The Bizarro Starter Kit

Bizarro Starter Kit

by Cameron Pierce, Jeff Burk, Cody Goodfellow

There's a new genre rising from the underground. Its name: BIZARRO. For years, readers have been asking for a category of fiction dedicated to the weird, crazy, cult side of storytelling that has become a staple in the film industry (with directors such as David Lynch, Takashi Miike, Tim Burton, and even Lloyd Kaufman) but has been largely ignored in the literary world, until now. The Bizarro Starter Kit features short novels and story collections by ten of the leading authors in the bizarro genre: Russell Edson, Athena Villaverde, David Agranoff, Matthew Revert, Andrew Goldfarb, Jeff Burk, Garrett Cook, Kris Saknussemm, Cody Goodfellow, and Cameron Pierce.

Genres: Bizarro Fiction, Short Stories, Horror, Fantasy, Fiction, Anthologies, Contemporary

264 pages, Paperback

First published October 18, 2010

About the author

Cameron Pierce is the author of eleven books, including the Wonderland Book Award-winning collection Lost in Cat Brain Land. His work has appeared in The Barcelona Review, Gray's Sporting Journal, Hobart, The Big Click, and Vol. I Brooklyn, and has been reviewed and featured on Comedy Central and The Guardian. He was also the author of the column Fishing and Beer, where he interviewed acclaimed angler Bill Dance and John Lurie of Fishing with John. Pierce is the head editor of Lazy Fascist Press and has edited three anthologies, including The Best Bizarro Fiction of the Decade. He lives with his wife in Astoria, Oregon.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Bizarro Starter Kits are meant to ease people into the Bizarro genre. Me, I bought them because I'm a cheap ass and want to stretch my Bizarro dollars a bit. Here are just some of the wonders Bizarro Starter Kit (Purple) contains:

The Clockwork Girl by Athena Villaverde: The Clockwork Girl tells the story of a toy clockwork girl named Puchi who first falls in love with her owner and then is discarded when her owner gets too old. That's about all I can say of the plot without giving too much away.

The Clockwork Girl is like something Peter S. Beagle might write if he was into Bizarro fiction. Puchi's innocence made the story for me. It would make a great Pixar movie if they'd let Tim Burton anywhere near the building. I'm hoping for more of the same from Starfish Girl.

Punkupine Moshers of the Apocalypse by David Agranoff: In a post-apocalyptic wasteland created by the nuclear war of 1987, the people of Dischargia have embraced the punk lifestyle to survive. When the river runs dry, Dressica and her friends venture up the river, beyond the edge of the world.

While I didn't like Punkupines as much as The Clockwork Girl, it was still really cool. Cyborg punks from a community based around punk music going up against the shriveling political icons of the 1980's? What's not to like?

Cripple Wolf by Jeff Burk: A wheelchair-bound man boards an airplane crammed full of fetishists on the night of a full moon and becomes a werewolf. Awesomeness ensues.

Cripple Wolf was a hilarious gorefest, like a bizarro version of Snakes on a Plane.

Re-Mancipator by Garret Cook: Abraham Lincoln is on a rampage and it's up to Musashi, Marilyn Monroe, Johnny Booth, and others to stop him.

Re-Mancipator is delightfully bizarre. If Abraham Lincoln bites you, you become a zombie Abraham Lincoln. This also works on dogs, gorillas, and other animals. While it sounds like a zombie romp, Re-Mancipator also plays with the concepts of time and history. Good stuff.

The Homewreckers by Cody Goodfellow: In a city where the sexes are segregated on opposite sides of a Wall, Floyd Mundy has to go across the wall to solve an apparent murder-suicide. What will he uncover?

Goodfellow knows how to craft a noir tale, that's for sure. The world he's created is both horrifying and horriyingly plausible. Grotesque creatures abound. It's a contender for the best story in the collection.

The Destroyed Room by Cameron Pierce: In a city with plastic grass and trees, Simon accidentally kills his wife (and their unborn child) by cutting strings coming out of her that only he can see. From there, things get a little weird...

