Racks and Stacks - Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? from Albatross Funnybooks

 In the Racks and Stacks series, Cody discusses the comic books he has been reading.

This week, a true crime graphic novel.

The true crime case of graverobber and murderer Ed Gein has inspired some great horror stories, including Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Silence of the Lambs, and Deranged – and it has also inspired some not-so-great horror stories. The recent Netflix series Monster: The Ed Gein Story was presented as if it would actually be telling the true story, and a lot of viewers were convinced that it did. But I have had an interest in the Gein case for decades, and I was appalled by the way that show approached its largely fictionalized presentation of Gein. (And don’t even get me started on its awful presentation of Alfred Hitchcock, or its completely unnecessary detour into the private life of Anthony Perkins.)

After watching that show, I turned to Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? as a palate cleanser. A collaboration between writer/artist Eric Powell and Harold Schechter, who wrote the Gein biography Deviant, this 224-page graphic novel is a dramatization of Gein's life that sticks much closer to the historical record than any of the screen adaptations. 

Powell and Schechter also don't sensationalize the crimes nearly as much as many adaptations do. Instead, they reconstruct the events surrounding Gein's isolated upbringing on the family farm outside Plainfield, Wisconsin, his domineering religious mother Augusta's overwhelming psychological influence on him, the deaths of his parents and brother Henry, and the lonely years that followed. They also cover the grave-robbing expeditions that Gein later admitted to, depicting how he targeted the graves of women who resembled his mother and stole body parts that he transformed into household objects and clothing.

The graphic novel also presents the two murders Gein is known to have committed. Tavern owner Mary Hogan disappeared in 1954, leaving behind a blood-covered floor and a baffled community. Three years later, hardware store owner Bernice Worden vanished just before deer hunting season, leading investigators to Gein's farm. Their search uncovered one of the most infamous crime scenes in American history: Worden's body hanging dressed like a butchered deer, along with bowls fashioned from human skulls, furniture upholstered with human skin, masks made from faces, and countless other artifacts assembled from the remains Gein had collected from cemeteries. 

The book acknowledges that there are some things about the Gein story that we'll never know. The circumstances surrounding Henry Gein's death remain suspicious, but there has never been enough evidence to prove Ed murdered his brother, and Powell and Schechter resisted the temptation to present that speculation as fact. They avoid inventing additional victims or imaginary crimes to make Gein seem even more monstrous, making the story more unsettling than works that rely on exaggeration.

Eric Powell's artwork is perfectly suited to the material (although Alfred Hitchcock didn't need to look quite so ghoulish - poor Hitch is always getting the short end!). Powell captured the rural Midwestern setting and the oddball personalities that populated Plainfield, and also the disturbing things that are found inside the Gein farmhouse. The contrast between the ordinary world and the horrors hidden behind the farmhouse doors is very effective.

If you want to know "The Ed Gein Story," Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? is one of the best places to start. It's a respectful, meticulously researched dramatization that understands the difference between filling in historical gaps and rewriting history. Stay far away from Monster if you're looking for factual accuracy and read this instead.

Note: Marvel Comics will not be covered in Racks and Stacks articles, as they have their own article series.