Love And Rockets, Vol.5

Ahhh, time once again for the annual offering from Los Bros Hernandez, still keeping us up to date with Maggie and Hopey and the folks from the village of Los Palomar, and introducing us to new characters as well!

Favorite Halloween Stories: Jimmy Takes Vanishing Lessons

  So here’s another one of those stories about the long and convoluted ways I had to go through to get my hands on another cherished childhood story, and this one involves a perfect fit for this year’s Halloween Entry: A fun ghost story called Jimmy Takes Vanishing Lessons!
  I’d always loved the English Reader books we read in Elementary school, enjoying those stories was one school-related thing I would do even at home, after school,  and during my free time on the weekends! But sadly, as each year came to a close and we had to return those books, those stories became no more than memories that I would think about every now and then. That is until I was a little bit older and realized most of those stories were in fact printed elsewhere and with a little bit of digging, you might actually FIND the books you loved so much!
  Perusing Swap Meets, Garage Sales and Used Bookstores helped me get my hands on a lot of those children stories, and with the advent of online services like ebay and amazon.com, I was able to pretty much recreate my childhood library book by book, story by story! But one story I REALLY wanted to get was “Jimmy Takes Vanishing Lessons”, a tale about a boy who scares a ghost and then blackmails him into teaching him how to disappear!

Oh MAN, did I love this story! Jimmy is a kid whose Aunt is having trouble renting out a house because it is supposedly haunted, and sure enough when he goes to inspect the place, a ghost comes sailing down the stairs and scares him right out the door! When Jimmy has time to calm down, however, he gets angry for being scared by such a thing. When he goes back to the house, he sees the ghost inside dancing and laughing at the prank he’d pulled on him,  and Jimmy is so incensed that he sticks his head in the door and yells "BOO!” at the top of his lungs, making the ghost jump and scream in fear!
  Naturally, the ghost doesn’t want Jimmy running around telling people he got the one-up on him, and after regaining composure, tells him that if he'll keep quiet, the ghost will teach him some tricks like vanishing. Jimmy takes him up on his offer, but still has to deal with getting the ghost to move out so they can rent the place. The Ghost refuses to move, so Jimmy and his Aunt move in, and hilarious hijinks arise! 
  Aw, such a great story, and in addition to the fun tale, the artwork was just superb. I found that even years later I fondly remembered what each picture looked like. I remembered the pic of Jimmy scaring the ghost on the banister. I remembered Jimmy’s Aunt giving the ghost smelling salts to revive him. And most of all, I remembered the splash page illustration that prefaced the story: an image of the ghost and Jimmy talking framed by a window of a Haunted House! I just HAD to find this story!

   After I had gotten to be pretty good at finding what I wanted on ebay, it was time to focus on the harder-to-get books, and Jimmy takes Vanishing Lessons was on the top of the list! First, going online I found out the author’s name was Walter R. Brooks, and with this information, it was onto ebay! In no time at all, I found a few sellers who had it up for auction, and soon I had copy coming my way! 

Original Book

   When I finally got ahold of it a few days later and perused the pages, I should have been in Seventh Heaven…but instead, I was puzzled. Something about it wasn’t quite right… Oh sure, the story itself was pretty much what I remembered, but the illustrations  didn’t look ANYTHING like the ones in the English Reader. In fact, I didn’t like it at all! Far from the fun, bright and ZANY illustrations I remembered, these were dour and scratchy looking…

Original Story artwork by Don Bolognese

No offense to the artist Don Bolognese, but part of the reason I loved the story so much was for the (admittedly 70’s-ish looking) illustrations, and these didn’t look like them in the least! Finally I realized the only solution: I had to find a copy of the original English Reader on ebay!
   This was a bit harder, because I couldn’t’ remember which one of those books the Ghost story was in! I DID find out that the books were all published by GINN under the name of Theodore Clymer, and once the covers for those came up on ebay, I purchased any of them that looked familiar! After months of ordering , I got my hands on a bunch of great books that contained other stories I loved, and then when I got a copy of the book All Sorts Of Things, the final story at the back was the Jimmy story I remembered so well!

All Sorts Of Things, GINN Reader

  Ah, each page’s illustrations kept blowing my mind with nostalgia, they were exactly how I remembered them, so vibrant and full of wonderment!!! Add to gether witht the marvelous story and you've got yourself a terrific Halloween story to re-read  for many years to come! Take a trip down Memory Lane with me and read along with these scans of Jimmy Takes Vanishing Lessons!

A Tribute To the Blue Nosed Witch...

I've already talked about my infinite love of the Children's Halloween Story of the Blue Nosed Witch by Margaret Embry, and one year at the Record Store I was working at, I decided to pay tribute to my beloved childhood story by using Blue Nosed Witch Blanche as the decoration for that month's "Upcoming Releases" Glass Bulletin Board outside. Don't know if there were many who knew who the witch was (nobody at work did), but it was a Halloweeney theme nonetheless!
 When Halloween was over and I put the displays into the storeroom, I decided to put Blanche in the window of the room. Was pretty funny because for months after that, you could see Blanche in the window, and at night, you could see her silhouette in the window!
This went on til they finally cleared out the room! LOLOL