Countdown to Halloween Day 21: Anthologies - Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark... And More!

Welcome back kids and kid-ettes! Today I'm taking a look at a tried-and-true classic series of anthology story books: The "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" series by Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell!

You remember these. Don't chew your fingernails and shuffle your feet and shake your head sheepishly no. I KNOW YOU REMEMBER THESE. All who have been children at some point remember these books. We fought over who got to take them home from the library at school. We loved looking at the pictures very briefly, and then flipping past the pictures as quickly as we could... so the pictures didn't see us back. Unless... we spent time just sitting and staring at the details of the pictures, letting each one corrupt our sanity just a smidge more.

Oh yeah, and there were stories in the books too. Like stories you could read.

It all started back in 1981 with this first book, "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark," which combines urban legends, ghost stories, and creepy folktales collected and retold by Alvin Schwartz with drawings by Stephen Gammell (as you can see on the cover, obviously. Not even sure why I typed all that out, honestly...). I can tell you from experience that kids were probably not picking up these books for Schwartz's gripping storytelling prowess. To be as respectful as I can, but still stay honest too, I don't think the writing is all that special here. Schwartz does a manageable job of recounting the stories... but not much else. There isn't much "scary" to his scary stories. With a different storytelling slant, that could have been much different. 

No, when we bought a ticket to this show, it was to see the horrific illustrations by Stephen Gammell. I honestly cannot FATHOM what the publishers were thinking. Such illustrations would never even be considered for a children's book these days. On the other hand, I have a deep, genuine love for these books and their contents that stems from being messed up by them so thoroughly as a kid. 

My youngest kids however, will not know that particular joy for a few more years yet. I don't remember how old my daughter was when she first encountered this book, but I DO remember the night that followed as we had a very scared little girl crying in her bed and telling us she couldn't get those pictures out of her eyes... which is kind of a creepy idea for a story in and of itself... but I digress. That was a parenting lesson. 

But you look at the pictures I collected just for this post and you get the idea. 

It really isn't the stories themselves. Stories like "The Haunted House," or "The Girl Who Stood on a Grave," or "The Hook," or "The Babysitter," have the potential to be scary, but not the way Schwartz tells them. There is no atmosphere, no spookiness, just a flat kind of rote repetition of story points and details that each have a beginning, middle, and end. If these stories had been published either without illustrations at all, or even with milder, less terrifying ones, we would have no memory of these books at all. This is demonstrated very clearly by the newer editions of these books that include illustrations by the very talented Brett Helquist. The illustrations are very capable and accomplished... but they are NOT of the same creepy caliber as Stephen Gammell for making these stories truly "scary." 

What's strange is that I barely remember the second book at all. It came out in 1984, and I actually had it confused with the 3rd book, which didn't come out until 7 years later, but which I remember much clearer, even though I would have been 13 when it came out. 

What surprised me about it now is that the pictures are much more tame feeling in this one, like Gammell really toned down the squishy-wet gore and the twisty-dry bone feeling of the first book. There are still small measures of it here or there, but most of the illustrations are of landscapes, animals, faces, and even what feels like a few surrealist pieces thrown in for atmosphere alone. Yes, they are eerie and yes there are still a few examples of skeletons or severed limbs in the book, but even these feel muted vs. the original book. 

I'm not sure if this was a publisher's mandate or some sort of self-censorship on Gammell's part, but I think this is the main reason the book stand out less in my mind. It just doesn't have the same sort of bite to it as the first collection. The stories on the other hand? They seem more edgy and dangerous here. Schwartz still has a bit of a dry storytelling style here, but he seems to know how to end his stories a little better this time around. The stories themselves feel a little... meaner too maybe? The story of "The Drum" really stands out to me as a particularly weird one. It doesn't really get creepy until the very end, but boy it really takes the wind out of your sails fast! The storycraft itself doesn't really get much better, but it feels like Schwartz is genuinely trying here to up his game by choosing even darker tales, and having more ambiguity in his endings.

