TANUKI TANGO OVERDRIVE, sensitive readers strongly...STRONGLY...cautioned to pass by

TANUKI TANGO OVERDRIVE: Stories
ARTHUR GRAHAM
Arthur Himself
$7.99 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The (Self-)Publisher Says: What happens to Japanese yōkai once they reach middle age? How do they adapt to the sex-crazed, ultraviolent hyperreality of our modern world? And who all wants to fuck? Find out in TANUKI TANGO OVERDRIVE, by Arthur Graham!

Includes the following stories:

- Tanuki vs. the Aokigahara Swingers Club
- Tinseltown Tanuki
- Shinkansen of Love

BONUS ATTRACTION! Arthur's dulcet tones on Leo Robertson's podcast!

My Review: The tanuki is an actual living creature, a pretty one at that:

Totes adorbs! I mean, could you DIE from the cute!

But those are images of the REAL tanuki, a canid basal species unrelated to the raccoon that it resembles, but not closely related to Fifi or Duke either. They're considered an invasive species in some parts of their naturalized Baltic homeland. They're generalists, eating whatever they can find; they don't fear mankind particularly; and they have lovely, silky fur. They're hunted for the fur which is then knowingly mismarketed as "faux fur." Since they're not endangered, I don't much care about that. I care that the little darlings threaten endangered riparian-nesting birds and several threatened turtle species with their omnivorous ways. But enough about these dratted doggies! Arthur didn't write about them. He wrote about these guys:

Not quite so cute, but funny, tipsy trickster spirits. Japanese culture isn't as familiar to me as Western cultures are, but what I know leaves me verschmeckeled. Dog-men with big balls that they sling over their shoulders get drunk and play pranks on mere humans. Okaaaaay...I guess I'd be more impressed by this if, say, Alexander Skarsgard, Chris Hemsworth, and Ryan Gosling played live-action versions of them. Hint, hint Hollywood.

The Tanuki Tales are amusing, the translated ones I've read are anyway. They're Rabelaisian and bawdy and utterly unlike the Japanese culture of my stereotypes. It's a little like stumbling across Japanese porn in its head-scratching strangeness. Then Arthur got his mitts on the concept. Ever tried putting out a grease fire with a hose? Pretty much gives you the sense of what Our Hero has in store for the intrepid reader. Three tales that present Arthur's intelligence and erudition in an absurd light as evidence that he doesn't take himself or that education he worked so hard to get seriously. Now, I'll give you my opinion story-by-story in the simply named technique called the Bryce Method.

Tanuki vs. the Aokigahara Swingers Club has Mr. Tanuki, a bored middle-aged salaryman, having dinner with his wife and his bottle. A mysterious invitation to a swingers' club arrives, which his wife seems suspiciously unsurprised by, and she talks him into attending without a whole lot of trouble. Once there, Mrs. Tanuki vanishes and Mr. Tanuki gets an offer he can't refuse from a luscious redhead called Kit. Who turns out to be Kitsune, the trickster god of Japanese myth. Does the concept "monster porn" exist in your bubble yet? If not, it soon will...and this somewhat bizarre twist on the meaning of swingers and the nature of zombies will make your hairs do a little dance.

Tinseltown Tanuki revisits the Tanukis' salad days of great wealth in the wake of Super Mario Bros 3 featuring Mr. Tanuki's trickster demon talents. From great heights there are only great falls, and the Tanukis end up living as raccoon-dogs in an East LA trash can before long. One night at their local dive bar, they meet a stranger...a famous stranger...and an indecent proposal changes their lives. Not quite as much as it changes the famous stranger's, of course, these being Tanuki.

Shinkansen of Love goes where no bullet train has gone before. Several times. Poor Mrs. Tanuki, she's spoiled for good after this one....

