Muzzlers, Guzzlers, and Good Yeggs [Hardcover]

Joe Coleman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 31, 2005

True-crime classics from the legendary outsider artist in a big little format.

Joe Coleman has spent the last quarter-century purging and embracing his demons through art, an angry artist obsessed with decay and the extremes of human behavior. He is best known for his rich oil paintings, but what many don't know is that he has also created an impressive body of sequential, black-and-white art, which this volume collects. As with his paintings, Coleman is obsessed with violence and dementia, particularly in regard to cultural antiheroes and serial killers. Muzzlers, Guzzlers, and Good Yeggs collects the best of his true crime tales. Like a blend of Breughel and the EC horror comics of the 1950s, Coleman's character studies are dripping with lurid imagery and a pulp sensibility, rendered with careful draughtsmanship and dense with information. Coleman is obsessed with fear, the fear that inspires the horrible acts of the people he writes about, as well as the fear that their acts inspire. Muzzlers features five stories: "You Can't Win," which adapts the memoir of the same name by Jack Black, the notorious early 20th century con-man, thief, opium addict, convict and author; "Boxcar Bertha," which is about the depression-era female hobo who is driven to prostitution, only to be led to salvation by an unwanted pregnancy; "Carl Panzram, #31614," which depicts the life of the notorious serial killer and rapist who declared, "I hate the whole damned human race, including myself" and who expressed his thirst for murder right up to his own execution; "The Final Days of John Paul Knowles," a.k.a. "The Final Days of the Boston Strangler," which is equally a story about Sandy Fawkes, the woman who narrowly escaped being Knowles' seventeenth victim; the last story in the collection is "The Wages of Sin,"a brief manifesto on human suffering and the people and institutions that perpetuate it (priests, scientists and military, e.g.). With the exception of "The Wages of Sin," which serves as a kind of coda to the other four stories presented, each piece is written in the first person, putting the reader into the minds of each subject. Muzzlers, Guzzlers, and Good Yeggs is presented in a handsome, compact format that resembles a Big Little Book, though one strictly for grown-ups.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Coleman, best known for his nightmarish noir paintings and drawings, has produced an engaging, pocket-sized hardcover book drawn from various parts of the great American underbelly. Presented with text facing illustrations on each spread, the book consists of four stories based on real people—researched, appropriated and rewritten in the first person by Coleman—that originally appeared in the anthology Blab!, memoirs of the hobos Jack Black and Boxcar Bertha, and tales of the criminal mayhem of two psychopaths. Coleman's recreation of their authorial voices are striking, rueful, philosophical and manic, but what ties them together are are his drawings. Somewhere between Victorian engravings and folk art, they are haunting and macabre. They're not oppressively dark or gothic; rather, they hit a variety of emotional notes, just as their subjects do. As compelling as the prose is, Coleman's drawings are more so—they have a visceral effect that most words just can't match. The tiny format is fitting for a book best dipped into, rather than taken all at once, and it echoes the pulp magazines that came before it. Coleman's uncompromising, warts-and-all vision of humanity is not for everyone, but this work is still worth a good, long look. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Four stories from early numbers of Monte Beauchamp's anthology series BLAB! adopt the format of 1930s Big Little books: roughly three inches by three and one-half inches, with text pages facing single-picture pages. Much less thick than a Big Little because of better paper, the book's real distinction is content greatly different from the comic-strip and movie-serial fodder of the Big Littles: gritty true-crime testimonies, adapted with brio from their protagonists' depositions, two of them in semifamous books. From You Can't Win (1926) comes the criminal career of burglar Jack Black, who finally went straight (as Coleman neglects to say but other sources reveal, a librarian, definitely non-MLS). From Sister of the Road (1937), a fake memoir by anarchist Emma Goldman's lover Ben Reitman (1879-1942), comes "The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha." The other subjects are serial killers Carl Panzram and Paul John Knowles (consult Michael Newton's encyclopedic Hunting Humans, 1990). Coleman's first-person texts aim to convey the perps' minds, while his intricate, energetic drawings radiate violence, twisted passion, and worse. Utterly fascinating if a mite repulsive. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 168 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books; Graphic novel edition (March 31, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560976284
• ISBN-13: 978-1560976288
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 3.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,502,554 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Now THIS is Professor Momboozo!, April 22, 2006

By 

Timberculosis (ky,usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Muzzlers, Guzzlers, and Good Yeggs (Hardcover)

This beautiful little book contains reprints of stories from Cosmic Retribution, which is now out of print, and it is a worthwhile gem. Four great stories that are definitely worth the money, and the convenient size allows you to stick it in your pocket to read anywhere. BUY THIS!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Size Matters, August 15, 2009

By 

W. Rosen "chickendog" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Muzzlers, Guzzlers, and Good Yeggs (Hardcover)

This is a great collection but it is in a very small format. At least for the artwork I would have liked to seen a larger size for these illustrations. The feels cute in this small edition, but I think the artwork isn't shown off as well as a larger size would have done. Still, it's great material so recommended for Joe Coleman fans.

5.0 out of 5 stars Time Machines Do Exist!, September 9, 2011

By 

Jack (El Paso) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Muzzlers, Guzzlers, and Good Yeggs (Hardcover)

This book is a Lot smaller than I thought it would be, but the more I looked at it, the more I liked it. I've been an aficionado of underground comix since I was a teenager (a long, long time ago), but I was totally unaware of Joe Coleman. It wasn't until recently, when I researched his punk band, Steel Tips, that I discovered the Art of Joe Coleman. This little book contains the first person narratives of Real Twisted people and amazingly intricate illustrations. It is literally a Time Machine! It is a Great Book and well worth the price.