Bizarro fiction is a contemporary literary genre noted for its focus on 'high weirdness.' Bizarro is described as 'literature's equivalent to the cult section at the video store' and a genre that 'strives not only to be strange, but fascinating, thought-provoking, and, above all, fun to read.'"
Recently, I have started to fall in love with the Bizarro genre, mainly through the writings of Carlton Mellick, III -- a local Portland author, generally credited as being a founder of the movement. I currently have three of his books in the "to read" pile next to my bed:
Apeshit
Apeshit is Mellick’s love letter to the great and terrible B-horror movie genre. Six trendy teenagers (three cheerleaders and three football players) go to an isolated cabin in the mountains for a weekend of drinking, partying, and crazy sex, only to find themselves in the middle of a life and death struggle against a horribly mutated psychotic freak that just won’t stay dead. Mellick parodies this horror cliché and twists it into something deeper and stranger. It is the literary equivalent of a grindhouse film. It is a splatterpunk’s wet dream. It is perhaps one of the most fucked up books ever written.
The Egg Man
It is a world where humans reproduce like insects, children are the property of corporations, and having an enormous 10-foot brain implanted into your skull is a grotesque sexual fetish.
The Faggiest Vampire
Deep in The Land of Broodsarrow, just outside the village of Gneirwil, and high on a cliff overlooking the Everbleed Sea, there stands the faggiest gothic castle that any mortal being has ever seen. Living in this ancient faggy castle is none other than the well-renowned vampire, Dargoth Van Gloomfang. The citizenry of Broodsarrow sure has its share of faggy vampires, but old Dargoth has always been by far the faggiest of them all. That is, until a new vampire came to town. A younger, hippper vampire. One that emits such a grand amount of fagginess that one cannot help but be completely overwhelmed by his presence. Now Dargoth Van Gloomfang must figure out a way to out-shine this young newcomer if he wishes to ever reclaim his throne as . . . the faggiest vampire.
If you enjoy the strange, or just need something different to read, give it a shot. It won't change your life, but it'll probably make you laugh in a way you never laughed before.
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