In the late 80s/early 90s no cartoon was hotter than Garfield. This Monday hating, lasagna loving, orange cat's rise to fame was due to the success of his Saturday morning cartoon "Garfield and Friends". I read all the Garfield comic strip collections during library time in grade school and when I saw the "Garfield's Scary Tales" book in the Troll Book Club form, I needed to have it! This anthology of spooky stories featuring Garfield is wayyy different than those comic collections. These are all new stories that have a creepy twist to them. I love the artwork in this book. It is much more polished than what was in the papers.
The first story titled "The Midnight Stalker" focuses on Jon, Odie and of course Garfield staying at the broken down Wary Inn. While there Garfield is confronted by a were-cat named Beezle!
The next story is probably my favorite of the bunch and is titled "Surprise Package". This is a story of revenge gone awry as the postman, finaly tired of Garfield's ambushes, leaves a special package for the fat cat. The package contains a huge, cat eating, nasty looking spider creature! Here's the best part, as the spider crawls up Garfield's back, he faints and squishes the creepy crawly under his own weight! This was crazy to see as a kid!
Next is the story called "Terminal Terror" this was my least favorite of the stories. It's something we've all seen before. A computer with a mind of it's own ends up controlling Jon. Then he moves onto Odie, who makes the evil computer explode due to his lack of a brain to drain.
"A Ghost's Story" comes next. Jon, Odie & Garfield go camping and start to tell scary stories. Already shaking from Jon's tale a stranger comes by and joins them. He tells them a tale of an axe wielding woodsman who goes crazy at the loss of his lady. Jon and the guys believe this story to be about their new acquaintance and run off. Leaving "Ol Zeb" to enjoy their meal! For some reason this picture of Zeb eating beans was always the one that stuck with me?
Lastly we have "The Closet Thing"! Garfield's attempts to help Odie go to sleep and reassure him that there are no monsters in their closet is a pretty short one. Odie is scared, Garfield looks in the closet to find nothing there, then at the end we finally see what has been keeping Odie up at night.
Overall, this is not a bad little collection of creepy stories featuring Jim Davis' greatest creation. I liked the stories as a kid and now my kids get creeped out by the sight of squished spiders and were-cats. It's a lot of Halloween fun for the young ones...and some old ones too!
I remembered liking this when I was little, though it still didn't hold a candle to Scary Stories For Sleep-Overs. Though I do remember being afraid to go to the fridge at night.
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