I
love Halloween for all its scariness and candy, and I’m glad my book, Demon
Freaks, is coming out in October. It’s a great month for horror. Unfortunately,
I’m not sure what I’m going to be for Halloween this year—I’ve been too busy
planning book stuff to think about it. Last year I was a steampunk version of
Cthulhu (the tentacle-faced Great Old One dreamed up by H.P. Lovecraft). The
year before, I was an evil puppet master (my youngest daughter was my
horrifying puppet). And the year before that, I was an old-timey explorer with
a walrus mustache (I have no idea why except that I had the mustache laying
around). Thinking about what to be this year and not having any good ideas got
me wondering why people dress up for Halloween at all.
Historians
believe that Halloween originated with an ancient pagan Celtic festival.
Samhain, pronounced sow-in (with an “ow” sound like in “cow”), or sometimes
sow-een (because I guess any pronunciation is fine if you’re just going to
ignore the letters and make stuff up), marked the transition between the
lighter half of the year (summer) and the darker half (winter). It was held on
November first, and because it was understood as the dividing line between
light and dark, it was seen as a night when darkness had increased power and
the veil between our world and the underworld was at its thinnest. The ancient
Celts didn’t think of the underworld as an evil place. It was more a world of
magic. Some thought that this magic
world was the land the dead went to after they passed, so there was a fear that
spirits roamed free on Samhain and could cross back and forth between worlds.
So, of course, the people took to lighting huge ritual bonfires, leaving gifts
of food and sweets on their doorsteps for the passing ghosts, and dressing up
in scary costumes to ward them off. Makes total sense to me.
Who
knows what would have happened next, except that in 601 A.D. Pope Gregory the
First came up with a brilliant idea. His missionaries had been having a hard
time converting pagan peoples to Christianity (maybe because the pagans thought
it was boring and didn’t want to give up all their awesome pagan holidays?).
Anyway, he came up with the idea that Christians could simply rename existing
pagan holidays with Christian names. That way, the pagans could still have
their celebrations, but God would be cool with it. Over time, he reasoned, the
pagans would forget their gods and mystical spirits and be assimilated into
mainstream Christianity. Toward this end, Samhain was renamed All Saints Day,
or All Hallows Day.
Unfortunately,
things don’t generally work out that neatly, and Pope Gregory’s idea was no
exception. Although the pagan gods were diminished, the Celts didn’t exactly
forget them. Instead, the old gods were rebranded as evil spirits and
associated with the devil. Similarly, the traditions of leaving treats out and
dressing up in scary outfits and masks to ward off the spirits on All Hallows’
Eve hung on and even intensified—because now the spirits were a lot scarier.
When the Great Potato Famine hit, lots of Irish people emigrated to America,
bringing the traditions of All Hallow’s Eve with them. (Actually, Irish
immigrants had started carrying those traditions over long before the Great
Potato Famine, but I like saying Great Potato Famine because it has “Great” and
“Potato” in the name.) Of course, we American’s aren’t the kind to let an
opportunity to dress up in scary costumes and steal sweets from someone’s
doorstep go by without taking a crack at it. And so Halloween (the lazy contraction
of “All Hallow’s Eve”) was born.
Which is why I need to take a few days off
work to meditate on what my costume should be this year.
Hmmm. Maybe a
steampunk evil puppet master with a walrus mustache?
Demon
Freaks
J.R.R.R.
(Jim) Hardison
Publisher: Fiery Seas Publishing
Release Date: October 3, 2017
Genre: YA Horror/Comedy
Book Description:
It’s the night before the SAT
test. The forces of darkness are stirring.
Twin brothers, Bing and Ron
Slaughter, know they’ve got to cram like their lives depend on it because their
college plans sure do. If they don’t ace the test, they’ll be doomed to spend
the rest of their days flipping burgers at the McDonald’s their parents run.
That’s why they hatch a plan to meet up with the members of their punk band,
the Ephits, spend the night studying at a secluded cabin in the woods, and
maybe squeeze in a little jamming. What could go wrong with a brilliant plan
like that?
Ancient evil. That’s what.
As a cataclysmic lightning storm
rolls in, Bing, Ron and the rest of the Ephits find themselves tangled in a
sinister plot to summon a demon. Yes, demons are real. To survive the night,
the band must find a malevolent artifact, battle bloodthirsty monsters and
stand against the most dangerous and powerful foe humanity has ever faced…the
Golfer’s Association.
Teaser:
“Wait, wait, wait,” Ron
interrupted. “The Golfers Association? Don’t you mean insane cultists or Satan
worshipers or evil wizards or something?”
“Insane cultists, Satan
worshipers and evil wizards are like elderly nuns compared to the Golfers’
Association,” their prisoner responded. “You’d be much better off if it were
something that simple. These guys are demon freaks.”
“Demon freaks,” Bing repeated in
a whisper. “That sounds…bad.”
“Oh, it’s bad alright,” the
prisoner shuddered. “You have no idea.”
About
the Author:
Fish Wielder is J.R.R.R. (Jim)
Hardison's first novel novel (He wrote a graphic novel, The Helm, for Dark
Horse Comics). Jim has worked as a writer, screen writer, animator and film
director. He started his professional career by producing a low-budget
direct-to-video feature film, The Creature From Lake Michigan. Making a bad
movie can be a crash course in the essential elements of good character and
story, and The Creature From Lake Michigan was a tremendously bad movie.
Shifting his focus entirely to animation, Jim joined Will Vinton Studios where
he directed animated commercials for M&M’s and on the stop-motion TV series
Gary and Mike. While working at Vinton, he also co-wrote the television special
Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy with actor Paul Reiser.
Jim has appeared on NBC's The
Apprentice as an expert advisor on brand characters, developed characters and
wrote the pilot episode for the PBS children's television series SeeMore's
Playhouse and authored the previously mentioned graphic novel, The Helm, named
one of 2010's top ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens by YALSA, a branch of the
American Library Association. These days, Jim is the creative director and
co-owner of Character LLC, a company that does story-analysis for brands and
entertainment properties. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his lovely wife,
two amazing kids, one smart dog and one stupid dog.
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