Customer Reviews

The Bizarro Starter Kit (Orange)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There are a lot of talented authors out there who are writing gut-twisting tales that just don't fit into the accepted mainstream of the New York Publishing Houses. If you are a horror or punk fan, then this tasty little sample simply should not be passed by. I for one love the Odd, the Bizarre, the Sick & Twisted, and the breath of freshly foul air that comes from hidden fictional treasures. This isn't a book for the squeamish or faint of heart. 'The Bizarro Starter Kit' is a collection of short and flash fiction grouped by author rather than story, so I'll give the lineup by author:

D. Harlan Wilson - 'At The Funeral', 'Cops & Bodybuilders', 'Hairware, Inc.', 'The Man In The Thick Black Spectacles', 'Classroom Dynamics', and 'Digging For Adults'. Wilson proves a spectacular ability for the new flash-fiction genre with his absurdly bizarro tales. My favorites were Hairware Inc. and Digging For Adults.

Carlton Mellick III - 'The Baby Jesus Butt Plug'. Adopting cute little Baby-Jesuses as pets, sickos who use their pets as b*tt toys, wolf spiders, pointless jobs, clones, zombies, and music boxes, this is one bizarro story. Mellick is a true master of bizarro. See my individual review of 'The Baby Jesus Butt Plug' for Mellick's stand-alone copy of this bizarre little treasure.

Jeremy Robert Johnson - 'Extinction Journals'. A cockroach suit in an apocalyptic nightmare. I believe Johnson is a writer to keep on your watch-list. Check out 'Siren Promised' and 'Angel Dust Apocalypse'.

Kevin L. Donihe - 'The Greatest F***ing Moment In Sports'. A hilarious and nightmarish account of Oscar Legbo's last bicycle race. Donihe co-authored 'Ocean Of Lard' with Mellick, a book that I loved.

Gina Ranalli - 'Suicide Girls In The Afterlife'. A strange tale of wandering through a bizarre Afterlife Hotel. Don't get lost on the wrong floor!

Andre Duza - 'Don't F(beep)k With The Coloureds'. An exotic, erotic female experiment terrorizes the Harrington House Retirement Center and the local police force. But it's the animation crouching inside that will get to them. This is a truly bizarro story, one of my favorites! And, it comes with a very peculiar illustration.

Vincent W. Sakowski - 'The Screaming Of The Fish', 'Peel And Eat Buffet', It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Ragnarok'. Another author shows talent at the new flash-fiction genre. My favorite is 'The Screaming Of The Fish'.

Steve Beard - 'Survivor's Dream'. Disjointed dreamlike tale of Dead Girl and the many traumas she must endure inside her own mind in order to return to the living. Another favorite, but extremely twisted and more than a little confusing.

John Edward Lawson - 'Truth In Ruins'. A post apocalyptic, landscape of Serial Profilers and Serial Killers takes you on one of the most surreal journeys in this collection. Lawson also edited the incredible collection 'Sick: An Anthology Of Illness'. I love Lawson's quote in his Description, "Reality is for people who can't handle fiction."

Bruce Taylor - 'The Breath Amidst The Stones', 'A Little Spider Shop Talk', 'Of Tunafish And Galaxies', 'City Streets'. More strange than sick, these short tales breath life into the lifeless. My favorite is "A Little Spider Shop Talk": ever wonder what a conversation with your spider-neighbor would be like?

Reading this introduction to bizarro is like reaching your arm out into some blackened void that has piqued your curiosity for years. Sometimes dreamily intense and sometimes almost childishly scrawled, these tales can be called nothing less than intriguing. I enjoyed the collection because it's so cultish and outlandish, and gives more than one author's view into this macabre, magnetic genre. It's a nice sampling that showcases some great (though warped) talents using an eclectic blend of horror, fantasy, sci-fi, punk, outlandishness, and insanity.

The book includes biographies, previous works, and information about each of the authors (some comically embellished) and websites to visit to find out more about your favorites. Talent doesn't always come out of a New York Publishing House; sometimes it creeps out from underneath strangely shaped and slimily pungent rocks. Enjoy!

Since I'm already a fan of Carlton Mellick III, I decided to check out the Bizarro Starter Kit to read work by other authors in the Bizarro genre. I loved the whole collection and will definitely be checking out more books by these authors.

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

If this is a "Starter Kit", I can't wait to see what comes next! This is a shocking, disturbing, in some cases sick, but fun read - just what they intended. If you can make it through this, you, like me, are pretty weird!

