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thecommonswings's review
5.0
I’m currently reviewing the latest pREServed reissue of the Freak Show album for a friend and thought I should order the book to give it a new perspective. The Residents have always been at some level thwarted film makers but they have successfully transformed those thwarted ideals into other visual and multi media areas. As such this book basically aims as less a libretto for the album - which is basically an opera - and more a visual explanation or rumination on the characters within. It’s really made me appreciate the record a lot more (it’s one of their less immediately loveable midi efforts) and gives a whole new dimension to the songs.
It helps that the Residents/ Cryptic Corporation have asked a really diverse bunch of artists to contribute: Bolland brings realism, Sala absurdity, Savage Pencil his usual grotesques and John Bolton and Dave McKean a really heavily artistic vision of weirdness. Matt Howarth has a far more cartoony style but that really works for the saddest song on the album. Pourneaux Graphics, which is basically Homer Flynn of the Cryptics and possibly the singing Resident (not that it matters), also contributes and although his style is more slapdash it really works well as an insight from the shadowy inner universe of the Residents. Kyle Baker works really well at bringing all the stories together, which are rejigged from the order on the album probably so that the styles are suitably spaced apart throughout the book. Of course Charles Burns does the cover
Freak Show may not be the most beloved of Residents albums but it’s still a fascinating creation, and you have to hand it to them when they create media like this to flesh out and reposition their work. They truly commit to their universe and this really helps to do that. It’s a shame there are no women artists here, because the band have used women’s voices since the very beginning, but I suspect this says more about the alternative comics scene of 1992 than anything else. I’d love them to do something like this again (and I can dream of submitting something!)
It helps that the Residents/ Cryptic Corporation have asked a really diverse bunch of artists to contribute: Bolland brings realism, Sala absurdity, Savage Pencil his usual grotesques and John Bolton and Dave McKean a really heavily artistic vision of weirdness. Matt Howarth has a far more cartoony style but that really works for the saddest song on the album. Pourneaux Graphics, which is basically Homer Flynn of the Cryptics and possibly the singing Resident (not that it matters), also contributes and although his style is more slapdash it really works well as an insight from the shadowy inner universe of the Residents. Kyle Baker works really well at bringing all the stories together, which are rejigged from the order on the album probably so that the styles are suitably spaced apart throughout the book. Of course Charles Burns does the cover
Freak Show may not be the most beloved of Residents albums but it’s still a fascinating creation, and you have to hand it to them when they create media like this to flesh out and reposition their work. They truly commit to their universe and this really helps to do that. It’s a shame there are no women artists here, because the band have used women’s voices since the very beginning, but I suspect this says more about the alternative comics scene of 1992 than anything else. I’d love them to do something like this again (and I can dream of submitting something!)
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