Creepy Wikipedia

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Henry Darger - Reclusive janitor revealed posthumously to be the author of a 15,145-page fantasy manuscript depicting young children being tortured and massacred (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 7 months ago

Title is a bit simplistic, this guy’s work contained multitudes

Also he was never a violent man and the subjects of his writing were not exactly supposed to represent real children

[–] [email protected] 27 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This title is so misrepresentative that it borders on being a lie.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

It's clickbait of the worst kind.

Some of his work is unbelievably impressive, like a 30 foot wide, double sided painting. He has had no training as an artist or in writing (as far as I can see). This guy is one of the most celebrated outsider artists, and there is also a lawsuit in progress from some of his wayyyy distant relatives trying to rob all his trademarks and copyrights he left to his friends.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I mean, this seems more sad than creepy. A lot of it sounds like him processing his childhood trauma, not any desire to torture kids himself.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago

And processing through his Catholic faith and culture. Martyrs and gruesome displays of the torturing of saints.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

Oh okay some schizo in a cave writes a manuscript about child torture and massacres and 4 billion people worship him but you do it in the 20th century and suddenly now there’s a problem

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

One idiosyncratic feature of Darger's artwork is that his girl subjects are shown to have penises

They buried the lede on that one.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Really interesting story well summarized in video form by Fredrik Knudsen

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

The album "Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head" was inspired by this book.