Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
July 5, 2008 5:51 PM   Subscribe

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Also, 2 and 3. NSFW due to a tasteless header image. You'll have to arrange by date and ascending to view them in proper order.
posted by puke & cry (27 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
These books were the best. The illustrations were great and extra creepy.
posted by thecjm at 6:09 PM on July 5, 2008


I always wanted to read a collection of such stories.

I just can imagine how much fun these would be at the camp fire.. Anyone has any good stories?
posted by olya at 6:13 PM on July 5, 2008


This still gives me goosebumps.
posted by puke & cry at 6:19 PM on July 5, 2008


Never seen Marilyn Manson before?
posted by Senator at 6:23 PM on July 5, 2008


I loved these as a kid! These, Goosebumps, and Shivers.

(let, let, let the mailman give you cold, clammy, SHIVERS SHIVERS SHIVERS)

Anyway, this is a great find, puke & cry. It's a shame the navigation isn't better...

And olya, I've got a transcription of my favorite scary story from this series in this older comment. Creepy artwork and all!
posted by Rhaomi at 6:25 PM on July 5, 2008


My dad had the first of these books when I was a kid. It scared the everlivingshit out of me. Then a few years later I came across the other books and thought, "Meh."

I haven't read the stories in years, thanks.
posted by Science! at 6:41 PM on July 5, 2008


I loved these books as a child. Thanks.
posted by basicchannel at 6:45 PM on July 5, 2008


Rhaomi: awesome, thank you!

how come all the pictures are stylized in the same manner?
posted by olya at 6:57 PM on July 5, 2008


The header image is NSFW? Where do you work, at an elementary school?
posted by jrockway at 7:03 PM on July 5, 2008


The header image is NSFW? Where do you work, at an elementary school?

I agree. They don't have females where you work?
posted by mr_book at 7:12 PM on July 5, 2008


The header image is a large breasted anime women. I guess if that's ok with you guys, I need to work where you do. I thought is was appropriate to give a warning to people that don't work in such liberal workplaces.
posted by puke & cry at 7:18 PM on July 5, 2008


puke & cry: definitely NSFW where I work - for that warning, thank you. (reading from home, but had this issue before...)

my workplace blocks LCBO (liquor board of ontario) for the following reasons: "SmartFilter blocked this website because it contains the following subjects: Alcohol". like I can drink through my monitor... and now I can't find where to pick up a bottle of wine for dinner.
posted by olya at 7:27 PM on July 5, 2008


When I read these books as a kid, they ended up freaking me out so much that I had my mom put them away so they couldn't tempt me again. They might not scare me any more, but I'm not sure I want to risk it...
posted by silby at 7:59 PM on July 5, 2008


Puke and cry, that image is the one that scared/scared me when I was little! And much like silby, I hid them so if anyone ever found out how much it scared me, they wouldn't be able to taunt me with it.

I recently re-bought the series when I needed to design some scary monsters. I still had to thumb through and peek at each corner so that skull woman wouldn't sneak up or jump out at me.

and maybe I didn't scroll all the way down this time either...
posted by Thin Lizzy at 8:12 PM on July 5, 2008


Hm, I remember reading a book with illustrations by the same artist. One of the pictures freaked me the hell out. I still think of it now and then.

The story was about a kid who goes into a Native American tomb, and somehow gets trapped in the darkness, and he hears some dry bony thing coming up on him. Then it eats him. The illustration had a withered-looking thing with a beak or something.

Anyone remember that story and what book it's in? I didn't see it in these three.
posted by agropyron at 8:54 PM on July 5, 2008


All of the was done by Stephen Gammell. I'm not familiar with the story you're referring to though.
posted by puke & cry at 9:10 PM on July 5, 2008


All of the art
posted by puke & cry at 9:11 PM on July 5, 2008


Might have been someone with a similar style, or an imitator, since it looks like those are the only three Scary Story-type books he did.

Great links. I love the illustrations.
posted by agropyron at 9:21 PM on July 5, 2008


Oh my god. I am in elementary school again. The art in these struck me as just wonderfully, irresponsibly scary and awesome at the time—I couldn't believe the school library actually stocked them on purpose. And I think they had a habit of disappearing.

"It was then," moaned zombie Jesus, "that I carried you..."
posted by cortex at 9:23 PM on July 5, 2008


When I was younger I used to hang out with a friend who was extremely good at telling scary stories that freaked me out. He once had me convinced that there was a poltergeist in his home, which, in the dead of night, would run up and down the stairs at superhuman speeds. Then he invited me over for a sleepover, fell asleep early, and left me awake in his bedroom, too scared to go to the bathroom because I was convinced I heard rapid-fire thumping noises coming from the stairs.

This was the best one he ever came up with (told entirely from memory, since it still keeps me up at night):

Susie and her mother had just moved into a new house. When Susie first got into her new bedroom, she found that the old owners had left a picture on the wall: A highly stylized painting of a small dog with huge eyes -- the kind of eyes that always seem to be looking at you, no matter where you stand in the room. She didn't like it and tried to take it down. But it was stuck fast to the wall.

As she helped her mother and the movers bring all the boxes in, she noticed something else strange. The painting of the dog was in every room in the house. There were even paintings in the hallways and the bathrooms. She mentioned it to her mother.

"What? What are you talking about?" Susie's mom asked. The walls were bare, she said.

Susie laughed about it and pretended she was joking, because she didn't know what else to do. But she kept seeing the paintings, and it seemed like the little dog's huge eyes were watching her no matter where she went. But the scariest one was in her bedroom. She could feel it looking at her even when here eyes were closed.

One night, she couldn't get to sleep. She was afraid of the paintings. To take her mind off them, she got a book from her bookshelf and began to read. Her mother was asleep. The house was dark.

But after a while, she couldn't help herself. As scared as she was to look at the little dog, she was more scared to turn her back to it. So there, in the middle of the night, with the house silent, she looked up at it.

The dog barked twice. Susie died of fright.

posted by hifiparasol at 12:29 AM on July 6, 2008 [1 favorite]


Oh, yes. This series traumatized me as a child. Nowadays, perhaps the stories themselves seem a little tamer, but Gammell's illustrations are still some of the best, creepiest and most atmospheric horror art I've ever seen. To Amazon!
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:02 AM on July 6, 2008


I still have these books from my childhood. They're packed away in a box in my closet. Not because I want to read them again, but because this way I know where they are and they can't get me.
posted by Servo5678 at 7:36 AM on July 6, 2008


Oh man, I also loved these! Now I've got go figure out where I stored them.
posted by aletheia at 9:09 AM on July 6, 2008


Yesss. I definitely remember these illustrations better than the stories.
posted by churl at 11:56 AM on July 6, 2008


Have you checked out the imgdump site header now? I think someone there is reading the green and blue.
posted by aftermarketradio at 8:11 AM on July 7, 2008


Ha! That's awesome. I assign imgdump one point.
posted by cortex at 8:17 AM on July 7, 2008


Heh, that's pretty good. A+ to whoever did that.
posted by puke & cry at 11:47 PM on July 7, 2008


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