Carlton Mellick III, the godfather of bizarro fiction, is back with a tribute to the unintentionally terrifying children’s commercials of the ‘70s and ‘80s.
Only Petey remembers the Fruit Fun cereal commercials of the 1980s. He remembers how warped and disturbing they were. He remembers the lumpy-shaped cartoon children sitting around a breakfast table, eating puffy pink cereal brought to them by the distortedly animated mascot, Berry Bunny. The characters were creepier than the Sesame Street Humpty Dumpty, freakier than Mr. Noseybonk from the old BBC show Jigsaw. They used to give him nightmares as a child. Nightmares where Berry Bunny would reach out of the television and grab him, pulling him into her cereal bowl to be eaten by the demented cartoon children.
When Petey brings up Fruit Fun to his friends, none of them have any idea what he’s talking about. They’ve never heard of the cereal or seen the commercials before. And they’re not the only ones. Nobody has ever heard of it. There’s not even any information about Fruit Fun on google or wikipedia. At first, Petey thinks he’s going crazy. He wonders if all of those commercials were real or just false memories. But then he starts seeing them again. Berry Bunny appears on his television, promoting Fruit Fun cereal in her squeaky unsettling voice. And the next thing Petey knows, he and his friends are sucked into the cereal commercial and forced to survive in a surreal world populated by cartoon characters made flesh.
From the cult author of Cuddly Holocaust, Cannibals of Candyland, and I Knocked Up Satan’s Daughter, comes an absurd horror tale that pulls you in and never lets go.
This spring, we are hatching a unique hard-boiled crime story by Michael Allen Rose, Embry: Hard-boiled.
A darkly comic noir about a chicken living in a world of anthropomorphic eggs who’s wanted for a murder he didn’t commit.
Life’s tough for an “embry.” Considered a vestigial organ at best and a parasite at worst, chicken embryos are usually aborted by the egg folk early in life. Once in a while one survives and slips through, hatching into an embry, an ostracized, lower caste anthropomorphic chicken. They have their own ghettos, and are barely tolerated by polite society. Our hero wakes up one day to find that some upstanding citizens have been scrambled. The king, his horses and his men are now after our hero for a crime he didn’t commit and proving his innocence is going to be nearly impossible. Thank goodness he’s armed with spurs, or the rotten eggs prowling the alleys of this strange grocery item city would fry him good. Delving deeper and deeper into the mystery, Embry uncovers his own bizarre background and finds he is hunted by a secret society who revere the most famous egg of all time, the very egg he himself emerged from during the great fall.
From the author of Boiled Americans and Party Wolves in My Skull comes a dystopian crime story that will have you asking: Which comes first, the chicken or egg?
We are thrilled to announce that this year Eraserhead Press will be releasing a new book every month! Stay tuned for more details on our full 2017 release schedule and get the new year started off right with EXERCISE BIKE by Carlton Mellick III. This book is a dark and twisted body horror comedy set in a health food dystopia. If you enjoyed Every Time We Meet at the Dairy Queen Your Whole Fucking Face Explodes and The Terrible Thing That Happens, this is the third release in the line of new “manga sized” novellas that you’ll want to add to your collection.
There is something wrong with Tori Manetti’s new exercise bike. It is made from flesh and bone. It eats and breathes and poops. It was once a billionaire named Darren Oscarson who underwent years of cosmetic surgery to be transformed into a human exercise bike so that he could live out his deepest sexual fantasy. Now Tori is forced to ride him, use him as a normal piece of exercise equipment, no matter how grotesque his appearance.
Set in a health food dystopia, “Exerice Bike” is an absurd horror tale of domination and submission, power and obedience, desire and desperation, from Wonderland Book Award winner Carlton Mellick III. Buy now!
