The Bizarro Starter Kit (Orange)

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 wh

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.

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

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!