Juvenilia (Stuff From the Attic)

A few readers have expressed interest in seeing images of the mythical Garbage Pail Kids knock-offs I created back in the summer of 1986, but I'm afraid they're long gone. However, plenty of other examples of my juvenilia exist, and some are much funnier than any GPK attempt.

Basically, my pre-1990 artistic output consisted largely of:

- recreating the layout and exhibits of zoos and amusement parks.

- personal versions of satirical magazines like Mad and her cheaper cousin Cracked, neither of which I was allowed to purchase. My monthly magazine was entitled Goof, and I made multiple versions to give to grandparents, cousins and friends.

- guides to the supernatural, occult and unknown. The public library could barely keep up with my need to explore the worlds of cryptozoology, UFOs and ghosts. When I ran out of books to check out, I made my own. And like any good fabulist, when I couldn't come up with any catalogued examples of the unknown, I made some up.

Above are three scanned images from a ghost book I made sometime between 1984-1986. The images have faded a little, so they may need to be clicked on and enlarged to make out everything that's going on. Basically, the book was a spooky Baedeker, entitled Ghosts of the World. Broken down into continental chapters, my goal was to showcase 100 examples of ghosts from across the world. I started out strong with the "North America" chapter, from which I've excerpted "Rise of the Dead" above, a Spirit Lollapalooza overseen by a frightening personal creation named Spookaver. When "Europe" rolled around, I started getting a little winded on inspiration, as one can see from image #2 above. "Ghostly Dinner" was an intriguing concept, but my commentary betrayed what was about to become an almost crippling reliance on the phrase "people say" (as in "people say she still roams these halls" or "they say one can still hear his bark..."). When I finally finished with "Australia," total creative fatigue had set in, and the entire chapter is little more than the ghosts of antipodean animals. Image #3 shows how far we've fallen from the heights of Spookaver - "Koala's Ghost".