Peter Arquette | KISSasylum.com
Strange as it may seem, it appears the acclaimed 1982 KISS album, Creatures of the Night, was inspired by a 1979 children’s book of, (partially), the same title.
Not only are the huddled faces with the glowing eyes strikingly similar but so is the title font and even the cobalt-blue and pink color scheme. That enough would give you an almost definitive answer that the concept for the album cover was taken from this child’s reader. But what makes this truly bizarre is that the title of the book was used not only for the title of the album, but the title of the first song on the album as well.
Really? How do you get from children’s book to one of the hardest rocking songs KISS has ever written?
Who was the one who looked at this book and suggested the band should write a song about it? Art director, Dennis Woloch? Photographer Bernard Vidal? One of the two writers of the song, Paul Stanley or Adam Mitchell? So who was visiting their niece or nephew and saw this laying among the scattered kiddie toys and said, “hey, this rocks…”.
These are nothing but speculations, but the more I think about it the more I’m lead down a deeper and deeper tunnel of unanswerable questions. If anyone has any insight or inside info on this mystery and would like to write a follow up to this post, please, be let me know!
1979, Troll Associates. Written by David Cutts, illustrated by Jean Chandler. 8.5″ x 5.5″. Paperback, 54 pages. Out of print.