Happy Halloween: Spooky Linktastic Edition

I posted this once before, but it just gets better with every viewing.  Thanks to Jennifer Schultz for the link.

Yes!  It’s that most wonderful time of the year.  And so, without further ado, I begin the wonderful process of presenting to you the links I’ve acquired and accrued over the year in preparation.  Ha HA!

•  I’m a big time fan of the blog Golden Age Comic Book Stories and all that it entails.  Mr. Door Tree finds just fabulous stuff, and he often culls it in time for Halloween.  Last year he did a series of Berni Wrightson’s Frankenstein Portfolios from 1977 and 1978 that’ll take your breath away.  This year he goes kooky with the covers.  Whether it’s Weird Tales, The Haunt of Fear comic series, multiple Ed Woods series (here and here), movie stills, or Poe as illustrated by Harry Clarke (or better yet Edmund Dulac), this guy has culled everything for your one stop-shopping Halloween needs.

• Bookninja speculated what a person’s nightmare tombstone might read.

I like to celebrate each year by re-listening to that contemporary Halloween classic Werewolf Bar Mitzvah.  But did you know they also have a t-shirt you can buy about it?  Excellent!  Thanks to Haddon for the link.

• Speaking of things one wears, it’s a little last minute but if you happen to have a baby and you happen to need the funniest Halloween costume of all time, this would probably be a good idea.

You can see other more literary costumes (some far better than others) here.  Thanks to BB-Blog for the link (and for the explanation of lobster baby).

• Okay.  I’ve been holding onto this next one for a while.  Originally I had thought it would make a nice Video Sunday post, but then I thought to myself "Hey!  I need filler for Halloween.  And what could possibly be better than Thriller filler?"  By complete accident the timing on this is excellent.  Ms. Lauren Myracle has made the news lately with Scholastic Book Fairs initially banning her book Luv Ya Bunches.  But did you know that before any of that happened she faced her greatest fear… and taped it?

Thanks to Cynsations for the link.

• In the midst of all this I feel obligated to mention three of the fabulous Halloween picture books that came out this year.  Now I know that by the time you read this, maybe the season will be past.  But the nice thing about Halloween is that it crops up again every year!  So if you get these books now they’ll be just as pretty and spry in 2010 as they were in ’09.

•   First up: Only a Witch Can Fly by Alison McGhee, illustrated by Taeeun Yoo.  I talked about this a little when I summed up a Henry Holt preview earlier this year.  I never had a chance to review it, so I’ll reprint some of what I wrote before:

"She [illustrator Taeeum Yoo] essentially uses techniques from the 1950s alongside a limited color palette with linoleum block prints.  In this title you will find only five colors: green, orange, black, brown and the paper color (white).  First Ms. Yoo does the sketches.  Then she blows them up 100% and traces them onto the linoleum blocks.  Each picture requires three different carved blocks for the three layers of different colors.  In the end this 32-page book was responsible for the carving of at least one HUNDRED individual carved blocks."

Gorgeous and beautifully written, this one.  It really is.

Finally, there’s And Then Comes Halloween by Tom Brenner.  Back in April of 2008 I was invited to speak at a Pacific-Northwest SCBWI Conference, which was fun.  The conference kicked off with a panel of local success stories, which was a lot of fun, and ONE of those folks on the panel was Mr. Brenner himself.  His success?  A little debut picture book, picked up by Candlewick and illustrated by Holly Meade.  I can only describe the book as evocative.  Brenner perfectly captures the feel of the Halloween season with words delicious sentences.  "When autumn spiders weave silver webs from pillar to post, and the wind whispers winter, and the bones of trees begin to show… THEN it’s time to decide what to be."  It’s the kind of picture book that kids will love because it’s familiar, and adults will love because it reminds them why they love the season.  Absolutely gorgeous.

• A while ago Neil Gaiman linked to a site that shows you how to create your own incredibly frightening real life ghost.  Here’s what it looks like.

Here‘s how you make it.  So very cool.

• On the flip side of things were Laura Lutz’s attempts in the past to create a pumpkintini.  Yeah.  It pretty much tastes like it sounds.  Her final advice: "Eat, drink, and beware of cocktails with crushed graham crackers on the rim!"

• And finally, I’ve saved the best and the scariest for last.   You may think you’ve known fear in your life, but there is no pulse-pounding terror out there that quite compares to  . . . to . . . to Crispin Glover reading nursery rhymes!!!  The horror…. the horror . . .

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