SALEM WITCHCRAFT: THE PURITANS' POINT OF VIEW

For centuries Europe had been the scene of increasingly senseless slaughter. Wars of succession, religion, territory and trade proliferated. No excuse for discord was too small.

Then there was the Black Plague, a disease whose origin remains controversial, even today. 

The men who presided over Europe in those days were enigmatic. Their portraits were often downright creepy. 

Who were these people and why did they do nothing to stop the violence? Often they seemed to promote it. 

Europe was devastated. Almost everywhere evil triumphed. 

With their backs against the wall, the dwindling number of survivors devised a risky plan of escape. They'd take ships to the New World. 

Little did they know that they'd taken part of the Old World with them.

What occurred on some of those ships hasn't been recorded.

We can surmise that some of them ended up in Central and South America. We see a resurgence of cannibalism there and what appears to be pointless tribal warfare in this period. 

 Giant predatory animals and birds also appeared on that continent in this era.

Who made these things and why?

Up in North America the colonists were surprised to find themselves battling an outbreak of witchcraft, something they thought they'd left behind. At first they seemed to have it under control....

...but the "Others" (that's what they called themselves) launched a vigorous counterattack and the trials were ended. 

After that, the Others and their successors spread throughout the new country. How many were there? Nobody knows. Maybe we can get a rough idea by examining old 19th Century photos. How many of the subjects of those pictures appear to you to be different, to be...Other?

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BTW: Haw! The facts of this story are completely made up...total fiction...but they make a good story, don't they?

Gee, this Halloween I'll be too busy with moving to celebrate. I do want to give out candy at the door, though. Maybe I can dig out my old Muskrat lodge uniform. 

Have a good Halloween!

MORE HALLOWEEN PORCH DECORATIONS

More Halloween porch pictures! Geez, I wish I had the original poster this cabbage monster came from. 

Veeery nice! The original of this would have been a great portrait to frame and put up on the wall of a guest room.  

This guy's great! There's half a chance the girl you marry will have a brother like this. 

Why don't cereal boxes have cutout masks like this one (above)?

Every year the Halloween stores offer some new category of things. Last year it was realistic plastic animal skeletons and dog costumes. This year it's blow-up balloon gear and cat costumes. 

I like the "Spirit" stores' new slogan: "Make Halloween Great Again!" Amen! It's a great holiday!

I love creepy old woodcuts and etchings (above). 

Hand-painted, charming, funny drawings like the one above make great porch pictures. 

Believe it or not, this (above) was a newspaper illustration. 

Big, home-made, framed cartoon characters make great porch decorations. I like mixing funny cartoons with pictures of monsters and ghosts.

GERMAN TOYS

A friend is in Germany right now and I wish I could have gone with him. I yearn to see real traditional architecture, even if it exists mostly in out-of-the-way rural spots or in touristy pockets like the village above. A commenter has some interesting things to say about this. 

If I was there I'd hit the toy stores first. I want to see the latest designs in wooden blocks.

I also want to see the latest Lego designs. Lego's a Danish company but I'm told that German stores are full of Lego toys that you can't get in America.

Here's (above) a Lego train.

And here's (above) a prototype steampunk locomotive. The design doesn't work but I'm glad the company experiments like this.

 Here's a great wolf toy designed in the North European style for the Disney film, "Pinnochio." It's by Gustaf Tenggren who was a Swedish American steeped in the Old World sensibility.

 German traditional costumes are wonderful! Here's some Tyrolean costumes with the distinctive wide-brimmed Tyrolean hat.

Good Lord! Is it possible that cowboy hats of the American West originated in Germany or Austria?

 We all know that a lot of American Christmas traditions started in Germany, but it's less well known that the same goes for Halloween. When I was a kid the stores were full of German Halloween dye-cuts like the one above. Wow! High art for a price that kids could afford!

Here in California there are stores that sell Halloween items all year 'round. I wonder if that exists in Germany?

German design (above) still influences Halloween in the U.S.

Boy, that country loves its witches!

I wonder if posters of traditional architecture are for sale over there?

There must be lots of old photos that would make interesting posters.

Pictures like this Austrian interior (above) would make great posters, too. Does anybody sell posters like this?

SCARY HALLOWEEN PICTURES

Some artists have a knack for simple, dramatic graphics. It's a rare skill that adds value to whatever it's applied to. If this (above) were a book cover you'd have to check out what was inside, almost regardless of the subject. 

I think the artist was Don Heck. His work in this period was wonderfully stylish. 

Unfortunately he didn't stay that way (above). What happens to artists as they get older? Why the decline? I don't know the answer, but B. F. Skinner wrote about the subject and offered this solution: start a new career in midlife. Would that work? I wonder. 

  

Anyway, back to Halloween weirdness. Are there people with hands so big and powerful that they could grab somebody's midsection like this? It's a gruesome thought.

Maybe if Goliath had grabbed David...but no, not even then. I love the ability that art has to make the implausible seem plausible. Something like this would make a great carnival sideshow banner.

 Framed funny faces make great Halloween porch decorations.

Here's (above) a good one of Frederick March. 

Yikes!

Here's a picture by Travis Louie, the popular painter of portraits that morph into monsters. This artist deserves some kind of life achievement award because for decades he's produced new high quality pictures every year.

HALOWEEN PICTURES

I was thinking about possible Halloween porch decorations today, something to scare the Trick or Treaters.  How about something like this (above) looming over the front door?  

Is it okay to put up menacing circus posters on Halloween? The gorilla in this poster looks like he's about to bash his tormentors with one of their own.

Before recent times people must have been terrified by gorillas. Here's (below) an excerpt from a gorilla adventure story:  

Above, a Picasso-influenced picture, perfect for a Halloween porch decoration. Very nice!

Above, a dark ride figure. 

Where did I get this? I forget. It looks like the top of a haunted House ride. I like it because the shapes suggest how houses could be made to look in real life. This should be the second floor of a two-story house. I don't believe in wasting interesting detail on the tops of high buildings.

This (above) reminds me of scenes in the sci-fi thriller "Inception."

Above, a couple of stills from Mario Bava films.

Geez, even I can be a mask (above)! Wait a minute...I just noticed that my nose has the texture of an orange.

Here's a caricature done by Bill Peet. If you're a cartoonist and you have an old newsprint pad and some crayon stubs lying around then you can do what Peet did and make all the porch decorations you'll ever need.

Above, more porch cartoon ideas...but who did these? Dan Krall? I forgot to write down the name.