Cryptid Club

I really enjoyed Sarah Andersen's Fangs; a modern day werewolf/vampire romance with a Sex and the City vibe added to the mix. So I was really excited when I found this book just recently at my local library. 

Like Fangs, Cryptid Club is a collection of hilarious vignettes done as a newspaper comic strip. Unlike Fangs, this book doesn't have a linear plot to it. Though a couple of vignettes, like a budding relationship between two characters, do reoccur showing how things are progressing. 

Most of the cryptid characters are based on long-established legends such as the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot. You've got some more modern monsters too like Mothman. I'll grant that characters such as Slender Man and Alarm Man, which were created by artists, have taken on a bit of mythical status. But I take umbrage at ghosts being considered cryptids. Things that go bump in the night? Surely. But they should be in a totally different category other than cryptid. I don't care how funny their exploits were.

And no, I didn't confuse ghosts with the creatures on the cover. Those glowing-in-the-dark things that look like strolling molars are NOT ghosts! They're a fairly new cryptid called a Fresno Nightcrawler. They're kinda strange in the book. But from what I can tell, they're kinda creepy in real too! 

Cryptid Club was very fun. I probably should have waited until Halloween to read this. There are several Halloween themed laughs inside! But considering that this book was from 2022 and this was the first time I ever saw it on the shelves after countless visits to my local library over the years. I didn't want to risk getting to October and having someone beat me to the punch. 

It's also a super fast read. So give yourself a good half hour during a dark and stormy night. It'll make you into a believer. Even if spirits are misclassified as cryptids...

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.cryp

Pseudoscience: An Amusing History of Crackpot Ideas and Why We Love Them by Lydia Kang, MD & Nate Pederson

Myths and legends. The unexplained. The macabre. The paranormal. These are all subjects that I like to read about. This book by Lydia Yang, MD and Nate Pederson looks at an assortment of strange and unusual phenomena and attempts to disprove it through scientific fact. Your usual suspects are explored here: UFOs, ghosts, cryptids and the Bermuda Triangle. Then you have your lesser known unsolved mysteries like spontaneous combustion and ley lines. Then you have things that even a lifelong lover of all things this side of Ripley's Believe It Or Not have never encountered such as the all but forgotten 20th century school of thought/cult of Lawsonism.

For the most part the writers are fair and even a touch open minded. Right off the bat, they promise to not disprove any mainstream religions. Things like Atlantis could be real and while the authors destroy the concept of astrology based on the fact that Pluto is no longer a major planet in our solar system, they admit to sometimes reading their horoscopes because 'its fun.'

One subject that I felt did show a bias was the chapter on climate deniers. Personally, I agree that something is wonky with our weather. But I don't blame it solely on the human race. I really think something is off with our planet's axis because I don't remember it still being sunlight at 9:30pm during the summer when I was a kid. Yet, while the authors expressed hopes that maybe there really is a Loch Ness Monster, they both seem to close the door on any other explanation to climate change than it's all because of fossil fuels and deforestation. I agree that has something to do with it. But I feel like there's an unspoken element out there that is also contributing to climate change and that it's being kept hush-hush.

The authors have a pair of similar books that I actually have been wanting to read for some time now. After reading this 2025 book, I am still open to getting those sister volumes. There is a light-hearted element to (most of) this book. Mostly, it's relegated to the captions for the photos and some were really funny. I liked how the majority of the chapters details events and happenings as factual before going back and tearing down the subject matter with a scientific approach. It helps to give this book a very open minded feel to it because who knows, maybe one day we will be visited by aliens flying around in a flying saucer. It's doubtful. But it's not a concept that has been 100% disproven yet.

If only the authors had kept this approach to every chapter. I wouldn't have felt like I was tricked into a promise of scientific exploration of the unknown and wound up attending a very fierce-toned TED talk on climate change.

Even More Fund Comics

If you ever wanted a primer to Indy comics, creators and artists for the early 2000s, this is it! Dozens upon dozens of comic book talent came together to make this 2004 anthology benefiting the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Batton Lash's lawyers of Supernatural Law, The Cryptozoo Crew from Jerry Carr and Allan Gross, Mark McKenna's Banana Tail are just a few of the properties I've read and reviewed before. It was a lot of fun to get an all-new revisit to these characters that might not have gotten their due respect. 

There's also a slew of well known artists who contributed to the sketch book section of this book. Steve Rude, George Perez and Al Milgrom, along with Jim Lee, who drew to the Spider-Man/Green Goblin cover all make small donations of their time and God given gifts in this book. I'm thinking heavy hitters Marvel and DC weren't willing to let their superstars provide more than a single work of art least it interferes with their bottom line. But at least they were allowed to support the CBLDF!

There's at least one other volume out there similar to this. More Fund Comics, also by Sky Dog, benefits my favorite comic book charity. I'd assume with the title that there'd be a 'Fund Comics' out there too. Only, I can't find evidence of it. I'd like to read MFC. But if it's like this book, I'd probably sell it for something I really want. Thus, the first primer is something I will keep an eye out for but I'm not going to add it to my wish list.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars

Attack of the Killer Facts by Eric Grzymkowski

   Killer Bacteria! Alien Abductions! Odd Laws! Paranormal Activity! Freaky Weather! Human Oddities! Filled with 1,001 weird and bizarre bits of trivia, Attack of the Killer Facts is the ultimate bathroom reader for fans of the strange and macabre.

    Written by budding Jeopardy contestant Eric Grzymkowski, Killer is Facts is just one of several books written by the gang at the Daily Bender; an informative blog created by Adams Media. Though these fact books are considered 'bathroom readers' you don't have to enjoy them on the porcelain throne. 

   I love reading about weird and odd things and with over 1000 crazy tidbits of subjects ranging from the search for Bigfoot to the odd collections of serial killers, there was tons of new stuff for me to learn. Some of these facts were completely new to me- so new, I couldn't believe them! But each fact comes complete with a list of references so you can further your research like I did when I looked up Lina Medina, who at 5 years old, was documented as the youngest female to ever give birth!

   One thing that each of these facts also contain are jokes and I could do without them. Grzymkowski seems to think he's better suited at comedy than fact finding as he includes an often inane quip at the end of every factoid he presents. 99% of these kneeslappers produced groans instead of gaffaws. Still, even with these stinkers, the amount of interestingly odd facts are enough for me to give another one of Adams Media's readers a try. I just probably will chose one of the publisher's other authors over another offering by MR. Grzymkowski.

    A fun read that suceeds at being a poor man's Ripley's but fails at being another '1,001 Gross Jokes...'

   Worth Consuming

   Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.