Some more scanned HQ pages. this is another one from Albert Cullum published in 1978 titled Blackboard, Blackboard on the Wall, Who is the Fairest One of All?

i decided to start a Harlin Quist category because i have enough of these books to scan. this entry is from “You Think That Just Because You’re Big, You’re Right” by Albert Cullum. this is an insanely dark HQ book and really depressing. the girl’s mom is an alcoholic, she has no friends blah blah blah. but the illustrations are seriously mindblowing:

cover

too many rules

bourgeous broad being hit in the head with a pie

mum letting loose

and one i don’t know how to explain

I scanned some pictures i thought were cute from The Endless Party by Etienne Delessert, one of my Harlin Quist books. Basically the story goes “One day all the animals got an invitation to a boat party. It was from some guy named Noah…”

I’ll probably scan more in the next coming weeks to show you how cool these children’s books are.

the sun doing a nixon impression?

four-eyed snake

animals playing dominoes at the party with ladybugs

worm eating ice cream

Aside from public enemy and movies like boyz in the hood having an influence on me in my early years, books published by Harlin Quist were a big part of my childhood as well. My oldest sister Lily went abroad to europe when she was 19 for a summer and brought me back a bunch of these awesomely strange and psychedelic childrens books.

From a fan site:

Harlin Quist was an American book publisher who set a new standard of excellence in children’s book publishing during the late 1960’s.
From 1966-1984, Quist published over sixty children’s books, featuring some of the finest European and American authors and illustrators. Quist’s books helped establish the careers of many young artists, and brought a quirky and original look to childrens’ book publishing.

The stories were about everything from a girl who climbs through her television into a disturbing world to a wooden doll adopting a human child to a caterpillar who believes he’s a mustache. they were so bizarre and imaginative and the illustrations were brilliantly surreal and bordering on nightmarish (if you were a kid). looking at them now, it’s hard to believe that children were its intended audience because they are so druggy and fear and loathing-like. but they are awesome and i wish that they were easier to find these days. check out the whole list of books here.