The Cleft and Other Odd Tales

Sometimes amusing, sometimes frightening, Wilson's short fiction is as eclectic as his cartooning. "Campfire Story" mixes nostalgia with unease. "The Marble Boy" is a story in the oral tradition--a tale that might be told around a campfire or during a sleepover.These tales and the twenty-two others that fill out this collection are entertaining and unnerving. The Cleft and Other Odd Tales contains more than two dozen original Gahan Wilson illustrations.

Amazon.com Review

World Fantasy Award- and Bram Stoker Award-winner Gahan Wilson is best known as a cartoonist, his work gathered in numerous collections drawn from Playboy, The New Yorker, and The National Lampoon, but he is also a writer. His fiction is the equal of his cartoons--delightfully macabre, witty, and warped--but apparently has never been collected until The Cleft and Other Odd Tales, which contains 24 short stories and short-shorts that range across a startling breadth of genres: horror, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, supernatural-detective, and even Oriental pulp adventure. Each tale is narrated in a unique, engaging voice and accompanied by a deliciously grim original illustration. In "Sea Gulls," an unhappy husband bent on murder finds his plans for his wife foiled in peculiar and chilling ways. In "The Casino Mirago," a desperate international fugitive finds himself in the most clandestine of gaming establishments, gambling for very strange stakes. In "Them Bleaks," a horror writer finds he has moved his family to a small town frightfully unsuited to his expectations. --Cynthia Ward

From the Publisher

"Genuine weirdness combined with wit and intelligence." --Stephen King "A collection of meticulously eccentric stories. The illustrations are definitely the icing on this devil's food cake of a book." --The New York Times "A beguilingly horrifying compendium of his short fiction. . . . The pictures are top-notch. The collection provides more fun than watching Gary Larson arm-wrestle Dean Koontz for the favors of the Bride of Frankenstein." --The Washington Post Book World "Stories whose weird wit matches that of his drawings. Wilson writes in a straightforward, intelligent, anecdotal style that presents an amusingly sinister look at humanity. In 'Them Bleaks,' Wilson describes a certain ghoulish item as 'a macabre object, without doubt, but it undeniably had a peculiar kind of charm.' The same can be said of this collection." --Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Gahan Wilson's cartoons have appeared in Playboy, The New Yorker, Gourmet, Punch, Paris Match, and The National Lampoon. More than fifteen collections of his cartoons have been published, including Is Nothing Sacred?, Playboy's Gahan Wilson, and then we'll get him! and Still Weird. Wilson is widely considered to be the best living macabre cartoonist.For children, Wilson has written and illustrated a series of adventures of Harry, the Fat Bear Spy. For adults, Wilson has written two mystery novels and a number of short stories, which have appeared in Playboy and Omni. Other graphic works for adults include adaptations of Ambrose Bierce and Edgar Allan Poe, and Gahan Wilson's Big Book of Freaks

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