Comic art collector Jon Calderas recently commissioned me to paint my version of Vampirella. Here's the final piece with Vampi's bat delivering a blood bag while she watches tv. Below are my rough sketches; I'm going to rework the "go-go dancing with the Bat-Hat girl" sketch into a new painting, replacing Vampirella with one of my own characters.









Thanks again, Jon!

$350, 14" x 11" acrylic and fluorescent on 2-ply Bristol; 14" x 11" signed matte heavyweight prints are $30.

Happy Saint Nikolaus Day! In Europe they believe today's the day when Saint Nikolaus rewards good children with presents, and his pal the Krampus punishes bad children by beating them with thorny branches, putting them in a basket, and bringing them to Hell. Talk about incentive to behave! Here's my new 14" x 11" acrylic and fluorescent painting on Bristol for $350. 14" x 11" signed matte heavyweight prints are $30.

I'm starting a large new series of paintings and prints inspired by Mexico's "Day of the Dead" celebrations. Every holiday and greeting card category I can think of is going to get the Rooshified skeleton treatment. Starting things off we've got a Santa with teeth made of red and green hard candy riding a sparkly ski-mobile covered with Christmas lights and a chrome Rudolph skull ornament. The red fir trees below are inspired by the red foil fake trees that my hometown supermarket has been putting up on their parking lot lightpoles ever since I was a kid.

The original is 14" x 11" acrylic and fluorescent paint on 2-ply Bristol, for sale @ $350 plus shipping. Same size signed art prints on matte heavyweight paper are $30 each.

Watch for many more new "Year of the Dead" paintings coming soon.

Big thanks to George at the Coolidge for this fun assignment!

So it's definitely happening! I will be putting on my homemade monster masks to model at MassArt's upcoming open drawing sessions October 5th, 19th, and November 9th in the Tower building outside room 914, noon-2pm. Students will have an actual monster model playing old Black Sabbath, Slayer, Metallica, Misfits, Iron Maiden, S.O.D. and more, as well as tons of surf stuff from Man...Or Astroman? and some horror movie themes. I think I'm going to bring trick-or-treat buckts filled with candy, too. Hopefully some photography and video students will show up to document this.

So this move back to Massachusetts has really slowed me down. Hopefully soon I'll be back up to speed. I'm in the middle of 4 commissions, and here's some other new stuff I finished:


"Creepshow Freakshow" flyer image for the Coney Island zombie Pirate Halloween show, commissioned by famous NY burlesque star Dottie Lux



A squillion years ago Dottie also gave me her leather jacket to paint on---she just got the finished product last weekend when she performed at J. Cannibal's Feast of Flesh show. (Also last weekend, Miss Firecracker and I scored bigtime at Boston Costume's new Halloween outlet store on Route 9. One of our finds was a huge black furry batsuit with matching mask. I'm going to cut the kind of lame face off and add a customized bat face and really big ears so the Firecracker can have her own bat-hat like the one I painted for Dottie.)


Amazing illustrator and Wasabassco Burlesque producer Bill Morton invited me to be a guest artist for the troupe's "Evil Night" Halloween poster. He suggested devil girls, and I started thinking, "A night so evil, even the angels turn bad." So here they are being annoying to a devil girl. It's nice to just paint the poster image and have other people do all the text for a change.

"Black Ocean presents J. CANNIBAL'S FEAST OF FLESH
featuring Film Cult Classic "Shockwaves"
Special Guests HUMANWINE
Demonic Demonstration by James Royalty, Prince of Pain & his Zombie Slave
"Thriller" Dance Party & Zombie Costume Contest
Hosted by Black Cat Burlesque's Own J. Cannibal
free gorey goody bags for guys and ghouls, plus special prize giveaways!

Coolidge Corner Theatre
290 Harvard Street
Brookline, MA
617-734-2500
MIDNIGHT SHOW $10
Friday Night September 22, 2006

www.coolidge.org
www.jcannibal.com
www.blackocean.org

Pictures of the matching hand-painted skeleton suit coming soon....

