Word: bustingly
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...Headless Bust...
...While the interviewer interpreted this comment as intended "impishly," I could as easily believe that Gorey meant what he said. Until then, the little books that Gorey writes and illustrates had been reliable delights; The Haunted Tea-Cosy stands out as the least interesting of his work. The Headless Bust is the sequel to The Haunted Tea-Cosy, continuing the story of Edmund Gravel and the Bahhumbug and marketed in the same way. Just as Harcourt Brace pushed The Haunted Tea-Cosy as a Christmas present, The Headless Bust has been positioned as a millennium gift-book, a dubious genre...
...meticulous, mock-lugubrious drawings. His handwriting imitates printing, his close hatching resembles lithography, and his creatures, even his houseplants, pose like silent-movie actors. The combination of care and whimsy in his illustrations is delightful, even wonderful. Unfortunately, the comparative crudeness of the drawings in The Headless Bust is immediately noticeable. The lines are thicker, and the awkward delicacy of his figures is diluted...
...story of The Headless Bust involves a starchy recluse, Edmund Gravel, and a giant beetle, the Bahhumbug. The Christmas party they threw in The Haunted Tea-Cosy winds down, another insect takes them to a provincial town and introduces the two to some peculiar characters. Returning home, they celebrate the turn-of-the-millenium over tea. Unfortunately, all this transpires through gawky verse, with a few amusing couplets interspersed...
...Headless Bust, along with The Haunted Tea-Cosy, made me giggle less than Gorey's other little books. I had to wonder, upon putting the book down, whether Gorey has grown tired of the very charms that are winning over more and more of the outside world...