What do you get when you combine a television and film writer who has worked on several recent Disney hits, a former Peace Corps member turned writer for film and television with an affinity for horror, a designer that works for Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios, a production coordinator for Disney’s upcoming feature, Moana and an all around passionate illustrator that is also a production designer for Oscar winning shorts Paperman and Feast?
Naturally, you get a new slice of horror heaven for kids!
Break out your blankets, turn off the lights and grab a flashlight for some spooky ghost stories because it’s time for “Ghost”
The creative team at Illustratus are releasing a book with new ghost stories for children. Don’t worry, adults will enjoy this book too with hair raising writing and original art throughout the book.
Jeff Turley (Paperman, Feast, Big Hero 6 just to name a few) and Chris Sasaki (character designer for Monsters Inc and Inside Out) started this venture while reminiscing about scary ghost stories from their childhood. Their vision was to create brand new ghost stories for a brand new generation of kids while appeasing adults who crave to recreate memories of spooky storytelling from their own childhood. “Stories that are as surprising as they are terrifying. Stories that stick with us. Stories that we can tell the next time we find ourselves around a campfire.”-Illustratus team.
Blaise Hemingway, who was hired by John Lasseter to write for Disney Animation then moved to Paramount Animation to write and direct, was on board with his friends Jeff and Kit Turley who decided to go “punk rock” and publish Ghost outside the normal paradigms of “traditional studios or publishing systems.” But it gets even better…he had his two kids as inspiration, “The opportunity to scare the crap out of my son and daughter’s generation was too great to pass up.”
Inspired by “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” Jesse Reffsin along with Blaise wrote 13 poems and tales for “Ghost.” Over 100 pages long, the hard cover anthology is coupled with full color illustrations by Jeff and Chris. When asked how far to push scary stories with young readers Blaise had this response, “Kids are tougher than we give them credit for. They can handle bigger scares than we think they can. When I think about the books I read and the films I watched in the 80s, the envelope was WAY more pushed. WAY scarier. I’m not sure when we started hyper-sanitizing everything. Kids are smart; they can see a twist or a thrill coming sooner than most adults do. Jesse and I tried to keep these stories more about “thrills” than cheap scares. I also tested the all stories out on my 11-year-old son and his friends. If they weren’t on the edge of their seats, I knew I’d have to raise the thrill factor, but if they had nightmares, I knew we’d have to walk the scares back a bit.”
And how did they draw the line between scaring kids and scarring kids?
Blaise – “We’re definitely not trying to traumatize kids. If they’re scared, it’s probably because they’re engaged in the stories. We don’t have to scar them for life in order to do that,”
I wanted to know what thriller books the creative team read as a kid during Halloween season or any season for that matter.
Jesse – “I loved the “Scary Stories” and “Goosebumps” books as a kid. But one of my favorites all time is “Skeleton Crew” – a collection of short stories by Stephen King. There’s a story in there about a man stuck on a desert island who eats parts of his own body to survive. I read that at three in the morning at sleepover after my friend had gone to bed. Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep that night.”
Blaise – “I have always loved ‘true’ ghost accounts. There was this show called “Unsolved Mysteries” that I watched as a kid that scared the living crap out of me, but I couldn’t stop watching. So I really loved reading stuff like Life magazine’s, “The World’s Most Haunted Places” or other first person accounts with the supernatural. Fictional ghost stories are scary, but non-fiction ones will keep you up until morning.”
Chris – ” It’s so hard to choose. I grew up on Roald Dahl’s children’s books, and later in life I discovered his adult short stories. ‘The Landlady’ and ‘Royal Jelly’ are so unique and can make the reader laugh, scratch their head, and be creeped out all at the same time. I also remember listening to old cassette-tape recordings of the 1950’s “Dimension X” radio show before bed–not technically a book, but they became favorite bedtime stories.”
Kit – “Sideway Stories from Wayside School, by Louis Sachar”
The audience looking for this type of book is definitely ready and willing to get their hands on Ghost. Illustratus started a Kickstarter campaign that reached the $10,000 goal in just 3 days. The book is available for preorder here
A Halloween book launch party will take place in Pasadena at the Castle Green Hotel on October 30th. Meet the writers, illustrators and take part in the auction with proceeds going to 826 LA. For more information on Ghost and tickets to the book launch party, check out the Illustratus website.
