Written by respected cartoonist, Gahan Wilson (appropriately so since he is a direct descendant of P.T. Barnum), this is a fascinating look at the history of freaks in real life and in the media and treats the subject with a great deal of reverence and respect. Wilson goes beyond merely presenting the histories of various famous freaks, but also examines why we are so fascinated by them and laments the fact that with advances in genetics they may be a dying breed (with the exception of self-made freaks like those in the Jim Rose Circus).
The book begins with the historical roots of the sideshow, with the wild speculations about possible creatures that might exist in the days when much of the world was unexplored, to the fake freaks created for medieval carnivals and self-mutilated beggars, to the modern circus and portrayals in movies such as Tod Browning’s “Freaks”. In addition to such articles on specific themes are the histories of particular individuals ranging from the famous (the Elephant Man) to the not-so-famous (a “Lobster Man” who committed a murder in a Florida town composed almost entirely of retired circus freaks). The stories range from the heartwarming to the heartbreaking, the humourous to the serious, and include romance and adventure, but all of them treat the unusual individuals who are their subjects as human beings, with all the same potentials as well as the character flaws of any person, and avoids being exploitative. My personal favourite is the article drawn by Ivan Brunetti illustrating how ALL human beings are freakish and are constantly undergoing strange transformations.The accompanying illustrations are also superb. This is definitely one of the best in the Big Books series.
110.78 MB
http://www.megaupload.com/fr/?d=XGQKWMWM

Similar Posts:

• The Big Book of Little Criminals
• The Big Book of
• The Big Book of Death
• The Big Book of Scandal
• The Big Book of Weirdos
• The Big Book of Martyrs
• The Big Book of the Unexplained
• The Big Book of the Weird Wild West
• The Big Book of the 70′s
• The Big Book of Conspiracies

Random Posts

• The Big Book of the Weird Wild West
• The Big Book of Weirdos
• The Big Book of Scandal
• The Big Book of the 70′s
• The Big Book of Thugs
• The Big Book of Little Criminals
• The Big Book of Urban Legends
• The Big Book of the Unexplained
• The Big Book of Grimm
• The Big Book of Losers

Recent Entries

• Brenda Starr Reporter – The Collected Dailies and Sundays – 1940-1946 v1 (UF+HF)
• Batman & Harlequin – Krystal (RG+UL+DF)
• Lone Wolf 2100 v1 – Shadows on Saplings (UF+HF)
• Superman Through the Ages (RG+UL+DF)
• pampa
• Tomb Raider – One Shots (UF+HF)
• G.l. Joe – Future Noir Specials (UF+HF)
• Red Sonja One Shots (RG+UL+DF)
• Tomb Raider – The Beginning (UF+HF)
• Cosmic Boy 01-04 (UF+HF)

Wiki--A comic book or comicbook, also called comic paper or comic magazine (often shortened to simply comic or comics) is a magazine made up of "comics"—narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog (usually in word balloons, emblematic of the comic book art form) as well as including brief descriptive prose. The first comic book appeared in the United States in 1933, reprinting the earlier newspaper comic strips, which established many of the story-telling devices used in comics. The term "comic book" arose because the first comic books reprinted humor comic strips. Despite their name, comic books are not necessarily humorous in tone; modern comic books tell stories in a variety of genres.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 at 4:42 pm by Batman and is filed under Factiod Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.