Carly Beth and the Nightmares

When I was growing up, I would usually sit around and beg my mom and dad to take me to rent movies, and whenever we would get to the movie store, I'd run off straight to the horror section with all the VHS covers staring back at me, and i would look in amazement and drool over the artwork, covered in beasts and half naked women split open by a nightstalker. Horror has always fascinated me, even as a little dude. But when I got worn out from watching heads explode and monsters tearing teens apart in their basement, I'd read some amazing books called GOOSEBUMPS. It was a little lighter, and their wasn't really much gore or violence, it was mostly psychological, but you could easily relate to the situations the characters would be in, since most of the time, they were almost the same age as you. You could picture yourself doing some of the mischievous things they'd do. It was, and still is amazing.

The first one I ever got my claws on, was called THE HAUNTED MASK. And I immediately fell in love with the idea of a mask that completely tranformed you into a careless fiend in the night full of madness, and all you wanted to do was scare the living shit out of other kids. The idea of a mask controlling your, and turning you into something you weren't, fascinated me. I read it over and over again, and with the little money I had, got my hands on more of the books, and pretty soon, I had them all. Most of them are amazing, but the HAUNTED MASK still holds true as one of the funnest, and imaginative halloween adventure books of all time in my opinion. If you're 30 years old (or older) and you still haven't read it, DO SO, NOW. WHO cares if you're a dad, READ IT, then read it to your kids. Their in for a SCARE!

The point of this post is not only to share my love for this, and tell you why you should check it out if you somehow magically haven't yet, but to also share my tribute painting, CARLY BETH'S NIGHTMARE! I was asked by a friend to do my rendition of the book cover (which is below) and of course, I yelled FUCK YEA through facebook chat. This was so much fun, and hope I did the cover justice.



Here's a video from the Goosebumps episode, you can watch the whole episode on Youtube.




And my painting is even on the first page of google results when you search about the book! Amazing!