Scary Sketches We Glimpsed in the Dark

February 17, 2022 12:14 PM

More than forty years ago, folklorist Alvin Schwartz published Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, the first of three horror anthologies that would go on to become the single most challenged book series of the 1990s. But most of the backlash was against not the stories themselves (which were fairly tame), but rather the illustrations of artist Stephen Gammell, whose bizarre, grotesque, nightmarish black-and-white inkscapes suffused every page with an eerie, unsettling menace. While the books were briefly re-issued in 2010 with new, milder illustrations by Brett Helquist of A Series of Unfortunate Events fame, the outcry was so great that the move was reversed a few years later. Gammell's dark vision would go on to inspire several monsters in the respectable 2019 film adaptation produced by Guillermo del Toro (with a sequel on the way). But for purists, the original art is available for your viewing pleasure: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones. Interested in revisiting the stories themselves? Then don't miss the dramatic readings of YouTuber daMeatHook, or the official audiobook(s) narrated by Patton Oswalt, Melissa McBride, and Alex Brightman.

Bloody Disgusting: Beyond ‘Scary Stories’: The Other Macabre Works of Artist Stephen Gammell

A look at his colorful non-horror children's art, which strangely has a similar style

Trailer for the 2019 documentary about the series Scary Stories

Official site for the impressive fan-made sequel book Scary Stories: A Tribute to Terror

Nightmare Soup, another inspired-by series

Artist Draws Horror Icons in the Creepy Black & White Style of ‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’

Halloween masks from Trick or Treat Studios

[This shambling zombie post brought to you by #DoublesJubilee!]

posted by Rhaomi (22 comments total)

My wife, who also fell under the spell of these in in elementary school, recently bought an inexpensive 2017 box set of reprints (w/the original art) for our kids.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:26 PM on February 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

There was one of those "spooky stories for middle schoolers" books that I read as a wee tot, and I still make sure the closet door is closed before i go to sleep.... It's a comforting sort of fear.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:36 PM on February 17, 2022

The Wendigo story from that book gave me the creeping horrors for years. Something about the nighttime abduction and the transformation of the victim was deeply eerie and cosmic to me. I loved it.
posted by Horkus at 12:46 PM on February 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

I wonder if there's some proto-SCP inspirational link to be drawn from these images. Or maybe I just have the SCP foundation on the brain these days.

(or maybe that is itself a symptom of memetic exposure to something leaking through the amnestics....)
posted by mhoye at 12:52 PM on February 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

The stories still haunt and terrify me, mostly because of the illustrations.
posted by curious nu at 12:58 PM on February 17, 2022

This image from the third book was pure nightmare fuel. I picked it up in the school library in Grade 4, flipped idly to the story with that woman thing, and was so terrified and unsettled I slammed the book shut and ran out of the room. I am now balding and have to worry about acid reflux and mortgage payments, but seeing it now sends me straight back to the elementary school Halloween display in the library. So, congratulations Stephen Gammell, your illustrations definitely had the right effect.

The Scary Stories series is one of the few times I've wondered if maybe the book banners had a point, I can't believe our librarians let elementary school kids read them.
posted by fortitude25 at 1:12 PM on February 17, 2022 [6 favorites]

When the Del Toro exhibit came through LA a while back, it included some of the original Scary Stories illustrations, which he had of course purchased from the artist. Being able to see those up close was the highlight of the show by a long shot.
posted by mykescipark at 1:20 PM on February 17, 2022 [5 favorites]

I was completely obsessed with these books as a kid, but my husband had never heard of them. I was trying to explain how shudderingly terrifying the illustrations were to me as a child, and when I showed him the picture of Harold the scarecrow I could literally see a creeping chill wash over his face. Those illustrations are some potent shit. Truly amazing and not something I can see being published for kids now.
posted by cakelite at 1:58 PM on February 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

Though actually, this one from a story about a woman who is playing hide and seek and suffocates in a locked chest is probably what gave the most nightmares!
posted by cakelite at 2:00 PM on February 17, 2022 [4 favorites]

I can't believe our librarians let elementary school kids read them.

