Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?

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Rating 7: A pretty comprehensive (and therefore deeply disturbing and depressing) history of Ed Gein and his crimes, though the format felt at times unnecessary. It sure doesn’t excuse what he did; plenty of people are abused and don’t turn into the kind of guy who makes a belt out of women’s nipples. This "dramatic" retelling of Gein's life and crimes wants desperately to be the latter, but I have the sinking feeling it is more of the former. Evil is here taken as an abstract element that is linked to hurting and harming people without a rational justification. The complexities of the psychology behind Gein is definitely handled very well: on the one hand, he has clearly suffered from a toxic childhood, and potential abuse, meaning that he was easily led when being questioned as he seemed to lack a degree of emotional intelligence, but on the other hand, you see the troubled darkness that was within him, and his unnatural desires.

This book delves deep into a backstory of a ruthless, overbearing mother whom young Ed worshipped despite her viciousness, as well as a violent household filled with tragedy and forced ostracism. so it’s not surprising that he could get away with this, even in a small community like Plainfield, Wisconsin.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. I read this graphic biography/history for two reasons; 1) Sam Quixote had it on his list as one of the best graphic works of 2021, and 2) because I was going to spend the weekend at a lake cabin not fifteen miles from where Ed Gein is buried in an unmarked grave in the tiny village of Plainfield, Wisconsin (no, I did not visit the gravesite of the murderer! There, Moore was informative on the story of Jack the Ripper but it was written as a great story with all that intrigue and suspense that I wanted. Eddie is portrayed as a bumbling fool at times, but the author and artist show he might have a much more sinister side, which I 100% believe. But for me, one of the more depressing stories is that of Ed Gein, murderer, grave robber, and recluse whose furniture and decorative creations were made of body parts.

In a desolate farmhouse in Plainfield, Wisconsin, Gein's macabre crimes would inspire some of the most well-known and frightening ghouls of pop culture horror. Don’t misunderstand me, Eric Powell has a really well done final product with his illustrations, and they have a weird and unsettling energy to them that still feels based in realism.But there is something more: We might indeed feel sick in the stomach just by a situation where we perceive something is not at all right, as if the lurking feeling that crawls on the back of our neck is not lying there for nothing. One of the greats in the field of true crime literature, Harold Schechter (Deviant, The Serial Killer Files, Hell's Princess), teams with five-time Eisner Award-winning graphic novelist Eric Powell (The Goon, Big Man Plans, Hillbilly) to bring you the tale of one of the most notoriously deranged serial killers in American history, Ed Gein. One is the lurid and exploitative variant characterized by the pulp magazines Gein is shown reading.

Yet, once we reach the end of the novel, especially page 206, the only thing that’s left for us is disgust. In the end, the Gein we are being presented with in this superb novel is not a character we can understand, at least not regarding the motives behind his abhorrent conduct. That book had me at work or out and about craving to get back home to continue reading curious as hell to see what was going to happen next. Gein's case is special not only because of the crimes and the lives he took - but also what kind of legacy he left behind and both Eric Powell and Harold Schechter address this as well with much grace and insight. But before Dahmer, in 1957, there was Eddie Gein, one of the most truly macabre people to ever walk the planet (oh, I know he has competition).I was very curious about this graphic novel (or a comic, as I will refer to this book from this point on) can tell what wasn't already known, especially to me since I already read Harold Schechter's "Deviant", an in-depth look at Gein's case. Initially there was Robert Bloch’s bestselling novel Psycho followed by Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic movie adaptation which introduced the world to Norman Bates, and then later emerged other incarnations like Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. I appreciated the insight into Gein’s motivations because Gein took that information to the grave (unmarked, following years of vandalism of his headstone, though he would’ve been pleased to know that he’s buried next to his beloved mother) and we’ll never know why he did what he did.

Darkly disturbing, and scarier because it is based on facts, this story is not to be missed for true-crime aficionados! Even if his memory isn’t 100% accurate, we can see that his brother could have had a better effect on him had he not died (or, perhaps, Gein murdered him, although the evidence is inconclusive) when Gein was 37. As we are parents of a brain-damaged kid, we’ve often heard over the years about how much we don’t know about the brain, and it’s clear that Gein’s brain was on a whole different wavelength than most of us.Review: A statement I am about to throw out there is going to sound weird and perhaps a bit screwy, so I need to proceed with a caveat: true crime as a subject matter is depressing. He starts with the premiere of “Psycho”, a story that takes inspiration from Gein’s twisted and abusive relationship with his mother, and slowly starts to tell the tale of Gein and how he potentially went from mild mannered and scared boy to small town monster. This comic gives a visual that changes perspective on the case from desensitized cop-talk to something that truly shakes you deep within.