The Destroyed Room is by far the strangest story in the collection. It has a dreamlike quality and is very well-written. That's about all I can say without blowing more of the plot. Extra points for the use of sloths and tiny elephants.

[Garrett Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is worth your time and money. My placeholding simplistic sentiments aside, it's full of good stuff. Not just the excellent brainmelting novelettes you usually expect from BSKs but also comics and poetry. And though, yes, I am among them myself, the selection of artists is fantastic. From Athena Villaverde's simple magorealistic elegance to Jeff Burk's b movie bombast to Cameron Pierce's dreamlogic infused meditation on loss and despair that reminds me of nothing so much as Lynch's seminal work Eraserhead, to Andrew Goldfarb comics that Harvey Kurtzmann would be proud of,these are artists to stand behind and artists to care about. There are worse things to spend ten bucks on.

[Christy Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does anyone need a reminder of the quality of these kits? I doubt it, but if you are new to the scene these are a great place to start and this version is one of the best I've read.

The one story that stuck out to me is Athena Villaverde's. I had never heard of her before but I get the feeling I'll see more from her, Clockwork Girl was very charming and sweet. She brings a really traditionally feminine touch to bizarro.

[Gabriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I did on the other Bizarro Starter Kit, I will write a brief response to each set from an author while reading.

Russel Edson: various short prose poems - Some of these are very affecting (I'm looking at you "Ape"), while others are so surreal as to be unreal. While most touch on very strong emotions, the angle we come in at distorts the emotion until it is barely recognizable. A strange choice to open ... but welcome.

Athena Villaverde: Clockwork Girl - Blending a heartfelt love story with the existential crisis found in Supertoys Last All Summer Long and just a hint of Toy Story's playfulness, Villaverde has transcended the Bizarro genre. This is the story I would use to introduce folks to the genre. It tackles some serious issues around female self-image, rape culture, girls as objects, healing art ... but keeps a forceful character whose optimism takes us through the thorns while we smell the roses. Then again, maybe I'm just excited that the humans in this story were Latino. Bizarro is often a very white male place; Thank God for Athena Villaverde to balance things out a bit.

David Agranoff: Punkupine Moshers of the Apocalypse - 3 in a row. I'm amazed at the quality of this collection so far. All of them have been focused on various aspects of Bizarro ... but none of them have been so outright bizarre as to turn off folks. In many ways, this novella is inspired by the Troma films of the 1980's. If you took the world of "Tromeo and Juliet" and removed the Shakespeare then pushed it into a post-apocalyptic future ... that would be the world of Dischargia. Again, while some of the aspects of the future are strange (implanting porcupine quills and razorblades for the pit matches), the story is still rooted in a world we can see and identify (an elder punk refers to the mosh pits of old and how people watched out for each other in those pits; something I've experienced back when I went to punk shows). Sure, the ending felt a bit rushed, but if anything, this novella (with the other two selections before it) is inspiring. Anyone can write Bizarro just by adding a dash of the strange in a realistic world.

Matthew Revert: three short stories - Inspired. I may have found a new favorite author.

Andrew Goldfarb: seven comics - Some of these were nice and gentle twists on generic stories. Others felt rushed or incomplete. This is the first mixed bag of the set so far, but still interesting on its own.

Jeff Burk: Cripple Wolf - After the slightly heavier dose of philosophy and depth that the earlier stories/comics/poems have brought, Cripple Wolf is burst of bloody fun. Really, this is Final Destination via Troma Films in a grindhouse format written with the energy and complete absurdist humor necessary to make the story "fly."

Garrett Cook: Re-Mancipator - Missing the extreme humor of Cripple Wolf, but still taking the excessively violent approach to Bizarro just doesn't do it for me completely. Especially when there is the potential to have too many characters with the same name (and I'm not just talking about the thousands of Abraham Lincoln zombies that turn people into Abraham Lincolns who only love Abraham Lincoln and thus turn more people into Abraham Lincoln who only love ...), there needs to be something more to keep my interest. The premise is interesting, but I prefer the Punkupines novella for my heavy metal/punk rock dystopia over Re-Mancipator.

