Night in Funland and Other Stories

Scary Books, Kiddies!

 

Night in Funland and Other Stories from Literary Cavalcade.  Edited by Jerome Brondfield, 1968, Scholastic Book Services.  Cover: Margaret Howlett

      A lot of Boomers can thank TAB (the Teen-Age Book Club) and Scholastic Publishers for a lot of literary insight and exposure, along with some frights.  This anthology includes such classics as

·         “4 O’Clock,” by Price Day, which became a 1962 Twilight Zone episode;

·         “The Vertical Ladder,” by William Sansom, depicting with dreadful reality the inner thoughts of someone dared to do a stupid thing;

·         Keyes’s “Flowers for Algernon”;

·         Shirley Jackson’s brilliant “One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts”;

·         and the stupefying “Contents of the Dead Man’s Pockets,” by Jack Finney—an absolute must-read for anybody consumed with work or deadlines

      Still, I must mock the back-cover blurb.  EVERYTHING is better with italics and an exclamation point, I guess.  By this standard, Winnie-the-Pooh might be summarized as:  A child’s stuffed animal comes to life in his imagination ... and leads an uncanny existence with imaginary companions of its own!

See you on Monday for the final week of Blog-o-Ween!

  

A Hundred Munsters

Yes, there were really that many pages in the Whitman Munster coloring book.

Here are pages 98-99-100.  And still a dozen or so pages to go!

But not this year.  Gotta keep you hangin'!

See you back here on Friday for more post-adolescent reminicences.
 

Is Candy from 1958 Stale Yet?

From my copy of Action Comics #247, cover-dated December 1958:

Of course, nowadays we have Tootsie Rolls and the Tootsie Roll Pop, but no blocks of Tootsie Roll Fudge.  Waaah!  Me want some!

See you on Wednesday for more Munster-iffic fun!
 

It's the End of the Topp

Here's the last of the Topps bubble-gum Monster Cards.  Yeah, there's more of them, but it's all I have, anyway.

Well, that's it until Monday.  See you then, and hold your Fiends close and your Enemas closer!

  

Hodgson: The Boats of the “Glen Carrig”

Scary Books, Kiddies!

The Boats of the “Glen Carrig.”  William Hope Hodgson, 1907.  Ballantine, 1971.  ORIGINAL BUT MISSING cover art by Robert LoGrippo

           I bought this paperback around 1980.  It was only a dime, because it had no cover.  And I read it.  But I’ll be shot if I remember anything other than being staggered by its depiction of a kind of cosmic horror familiar to me through my acquaintance with the works of HP Lovecraft.



            And being the silly completist sort that I am, I took an oversized file card and made my own front cover.

 Here’s the back cover with a continuation of the  actual front cover image.

Evidently the thing was printed in a 1945 pulp mag.  A youngster named Lin Carter read it, and later, as book editor for Ballantine, issued it forth as part of the “Adult Fantasy” series.

            By the way, this is the complete cover. 

            And being a glutton for mockery, I’ll give you a close-up of my attempt to emulate Ballantine’s “Adult Fantasy” unicorn insignia.



See you next time!

 

Marilyn's Drippy Date

More Munster pages.

Of course, the caption on Grandpa's picture should say, "Beaten," not "Beat."

See you on Wednesday!

Fredric Brown – Nightmares and Geezenstacks

Scary Books, Kiddies!

 

Nightmares and Geezenstacks, by Fredric Brown, 1961.  Bantam, 1979.  

      This fine little tome (182 pages) is given no cover credit by Bantam.  The red bats are likely simple clip-art-types dropped into the image. 

The red creature laying across the top of the egg is obviously a harpy.  I know I’ve seen this particular image, but I can’t find it!

She’s a harpy of the old kind, as shown above.

      The “egg guy” is a detail from The Last Judgment, an astounding triptych by Hieronymus Bosch, from sometime around 1482.

      Wow, huh?

      Now you see him!  As for the wonderful text inside the covers ...

      Brown’s stories are a great mixture of humor and sardonic wit.  Here are a few story cycles

·         the “Nightmares” in various colors, each beginning with a guy waking up;

·         the “Great Lost Discoveries” tales;

·         experiments in time travel with “The Short Happy Lives of Eustace Weaver” (one through three);

·         and tons more brief knockouts.

See you next time!

  

They're the Topps!

Here are cards 105 and 112 of the Topps monster cards.

Now crawl along home, kiddies, and come back on Friday!
 

Color Lily Munster

Here's a page from The Munsters coloring book, all cleaned up and purty.

Print it and let your local six-year-old go crazy!

See you back here on Wednesday for our next installment of BLOG-O-WEEN!
 

The Ghouls -- edited by Peter Haining

Scary Books, Kiddies!

 The Ghouls.  Edited by Peter Haining, 1971.  Pocket, 1972.  No cover credit

            Pocket Books doesn’t give the name of the cover artist.  We all recognize the images.  However, this cover is an egregious example of bait and switch.

