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--Dr.Moth

In German and Czech central Europe before World War I, some old folklore gained new currency when the Krampus flourished in the new medium of the color picture-postcard. With horns, pointed ears, and cloven hoofs (or a hoof and a taloned human foot); covered in black fur; and bearing a trident, a birch switch, and a big basket, the Krampus accompanied St. Nikolaus on his feast day and, while the saint left gifts for the good, switched the naughty and carried off the worst. The demon proved ideal for greeting cards that were perhaps admonitory but definitely festive in a Halloweenish way. Beauchamp, who has featured the cards in Blab, the quasi-annual mounting of art-oriented comics he edits [see review, p.1277], presents more than 150 of them on all-color, larger postcard-size pages, interrupting them only three times with two pages of white-on-red historical text. Although that could be better written, the pictures, remarkably varied in style and portraying adolescents and adults as well as children as the Krampus' victims, constitute a perennial browser's delight. Ray Olson

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Product Description

A collection of vintage Christmas cards for very bad little girls and boys. The Devil in Design is a fascinating, full-color compendium of extremely rare, late 19th and early 20th-century Krampus postcards culled from key postcard collections from around the world. Lavishly illustrated with over a 150 striking and stylized full-page examples, the book also includes a short introduction tracing the character's origin and its overwhelming popularity throughout Europe. In the Christmas traditions of Europe, the Krampus is Saint Nicholas's dark servant—a hairy, horned, supernatural beast whose pointed ears and long slithering tongue gave misbehavers the creeps! Whereas Saint Nicholas would reward children who had been good all year with treats, those that had been disobedient were paid a visit by the Krampus.

The Krampus terrorized the bad until they promised to be good. Some he'd spank; others he'd whip, while others he'd shackle, stuff into his large wooden basket, and then hurl into the flames of Hell! Such scenarios were delineated by skilled and imaginative Old World craftsmen, printed on penny postcards and disseminated throughout Europe.

The Devil in Design is the first English-language book to offer this breathtaking collection of the finest, rarest, and most visually-stunning Krampus cards history has left to offer. 168 pages full-color illustrations.