So, in less than 100pp, Arthur has sent up zombie flicks, monster porn, cheesy mid-1990s Hollywood mind-rot, 9/11, and the loneliness of long-term love. Don't get taken in by this trickster: The point of the stories isn't to gross you out or make you squirm, the point is to gross you out while you squirm through the real stories of loss and ennui under the plaster façade. Those inclined towards lip-pursing are better off leaving Arthur alone. Those inclined towards gonzo grinning are encouraged to spend their substance on these tricky tales.

THE HOTTEST GAY MAN EVER KILLED IN A SHARK ATTACK: Goodreads Choice Awards 2016

THE HOTTEST GAY MAN EVER KILLED IN A SHARK ATTACK
Rosebud...I mean, DOUGLAS HACKLE
Who the Hell Knows?
$9.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Ever since he was a young orphan, Hansel Higginzshire’s dream has been to break the long-held Guinness World Record for hottest gay man ever killed in a shark attack.

Big Problem #1: Hansel is not hot. At least not in the classical sense. In fact, the deformed man has a head the size of a wrecking ball.

Big Problem #2: Hansel digs chicks, not dudes.

Still, that shouldn’t stop a big-headed mofo from dreaming big, no??

But if those obstacles weren’t enough to impede Hansel’s path to Guinness World Record greatness, he finds himself wanted for murder. Now on the lam, his situation pretty hopeless, Hansel agrees to die a horrible death in a snuff film for just few measly bucks.

But perhaps the misfit companions Hansel meets on his westward cross-country trek to Hollywood—Rosebud (the drunken, down-on-its-luck, former actor, and sentient sled from Citizen Kane); a living, talking amputated arm that once belonged to a famous rock drummer; and a geeky keytar player born with a small polar bear head instead of a human head—can convince Hansel to follow his dreams again and attempt to become . . . THE HOTTEST GAY MAN EVER KILLED IN A SHARK ATTACK!!!

(By the way, yo mama is a character in this book. Yeah. For real. Sorry.)

“Hackle may be the best absurdist story writer working today.” —Bradley Sands, author of Dodgeball High

“Douglas Hackle is a 100% certified Angus all-beef patty genius.” —Danger Slater, author of Puppet Skin

My Review: I voted for this book in the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards as a Humor category write-in. So should you, for the same reason you should watch that TV show where Nick Jonas plays a gay MMA fighter: Isn't it about time that cishet men pandered to the gay men of the world? They've been pandered to by women for-fucking-ever; their turn to do the pandering! C'mon boys, take it all off, get it on with someone you don't really want to, and suck (!) it up sex object.

I mean, fair's fair, amirite?

The Goodreads Choice Awards first round of voting ends November 6th.

LIZARD WORLD, a deeply bizarre Bizarro 4-star read

LIZARD WORLD
TERRY RICHARD BAZES
Livingston Press
$11.00 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A dentist from New Jersey, marooned at midnight in the Florida swamps, makes the mistake of falling into the clutches of a hilariously depraved family of amateur surgeons devoted to a seventeenth century libertine whose discovery of an elixir has kept his evil presence alive for the past three-hundred years.

THE PUBLISHER SENT ME A REVIEW COPY. THANK YOU!

My Review: Three centuries of bizarro nonsense in the Florida swamps, featuring dentists who rob teeth from cadavers or maps from old ladies, English earls with horrifying maladies, German hunchbacks with one-eyed daughters who give rise to a dynasty of detestable Southern crackers, and a buncha buncha croakadells. (Gators to thee and me.)

Oh, and fiction's only known were-horsefly.

Not a big bizarro reader, me. I wondered sometimes what I was doing wandering in the humid swamps of Bazes' imagination. I found such repulsive images there as people being farmed for their organs, clouds of gator-musk inspiring ick-ptui sex, and a claustrophobic sense on nausalgia vu...the dear and familiar stomach-roiling horror of having been here before...that Florida inspires in me.

So why rate it so highly? Because, dear reader, in an increasingly bland and featureless literary and cultural landscape, where gay couples are the normal ones on TV and wacky neighbors on sitcoms are largely indistinguishable from the leads in a vain attempt to spice things up, Bazes takes us into places we haven't been taken since A Modest Proposal. The adjective "Swiftian" has been waiting for this book for many long, lonely years.

