“Carlton Mellick III introduced most readers to bizarro decades ago, and heâs one of the few whoâs still carrying the torch. It seems like a lot of writers pass through bizarro on their way somewhere else. I think, for a while, bizarro was in the spot where horror movies where in the 70âs and 80âs.
If you were a young director back then, and you wanted to make a movie, a horror movie was the way to go. The locations were usually cheap (cabin in the woods, rundown farmhouse), the actors were usually first-timers (and sometimes last-timers), and because movies as dumb as Friday the 13th could make a shitload of money, studios didnât have to get too involved, which was perfect for a director trying to show off their vision.
Maybe some of you donât like that I called Friday the 13th stupid. But itâs pretty stupid. If you havenât seen the original, I guess spoilers are coming. I wouldnât normally worry about it, but I have to side with anyone who says that they started reading a review of a bizarro book filled with stories of a clown mafia, and they were surprised to find a spoiler for an old slasher. When I put it in words, it doesnât even make sense. But here we are!
If youâre familiar, you probably know that the killer in the original Friday the 13th isnât Jason, itâs Jasonâs mom. Sheâs pissed off because camp counselors were âfornicatingâ and smoking wacky grass and doing whatever camp counselors do in these old movies. Based on the Friday the 13th movies Iâve seen (most of the first 4, plus Jason Goes to Hell like 17 times) camp counselor seemed like a good job if you wanted to spend a couple months drunk in the woods. And who doesnât want to do that?
Whatâs dumb about the Jasonâs mom thing is that we arenât even aware of her as a character until the end of the movie. So itâs not like a viewer could watch and figure out who the killer was, and itâs not like a tension-builder, just wondering how one of the characters weâve seen is getting away with all this.
Imagine a game of Clue, but at the end the murderer is Admiral Buttsecks, a character you didnât even know was in the game until the end. Wouldnât you feel cheated? Also, Colonel Mustard would probably be relieved that his ridiculous last name was overlooked because he was preceded in the military by someone with an even more ridiculous last name. Andâ¦is Colonel Mustard a real military colonel, or is he a Kentucky Colonel?
Googlingâ¦googlingâ¦
Okay, thereâs a whole history. Heâs usually a military colonel. But this search has put me on to some highlights from various versions of the game:
1996 UK: Similar to his 1949 counterpart, he is given an updated and more psychotic look. He wears a yellow tuxedo and is an expert in weapons and conspiracy.
A more psychotic look. Well, thatâs really something.
1972 US: Portrayed in photograph as an elderly buffoon, wearing a tweed suit and sporting white fuzzy mutton chops and moustache. He wears a monocle for the first time and has an exaggerated uptight expression.
Hey, hey, hey. No buffoon wears a monocle. A gasbag, perhaps, a dilettante, MAYBE, but a buffoon?
2002 US: A more cubist rendition of 1996 US Mustard, Michael Mustard is a retired military man trying to pen his autobiography to supplement a dwindling income.
Ah, the 90âs and 2000âs, a time when someone could actually make a living by writing a book so we all had to pretend it was really difficult so we could keep everyone from getting in on the action.
Discover the Secrets: Col. Mustard had been completed reinvented as Jack Mustard, an ex-football player come sports pundit.
Well, thatâs just dumb.
Back to Friday the 13th, having the killer be a character we havenât seen is a total cop out.
Back to Clownfellas. Because this is, after all, a book review, not a movie review or board game review.
Oh, but first, a board game review: Clue sucks if your dad plays it with you, refuses to go easy on you because youâre a kid, and you have no fucking idea how those logic puzzles work and how the clues in the game could lead you to the killer.
Oh, and a movie review while weâre at it: I only saw Clue when I was young. All I remember is boobs. This is a boob-heavy movie with no actual nudity. Possibly one of the most salacious movies with no nudity in it that Iâve ever seen.
The Maid, obviously.
But then thereâs Miss Scarlet.
Somewhere thereâs a WAREHOUSE of footage where this characterâs top just fell off, I guarantee it. Where is this warehouse? Heaven, as far as an adolescent Pete is concerned. Am I saying that an adolescent Pete would basically consider it heaven to watch 2-second clips of a lady topless? Forget laying around on clouds or reuniting with grandparents. âLook, itâs most of a boob!â
Clownfellas.
My first Carlton Mellick III was The Menstruating Mall. Menstruating is a hard word to spell. Like diarrhea. Why are all these words so hard to spell? Itâs like every word that has to do with fluid ejection from the body, someone decided to make it hard to spell.
In the years that followed, I read lots of others like The Baby Jesus Butt Plug, Satan Burger, The Faggiest Vampire, Punk Land, Cuddly Holocaustâ¦lots of others.
And then I read Quicksand House and Tumor Fruit in pretty short order, and I saw some growth. Haha, get it? Tumor? Growth?
Carlton Mellick III, somewhere along the line, had become a good writer. He was always interesting, always had great ideas, but he was a little like Philip K. Dick. I always liked Dick, but there were certainly moments in his books where you had to ignore some of the writing and stick with the story.
CMIII started writing better. His characters made you feel things. In Tumor Fruit, there was some tenderness. In Sausagey Santa, things were weird, and they were also truly hilarious.
Clownfellas might be his best.
The book is a series of stories tied together, all stories about the Binzo crime family. Without giving it all up in the review, thereâs a mob of clown dudes, a city called Little Bigtop, and things are pretty bonkers from there. BUT, the book doesnât skate on being weird for the sake of being weird. Itâs fun, the stories are like episodes of the Sopranos, the fun ones, and the book would probably work without the clown thing. Which might make it sound like the clown business is unnecessary, but I see it as the clown part being a great spice that makes everything a little better.
Mellick is writing books that arenât just bizarre, theyâre good, and the bizarre is an additive rather than the main focus. He deserves a lot of credit for that.
And he deserves credit for sticking with bizarro. Clownfellas makes me think he could make a move to other genres if he wanted to. It kinda makes me suspicious, based on his crazy ability to crank âem out, that maybe he IS writing in another genre under another name.
But heâs still in the bizarro game, and heâs making the world richer for it.
I loved my first bizarro, and itâs an exciting future where other readers will pick up their first bizarro and itâll be this good.”