Odds and Ends
The Mütter Museum Calendar 2011(Blast Books) is a wall calendar made up of photographs from the Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The museum itself is a wonderful adventure, with pathological specimens of a giant colon, plaster casts of the conjoined twins Chang and Eng, and the Chevalier Jackson Collection of objects swallowed and removed. The 2011 calendar’s photographs are by Max Aguilera-Hellweg, Scott Irvine, Mark Kessell, Olivia Parker, Rosamond Purcell, and Arne Svenson.
The Horror the Horror: Comic Books the Government Didn’t Want You to Read (Abrams ComicArts), selected, edited, and with commentary by Jim Trombetta. This is a fabulous oversized trade paperback heavily illustrated with comics not seen for nearly sixty years because of their censorship by Congress in 1954. Crime, gore, sex galore, the pre-code comic books were colorful, flamboyant, and considered a very bad influence on juveniles. With an introduction by R. L. Stine and a bonus DVD of Confidential File, a half-hour television show from 1955 about the “‘evils’ of comic books and their effects on juvenile delinquency.”
Horrors: Great Stories of Fear and Their Creators, a graphic novel written by Rocky Wood and illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne (McFarland), entertains with graphic renderings of the dark literature created by Mary Wollstonecraft, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, and Shakespeare, while providing brief overviews of how their lives might have influenced their art and vice versa.
And if you must have something more about vampires, werewolves, and zombies you could do worse than picking up (or giving as a gift) the adorable Peter Pauper Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies: Compendium Monstrum from the papers of Herr Doktor Max Sturm & Barong Ludwig Von Drang collected and arranged by Suzanne Schwalb and Margaret Rubiano. The book is profusely illustrated with classic paintings and drawings plus illustrations by Bruce Waldman, foldout maps showing where each supernatural creature can be found, instructions on vampire indicators, werewolves in literature, helpful phrases for the Creole vampire hunter, a bibliography, and an index.
Dracula adapted by Nicky Raven, illustrated by Anne Yvonne Gilbert (Templar Books) is intended for young adults. The story is cut to the minimum yet still works as adapted by Raven. The cross-hatched pen and ink illustrations both complement the text beautifully and are macabre when necessary. A lovely gift book for young adults.
Zombiewood Weekly: The Celebrity Dead Exposed by Rob Sacchetto (Ulysses Press) is a silly but fun illustrated parody with snippets of scandal about zombified celebrities ranging from actors Christopher Walken and Marilyn Monroe to Sarah Palin and George W. Bush.
An Eyeball in My Garden: And Other Spine-Tingling Poems selected and edited by Jennifer Cole Judd and Laura Wynkoop with illustrations by Johan Olander (Marshall Cavendish Children) is a cute, not too scary poetry book for kids.
The Honey Month by Amal El-Mohtar (Papaveria Press) is a charming, weird, sensuous little oddity of vignettes and poetry about each of twenty-eight days of honey tasting and appreciation. Artwork by Oliver Hunter. As one who has an appreciation for honey, I’d love to try all twenty-eight different types myself. For the honey lover in your life.
Spectrum 17: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art edited by Cathy Fenner and Arnie Fenner (Underwood Books) continues the tradition of showcasing some of the most beautiful art of 2009. The Grand Master Award was given to Al Williamson. Arnie Fenner provides an overview of the art field in his “The Year in Review” but of course the meat of the matter is the art. The range is astonishing and it’s always wonderful to discover artists with whose work I’m not familiar.
Dream Spectres: Extreme Ukiyo-E: Sex, Blood, and the Supernatural by Jack Hunter (Shinbaku) presents some of the best and most extreme types of ukiyo-e, that is, images of the “floating world,” the most popular art-form of the Edo period in Japan (1600–1867). The “floating world” is the term for the culture of leisure and entertainment. The more than 250 full color images by over fifty artists are beautiful, in all their pornographic or grisly glory. The complete “28 Famous Murders in Verse” by Yoshitoshi and Yoshiiku are full of blood-drenched gore drawn from both mythical and historical murders. The final section concentrating on the supernatural and ghosts is eerie and creepy.
Who Killed Amanda Palmer: A Collection of Photographic Evidence with stories by Neil Gaiman (Eight Foot Books) is an intriguingly photographed portfolio of murder scenes, all with Palmer, former member of the Dresden Dolls, posed as the victim. Great looking macabre coffee table art book. Kyle Cassidy and Beth Hommel took many but not all of the photographs.
Altered Visions: The Art of Vincent Chong (Telos) is an impressive little hard
cover book of Chong’s work for book, magazine, and music album covers, with his commentary on the genesis of each piece.
Ghosts by Jon Izzard (Spruce) is an illustrated book exploring what ghosts may actually be, the different aspects of ghosts, their use in movies and text, hunting them, etc.
They Live by Jonathan Lethem (Soft Skull) is an entertaining free-form critique of John Carpenter’s movie of the same title. It makes marvelous reading.