If you really bonk your loved ones , you ’d get them Cosmocopia by Paul Di Filippo , with illustration by Jim Woodring . It ’s that rare thing : an art book that throw your brain volley . NSFW pic below .
A circumscribed edition of 500 copies , Cosmocopia is a affair of total beauty . It reminds me of some of McSweeney ’s uncanny experiments , but in the service of a trippy , disturbed skill fabrication novel . Besides the book itself , which is a hardy hardcover with a few illustration by Woodring , the whole matter come in a cardboard box which contains a print of lurid instance of the novel ’s most disturbing scenery . ( See below . ) And there ’s a 500 - piece jigsaw puzzle which come together to organise a demented simulacrum of weird tool from another universe of discourse .
But candidly , it ’s worth the $ 65 price tag just to get Di Filippo ’s novel ( novella ? ) , which may actually be the most demented thing I ’ve ever take by him . And if you ’ve read Di Filippo ’s work , you ’ll cognise that ’s a tall order . I ’ve been a shout fan of his since I first read his story about Queen Victoria melt down off to know in a brothel and being supplant with a genetically engineered mega - triton , which is inthe Steampunk Trilogy book .
In Cosmocopia , Di Filippo tell the story of Frank Lazorg , an artist who rose from a pulp magazine illustrator in the forties to become a famous creative person in his own right . Lazorg is a creature of pure ego , and every time you think he ’s give out to see something beyond himself , he reverts to type . Now an sure-enough human race , he ’s endure a virgule that ’s left him ineffective to paint … until a inscrutable helper send him a violent block of crushed scarab to use as pigment . Lazorg eats the scarab spread instead , and becomes fresh , seeing the world afresh through the ruby daze .
And just when you think you see where the story is going — Lazorg is run short to become a drug fiend , pick up more and more fantastic thing and becoming more monstrous in the process — it takes a sharp odd turn , and then another . Without render too much away , Lazorg leaves this universe behind and visits a more primitive universe , closer to the source of creation . The “ Cosmocopia ” of the book ’s title is n’t literally a horn of heap , it ’s a series of stacked universe , with the smaller universes nigher to the reservoir and the bigger universes farther away .
In this fresh universe , the dweller all have their genital organ on their faces , and they have two mentality , one in their head and one in their guts . They consider Lazorg as a monster ( and he is , sort of ) but finally come to take over him . But just surviving is n’t enough for Lazorg , who wants to be a slap-up creative person in every universe of discourse . artistic creation , as Lazorg see it , does n’t live in this other universe , so he has to instruct the close equivalent , which is call ideation . He finally master the local artistic creation variant , but that is n’t enough for him : he has to flex it to his will . Along the way , he use anyone who worry about him , including the local creature , Crutchsump , who fall in love with him .
This story permit Di Filippo ask some enchanting questions about the nature of art , and the difference of opinion between representational and non - representational graphics . ( Which is fitting for an art book , which come with lovely illustrations and is an object of mantrap in itself . ) It ’s all mixed up with sexuality and spirituality , and the nature of that mysterious endpoint of the series of stack universes . But in the end , the floor is always about Lazorg ’s raging self , which make him a more audacious creator than anyone else but also makes him starve fame and worship . Is it really potential to be a great creative person without having a horrendous self ? , Di Filippo seems to ask . We never quite get an answer , just like Lazorg ’s last face-off with the beginning of the Cosmocopia does n’t quite settle all our interrogation .
In short , Cosmocopia is one of the few book - as - fetich - token that is also a thought - agitating , exciting read . If I had to niggle , I ’d say I like for a few more exemplification inside the book . And $ 65 might be a tad extortionate — although it ’s a gift for the whole family line . ( I cogitate the jigsaw teaser is kid secure , if you have a eldritch kid . ) But those are just quibble , and aboveboard this is way better value for money than a few DVDs , or some nice drug — and the force will last a lot longer . [ Cosmocopia ]
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