When Calgarian Heather Buchanan began Horror Scoops in 2021, it was supposed to be a one-off side project from her primary practice as as an established artist in the city.
Three years later, Buchanan has developed a wildly popular following on Instagram with more than 197,000 followers who like her whimsical and absurdist take on astrology.
“It was only going to be a thing that I did one time, and I was only going to make these 12 drawings, one of each sign making fun of myself for how I’m like the last woman who knows nothing about astrology,” said Buchanan.
“I literally found out one day that I had forgotten how to spell Taurus, and also in addition as I was looking into that, I also didn’t know how to spell Aries. So, I just started making fun of myself for how much I didn’t know.”
Taurus became Torbus, Aeries to Arbys, Cancer to Consur, and absurd but affectionate changes to each of the other astrological signs paired with her humourous take on horoscope predictions became some 500 posts later an internet sensation.
“I just made the drawings really wrong and silly and ridiculous, and made the traits of all the signs just as bananas as I could. For some reason those ended up being on my Instagram the most popular thing I ever posted, and people really took to them,” she said.
“Astrology is often, because it’s so popular, something people take a little bit seriously. I think it was a bit refreshing to have it not taken seriously and to have a bit of a lighter spin on it.”
Buchanan has recently turned those light and funny takes into her first book, Blame the Stars: A Very Good, Totally Accurate Collection of Astrological Advice, which was released on May 21 from independent San Francisco publisher Chronicle Books.
That book builds on the weekly postings she has made, adding details about the horror-scopical signs that range from the almost dadaesque to ones that might, at first blush, seem almost true.
“Because having done them as sort of a joke, and being so lighthearted about them—which they still really are for sure—I think the most surprising thing was that I was starting to get really sincere messages of like ‘oh my gosh, this ‘scoop’ really helped me. I was in a dilemma, and I decided and I’ve made a choice because of this horoscope,” Buchanan said.
“Even though that like absolute absurdity and zaniness comes first, there is a lot of tenderness and I really put a lot of heart into them as well. There’s a weird balance of absolute, just bananas surreal absurdity, and a heart and tenderness. You put it all in a blender and you press puree and somehow you get an astrology smoothie.”
Blame the Stars is divided into two sections. First, those absurdist takes on the astrological signs with a bit of a wink and a nod to pop culture, and then a one-part mischievous one-part absurd list of questionably important astrological dates.
“I think some Calgarians will be utterly baffled by it, and be like what is this? I think a lot of Calgarians will think it’s very fun and very silly and just think it’s absolutely ridiculous, lighthearted, and a very, very fun book,” she said.
Astrology taken seriously, and not so much
Yet the sincerity of the work, which is evident by the thousands of likes on each post and genuine comments about how the Horror Scoops provide some joy, grew from that same fan interaction. She said it surprised her when people started engaging with her weekly posts.
“If you told me five years ago I would have written a book about astrology, as someone who I’m sure there was a point in my life when I was a kid and I read the astrology page in the in the newspaper—I’m sure I knew how to spell Taurus and Aries—but it meant so little to me. I didn’t even know how to how to spell all the signs, so if you told me that I was gonna write a book about astrology I would not have believed you,” Buchanan said.
Finding the right balance between something that people deeply believe in, versus trying to be funny in her book, was difficult she said.
That came from becoming much more immersed in the culture of astrology through the lenses of both the interior cultural aspects of astrology and the academic study of it as a new religious movement.
“I’ve now immersed myself in the culture of it, and I have so much love and compassion for the the astrology community. Yet I’ve always been just a really naturally skeptical person and it’s just not something that I can find myself ever fully believing,” she said.
“Yet I’m a big fan of say Carl Jung, and he was fascinated by astrology. He saw it as sort of system of these archetypal symbols that were really helpful in allowing us to understand ourselves better… and how we fit into a really confusing universe. That’s something that makes a lot of sense to me and I’m never going to take that away from someone.”
What she ended up with was an absolute compassion for the people who find astrology useful in their lives.
“Even though it was satirical and humorous, I didn’t want to write it like I know everything in an arrogant way. I have all these like academic books now, including some Jung, and I think it’s really interesting from that point of view,” she said.
“I certainly have interest in it, and I read a lot of the history.”
When it came time to writing Blame the Stars, she said, the first step was to make herself laugh.
“While writing it, I was mostly just trying to make myself laugh or think about people in my life and what would make them laugh because if you think about it too broadly or try to impress other people, that’s too much pressure,” Buchanan said.
“It was still a little bit scary to take on a writing project, especially of this magnitude. It’s 50,000 words, it was a lot so. I think I needed to just find out or figure out what would make me laugh, and what I thought was good and funny, and then hope other people would like it.”
Buchanan will be doing a signing of Blame the Stars: A Very Good, Totally Accurate Collection of Astrological Advice at The Next Page in Inglewood on May 24.
For more details on her debut book, or to purchase a copy, see www.heatherbuchanan.ca/pages/blamethestars.
