Friday, April 4, 2008

The Legend of Holly Boy

This book might be the best thing I have ever found at work. Illustrations by Jack B. Hood.

First, Holly Boy and Linda travel back through a time/space tunnel to Bethlehem.



There, they meet the three wise men, who look like Klingons.



Then, at some point after they see Mary and the baby Jesus, we witness the birth of Holly Boy. I haven't read the book so I am not sure how they account for the time travel paradox.



It could be that the time travel paradox is the impetus for whatever happens next, when things go very, very wrong.





But not to worry. An angel saves them with the magic light from her hands.



4 comments:

Stephanie said...

this might be the best post youve ever made.

wondermont said...

I love Christian comics.

Anonymous said...

It doesn't make any sense

Anonymous said...

I Am The Holly Boy....!

In the late 1950s, my family (our last name is Holly) lived across the street from a man named John Jones and his family in Hackensack, New Jersey. Mr. Jones owned a recording studio that was used mostly for recording commercial jingles. Mr. Jones had a group of musicians that he worked with, including a jingle writer, an arranger, singers, instrumentalists etc. Hoping to cash in on the tremendous commercial success of such 1950s holiday songs as "White Christmas," "Silver Bells," "Let It Snow," etc., Mr. Jones decided to produce a Christmas record. Since we lived across the street and I was often playing at their house with their two sons who were approximately my age, he got the idea of calling the song "The Holly Boy." The words and music to the song were written by Frank Latino, whom I believe was one of the jingle writers he worked with. Here's the amazing part - the arranger and conductor of the music was a 27-year old trumpet player and studio musician named Quincy Jones. He was no relation to John Jones, the studio owner, but he is the same Quincy Jones who has since won 27 Grammy Awards!

The song was released as a 45-RPM record called "The Holly Boy." It was sung by a very good singer named Betty Cox, who was at the time the substitute "Chanpagne Lady" on the Lawrence Welk Show.

Frank Latino also wrote a story to go with the song that was published as a children's book - the book that is the subject of this blog post. The song never became a hit, but the book somehow caught on and is still in print and can be purchased through Amazon, etc., almost 50 years after its initial publication. In 2002, the book was used as the basis of a holiday movie called "A Light In The Forest" starring Lindsay Wagner, Edward Albert and Carol Lynley, among others. Unfortunately, the movie was not much of a success either. Old copies of the record are occasionally available for sale on ebay. If anyone wants to hear the song, I'll post a link.

Sorry to be so long-winded, but that's my story....!

John Peter Holly