Lonely, damaged, lunatic Eddie was arrested in late 1957, itself a somewhat surprising fact; so ingrained in the American mythology is his story that it’s easy to blur in the memory and think it happened much earlier, around the turn of the century. Reading Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?, it’s easy to have this kind of thought: What is there left to say about someone whose status as a horror from the heartland has been so thoroughly hashed over that it seems like there can’t be anything new to say about it? Of course, one might think the same thing about Charles Manson, and look how much new light has been shed on that uniquely American creature just in the past few years, from Quentin Tarantino reshaping his story into the stuff of show business mythology in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to the disturbing revelations about his ties to government spooks in Tom O’Neill and Dan Piepenbring’s excellent book Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixities. I will always be interested in comic book/Graphic Novel retelling a of true crime stories, it’s combines one of my favourite topics with my favourite format and this is a stellar addition to the genre. I am also a huge comic book fan, so when I heard that Eric Powell was producing a Graphic novel about Ed Gein in conjunction with Harold Schechter, it was like the stars had aligned. Kaikin puolin surullinen sarjakuva perustuu aika tiukasti faktoihin, joiden pohjalta Harold Schechter on kai kirjoittanut elämäkerrankin. Loppusanoissa mainitaan kohdat, jotka ovat arvelun varassa tai tekijöiden omaa tulkintaa. Schechter and Powell have created something spectacular and horrifying. Their well-researched and narratively-engrossing depiction of Ed Gein & his crimes evokes a range of responses, from pathos and humor on one end to revulsion and horror on the other.

Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? - IGN

Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? is a powerful meditation on the things that can make a person take the lives of others, and then go further. It’s a detailed and very smart take on True Crime that is interested in explaining the phenomenon that is Ed Gein. There’s horror, there’s pain, and there’s violence, but the point of it all is to consider just what it is that goes into the formation of an all-American killer. I think true crime has always been popular. If you look at photographs of the newsstands in 1940s New York City, for example, you see an astonishing number of pulp true crime magazines. What’s different now is that this once-disreputable genre has achieved cultural respectability. It’s gone mainstream. My own sense is that the enormous popularity of the podcast “Serial” and the HBO documentary “The Jinx” gave the genre a new cachet.It is here that the book shines even more, not just thanks to the impossibly masterful strokes of artist Eric Powell’s pencil, but also by not giving us a straight answer: surely, we are given an interpretation of what might have happened in those moments when nobody was present, but, at the same time, there is no final judgment being uttered by the two writers. I’ve seen documentaries on Gein before so I was familiar with most of the grisly details in this book, but there were some interesting new aspects that Schechter introduces for the reader to consider. Like whether Gein truly was insane given that his murders, particularly the last one, Bernice Worden, shows definite premeditation, and he got away with his crimes for many years before eventually being caught. He also comes across as very careful with his words in the interviews and not being declared insane at his trial would’ve meant going to the chair instead of being confined to a mental institution. He was certainly mentally ill but insane, as in not in control of his actions? Hmm… If you have lived in Wisconsin, as I have, you know the book Wisconsin Death Trip which makes a case for the state being one of the creepiest places on the planet (including chapters on monsters/serial killers such as jeffery Dahmer, and so on). But before Dahmer, in 1957, there was Eddie Gein, one of the most truly macabre people to ever walk the planet (oh, I know he has competition). And I admit, I have recently taken a (shallow, hypocritical) stand against the sensationalization of murder in my review of a graphic memoir, The Murder Book (Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell), a book about the author's obsession with True Crime, as I was at the same time reading Norman Mailer's Executioner's Song, about psycho-killer Gary Gilmore. But those are fictional characters, and Eddie Gein is for sure NOT. He was a mentally unstable person abused by his mother and other people in his town, and eventually averted his attention to killing folks because...well reasons. But in this book they go into a deep dive. You'll learn about Eddie from birth to death, and while it's most certainly not painting him as a worthy person to be talked about, it shows who and maybe even hints to why he did what he did. Ja niin siinä sitten kävi, että wisconsinilaisessa Plainfieldissa murhattiin loppuvuodesta 1957 kauppias Bernice Worden. Gein jäi melkein heti käpälälautaan, mutta hänen tilalleen saapuneet viranomaiset eivät olleet varautuneet siihen mitä he löytäisivät... Sisältövaroitus on paikallaan, kuvamateriaali on hetkittäin aika häiritsevää.

Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? (Hardback) - Waterstones

Obviously Ed Gein’s story has been fictionalized many times in the movies,” said Schechter. “In no visual medium, however, have the bizarre inner workings of his mind been explored and portrayed. The graphic novel is the perfect medium to conduct such an exploration. Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? will not only bring the factual details of Gein’s crimes to vivid, compelling life but draw the reader into the phantasmagoric realm of his uniquely deranged psyche.” Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? is an in-depth exploration of the Gein family and what led to the creation of the necrophile who haunted the dreams of 1950s America and inspired such films as Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs. In a way, this book was a bit of a first for me. I have read graphic novels before, but this was the first which had true events at its heart. And, with those events being truly horrific, I was interested to see how this subject matter would be handled in this genre.En ole aina ihan varma mitä makaaberista true crime -genrestä pitäisi ajatella, mutta tulinpa kuitenkin lainanneeksi kirjastosta Harold Schechterin ja Eric Powellin albumin "Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done" (Albatross, 2021).

Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? - Goodreads Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? - Goodreads

Raised by a tyrannical, religious zealot and likely insane mother Augusta and drunken, violent father George, Schechter/Powell provide glimpses of scenes Ed would probably have seen in his youth which might explain his later behaviour, like seeing his mother butchering a pig and his father tanning leather. It’s a very grim life story and it’s not hard to see how damaging a life of paranoia and isolation could be to a person - Ed really had no chance right from the beginning. He added: “And when my favorite true-crime author and Gein expert, Harold Schechter, enthusiastically agreed to work with me on a project, it was a dream (nightmare?) come true. The best part is we have a really unique take with in-depth information. I’m really proud of this book and I think anyone also intrigued by the darker aspects of the human psyche is really going to enjoy it.”Gein has always been a fascinating case. In terms of body count (which, in the world of true crime, is the sexiest statistic, the equivalent of home runs in baseball), he was pretty much a dud, tallying a meager two killings. But the grim details of the house of horrors he inhabited in tiny, unremarkable Plainfield are what made him one of the country’s most notorious maniacs and led to so many people patterning fictional killers, from Norman Bates to Leatherface to Buffalo Bill, on his story. 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. He was the quintessential American psychopath, and his story caused a media frenzy that loomed far larger than the human cost of his crimes. 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.