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Posts Tagged ‘Science Fiction’

There’s a new genre rising from the underground. Its name: BIZARRO. For years, readers have been asking for a category of fiction dedicated to the weird, crazy, cult side of storytelling that has become a staple in the film industry (with directors such as David Lynch, Takashi Miike, Tim Burton, and even Lloyd Kaufman) but has been largely ignored in the literary world, until now.

The Bizarro Starter Kit features short novels and story collections by ten of the leading authors in the bizarro genre: D. Harlan Wilson, Carlton Mellick III, Jeremy Robert Johnson, Kevin L Donihe, Gina Ranalli, Andre Duza, VIncent W. Sakowski, Steve Beard, John Edward Lawson, and Bruce Taylor.

For those of you that are unfamiliar, the first page offers the following explanation:

Defining Bizarro
1. Bizarro, simply put is the genre of the weird.
2. Bizarro is literature’s equivalent to the cult section at the video store.
3. Like cult movies, Bizarro is sometimes surreal, sometimes goofy, sometimes bloody, and sometimes borderline pornographic.
4. Bizarro often contains a certain cartoon logic that, when applied to the read world, creates an unstable universe where the bizarre becomes the norm and absurdities are made flesh.
5. Bizarro strives not only to be strange, but fascinating, thought-provoking, and, above all, fun to read.
6. Bizarro was created by a group of small press publishers in response to the increasing demand for (good) weird fiction and the increasing number of authors who specialize in it.
7. Bizarro is:
Franz Kafka meets Joe Bob Briggs
Dr. Suess of the post-apocalypse
Japanese animation directed by David Lynch

About the Author

Famed science fiction writer Ray Bradbury provides the foreword to Volume Three of this classic, creepy EC title! This hardcover reprints twenty-four stories by Al Feldstein and Bill Gaines, with art by legendary illustrators such as Wally Wood, Joe Orlando, Jack Kamen, Will Elder and more – all in spectacular full color! Reprints Weird Science issues #13-18, originally published in 1952 and 1953.

In general, the EC WEIRD SCIENCE stories are excellently rendered, with mediocre writing by Al Feldstein. Feldstein had never read SF when Gaines got the idea to do a science fiction comic. He loaned Feldstein some books to read, and Al basically recycled many tried and true plots. His “twist” endings stop being a surprise when you come to expect a twist, and are fairly predictable as he tended toward cataclysmic and tragic endings.

The art, of course, is spectacular. Not only did EC hire top artists, Gaines paid them top dollar. These guys were getting paid by the page, so EC’s rates allowed them to spend more time on each page.

“Lovecraft’s major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Christianity. Lovecraft’s protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.

Although Lovecraft’s readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades, and he is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.” (Quote from wikipedia.org)

About the Author

“Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937), of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy, and science fiction.” (Quote from wikipedia.org)

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books is about sharing knowledge, not about making money. Our books are priced at wholesale prices. We print in large sans-serif font, which is proven to make the text easier to read and put less strain on your eyes. Happy reading!