Friday, February 26, 2010

Steve Bissette's "Vermont Monster Guide"

I stumbled across Steve Bissette's home page awhile back. It is full of art, news, and lots of art. If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend his story of the creation of the Saga of the Swamp Thing #20, which begins here.

The artist is selling signed copies of his and author Joseph Citro's book The Vermont Monster Guide. The book features one paragraph to a couple pages on different monsters purported to dwell in Vermont. Every state has stories like this, but Vermont seems to have a lot of weirdness for such a small state. In here you can learn about The Bennington Monster, The Hopping Horror, and the thing that seems to freak me out the most: "Giant Red-Eyed Rabbits." These rabbits dwell on an island in Lake Bomoseen. Since the island is thirty feet from the shore, only the biggest rabbits could make the leap, so they've been breeding on this island. The book says they haven't harmed anyone but the idea of them bothers me(and Bissette's illustration, only he could make a B&W sketch of a bunny rabbit look creepy).

Bissette's drawings are what really make this book, people familiar with his work know he can add an extra edge of creepiness to everything. Some of the beasts, like The Hopping Horror, are only depicted in silhouette, making them even more weird. Highly recommended.

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