Customer Reviews

The Big Book of Weirdos (Factoid Books)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the second of the Big Book series, and another gem! Read it, and see what made many historical figures tick (and go cuckoo as well!). One of my favorites, one I can relate to. Can you?

This book presents a lot of fascinating lives through some great black-and-white comic art. The only downside to this book would be that the stories don't get as detailed as I would have liked. Pick it up if you want to get an idea of how being different can fuel creativity.

Buy this as a collection of nice black-and-white drawing (the variety of styles is delicious), or as a sort of catalog that will lead to further research of your own, but don't trust a word in it. The "information" here is often simply not true; the biographies of Dali, Crowley, Gurdjieff, Hitler and others aren't just shallow and poorly researched, they are literally, to varying degrees, fictional. The one on Crowley contains errors of fact and tabloid nonsense in nearly every panel; many others are almost as bad. This is what you get when you mix a lazy, opinionated hack writer with the comic book format, I guess--sparkle without substance.

I got this thing as a gift and it is one of the best books I have ever read. It is realistic,well drawn and researched,and enjoyable. It hold artitists,writers,leaders,actors,and more. From funny{Edward Southern}to freaky{Franz Kafka},from good{Thomas Edison}to bad{Aldolf Hitler}and more. Like the others,this is a keeper.

This book explains in a fun, great to read, way how weirdness has affected human history. From the depravity of Caligula, Hitler, and Amin, to the world changing visions of Edison, Poe, and Duncan. The foreword by Gahan Wilson puts weirdnes in it's perpsective, and tells how this book can be useful.

This book is in multiple cartoon styles. It's front to back with some of history's greatest weirdos. If you haven't tried one of the "Big Book of..." books, you should. If you get hooked, you'll get more.

Enjoy