The Aviary by Jamie Tanner

Everyone thinks the sticker I have on my laptop is Drinky Crow. It is, in fact, the (more or less) title character from Jamie Tanner's "The Aviary," the Quiet Bird-Man. Most normal people should never be exposed to the unfiltered insanity of this work. It may seem unbelievable, but Mr. Tanner has gone several degrees weirder than Tony Millionaire.

This is a collection of short stories. Ones with normal enough sounding names like "Always in Love" and "Amber." The content is anything but normal. You might be right that the story "Barry Pago, Crime Scene Investigator" is about a murder and criminal forensics. You might be mildly surprised at the twist that this investigator brings his kid to work with him. But you will be weirded out by the fact that Barry is a cyborg penguin. And you'll be freaked about the atrocious things he does to the female corpses.

A lot of times it may seem Tanner is reaching for just the most messed up and absurd story he can, but there is an organizing force at work here. All the stories are connected, and what starts as an exercise in absurdity turns into one of the best achievements in world-building I've seen in comics. The first handful of stories are entertaining, but a couple shades too nonsensical, weird for weirds sake. Then begins the puzzle-like process of making some semblance of sense out of the thing. It's like Tanner fully set out to produce something unabashedly strange, but his brain wouldn't let it go unexplained. And, whether intentional or not, a mad logic is slowly put in place, he retcons his nonsense into a world where it all could really happen. These stories were originally put out as mini-comics, and I fear for anyone who just read one story and didn't get this whole book to justify it.

So it's a masterwork of world-building, I say? What about the rest, then? Well, the style of it is of the cross-hatched Victorian sort and fits well. It doesn't blow you away, but it is solid and consistent. Almost every character in the book is foul-mouthed and cartoonishly angry. Either that or talks stilted Olde-Timey speak. But I guess that gets back into the world-building again.

It's definitely what they call a "love it or hate it" book. I'd call it near a genius sort of thing. It comes highly recommended for me. But, for you? I'm not as sure.

Here's the official page. It's got preview stuff.