The Cleft and Other Odd Tales

The award-winning cartoonist presents a collection of short stories praised by Stephen King as "genuine weirdness combined with wit and intelligence."

Gahan Wilson is one of the masters of macabre cartooning, ranked with Charles Addams, Edward Gorey, and Gary Larson. He is also a masterful storyteller. From the horror of "blot" to the gentle unease of "Campfire Story," from the classic oral-horror style of "The Marble Boy" to the science fiction scares of "It Twineth Round Thee in Thy Joy," the collection in The Cleft and Other Odd Tales shows Wilson at his very best.

Originally published in Playboy, Omni, and notable anthologies such as Again, Dangerous Visions, Wilson's short fiction is gathered here for the first time. The twenty-four stories are each accompanied by an original, full-page illustration done especially for this volume.

"A collection of meticulously eccentric stories. The illustrations are definitely the icing on this devil's food cake of a book." —The New York Times

"A beguilingly horrifying compendium of his short fiction . . . The pictures are top-notch. The collection provides more fun than watching Gary Larson arm-wrestle Dean Koontz for the favors of the Bride of Frankenstein." —The Washington Post Book World

"Wilson writes in a straightforward, intelligent, anecdotal style that presents an amusingly sinister look at humanity." —Publishers Weekly

"Macabre cartoonist Wilson is the peer of Charles Addams, Edward Gorey, and Gary Larson, but he bests them all at simultaneously eliciting shivers and giggles . . . Ghoulish good fun." —Booklist