Horrible Childhoods – Baby Terrors by Adam Solis

This article would’ve been perfect around Halloween time but gut-wrenching fear isn’t seasonal. In an attempt to tone down the horrific aspects of our all-time favorite monster/ghost/serial killer, illustrator Alex Solis decided to draw them as babies. Horrifying, pants-shittingly scary babies with barely-concealed murderous intent. To be fair to the little monsters that Alex created, a few of them are rather adorable. Which does not mean that I’ll ever volunteer for a cuddle with any of them. The series was created as part of the Inktober event where talented ink artists around the world are invited to create one ink drawing a day to get their creative juices flowing.

Growing up, Alex loved Nightmare on Elm Street and it’s no surprise that one of his first images is a baby Freddy Kruger in diapers. He might be sporting a smaller knife, but he’s still perfectly capable of stabbing you to death with it. One of the few advantages of a baby Freddy is that you can always outrun his crawl. An advantage which is also evident when trying to escape the other characters in Alex’s series like: Jason, Frankenstein’s Monster and his not-so-lovely Bride, Samara (from The Ring), Hannibal, Chucky (Digression: Chucky was already a toddler in the movies and I find a baby version of him to be a little redundant, but whatever. Killer dolls have to come from somewhere.), Michael Meyers, Leatherface, Pinhead, and an Alien with a pacifier (which probably got shredded in minutes from all those teeth).

Alex admits that his six-month old son inspired the whole series. A little weird considering his subjects. He said in an interview: “I wanted to give them a horrific look but still a very innocent feel to them. I think it makes them cute, you almost want to be murdered by them!” Almost but not quite Alex. I like breathing very much, thank you. If you’re ever wondering, Alex currently lives in Chicago with his wife Cathy, his two non-monster kids Levi and Alexis, and a humongous pit-bull named Chato.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out his website!