Menz Insana [Paperback]

Christopher Fowler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 31, 1997

Graphic Novel

Product Details

• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: D C Comics (a division of Warner Brothers - A Time Warner Entertainment Co.) (December 31, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563893002
• ISBN-13: 978-1563893001
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #674,033 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Christopher Fowler was born in Greenwich, London. He is the multi award-winning author of thirty novels and ten short story collections, and the author of the Bryant & May mystery novels. His first bestseller was 'Roofworld'. Subsequent novels include 'Spanky', 'Disturbia', 'Psychoville' and 'Calabash'. His books have been optioned by Guillermo Del Toro ('Spanky') and Jude Law ('Psychoville'). He co-founded Creative Partnership, a company that changed the face of film marketing, and spent many years working in film. His memoir of growing up without books, entitled 'Paperboy', was highly acclaimed.

He has written comedy and drama for BBC radio, including Radio One's first broadcast drama in 2005. He writes for the FT and the Independent on Sunday, Black Static magazine and many others. His graphic novel for DC Comics was the critically acclaimed 'Menz Insana'. His short story 'The Master Builder' became a feature film entitled 'Through The Eyes Of A Killer', starring Tippi Hedren and Marg Helgenberger. In the past year he has been nominated for 8 national book awards. He is the winner of the Edge Hill prize 2008 for 'Old Devil Moon', and the Last Laugh prize 2009 for 'The Victoria Vanishes'.

Christopher has achieved several pathetic schoolboy fantasies, releasing a terrible Christmas pop single, becoming a male model, writing a stage show, posing as the villain in a Batman graphic novel, running a night club, appearing in the Pan Books of Horror, and standing in for James Bond.

His short stories have appeared in Best British Mysteries, The Time Out Book Of London Short Stories, Dark Terrors, London Noir, Inferno, Neon Lit, Cinema Macabre, the Mammoth Book of Horror and many others. After living in the USA and France he is now married and lives in King's Cross, London.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bravo!, February 10, 2005

By 

Kielle Mélan (currently 15,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Menz Insana (Paperback)

Menz Insana is my all-time favorite graphic novel. Found this title in a bargain bin, and I consider it as my number one find. It is a humorous love story in the realm of the insane between skinny, balding Menz (a pharmacist who resembles Pinocchio) and the stunning and sexy Jaz, who wants to go back to the realm of sanity to find out who she was before insanity. The plot takes a shocking twist when she DOES find out who she was, and her relationship to Menz in the real world. The Mental Plane is a place where people can just shrug off society's norms and be themselves. Fowler makes a humorous analogy of the Mental Plane to Dante's "Inferno", where there are different levels of insanity which can be visited via an elevator. And who can forget the other inhabitants of the insane world such as the adorable Squid Baby ("Cigars all around! Not you, Squid Baby!" Aww...), the couple's arrogant, hormone-raging neighbor ("Neighbor?? We don't even have walls!") Mr. Bull, and tons of others. The characters are ridiculously funny, the conversations full of razor-sharp wit, and John Bolton's art is just simply amazing. Menz Insana is brimming with intelligence: light, quirky and funny on the surface, but it leaves the reader reflecting on the line between the sane and insane, good and bad, and the pressure of today's society on people's minds. An excellent read!

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insanity as a sane escape, May 29, 2002

By 

Jacques COULARDEAU "A soul doctor, so to say" (OLLIERGUES France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Menz Insana (Paperback)

Christopher Fowler and John Bolton give us here a phenomenal comic strip. It is centered on the mental world in which people can really be free, themselves, without any restraint from society and from their own personal censorship. We are ourselves and free only on this mental level that lies beyond real life. Real life is grey, drab, sad, full of norms and predigested behaviors. The mental plane is free, full of colors, full of adventures. Everything is possible and we meet there the strangest beings we can imagine, all those who have left their bodies somewhere in the real world to live the freedom of their minds. But somewhere there is a myth : the desire of those liberated souls to go back to the real world and see their real bodies. They discover then that in the real world they live a life of total alienation, often pent up in some asylum, whereas on the mental plane they can be free and experience feelings that would be impossible in the real world, because on the mental plane they accept any absurdity as being freedom and real being. Yet, in a way, generally catastrophic from a social point of view, the mental state they are in on the mental plane, can free their social bodies and beings in real society by some supernormal, extranormal intervention. The drawing is creative and rich in colors and strange forms. On the mental plane everything is possible, and the drawing assumes this freedom to produce a vision of real freedom in insanity. We long for the possibility to be there and finally get rid of all our restraints. Even if life on the mental plane is only possible if our bodies are still alive in society, somewhere, in a way or another. A fascinating world that is given a tremendous force by a very creative language.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU