Graphic Content: Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? by Harold Schechter and Eric Powell

 

Ed Gein is a name familiar to horror fans, certainly. Many know that Gein is responsible for the genesis of horror villains Norman Bates in Psycho, Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. Even the general public might know the name Ed Gein simply due to the bizarre nature of his crimes. However, fewer people know the whole story of Ed Gein, what drove him to do what he did, and what happened to him once he was caught. The graphic novel Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? by Harold Schecter and Eric Powell gives the entire story.

The book begins with Augusta Gein praying for a daughter that she can raise to be just like her; what she gets is baby Edward. Ed Gein’s mother is indeed a dominant force in Ed’s life. She was a moral center in Ed’s life as well as a goddess ready and willing to dispense punishment. Her role as both saint and scourge, the book seems to argue, is part of what drove Ed to collect body parts from local cemetery and even commit murder. The book even looks at Ed’s final days committed to a mental hospital, asking questions of what his crimes mean to the people of Plainfield, WI, his hometown, and to Ed Gein’s legacy.

This graphic novel is a very comprehensive look into Ed Gein’s life, going all the way from the beginning of it to the end. Schecter and Powell’s story goes through many events of Ed Gein’s life that draw parallels between the proclivities of Bates and Leatherface. However, it doesn’t glorify Ed Gein; in fact, it does the opposite. While it does show how Gein’s mother may have influenced what he became, it also shows the townspeople, the people he killed, and, in stunning detail thanks to Powell’s artwork, the creations he made out of human flesh and bone. Powell’s artwork, compared to his work in The Goon and Hillbilly, is actually subdued here, still in black and white, but relying more on the faces and emotions of his subjects, particularly Gein, who shifts from flat and emotionless to excited once he gets a weapon in his hand. The book’s greatest strength is the discussion it provokes about how legends are created and perhaps some legends, like the crimes Eddie Gein committed, shouldn’t be mythologized.