Kris Saknussemm: Sparklewheel - Someone had a nightmare wet dream and wrote it down. Dream logic abounds ... but not much story. We have traveled into a strange land with lots of "and then" storytelling. Interesting from a sex-obsessed horror angle with one truly Lynchian scene (the two men with the clamshells), but not much else.

Cody Goodfellow: The Homewreckers - In a pulp noir whirlwind crammed with unclear gender politics (and unclear scenes ... as if someone envisioned them so well that they forgot to write down enough details for the rest of us to get what's going on) we have a murderous baby and a plot to ... well, that's a reveal. Should have been so much better.

Cameron Pierce: The Destroyed Room - Ending back in a world full of metaphor, and the question of reality. In someways, this could have sufficed as a short story. In others, it could have been a novel the length of this entire starter kit. Full disclosure I met Cameron Pierce when I bought this collection and had him sign my copy. This may affect how much I liked this final piece.

Overall - An incredibly strong first half followed by a significantly weaker second half. It could be that my reaction to Matthew Revert's short stories condemned anything that followed to seem weak ... but I'm not sure. As a starter kit by itself, I feel like this one did not have enough of the wacky humor (Cripple Wolf and Re-Mancipator have variants of humor, as did Homewreckers ... but none were out and out comedies) that I've come to associate with Bizarro. Most of these are somber tales full of subtext. As part of the complete starter kit (all three volumes), this is an excellent introduction to the more serious side of Bizarro and the power that working in the weird has when tied with the correct metaphors.

[Kirsten Alene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is definitely the broadest, most diverse starter kit of the three. I consider myself well-read in the bizarro genre and the pieces in this book represent it really well. The pieces span from Russell Edson's prose poetry to Andrew Goldfarb's legendary comics. Even the seven novellas show a huge breadth of talent and interest within the bizarro genre. Athena Villaverde's novella, Clockwork Girl, plays so innocently with the classic trope of artificial intelligence that by the end of the story the reader is wondering when along the way the tale became so heart-wrenching. Master wordsmith Cody Goodfellow's Homewreckers is a strange future world of sex-segregation. A handicap werewolf terrorizes a domestic flight in Jeff Burk's Cripple Wolf, and the final story, Cameron Pierce's The Destroyed Room, somehow manages to convey a desperately sad humanness in a world where there are no cars and all of the trees are plastic. If you've never read any bizarro, this is the place to start and even if you're a bizarro connoisseur the work in this book will expand your definition of the genre.

[G. Edweird Cheese · Rating 4 out of 5]

a vast collection of bizarro lit. From poems to comics to short stories, this collection of the weird and wonderful is a great read for both anyone just getting into the genre or those knee deep in it already.

[Emory · Rating 5 out of 5]

We return once again to the Bizarro Starter Kit series. This time around, the weirdness is a pleasant blending of the tones of both the BSK (Orange) and the BSK (Blue). 

With the work of Russell Edson, Athena Villaverde, David Agranoff, Matthew Revert, Andrew Goldfarb, Jeff Burk, Garrett Cook, Kris Saknussemm, Cody Goodfellow, and Cameron Pierce, we are presented with the ever-evolving face of the Bizarro genre, and the equally developing styles. 

Unique to this collection is the inclusion of selected comics by Andrew Goldfarb, whose weird stylings have become a staple of the Magazine of Bizarro Fiction. They are fun, trippy reads, a nice diversion from the often strictly words-only approach of most Bizarro. 

In the more wild fun category are Jeff Burks's "Cripple Wolf" and David Agranoff's "Punkupine Moshers of the Apocalypse". Both of these tales scream B-movie fun in the tradition of such classics as "The Toxic Avenger" and "Surf Nazis Must Die!" 

On the other hand, there is more thoughtful fare such as the prose-poetry of Russell Edson, and Cameron Pierce's "The Destroyed Room". These selections add a wonderful counterpoint to the other offerings, bringing a balanced representation of the Bizarro genre that was not present in the previous editions. 

In short, the Bizarro Starter Kit (Purple) is a strong, balanced display of the possibilities that can be found in Bizarro fiction. Get this on your "to-read" list now!

