

Now! On to my two favorite finds of this trip! This guy. THIS GUY. I have been TRYING to find information about this on the internet since picking him up. I've posted pleas for information on Facebook and on Instagram. I've consulted the toy guys that know toys, the monster guys that know monsters... Aaaand nothing. This fella has a soft, stuffed body  with a bendable wire frame inside. His hands, feet, and skull are all made of hard plastic. He's carrying a Trick or Treat sack that may or may not be his originally.

I am completely willing to concede that this may be some sort of DIY handmade job from a crafting/doll-making kit... if you look closely at the neck this may very well be the case. But I'd like to know one way or another. Because I LOVE THIS THING. To me, he sums up EXACTLY what Halloween should be in every way. There's that sense of nostalgia, a little sense of creepiness, a sense of whimsy... This thing has it all baby. But as amazing as this was, it isn't my #1 find of this particular trip...

THIS IS!!! This is Aargh! from the Madballs. Madballs were a line of toys that came out in the mid-80s and rocked my world. Much like Garbage Pail Kids the Madballs were a big part of the gross-out revolution of that time. They were rude and crude and had attitude. And while you may cry fowl and try to tell me that Aargh! here is in fact not a Halloween item, I challenge you to look at these faces:

And tell me how these guys with their bulging eyes, multitude of stitches and obvious bodily trauma don't SCREAM Halloween??? I found Crackhead on the far left, at Goodwill. I Found Aargh! at Goodwill. I found Slobulus, on the far right, at a yardsale. I owned exactly NONE of these characters as a kid. My favorites were Screamin' Meemie, Dust Brain, Oculus Orbus, Skull Face, Wolf Breath, and Lock Lips. I also owned some of the Super Mad Balls. I loved the comic books! I was Mad for Madballs! And I'm so happy I have managed to bring my collection up to three now!

So that's the haul I brought back from just one exciting trip to the Goodwill Halloween section!!! I can't wait to go back! I'll be back soon with more Growling Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Haunting!

 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.

Halloween Countdown Day 16: Old Devil Wind

So for today's post I will be focusing once more on a Halloween children's book that I've found at Goodwill. This time the honor goes to Old Devil Wind by Bill Martin Jr. and Robert J. Lee. 

This is a rather small book, and I almost didn't see it at first... but the name on the spine jumped out at me, and I realized I was dealing with something quite special. The book was originally produced back in 1970, although my copy is a much later reprint.

The artwork is going to be my main focus in this post, as the story itself is a pretty basic House-that-Jack-Built-style story with a lot of repetition. Usually this sort of thing annoys me when it comes to any kind of read-aloud... but this one gets a pass.

Similar to the Scary Stories to Read in the Dark series, the text is quite tame but all the magic happens in the illustrations. Lee's paintings hover just on the edge of disturbing here, as he paints images of ghosts, witches, rats, ravens, and other Halloween trappings.

Quite often the focus of the text has nothing to do with the focus in the illustration. This page, which features a candle speaking, has a host of gray, ghostly rats in the foreground. 

You kind of have to hunt for some of the characters in the images, which may be intentional, or may just be Lee's disinterest in illustrating a character like a window when he could be illustrating an amazing looking raven instead.

Some of the pictures feel like homages to other sources, such as Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" or Disney's Haunted Mansion. 

The book does a wonderful job of expanding the ideas of who or what can be included in a Halloween story. Of course most of the characters make up the contents of a haunted house... but still, hearing from a stool, or a candle, or a window are all new twists.

 The witch above is one of my favorite images in the book. Her face is strangely divided to make it asymmetrical and off-putting. Her eyes and simple set of her face make her seem that much more serenely menacing. 

I can't even begin to tell you what this illustration is supposed to be of.

But the book ends with the wind blowing EVERYONE away "...and they didn't come back 'til (H)alloween Night..." Which I find to be a perfectly fitting bow to tie everything up with. I haven't read this one to my kids yet, but I'm curious to see their reactions to it. I have a feeling this one will become a part of our yearly rotation.

That's it for tonight kids! I'll be back tomorrow with more Gristly Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Haunting!

Halloween Countdown Day 8: SPOOKY Pulp Book Covers!!!

Tonight I thought I'd try to make it a quick one, and share a quintet of spooky covers from old books that I've found at Goodwill. Couldn't remember if any of these had made an appearance on the blog before now, but since most of these are recent acquisitions, I figured only a couple of them could possibly be in any kind of repetition danger. 

All the books below were bought for .99 cents apiece, and fit the Halloween season to a tree... uh... I mean tee. 

First up, a classic I've been meaning to read for a very long time, H.G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau. The cover is a great one, with the sole figure on the cover not immediately obvious as being less than human. It takes a moment or two to let the details soak in... the hair on the legs, the clawed hands... it slowly reveals the nature of the creature. Nice and simple, straight to the point, this cover says all it needs to.  