Black Cat Burlesque's Miss Firecracker plays Lady Frankenstein, bringing the monster (me) to life with a striptease when science fails...but eventually decides to ignite her bolt-pasties and chase me off stage with sparks. "Fire(cracker)....BAAADDD!!!"














shot by Chris B. of Seattle

A few photos I shot in Vegas of Black Cat Burlesque's newest performer, Devilicia, out on the town around 4 am...

More great books from my early childhood that made me bug-eyed with fear and joy:


MOVIE MONSTERS by Thomas Aylesworth
A who's who and (how they got so scary) book for primary school kids, published by Reader's Digest Services in 1975. I'm pretty sure my dad gave me this book just before my parents began letting me watch "Creature Double Feature" Saturday afternoons on Channel 56; simple but very informative writing with awesome black and white photos from all the Universal, Toho, and Hammer classics: King Kong, Godzilla, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Phantom, the Wolfman, The Fly, Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing...there's even a chapter on the actors beneath the make-up. This book gave me a sneak-peek at all the screen gems I was about to watch with my hands in front of my face, peeking between my fingers. I think all this was when I was 6 or 7. This book was my Bible.



THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS by John Bellairs
Holy Moly, look at that cover. I totally remember my dad bringing this book home from Nettle school one Friday afternoon with a big pizza for supper (and I thought the horrible face of the clock was a drippy pizza-cheese-face-monster) and reading to my sister and me when we were little. Mr. Bellairs lived and worked in my hometown, and often visited my dad's junior high classes to talk about his career and to read from his works. His super-creepy novels were written for young adults, and most of them were illustrated by Edward Gorey. His first trilogy featured Lewis Barnavelt, his pal Rose Rita Pottinger, Lewis's Uncle Jonathan, and their neighbor Mrs. Zimmermann----books about witchcraft both good and evil, raising the dead, doomsday clocks, "Hands of Glory", ghosts, demons, all kinds of amazing creepy stuff. And the fictional setting of his "Johnny Dixon" novels was based on my hometown, so I always felt that crazy supernatural stuff could happen to little kids like me just walking down my own street.



THE FIGURE IN THE SHADOWS is the sequel to THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS , another doozy . Mercer Mayer did the interior illustrations for this one, though the great-great-great covers to these two books were illustrated by David K. Stone. My 32-year-old paperback copies of these gems are some of my most prized possessions.

I just received a huge package of print samples from Ghastly Greetings! 16 of my spooky designs are now available as greeting cards;
"Rise and Shine"

and
"Devil, Dog, and Death"

are also available as postcards and invitation sets. Many more of my designs will become available soon.

Photo by Alissa Greenman from Black Cat Burlesque's epic interpretation of the ancient Sumerian Legend of Inanna, goddess of heaven and earth and her descent into the underworld to gain the power of her sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead. Inanna disrobes before demons at the 7 gates to the underworld and hideous revenge ensues. This was Miss Firecracker's dream project come to life: super-genuinely creepy mythological burlesque, with amazing choreography by Mary Widow, a great performance by the stunning Das Numi, and ominous soundtrack and demon wrangling by J. Cannibal. And I got to make a Pazuzu mask and costume and just stand there looking freaky, sweet!
More photos at Black Cat Burlesque

Black Ocean Presents
PARADISE LOST
featuring
LA GATA NEGRA: League of Masked Lady Wrestlers
with musical performances by
COFFIN LIDS ~ WILD ZERO ~ DEVIL IN THE KITCHEN
hosted by Black Cat Burlesques J. CANNIBAL

June 15th ~ 8pm ~ 18+ ~ $10

Black Ocean brings you a night of pulverizing metal, psychedelic scuzz and cemetery bomp! PARADISE LOST is a night of sinful rock n roll featuring the deadly beauties of La Gata Negra: League of Masked Lady Wrestlers who will surely kick, choke, and powerbomb their way into your hearts as they battle through three all-out bouts for supremacy of the wrestling underground! To celebrate this epic rumble, the folks at Paramount Pictures have agreed to host the release of Jack Blacks new film, Nacho Libre, at tonights throwdown! Grab some free gear and prizes just in time for the movies premiere on June 16th!