The longer stories are: Mellick's "Baby Jesus Butt Plug"; Johnson's "Extinction Journals"; Donihe's "Greatest F*cking Moments in Sports"; Ranalli's "Suicide Girls in the Afterlife"; Duza's "Don't F(bleep)k With the Coloured"; Beard's "Survivor's Dream"; Lawson's "Truth in Ruins". Shorter pieces are by Wilson, Sakowski & Taylor.

Beware: Most (if not all) of the longer pieces have been published as stand alone books - each costing more than this book.

You knew it had to happen: Years of using horror as a Band-Aid for any and all sub-genres touting blood, shocking absurdities, or just plain oddness has resulted in a malignant growth in the literary world: bizarro.

What is bizarro? From page 5 of the Bizarro Starter Kit: "Bizarro, simply put, is the genre of the weird." And the Bizarro Starter Kit (Bizarro Books, 2006), simply put, is the weirdest of the weird.

Segmented by a congregation of ten talented (and quite possibly tainted) authors, the Bizarro Starter Kit contains 20 hand-picked works of bizarro fiction from the genre's most brilliant lights, including (but not limited to) D. Harlan Wilson, Carlton Mellick III, Kevin L. Donihe, John Edward Lawson, and Bruce Taylor.

It's uncannily appropriate that D. Harlan Wilson be up first, as he was my first experience with the irreal. Fans of Wilson's work will recognize two stories ("Hairware, Inc." and "Classroom Dynamics") from his 2005 anthology, Pseudo-City. While Wilson's use of the "irreal" might lead you to jump to conclusions concerning the rest of the Bizarro Starter Kit's content, the truth is you simply won't know what to expect from page to page, author to author. Stories like "Suicide Girls in the Afterlife" (Gina Ranalli) and "Don't F(Beep)k with the Coloureds" (Andre Duza) will hit you in the face without warning. After making it to the halfway point, though, it should be no surprise that the work featured in the Bizarro Starter Kit falls in the vaguely-sensible-to-clearly-psychotic spectrum; while you might think Jeremy Robert Johnson's "Extinction Journals" is a more standard-form piece, it does center around a man who survives a nuclear holocaust by wearing a suit of, yes, roaches. (The narrative styles vary, but D. Harlan Wilson, Carlton Mellick III, and Steve Beard are arguably among the most psychotic in their deliveries of bizarro goodness.)

It can be said that bizarro has only come about because of authors who refuse to play nice on the horror shelf, but a handful of pages into the Bizarro Starter Kit and you'll quickly realize this is not the case. More than merely "weird" or "uber-gross," it's the blatant surrealities and unorthodox deliveries that are the hallmarks of bizarro's appeal. Quite simply, there's something for everyone here, whether you're a curious newbie or a seasoned veteran. If you like zombies, clones, and demonic baby jesus butt plugs, "The Baby Jesus Butt Plug" (Carlton Mellick III) will tickle your fanny. For darker territory, check out Steve Beard's use of phallic wands in "Survivor's Dream." And if you stick around 'till the end, you'll be treated to Bruce Taylor's distinctively whimsical style--particularly in "The Breath Amidst the Stones," where, on a distant planet, inanimate objects have a life all their own.

The Bizarro Starter Kit: File under "B" for bizarro.

Let me just say that I am a huge fan of Bizarro. There's nothing like reading stories that bear no resemblance to anything you've read before. The Bizarro collective of writings and films continue to reinvent themselves, making it one of the most vibrant creative outlets in publication today. Many of its authors can be found on MySpace, adding so much more to the sense of community between authors and readers, which is lacking in the literary world elsewhere. Where else could you read an author's book, then log on to the Internet and tell that person directly how much you loved their work? I've had several dialogues with these guys, and it's tremendously gratifying as a reader to have that interaction with the author.

Bizarro is not for everyone; if you feel totally content with reading the same sort of material and can't bear the thought of branching out into something new, then Bizarro will probably not work for you. However, if you're wanting to know what else is out there (I mean REALLY out there), then the Bizarro Starter Kit is the book to read. I officially started reading Bizarro a year ago, and it's been a tremendously gratifying experience. Even now, I'm working to get these books into the mainstream bookstore chains where they belong. Support the Bizarro movement!

Wow...not only a fun romp through the absurd, but also a great introduction to a previously unknown (for me) genre.

So, imagine all of the great (and not-so-great) cult films influencing a generation of authors to do exactly what those movies did: shock, awe, and inspire a new way of looking at how you perceive a story.

Many of the authors in this collection admit to enjoying the visual works of David Lynch and the authorial extrapolations of Kafka.

