Martí+Salomó reveal the secrets hidden in ‘The Amazing Creepy Granny House’

The Amazing Creepy Granny House is full of secrets, and its authors, Martí and Salomó, reveal some of them. While the little ones play at lifting the book’s flaps, adults can look for the hidden references. So, get your magnifying glass ready to enjoy a title full of tributes to fantasy culture.

So much mystery!

“References to the world of witchcraft appear throughout the book. We love the iconography that surrounds this world and we try to be respectful of the legacy that so many tales, films and stories have left us throughout history”, point out Martí and Salomó. There are traces of witches in the bathroom, in the library, in the forest and also in the entrance hall. Do you recognise the detail of the figure from The Blair Witch Project?“.

In The Amazing Creepy Granny House there are nods to film lovers, with elements of The Shining, Stanley Kubrick’s film based on the work of Stephen King, and the Miyazaki universe. “We are fascinated by the mythological world of Japanese films in which the characters are not good or bad, but have nuances”. If you seek them out, you will discover versions of Kiki’s Delivery Service and her black cat, Totoro (from the film My Neighbour Totoro) and the witch Yubaba (from the film Spirited Away).”

Masters of the genre

In the granny’s house everything takes place under the watchful eye of Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein, and Edgar Allan Poe, an icon of mystery and horror stories. According to the authors, “without Poe there would be no Lovecraft, who also appears in the book”.

But the references do not end here. Martí and Salomó draw the Loch Ness Monster, who also is featured in Green from Colors series, and evoke characters and films that marked their youth, such as Gremlins, Ghostbusters and The Neverending Story.

In a fantastic world, The White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland could not be missing. “Because granny’s house is not only a house of horror, but also of mystery, secret doors and thresholds to other worlds”, say Martí and Salomó. Welcome to all the worlds that open up behind the doors of The Amazing Creepy Granny House! 

So far, the book has been translated into Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil) and S. Chinese. Would you like to join us? Please come in. Combel’s do0r is open!