The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and other stories

Tim Burton, acclaimed director of films such as Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride and so many more, is the author of the aforementioned title. Simply by looking at the title of the book my friend Taty showed me this afternoon, I was certain I'd buy it. That little black book with nothing more than silver words on the cover and a little sketch seemed quite promising. When it came to the author's name, I thought it was a joke.

I remember seeing little figurines of strange characters created by Burton's incomparable imagination at my local comic-book store some years ago. Characters like The Boy with Nails in his Eyes, The Girl with Many Eyes, Stain Boy... About 8 as far as I can remember.

So, we fought over the book, as I quickly read through the first story. The little drawings accompanying the short stories are really unique, as are the figurines I'd seen back then. The stories themselves well... They're weird, ranging from dark and serious to pointless and total whack.

I read it in about an hour. Tops. And it is more than 100 pages long... Now try to imagine how short a short story we're talking about! It was a nice read through though. I'll be checking back to it for reference later. Some nice quotes in there...