As the host Johnny Misfit, I tried to share a bit of
background, to give a history to the works as an intro to the night. Let’s say
I never shut up. But I did mention the fact that in 2011 for the book’s 30th
anniversary, the old illustrations where replaced with new renditions. I showed
some examples. This brought forth some boos from the crowd. Then I read a
selection, about baseball because the playoff wildcard game was on and I found
it fitting.
When I finally did shut up, the invited readers started off
the night. I have to note at this time, I began a slideshow of images featuring
the creepy and grotesque black and white illustrations from the books. That set
the tone, supplementing the text and performances that followed.
Jim Joyce took it old school Scooby Doo style reading a
story about a boy dared to spend a night in haunted house. Jim read with his
trademark wit beginning his reading by sharing some Amazon reviews of the Scary
Stories books. It ended with Jim performing a decapitation on a stuffed dog from
which goldfish flew out of the stuffed body.
Hillary Stone brought some laughs as she read two stories.
One in particular elicited some help from the Batman’s villain Bane who, as we
all know, was born in the dark (probably told some scary stories in his time).
More than half of the audience took to the stage to read
their favorites.
- Mike and Evan, two Members of the band Exit Ghost, each read selections that dealt with eating human beings.
- Lindsey from the band the Cellphones gave us goosebumps reading about Harold the scarecrow come to life.
- Comics artist Alex Nall sung and danced to the Hearse Song. He also drew another kick ass collection of drawings at the reading.
- Other guests included Piper Pennigan aka Michelle Guimon, Allison Klein (DJ AllisonWunderland and CHIRP personality) and zinester Collin Brennan.
- Dan the Hungry Brain’s bartender added to the festivities by retrieving an electronic skeleton head that lit up, had moving eyes and posed the question, “Do I Know You? Come a little closer.” Pretty good stuff.
Big thanks to Sarah W for bringing Halloween Oreos and those
little orange and black wrapped peanut butter nuggets. And Jill S (my partner)
for letting me use her laptop to project all the scary images.
Thanks to everyone who came out. Hope you all had a nostalgic
time and that your sleep was full of nightmares.
And for those interested, here is the intro I wrote that I
didn’t even follow. My actual reading of it was more a spastic version of Cliff
Notes. Read the text below.
