The Nightmare Factory

Mareridtsfabrikken

Stunning nightmare drawings alongside darkly comical poems - John Kenn Mortensen is at his best in this gem of a book.

John Kenn Mortensen, the Danish cult illustrator, celebrated by fans around the world for his incredibly detailed illustrations of monsters.

The Nightmare Factory

Mareridtsfabrikken

Stunning nightmare drawings alongside darkly comical poems - John Kenn Mortensen is at his best in this gem of a book.

John Kenn Mortensen, the Danish cult illustrator, celebrated by fans around the world for his incredibly detailed illustrations of monsters.

Synopsis

34 short poems accompanied by the most elaborate drawings of all sorts of creepy nightmares we might have.

The frame story is a house at night, out of the darkness emerge two scary figures who enter into the house, pick up a sleeping boy and carry him - bed and all - out of the house. Then the different dreams start. Have a look here:

"I have caught myself a real nuisance of man
He is blind but has one eye that works on his left hand"

"Behind my granny’s summer house, there is a secret path
There lies an extra-terrestrial who could really do with a bath"

"Under my seat on the bus to school
lies a bearded man
who says he died in a pool"

"Oh, I really hope that I am spinning a tale
I believe there is a living thing underneath my nail".

Reviews

"It was my recent good fortune to be introduced to the work of John Kenn Mortensen and my even greater fortune to be privileged to publish this work — by turns, playful, funny, wicked, stunningly imaginative, and, of course, masterfully rendered, like a combination of Edward Gorey and Bernie Wrightson, but every bit his own man." – Gary Groth (Publisher of Fantagraphics)

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The Nightmare Factory
View as PDF
Original Language: Danish
Original Publisher: Fahrenheit
Published: November, 2020
104 pages
Category: Children's Books
Sub-category: Middle-Grade
Genre: Horror
Available material: English sample

Territories Handled

World Rights (Babel Bridge)

Territories Sold

English (World): Fantagraphics