Surreal School Stories

    (Gratuitous Bunny, 1995-1996)
©1995 Gratuitous Bunny Comix

If you tour the British Museum, try turning left at the Magna Carta and take a look in the adjacent gallery to the rare books room. There, next to the impossibly rare stamp collections, you might chance upon a copy of The Magnet. This was a boy’s story paper from 1908 which combined pen and ink illustrations with textual tales of boyhood adventure.

Terry Wiley’s Surreal School Stories is a homage to those Magnet stories of yore, from the half-penny price on the cover to old-fashioned styling of the comic shop ads on the back page. The story itself is the story of young Jocasta Dribble, making her way in the late 1970s at the bizarre Tycho Brahe School for Girls. It’s a prequel of sorts to Wiley’s, Tales from Sleaze Castle, and More Tales from Sleaze Castle. Here, Wiley manages to stay faithful to the form of the old reader, while weaving in modern humor. Altogether, it makes for a unique “comic book” experience.
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