Dave Louapre

This is a collection of three previously unpublished Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children, the darkly humorous comic book series by Dave Louapre and Dan Sweetman. The three tales featured in this short anthology:

Lester, the Lonesome Druid - The morose reminiscence of a long-dead Druid, Lester laments about the wasted actions of his people and his life, and the absurd insignificance of it all. Existential angst, dead Druid style.

Even Bluebirds Go to Hell - Probably the most uplifting story in the collection, crotchety old Edna Krutch and her annoying dog Tippy find themselves adjusting to their new lives of eternal torment, which to some people can be a blessing in disguise. Heart-warming damnation at its finest.

The Night They Missed the Donkey Show - A group wanders through the streets of downtown Tijuana in search of the elusive Donkey Show, touring a nightmarish landscape that makes the previous visions of Hell seem like a romantic getaway.

This is an essential addition to any Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children collection, and a perfect sampler of the kind of twisted, guilty pleasures this short-lived series had to offer.… (more)

Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children was without a doubt one of the most darkly poetic comic books to ever see the light of day. A Cotton Candy Autopsy reprints the first issue of that series, Anybody's Freak, which involves the sordid adventures had by a group of clowns that take to the road after the circus burns down. It follows it up with new material, two more segments that continue the story of other members of the group, Bingo and Addy's Escape, and The Resurrection of Joey Punchinello. Dave Louapre has a way of crafting haunting imagery that is equally captivating and repugnant; there is a cynical sadism at play within his twisted tales, yet they always manage to reveal the admirable flaws of the human condition. Dan Sweetman's illustrations match the tone and lyricism of Louapre's prose to such an extent that it is hard to separate the two. A Cotton Candy Autopsy dissects the human spirit in only the way that renegade clowns can, through a sweetly morbid lens.… (more)

Hilariously disturbing (or is that disturbingly hilarious?), The Wasteland is a collection of one-page comics from the creative team responsible one of the most creatively twisted comic book series ever, Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children. The Wasteland reads like the Far Side would if Gary Larson had been emotionally abused as a child and raised by crack-addicted circus clowns, with absent minded archaeologists replaced by mime vivisectionists and joyful suicide victims. There's enough dark humor in these pages to scare off the timid and boring, leaving only the most demented readers behind. If that sounds like entertainment to you, then you'll definitely want to queue up for this ride.… (more)