The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories

"The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories", by Tim Burton, is a book of poems that tell the stories of children with various defects. The tales of half-robot hybrids, spontaneous transformers, and women who have babies to win men range in tone from depressing to humorous, and sometimes both at the same time.

Stain Boy, Roy the Toxic Boy, Robot Boy, Match Girl, Staring Girl, and other characters from the book later appeared in a series of short Flash cartoons directed and written by Tim Burton, titled "The World of Stainboy."

Table of Contents

Origin of Title Poem

According to American comics artist and publisher Stephen R. Bissette, the title poem The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy was originally conceived as a project for Bissette's comics anthology "Taboo" and was actually written by horror novelist Michael McDowell, who had previously worked with Burton on the screenplays for Beetlejuice (1987) and The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). McDowell is thanked in the acknowledgements at the end of the book, but is not credited for writing the poem. [http://www.comicon.com/bissette/taboo_graphic_novels.htm]

External links

* [http://homepage.eircom.net/~sebulbac/burton/home.html Full book online]

* [http://www.atomfilms.com/af/spotlight/series/stainboy/ StainBoy at AtomFilms]