I was gonna wait till October before I brought this to your attention–it seemed more appropriate that way, somehow, even if ADDTF is now pretty much a 24/7/365 horror blog–but this post by Kevin Melrose at Dark But Shining forced my hand.
So to speak.
Horror site The Flesh Farm has put together a set of lovely tributes to folklorist Alvin Schwartz and illustrator Stephen Gammell’s infamous Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark book series. Click on the links below for pictures, stories, and general pluggy goodness for one of the current generation of horror fans and creators’ universal formative influences:
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones
I came across these pages when conducting research a few weeks back for what I hoped would be an interview with Stephen Gammell for Giant Magazine. I found out that Mr. Gammell doesn’t give interviews, so that plan fell through, but any excuse to re-immerse myself in these books is a welcome one. I’m of the mind that Gammell’s work with Schwartz (who passed away several years ago, unfortunately) is one of the great unheralded touchstones of contemporary horror, particularly in comics. Here’s what I said on the topic over at Tom Spurgeon’s ComicsReporter.com site:
I know [the Scary Stories series] isn’t comics per se, but fans of cartooning and illustration are hereby heartily advised to go to their local Borders and pick up the chain’s super-cheap omnibus hardcover collecting all three volumes of this series, which they may remember fondly and fearfully from their childhoods. Schwartz’s economical, just-so prose meshes perfectly with the incredibly bizarre and still-frightening ink-washed illustrations by Stephen Gammell. These books are an unsung influence of contemporary American comics, I’m quite convinced; for example, the work of artist Ben Templesmith, whose collaborations with writer Steve Niles have almost singlehandedly revived the commercial fortunes of the genre, is thoroughly indebted to Gammell’s style.
And when I said “still-frightening,” I meant it: Any of you who (like me) occasionally flip through your copies of the books before laying down to sleep will undoubtedly testify that it makes for a nerve-wracking night. And hey, if the only people the books scared were kids, they wouldn’t have been the 1990s’ most frequently challenged library books.
There’s so much to recommend these books: The astoundingly frightening art, some of which is seared into my brain as deeply as any scene from my favorite horror movies; the all-business prose, written for children but translating as economical and almost documentary-like for adults; the brilliantly worded story and section titles, which when taken as a group are my favorite batch of titles this side of Gang of Four’s first album; the stories themselves, selected from folklore and urban legend across the United States and striking chords you didn’t know you were equipped with. Just wonderful in every way, and an utterly essential addition to every horror fan’s library. Makes a fine Halloween present for the kiddies, too. Provided you don’t mind scaring the daylights out of them.