1. John Robinson
2. Synopsis. In this graphic novel there are 9 short stories of differing tales and characters. The stories follow in this order “Putrid Night” “Sewer Boy” “A Season In Hell” “Shit Soup” “The Great Masturbator” “Putrid Night: Raven Of Oedipus” “Sewer Boy: Paradise” “Voyeur In The Attic” “Nonresistance City” ALL OF THEM HAVE VERY GRAPHIC CONTENT AND SHOULD BE VIEWED AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION. This is not a book for the faint of heart. Seeing as each story has its own characters it’s hard to write a synopsis of each story without spoiling all of them. But I will say that a lot of this novel is focused on sex. Putrid Night is about an oppressed housewife who plans to kill her husband with her lover. However this plan backfires and the husband sees through the plan and ends up leaving both for dead. In Sewer Boy I mother attempts to kill her son by drowning him in a sewer. However the infant survives and lives off of peoples defecation. In A Season in Hell there is a boy who while walking home from school sees a grouping of dead bodies but he sees a figure approaching and runs home. We later see into the mind of the boy and find he is taunted by night terrors. In these night terrors he is tormented by the laughter of his parents up to the point where he kills them in his dreams. In Shit Soup it is a small group of kids who are having sex with one another. After the group finishes there fun they go and defecate on plates and consume it. In Putrid Night: Raven Of Oedipus we see a woman who is caring for a gravely injured man who has lost all his limbs. However when she is not with him, her mind is filled with sexual fantasies involving him. In Sewer Boy: Paradise the same boy for the sewers in the previous story returns and lures a bunch of teenage girls to a brothel where they are violated. In Voyeur in the Attic we see through the eyes of a young man who witnesses a woman kill her newborn child. Nonresistance City is a story following the tale of a women and her child. The woman is continually accosted by a male “performer” who is shorter than even her son. As she continues to spur his advances he adamantly provides food for the woman and child. He finds that enough is enough and he takes mattes into his own hands.
3. Artwork styling’s - In Ultra Gash Inferno the art is done in black and white and entirely in ink. The cover appears as though it might have been painted but it also appears to have been done in color ink. In this novel there are realistic looking characters yet the things that happen to them are rather abstract and intense. Many of the panels in this manga have a very dark tone and are very focused on one thing at any point in time. Also many of the panels, if not all of them, correspond with exactly what is going on. I would also say a lot of this novel is rather abstract seeing as many of the things that happen are rather outlandish and crazy. I would also say that this novel has an excruciating amount of detail in many of the scenes, and much of it is focused around the sexual nature that is made prevalent in the novel even if it tries to obscure what it is that you see.
4. Why was this made - As far as I can tell this novel was made in order to try and make people uncomfortable. In fact if you are not made uncomfortable by this novel you have a stronger stomach than most. As I read through I was trying to comprehend what it was that I was reading. Considering each of the stories is independent from one another you have to search out what it is that the novel is doing. A lot of the novel involves sex and the sick twisted things people do during it. This point is evidenced in many of the stories. The most prominent story it is shown in is The Great Masturbator. In this story there is a boy who practiced incest with his aunt. However she soon passes and the boy longs to feel his aunts touch. So he goes to her grave and masturbates while smacking his head against her gravestone. Meanwhile his sister who was following him trying to figure out what he was planning on doing gets kidnapped and raped. This is one of the more tame stories which is a scary thought. So I would say that my assumption that this was made to make a person feel uncomfortable and desensitized to the odd is pretty spot on.
5. What are the strengths of this novel - Well I would say that this novel is very good at pushing the boundaries of what people are comfortable with. If you are a person who enjoys things that have shock value then this novel is one for you. I would also say that there art is fantastically done. All of the people look rather life like and it is done in painstaking detail. As I said before much of the detail is focused on the sexual orientation of the novel but the none.
6. What does this novel lack - I feel like this novel lacks a lot of substance. I say this because it is difficult to understand what is going on at any given point in time. As you flip through each story there is a lot coming at you such as a lot of text, large text bubbles and over emphasis on certain areas of a frame. Also there isn’t much too much to each story and as such it is hard to really get anything from it. I would also say that this novel lacks continuity seeing as there are a lot of stories in there and almost none are interconnected.
7. Who would I recommend this novel to - I would probably recommend this book to people who enjoy odd stories seeing as this book is full of them. I would also recommend this novel to people who are not afraid to see things that are taboo and ill talked about such as sexual deviations, murder and rape as all of these things also appear in the novel. This is most defiantly not a novel for children due to all of the adult content so I would say18-30 would be the intended audience of this book.
8. Other Books by Author - Another of this authors more famous novels is Mr. Arashis Amazing Freak Show. In fact it was so popular in some groups it was adapted into a animated film know as Midori.
9. Personal Rating - I personally rate this book a 4/5. It was going to be a 3/5 but after giving the novel a second and 3rd flip through I decided it had a lot going on outside of the sexual content such as pseudo realistic art.
