The Freak Show

Graphic Novel
Various Artists
(1994)

The Freak Show comic book from Dark Horse Comics features an impressive collection of artists, each illustrating one song from the album (with the exception of Kyle Baker who handles both the opening and closing songs and ties all the others together with his renditions of Tex the Barker).
There is also a special limited hard-cover edition of the comic which was sold with a 13-minute CD called Blowoff, inspired by the songs on Freak Show.
In the list below I've named a few of the other works by the artists who appear. The song titles link to the lyric sheets.

The Freak Show Comic Book
Front Cover
Charles Burns


Everybody Comes to the Freakshow
Kyle Baker


Harry the Head
Brian Bolland


Jello Jack
Matt Howarth


Wanda the Worm Woman
John Bolton


Mickey the Mumbling Midget
Savage Pencil


Herman the Human Mole
Richard Sala


Benny the Bouncing Bump
Pourneaux Graphics


Lillie
Dave McKean


Nobody Laughs When They Leave
Kyle Baker
PICTURED: CD -ROM - VOYAGER

FREAK SHOW (1994)

CD-ROM GAME

Freak Show CD-ROM from Voyager Company is an interactive "game" based on the stories behind the freaks in the album.

It takes the form of a trip through the Freak Show tent. Upon your arrival Tex the Barker shows you to the displays featuring each of the album's freaks (including The Residents themselves). In the far corner of the tent there is a booth named Pickled Punks, inside which you find a juke-box which displays of eighty-one historical freaks from American sideshows.

If you sneak back behind the tent you can get into the freaks' trailers and poke around in their private possessions, learn their stories, and see the videos associated with each of them. Most of these videos are new to the CD-ROM: only Harry the Head had one before.

The Residents themselves have a trailer, shaped (naturally) like a giant eyeball with a top-hat. It contains a history of the band's music, videos, and performances, with video and audio clips (much of the material was taken from the Twenty Twisted Questions laserdisc, also from Voyager). There is also an interactive version of the Ralph Records Buy Or Die catalog which includes albums, videos, books, t-shirts, posters, and so on.

The entire environment -- tent, trailers, characters -- is modelled and rendered in three dimensions and the transitions from one point of view to the next are fully animated. This work was done by computer animator Jim Ludtke who created the Harry the Head video for the band. The Residents worked closely with Ludtke throughout production, talking three or four times a day and meeting at least once a week, presenting him with ideas one which he'd build.

The final result was enormously successful, making the Top 10 lists for a number of computer magazines and winning several multimedia industry awards. It has been praised for finally showing that CD-ROMs weren't just books with movies in them or movies of books, but something completely new and different.

One of the album's tracks was left off of the CD-ROM: the song Lillie, which is not about any of the freaks but rather a freakish member of the audience. EuroRalph rectified this shortcoming by releasing a special edition of the CD with an extra CD-ROM track containing a video for the song based on the Freak Show Comic Book artwork by Dave McKean.