The Great Pumpkin, The Addams Family, Ichabod Crane, Jack Skellington, Edgar Allan Poe et al, be they fictive or real, rest dearly within our hearts, on our shelves and in our queues, year after year, as Hallowe'en rumbles down the block: commencing the full, holiday season. Beeyond the Holidays, well-after the trick-or-treat bags have been emptied, the cranberry stains have been washed from the tablecloth, the Christmas trees have been dragged to the curb and the New Year's glitter has finally worn away, our cherished, holiday besties remain, year-round. As the mood strikes, throughout the year, especially when Summer is just too much and it feels as though you'll never be cold again, we seek out our holiday pals and indulge in a little off-season joy.

Yet, as we revere these mainstays, it is nice to widen our circle of friends, occasionally, and invite in others. Just like real-life folks, you don't have to hang with them all year, but sometimes new folks make excellent additions to a holiday hoedown. For the Hallowe'en season, in case you haven't met him yet, is Rhode Montijo's rough 'n' ready, mummy-bustin', vampire-quashin', werewolf-vanquishin' rowdy-boy ... The Halloween Kid! 

Born in the vein of 1950's Americana like Howdy Doody, Leave it to Beaver and The Mickey Mouse Club, The Halloween Kid is a pleasant, wholesome blend of America's mid-Century, cowboy craze and mankind's timeless terrors hiding under the bed, in the back of the closet, up in the attic and down the alley.

For centuries, Hallowe'en has been a celebration of Autumn harvest and a time to let loose before a punishing winter sets in with surprising speed and brutality. All Hallows' Eve is also the night spirits can cross over from the netherworld to mingle with the mortals and muggles, and maye steal a soul or two. Historically, mortals and muggles have dressed in disguise to confuse the spirits and thus protect the potentially purloined souls. Nowadays, the whole Hallowe'en season is all about fun, silly, good times with your pals. Yet, sometimes, some folks can take the spooky and the scary just a bit too far, where gore, terror and the downright devilish is concerned. Fer them folks hankerin' fer something more funny, more fun, more family-friendly, The Halloween Kid has got somethin' reeeeal nice in store fer ya.  

The Halloween Kid is an all-American, Red Ryder bee-bee gun, high-water dungarees, good-timin', timeless tale of Boy vs. Monster.  A kind of candy corn-meets-Dennis the Menace innocence and charm awaits you via Rhode Montijo's cheerful illustrations. Within the covers rest pristine pages of pure visual contentment: goblins, ghosties and sweet, suburban streets chockabloc with children dressed as clowns, superheroes and pirates, showcasing Hallowe'en at its Americana best! (Hallowe'en used to be fun, like really fun. Remember? No Tylenol scares, no razor blades in apples and the only masks were plastic, hot and voluntary.)

If this Octoer you meet some folks from, say, Mars and they ask, "Bleep gork pwomp?" - Martian for, "What is Halloween?" - you might brew them a nice, hot cup of spider cider, invite them to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and Hocus Pocus with you, and then give them copies of Halloween by Jerry Seinfeld and The Halloween Kid by Rhode Montijo. That, dear Earthlings and Martians, is Hallowe'en. 

Now, after you've read The Halloween Kid to your Hallowe'en kid, or to yourself over a lovely glass of Black Mountain Cab, the book deserves a key spot amongst your holiday décor. Leave it closed, so you can see its lovely cover, and set it on a pretty side-table with a glowing, LED Jack-o'-lantern. Or, open it to your fave page - mine is the Giant Miami Werewolf - and rest it on a green-marble-topped, antique sideboard, next to a green, Murano-glass bowl of candy, preferably those tiny bags of Swedish Fish. The best thing about Montijo's charming black-and-orange artwork? There are bushels more of his work at his website: portraiture of Victorian Jack-o'-lantern ladies, orphaned skeletons to adopt, vintage-style postcards, churlish children's books, comic books of Pablo's Inferno, antique jars of "Wind for Indoor Kite Flying" and myriad, Halloween Kid goodies.

My fave, but elusive, bit of Montijo is a work of fantasy I spied at his booth, at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) in 2014: a drawing of a giant, friendly, sort of pumpkin-moon with happy, glowing, orange eyes and a wide smile. The pumpkin-moon itself  is painted all the beautiful colours of The X-Files: blacks, pewters and dusky-blues, all set against a starry, stormy, Autumn night. The piece is, in Montijo's own words, a "vision of what The Great Pumpkin looks like as he's coming to town". Splendid! (Mr. Montijo, if it comes available again, please LMK @JennyPopCom!)

Fortunate I was indeed, to chat with Mr. Montijo personally at SDCC, as he is a bit like the Great Pumpkin in that he is out there, but very hard to find. Even according to the official Montijo website, Very little is known about children's book author and illustrator, Rhode Montijo; he was discovered at the front steps of the Elden Library.

Were I able to chat with Mr. Montijo again, I would thank him for the cherished, new addition to my treasured collection of Hallowe'en books. May The Halloween Kid feel right at home, in our home, with Poe's Collected Stories, Hocus Pocus & The All-New Sequel, The Addams Family: An Evilution, Frankenweenie, Cranberry Halloween, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Seinfeld's Halloween, The Teeny-Tiny Witches, Cinderella Skeleton Agatha Christie's Hallowe'en Party, The X-Files: Earth Children Are Weird, Miss Spider's Tea Party and so many more literary besties ... and beasties. (I suppose I can always thank him at SDCC 2021 ... if it occurs ... )