It’s been a while since we’ve seen anything from the Berkeley, Calif.-based indie publisher memorably known as Omnibucket, but it’s back with THE BOOK OF CLAV. Each Omnibucket release is vastly different from the one before it, with the only common thread being a high-quality marriage of art and words.
THE BOOK OF CLAV is a bit of a mind-bender. It’s presented as a journal of a frustrated painter and Internet ad designer, who wrote in it for 15 minutes every morning. Mostly, our unnamed narrator writes about a discarded book with cardboard covers and a Sharpie-scrawled moniker — the tome of the title — filled with strange art.
As the daily entries progress, so does his obsession with the so-called BOOK OF CLAV. He can’t paint, he can’t sleep, he can’t function. He’s haunted by the images in which he loses himself, in this Dumpster find. He tries to send it away; it comes back. The works end up in an art gallery; he tries to steal them. This act creates a buzz that only further fuels our narrator’s mania.
Easy to see why! The art — interspersed throughout the entries — is hypnotic and bizarre, at once seemingly mundane and oddly disturbing. Luckily, it’s also in full-color. Omnibucket further preserves the illusion of CLAV’s “reality” by wrapping the journal and art with a faux history, dropping enigmatic hints as to the whereabouts and wellness of the person whose journal you’re about to read.
In reality, words and art are provided by the ever-talented Scott Lambridis and Tyler Landry, and once again, they’ve done a hell of a job in presentation, for a work that’s simultaneously an experimental art project and a piece of meta fiction. —Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• BRAINCHILD
• GOD’S ACRE: BOOK ONE – THE RAVENS & THE RHYME