Kicking off the night, will be the insane folk-metal fury of Devil In the Kitchen. With a flying-v fiddle, and a thousand kilowatts of sonic Celtic destruction, these four gents are sure to fire you up.

Also featured are local lightning and leather outfit, Wild Zero, dealing out fistfuls of high-octane rawk to fuel the nights frenzied descent.

Driving the final nails into your sanitys coffin will be garage-horror legends, the Coffin Lids. Bringing their own brand of undead trash to the stage, theyll be spitting blood and whiskey as they tear through a scorching set of b-move odes and midnite anthems.

In addition we will have numerous performers and oddities on hand from around the North East, bringing you the finest in sword-swallowing, glass-walking and the like!

To navigate you through the night will be a very special Master of Ceremonies, J. Cannibal of Black Cat Burlesque. This real-life undertaker and local horror burlesque king is known for his exquisite taste in zombie films and unique brand of theatrical violence.

Some come one come all, and participate in a singular night of deviant behavior, sonic ferocity and unbridled body-slamming violence, and revel in your Paradise Lost!

The Paradise ~ 967 Commonwealth Ave. ~ Boston, MA
Tickets available at the door or at www.thedise.com

I painted a new version of my 2002 "Rollin' Reapers: Skateboarder" for Ghastly Greetings, since the old version was Halloween-specific. Now you'll be able to send this image as a greeting card to your bowling buddies, prison pen-pals, old flames, and debt collectors year-round!
I'm still trying to avoid using black paint, and still looking at lots of Basil Gogos, Robert Bonfils, Leo and Diane Dillon, and many more for cool inspiration using color. (Though sometimes I think I'm well on my way to painting the blacklight posters they used to sell at the back of Spencer Gifts at the Methuen Mall when I was little). Here's the old version. Thanks to the nice guy who bought it right off the wall at the Tri-Polar show!

http://www.ghastlygreetings.com

The characters from my "Devil, Dog, and Death" painting ride again on my hand-painted deck for the "Unrefined Hunger" skatedeck auction/ live art event @ Boston's Cyclorama. 10 artists from around the world auctionined off their skatedecks for charity, and created large-scale paintings before the audience! I teamed up with ghoulish painter Joe Keinberger for a 36" x 60" homage to ice cream, Nosferatu, and more.

"Unrefined Hunger is a live urban art and graffiti event featuring 10 artists from all over the world painting live on location.
There will also be an indoor miniramp on which pro skaters will be showing their stuff. DJ Lazyboy and DJ LBS will be on the tables spinning into the night.

One of a kind skateboard decks will be on public auction throughout the event. All art will be on sale to help raise money for the Food Project, a non-profit organization that gives youth and adults from all backgrounds the ability and opportunity to contribute purposefully to society by growing food for the hungry and caring for the land.

The goal for this event is to raise as much money for the Food Project as possible, which helps feed the hungry and homeless, so come and help an organization in need by having a good time."

Unrefined Hunger
4:29:2006
A Live Graffiti and Urban Art Event
Featuring DJ LBS
Presenting 20 Artists From Boston, Japan, Brooklyn, and Montreal
Live skateboarding
One-of-a-kind Skate Decks to be Auctioned
Art and Merchandise for Sale
All Proceeds go to Charity
18 with Proper ID Drinks 21
$10 in Advance $12 at the Door
Doors Open at 7PM
For More Information Visit: www.unrefinedhunger.com
Or call 617 510 3116

Boston Center for the Arts
539 Tremont St.
Boston, MA

Sponsors:
Helio, Bostons Weekly Dig, Josh Wisdumb, Massive Record, A&C Arts and Craftsman Supply, Alt Terrain, Swift Productions

Thanks to Tak from the Weekly Dig and Marissa Goldstein at Swift Productions for getting me involved in this show.