[Kris Saknussemm · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to acknowledge that I have a story in this collection--and am proud to be amongst these strange authors.

I'm most familiar with the work of Matt Revert, who appears in this anthology. It's interesting to check out his evolution, but I'm quite enjoying the other material.

I find this "movement" (and I think it meets all criteria to be described so) is a huge breath of fresh air in today's fiction scene.

As horrific, disgusting and nightmarish as some of the work can be, there's a crazy joy to it all.

I'm delighted to be part of it.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume seems to have even more variety than the last one I read (orange). There seems to be almost as many different possible varieties of this genre as there are authors. I think I liked these stories overall more than the orange volume, but I think there were one or two in the orange volume that called to me more. Regardless, this seems like a great series for exploring the scope of bizarro.

[David Agranoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, I have a Story in this Collection so I am bias but it's an amazing collection with 10 great authors. $1 per author can't beat it. Give it a shot.

[Willie]

I would have loved this when I was in high school.

[Larry Bassett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bizarro Starter Kit Purple was recommended to me by several people as the ‘best’ of the three starter kits. For the price of $10 new, it is a fairly inexpensive way to see if you are interested in this style of writing. The one page biopic and notes preceding the work of each of the ten authors was most helpful to me. It is good to know the predilections of the person I am reading. I needed all the help I could get in understanding and appreciating their work. As you will see from my brief comments about each writer, I was mostly not pulled into the winner’s column of the Bizarro Genre. I guess this Old Dog is not ready yet for their New Tricks. However, I may want to check out other work by Russell Edson, David Agranoff, Andrew Goldfarb and Kris Saknussemm. (Actually, four out of ten is not bad is it?) But not right away.

Note to self for future research: Are Mad Max and Mad Magazine precursors of Bizarro? Is Don Martin the original Bizarro artist?

Russell Edson writes poetic snippets about a man erasing his daughter who was a mistake, a man breaking into pieces, a pooping piano, a large thing whose place in the world is uncertain, about a turtle who lives within a mechanical turtle whose life is periodically disrupted, about the old woman piloting a huge shoe packed with so many children wandering the earth, about trying to bring a rotting, stinking corpse back to life, about a mother who serves up a badly cooked ape to father every night, about the study of miniature sheep the size of grains of rice, about the closet man who is not sad to be living in a house without rooms where nothing happens. Sounds like a normal block in your neighborhood in a weird and humorous sort of way.

Athena Villaverde, the sole woman among the ten authors, pens Clockwork Girl which she claims to be a “sexy and weird bizarro fantasy tale.” If the rape and sexual enslavement of a mechanical object identified as a toy by the brother of her beloved owner is sexy, then this story is sexy. Personally, I didn’t think so. We follow the life of a toy that is loved, left, discarded, and salvaged in a strange dump populated by other discarded clockwork toys. She is resurrected as a human 20 year old girl who becomes famous creating art from discarded objects. The girl who originally loved her grows up and miraculously comes to clockwork girl’s studio to apply for a job as an apprentice. No doubt that it is weird with a bit of cleverness and probably a moral if one desired such a thing in a story.

David Agranoff writes a nineteen page story titled Punkupine Moshers of the Apocalypse . The introductory paragraphs promise “revolutionary dark bizarro fiction . . . laced with his own radical political views.” With that lead in, I am hopeful, having wished to be a radical revolutionary myself on occasion. Well, I spent a lot of my early life waiting for 1984 with an expectation that something would happen that year. If I buy into David, I will now start waiting for 2020. That’s only nine years away. Guess I could manage that. But calling Reagan a boogeyman won’t make you a radical in my book. And not a pacifist in the bunch. Now that would be radical. But, in this case, I don’t want to spoil the story other than to say you should be prepared for punk rockers. It is hilarious. In a 1985 kind of way. Nineteen pages was about the right length. I think it would be hard to make it into a full novel or a series.

