The Most Subtly Morbid Coloring Book in the World

In the business of secondhand resurrection, now and then an item comes around that's completely beyond my capacity for understanding the human race. Here, in my hand, is such an item.

Trapper Propaganda Coloring Book!

Okay, maybe I should start with some sort of disclaimer. As a U.P. resident, I'm surrounded by people who take their hunting seriously, to the point where I've seen the urinating-Calvin bumper stickers aimed against "Anti-Hunters." Since I'm not someone who typically likes to be peed on, let me first emphasize the point that I am not anti-hunting. Any action that will put less deer on the highway where I can smash them with my car is fine by me.

Trapping, on the other hand is something different in my eye. In the old days, people needed fur for warm clothes and trapping was a good way to fill that need. Nowadays, though, such practices are no longer necessary for survival, and, I think, seem pretty barbaric in retrospect. I think everybody knows what happens when an animal steps into a steel trap, and I'm sure nobody envies the animal that does. I guess it was the cartoon "David the Gnome" that set me against trapping at a young age. David's fox, Swift, stepped into a trap, and not only was it a grisly sight on his leg, but the poor fox was sad and in pain, and since he was a lovable character, it made me hate the trap. How many movies/cartoons have shown people getting stuck in the traps? Traps don't discriminate. They'll bite whoever steps in them.

All right, enough already. So here's this crazy coloring book, "I Want to be a Trapper," distributed by the "U.P. Trappers Association" to God knows how many poor children. It couldn't have been a big hit, as there's not so much as a hint of crayon, marker, or colored pencil to be found anywhere in the book. After my post is through, I think you'll see why.

Okay, so first the book introduces us to the madmen who thought it was a good idea to make a coloring book based on trapping. The publisher, who apparently pumps this shit out of his own home (creepy), mentions how he'd like to see "the future generation off to the right start." Because, after all, there's nothing more important to the future of our planet than the continuance of trapping.

The "artist" is obviously another nutjob, who scored his first kill on Christmas Day, of all things. He goes on about how he's filling his kids heads with the idea that trapping is the best god-damned thing in the whole entire universe. And the best way to ensure that other kids get the message? Give 'em a coloring book! Yeah, kids love coloring books, right? And when they start coloring our beautiful pictures, they'll just absorb the idea that trapping is the key to salvation. Now, let's see that first picture!

Oh shit, maybe this whole coloring book wasn't such a good idea. When a kid picks up a crayon and a coloring book, what is it that he/she is going to want to color? Something interesting, perhaps! Somehow, two kids in galoshes shopping for bait just doesn't fit that description. The artist should have included a robot or something.

The next page is where it starts to get creepy. Click on the picture and get a better look at the boy's face. See that distant, vaguely-smiling, excited look he's wearing? That's the look of a psychopath, and get ready, because he's going to be wearing it for the rest of the book. Even in this picture, he's staring at his own sister's ass while she sets up her traps.

Also seen in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Friday the 13th pt. 1-99, etc.

Look, look, look! Look at their faces! Don't you see it? Those are the faces of incestuous Aryan mental-jobs hungry for the kill! The girl is obviously as equally out there as her brother.

Girl Power.

Now the book begins to get more interesting. Instead of the shitty drawings of the kids on their murderous rampage, we get nicely done pictures of the animals. The same animals about to be killed by the traps.

"This is the big one! You hear that, Elizabeth? I'm coming to join ya, honey!"

Funny how the only pictures worth coloring in the whole book are the animals under attack by those heartless kids. Color one leg red and bloody.

Wow, these kids are really equipped. They obviously know what they're doing. I bet they grow up to be sexual sadists, keen with every device in the BDSM dungeon.

^If you kill this guy, I won't mind.

Soon to be somebodies coat. Or the coat on some body.

Not playing possum. Just dead.

This picture, oh boy... So when the mommy goes out for food, she gets killed in a trap, and then all the babies die from starvation! Yay! Hand me some fuckin' crayons!

Only a true asshole would ever harm a beaver.

Emmet Otter's Jugband Death

Those eyes, again. Lee, you creepy bastard. And then there's Laura getting all voyeuristic over a dead animal. Something is very, very wrong here.

The horror... The horror...

Future Ed Gein.

This is by far the most disturbing image in the book. Up front you've got Crazy Lee grinning and slicing up a coon, and in the back of the murder shack Laura is admiring all those lovely, lovely skins. Mostly, though, Lee is the creepy one. No person of sane mind can wear such a happy nonchalant expression while cutting up an animal with a huge blade. Lee is a backwoods maniac you never want to cross. Then again, if you step in his trap, there's no escape. He'll be wearing your skin and dancing beneath the moon.

Hehe, look at all the things we can kill with traps!

Seig Heil!

So yeah, that's the entire coloring book available for viewing, because that's how much I love you.

I can see it in my mind: some kid, somewhere was given this coloring book for free, probably at some sort of school function or something, shit, I don't know. Either way, they probably flipped through it once, saw that it was a bunch of crap, and buried it away on a shelf where they'd never have to look at it until they decided to donate it and pass it along to another poor victim. I guess the publisher really flubbed on the goal of passing on the beauty of trapping, because this coloring book makes it look like a bunch of shit.

Cost of Trapping Coloring Book: $.56