Who Did the Art for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

April 25, 2022 Post a Comment

It's been a few years since the Scary Stories to Tell in the Nighttrilogy 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 collected past Alvin Schwartz. People were incensed, simply now that some fourth dimension'southward passed, nosotros should be able to evaluate it considerately.

Was the change a expert i?

No. It was not. Unremarkably I await until the end of a column to brand a judgment, only screw that, this was a terrible idea.

Okay, okay. Before we go burning down...whatever it is people in mobs fire with torches and pitchforks (and before nosotros go pitchforkin' for that affair), let's be clear about something: Brett Helquist, Stephen Gammell's replacement, is a really good artist. Take this comparison from "Just Delicious" (Gammell on the left, Helquist on the correct, which will be the convention throughout this column):

Helquist'southward toad-y pitter-patter is just almost perfect. The meat on the plate and skewered on his fork wait vile. His smiling, the juice dripping downwardly his chin, it's all spot on.

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

Thought so.

Let'due south gnash our teeth together and get through some of the worst replacements.

"The Hook"

At that place are some general differences in what Gammell did and what Helquist did. With this image, being a similar subject, we can see those differences at work.

One big departure, right away, is the loftier dissimilarity blackness 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 have this weird contrast 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'south stuff is more than direct and tidy.

Why is this a bad replacement? Because we took the dripping, vein-y droppings fastened to the claw's cup in Gammell'southward drawing and replaced information technology with torn fabric. Snooze.

"Alligators"

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

That said, Helquist's gators look a niggling sleepy, and their eyes are kind of cartoon-y. Gammell'southward gator? That looks similar a disgusting killing car. Look at its thick, sloppy arm. The malice. If I have a choice of going up against one type of gator in my nightmares tonight, and if I can choose between a Gammell gator and a Helquist gator, I know which mode I'thousand leaning.

"Dead Man'south 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 blood, Gammell has theactual headwith steam coming out the summit, not to mention information technology'south existence carried past a grandmotherly type. This replacement is indicative of one of the issues with the new art. These books, to a kid, felt like forbidden objects, things you weren't supposed to take. Which made them scarier. While Helquist's image has the blood, it's but not in-your-face enough that information technology would raise a lot of parental eyebrows. With the new images, Scary Stories is non the taboo book information technology once was.

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

When Gammell gives us something ghostly, he gives united states of america something that's totally new and unfamiliar. Expect at that matter. Crotch up at its neck, ane arm branching into two hands, some other arm that is connected up all incorrect. The more you look at it, the weirder information technology is. Y'all want to stop looking, simply you can't. The Helquist expressionless-y is a skilful piece of art, for certain, but it feels like something we've seen earlier. It'southward more familiar, less disconcerting.

"The Engagement"

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

I had a photo teacher one time who actually discouraged photograph projects based on songs. Why? Because students went SUPER literal virtually of the time. If you fabricated a project based on Europe's "The Final Countdown," you'd probably take a clock, something indicating finality. Maybe a picture of a synthesizer.

Helquist's drawings are expert, but they don't intrigue me or become me interested in the story so much as they compliment the story one time it'due south read. Which may be why I like this i. I don't think that's a bad affair for illustrations to practice.

Merely at that place'south a good reason that people remember the illustrations in these books more than than they retrieve the stories. And it'due south shit like Gammell'due south vision of Expiry. His abstract, non-literal stuff makes me more interested in the story than the highly-literal Helquist slice.

"Aaron Kelly'southward Bones"

The skeleton is expert and all, but Gammell illustrated a dancing corpse. You lot are watching information technology fall apart in all its gory glory, right in that location on the page. Information technology'southward a memorable Gammell drawing, and the Helquist is only no match. C'mon, your kindest, sweetest neighbor will hang a cardboard skeleton on the door in Oct. Nobody is hanging anything that looks like Gammell's Aaron Kelly.

