Hope you enjoyed your visit!

What I have to say is difficult but it had to happen sometime. The cache of covers from the library books I weeded over a year ago has  run out. I hope you enjoyed the illustrations, the links and the commentary. I had a lot of fun giving these old covers a fresh breath of life and entertaining you in the process. A great big THANK YOU to all the sweet people who visited from week to week and had such nice things to say - and great blogs of their own! I can be found at Upstate Oddities or on Facebook.

Good Bye! 

Mind Games

Young Billy has a lot on his mind. Literally. And we all know what boys have on the brain, don't we, nudge nudge, wink wink?  But Billy is different. His mild-mannered sensitivity doesn't fit this gross generalization. The reveries that emanate from his neatly coiffed helmet head represent a paragon of wholesomeness. Captured in his great big thought balloon is the sweet, maternal tenderness embodied by a Madonna and Child. Either that or the illustrator cleverly worked a Venn Diagram into the design, one which supports an abstinence-only agenda by showing what may happen when a boy and a girl...ahem...overlap. Damn ambiguous book cover!   

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid (Road) Test

Would you believe me if I told you this book is about a kid whose delusional dad dreams of becoming a wrestling superstar? Yeah, me neither, because the only association with wrestling in this illustration would have to be the title, right? So I'm going to imagine a different story... the story of "Half" Nelson and his buddy "Full" Nelson on a psychedelic joyride through the highways, byways and extremely elevated overpasses of America. The ones with the teeny tiny guard rails and distracting tropical birds. Tropical birds...Um, guys? I think you made a wrong turn. Onto a monorail. Yep, I thinks that's what happened. A little birdie told me.

Oh, my aching head!

Oh, God, no... not again. Not another migraine. Ugh, I can feel it coming on, feel those demons cavorting on my cranium. But that doesn't really describe the agonizing ache - feels more like pins pushing through my pineal gland or...or...(fuck, this hurts) thorns thrusting through my thalamus. Or serpents slithering through my cerebellum.  Oh, sweet bejeebus, make it stop! It feels like ballerinas pirouetting en pointe and executing perfect arabesques on my parietal lobe. Yes, that's what it is! Tiny dancers dashing my desire to live. I... need... relief!

Note to my readers: If you go here, I promise your head will stop hurting from all those nasty links :)

This is how it's done

The following is a handy dandy guide to the components that make up a superbly lame 1980's YA cover illustration:  (You can thank me later)

1) Disembodied heads floating amid a neutral background. Extra special lameness if one of the heads is a geeky kid with thick glasses just waiting for you to get undressed. (please cover book before getting into your jammies, girls)

2) Obsolete technology

3) Random grouping of lilliputians

4) Giant central character in a seemingly catatonic state. Extra points if she's so out of it she's neglected her hair. (Girlfriend, break out the conditioner!) 

Combine all elements, slap on an ominous title and finish with a tri-named author. Voila! You have a young adult masterpiece, moldering in the stacks of a time-traveling library near you!

Crank Dat!

Jan Michael Vincent, fresh from his hugely popular stint flying helicopters for our viewing pleasure, takes on his most challenging role yet. Soldier Boy is the emotionally-charged tale of a courageous young private with a serious case of the sads. On leave for a few days, his heart is shat upon and shattered when his girlfriend (played by the beautiful Lea Thompson) confesses that she is smitten with an inamorato of a different feather. But all's well in the end when our hero, stationed in the Antarctic, finds a chance for acceptance and happiness with his own web-footed friends.

Green Eggs and WHAM!

Turtles have a leisurely, gentle way about them. They're slow and steady and don't partake in any seaside drama. But just try to mess with their eggs! 

These are some of the last known photos taken of one C. Sheldon Smith during a school field trip to the shore. Repeatedly told by his teacher "not to disturb the eggs; to look, don't touch; and to get your grimy hands off the goddamn eggs, how many times do I have to tell you, you freakish little moron," Sheldon squatted down, scooped up a cache of freshly laid leathery orbs, and in so doing, incurred the mighty wrath of mama turtle. 

May the following snapshot, taken moments before the horrible deaths of Sheldon and his classmates (and the surrounding townsfolk) serve as a warning to us all.