title: The Big Book of Urban Legends: 200 True Stories, Too Good to be True!
author:  Jan Harold Brunvand 
description: Urban legends--those apocryphal, happened-to-a-friend-of-a-friend stories of such outlandish incidents as "the microwaved pet" and "alligators in the sewer"--are inherently fun, but they've never been as entertainingly presented as in this collection of some 200 told in comic strip format by a stunning variety of artists drawn from the comics mainstream (e.g., Howard Chaykin, Keith Giffen, Dick Giordano), underground (e.g., Tina Robbins, Justin Green, Shary Flenniken), and everywhere in between. Although the contributors' work is of uniformly high quality, some of them relate the tales in realistic, deadpan fashion, whereas others take a cartoony approach that exaggerates the already outlandish nature of the yarns. An introduction and commentary by urban folklore scholar and entrepreneur Jan Harold Brunvand (<i>The Vanishing Hitchhiker</i> [1981] et seq.) legitimizes the project, but as Brunvand points out, comics are just another manifestation of the same popular culture that spawned the legends in the first place. All told, the big paperback is a promising, affordable launching of DC Comics' new Paradox Press imprint. <i>Gordon Flagg</i>
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  Copyright © 2012 J.A. Redmerski
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  
  
  
  ISBN-13: 978-2475011033  
  ISBN-10: 2475011033
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, historical
  events, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places
  and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to
  actual events, locales, persons living or deceased, is entirely coincidental.
  
  
  
  
  
  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole, or in part
  and in any form.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Cover Illustration by Daniele Serra
  
  
  Crow image by Pedro Medeiros (deadinsane)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  For Brian Salata, who made me write a one-page story about a man sitting in a
  park. And for just about everything else, too.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “If it feels wrong, it probably is.”
  
  
  \--
  
  
  THE CITY BUS SQUEALED to a halt, sucking me right out of my favorite daydream,
  the clichéd one about 