I think while reading this collection, many readers may have to stop and realize that what is going on in these stories is just how their world works--it is beyond Magical Realism. This collection is a landscape that covers unexplored areas of the avant-garde.

The only reason I am not giving it 5 stars is simply because two of the stories I did not like all that much. One just seemed like a visceral version of Who Censored Roger Rabbit? In addition, the other story had no organization whatsoever.

I have the other collection (Blue) and I can hardly wait to start reading the many surprises it will have to offer.

Bizarro writing is not for the timid. This collection of stories by some of the genre's brightest stars proves that in spades. Anyone who is a fan of David Lynch movies or Franz Kafka's writing should pick up a copy and dive in. If those auteurs frighten you, give this collection a read and broaden your horizons. The stories and themes swing wildly from ridiculous to profane to down right confusing, all the while grabbing the reader by the short hairs and pulling him/her along for the ride. Don't get comfortable with any of the ideas in this book (as if that would be possible.) The problem with pigeonholing anything in the Bizarro genre is that is varies so much from one writer to the next. They all display incredible skills as storytellers, but the way they tell those stories could not be more different.The Bizarro Starter Kit is just that, a starting point in this ever changing, ever-challenging corner of the lit world. It also includes brief bios of the writers behind the weird works as well as links to other places the reader can find more from these uniquely talented individuals.

First, for anyone wondering if they should pull the trigger and buy this: DO IT. For the money that Amazon is asking, this is SO worth it. The stories are printed so that there are two columns of text on each page which allows them to stick more stories and novellas into the book. It's 236 pages but really you are getting twice as much.

I won't go through each and every story (someone has already done that)... but just know that you are getting a selection of the cream of the crop of the bizarro movement. Now, when I say "movement", it's not a snooty artsy movement. Nah, this is all fun and bizarro games. Crazy satire, wit, and intelligence abounds in this volume.

Two stories stick out.. the classic "Baby Jesus Butt Plug" by Carlton Mellick.. and "The Greatest F**king Moment in Sports" By Kevin L. Donihe. Those two are probably my favorites. Classic works, in my opinion.. and I think they'll be remembered for a long time to come.

So, if you are thinking about getting into the weird new genre called BIZARRO.. then pick this up. For people in college, this is a great book to keep with you so when you're waiting for class, you have something to read that'll last you a long time.

However, for the casual reader, some of this stuff is VERY strange and sometimes offensive (to those who are religious, etc). But I implore you, look beyond your offense and just appreciate some good old fashioned fun. Just think of some of this stuff as Dr. Seuss or Alice in Wonderland for adults. Just dive in and enjoy the pretty colors.

... monsters that is. Minds out of the gutter people- well... Consider The Bizarro Starter Kit a compilation, a phantasmagoria, surrealism, an abstraction, experimentation, a nightmare, a whatever; you'll have something to say about it regardless if you love it or hate it- but how often we confuse the two. And from what I've gathered reading these stories, what you write about is as important as how you write it. As a writer I've explored many techniques and approaches to voice a story, so I recognize when other writers are sticking with a logical path, but are certainly taking the reader down the rabit hole. Some of these stories have an apocolyptic twist and some are crude reflections of modern society and some are down right dirty little fantasies. And I don't necessarily mean the ground dirt or sexual dirty. What could I mean? See, you're mind's already twirling around. I would imagine that a lot of the Bizarro writers are influenced by Vonnegut, Alejandro Jodorwsky, Poe, David Lynch, Kafka, Dali- in fact, I know they are because there are author profiles in which the authors list some of their influences. So if you can, imagine that dark, surrealistic, experimental art manifested in the literary form. And if you're not familiar with any of the above mentioned artists you're probably going to be in for a treat. Like a haunted house for your mind. The Starter Kit is a great way to begin your journey in the avant-garde, or to peek behind another 'door'. The Starter Kit brings the reader to another world, and even if that reader is already in that world they're just brought to another continent. These stories are original, and I think that is why they're a little bit frightening- but oh so entertaining. The genre name says it all. It's bizarro, with a downward twist. Warning: Do not read before operating heavy machinery.

The Bizarro Starter Kit is an intriguing colection to say the least. For those readers out there who are into well-written but bizarre, outrageous, and offbeat lit, this is the book for you. I was familiar with a few of the authors presented here, and the likes of Carlton Mellick III, Gina Ranalli, Andre Duza & Kevin Donihe do not disappoint.

This is an entertaining book, and a novel approach to introducing several distinct talents to the mass readership they deserve. Check it out - you might not enjoy all the stories & styles, but like me, the ones you dig you'll really dig.