Matthew Revert must be a pseudonym: Revert = Pervert? Clockwork must be a special concept in bizarro since we have here in A Million Versions of Right a clockwork father. “Stomach acid was knocking against my insides like waves to a shore.” This is writing? Well, it is certainly original! But, as far as originality goes, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Just keep the word tiler (a word unknown to my spellcheck, btw) in mind. The concept of autobiographical takes on a completely new twist. The lesson I learned: there is no such thing as symbolism. Concentration Tongue is the second short story of this Pervert trilogy. It is also blessedly short. Enough said. The final (thank god) story is The Great Headphone Wank . Is life déjà vu? Should we just say, “Try it, you’ll like it”? Weird? Yes, it qualifies. Degenerate? Is that a requirement? Story summary: haunted fucking headphones. Highlight: a reference to flying toasters. (Been a while since I have thought of that.) Hint: avoid Australia.

Andrew Goldfarb lives in San Francisco so at least he has an excuse for his bizarro leanings. He is a graphic artist who probably does graffiti as his second job. Ogner Stump mean anything to you? Me neither. How about The Eye Hand of the Carolinas? Nefarious Habits? Maybe The Tea Party? The Hex? The Vastness of Space? And last, The Somnambulist’s Lament? All with “old-fashioned comic art techniques and a warped sense of humor to express an absurd world view.”

“Jeff Burk writes violent, absurd, and funny stories about punks, monsters, gore, and trash culture.” Any questions? In Cripple wolf the P words reappear: punk, pervert, piercings. But the phrase “through the grace of God” in the midst of werewolves on a plane seems wildly misplaced. Not so the speakers on a doomed airplane blasting out ‘Ziggy Stardust.’ The concluding sentence: “He felt so good that he didn’t even notice the bite wound on his ankle.” Does this suggest a follow on story? Hopefully not, by the grace of God.

Garrett Cook, another white boy, is noted to be “a purveyor of dark moral fiction.” Will this be a breath of fresh air? I can only hope. The twenty pager, Re-Mancipator, leads off with “he pulled out of her,” not a good start for my reading pleasure. Garrett plays with familiar names and phrases: Marilyn Monroe, ‘the candy man can,’ John Booth (as in Lincoln), Madonna, Frank Sinatra. I forget what Norma Jean has to do with Lincoln. Or the candy man for that matter. But there are little Lincolns everywhere as every time (frequently) a pseudo-Lincoln’s stovepipe hat is sliced, it pours out another batch of mini-Lincolns. Like, for the old timers here, the multiplying brooms in the 1940 Disney movie, Fantasia. But, about Re-Mancipator, I give up on its meaning unless it is ‘history is bullshit, love isn’t.’ But what would that mean?

Kris Saknussemm must be a jet setter since he is from Melbourne and New York. Sounds unlikely: a jet setter bizarro author. Sparklewheel is another of those less-than-two-dozen page bizarro specialties; it begins with sex on a moving ferris wheel. Or is it a giant roulette wheel? Can’t say it isn’t novel. At this point in The Bizarro Starter Kit Purple I, a non-religious person, am praying for the end to come and considering the morality of skimming the pages and pretending I am reading them. Surreal. Doesn’t that mean unlikely by any standard and dreamlike? Very surreal. No wonder they put you near the end of the book, Kris. Because this has to be a crescendo of action. How would someone make this into a low budget film? Is Mad Max here somewhere? Or maybe Don Martin from Mad Magazine? Did you say that Dante was one of your influences? This could be getting exciting. This reminds me of the movie Brazil but uber-Brazil with all the havoc. Or is this a souped up and sexed up Indiana Jones? You are a good writer, Kris Saknussemn. I was drawn into the excitement. But the end? Well, it made me think that there was something spiritual going on with the Old Man and the sparklewheel. I would have preferred an ending more ethical humanist than religious.

Cody Goodfellow writes ”deeply transgressive metamorphosis fantasies of a doomed collective unconscious repackaged as id-addicted post-modern pulp trash.” What is the chance that I will understand what he writes if I do not understand how he describes his writing? Well, here goes. The Homewreckers is the biggie of the book – 40 pages – and evidently a murder mystery with a male detective working on the ‘women only’ side of town. Excuse me if I get this wrong but something happened to make men and women hate each other so they lived apart. Babies happened by scientifically with no sex and no womb. Women raise the girls and boys mostly go to orphanages to grow up. And there is something about men having babies. But I can’t swear to that. (Take the shortcut to chapter 3.) There is serious sexism built into this invented world so there is humor.

