If you have been a child any time in the past 30 years, you surely remember what was the creepiest most bone chilling set of children’s books ever created,Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. And if you remember those books than you remember the most memorable thing about them: the disturbing illustrations, by Stephen Gammell. Gammel’s illustrations were enough to make you sleep with the light on even without reading a word of the story.
It is with great sadness that I report that for the 30th anniversary of these books, publisher Harper Collins has removed their most memorable characteristic, replacing the deeply disturbing Gammel artwork with some technically skilled decidely un-scary replacements (by Brett Helquist).
Click through the link to see more of the original Gammell illustrations, along with comparisons to the newly sanitized Helquist versions.
