{"product_id":"how-to-make-a-monster-ugly-memories-of-chicago-from-a-south-side-escapee-9781683965718","title":"How to Make a Monster: Ugly Memories of Chicago from a South Side Escapee","description":"Conveyed as a bleak first-person narrative with darkly humorous overtones, Casanova Frankenstein reveals how real life experience shaped his hard-bitten, survivalist view of life. His was a world of fear and isolation punctuated by bullying thugs, the stifling atmosphere of the Lutheran school on the South Side of Chicago, racial segregation, unapproachable girls, and a home life consisting of an emotionally distant and unsupportive mother and an violent, alcoholic cop father who was not above giving his son a good thrashing now and again while preaching Christian family values. It is a searing portrait of an unbearably painful upbringing. \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eHow to Make a Monster\u003c\/em\u003e is illustrated by Australian outsider artist Glenn Pearce in a rare creative symbiosis in which Pearce captures Frankenstein's inner turmoil using a variety of stunningly realized artistic approaches from naturalistic portraiture to outrageously inventive phantasmagoric imagery. A seamlessly contrapuntal balancing act between Frankenstein's raw, unadorned writing and Pearce's stunningly detailed drawing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eFrankenstein, Casanova:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cstrong\u003eCasanova Nobody Frankenstein\u003c\/strong\u003e was a Gen-X latchkey-kid, raised on the incongruous influences of '70s-era Chicago UHF TV-programming and American-hypocrisy. He earned degrees in Fine Art and Metaphysics and produced art, poetry, and comics (\u003cem\u003eIn The Wilderness\u003c\/em\u003e, which he wrote and drew, was published by Fantagraphics in 2019). He worked a 25-year string of Kafkaesque day jobs while maintaining a strict personal code. Retiring early in 2016 due to health issues, he remains a combination of James Baldwin, Charles Bukowski, and Mad Max -- but 20-years ahead of his time.\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePearce, Glenn:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Born in 1975 \u003cstrong\u003eGlenn Pearce\u003c\/strong\u003e, INFJ and animal and human rights activist, has been an Australian underground comic artist since 1990.","brand":"Fantagraphics Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50452696301842,"sku":"9781683965718","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_6d1753a2-5565-4a10-9394-28280ca17d6e.jpg?v=1729819210","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/how-to-make-a-monster-ugly-memories-of-chicago-from-a-south-side-escapee-9781683965718","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}