Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Art Hand

Information technology'south been a few years since the Scary Stories to Tell in the Darktrilogy got a major facelift, replacing Stephen Gammell's art/living nightmares with Brett Helquist's tamer take on the urban legends, folktales, and general creepiness nerveless by Alvin Schwartz. People were incensed, simply now that some time's passed, we should exist able to evaluate it objectively.

Was the alter a expert one?

No. It was non. Usually I wait until the end of a column to make a judgment, but screw that, this was a terrible idea.

Okay, okay. Before nosotros go called-for down...whatever it is people in mobs burn down with torches and pitchforks (and before we go pitchforkin' for that affair), permit's exist clear about something: Brett Helquist, Stephen Gammell's replacement, is a really good artist. Take this comparing from "Merely Delicious" (Gammell on the left, Helquist on the right, which will exist the convention throughout this column):

Helquist's toad-y creep is just virtually perfect. The meat on the plate and skewered on his fork look vile. His smile, the juice dripping down his chin, it'due south all spot on.

Merely let's face facts. Helquist had an impossible job. Has in that location e'er been a collection of illustrations that caused more nightmares than those by Stephen Gammell? Accept you lot e'er seen anything like them? Did you, similar me, buy a Halloween sweater with an all-over Gammell print?

Idea so.

Let's gnash our teeth together and become through some of the worst replacements.

"The Hook"

There are some general differences in what Gammell did and what Helquist did. With this image, existence a similar subject, we can come across those differences at work.

I big difference, correct away, is the high contrast blackness and white from the Gammell books and the more sepia paper in the Helquist books. The loftier dissimilarity and the stark white pages are striking. Cold. They feel more "other" and take this weird contrast of cleanliness and filth where the Helquist stuff is more muted, more leveled-out.

The other biggie is the full general style. Gammell is a lot wilder. His images feel...moisture. Helquist's stuff is more than direct and tidy.

Why is this a bad replacement? Because nosotros took the dripping, vein-y debris attached to the hook's cup in Gammell'due south cartoon and replaced it with torn fabric. Snooze.

"Alligators"

Neither of these gator drawings are overly authentic. Both give the gators a sort of facial expression, and equally much as I love gators, I don't run across them every bit having terribly expressive faces.

That said, Helquist's gators look a little sleepy, and their eyes are kind of cartoon-y. Gammell's gator? That looks like a disgusting killing machine. Look at its thick, sloppy arm. The malice. If I have a choice of going upwards against i type of gator in my nightmares tonight, and if I tin choose betwixt a Gammell gator and a Helquist gator, I know which way I'one thousand leaning.

"Dead Man'southward Brains"

Helquist went for the more creeping horror. Gammell was assurance to the wall. While Helquist has the fabric-covered bowl with a splash of claret, Gammell has theactual headwith steam coming out the meridian, not to mention it'south existence carried past a grandmotherly blazon. This replacement is indicative of one of the issues with the new art. These books, to a kid, felt similar forbidden objects, things you lot weren't supposed to have. Which made them scarier. While Helquist'south image has the blood, it's just non in-your-face plenty that it would raise a lot of parental eyebrows. With the new images, Scary Stories is not the taboo book information technology once was.

"T-H-U-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-!"

When Gammell gives united states something ghostly, he gives u.s.a. something that'south totally new and unfamiliar. Look at that thing. Crotch up at its neck, 1 arm branching into two hands, another arm that is connected up all wrong. The more you look at it, the weirder information technology is. Yous want to stop looking, only you tin't. The Helquist expressionless-y is a expert piece of fine art, for certain, merely information technology feels like something we've seen before. It'south more familiar, less disconcerting.

"The Appointment"

I wanted to include this ane because I like the Helquist drawing quite a fleck. That said, it's a great instance of how the replacements really changed the tone of the books.

I had a photograph teacher once who really discouraged photograph projects based on songs. Why? Because students went SUPER literal almost of the time. If you made a project based on Europe'southward "The Final Countdown," yous'd probably have a clock, something indicating finality. Maybe a picture of a synthesizer.

Helquist'southward drawings are skillful, but they don't intrigue me or become me interested in the story so much as they compliment the story in one case it's read. Which may exist why I like this one. I don't think that'southward a bad thing for illustrations to practise.

Just there's a good reason that people remember the illustrations in these books more they remember the stories. And it's shit like Gammell's vision of Death. His abstruse, non-literal stuff makes me more interested in the story than the highly-literal Helquist piece.

