Horror Hospital Unplugged

Dennis Cooper, best known for his transgressive novels of gay teen angst and brutal sexual longing, has adapted one of his early short stories into this large-sized, punked-out graphic novel. Tracing the early career of Trevor Machine, rock star on the rise, Cooper manages to parody the L.A. teen scene as well as all of popular culture. The superb, surrealistic drawings by Keith Mayerson bring Cooper's descriptions and dialogue to new heights of demented parody and social commentary; it is if Antonin Artaud and Keith Haring took the wrong drugs and collaborated on a kids cartoon show. Horror Hospital Unplugged is artistic cross-pollination of the highest order: smart, shocking, and always just over the line.