The Mad Monster Book of Horrifying Clichés

    (E.C., 2003)
™ and © William M. Gaines, Agent

People may say they dislike clichés, but the fact is that things become clichés for a reason: they’re very familiar. In this compilation of full-page cartoons originally presented in Mad magazine, these clichés truly have taken on a life of their own, in the form of horrifying monsters. Thus, a person who is “troubled by a nagging doubt” has a scaly, blue-colored creature dogging his heels. A man who’s “laboring under an illusion” is chained to a wheel while an immense, whip-bearing monster (an “illusion”) stands ominously over him. And somebody who’s “drowning his sorrows” or “escaping the doldrums” – again, the actions are literal, because the objects are three-dimensional monsters.

Each page of the small humor book brings a similar cliché to tangible, monstrous life, as drawn by Paul Coker Jr.
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