Technolandy

Day 40 (of 2024/25) Comics to Cartoons… or is it vice versa – a look at halloween…

I put together one of my favourite Donald and his Nephews comics with the cartoon short it was connected to… https://youtu.be/s4XluMnFtzQ

Because over time, all hallows eve has evolved from a remembering the dead to a time for horror – from images to costumes… scary movies to pranks… as one student who was hired by a haunted house this past weekend noted – if they asked for ‘no scares’ we honoured that… if they did not ask… well, I made one older guy fall into the wall… yet if they didn’t ask, but were clutching their plush unicorn… we didn’t scare them…

There is of course a nostalgia of kids going trick or treating (focus on the treats because the tricks like egging a principals house have consequences that are not so pleasant) and using the night to create a ‘little bit’ of chaos… sometimes it goes overboard as it did in Detroit in the 1980s with “Devils Night” (Oct 30) being a big focus on the news in my formative years (rural bc, but we got tv from Detroit). So I wonder… how much does media influence the season… is it making it more secular, or helping hide a religious observance in plain sight…

Walt Disneys Short and the Huey Dewey and Louie comic about trick or treating is meant in fun – costumes with a ‘real witch’ who is channeled right out of Shakespeares Macbeth! 

Some alterations between the cartoon and comic though – sometimes panels and celluloid translate stories a bit differently… though I still do enjoy the music enough from the old cartoon, that it is how I read much of the comic book from one of my larger collections (Donald Duck and His Nephews). 

The monsters and witch could easily have been presented much scarier… and even some of the older cartoons (The Skeleton Dance from 1929 – https://youtu.be/vOGhAV-84iI?si=UY0seP9-I9S7WuyD) have some eeriness to it – and I can’t help but wonder how this evolution of All Hallows Eve to Hallowe’en to it more and more looking like how houses are decorated for Christmas (more on that holiday later…) blending both fun and scary is complex at best. 

Comics are definitely a fun way to look at the past… and the future of how all hallows eve is interpreted…