Mr. Ballen Presents Strange, Dark and Mysterious - The Graphic Stories

Ballentology

Mr Ballen presents
Strange, Dark and Mysterious -
The Graphic Stories
Stories by Mr. Ballen
Illustrations by Andrea Mutti
Ten Speed Press
ISBN 9781984863423

I first discovered Mr. Ballen about six months ago on YouTube. At work nowadays, my lunch hour has been filled with YouTube wonders such as the Criterion Closet, Kermode And Mayo’s Take, Eleanor Morton, The Severin Cellar and, more often than those others now... the YouTube stories of Mr. Ballen. I stumbled upon him quite by accident when I was looking for sinister, real life mysteries and found his channel, which is an off shoot of his Strange, Dark and Mysterious podcast and, I have to say, I really like the guy and the way he weaves his stories.

I know very little about him other than he’s actually an ex-Navy Seal who, after leaving the service due to some kind of undisclosed injury, got very depressed and his wife got him to seek help (this is relevant, bear with me) and he started doing his podcast, taking real life mysteries... be they twisted murder or crime stories, strange stalkers, alien beings, UFOs, monstrous creatures, ghosts, demonic possessions or various small and sometimes large scale disasters (all from real life reports) and then doing the modern equivalent of sitting around a camp fire telling stories about them. And they’re really great. Sometimes they are quite scary, they often have a twist... and the potency of that twist is often due to Mr. Ballen’s skill at dramatising the facts and knowing when and how to approach the kernel of the tale... and they’re always entertaining and, more often than not, quite haunting for a few days.

Now, he started off uploading YouTube videos of things from his podcast 4-5 times a weeks but now, a few years down the line, he only uploads once a week. Why? Because he’s become so successful and therefore a lot busier. Related to his personal history I mentioned above, he has set up the Ballen Foundation to help survivors of traumatic events and he runs Ballen Studios, which now has six successful podcasts under that banner, which has fingers in other media pies (I believe TV and film are in the works). He gets worthwhile sponsors who the man obviously believes in, often giving offers in between his stories with discounts for things like mental health care, financial advice and other worthwhile products.

And I have a lot of time for him, actually. I’d urge you to go to YouTube and type his name in and take pot luck at whatever stories come up. He’s just finished his first tour of live shows across America (fingers crossed he comes over here to London, England one day) and also recently published the subject of today’s review... Mr. Ballen Presents Strange, Dark and Mysterious - The Graphic Stories. It basically takes nine of his true stories and they’re rewritten and turned into a graphic novel (that’s a book of comic strips to the likes of people my age) and adapts them into that format.

The book has artwork by Andrea Mutti which is quite stunning and matches the story choices well. Starting off with an introduction by Ballen himself, telling how his mum used to mail him chapters cut out of Jack Reacher novels while he was in active service with the Navy Seals, which got him into appreciating the craft of storytelling. It then goes on to tell nine stories, two of which I hadn’t yet stumbled on myself (the two which involve the narrator himself more than the others do). The stories included here, if you already know them, are The Valley Of The Headless Men, Thorns, What I Saw In My Room Still Haunts Me, La Mussara, Bells Canyon, The Beast of Gévaudan, Make It Rain, The Kandahar Giant and Cat And Mouse.

Now, I was expecting the book to be a good ride but things which struck me about it was how different the graphic novel experience was to the YouTube videos I am used to watching. The writing is stripped down quite a lot from the original story versions, letting the imagery carry some of the weight but also giving more drama in shorter bursts, like a 1960s/1970s Marvel comic might have treated the same material. Which is a skill in itself and one wonders how long it took the writer to retool his storytelling abilities to fit the medium. And sometimes he does that thing (which to be fair, he sometimes does on the streaming videos themselves) where, again like an old Marvel comic, the story will start at a very dramatic moment as a cold opening and then flashback until the narrative catches back up to itself some way into the tale. So, for example, if you turn to the opening three pages of Make It Rain, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. And Mutti’s artwork as he captures the main protagonist of the story in a specific aspect is quite brilliant too.

So do I recommend the book? Yes I do. I thought it was wonderful and I hope it sells well enough that it becomes like an annual with further volumes every year. Would I recommend it as your first exposure to Mr. Ballen? Not sure... it’s a very different experience. But you can remedy that by either downloading his completely free podcast or watching, as I do every week, some of his YouTube content (right here). Whatever format he’s working in, it has to be said he’s quite brilliant and there’s obviously a lot of humour to the man as well... but I don’t want to spoil the myriad abuse of the ‘like button’ before you get a chance to experience a few of the shows for yourself. Either way, though, Mr. Ballen Presents Strange, Dark and Mysterious - The Graphic Stories gets a big ten out of ten from me and I look forward to any possible future volumes in the offing. The guy seems to be a genuinely nice person and I’ve got a lot of time for his product, for sure.