Sticker Design for Spacecraft Clothing Invitational



My design for the Annual Spacecraft sticker sheet, which is "a unique venue that features 30-35 artists from around the world....a traveling 2-dimensional art show made possible in the format of color kiss-cut laminated vinyl sheets that span 12" x 18". These sheets will be distributed nationally & internationally to magazines, artists, collectors, and many others involved on every level from street art to upscale galleries."

Thank you, Jasen Rolfe and everyone @ Spacecraft, for inviting me to be a part of this!

http://www.spacecraftclothing.com

Miss Firecracker scoped out some very creepy woods at dusk and knew if she hid with her camera..... and was very, very patient....a monster would appear eventually. Who knew she'd end up capturing the Grim Reaper himself on film? Walking his dogs, no less! All photographs (c) Miss Firecracker 2006. (She throws people through tables as a hobby, so don't incur the wrath of this rudo.)

My big sister asked me to paint a little picture of Medusa for her birthday. I came up with a few ideas for large-scale scenarios I think will look cool, though Mary wanted a classic "severed-Medusa-head" image, so the bigger paintings will get done some time in the future. Anyways, my point is that my sister is super-cool. How many sisters out there would want this as a birthday present? Happy Birthday, Mary!

Clowns NYC-bound

Miss Firecracker and I performed a creepy clown Black Cat Burlesque act at the amazing Dottie Lux's birthday paty @ Rafifi in Brooklyn:

"Red Hots Burlesque presents CLOWN OR BE CLOWNED: a Celebration of Dottie's Birth * Hosted by Sweet Dirty Darla* Live Music by Donnie Drunko* with performances by Veronika Sweet, Nasty Canasta, Lady Satan, Dizzy Swank, Miss Firecracker & Mister Reusch, and Darlinda Just Darlinda! * Clown Costume Contest! * March 5th, 10pm * RIFIFI, 11th street between 1st and 2nd Ave* $5

Thank you, Linus Gelber, for shooting photos!


more photos here from Darren Mayhem:

I can't believe I missed seeing this on TV, but I just heard that Maelle Ricker wore the MT-1 helmet I designed with Rich Curren and RED in the Olympics Women's Boardercross event! The fact that I worked on this helmet back in 2000 and Ricker is wearing it today, though there have been lots of helmets made since, does my Grinchy little heart good.

Painting commissioned by my old Boston pal Shaerie (of http://www.lovelycreature.com ) of her rockabilly vampire zombie husband Josh eyeing her jugular in Marblehead's Old Burial Hill, and their cats Baby and Bob. Thank you for this fun assignment!

This show sold out the Coolidge's upstairs theatre and was moved to the larger downstairs theatre....which also totally filled up with zombies! It was seriously SO COOL to see the freezing streets of Brookline LOADED with gory undead, roaming around for hours before the show started. My own illustration students even came out in costume!

my poster:


Photos by Ama Lea and Jason Zucco of La Gata Negra and Gein and the Graverobbers:


Press Release:
Fri, Jan 27
Black Ocean presents:
J. CANNIBAL'S FEAST OF FLESH
featuring Lucio Fulci's horror film classic: ZOMBIE plus undead tag-team wrestling from LA GATA NEGRA with live music by GEIN & THE GRAVEROBBERS

All seats $10

Real-life undertaker and long time zombie fanatic J. Cannibal - dubbed by the Boston Phoenix as the King of horror burlesque - presents a gruesome banquet of midnight mayhem!

This frightful night of fun kicks off with the dead-alive sounds of Gein and the Graverobbers. These four graveyard ghouls are hell-bent on playing the most terrifying surf songs the mortal world has ever heard! Throwing down with undead fury during their Satanic set, will be the reanimated corpses of La Gata Negra: League of Masked Lady Wrestlers, which boasts a bevy of masked beauties who know how to kick, choke, and powerbomb their way into your hearts. If there’s any blood left in these ladies by the time they hit the mat, you can be sure it will be spilled!

