THE FIRES OF PELE
A graphic novel of sorts, THE FIRES OF PELE purports to be a lost journal kept by a young Mark Twain during his 1866 sojourn in Hawaii, a.k.a. the “Sandwich Islands,” where he confronted all manner of odd creatures
ELEKTRA ASSASSIN
The Frank Miller scripted, Bill Sienkiewicz illustrated ELEKTRA ASSASSIN, from Marvel’s adult-oriented offshoot Epic Comics, was a vital yet largely unheralded entry in the comics renaissance of the 1980s.
EDDY DECO’S LAST CAPER
As displayed in his film and book reviews for The Twilight Zone and Fantasy & Science Fiction magazines, along with a handful of novels and short stories, Wilson’s writing is quite distinct in its own right, but also extremely uneven.
CYCLE OF VIOLENCE
Grayson Perry is a renowned British artist and notorious cross dresser with a penchant for the gross and pornographic. I’m assuming this humorous and frankly obscene graphic novel is at least partially autobiographical.
CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF
This Stephen King “novel” is actually a graphic album whose illustrator Berni Wrightson deserves equal credit. CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF was conceived as a calendar for the year 1984, with a story by King and copious illustrations by Wrightson to fill out each month. It initially appeared as a limited edition hardcover in late 1983, followed by a trade paperback incarnation in ‘85.
THE CURSE OF LATOMBA
Here’s an interesting artifact I recently unearthed from my closet, a horror novel packaged as a tabloid newspaper, complete with (bogus) ads and photos. Printed in South Carolina by someone calling himself “Edward Hyde” (a pen name, obviously!), it’s a lurid, nasty, occasionally funny first person account of a cannibalistic serial killer named Edgar, told in the form of a lengthy letter he writes to a supermarket rag called “The Grapevine.” Here’s an interesting artifact I recently unearthed from my closet, a horror novel packaged as a tabloid newspaper, complete with (bogus) ads and photos. Printed in South Carolina by someone calling himself “Edward Hyde” (a pen name, obviously!), it’s a lurid, nasty, occasionally funny first person account of a cannibalistic serial killer named Edgar, told in the form of a lengthy letter he writes to a supermarket rag called “The Grapevine.”
THE COUNTRY OF WOLVES
This gorgeously designed graphic novel fleshes out an ancient Inuit folktale.
THE CITY
A rare foray into graphic novel scripting by novelist James Herbert, and the fourth part of Herbert’s Rats saga (which commenced with the novels THE RATS, LAIR and DOMAIN). In truth this book is pretty slight, coming off as a so-so short story presented as a 64-page comic. Yet I do recommend it. Why? Because the illustrator is the immensely talented Ian Miller, who was quite inspired here.
THE CAGE
I’ve previously crowned CODEX SERAPHINIANUS the strangest book ever printed, but this relic from 1975 gives that tome a serious run for its money in sheer nonlinear weirdness.
BLACK HOLE
A stunningly rendered graphic novel that follows an inscrutable path that exists somewhere between DAZED AND CONFUSED and VIDEODROME.