It’s getting on the most Bizarro time of year! November brings not only BizarroCon, the biggest gathering of Bizarro authors in the world but also brand new Bizarro books for the discriminating weirdo. This year, we have not just another book by Southern fried pulpmaster David W Barbee but also a bizarro dark comedy by skillful Tiffany Scandal! You could order them when they come out next week (Nov 18th) or, if you’re really excited (which you should be), you can preorder them now!
He was just another man with a drinking problem. Only, alcohol transformed this man into a beastly hulk named Piggly Swiggly. And since he’s always drunk, big and brutal Piggly has drowned his human half in a sea of booze.
After yet another rampaging bender, Piggly Swiggly awakes in a sprawling metropolis full of crocodile zeppelins, greasy bacon addicts, and worse: prohibition. Trapped in this strange tee-totaled town, he must keep his buzz going or else revert to his weak and vulnerable human form. But even then, Piggly Swiggly’s depraved existence may prove his undoing, especially when gangsters are plotting to cut off his snout, a pig-loving princess is looking to steal his heart, and he must face the worst torture of all…sobriety.
“One of the most exciting new voices to emerge in years. A deft, masterful mix of both bizarro and horror.”–Brian Keene, author of The Rising and Ghoul
“Dark and grim and surreal.” —Electric Literature
Mondays suck. You get mugged, your car won’t start, you miss the bus, and your stylist burns a bald spot into your head. Suddenly you’re single and unemployed, and the only friend you have left is a cat. By Tuesday, you’ve been murdered. But death isn’t the end. You find yourself on an odyssey between weird worlds, reborn each time you die, stalked obsessively by the man who killed you.
Even in death, you just can’t seem to catch a break. Call it Mercury in retrograde, call it Murphy’s law, call it . . .SHIT LUCK
***
And of course, bizarro fans know that November also brings something else to look forward to: The New Bizarro Author Series. Every year, Eraserhead Press seeks out the best new talent in bizarro fiction. This year, we bring you four wild, weird and unique new bizarro books for your reading pleasure and you can be the first kid on your block to own ’em! The books don’t come out until the 17th but you can make sure you get them as soon as humanly possible. How? By preordering them now.
The Sky hates Kyle. He’s not sure exactly what he did to anger The Sky, but now, Kyle’s life is a nightmare. He loses his job, his girlfriend leaves him, not to mention he’s assaulted by hail, rain, flying condoms and anything the sky can possibly throw at him. Trees fall on his house, and hurricanes are sent after him. And that’s just the beginning. Enigmatic emissaries of The Sky come and lend their brand of aid, which only succeeds in sending Kyle on a journey into madness, crime, redemption, sexual indiscretions and despair. Can Kyle make peace with The Sky, or will the entire world always conspire against him?
How much longer can I live like this, if one can call this living?
The question haunts Bill Vine, an adipose junkie with a mean McRecycling habit, as he goes about the business of resupplying his dwindling stores of body fat. But then one day he has an intimate encounter with the deadly but alluring black goo and crosses over into the neo-reality of Tetraminion. In this new world, a degenerate species of enslaved mutants serve as the primary source for gringe, an unspeakable substance distributed by a faceless cabal known as The System. Intent on more than controlling the supply of gringe, The System will exploit Bill’s innermost secrets and fears.
Being a teenager is awkward. Being a teenager when you’re attracted to your aunt is even more awkward. Being a teenager when you’re attracted to your aunt who happens to be a seventies pin-up poster hanging in your uncle’s bathroom is almost unbearable. Aunt Poster is a coming of age story like you’ve never seen before, a tale of guilt, lust and obsession with no easy answers. Can love conquer all this awkwardness? Probably not.
A wolf with guitar strings. A turtle turned into drum. An alligator girl transformed into a synthesizer. A golden retriever converted into a theremin. These animals are the lifeblood of prog/noise group 2666. The beasts live in slavery until a sentient golden ax teaches them that they can be free. Their human masters are ruthless, cruel and desperate for fame but for these creatures, life and freedom is at stake. The instruments of 2666 will fight and die for it.
