No Ripley’s museum near you? No worries — admission is pretty pricey, anyway — because Ripley Publishing brings the oddities to you in RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT!: SEEING IS BELIEVING, the sixth volume in the franchise’s hardcover line.
Where else are you going to see skydivers playing Scrabble mid-jump, more than thousand soda bottles exploding at once, an upside-down house, a deer skull made of chocolate, and a no-hands eating contest where the main course is bull testicles? Well, nowhere else, hopefully, which is exactly the point behind the Ripley’s brand.
While I miss the illustrated simplicity and charm of Robert Ripley’s original comic strip, this big book still retains its WTF feel. In some ways, this approach — falling closer to GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS than the original cartoon, to be honest — is more credible, because the drawings are replaced with photographs. That way, you can see the man munching on cockroaches or the woman with earlobes that hang down to her boobs for yourself, rather than just imagine.
This one’s written for the Internet age, with entries remaining bite-sized for easy consumption … or as easy as they can be when the matter at hand happens to be people applying leeches to their gums, or a guy sticking 2,008 pins in his head.
There are many amazing photographs here, old and new, and some with legitimate news value. Design for the entire thing is big, bold and bright, appealing to a wide range of ages, although kids are the ones who will pore over it most, hence the lenticular cover. —Rod Lott
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