I was a kid in the 70s and early 80s, and, for better or worse, the bar of what it was broadly thought that kids could handle - or just the tolerance for the consequences of them not being able to handle it - was obviously much, much higher then. By the time I encountered Scary Stories around age 11, I'd already been exposed to a years-long barrage of sometimes terrifying UFO/Bermuda Triangle/Bigfoot propaganda, Marvel horror comics, my mom's lurid, sexy romance novels (and copy of Helter Skelter), Fangoria and Del Ray Lovecraft paperbacks at the drug store, the fascinating covers of VHS horror movies at our video store (conveniently right next to the porn section, barely disguised behind a flimsy beaded curtain), etc. I had good, thoughtful parents, but even they didn't seem overly concerned about any of this.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:11 PM on February 17, 2022 [5 favorites]

I loved these but had to keep them hidden behind all my other books so the pictures couldn’t see me. I can’t really explain the kid logic at work there, but more than a couple of people have told me they did the same thing.
posted by jameaterblues at 2:15 PM on February 17, 2022 [13 favorites]

I really liked these books as a kid. I found the illustrations fascinating and wonderful but not terrifying. I guess I can see why they'd be scary but they just didn't hit that nerve for me. Some of the stories themselves were pretty scary though.

The list of most challenged books is pretty wild. There are quite a few we read in school as assigned reading. Some of them have me really wondering why they were challenged at all. Some are more obvious like 87. Where’s Waldo?, by Martin Hanford.

61. Boys and Sex, by Wardell Pomeroy
98. Girls and Sex, by Wardell Pomeroy

The gap between the two means something but I don't know what. Luckily Waldo is standing in the breach to keep the boys and girls apart.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 2:33 PM on February 17, 2022 [3 favorites]

I still have my three books from the old days of 1980s Scholastic book fairs. Not to read them again, nor to pass down to the next generation. No, I keep them so that I always know where they are and thus they cannot sneak up on me.
posted by Servo5678 at 2:37 PM on February 17, 2022 [17 favorites]

I loved these as a kid. And their echo in Barry Moser’s illustrations for the Mandelbaum translation of the Divine Comedy? AWESOME
posted by Caxton1476 at 4:28 PM on February 17, 2022 [3 favorites]

augh i went and looked at a bunch of the illustrations again and my whole skin is crawling i hate these so much aughhhh

*looks some more*

One thing that the stories do a good job of is not just the jump scares, but the absolute creeping dread. There's one (I think it's "The Thing") about a shape of a person (oh god my whole skin again) continually getting closer in a field. There's one about kids that are terrible, and when they come back, their mother has been replaced by a wooden mannequin in a rocking chair -- the illustration for that is just this ghostly swampy marsh and it still creeps me the fuck out. And that's not even talking about "Wait Til Martin Comes" and those awful Tibetan Fox-ish cats. (also how is that last one supposed to be comedic they are plotting a horrible death get out get out!!!!1)
posted by curious nu at 4:44 PM on February 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

I checked these books out constantly from my elementary school library. I don't remember being traumatized by the illustrations, although I remember them. And that's kind of weird to me, because I was a very squeamish, sensitive kid (like even watching previews on TV for horror movies would give me nightmares). I think I just thought they were neat and cool.

I guess I just contained multitudes.
posted by edencosmic at 5:02 PM on February 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

I was simultaneously horrified and compelled by these as a kid. I have a few of his non-horror books around here somewhere . . .
posted by aspersioncast at 7:24 PM on February 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

I read these a few pages at a time from the library shelf when adults weren’t looking. I was so sure I was doing something wrong. The rush from some of the images was incredible! Wonderful artist.

By the way, did everyone else find that big head in profile with the red and blue highlights not scary at all? I like it now, but as a kid I thought the artist messed up.
posted by michaelh at 11:46 PM on February 17, 2022

“Fairly tame”

Me, having nightmares I was going to somehow get corpse clothes from the thrift store and die of formaldehyde for YEARS.
posted by corb at 12:35 AM on February 18, 2022 [4 favorites]

I loved these but had to keep them hidden behind all my other books so the pictures couldn’t see me. I can’t really explain the kid logic at work there, but more than a couple of people have told me they did the same thing.

Oh, well yeah. You gotta keep those things in a drawer. Not on a bookshelf, where a bit of it could peek out at you.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:57 AM on February 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

In a better world, in which horror comics were elevated and celebrated rather than demonized and shunned, Stephen Gammell would have been the heir apparent to "Ghastly" Graham Ingels.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:56 AM on February 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

[Archive.org copy of this post; the image gallery links should all work!]
posted by Rhaomi at 5:43 PM on February 27, 2022