Gein is typically described as a serial killer, which is not how I see him. The phrase “serial killer” was first coined to describe psychopathic sex-killers—lust-murderers, as they used to be called: depraved individuals who achieve orgasmic ecstasy from torturing and murdering victims. That was not Gein’s M.O. Essentially, he was a necrophile who robbed graves, brought home the corpses of elderly women, dissected them, and fashioned ghoulish objects out of their body parts. It’s true he murdered two women but—without minimizing those crimes—they were not, unlike the victims of Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy, tortured. They were swiftly executed and used to provide the raw material for his ghastly handiwork. I will always be interested in comic book/Graphic Novel retelling a of true crime stories, it’s combines one of my favourite topics with my favourite format and this is a stellar addition to the genre. Obviously Ed Gein’s story has been fictionalized many times in the movies,” said Schechter in a press release. “In no visual medium, however, have the bizarre inner workings of his mind been explored and portrayed. The graphic novel is the perfect medium to conduct such an exploration. DID YOU HEAR WHAT EDDIE GEIN DONE? will not only bring the factual details of Gein’s crimes to vivid, compelling life but draw the reader into the phantasmagoric realm of his uniquely deranged psyche.”

Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? - Goodreads Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? - Goodreads

Darkly disturbing, and scarier because it is based on facts, this story is not to be missed for true-crime aficionados! I am a True Crime enthusiast. I’m one of those weirdo’s that will come out with “interesting” facts about serial killers, spree killers, or cults during a dinner party. I will proudly press my rather age worn and well-read copies of Douglas & Olshaker’s “Mindhunter” or Ressler & Shachtman’s “Whoever Fights Monsters” into the hands of anyone I can convince to read them. But the book that seems to spend more time in the hands of my friends than actually on my shelves, is Deviant by Harold Schechter. In Chapter 11, Professor O’Hara explains your theory regarding the possibility that Gein’s mother had become a sort of deity to her son. If taken as a metaphor for Gein’s deranged mind, the effect is such that we do not feel intimidated, yet, if taken as proof that Gein’s was not something peculiar, that his was not a case never to be repeated, this means that he was simply acting out a primordial need that is part and parcel of humanity (or, at least, of part of humanity). Your theory, so it seems to me, destabilizes our preconceptions of what a serial killer is. Is our idea of progress and civilization, something we derive from ancient Greece (with its us-civilized and them-uncivilized dichotomy), a blatant lie we tell ourselves? For those who aren’t aware of the story of Ed Gein (pronounced Geen), and without giving too much of the book away, Ed was a quiet and quite well thought of (if considered harmlessly odd), resident of a small town of less than 400. The discoveries at his farm in November 1957 saw him convicted of murder, grave robbing, and evidence was presented of cannibalism, bizarre human taxidermy, and necrophile practices. Ed Gein’s crimes captured the attention of the world, and led to his incarceration in an institution for the criminally insane where he died at the age of 77 in 1984.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. All that aside, I know I’ll remember this book for 2 specific moments in particular. [No spoilers; even if you already know the true story, the artistic choices here deserve to be experienced fresh, so I’ll be vague. Also, the authors have a unique take on Gein’s psychosis and seeing their disturbing depiction of his inner thoughts is what really makes this book].

Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? (Hardback) - Waterstones

Lonely, damaged, lunatic Eddie was arrested in late 1957, itself a somewhat surprising fact; so ingrained in the American mythology is his story that it’s easy to blur in the memory and think it happened much earlier, around the turn of the century. Reading Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?, it’s easy to have this kind of thought: What is there left to say about someone whose status as a horror from the heartland has been so thoroughly hashed over that it seems like there can’t be anything new to say about it? Of course, one might think the same thing about Charles Manson, and look how much new light has been shed on that uniquely American creature just in the past few years, from Quentin Tarantino reshaping his story into the stuff of show business mythology in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to the disturbing revelations about his ties to government spooks in Tom O’Neill and Dan Piepenbring’s excellent book Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixities.

What Powell and Schecter accomplish is more akin to rumor than fiction. If fiction contains a spark of truth, "Did You Hear Eddie Gein Done?" finds its narrative in the flames. They bring you so close to the facts that you can feel the heat of reality off of them, and it stings. It is impossible to create a comic book that is literally true. You can present facts, photos, first-hand accounts, and primary documents, but the instant you start speculating, you are a storyteller. Harold Schecter is a true-crime writer whose 1998 book, Deviant, is considered the definitive text on the life and crimes of Ed Gein, “The Butcher of Plainfield.” Eric Powell is the creator of The Goon, a supernatural crime comedy known for its delectably vile violence and sacrilege. Though their chosen genres could not be more disparate, they share a slightly bent perspective, and the challenge of presenting the facts of Ed Gein’s abhorrent existence in a compelling graphic novel has produced a work that is singular and extraordinary. I am also a huge comic book fan, so when I heard that Eric Powell was producing a Graphic novel about Ed Gein in conjunction with Harold Schechter, it was like the stars had aligned.