Garrett Cook’s Comments (group member since Jul 16, 2008)

Garrett Cook’s comments from the Q&A with Garrett Cook group.

Great to hear. Let me know when you do.

Licorice nips being named to deride their half black/half Japanese inventor, yes, the term is indeed a horrible racial slur. Robert Englund's rape counseling does make a sound, a high pitched wail that causes dogs to turn against you and take up arms and bears to develop a craving for mystery snack.

Cook, you and Sands have gone too far.

Since I'm on your side, I'll start. Garrett Cook is a sissy girl!

I'll send you a PDF to compensate for your loss. How do we go about starting this feud? Can I be on your side?

No I didn't.

If you want to talk about the Murderland books, post here.

For people with questions, comments and additional feedback about Archelon Ranch, post here.

You should read Grant Morrison's intro to his first volume of the Invisibles. It's also available in Misinformation Press' very cool Book of Lies, which is one of the more unusual and great books on magick I've read. I also recommend Our Gods Wear Spandex, I forget the author but I'm sure you can find it. Myth has become a very different thing in this day and age. Watch an episode of Family Guy and you'll see this. Peter, the Protagonist, mingles with a lot of archetypical beings, beings like Spiderman and Lee Majors. The revenant becomes the vigilante, Odysseus becomes Peter Parker. We are not in a cultural vacuum where all that exists are the works of Grimm, La Fontaine and Virgil. Bizarro addresses this better than other literary movements have by far. Bizarro acknowledges that William Shatner is a Campbellian monomyth, creates as a fairytale a gutsplattering Rankin-Bass Christmas special where Santa is made out of sausage and plays out the quest to understand manhood and sexuality in a fetish crazed Wild Western town in Nevada. I just like to write hero narratives. My serial killer hero Jeremy is looking for a true call to adventure in h8. He battles demons that might not exist and is called upon to fight off ones that most certainly do. And of course, there's the hero journey Archelon Ranch, which is a book reexamining the hero journey. And Jimmy Plush is a hero's journey as well, a journey toward selfhood where the mysteries in front of the character are barely mysteries, but bigger mysteries abound.

I agree, it feels like a cop out answer. But, it's one of those things you know when you see it. If you ask me to define for example, what pornography is, I can't define it, but I know when I see it. Maybe it could be said that Bizarro, like Horror is more of an atmosphere or a sensation than a genre. If you feel that you are in an environment where things do not make sense and the best explanation for why this is happening still does not make sense, something is Bizarro. Example: It is raining pigs. You ask the question "why is it raining pigs?" and you can get a sense of genre or the feeling that's supposed to be evoked. If it's not raining pigs and you're just tripping, this is not a Bizarro situation. If it is raining pigs because Mr. Mxyzptlk is in town to annoy Superman again, it's not Bizarro. If it's raining pigs because pigs have tired of the farms and decided they wanted to live in Heaven but God sent them all back, it's probably Bizarro. If it's raining pigs because it's Thursday and on Thursday it rains pigs it's Bizarro. If it's raining pigs because a kooky wizard tried to cast a spell and got it wrong because he's kooky, it's a Terry Pratchett book. If a young man walks outside and it's raining pigs and he has no idea why and he feels the hairs on the back of his spine stand up and he has a sense that something is not right anymore and his madness is seeping into reality and destroying it, it's horror. And yeah, Raising Arizona was good, but his vendetta against cult cinema puzzles me. Why must he ruin everything?

I miss Donald Pleasence.
The division between Bizarro and gratuitous is based upon something being absurd and creating a sense of otherness. If, for example, a man is killed by somebody tossing a sack of kittens out of a blimp onto him, that is a Bizarro demise. Violence and sex are an important part of a lot of Bizarro, but they aren't the whole of it. I would consider Rocko's Modern Life kid friendly Bizarro because there is more otherness than sameness to it, if that makes any sense to you. Rocko's Modern Life defies cartoon genre conventions a lot and defies expectations of reality a lot. It's cult, it's transgressive in that it shows children that the adult world is senseless and stupid and it EXPLORES scatologies instead of just shoving them into people's face. If the train man gets stuck half in and half out of the train and survives, he could be a background character in a Bizarro novel. Maybe some heroine falls in love with the guy but their love is tragic because he's stuck and can't move.

Since you've read Archelon Ranch, you've had a sampling of it. I like to combine experimental narratives with pulpy plot elements and intense themes. I'm influenced by pulp and cult cinema, but I want to write the smartest, strangest stuff I can. Things that are meant for pop culture occur in work that's literary and pulpy at the same time. This is a big priority for me. For example, while my upcoming book Jimmy Plush, Teddy Bear Detective, has an absurd pulp plot it is an examination of manhood, heroism and self that goes to some very dark and deep places.

Much as I hate snow, I do prefer it to grey oblivion.

Been better, been worse from time to time. But at least Lon Chaney Jr. isn't waiting for me in the bathroom.

First of all, Bizarro is the "literary equivalent of the cult section of the videostore" as Carlton Mellick often says. So, if David Lynch, Troma, Jodorowsky, weird anime, Nekromantik, John Waters, H.G Lewis or Andy Milligan are more likely to be on your netflix queue or what you take off the shelf in the videostore, than Bizarro is for you. My brand of Bizarro places emphasis on creating smart, satirical pulp that comes from real cultural places. I like to tell a pulp narrative in an experimental way and I don't think a person should place barriers on what they can include in their work. My books include things like teddy bear detectives, awards for serial killers, extradimensional Lovecraftian/Gigerian monsters turning people into machines, dinosaurs, dollar store hotsauce wars and existential detective work. I think essentially, my books are all about existential detective work, where the truth of the world melds with the truths of the self. Surrealistic Expressionism where things happen that should only happen in "low" fiction. There's blood, deviant sexuality and weirdness as far as the eye can see, but at the core of it, there's a message.

If you think werewolves are hiding in your toilet and you want to find out about me or my brand of Experimental Neopulp Bizarro ask a question here.

If you think Rob Zombie's Halloween wasn't great, but had some redeeming values and you want to find out about my brand of Neopulp Experimental Bizarro pose your questions here.

If you have a weakness for sweets and want to ask me questions about me and my brand of Neopulp Experimental Bizarro fiction, ask them here.

If you are or own a robot dog and want to find out about my brand of experimental Neopulp Bizarro, ask a question here.

Hate Nicholas Cage? Wanna find out more about my body of experimental Neopulp Bizarro? Ladies also welcome.