I have no idea why such a huge gap came between books 2 and 3 in this series, but we jump 7 years from 1984 to 1991 and suddenly Gammell is back to full nightmare fuel mode.

We're a out of the early 80's and into the early 90's and the gore and thanatophilia are back baby! Look at the spiders and blood EXPLODING from that horrified girl's face! This book has scarecrows made of stitched up flesh, giant-headed flying monsters with oozing eyeballs, skeletal horses, and the most messed up looking "Mexican hairless sewer rat" that you've ever seen. The really creepy ones aren't that overt though. The strange, doughy, smiling woman with long lanky black hair, or the ghost that looks like a paper doll with its center scooped out... those are the pictures that really give me the heebie-jeebies.

Schwartz gives us kind of a mixed bag of stories here. We get almost as many "just plain weird" stories as we do truly "scary" ones. But almost all are fun to read. 

I picked up this collected edition of the books a while back, but found that I really missed owning the three individual volumes too. So now I have them all! Of course, I have to keep the cover of this book hidden most of the time, because I'm afraid it will creep out my kids. That does it for the "Scary Stories" books (for this post anyway... they will live on in our imagination FOREVER) but I have 2 more books to share, one involving Schwartz and one involving Gammell.

The first one is "In a Dark, Dark Room," by Schwartz, but this time with illustrations by Dirk Zimmer. This book hold a place of very early equal regard in my heart as the "Scary Stories" series, because it almost feels like it's a younger cousin to those books. Schwarz did another one of these "I Can Read" books with illustrator Victoria Chess, called simply "Ghosts!" but I've never really been a fan of that one for some reason.

Now, Dirk Zimmer is no Stephen Gammell. Let's get that out of the way up front... but he is his own brand of weird and disturbing to be sure. I couldn't really look at books that had been illustrated by Zimmer later on in childhood because I had such strong associations between this book and his style.

The stories are fairly tame... but not SUPER tame considering this book is really aimed at first-through-third graders.  We have talking corpses, long-fanged stranger danger, a woman's head abruptly falls off, and the book ends with a large, rather menacing looking skeleton. So again, it really is the work of the illustrator, this time again, to scare the kiddies. Maybe mot on the same scale as Gammell's work above... but it get's the job done. And speaking of Gammell...

Last Halloween I was thrilled to discover there was a book of Halloween poetry that existed that had been illustrated by Stephen Gammell, that seemed to be done in exactly the same style as the "Scary Story" books. And man, do I LOVE ME SOME HALLOWEEN POETRY.

It's a collection put together by Myra Cohn Livingston in 1989, and Gammell is at it right out of the gate! You can't even get pas the contents page without seeing a skull clown! (If that's meant to be a clown... it may just be a big, gross nose hole... either way, brrrr...)

There's a really nice assortment of poetry here, and Gammell's illustration do their job well. There are really only maybe three truly "scary" illustrations (I've included two of those here)  while the rest are just sort of off-putting. If you're a fan of Halloween poetry, or Gammell's illustrations, this is worth tracking down for sure. It is out of print, but you can find it on various online secondhand vendors as I did. I think I found mine in a store on Amazon.

Well that's it kids! Hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane... Hope you sleep well tonight! Heh. I'll be back soon with some Ghastly 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 18: Reptar, Halloween Happy Meal, and SCARY STORIES

Welcome back ladies and gents! Today I'm featuring another load of seasonal goodies I brought home from Goodwill! Let's not waste time jawing about it, let's dive right in! 

Here is the usual picture featuring the whole lot of goodies. Let us explore posthaste!

A couple more horror anthologies, one I'll be featuring in this very countdown, the other I will be saving for next year's Halloween Read Pile. I'm not going to waste too much time talking about either books because I'll be beating them to death in the future. I will say though that this was the last of the Scary Stories books I still needed to find in order to complete the trio, so that had me pretty excited!

A couple of street lamps for my Halloween Village! The fact that the globes are Jack O' Lanterns makes me so incredibly jealous of my Halloween Village inhabitants. I wish my town would commision special pumpkin themed light fixtures for October.