For our feature film, Mr. Cannibal has hand-picked Lucio Fulci’s audacious
1979 masterpiece of gore, ZOMBIE. The inspiration for most of the 80s splatter-fests, Fulci's film features nauseating special effects, including such unforgettable scenes as a close-up eye gouging on a splinter of wood, and an underwater wrestling match between a zombie and a shark.

Free gory goodie bags will be handed out to all, and J. Cannibal will be awarding a number of prizes for the best zombie costumes! Brought to you by the creative minds of Black Ocean, this will be a show of insanity from beyond the grave that you don’t want to miss!

www.coolidge.org
www.blackocean.org
www.lagatanegra.com

Coolidge Corner Theatre
290 Harvard St.
Brookline, MA 02446
617-734-2500

My pal Clinton from the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline hired me to design a fun t-shirt for the theatre:


"Book it!" was what I remember we'd say when the weird older thug kids with no eyebrows would chase my friends and I out of the woodsy Haverhill no-man's-land known as "the Tracks" on our bmx bikes. It makes me laugh every time I hear it for some reason.
The Coolidge is my favorite place for midnight movies and variety shows; kung fu and ninja films, live burlesque and lucha libre shows, horror marathons, all kinds of great stuff. I included "Nosferatu" because the amazing band Devil Music played a live soundtrack to the screening of this classic, silent horror film. The Bunny is the live Coolidge host of their children's shows, and the fluffy suit was worn by Miss Firecracker in the "Spooks-a-Poppin" Burlesque Horror Show, as the hero in a hilarious "Fatal Attraction-meets-Donnie Darko" act; "Jaws 3-D" was one of many 3-D movies shown at the Coolidge, and my own gorilla suit made an appearance at the "Banned in Boston" burlesque show.
These long-sleeve black shirts are for sale at the Coolidge Corner Theatre.

Black Cat Burlesque performed our 4-piece "Werewolf Suite" act at the Vampires' Masquerade Ball in Salem. Photographer John Hurley took a ton of photos of the performance, starting here:

Here's a photo taken by Liz DiPietro of me as Nosferatu and Miss Firecracker as Renfield early in the night:



For the actual night of the 31st, we'd planned on checking out BCB's Mary Widow and J. Cannibal doing an opening act for the Dresden Dolls' show at the Orpheum in Boston, but ended up staying in Rhode Island due to car trouble. We wandered the streets handing out candy to trick-or-treaters as Nosferatu and the Tooth Fairy.










Miss Firecracker based her homemade fangs, costume, strands of bloody, collected teeth, and personality on the title character of Graham Joyce's amazing novel, The Tooth Fairy (though the ominous cordless drill and bandolier of rusty X-acto knives were her own idea).

The Boston Phoenix recently underwent a re-design----clean, bold lines from now on with flat color. No more scratchy lines, textures, or visible brushstrokes in the art. Seeing as how I murdered my eyesight from 6th grade to senior year of college doing clean, insanely detailed black and white work, just taking on this Halloween comic assignment was terrifying! I'm glad they offered me this 4 -panel comic, though I really miss doing those large, full-color painted covers from the late 90s/ early 2000s:

1998 cover (New England Press Association Award-Winner)"Monster Dance", 11" x 14", $300:



1998 spot illos:






1999 Cover "The Road to Blair", 11" x 14", $350:



2001 Cover "Rise and Shine", 6.5" x 10", $300:



2002 Cover "Transylvanian Torch Singer", 10.75" x 14.5", $350



and a full-page comic version of the "Flirting with Death" Black Cat Burlesque act I perform with Miss Firecracker, printed in the Phoenix's 2004 Halloween edition:

I just found out recently that the "VAPOR" total-art-coverage stick I illustrated for Bauer-Nike was shelved------too difficult to apply the decals onto the sticks. I've got one of the few actual sticks in existence, and designer Andrew Szurley of Sole Kitchen even added some glow-in-the-dark elements:

