SCARY GODMOTHER.
Always look on the Fright Side of life.

Writer and Artist: Jill Thompson
Letterer: Brenda Feikema
Original graphic novel
Published by Sirius Entertainment 1997
$19.95

Reviewed by Gregory Dickens

I love Halloween.

Dry leaves tossed in cold breezes. Branches scraping together on house siding. Cheap paper decorations taped to front doors. Plastic spider rings. Those obscure candies you only see sold in October. IT'S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN on TV. The smell of your sweat inside a Ben Cooper mask, and the sounds made when walking in the flimsy plastic costume. Vincent f-word Price.

I don't much care what origin Halloween claims. My delight for the festivities has nothing to do with saints or heathens. It's all about the creepiness. It's the one time each year when even the most cherubic child can cackle like a witch and try to scare the old folks as they shovel out the snacks into paper grocery bags. Halloween is a holiday filtered for children. Monsters are made palatable and treachery innocent. You get tricks. You get treats. You get spooked. But all of it is ultimately harmless and we can laugh it all off as a fun time.

From that nostalgic kid's point of view, Jill Thompson, bless her heart, has got it dead-on perfect in SCARY GODMOTHER, and the secret is the color medium (I'm guessing watercolor, though I could be wrong). SCARY GODMOTHER is an explosion of hues in foliage, jack o' lanterns and the title character herself. Decked out in matching green-and-purple hosiery and cone hat, lime skin pallor and a shock of orange hair, the godmother is Thompson as a secondary-color ringleader. Little Hannah Marie, the victim of a prank who finds the friendly beasties, is all violet and pink. Thin splotches build hazy clouds. Slight brown undertones give volume to Skully Pettibone, the skeleton.

"Jill Thompson, bless her heart, has got it dead-on perfect"

The furry Bug-A-Boo, countering Scary, is all primaries: blue pelt, yellow eyes with bright red pupils and stark white teeth and talons. I especially like Bug-A-Boo. He's a cute combination of Maurice Sendak illustration and Sid and Marty Kroft characters. And the number of his eyes changes with each panel. That inconsistency strikes me as exactly how a kid would alter their imagined monster each time they think of it.

The back cover quote from Alex Ross says SCARY GODMOTHER is an "example of where our medium can go." But this just ain't a comic. It's a children's storybook. Words are bolded for emphasis. "When she opened her eyes, she found herself alone- in the dark- with the Monsters. The kids were gone!" And as you see with "Monsters," stations such as Parents and Policeman are capitalized because big folks have big titles. Points of ellipses and exclamation direct the reader around the large-frame scenes. The book's dimensions measure 8.75 by 11.25 inches and the inside front cover sports a "this book belongs to" placard (which, by the way, is perfect for when Ms. Thompson autographs your copy).

And like any decent kids' book, you can learn from it. Page 21 is a tidy lesson on the particulars of bats, even those who spout Gary Coleman dialogue. Speaking of pop culture allusions, catch Bug-A-Boo feigning injury from Hannah's flashlight by moaning a la Jonathan Harris' Dr. Smith.

"This is a property that could easily cross over to other media"

There are SCARY GODMOTHER comics in addition to the other hardcover editions, but the single black-and-white issues lack the vitality of the larger books, even though they expand the cast. All copies however feature the simplified line style and figure animation. These characters are a lively bunch, none moreso than our hostess flitting about or hovering with her dangling spiders adorning her hat and swinging around as she be-bops about the Spook House. They remind me of a creepy version of Minnie Pearl's price tag, but that's just from being forced to watch HEE HAW in my most formative years...

I'm convinced this is a property that could easily cross over to other media. The tone has outright accessibility, the depicted kids act like real kids, it looks in no way like a regular comic book, and the title character is straight out of the Pippi Longstocking book of benign lunacy. SCARY GODMOTHER is just begging for a kid to read it, regardless of their actual age.

Recommended

Gregory Dickens is a regular contributor to PopImage.

Back

Attitude | ProFile | Industrial
Interviews | Reviews | Pi Comics
Talkback | Archives | Gallery