Cameron Pierce has the honor of being 10th in this book of 10 authors. I am not sure if saving the best for last is a bizarro tradition. (Addendum: No, it isn’t.) But I am ready to be surprised. Summary sentence: What the fuck! Plot summary: Simon and Celia are biking home from a dinner party on a smoky orange night in August. Simon and Celia lock their bikes to a light post. Simon dreams that he and Celia are stapling bacon to the cardboard walls of a cathedral without doors or windows. Fifteen minutes later, an ambulance pulls to the curb outside the apartment. After the ambulance goes, Simon finds a pair of scissors. On the morning of the funeral, Simon wakes up and puts on a pot of coffee. Simon prepares to leave the apartment for the funeral. A sign on the side of the road proclaims WELCOME TO JOHNSON FUNERAL SERVICES. Simon unlocks his bike from the FUNERAL PARKING ONLY sign. (Some other weird things happen. This is the Bizarro Genre, after all.)

The End.

[Douglas Ogurek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the tales in this bizarro anthology suffer from too many details, too many characters, and a lack of structure. One gets the impression that some authors are weird just for the sake of being weird and don't really have a point. On the other hand, writers Matthew Revert and Cameron Pierce contributed brilliant stories that are tight and intellectually satisfying. Additionally, Jeff Burk's "Cripple Wolf" offers a great mix of over-the-top violence and humor that would just as easily fit into a splatterpunk anthology.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love bizarro and I hate bizarro. I love it because many of the writers explore strange ideas in a fascinating way that is just very rare to find in any other genre. I hate it because it also attracts people who think that putting nothing but weirdness and shock value into a story magically makes for good writing in this genre. This collection has more of the latter category than I would have liked, but the good stuff more than made up for it.

Before I was even through the 2nd page of Russel Edson's poems, I had already ordered a collection of his work. Just getting introduced to this writer made this kit worth reading. He and other contributors like Athena Villaverde, Matthew Revert, Cody Goodfellow, and Cameron Pierce really stood out as amazing writers and I definitely plan on reading more of their work. They all have this talent for creating worlds that I can really only describe as Kafkaesque - where truly strange and surreal things happen and yet no matter how bizarre the circumstances become, the characters continue to deal with it like they are tackling completely normal issues. I'm not sure if that makes sense, I have trouble describing it, but for me that's why I read this genre.

I also enjoyed Andrew Goldfarb's work although it fell into it's own category of a weird fun comic book approach to bizarro.
The remaining authors' stories, though, I felt were the type of bizarro that tries too hard to be strange and shocking and so fails to be in any way interesting. I regret wasting my time finishing most of those stories hoping they would get good.

Anyhow, overall it was a great book. I'm looking forward to reading the other two starter kits.

[Leanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first introduction to the bizarro genre. I wanted to give it 4 stars, but there were more stories that I didn't really get into than ones I did. That being said, I have two authors I'm sold on and a couple more I'm intrigued enough by to give another shot.

If you are curious about bizarro fiction, the starter kits are the way to go. BUT...be warned, you will encounter violence and pornography in random but liberal schmears. I had to give that caveat because for every friend that would thank me for the introduction there's at least one who would be offended.

Thank you Emory for the tip. Hate it took me so long to read it. I will be checking out another starter kit as well as individual authors in the near future.

[Ben Arzate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full Review Here

I can’t recommend The Bizarro Starter Kit (Purple) highly enough. It’s a strong collection of strange works in fiction, poetry and comics. It will introduce you to some great, lesser known author. Fans of speculative fiction are guaranteed to get a lot out of this anthology. Plus, it gives you a lot of content for the price of the book. Really, I recommend all three editions of the Starter Kits for the same reason.

[Bettie]

Spotted on Noran Miss Pumkin and Stephanie's profiles

[Brett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic! The best collection of stories to date and a great introduction to the genre.

[Stevie Tee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something for everyone, assuming you are at least mildly interested in bizarro fiction.