A Mechanical Analysis of Jan Pienkowski’s Haunted House (Dutton 1979)
This book was among my favorite picture books as a young child. I have vivid memories of turning the loaded pages of pop ups and pulling the interactive tabs.
Though I hadn’t seen the book since I was at least six or seven years old, everything came back to me immediately… the stylistically 70′s bubble lettering on it’s cover, the aligator in the bathtub. It was a real joy to revisit this experience. After going through its pages though I was surprised by how simple it is mechanically. No floating layers… almost entirely V-folds. Simple, but well implemented.
A few of Pienkowski’s haunted scenes:
The bathroom with multiple pull tabs and a helical spring-like alien’s antennae.
Years later these pages came to mind and I wondered if Bobby Henderson’s “Flying Spaghetti Monster”, of Kansas Board of Education and Intelligent Design fame, had possibly been inspired here.
