Repackaged with a holiday dust jacket that matches the upcoming paperback
cover, Tim Burton’s The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories:
Stick Boy's Festive Season has a title nearly as long as some of the
stories. With a wink and a nod thrown Edward Gorey's (The Gashlycrumb Tinies,
The Haunted Tea Cosy) way, the director of "Edward Scissorhands" and "Mars Attacks" puts to paper the same darkly humorous vision of his cinematic work.
The
recurring eponymous Oyster Boy, for instance, is born to very surprised parents
who lament their bad luck and, when the stress of having such a strange child
leads to trouble in the marital bed, their doctor suggests the father try - yup
- oysters, and with a slithery gulp, Oyster Boy is down his father's maw.
There's Stick Boy, who falls in love with Match Girl but alas, the flame of
their passion glows too hot and Stick Boy is incinerated. And don't forget Stain
Boy (a superhero who's like the Peanuts character Pigpen - but wetter), Jimmy
the Hideous Penguin Boy, Char Boy (mistaken for coal dust and swept out into the
street), Mummy Boy (who's bulbous wrapped noggin is mistaken for a birthday
party piñata), etc. What Burton's sad kids all have in common is their bizarre
difference.
It's in the nature of the drawings - simple but supremely twisted - along
with the tragic tales they illustrate that begs comparison with Gorey, although
Burton's book is less stilted and less Anglic than Gorey's. Without the
drawings, the stories would fall flat - ditto Gorey - and that's the peculiar
genius of this type of adult graphic book (no, it's patently not for the
kiddies). This is the kind of book you keep lying around (it only takes about a quarter
of an hour to get through) as a satirical antidote to the cynicism that
occasionally gets you in its icy grip -- like posting your favorite Far Side cartoons on your
fridge, although Oyster Boy and his ilk are on a whole different level of skewed from Larson's chubby bespectacled troublemakers and plotting cows and ultra-domestic snakes.
It's smart, weird, brilliant and funny, and perfect for those days when that
cloud won't move from over your head. Hope for more of the same from Burton's
scrawling pen.