            Starting clockwise with the center image are:

• Bela Lugosi as Dracula;
• Carol Borland as Luna in 1935’s Mark of the Vampire;
• Lon Chaney, Sr as The Phantom of the Opera;
• Boris Karloff as the monster of Frankenstein; and
• Lon Chaney, Jr as The Wolf Man.

            Funny thing is, these “eighteen spine-tingling monster tales that became the most famous horror movies” don’t include anything relating to London After Midnight, Frankenstein, or The Wolf Man.


            Here are the actual contents:

·        Introduction, Vincent Price

·         The Devil in a Convent, Francis Oscar Mann

·         The Lunatics, Edgar Allan Poe

·         Puritan Passions, Nathaniel Hawthorne

·         Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux

·         The Magician, Somerset Maugham

·         Freaks, Tod Robbins

  Most Dangerous Game, Richard Connell

·         Dracula’s Daughter, Bram Stoker

·         All That Money Can Buy, Stephen Vincent Benét

·         The Body Snatcher, Robert Louis Stevenson

·         The Beast With Five Fingers, W.F. Harvey

·         The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Ray Bradbury

·         The Fly, George Langelaan

·         Black Sunday, Nikolai Gogol

·         Incident at Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bierce

·         Monster of Terror, H.P. Lovecraft

·         The Skull, Robert Bloch

·         The Oblong Box, Edgar Allan Poe

·         Afterword, Christopher Lee

EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Giveaway!

I will give this paperback to the first fiend who emails me, at msuperfan1956@gmail.com.  Shoot me your request.  I’ll reply to the FIRST one with a request for your mailing address.  Yes, FREE and postage paid!

See you next time, kiddies!
  

More Munsteriffic Fun for 2019

Yes, we're still not done sharing the contents of Whitman Publishing Co's The Munsters coloring book from 1964, as defaced by generations of Alfred children (perhaps including your humble correspondent).

In the sort-of storyline, another clueless male has tried to woo Marilyn, only to be perplexed by her family.  We pick up the tale as he brings Marilyn home from as costume party (at which Herman won First Place with his own face, natch!).

Today's pains -- I mean, panes:

See you again on Friday!
 

MA-102 - Sixties Shock Sessions

Welcome to BLOG-O-WEEN!

            For the beginning of this wonderfully creepy time of year, it’s a new music comp.  here are the bloody ingredients for this monstrous mash:

01 - Halloween - Ron Haydock and the Boppers   1961  (2:49)
02 - Suffocate - Ralph Smedley   1962  (2:04)
03 - The Cave (Parts 1 & 2) - Gary “Spider” Webb   1961  (4:43)
04 - Dracula - Desmond Dekker   1964  (2:52)
05 - Serpents & Spiders - Jimmy Friis & the Valiants   1964  (2:52)
06 - The Booga Man - The Poindexter Brothers   1965  (2:44)
07 - The Invasion Is Coming - The Invasion   1967  (1:45)
08 - Frankenstein - King Horror   1969  (2:12)
09 - Haunted House - Joey Tedeschi and the Idols   1966  (2:19)
10 - Dracula Cha Cha - Los Dandies   1960  (3:00)
11 - Dorothy, My Monster - The Champions   1961  (2:04)
12 - The Monster Miss - Miss L L Louise Lewis   1962  (1:38)
13 - Haunted Castle - The Kingsmen   1963  (2:47)
14 - The Birds - The Motivations   1963  (2:12)
15 - Spider Walk - The Sabres   1965  (2:29)
16 - Two Souls - The Grim Reapers   1966  (2:54)
17 - The Friendly Undertaker - ‘Fingers’ Lee   1965  (2:48)
18 - Gary Ghoul Boy - Teddy and Darrel   1966  (2:25)
19 - I Ain't Superstitious - Howlin' Wolf   1961  (2:50)
20 - There Was a Fungus Among Us - Hugh Barrett & the Victors   1961  (2:01)
21 - People from Another World - Jive Five   1961  (2:26)
22 - Wolf Gal - Skipper Ryle   1962  (2:18)
23 - Why Do I Love You - Bela la Goldenstein   1962  (2:09)
24 - Transylvania Mist - Donnie and the Del Chords   1963  (2:28)
25 - The Addams Family Theme (long) - Vic Mizzy   1964  (1:22)
26 - Go Go Gorilla - The Shandells   1965  (2:53)
27 - Igor's Cellar - The Detergents   1965  (3:02)
28 - Horror Asparagus Stories - The Driving Stupid   1966  (2:34)
29 - Sleepy Hollow - The Last Word   1966  (2:50)
30 - In My Grave - The Reactions   1968  (2:46)
31 - The Maddest Story Ever Told (from Spider Baby) - Lon Chaney, Jr   1967  (2:19)

https://www.filefactory.com/file/3lzq9gt8wtrm/MA-102.rar

Yes, it’s a disgusting, wild, and woolly ride from now until the Thirty-First!

Come back every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for new posts on the Super Blog.  And visit every Monday and Thursday at the Record Round-Up for new posts of Halloween audio shenanigans!

Welcome to my world!