"Aaron Kelly'southward Bones"

The skeleton is good and all, but Gammell illustrated a dancing corpse. You are watching it fall apart in all its gory glory, right at that place on the page. It's a memorable Gammell drawing, and the Helquist is simply no match. C'mon, your kindest, sweetest neighbour volition hang a cardboard skeleton on the door in October. Nobody is hanging anything that looks like Gammell's Aaron Kelly.

"The Ghost With The Bloody Fingers"

Gammell knows how to depict gore. The hand is disgusting. The claret looks like claret. The posing of the hand is disgusting. Helquist's hand just isn't scary. It's drawing-y. And the claret looks like a slick oily affair, something you could wipe clean and walk away. Gammell's hand has a dirtiness to it that volition never come clean.

"Hoo-Ha'due south"

What? No replacement at all? I don't even know if I tin can count this as an egregious replacement as there was NO replacement. I volition say information technology'southward an awesome Gammell cartoon, and without anything replacing information technology in the new editions, it feels like an unanswered challenge.

"Somebody Cruel From Aloft"

These don't even compare. The ship is an illustration that could fit into any number of children'due south books. The Gammell drawing would make a parent say, "What in the hell are yous reading?" It's a powerful nightmare of an image. No contest.

"Wonderful Sausage"

I will see this Gammell image in my mind every fourth dimension I think about these books.

Look, the Gammell is just...gross. And information technology's a fiddling ameliorate in terms of summing up the story. If we've got a story nigh sausage made of flesh, what meliorate style to illustrate it than to show information technology being forked up past a severed arm? Makes sense to me!

"Oh, Susannah"

I feel like we're always in our world with Helquist's drawings. With Gammell'southward we're somewhere else. Gammell'southward willingness to go abstract is a large strength of his work in these books, and Helquist's by and large-accurate drawings get out me wanting a lilliputian scrap of that uncanny horror, a little scrap of that feeling when you lot turn to a page and go, "What in the actual fuck is that?"

"BA-ROOOM!"

C'mon. The Helquist drawing is creepy once you read the story and realize these are dead people in the bed together. Merely from a visual standpoint, how fucked up is this Gammell art? The Helquist is a cartoon of dead people, just the Gammell is a drawing of expressionless people that LOOK expressionless.

"Footsteps"

One of these is nightmare fuel, feet coming through a all of a sudden soft ceiling. The other looks like leftovers from a Christmas book. No thanks.

"Harold"

Unspeakable body horror or a leftover from Wizard of Oz? Jesus, Gammell's Harold has a BELLY Push! That's a man of flesh, and he looks the part.

"The Dream"

Something Gammell did that Helquist seemed to shy away from was stuff like this. The perspective hither makes it seem like y'all, the reader, are waking up to confront this oddly frightening character. Gammell'due south work didn't let yous keep your distance. Y'all always felt like you lot were right there, touching, seeing, smelling. It felt then unsafe considering it was all so immediate. In this Helquist cartoon, the character is going upward the stairs, into the nighttime, but the reader isn't. We're grinning, saluting her bravery, and getting the hell out of there.

"Sam'south New Pet"

Almost of us probably remember this urban legend, the one where a kid gets a "dog" that turns out to be a rabid sewer rat. This Helquist drawing looks similar a delightful unusual animal friend. Cartel I call him "cute?" Seriously, with the collar, information technology's straight out of a Disney movie. Gammell's? THAT'S a walking, tumerous abomination.

"The Red Spot"

I mean, duh. A spider on the face is null to sneeze at. Merely if we want to talk Would Yous Rather, I'll have a big spider on my face over the moment when an egg sac bursts my cheek flesh open and spiders come pouring out. Merely I was raised with certain values, so maybe it'due south just me(?)

"Is Something Incorrect?"

Just then gloriously weird. Likewise, an enormous, plain-featured skull with a melting eyeball. Did Gammell make squish noises with his mouth while he was drawing? He must have, correct?

At The End of the Day

I think what chafes me, but a little, is that Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark was i of the few things, growing upward, that I had admission to that was too scary for me. It was in the child's office of the library. It was a Scholastic Book Sale, teacher-sanctioned way for me to push the boundaries a piffling. These books were passed effectually between friends, and we would all endeavor and outdo each other past finding the grossest drawings buried in the different volumes.

I grew up thinking books were boring. There were some notable exceptions, likeScary Stories to Tell in the Dark.The change in the art, not the private drawings, but the overall tone and level, evidence Young Me right. We took a book that was scary, gross, gory, and disgusting, But DEFINITELY NOT Irksome, and we made information technology safer, more appropriate, and totally slow.

That's me, though. I'm not a kid anymore, nor do I take kids. What say you, parents? What about y'all, folks who read these equally kids?

Manufacturer:

Function Number:

Price: