I Love the Ladies

In the Sixties and Seventies, monster models were so much fun! The surfer tropes of Big Daddy Roth faded, and the creatures seen in Universal's Shock Theatre syndication package drew the attention of countless kids, age five to fifteen.

This ad filled the back cover of Superboy #124, cover-dated August 1965.  I bought 'em and built 'em, but over the years they lost their sets and accoutrements, leaving only the ladies themselves.

But they still have places of honor in our decorations!  You'll see the Witch on the left, behind the Wolf Man and Frankenstein.  On the right, the Bride reclines supine at the front.

Above is what's left of the Bride.

The Witch is sitting on her skirt.  Her ankles and feet vanished long ago.

What creepy leftovers from YOUR childhood are still kickin' around?

See you Friday with three more Halloween music comps!

  

Read in the Light

Scary Books, Kiddies!

One Dark Night – Troy Taylor

 LOTS OF FUN, A FEW FORMAT BOOBOOS

             This is a fun read and well written.  Taylor is a good narrator.  He bundles these tales of mysterious figures and odd crazes as tales of “sinister strangers.”  Which is a nice penumbra for topics from clowns trying to grab kids into vans, to so-called black ghosts or vampires American-style.

            I was mildly irritated by Taylor’s inability to decide how to handle an en dash in his text. Sometimes we have a single hyphen, sometimes two hyphens—sometimes in the same paragraph!

Some photo captions have a period at the end, some do not (pp 184-85 for example).

There are a few line-spacing issues near some of the photos, which I have encountered myself when dealing with photos and text in WORD.

            Most of the tales woven by Taylor were news to me.  I bought the book because of its subtitle.  My parents were born and raised in Mattoon—home of the Mad Gasser and his 1944 reign of fear—and to my eternal regret, I never quizzed them on THEIR memories or thoughts anent the fellow.

            I certainly DID NOT know that the Mad Gasser had a very similar precursor, in Virginia, in the winter of 1933-34!

            There are a few proofreading issues, but not a lot.  The most silly is on page 232 when Taylor says that the Mad Gasser case “left an edible mark on our history.”  The correct word, of course, is “indelible.”

            I was very happy to see a bibliography and list of sources at the end.

            Overall, I recommend this book as a sometimes creepy, sometimes wry recounting of some “sinister stranger” tales that you too might not have heard of—until now.

See you on Wednesday!