By David Weiner
Gris Grimly entered my artist appreciation radar when I first stumbled upon his “Trick or Treaters” painting. The whimsical image of costumed kids traipsing over a curved hill, cutting through a graveyard with the full moon behind them on Halloween, made a direct hit to my childhood nostalgia button.
“It was inspired by THE SEVENTH SEAL, that image of Death leading all the people representing the souls over the hill,” Grimly told me of the image featured in his 2006 book BORIS AND BELLA, “and that’s why the monster that is actually Death is leading them in the painting.”
Back in 2015 over a lunch interview for Famous Monsters magazine — sitting down to nosh on a Cuban sandwich down the road from Disney headquarters in Burbank, CA, where he was working on an animated HAUNTED MANSION Halloween special for Disney XD, among other projects — Grimly shared his thoughts on All Hallow’s Eve and his impetus to take on the task of illustrating Ray Bradbury’s classic tale, THE HALLOWEEN TREE.
“Living out here in Los Angeles, there is something that is completely lost when Halloween rolls around; there’s this feel of commercialism that swirls around,” said the rural Nebraska native. “And that’s one of the things I love about Ray Bradbury, is how eloquently he writes exactly what Halloween is in the midwest or on the east coast. … It’s about a small town, simple people, and it’s about feelings and emotions, and it’s not about things. It’s about making your costume; it’s not about going to the store and buying it. And that’s the Halloween I grew up with.”
Bradbury, whose first story was published by Forrest J Ackerman, always had a special fascination with the mystery, history and wonder of Halloween. THE HALLOWEEN TREE, originally published in 1972, takes readers on a tour through time and space as it delves into the multi-cultural origins of the holiday. The story centers on a group of boys who go out trick-or-treating on Halloween night, only to have their friend Pipkin whisked away. With the help of the mysterious Mr. Moundshroud, the group sets out across Europe, ancient Greece and Egypt, Mexico, and more places to rescue him.
“Those children own the night. They own Halloween,” observed Grimly. “They run down the ravine and they go to the spooky house that they shouldn’t go to. They’re free. As far as they’re concerned, they are in charge, and that hits home with me and how I grew up — just being able to take my bike and ride it up to abandoned farmhouses; my parents didn’t know where I went. [They just said,] ‘Come home safe and don’t get into trouble…’ And then, beyond the constraints of reality, not only are the kids allowed to run rampant on Halloween night, they meet this strange character who takes them into this world beyond their own imagination. And it was great to be able to interpret that visually.”
Grimly’s exposure to Bradbury started with the dark Disney film SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, an early ‘80s big-screen experience that made quite an impact on his young brain, but he remained oblivious to Bradbury as the source of the tale. “At that age, you don’t have an awareness of where that story originates from,” he stated. “I didn’t start reading Ray Bradbury stories ’til I got into college. And then, after college, I really found his signature style of writing and tone find its way in my artwork and my own stories.”
Prolific and phantasmagorical, Grimly has gone on to illustrate editions of such classic creepy campfire tales as THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW and FRANKENSTEIN, a pair of Edgar Allen Poe collections, three different WICKED NURSERY RHYMES, the children’s book SIPPING SPIDERS THROUGH A STRAW, and much more — including the title character design for the wonderful, stop-motion animated Guillermo del Toro‘s PINOCCHIO.
For some, there might be a knee-jerk reaction to think that Grimly’s work closely resembles the art and sketches of Tim Burton, and Grimly would not be the first to disagree. “Tim Burton’s work was an influence on me early on,” he said. “Whether it was me seeing FAMILY DOG on AMAZING STORIES, or BEETLEJUICE, or PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE, I found myself gravitating towards all of his work, unknowing that it all came from the same creative mind. … Through his influence I created a style that was true to me, but I was constantly getting compared to Tim Burton. Nothing against him, but I wanted to be my own individual. And so I started to explore other styles, including a lot of early 20th century cartoonists — Winsor McCay, George Herriman; there was definitely a conscious effort being made to redefine myself. In doing so, I found myself losing something that I used to have, but I think the experimentation was fruitful. I went off and I found things that I could bring back and incorporate into my old style, and I’m feeling the best I’ve ever felt about what I’m doing today.”
Lesson learned, he concluded, “It’s all about being authentic to who you are inside. To try to be something you’re not is just as bad as trying not to be something you are, if that makes sense.”
A modest artist who has very much hit his stride, Grimly told me he aimed to do more illustrated editions of Bradbury tales, including FROM THE DUST RETURNED and that seminal SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES — “all those stories that evoke that same October, country, midwest, pre-mid-century Halloween.”
Other amazingly illustrated, creepy tomes under his belt include THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW, Edgar Allen Poe’s TALES OF DEATH AND DEMENTIA, TALES FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM, and FRANKENSTEIN. And in addition to being an artist, Grimly is a filmmaker with a fun flick in the can, CANNIBAL FLESH RIOT!, a number of music videos, and even the opening sequence for ELVIRA’S MOVIE MACABRE TV show.
You can find his work at his online store, which has all sorts of treats. A man who signs his work with “Be Grim!” and a wide-grinning pumpkin face — Gris Grimly is a busy, talented, humble guy.
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