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Toxic Gumbo
Performance artist Lydia Lunch and noted illustrator Ted McKeever join together to create this graphic novel about an orphan named Onesia. The story follows her rejection by the society surrounding the Louisiana Bayou due to her bizarre affliction--all of her body's various fluids are tremendously toxic to others.
47 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1998
98 people want to read
About the author
Lydia Lunch
49 books198 followersLydia Lunch (born Lydia Koch) is an American singer, poet, writer, and actress.
In the mid-'80s, Lunch formed her own recording and publishing company called "Widowspeak" on which she continues to release a slew of her own material from songs to spoken word.
Later, she was identified by the Boston Phoenix as "one of the 10 most influential performers of the '90s", Lunch's solo career featured collaborations with musicians such as J. G. Thirlwell, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Nick Cave, Marc Almond, Billy Ver Plank, Steven Severin, Robert Quine, Sadie Mae, Rowland S. Howard, Michael Gira, The Birthday Party, Einstürzende Neubauten, Sonic Youth, Die Haut, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Black Sun Productions and french band Sibyl Vane who put one of her spoken words into music. She also acted in, wrote, and directed underground films, sometimes collaborating with underground filmmaker and photographer Richard Kern (including several films such as Fingered in which she performed unsimulated sex acts), and more recently has recorded and performed as a spoken word artist, again collaborating with such artists as Exene Cervenka, Henry Rollins, Don Bajema, Hubert Selby Jr., and Emilio Cubeiro, as well as authoring both traditional books and comix (with award-winning graphic novel artist Ted McKeever).
In 1997 she released Paradoxia, a loosely-based autobiography, in which she candidly documented her bisexual dalliances, substance abuse and flirtation with insanity.
In the mid-'80s, Lunch formed her own recording and publishing company called "Widowspeak" on which she continues to release a slew of her own material from songs to spoken word.
Later, she was identified by the Boston Phoenix as "one of the 10 most influential performers of the '90s", Lunch's solo career featured collaborations with musicians such as J. G. Thirlwell, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Nick Cave, Marc Almond, Billy Ver Plank, Steven Severin, Robert Quine, Sadie Mae, Rowland S. Howard, Michael Gira, The Birthday Party, Einstürzende Neubauten, Sonic Youth, Die Haut, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Black Sun Productions and french band Sibyl Vane who put one of her spoken words into music. She also acted in, wrote, and directed underground films, sometimes collaborating with underground filmmaker and photographer Richard Kern (including several films such as Fingered in which she performed unsimulated sex acts), and more recently has recorded and performed as a spoken word artist, again collaborating with such artists as Exene Cervenka, Henry Rollins, Don Bajema, Hubert Selby Jr., and Emilio Cubeiro, as well as authoring both traditional books and comix (with award-winning graphic novel artist Ted McKeever).
In 1997 she released Paradoxia, a loosely-based autobiography, in which she candidly documented her bisexual dalliances, substance abuse and flirtation with insanity.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 5, 2018
Just as fun as it is to watch artists grow stylistically, it’s also fun to grow and change along with them. The older we get, hopefully our opinions and perspective mature alongside our bodies. As St. Paul states in Corinthians 13:11, different times in our lives reflect different viewpoints.
And there is no other comic book artist/illustrator that I’ve had such wide ranging perspectives on. From the absolute worst comic I’ve ever read, to some of the most intriguing, Ted McKeever’s canon has never failed to amaze, disgust, or most importantly both.
Enter: Toxic Gumbo, one of McKeever’s rarest hidden gems from the late 90’s. Featuring a separate author, Crazy Uncle Ted’s capacities are only exhibited in the visual this time. This guest author provides pretty prose which is strongly contrasted with the expected “grotesque” in all its unvarnished idiosyncrasy.
Within the first three pages, an explicitly Biblically tinged story becomes quite un-biblical with an outright rejection of Job. Henceforth, a tale of abandonment and aberration trickles forth. While it never builds into a deluge, a simmeringly subconscious dynamism twists and turns with the force of a hundred tributaries.
Though never diverging from its single stream of narrative, multiple rivers of reference both externally, to Dahmer for example, run concurrently with internal references, including McKeever’s other works. Although our orphan initially begins her sordid tale in a Catholic school, the story doesn’t take off until she splashes out of the convent. No graduation here folks, just explement due to school-wide poisoning.
From here forth, our suitably pseudo-hero rows down her river alone. Existential emanations and internal meditations all take place across rural Southern America and its innumerable bayous. As twisted as the characters she meets, a much mutilated tale of coming of age is saturated with revenge and vindication, pain and suffering, and all the bizarreness we expect from a McKeever work.
An acquired taste yes. But if it’s been acquired already, drink deeply. You will enjoy.
And there is no other comic book artist/illustrator that I’ve had such wide ranging perspectives on. From the absolute worst comic I’ve ever read, to some of the most intriguing, Ted McKeever’s canon has never failed to amaze, disgust, or most importantly both.
Enter: Toxic Gumbo, one of McKeever’s rarest hidden gems from the late 90’s. Featuring a separate author, Crazy Uncle Ted’s capacities are only exhibited in the visual this time. This guest author provides pretty prose which is strongly contrasted with the expected “grotesque” in all its unvarnished idiosyncrasy.
Within the first three pages, an explicitly Biblically tinged story becomes quite un-biblical with an outright rejection of Job. Henceforth, a tale of abandonment and aberration trickles forth. While it never builds into a deluge, a simmeringly subconscious dynamism twists and turns with the force of a hundred tributaries.
Though never diverging from its single stream of narrative, multiple rivers of reference both externally, to Dahmer for example, run concurrently with internal references, including McKeever’s other works. Although our orphan initially begins her sordid tale in a Catholic school, the story doesn’t take off until she splashes out of the convent. No graduation here folks, just explement due to school-wide poisoning.
From here forth, our suitably pseudo-hero rows down her river alone. Existential emanations and internal meditations all take place across rural Southern America and its innumerable bayous. As twisted as the characters she meets, a much mutilated tale of coming of age is saturated with revenge and vindication, pain and suffering, and all the bizarreness we expect from a McKeever work.
An acquired taste yes. But if it’s been acquired already, drink deeply. You will enjoy.
August 27, 2023
This is the only book I've ever read that's given me nightmares, which is saying something. It's gross, it's vividly visual, it's extreme, but it's not heavy on plot or development, and it's a tale that feels a bit out of the storytellers' lane. But if you want to be squicked out all to hell and back, this is a winner.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews