Image Cache: Stranger Things is one of those shows that resonates in a very specific way for people who grew up in the 1980s. Much like NBC’s short-lived series Freaks and Geeks, Stranger Things delicately recreates the time period, going beyond nostalgia to something that feels authentic and familiar. One artist has captured that with his own series, taking the episode titles from Stranger Things 2 and giving them a nostalgic look of their own.
All Photos Courtesy Butcher Billy
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“Stranger Things is basically what it would be like if someone entered inside my head, dragged all the stuff out, and made a series about it,” artist Butcher Billy told us.
Butcher Billy has released his second Stranger Things art showcase, this time as a series of pulp paperbacks and Atari games going by the title Stranger Tales. Each episode gets its own piece, highlighting the biggest moments and quotes from every part of the season. They look very similar to Butcher Billy’s previous series, Stephen King’s Stranger Love Songs, which took popular songs from the 1970s and 1980s and made them look like Stephen King novels. Butcher Billy said Stranger Things actually inspired his Stephen King series, only for it all to come full circle later.
“The base for The Stranger Love Songs came when I noticed that the Stranger Things title intro was totally based on the typography used in the ’70s [and] ’80s novels by Stephen King,” he said. “I redesigned the entire alphabet by hand, out of the vintage covers, so I could use it on that project. So, for the Stranger Tales, given the connection between King and the Netflix series, it was a natural progression to use that same typography and style.”
Butcher Billy said Stranger Tales 2 was a personal project, like most of his work – though another one of his art series actually got him noticed and employed by the show he was paying tribute to. Last year, Butcher Billy created a series of comic book covers based on the third season of Black Mirror. After being contacted by Black Mirror showrunner Charlie Booker, he says he’s now taking part in the production design for the fourth season on the show (and his art was used on the vinyl soundtrack).
You can check out his Stranger Tales 2 series in the slideshow below.