I competed in the digART live art competition organized by Boston's Weekly Dig @ the Roxy in Boston on July 9th, 2005. All art created during the night was up for raffle, and all proceeds went to Artists For Humanity. Each of the 7 artists had 4 hours to create something new on a gigantic canvas, right before your eyes! I figured watching somebody paint could only be so interesting for so long, so I decided to make it a spooky spectacle. I wore a mad scientist lab coat, goggles, gloves, and face mask and painted from live, er.... UNDEAD monster and go-go ghoul "models" from the bad seeds of Boston burlesque, Black Cat Burlesque. I was really happy to find out my piece sold the most raffle tickets. Here are some photos of BCB's Miss Firecracker, Mary Widow, and J. Cannibal:

















































Big thanks to Tak Toyoshima and Meg Bruno of the Weekly Dig for putting this show together, and to everyone who came out! (especially Clinton)

Congratulations to Fish McGill who won the judges' best in show prize!

"the Raven and the Pumpkin"


Super-cool "The Raven and the Pumpkin" eBay store owner Kathy Close commissioned this new 11" x 14" acrylic painting from me and bought the rights to the very first 25 art prints. The prints are on matte heavyweight paper and are signed and numbered in silver ink.

Mister Reusch Pendants by Arcane Nonesuch


Salem, Massachusetts-based custom jewelry company Arcane Nonesuch has released their first 12 spooky Reusch pendants:

Lollipop Magazine gave a cool surprise review of my spooky new merch

Thank you, Scott Hefflon and Dave Dawson, for the good press!

Black Cat Burlesque hits NYC for Burlesque Festival 2005




(New BCB image, with logo by Miss Firecracker!)

Probably due to Black Cat Burlesque's prop-heavy/ fake-blood-soaked/ broken-glass-everywhere performance at last year's New York Burlesque Festival, we were the finale of the 3rd annual NYBF's kickoff night Friday @ Southpaw in Brooklyn!

to see our Phantom of the Opera-themed "Organ Grind" act where "Christine D." (Miss Firecracker) shows shy ballerina Mary Widow how to get down when the Phantom starts playing "Sweet Bacon", click here:


(CAUTION: CONTAINS TASSEL-TWIRLING, MATURE VIEWERS ONLY)

For more info, please visit
the New York Burlesque Festival
put together once again by the amazing
Thirsty Girl
and
The World Famous Pontani Sisters

PLUS, La Gata Negra threw down at Saturday night's NYBF show @ the Hiro Ballroom @ the Maritime Hotel as well! Their insane-o match is shown here

100 posters, 1994-2005 by me @ MassArt April 23-25


I exhibited 110 posters from 1994-2005 at the beautiful, new Godine Gallery at Massachusetts College of Art in a 3-day-only show, April 23-25. Posters for rock concerts, burlesque shows, DJ nights, haircut fundraisers, underground cinema, restaurants, bmx companies, parties, bellydancing, lucha libre, and my own art shows....including ones from when I was a student at MassArt! Following the opening night reception (April 23, 6-8 pm) was the crazy "Revelry to Nowhere" show, also @ MassArt, featuring live bands, Black Cat Burlesque, and La Gata Negra League of Masked Lady Wrestlers.

review in the Boston Phoenix:
"Brie, nachos, and PBR is pretty good fare for an art opening, but a party just isn’t a party until a guy in a giant Frankenstein mask shows up with the gummy fish. Last Saturday at MassArt, the man beneath the homemade mask turned out to be Mister Reusch, who was also the guest of honor, as 100 of his monster-inspired posters lined the walls. Across the hall, his girlfriend’s masked lady-wrestling league, La Gata Negra, went at it on a mat in the middle of a gym-like auditorium. The troupe was like a little sister of Kaiju Big Battel, complete with hilarious characters and costumes: Missy America wore an American-flag-styled singlet; the Bad Habits, tag-team nuns, toted a Bible and a ruler. As if head stomping weren’t enough, Connecticut’s the Can Kickers inspired some serious foot stomping with their old-time country-punk clap-alongs. After whipping the couple-hundred-strong crowd into a frenzy, the trio — toting a fiddle, a banjo, and a washboard — ditched the PA system (which wasn’t serving them well anyhow) and jumped off the stage for their last song while the crowd formed a tight circle around them, hootin’, hollerin’, and hoppin’ around. It was enough to make percussionist Dough Schaefer turn into a hillbilly Keith Moon and smash his washboard to pieces."

