Bizarro Fiction

What is Bizarro fiction? Well, there are two ways to explain it: the long way and the short way.

The Short Answer

You ever wake up from a dream that made perfect sense at the time; but now that you're awake, you're left thinking, "What! Was! That!?" Bizarro Fiction is like that.

The Long Answer

Bizarro Fiction is a contemporary literary genre known for high weirdness. As the print media equivalent of the cult film, bizarro fiction strives to be not only strange but also thought-provoking and fun to read. Bizarro fiction takes place in a dreamlike alternate reality where the unexpected, unpredictable, unfathomable, or plain horrifying is commonplace. Think Magic Realism on... oh never mind... It's it is it is it is AAAAAARRRRRRGGHH*splot*

Traits of Bizarro Fiction:

1. Bizarro, simply put, is the genre of the weird.
2. Bizarro is literature's equivalent to the cult section at the video store.
3. Like cult movies, Bizarro is sometimes surreal, sometimes avant-garde, sometimes goofy, sometimes bloody, sometimes borderline pornographic, and almost always completely out there.
4. Bizarro strives not only to be strange, but fascinating, thought-provoking, and, above all, fun to read.
5. Bizarro often contains a certain cartoon logic that, when applied to the real world, creates an unstable universe where the bizarre becomes the norm and absurdities are made flesh.
6. Bizarro was created by a group of small press publishers in response to the increasing demand for (good) weird fiction and the increasing number of authors who specialize in it.

Frequently overlaps with Horror, Black Comedy, and Science Fiction. Overlaps, but is distinct from New Weird. May contain an affinity for the Punk genres. See also Genre-Busting. When it comes to fan fiction tropes, compare Crack Fic.

Here's this article that lists five common components of the genre, and this interview on Rose O'keefe about what bizarro is and isn't, and now a Booked Podcast episode!

Bizarro Publishers:

• Afterbirth Books
• Burning Bulb Publishing
• Eraserhead Press and its many imprints:
  • Deadite Press
  • Lazy Fascist Press
  • Raw Dog Screaming Press
  • Swallowdown Press
• Grindhouse Press
• Library of Bizarro Horror Press
• Legume Man Books

Novels, Novellas, Collections and Anthologies

• All Encompassing Trip
• Antipaladin Blues
• Apeshit
• Armadillo Fists
• The Ass Goblins of Auschwitz
• The Bad Box
• A Boot Stomping a Human Face Forever
• Big Gurl
• The Boy with the Chainsaw Heart
• The Brothers Crunk
• The Bum Trilogy
• The Cannibals of Candyland
• Clusterfuck
• Crab Town
• Cybernetrix
• Damnation 101
• The Egg Man
• Extinction Journals
• The Greatest Fucking Moment In Sports
• The Handsome Squirm
• Holey Matrimony
• House of Leaves
• I Knocked Up Satan's Daughter
• Kill Ball
• Lakehouse Infernal
• Marabou Stork Nightmares
• Monster Cocks
• The Morbidly Obese Ninja
• Naked Lunch
• Night of the Assholes
• Pseudo-City
• Quicksand House
• Sausagey Santa
• Sea of the Patchwork Cats
• Shatnerquake
• Shock Totem
• Snuggle Club
• Somewhere Beneath Those Waves
• Spider Bunny
• The Subject Steve
• Sweet Story
• A Symphony of Eternity
• Tales of the Space South
• This Is Your Final Warning
• The Tick People
• Tumor Fruit
• Ugly Heaven
• Ultra Fuckers
• The Vagina Ass of Lucifer Niggerbastard
• Village of the Mermaids
• Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland
• Zombies and Shit

Web sites featuring Bizarro Fiction

• RPC Authority
• SCP Foundation
  • The Wanderer's Library
  • Chaos Insurgency

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Tropes often found in Bizarro fiction:

• Body Horror
• Bizarro Apocalypse
• Gorn
• A Good Name for a Rock Band: A common trait of the titles.
• From Bad to Worse
• It Makes Sense in Context: For certain values of "context", and even then, not always.
• Mind Screw
• Nausea Fuel
• Random Events Plot: ... to go with the often dreamlike quality of the genre.
• Refuge in Audacity
• Rule 34
• Squick
• Surreal Horror
• True Art Is Incomprehensible
• Vulgar Humor
• Wackyland
• Word Salad Title

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