Next up, this psychedelic cover of the book The Green Brain which is written by Frank Herbert, author of Dune. It almost looks like a praying mantis is pushing its head out the front of a man's face. It's layered in such a way to make the insect's features a part of the human's features, creating a nightmarish bug-man visage. 

Adventures in Time and Space is a book of short science fiction stories edited by R.J. Healy and J.F. McComas. Again we are faced with a bizarre lone figure in a strange landscape, reddish and smoky this time. The figure has some sort of animalistic, almost cat-like ears atop his head... and tentacles? High above in the smoky red sky, the point of a rocket ship looms.

One of my absolute FAVORITE recent finds is this book by William Arden: Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators in: The Secret of Phantom Lake! I posted a picture of this one on Instagram just a little while back with the caption: That time Groot straight-up tried to murder some kids! (or something to that affect). love Love LOVE the cover to this book. This is a frameable piece of art. From the menace of the cyclopean tree monster to the look of sheer code-brown-inducing terror on the kids' faces... this thing has it all. The colors, the subject matter... absolutely EVERYTHING about this cover is beautiful.

Next up, Kenneth Robeson's Doc Savage: Brand of the Werewolf. This thing is the definition of cool. Look at Doc Savage, shirt torn open and being forced to his knees by the mighty wolfman!!! All while a skeleton laughs at the whole situation from the background. The reds and oranges here make the whole world look like it's on fire, and there's nothing like a "savage" werewolf to fan the flames! 

And finally... this gem. This absolute gem. The second "Alfred Hitchcock" book of this post, I am currently reading this collection of short horror stories and I am LOVING them. Nothing better for October than a nice collection of spooky short stories. And Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Scream Along With Me (which are apparently culled from an even longer book of stories called "Stories That Scared Even Me" which I NEED to track down...) is a genuinely GOOD collection of stories! I've had one flop of a collection of stories and a couple of crummy graphic novels so far this season, but overall I've read some great Halloween-y books. I'll do another post somewhere in the near future where I showcase some of the Halloween read-pile for this season.

So that's it kids! A short and shivery post featuring some great, spooky, pulpy book covers that I've picked up at Goodwill! I'll be back soon with more Grave Goodwill Goodies... so until then, Happy Haunting!

Halloween Countdown Day 3: Hubknuckles!

So for this year's countdown I thought I would focus a bit more on kids' books. Whenever I'm not doing a full-on post about a haul of Goodwill items or some other topic, I'll be featuring a Halloween book for children that I've found at Goodwill. I make it a point to look for cool Halloween books all year round, so I've accumulated quite a pile to feature this month. And to start off, I'm featuring one of my new/old favorites: Hubknuckles by Emily Herman, and illustrated by Deborah Kogan Ray. 

The copy I found is a library discard, which just fine by me. I did remove the cellophane protector that they encased the sleeve in, but here it is in the state I found it.

The story is all about a little girl named Lee whose family has a traditional character that shows up at their house every Halloween, a ghostly figure named Hubknuckles. He's glowing and wispy, a ghostly figure who peers in the windows at the children. He's a seasonal character for this family like the Great Pumpkin or the Easter Bunny. Lee is starting to question whether Hubknuckles is real or not. 

She is convinced that Hubknuckles is just a sheet and a flashlight, run by one of her parents. She decides to test her own bravery and see. 

So on Halloween night, when the party is in full swing, and Hubknuckles puts in an appearance, Lee goes outside to confront him. 

What I absolutely LOVE about this book are the smoky, dreamy black and white illustrations, and the sense of haunting darkness mixed in equal measures with childhood awe. The contrast between Lee's black witch's costume and Hubknuckles's amorphous white give us some striking images.

Lee's encounter with Hubknuckles is surprising and downright charming. It's exactly how you want this sort of story to go, a true sense of what Halloween is supposed to be about. Equal parts spookiness and darkness mixed with whimsy and magic.

Lee doesn't know anything more about Hubknuckles as she dances with him in the night, and she doesn't care. 

There is a mild surprise twist to the ending that I won't reveal here, but it leaves the book completely perfect. We have a handful of books that we read to our kids every single year that just perfectly crystallize how I feel about Halloween. I can't even tell you how much Hubknuckles is a great addition to that reading list. 

I had completely forgotten about this book until I found it at Goodwill just a few months ago. But once I picked it up and saw it, I immediatley remember having this read to me at school, possibly in Library or even as a Halloween treat in class. I distinctly remember wishing that Hubknuckles would visit MY house... and then sort of hoping he didn't.

That's it for tonight kids! I'll be back soon with more gory Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Haunting!