Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark New Art Scarecriw

Information technology's 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'southward tamer accept on the urban legends, folktales, and general creepiness collected by Alvin Schwartz. People were incensed, but at present that some time's passed, nosotros should exist able to evaluate information technology objectively.

Was the change a expert i?

No. It was not. Normally I wait until the finish of a column to make a judgment, but screw that, this was a terrible idea.

Okay, okay. Before we go burning downward...whatever it is people in mobs burn down with torches and pitchforks (and earlier we go pitchforkin' for that matter), let's be clear about something: Brett Helquist, Stephen Gammell'due south replacement, is a really expert creative person. Take this comparison from "Just Delicious" (Gammell on the left, Helquist on the right, which will exist the convention throughout this column):

Helquist's toad-y creep is but about perfect. The meat on the plate and skewered on his fork look vile. His smiling, the juice dripping downwards his chin, it's all spot on.

But allow's face up facts. Helquist had an impossible job. Has in that location always been a collection of illustrations that caused more than nightmares than those by Stephen Gammell? Have you ever seen annihilation like them? Did you, like me, buy a Halloween sweater with an all-over Gammell print?

Thought so.

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

"The Claw"

At that place are some full general differences in what Gammell did and what Helquist did. With this prototype, existence a similar subject, we can encounter those differences at work.

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

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

Why is this a bad replacement? Considering we took the dripping, vein-y debris attached to the claw'due south cup in Gammell's drawing and replaced it with torn cloth. Snooze.

"Alligators"

Neither of these gator drawings are overly accurate. Both give the gators a sort of facial expression, and as much as I love gators, I don't see them as having terribly expressive faces.

That said, Helquist's gators wait a little sleepy, and their eyes are kind of drawing-y. Gammell's gator? That looks like a disgusting killing machine. Wait at its thick, sloppy arm. The malice. If I accept a choice of going upward against ane type of gator in my nightmares tonight, and if I tin can choose between a Gammell gator and a Helquist gator, I know which mode I'1000 leaning.

"Expressionless Man's Brains"

Helquist went for the more creeping horror. Gammell was balls to the wall. While Helquist has the cloth-covered bowl with a splash of claret, Gammell has theactual headwith steam coming out the top, non to mention it'south being carried by a grandmotherly type. This replacement is indicative of ane of the issues with the new art. These books, to a child, felt like forbidden objects, things you weren't supposed to have. Which fabricated them scarier. While Helquist's image has the blood, it'due south simply not in-your-face enough that it would raise a lot of parental eyebrows. With the new images, Scary Stories is not the taboo book it once was.

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

When Gammell gives us something ghostly, he gives us something that's totally new and unfamiliar. Look at that thing. Crotch up at its neck, one arm branching into two hands, another arm that is connected up all incorrect. The more than you look at information technology, the weirder it is. You desire to cease looking, but y'all can't. The Helquist expressionless-y is a good piece of art, for sure, but it feels similar something we've seen before. It's more familiar, less disconcerting.

"The Engagement"

I wanted to include this one because I like the Helquist cartoon quite a bit. That said, it's a great example of how the replacements really changed the tone of the books.

I had a photo instructor once who really discouraged photo projects based on songs. Why? Considering students went SUPER literal most of the time. If y'all made a project based on Europe's "The Final Countdown," you'd probably have a clock, something indicating finality. Perhaps a picture of a synthesizer.

Helquist's drawings are good, just they don't intrigue me or go me interested in the story and then much as they compliment the story once it'southward read. Which may be why I similar this one. I don't think that's a bad thing for illustrations to do.

But at that place'southward a good reason that people retrieve the illustrations in these books more than they remember the stories. And it's shit similar Gammell'south vision of Expiry. His abstract, not-literal stuff makes me more than interested in the story than the highly-literal Helquist piece.

"Aaron Kelly's Bones"

The skeleton is good and all, but Gammell illustrated a dancing corpse. You are watching information technology fall apart in all its gory glory, right in that location on the folio. It'south a memorable Gammell drawing, and the Helquist is simply no lucifer. C'monday, your kindest, sweetest neighbor will hang a cardboard skeleton on the door in October. Nobody is hanging anything that looks similar Gammell'southward Aaron Kelly.

"The Ghost With The Bloody Fingers"

Gammell knows how to depict gore. The hand is icky. The blood looks similar blood. The posing of the hand is icky. Helquist's hand just isn't scary. It's drawing-y. And the blood looks similar a slick oily thing, something yous could wipe clean and walk away. Gammell's hand has a dirtiness to information technology 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 equally an egregious replacement as there was NO replacement. I volition say it'southward an awesome Gammell drawing, and without anything replacing information technology in the new editions, it feels like an unanswered challenge.

"Somebody Fell From Aloft"

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

"Wonderful Sausage"

I will see this Gammell prototype in my mind every time I call back nearly these books.

Look, the Gammell is simply...gross. And it's a little better in terms of summing up the story. If we've got a story nigh sausage made of mankind, what amend style to illustrate it than to show information technology being forked up by a severed arm? Makes sense to me!

"Oh, Susannah"

I experience like we're e'er in our world with Helquist's drawings. With Gammell's we're somewhere else. Gammell's willingness to go abstract is a big strength of his piece of work in these books, and Helquist's mostly-authentic drawings leave me wanting a footling bit of that uncanny horror, a fiddling fleck of that feeling when you plough to a page and go, "What in the actual fuck is that?"

"BA-ROOOM!"

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

"Footsteps"

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

"Harold"

Unspeakable body horror or a leftover from Sorcerer of Oz? Jesus, Gammell'due south Harold has a Belly button! That'due south 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 here makes it seem similar y'all, the reader, are waking upwardly to face this oddly frightening character. Gammell'south work didn't let you go along your distance. Yous ever felt like you were right there, touching, seeing, smelling. Information technology felt so unsafe because information technology was all and then immediate. In this Helquist drawing, the character is going up the stairs, into the night, but the reader isn't. We're smile, saluting her bravery, and getting the hell out of there.

"Sam'south New Pet"

Most of u.s. 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. Dare I phone call him "cute?" Seriously, with the collar, it'due south straight out of a Disney movie. Gammell'southward? THAT'S a walking, tumerous abomination.

"The Ruby-red Spot"

I hateful, duh. A spider on the face is nothing to sneeze at. But if we want to talk Would Y'all Rather, I'll take a big spider on my face over the moment when an egg sac bursts my cheek flesh open and spiders come up pouring out. Only I was raised with certain values, so maybe it'southward just me(?)

"Is Something Incorrect?"

Just and then gloriously weird. As well, an enormous, deformed skull with a melting eyeball. Did Gammell make squish noises with his rima oris while he was drawing? He must have, right?

At The End of the Day

I think what chafes me, simply a little, is that Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark was one of the few things, growing upward, that I had access to that was too scary for me. It was in the kid's office of the library. It was a Scholastic Book Sale, instructor-sanctioned mode for me to push the boundaries a trivial. These books were passed around betwixt friends, and we would all endeavor and outdo each other by finding the grossest drawings buried in the dissimilar volumes.

I grew upwardly thinking books were boring. There were some notable exceptions, likeScary Stories to Tell in the Night.The alter in the art, not the individual drawings, only the overall tone and level, prove Immature Me right. Nosotros took a volume that was scary, gross, gory, and disgusting, BUT DEFINITELY NOT Tedious, and we made it safer, more advisable, and totally boring.

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

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