Gaylord Phoenix Paperback – December 1, 2010

Definitely a strange read, but a good one for anyone exploring issues of gender or sexuality. It is definitely a trip. Had to read it for a class. Didn't think I'd like it at first but now its one of my favorite graphic novels, even though it has a lot of explicit sexual content, which usually makes me uncomfortable. The art is compelling and dialogue is used sparsely, but meaningfully. Great book.

I own volumes 1-5 of the zines and having this collection to top it off is great, now I dont have to lend out my zines and risk loosing them if I want to show it to someone.

Given that I'm not very much into this type of comic, it didn't feel right for me. I just bought it for a class basically. But the artistic style was definitely cool and unique. The author even came to my class as a guest speaker.

Edie Fake has been slowly releasing his mini-comic Gaylord Phoenix in tantalizing bits for the past seven years. Indie comics publisher Secret Acres has finally collected all of the issues (including a previously unpublished closing chapter) and bundled them together into what amounts to a queer graphic epic.The text is sparse, and absent are many conventions of the comic form: speech bubbles, panels, sequential storytelling. Instead, Fake has created his own visual language, utterly foreign yet immediately decipherable. Across gorgeous full-page illustrations, the titular Gaylord Phoenix soars over pyramids and paisley landscapes, and dives headfirst into crystal caverns and feasts at a smorgasbord of surreal homoerotic exploits. Simultaneously, the strangely emotional creature experiences the ups and downs of soul-searching and identity-making in a complex world riddled with ambiguity. Magic, sex, mythology and violence are all fractured and recombined through Fake's psychedelic lens. We're talking flying diamonds, wizards with linked beards, cloud napping, tubular genitalia and one seductive emperor crocodile.In short: it's a trip.[...]