I think it's hilarious that there is a blog dedicated to books with covers featuring Women Running From Houses (which sadly appears to have been inactive since 2013... but still you guys) but even that has never really been enough to compel me to buy any of these MANY MANY books that I usually see at Goodwill. Until now. I'm still not 100% sure what possessed me to buy these ones, but...

I think the ridiculous title, "Witch of Goblin's Acre" had something to do with it... and the fact that the book  just so happens to take place in MAINE (!) sealed the deal. And let's just say if anyone ever says the words "Faceless Leper Ghost" to me, it doesn't matter what's going on... I'M IN. This is powerful information people. Use it responsibly. 

I freaked out when I saw the hands on this thing, because at first I thought I had discovered a stray Boglin at Goodwill. It's not crazy to think I could honestly. I've found a near-complete Castle Grayskull, and now not one but two Madballs at Goodwill, along with countless other awesome 80's toys. But alsas-alack it was not meant to be. This was not in fact a Boglin, and my disappointment at this realization almost made me put this guy back... but I calmed down, recollected myself, and reevaluated the situation before deciding anything too rash. At this point you must realize I brought the guy home. He's pretty great. I don't remember when I remember seeing these things come out, but I believe it was a while back. Not like decades perhaps, but long enough to appreciate more what I probably thought was damn annoying back when it originated. Pretty sure this guy jiggles and laughs maniacally while playing ear-piercingly intolerable theremin music.  But I haven't put batteries in him yet to test and see, so I can't tell you.

Next up we have a couple of novelizations of the 2nd and 3rd Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I picked these up specifically for my older son who is very interested in that movie series right now. We get a lot of movie novelizations of films the kids like to get them interested in reading. 

This mask wanted to come home with me so... I let it. Not much else to say there. I like harlequin and comedia del' arte themed masks and when I find ones in nice condition I usually pick them up.

Derek Benz and J.S. Lewis wrote a trilogy of books called the Grey Griffins books, and "Rise of the Black Wolf," is the second in the series. I've read the first one, really enjoyed it, and now have the entire trilogy to dig into (I already have book 3). "Unexpected: 11 Mysterious Stories" edited by Laura E. Williams loos like a good contender for next year's Halloween Read Pile as well! 

These treat boxes smelled like mildew as soon as I took them out of the plastic. Ugh. My wife tends to make a lot of baked goodies for friends between October and December, so I thought these would be a good fit... Too bad really. I may try to salvage them somehow. They aren't food-ready but that doesn't mean I can't clip the artwork and use it for something else.

I brought home the soundtrack from the 1998 Godzilla film as well. My friend Brian of Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture fame recently recommended a track from this album (Greenday's "Brain Stew" specifically) to me while we were doing the Eclectic Mayhem Podcast together, so when I spotted it for sale at Goodwill, I snapped it up! 

And finally, the two items I think I was most jazzed to find. The one on the left there is a McDonald's Halloween Pail from 1986 (UPDATE: While the bucket is stamped "1986" this bucket is actually from the 1993 series. Thanks to reader "Retro Robot Review" for the correction!). It's actually the witch bucket, but I like the cat peeking out from her hair so much more that that's the side I photographed. The bucket on the right I THINK is a trick-or-treat pail but honestly, the fact that it's an egg could indicate that it was an Easter bucket of some sort... but obviously someone at Goodwill agreed with me, because this orange monstrosity was in the Halloween section. These make LOVELY additions to my Halloween pail collection!

Well, that is it for tonight my friends! I'll be back soon enough with more Gorgon-Gazing 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 17: Anthologies - Ghosts And More Ghosts, Tales From the Crypt, and SCARY!

Welcome back kids! We're on the downward spiral to the 31st! Today's post is all about short story anthologies once again. I bring to the table three books that I have to admit, I had pretty mixed feelings about. Let's take a look shall we? 

When I picked up Robert Arthur's "Ghosts And More Ghosts," at Goodwill a few months back, I immediately knew it was going in the Halloween Read Pile. I mean LOOK AT THIS COVER.

