Halloween and I

 

I wanted to write one article to celebrate my favorite time of year. A moment to reflect back on my personal history with the Holiday, what it's meant to me, the traditions, the memories and in the end how it's affected my work. Bone Boy Billy can, in many ways, be considered a Halloween all year around sort of comic.

Billy's design alone keeps that Halloween spirit to it. His eyes are designed to look like candy corns. His simplistic design almost looks like a child's costume come to life. His best friend is a Jack 'O Lantern and little brother is a devil. You can't get much more Halloween than that. But just what does Halloween mean to me?

When I was a kid Halloween meant a few things. It meant getting to dress up, which I always loved and continue to love. Getting to play a role, be someone else even for only a night, is so freeing and fun. Some of my happiest early memories are of trick or treating around town with friends. It meant staying up late (unless Halloween was on a school night, of course) watching spooky cartoon specials and eating way too much free candy in one evening.

Some of my favorite costumes from my early years was when I went as a dinosaur, of course I played it up Godzilla style. I went as a mummy two years in a row. Both years I must have left 75% of my costume around the neighborhood as it slowly fell off. I'd been a vampire, a zombie, lots of fun costumes and I always loved playing the monster.

Another favorite part of Halloween was the previously mentioned Halloween specials. Growing up in the 90's and early 00's, TV shows used to have Halloween specials every year. Shows like Home Improvement and Roseanne made a real art of the special. Though those were more family sitcoms. The absolute best specials were the cartoons, especially, in my opinion, the ones that aired on Nickelodeon through my youth.

Back when I wrote articles on the regular I had coined the term Nickelodeon Horror for a certain kind of all ages horror that had a real timeless appeal to it. Shows like Hey, Arnold, Angry Beavers, Rugrats, Spongebob and more had so many amazing Halloween specials that genuinely spooked me as a kid. I looked forward to them every year. 

My earliest memory with horror are these Halloween specials and eventually the classic series Goosebumps. In many ways, I feel Halloween molded me into the adult I am today. It's still my most beloved time of year, the time I prepare for the most and look forward to so much that August and September are practically Pre-October at this point. 

Another big fixture in my childhood that fostered this love of scary stuff was Courage the Cowardly Dog. It was the first regular series that had a strong focus on horror/sci-fi/outrageous stories that really captivated me. Even now, I consider it the gold standard of all ages horror. Courage achieved a perfect balance between child friendly scares and humor. It's definitely a huge influence on Bone Boy Billy, as are all those classic specials in many ways. I feel the DNA of classic Halloween cartoons from my youth is in every page of my comics.

Growing up, Halloween never really stopped being a big deal. My friends and I trick or treated into our early teens when we finally figured we were too old to keep going. Halloween transitioned from trick or treating to parties, usually monster movie marathons with friends. Back then I was still pretty scared of watching horror on my own. 

In 2010, I came up with an idea to get to watch more horror films with friends. So I came up with Fright Night, a fairly regular gathering of friends to marathon spooky movies and hang out. I had just graduated high school so this was also a great way to keep in touch with friends. Hosting Halloween Fright Nights was a thing for a few years, though later on two of my good buddies decided to take on the mantle of hosting Halloween and they outshined me in every way. I still make it to their place every Halloween as they're still hosting awesome spooky get-togethers. 

Back when I wrote on my old blog, and for the website comic book revolution, I wrote tons of Halloween reviews. That was my first attempt at having a Halloween special of my own. I was very, very heavily inspired by James Rolfe, especially for his Monster Madness series of videos that were a regular daily watch for me back then. I wanted to do my own horror reviews and for many years I packed in lots of horror comics, movies, games and tv show reviews. I had a ton of fun putting them all together. Often writing them months in advance.

The older I got the more comfortable I became with horror movies and shows and eventually started watching them on my own. Over the last 15 years or so I've developed a very healthy horror diet, both in film, video games, shows and especially comic books. I've consumed hundreds, countless horror stories and so much of it has influenced or become a part of Bone Boy Billy. I love working in references to obscure movies only ten people have eve heard of. 

Tradition has always been a big part of Halloween, even as the traditions evolve. One of my most recent traditions has been saving up horror comic books to read during the month of October. Every year, throughout the year, I buy up great looking horror comics and save them for this month to spook myself with them. 

Now we wrap around to how it all affects Billy. Billy was always going to highlight Halloween especially. Early plans were for it to be an annual Halloween one-shot comic book. Starting with the Hellish Halloween. I recall early plans were that Billy ressurrected on Halloween. Lots of ties to Halloween were always there. Especially since one of the earliest influences was The Nightmare Before Christmas. Billy was highly inspired by Jack Skellington. 

When it came time for Billy's own proper Halloween special after I got the series started in earnest, that's something I struggled with for a while. A whole year, really. While plans were for Bone Boy Billy to launch and come out regularly through October 2023, I hit a few mental blocks that kept that from happening.

How to properly celebrate Halloween that year was one of the big mental blocks. I must have tried roughing out my idea for a special Halloween page several times over and I was never happy with it. It was an idea prompted by my mom and I still really like it for a possible future page. Maybe when I'm a better artist. The idea was very simple. One big page showing a haunted house. Billy and friends then walked through the house giving out ghosts candy to celebrate the night. Simple, but fun page.

For whatever reason I just couldn't crack it. I never got the flow of moving from room to room down right. I tried picking the idea back up last year. I had planned for that to still be our Halloween special. A few more tries though and I just wasn't happy with it. Nothing worked like in my head and eventually I had to give the idea up, for the time being.

Inspiration for a solution to my problem came in the form of most divine interventions: The Simpsons. I'd been watching through most of the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror specials last year. While I didn't quite grow up with the Simpsons like most of my generation, these specials were a favorite of mine even as a kid. Watching through them again was super nostalgic and it was in that fun Anything Goes mentality I found my answer.

Rather than an in-universe little Halloween romp, my specials would be alternative universe stories. Taking the characters from the Billy comics and putting them in stories inspired by classic horror. I was still riding high from the Dead Space remake back then so I was really feeling jazzed to do a space body horror story.

Thus our first Halloween special, Morbid Expanse, was born. Four pages, a quick little one in done tale with some freaky monsters. It was simple but a lot of fun to make. I knew I had my formula for a regular Halloween take on Bone Boy Billy. Like all Halloween specials, I planned to make them months in advance. A good example, I had the idea for Yellow Lights earlier in this year, roughed it out in June/July and then finished it in early August. 

I've even got next year's Halloween special all worked out. Next year we're going old school with Edgar Allen Poe and a very different kind of adaptation/format I'm super excited to get into when I've finished all my research/prep. It's going to be very different in terms of format and how we tell these stories. I think it's going to be a lot of fun and who knows how many pages it will end up being. 

So what does Halloween mean to me all these years later, in my early 30's? So much is the same while also so very different. It's still about creepy fun times, spent with friends and making the most of the month. Sure, the how's and where's change, but the why remains the same. Because, simply put, I love Halloween. I'll be an old man and still be dressing up every year. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful, safe and fun Halloween this year! Spread the love and share your favorite traditions when you can. If you see a little skellington boy walking around with a super convincing costume, give him a piece of candy, it just might be Billy.