Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?

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It’s possible to feel pity for them for the torture they endured in their pasts without in any way feeling sympathy for the creatures they become. I read this graphic biography/history for two reasons; 1) Sam Quixote had it on his list as one of the best graphic works of 2021, and 2) because I was going to spend the weekend at a lake cabin not fifteen miles from where Ed Gein is buried in an unmarked grave in the tiny village of Plainfield, Wisconsin (no, I did not visit the gravesite of the murderer! The question is asked right at the beginning, the first pages presenting us Alfred Hitchcock as he talks about one of his masterpieces, Psycho, based on a book by Bloch inspired by Gein’s life. One of the greats in the field of true crime literature, Harold Schechter ( Deviant, The Serial Killer Files, Hell's Princess ), teams with five-time Eisner Award-winning graphic novelist Eric Powell ( The Goon, Big Man Plans, Hillbilly ) to bring you the tale of one of the most notoriously deranged serial killers in American history, Ed Gein. I was very curious about this graphic novel (or a comic, as I will refer to this book from this point on) can tell what wasn't already known, especially to me since I already read Harold Schechter's "Deviant", an in-depth look at Gein's case.

He’s also tremendous at capturing faces and body language, and the characters here would be memorable even without dialogue. Gein sewed suits of clothing out of the skins of dead bodies, made a belt out of nipples, ate his meals out of a bowl fashioned from the top of a skull, and performed a litany of other horrors. Rating 7: A pretty comprehensive (and therefore deeply disturbing and depressing) history of Ed Gein and his crimes, though the format felt at times unnecessary.Also, the authors have a unique take on Gein’s psychosis and seeing their disturbing depiction of his inner thoughts is what really makes this book]. Look, it is very detailed about the horrible things this man did, but they lay out the story with appropriate breaks. The evocative art by Powell, done in his trademark black and white illustrations, is inked and shaded to perfection. And then of course there are books like this that continue to be produced about him, 60+ years after his arrest, because it’s such a unique story. Gein has always bummed me out because it is VERY easy to trace his warped sense of self to the massive amounts of abuse he was subjected to from a very young age.

Eddie is portrayed as a bumbling fool at times, but the author and artist show he might have a much more sinister side, which I 100% believe. Throwing up is something we may want to do while reading Professor Harold Schechter and Eric Powell’s graphic novel. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.No spoilers; even if you already know the true story, the artistic choices here deserve to be experienced fresh, so I’ll be vague. Chapters go up to a horrifying point and then the next chapter steps back a bit to reframe the story from a different angle-- even when just slightly reframing, it helps immensely.