by Don Campbell

It’s the holidays and most of us are either ecstatic about the season coming round once again (not me) or we’re stressed to the ends of our sanity (me). While tidings of comfort and joy are great and all, tidings of the completely deranged are more my cup of tea. So, for the holidays, I thought we would discuss that most interesting of genres, Bizarro Fiction. While it’s true that this could, technically, involve fiction written by Superman’s mentally challenged foe, Bizarro Fiction encompasses plots so weird and outside the norm that even reading the summary on the dust jacked is enough to make most readers say “Wait. What?”.

Now, the first thing I’m going to say about this is that Bizarro tends to delve into some really unpleasant areas. The titles alone are frequently enough to turn off readers of a sensitive disposition. I want to talk a bit about a few of those so I’ll just let you know up front, the language is going to get a bit salty here. Just try to roll with it. Consider this “gift ideas for the literary weirdo in your life”. Alternatively you can think of it as “gag gifts for grandma” (don’t actually buy your grandma any of these things).

Carlton Mellick III is probably the closest thing there is to a progenitor of the movement. His name is, at the very least, one of the first ones to pop up in any conversation on the subject. Mellick’s stories pull no punches whatsoever and more often than not throw in a few extra punches just to hurt your feelings. His first novel, Satan Burger, more or less inspired the Bizarro movement and has become an international cult hit.

The premise of Satan Burger is a simple one: God hates you. Not just you, but pretty much everybody. He’s disappointed in His creation and is just going to create something new because frankly, he’s done with us. So He, in his infinite wisdom, has decided to feed the souls of his old creation into a machine, a thing called The Walm, which is shaped like a large vagina. It is a doorway through which his New Children are born. God loves his New Children, but he thinks you suck. Also, the New Children are essentially tearing the world apart. And that’s just the basic plot. The novel garnered lots of attention back in 2005 when a man in Alaska was arrested for showing a copy to a minor and was hit with a charge of showing obscene material to a minor. The charges were eventually dropped, but you get the idea.

Mellick’s other works include such titles as Razor Wire Pubic Hair, Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland, and Baby Jesus Butt Plug: A Fairy Tale, which is a story about corporate slavery, photocopied humans, and the titular sex toy (which, in my defense, is a real thing you can buy. Although I’m not sure why you might want to.)

From Mellick we move on to one of my favorites, Mykle Hanson. Hanson’s work includes the acclaimed short story collection Eyeheart Everything, HELP! A Bear is Eating Me! (a tragic comedy), and my personal favorite, the 2008 Wonderland Book Award winning Rampaging Fuckers of Everything on the Crazy Shitting Planet of the Vomit Atmosphere.

Look, I told you before we started that some of these titles were going to be… challenging.

The book is, for the most part, exactly what the title in implies. It is a collection of three books whose plots are all represented in the title. My personal favorite story of the bunch is called Journey to the Center of Agnes Cuddlebottom, which is the story of how man first colonized the anus of an 80-year-old prostitute, complete with a Starbucks. Because, let’s face it, those things are everywhere. If that sounds funny to you, all I can say is that it’s funnier than it sounds. If it doesn’t, well, you’re probably better off not checking it out.

Cameron Pierce’s novel Ass Goblins of Auschwitz is paradoxically both more and less offensive than it sounds. While it does use the iconography of Nazi Germany for its own amusement, the story actually works as a kind of twisted parable on human atrocity. Even though in this case the “Nazis” are flatulent, butt-shaped aliens that get drunk off of fermented children. They use the children they kidnap from Kidland as both a slave labor force and a material resource for construction of various things. Like bicycles.

Finally, on a lighter note, comes the novel Shatnerquake by Jeff Burk. Shatnerquake revolves around, surprise, William Shatner attending a convention held in his honor, ShatnerCon. While there he finds himself beset upon by not only the Campbellians, a terrorist group of rabid Bruce Campbell fans, but in the end due to a fiction bomb whose power was inverted by a hapless film projectionist, also by himself as every character he has ever played. Yes, including Animated Shatner from the animated Star Trek series.

The Bizarro movement is loud and crass and offensive, certainly, but it is also frequently so over the top offensive that it manages to be funny. It’s the literary equivalent of finding a public masturbator when the elevator doors open. At first you’re horrified, but later when you tell your friends about it, everybody is going to laugh. It is fiction from a lunatic fringe, and one that, at the very least, when you discuss it with other people is going to earn you the sort of looks you’re probably giving your screen right now.

The point is, don’t be afraid to run with ideas that seem “too crazy”. “Too crazy” is being done all the time and more than a few authors are finding success in excess. People are drawn in by the sheer madness of the plot, but stick around because, and this is key, the plot is actually kind of interesting.

In closing I want to wish you all a happy holiday season and remind you that there are only a few scant shopping days left till Christmas so if you want to get that special someone a copy of Robert Devereaux’s Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes, the clock is ticking.

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Don Campbell was born to coal miners and bootleggers on a mountain in Kentucky. His intro to genre fiction came at age 7 when his mother read him the Stephen King short story “The Raft” and at 18 he spent a month being homeless sleeping in ditches, smoking cigarettes, and writing poetry in diners. He has won no awards, but his mom thinks he’s cool. He currently resides near Minneapolis with his wife and daughter, and a slightly pudgy beagle mix named Jester.

Don writes flash fiction and other stuff on his website at www.halfastick.com, reviews books for The Future Fire and generally mucks about putting words together in various orders until they look nice next to each other. Follow him on Twitter @HalfaStick.