Last year during Halloween I found a bunch of fun stuff at my local dollar stores, a lot of which I blogged about at the time, but there were a couple of items that I never got around to scanning and sharing. Well, this weekend I aim to right that wrong. I was kind of skeptical when I picked up a thin bundle of Halloween coloring books at Dollar Tree, figuring that the art inside would be utterly terrible, but I happened to be going through a Creature from the Black Lagoon kick and he just happened to be gracing the cover of one of the books so I couldn’t pass it up (besides, it was a dollar.)
I’m not a huge an of the cover art, though I do really like the wraith that was included in this weird trio (in particular the fact that she has one good leg, and if you look at the bottom left you can see the other poking out of the dirt.) When I got home and cracked the books open I pretty found exactly what I was expecting, which was some pretty bad cutesy (think Precious Moments cute) artwork. There were a handful of really cool pictures here and there though, including the following three. I’m not sure who the artists are (they never seem to credit artists in coloring books do they?), but this guy or gal did an awesome job with some really fun designs. I really liked this muck monster, complete with plastic pumpkin pail (and jack-o-lantern face), and "…all drippings with goo…" (as Peter McNicol would have said in Ghostbusters 2.)
I also really dug (conceptually) this below graveyard scene, complete with re-animated punker skeleton and his rat (with a real skull for a mask no less.) I’m not quite sure what’s going on with the snake and the skull in the background though…
This was just a very rockabilly addition to the coloring book (which was printed in 1996 by Landoll’s), which seems kind of weird, yet very cool.
Last but not least is the addition of a more intergalactic celebration of Halloween in space…
I’m pretty sure the same artist is responsible for all three, and as we’ll see tomorrow in the second coloring book from the same company, this artist did some more interesting pictures. For now though, might I suggest printing these out, breaking out the Crayolas, sticking your tongue out of the side of your mouth, and bringing these drawings to life.
