Freaks, Geeks, and Strange Girls [Paperback]

Teddy Varndell (Author), Johnny Meah (Author), Jimmy Secreto (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2004

Sideshow banners and freak show culture of the American carnival.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Sideshows sprung up alongside traveling circuses across the United States in the mid 19th Century after the railway system linked both coasts, and they fully flourished in rural areas after the turn of the century. With their inexpensive promises of lurid delights, fantastic feats, and horrific "monstrosities," they were part magic show, part raunchy B-movie, and part wunderkammer, all in one. The barker and music might draw a customer close, but a well-executed banner might make or break an act. Firms sprang up across the country to handle demand, and the works are often astounding and lurid combinations of text and image. These works stand as one of the more fascinating cross-pollinations of illustration, signage and self-taught / vernacular art in American history. They’re also very un-PC and strangely beautiful. As with all modern advertising, the promise of the images rarely lived up to their accompanying pitches; the "Alligator Girl" just suffered from a dreadful skin condition, while the "Feejee Mermaid" was, you guessed it, not really a mermaid. The accompanying essays are all terse, fascinating, and tackle different aspects of the sideshow arts, the color illustrations plentiful and crisp. Even the most casual fan of tattooing knows that having Don "Ed" Hardy write an essay is a major coup. In the introductory essay, Lisa Stone and Randy Johnson rightly connect the lurid works to creations by margin-walking artists such as Ed Paschke, Karl Wirsum, and Joel-Peter Witkin. The photos of banners on location, as they looked back in the day, are especially interesting. While not the first or most definitive sampling of this work, it is easily the best. --Mike McGonigal

Product Details

• Paperback: 180 pages
• Publisher: Last Gasp (December 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 086719622X
• ISBN-13: 978-0867196221
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 11 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #478,523 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Snapshot of American popular advertising from the carnival midway, November 26, 2005

By 

James G. Mundie (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Freaks, Geeks, and Strange Girls (Paperback)

Freaks, Geeks and Strange Girls is an overview of the gaudy advertising developed on American fair grounds to convince patrons to spend their hard earned nicker on the often dubious attractions inside the tent. Banner painting developed its own vernacular and traditions over the years, and the material presented here runs the gamut from the naive to the highly sophisticated. The illustrations are accompanied by essays on various aspects of sideshow culture, but what I find the most interesting are the firsthand accounts provided by banner painter and performer Johnny Meah.

[Note: My copy of this book is from the original 1996 Hardy Marks pressing. I haven't seen the new Last Gasp version yet, so I'm not sure whether the content has been updated from the original.]