Aw check it! The back cover holds even more grim surprises! These manage to look both Gothic and colorful at the same time, like one of the good Tim Burton films. I'd never heard of it before, but I saw online that many folks had nostalgia for it so I felt pretty excited.

Starting the book, things were interesting at first, with "Footsteps Invisible" a ghost story with a semi-creepy premise. "Mr. Milton's Gift" was just silly. I didn't really like it at all. "The Rose Crystal Bell" was interesting, but felt a bit too similar to "The Monkey's Paw". "The Marvelous Stamps From El Dorado" was another silly one that just didn't interest me. "The Wonderful Day" is not exactly a scary story, but still manages to be one of the best ones in the book, detailing the events in a town that have been supernaturally affected by a little boy's wish after overhearing his parents discussing the townsfolk before bed. It manages to be funny, whimsical, and even downright disturbing in places, considering one woman discovers that her tongue now "wags from both ends".  "Don't Be a Goose" was just silly again and again I found myself wanting to skim forward.

But "Do You Believe in Ghosts?" is pretty much THE best story in this volume. Loved. IT. It tells the story of a reality radio host who stages supernatural events to thrill his listeners... and then the bleief of those listeners makes something happen.

The rest of the stories just kind of happen after that, although "Mr. Dexter's Dragon" had kind of a nice, morbid twist to it. Overall though, I could have done without MOST of this book. I was sorely disappointed upon finishing it.

Another shockingly disappointing read was this adaptation of EC's classic comic series, "Tales From the Crypt" What's odd is that this book doesn't pull its punches really. The stories stay pretty morbid, and the illustrations included demonstrate this nicely.

What's unfortunate is that whomever adapted the stories from comic panel to text seemed to suck ALL of the excitement out of the stories. It's pretty much a passionless, rote description of what happens in the comics. 

The most exciting part of the book are the illustrations, pulled from the comics, that can be found scattered throughout.

Even just the little bit of flavor-text from the captions in the panels seem to be more exciting than the stories themselves.

It's really too bad because I can think of worse things to do than find a way to introduce young horror hounds to the classic horror comics put out by companies like EC back in the day. Heck, why not collect some of the more tame stories and reprint them black and white trades to introduce new readers the right way? Oh well. Moving on.

Finally we have another wildly off-balanced collection of stories that propose to be "Scary! Stories That Will Make You Scream!" Unlike "Ghosts and More Ghosts" above, I can't really let any of the stories pass muster if they don't at least TRY to be scary... Which at least two of them decidedly DO NOT. Just to cover those real quick, we have "The Thirteenth Day of Christmas" which is really more of a kid-sleuth mystery story involving a terrorist around Christmas time, with absolutely no tension to it whatsoever... and "Spotty Powder" which is really just an excerpt from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" that was removed before publishing and doesn't even pretend to be scary. It just makes you scratch your head.

The quality of the stories surrounding those two vary wildly in quality. Jerome Bixby's "It's a Good Life," is a terrifying classic and was the inspiration for both an episode of the Twilight Zone and a segment of the 80's film of the same name (the reality warping kid story is SOOO much worse in print than on the screen...) "The Restless Ghost" by Leon Garfield is endearing, spooky, and tragic in equal measures. Ramsey Campbell's "The Trick" is incredibly disturbing, and gets extra points for being a story set on Halloween. "Here There Be Tygers" by Stephen King, and "The Man Upstairs" by Ray Bradbury can do no wrong. They are classic! But the rest of the stories here range everywhere from passable to just kind of confusing to no good at all. Another weird thing about this book was it didn't seem like it could decide if it was for kids, young adults, or adults. The stories vary in maturity wildly. All in all, I can't strongly recommend any of these three books on their own merit, and the Tales from the Crypt book should just be avoided unless you're just a completist fan of the comics/show. There are a few gems to be discovered here though, and a few of them were recognized as such and included in other anthologies I had in the read pile further along.

Well... that's all I've got for tonight folks. I'll be back soon with more Ghostly 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 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!