"Hocus Pocus" poster process + Salem talk

The "Hocus Pocus" glow-in-the-dark alternative movie poster I created for the 30th anniversary of the movie.  24"x 36" silk screen on heavy archival paper.

  Early sketches

This piece also has a glow-in-the-dark ink layer, to reveal some cool secret runes.  

The Black Flame candle also glows, the title, the book's eye and snakes.

(You can faintly see it above.)

The print quality on these silk screens is even better in person, the phone doesn't really capture the glow!  The printing people did an absolutely stellar job.

  color variant giclee available

  Hocus Pocus had many filming locations in Salem, and during the wedding we took a group tour by a few of the houses and streets.

  We used to go there a lot about 10 years ago, when the boys were younger, to enjoy the kitch and spookiness.  It's pretty crowded now, definitely not the same, and I miss the days of exploring in the quiet mist. 

  I also remember the fun we had, Andy and I and our friends Brit and Alison, teaching a workshop at the Peabody Essex Museum as well as a program at the Marblehead school, heading into Salem to have some Thai food late at night.

 

Max's house on Ocean Ave.

Pioneer Village

Ropes Mansion

Philip's Elementary School

Town Hall Halloween Party

Old Burial Hill

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Roger Conant, founder of Salem, MA

  I recently found out that one of my ancestors (direct, too, which is pretty cool) was Roger Conant, the settler and governor of Salem, Massachusetts.  

  No, he had nothing to do with the Salem Witch Trials and according to a book I read about the region Conant was an even-handed, cool-headed guy that stood up for people that needed it and got the early families through the toughest winters.  Later, Miles Standish tried to exile a fisherman for gruffness and excess swearing, and Conant went to bat for the guy in court, telling Standish to back off, and wound up being exiled himself to Cape Ann (which he eventually turned into a successful cod fishing village none the less.) 

  Conant was a moderate Protestant, distrusted by the rather unaccommodating Puritans. He was famous for calmly arbitrating feuds.

  When we were in Salem last year for my stepson's wedding, we got to see an early house my family lived in on Chestnut Street, the first "planned" street in America.  In those days it was expensive having windows, and houses were even taxed PER window!  So many families boarded a few up or made them half-size to avoid the excessive fees.

Of course, it's nice to feel these ties to Salem even in my comic book work, like getting to draw Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and illustrating Salem the cat.  

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  It's fall now, and looking out the window each day, seeing the trees slowly turn all bright orangey and red, fills the heart with happiness and maybe a bit of melancholy.  I don't know why, probably because it's easy to imagine the way the dog used to sit out there in the sun, the leaves coming down around him.

Austin and Andy, Oct. 2024