Friday 12 September 2014

Corpse Talk Season 1 by Adam Murphy

Fans of Horrible Histories will love the first volume of Corpse Talk, a dead funny comic strip that first appeared in the pages of The Phoenix

The concept is deceptively simple, freakishly funny and wonderfully ghoulish. An interviewer – artist and writer Adam Murphy – digs up the bodies of famous folk from the past, and then quizzes them about their lives, and in many cases, how they shuffled off this mortal coil. 

Kids with a love of the macabre will be suitably grossed out by the historical figures' gaunt mummified looks, while Murphy expertly condenses the main events of 33 notable lives into single or double page strips. 

The author's dry wit transforms potentially dry facts into full-on belly laughs that educate as they entertain. You'll certainly never look at the likes of Emmeline Pankhurst, Dick Turpin and Jane Austin the same way again, while familiar faces like the many wives of Henry VIII, Mahatma Ghandi or Charles Dickens get a fresh approach (well, as fresh as a mouldering cadaver gets anyway).

One to file under 'why has no-one ever done this before' Corpse Talk Season 1 proves that history - and the dead for that matter - needn't be stiff and starchy.

Reviewed by Cavan Scott


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1 comment:

Penny Dolan said...

Looks fun - in a scary sort of way!

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