Sunday, November 22, 2009

Then and now: The way my mind works


Before I could read, I saw this kid's book, More Jokes and Riddles, when I was a child. It had a particular illustration that I liked:


I thought the boy was happy because he was thinking of getting a pet rattlesnake. Cool! That was something straight outta The Addams Family or The Munsters, popular shows when I was a toddler.

The illustrations were by artist Albert Aquino, who is now largely forgotten but who was popular then and influential now. I have recently found a copy of the book, and there's another illustration that strikes me differently now than it would have then. This is it:

When I saw this again after many decades, the adult me imagined the mother was on the verge of screaming, "NO! NOT AGAIN!! OH, THE BLOOD, THE BLOOD!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, TIMMY?""

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