So, go buy it. I promise you no one will fail to remark on the unique cover art, and the erudite among your acquaintance will be gobsmacked by the fact the BARNEY ROSSET blurbed it. (Frankly, after one repugnant scene involving a wire hair brush and the aforementioned were-horsefly, this was the only reason I kept reading.) Oh, so did Charles Palliser and Peter Coyote, but BARNEY! If not for him, we wouldn't have smutty books to read at all!

Enjoy.

NO STRAIGHT LINES, compendium of Queer graphic artistry

NO STRAIGHT LINES: Four Decades Of Queer Comics
JUSTIN HALL
Fantagraphics
$35.00 trade paper OR $12.49 via Kindle!

WINNER OF THE 25th Lambda Literary Award—BEST LGBT ANTHOLOGY!

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: No Straight Lines showcases major names such as Alison Bechdel, Howard Cruse, and Ralf Koenig (one of Europe's most popular cartoonists), as well as high-profile, crossover creators who have dabbled in LGBT cartooning, like legendary NYC artist David Wojnarowicz and media darling and advice columnist Dan Savage.

No Straight Lines also spotlights many talented creators who never made it out of the queer comics ghetto, but produced amazing work that deserves wider attention. Queer cartooning encompasses some of the best and most interesting comics of the last four decades, with creators tackling complex issues of identity and a changing society with intelligence, humor, and imagination.

This book celebrates this vibrant artistic underground by gathering together a collection of excellent stories that can be enjoyed by all. Until recently, queer cartooning existed in a parallel universe to the rest of comics, appearing only in gay newspapers and gay bookstores and not in comic book stores, mainstream bookstores or newspapers. The insular nature of the world of queer cartooning, however, created a fascinating artistic scene. LGBT comics have been an uncensored, internal conversation within the queer community, and thus provide a unique window into the hopes, fears, and fantasies of queer people for the last four decades.

These comics have forged their aesthetics from the influences of underground comix, gay erotic art, punk zines, and the biting commentaries of drag queens, bull dykes, and other marginalized queers. They have analyzed their own communities, and their relationship with the broader society. They are smart, funny, and profound. No Straight Lines has been heralded by people interested in comics history, and people invested in LGBT culture will embrace it as a unique and invaluable collection.

My Review: I don't like comics, comix, graphic novels, or whatever the hell you call them. It's too much work for too little story to my text-adapted eyes. But, in a quest not to ossify into one of Those People, I continue to expose myself to stuff I hate to see if I hate it, or merely don't understand it.

Nope. Hate it.

At least there were no superheroes. Those just grate on my last nerve with a fine-toothed wood rasp.

So why three stars in the ratings, since I hate the damn stuff? Because this is My People talking! I would give an identical collection featuring straight people doing straight people stuff *pause for bad memories to pass* negative stars.

As an aside to the squeamishly homophobic (read: boringly average heterosexual male), the amount of gay-male sex in here will make you *intensely* uncomfortable, but there's a goodly dose of lesbian sex to make it better.

As this is a history of LGBTQ subjects treated graphically, it is very very interesting when considered in that light, and shows the increasing sophistication of the audience as material becomes available in greater quantity. The subject matter is, well, pretty much what you'd expect it to be, and pretty much what all fiction is about: Ourselves.

At $35, it's a big investment that I don't see making if you're not GLBTQ or very interested in the history of social-issue artistry.

Today's Review Posts for 8 April 2013

ZEITOUN in Politics & Social Issues

THE BIG SLEEP in Mystery Series

FLOWER CONFIDENTIAL in Science, Dinosaurs & Environmental Issues

THE GALAXIE AND OTHER RIDES in Literary Fiction & Short Story Collections

TALL TALES WITH SHORT COCKS Volume 1 in Bizarro, Fantasy & SF

All reviews posted in this blog are subject to
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.