"The Ghost With The Bloody Fingers"

Gammell knows how to describe gore. The hand is disgusting. The claret looks like claret. The posing of the hand is icky. Helquist's hand merely isn't scary. It's cartoon-y. And the blood looks like a slick oily thing, something you could wipe clean and walk away. Gammell's mitt has a dirtiness to it that will never come make clean.

"Hoo-Ha's"

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 will say it'southward an crawly Gammell drawing, and without anything replacing it in the new editions, it feels like an unanswered claiming.

"Somebody Barbarous From Aloft"

These don't fifty-fifty compare. The transport is an analogy that could fit into whatever number of children's books. The Gammell cartoon 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 volition meet this Gammell prototype in my mind every time I think nigh these books.

Look, the Gammell is just...gross. And it'southward a piddling improve in terms of summing upwardly the story. If we've got a story about sausage made of flesh, what amend way to illustrate it than to show information technology existence forked up by a severed arm? Makes sense to me!

"Oh, Susannah"

I experience like we're always in our world with Helquist'south drawings. With Gammell'due south we're somewhere else. Gammell'due south willingness to go abstruse is a big strength of his piece of work in these books, and Helquist's more often than not-authentic drawings leave me wanting a little fleck of that uncanny horror, a little bit of that feeling when you turn to a page and go, "What in the actual fuck is that?"

"BA-ROOOM!"

C'monday. The Helquist drawing is creepy one time y'all read the story and realize these are dead people in the bed together. But from a visual standpoint, how fucked up is this Gammell art? The Helquist is a drawing of dead people, but the Gammell is a drawing of dead people that Wait dead.

"Footsteps"

1 of these is nightmare fuel, feet coming through a suddenly soft ceiling. The other looks like leftovers from a Christmas book. No thank you.

"Harold"

Unspeakable body horror or a leftover from Magician of Oz? Jesus, Gammell'south Harold has a Belly button! That's a human of flesh, and he looks the function.

"The Dream"

Something Gammell did that Helquist seemed to shy away from was stuff like this. The perspective here makes information technology seem like you, the reader, are waking up to face this oddly frightening character. Gammell'southward piece of work didn't let you keep your altitude. You ever felt similar y'all were right in that location, touching, seeing, smelling. Information technology felt so unsafe because it was all so immediate. In this Helquist drawing, the character is going upward the stairs, into the night, but the reader isn't. We're grin, saluting her bravery, and getting the hell out of at that place.

"Sam's New Pet"

Well-nigh of the states probably remember this urban legend, the one where a child gets a "domestic dog" that turns out to be a rabid sewer rat. This Helquist drawing looks similar a delightful unusual fauna friend. Dare I telephone call him "beautiful?" Seriously, with the collar, it's direct out of a Disney movie. Gammell's? THAT'S a walking, tumerous abomination.

"The Blood-red Spot"

I mean, duh. A spider on the face is nothing to sneeze at. But if we want to talk Would You Rather, I'll have a large 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 only me(?)

"Is Something Wrong?"

Just and so gloriously weird. Likewise, an enormous, deformed skull with a melting eyeball. Did Gammell make squish noises with his mouth while he was drawing? He must have, right?

At The End of the Day

I call up what chafes me, just a picayune, is that Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark was one of the few things, growing up, that I had access to that was too scary for me. It was in the kid'south role of the library. Information technology was a Scholastic Volume Sale, instructor-sanctioned mode for me to push the boundaries a little. These books were passed around between friends, and we would all attempt and outdo each other by finding the grossest drawings cached in the unlike volumes.

I grew up thinking books were boring. In that location were some notable exceptions, likeScary Stories to Tell in the Dark.The change in the art, not the individual drawings, just the overall tone and level, prove Immature Me right. We took a book that was scary, gross, gory, and disgusting, Only DEFINITELY NOT BORING, and we made it safer, more appropriate, and totally tiresome.

That's me, though. I'm not a child anymore, nor do I have kids. What say you lot, parents? What near you, folks who read these as kids?

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