me menacing Jamie O'Brien:

BIG thanks to Janaka of
Black Ocean
and Jamie O'Brien from Eventworks for putting these shows together. And thanks to everyone who came out, it was a GREAT turnout!

Art of Modern Rock show @ The Paradise, Thursday April 7th 2005

I exhibited 3 signed and framed posters, including this one:


Art of Modern Rock Exhibit
A poster show celebrating the recent release of THE ART OF MODERN ROCK by Paul Grushkin and Dennis King, published by Chronicle Books
Paradise Lounge/ Gallery, 969 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA
Opening night Thursday, April 7, 2005 7-9 pm, free and open to the public
Gallery Hours: nightly from 6 pm

I'm really honored that my posters received over 4 pages in this beautiful, gigantic book! Thanks again, Paul and Dennis!

Art of Modern Rock

Josh DeVries and Rebecca Dunn, the Salem-based couple who run custom jewelry company Arcane Nonesuch, commissioned me to design their wedding invitation. It was a lot of fun to paint, and their October 2005 ceremony was the best wedding Carrie and I ever attended! The haunted Lyceum was decorated with lit jack o' lanterns, the guests wore spooky costumes, the Sob Sisters played lovely music on their cellos, and Josh and Rebecca were married (with their amazing Old English Bulldog Kenobi present) by famous Salem witch and Festival of the Dead organizer Shawn Poirer in a really beautiful ceremony. And a tower of Krispy Kreme donuts took the place of a traditional wedding cake! Ghouls, Witches, Skeletons, Jack O' Lanterns, Snorty Dogs, Donuts, Cider, Creepy Music........Josh and Rebecca did it RIGHT.


please visit Arcane Nonesuch

Here are some of my favorite spooky books from early childhood that made a huge impression on me.
RABBIT AND SKUNK AND SPOOKS by Carla Stevens, Pictures by Robert Kraus

Robert Kraus's simple black/ white/ orange interior color scheme is great. Check out Rabbit wandering through the forest with the jack o' lantern that his buddy Skunk stuck on his head. I totally want to do a big eerie painting of this scene in my style to hang up in my house....this is a fun, innocent kids' book but I always felt this image had a lot of genuine creepiness going on:



RABBIT AND SKUNK AND THE SCARY ROCK by Carla Stevens, Pictures by Robert Kraus

Again, the art starts out simple and fun but check out this full-bleed image where Skunk gets tired of being terrorized by the very loud, scary noises coming from behind the big rock:



HOW SPIDER SAVED HALLOWEEN by Robert Kraus

Robert Kraus strikes again, this time writing a very cool story about 3 bug friends on Halloween night scaring away bullies. Awesome.

GHOSTS AND CROWS AND THINGS WITH O'S by Leonard Kessler

Another cool book with a Halloween-themed color scheme (though it's got lots of non-spooky stuff going on inside as well):



THE MONSTER ACTIVITY AND GAME BOOK by Tony Tallarico


Best book in the universe. Loaded with scary posters to customize and color, "How to Draw Frankenstein and Dracula" tutorials, creepy mazes, "Monster Mobile" art to cut out and hang including these beauties:

Basically all kinds of mind-blowing stuff for a little kid. I'm wicked glad I still have this gem. Years later when I read Stephen King's Pet Sematary, this picture from "the Monster Activity and Game Book" jumped to mind when I got to the part where the floating, gibbering head in Little God Swamp scares Louis Creed: