Survey: Your Favorite Richard Egielski Artwork in "Letter"

Richard Egielski created 14 full page illustrations for The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring, and, in celebration of its 40th anniversary, we want to know which one is your favorite.

Time Capsule: January 20, 1996

Let’s say you’re an tech-savvy, undergraduate education major and you want to contribute something new and unique to the World Wide Web thing all the kids are talking about. How does one go about that? 

First, boot-up the dial-up modem. Next, use Netscape Navigator or American Online ("Welcome!") to search the 100,000-or-so existing pages to figure out whether someone else has anything on that topic. If you find something interesting, make sure your mouse trackball is clean so you can roll the pointer into place and click the image that appears on your 640x480 resolution monitor.

It seems an archaic ritual but that’s how it was 20 years ago when the CompleatBellairs first went online and helped bring the books of John Bellairs and Brad Strickland into the digital age.

This Is My Birth-Day

We celebrate the 78th birthday of author John Bellairs. It's not a platinum anniversary (close: 70) but 78 is the atomic number of that metal. And that's your trivia for the day.


Cheers, John.

Who’s Who: Charles Dudmer

The powder room for men at the nameless Catholic Montana Women's College is at the residence of this individual [Saint Fidgeta and Other Parodies; 75].

Sweet Fidgeta, Deliver Us!

We’re celebrating fifty years since the publication of Saint Fidgeta and Other Parodies and a half-century of John Bellairs as the famous author.

Time Capsule: Nov. 22, 1935

After Johnny Dixon has a run-in with school bully Eddie Tompke, Gramma Dixon helps treat Johnny's cut finger:

"As Gramma fussed over him she went on about the Tompkes and their relations, the Tadmans and the Sweets and the Schemanskes. Gramma was like that.  She had lived in Duston Heights all her life, and she knew everything about everybody." - The Cure of the Blue Figurine (1983)

Unpublished Blog Post Found On The Laptop Of A Long-Retired New York Advertising Executive

Next time...next time it will be better. Haven’t yet found the nun who was waving that black squiggly flag. Paint the runway white and gold? Nah, it didn’t work that last time, either. Someone said his Fiat driver was found on Uber, but I must check it first. A flash mob of people outside Saint Michael’s Cathedral acting out an open Communion line, complete with Papal ferula-shaped selfie sticks. Should be interesting.  Those kids might be on to something.  Does open up a new field, though.... And this time he got to visit the White House. Humpf.  Znerb. Tweb.

Survey: Your Favorite Johnny Dixon Book?

Here's your chance to vote for your favorite book in the Johnny Dixon series.

Thus Spake Zebulon Patriach

It's always fun to see contemporary artists take on the work on John Bellairs, such as these storyboards by Anissa Espinosa of The Revenge of the Wizard’s Ghost.  Good work!

The Gargoyle in the Dump

And now for something completely different - and unexpected: The Gargoyle in the Dump is a recently discovered, never-before-published story by John Bellairs to be published September 2015 from Open Road Media.

Survey: Your Favorite Anthony Monday Book?

Here's your chance to vote for your favorite book in the Anthony Monday series.

What's What: Magna Carta

Professor Childermass boasts that the name Childermass is "ancient and honorable" with one of his ancestors alongside the barons who forced King John to sign the Magna Carta [The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull, 9].

Memoriam: Christopher Lee

We learned today of the passing of Sir Christopher Lee, the iconic British actor who gained fame for his many films roles, beginning with Frankenstein's monster (1957) and Count Dracula (1958), continuing with Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Saruman in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001–2003) and The Hobbit film trilogy (2012–2014), and two films of the Star Wars prequel trilogy (2002 and 2005).

Who's Who: Tom Corbett, Space Cadet

Lewis envisions himself wearing Grampa Barnavelt's lucky coin, imagining that he was this figure [The Figure in the Shadows; 61].

Answers Blowing in the Wind

I was on the mend a week or so ago from a dog bite when a flood of questions entered the mind. Would I have to get a tetanus shot? Would the dog have to get a tetanus shot? Should I have bit back? Why are idioms called idioms and not, say, qualinyms? The amount of questions reminded me, when I found my pending posts file at the Bellairsia office, that I have been meaning to post a few words about questions and answers as a way to address those pointless websites where people ask questions that they couldn't manage to find answers to themselves.