15 years ago, my first novel SATAN BURGER was published. When it came out I really didn’t expect it to do well. I wrote it for fun, just for myself, not expecting anyone would ever even read it. I mean it’s basically just about a group of 20-year-olds who get jobs working at a Satan-themed fast food franchise as the world is ending. It’s not exactly the most commercial concept. Yet for some utterly strange reason that I still can’t even slightly comprehend the book did well. Really well. It actually found an audience big enough to launch my career. A year or so after its release I was able to quit my job and write full time which was something I never thought possible, especially not at such a young age (I was barely old enough to buy beer at the time). 15 years and 50 books later, I’m still here, still writing, and it’s all thanks to this book. I pretty much owe everything to Satan Burger and the fans who supported it over the years.
The 15th Anniversary Edition of SATAN BURGER is now available at amazon. It’s got an introduction by one of my heroes, John Skipp, who was a major influence on me when I was a teenager (and still is today). It’s also got illustrations by Ryan Ward, an underground artist who sent me fan art for the book years ago that I loved so much that I asked him to illustrate the whole book. And there’s also a new forward that I’ve written detailing the history of the book over the past 15 years.
If you haven’t read the book before or you want to get a more collectible edition, check out the anniversary edition at amazon.com
Here’s a video comparing the hardcover edition with the original:
When Satan Burger was first being passed around among teenage punks and fans of weird art and film, there was nothing else like it. A book of rebellious spirit that simplistically captured the postmodern malaise of a culture obsessed with consumerism. It quickly gained an underground following, was transcribed by fans and bootlegged online, was translated into Russian and made its way around the world attracting the attention of readers bored with typical mainstream fare. Combining a satirical wit and style on par with legendary humorists such as Kurt Vonnegut and Russell Edson with the crazy punk ethos of cult film directors such as Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, and Takashi Miike, this was a book overflowing with so many new ideas and absurd philosophies that it not only launched the career of underground author Carlton Mellick III, but inspired an entire literary movement.
For the fifteenth anniversary of the release of this Bizarro Fiction classic, Eraserhead Press is thrilled to present this special hardcover edition, featuring an introduction by splatterpunk legend John Skipp, illustrations by Ryan Ward, and a new preface by the author.
Satan Burger explores a new kind of apocalypse. Not an apocalypse caused by disease or nuclear war, but an apocalypse of boredom. A plague of monotony has spread across the countryside, sucking all passion and inspiration out of everyone over the age of twenty-five, leaving only the disenfranchised youth to fend for themselves in a world crumbling around them. Featuring a narrator who sees his body from a third-person perspective, a man whose flesh is dead but his body parts are alive and running amok, an overweight messiah, the personal life of the Grim Reaper, a race of women who feed on male orgasms, and a motley group of squatter punks that team up with the devil to find their place in a world that doesn’t want them anymore.
Available at amazon.com
Carlton Mellick III 