Over on my other social medias I've been doing some reviews of horror books for Spooky Season, and I thought this book, being about boogeymen and other folklore bugbears, would fit in nicely with this blog.
THE OLD SNATCHENGRABBER'S BIG BOOK OF CHILD-EATING MONSTERS
by Bitter Karella (writing as Mike Rosen)
Boogey-men, women, and those in-between abound in this collection of monstrous beings that live under beds, on the roof, or just on the edge of the forest path, waiting to grab and devour kids who misbehave or go to places they shouldn’t.
The Big Book ranges from familiar bogeys (at least to American
pop culture) such as Rawhead Bloodybones, La Llorona, and Baba Yaga, to more obscure
beings such as the Babylonian sewer-dwelling Sulak, the gossip-eating living
marionettes called Croquemitaines, and the fungal witch Churnmilk Peg who
punishes naughty children who steal unripe nuts from their neighbors’ orchards.
All brought to life with Karella’s cartoony style.
Each entry is written in a field guide style with habitat,
range, appearance, diet, and other vital statistics so you can identify the
bugbear currently haunting your outhouse or crawlspace. Looking through the entries, it quickly
becomes apparent how hilariously gruesome boogeymonster folklore is, with
monsters delivering punishments such as chopping kids to pieces; grinding them into
sausage; suffocating them in piles of filth and sewage, ripping out their
living guts and replacing them with stones, and other unpleasentries. I suppose
if your kids won’t listen to reason, you gotta terrify them with the threat of
dismemberment by a nightmare hag to get them to obey.
The Old Snatchengrabber’s Big Book of Child-eating Monsters
is available as a PDF on Bitter Karella’s itch.io page, along with a bunch of
other cool, spooky comics, books, and games- including the award-winning
Midnight Pals!
