The illustrated, digitally-augmented story of a sixteen-year-old who discovers heavy metal and the son of god in one heady summer in Roman-occupied Nazareth
Darryl’s friendless. Bored out of his skull. It’s the middle of summer, in the middle of the desert, in the middle of a fly-blown suburb of Roman-occupied Nazareth. Tough times for a sixteen-year-old boy in any era, never mind two millennia ago, when the only thing to look forward to is the next sandstorm, and you’re spending every waking...
MCD/FSG, renowned publisher of heroes both ancient and modern, is honored to announce the publication of perhaps its most revelatory and inspiring book yet: The Book of Darryl, a heretofore unheralded early chapter of the greatest story ever told.
Darryl was, of course, bandmate to the messiah before he was the Messiah—as revealed in these pages, Darryl was the founder of the early first century Nazarene hard rock sensation Iron Messiah, the band that would notoriously propel its lead singer (and Darryl’s neighbor) to forty days and forty nights in the desert…and well beyond.
Darryl’s lost gospel sheds shocking new light on the teenager he knew simply as “Jay”—including, not least, an inside account of the invention of Heavy Metal. Indeed, long before the famous loaves and fishes and the ballyhooed encounters with money lenders—and indeed, long before Black Sabbath and Judas Priest—there were immodest quantities of hairspray in the sand, naïvely unholy power chords, and perhaps, it must be said, sympathy for the devil.
But while The Book of Darryl is unquestionably an invaluable document for its otherwordly riffs alone, its pages also contain a veritable power ballad of unexpected sweetness, tender heartbreak, iconic beauty, and a kind of animation this oft-told story has never yet revealed. To paraphrase the immortal words of Nigel Tufnel, How much more metal could it be? None more metal.
Resurrected by leading Darryl scholars and storytelling pioneers The Goggles and Matthew Bate, MCD’s special edition of The Book of Darryl is illuminated by the world-famous GIF artist Scorpion Dagger, with images that come to life—via augmented reality app Artivive—accompanied by a sweet heavy metal score by Ryan Battistuzzi — volume ON for videos!
The Book of Darryl project also includes the preservation of Darryl’s ancient website, https://thebookofdarryl.com/#stuff, and the reinvigoration of his Instagram feed and GIF archive. You can listen to some of his sick tunes on Bandcamp. And there may—possibly—be t-shirts.
The Goggles are Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons, award-winning creators who have spent their professional lives telling stories in compelling new ways. Their interactive documentary, Welcome to Pine Point, received more than a dozen international awards. They are coauthors of the book I Live Here, and their work has been featured on CNN and MTV, and in documentaries for BBC, PBS, and Dutch National Television.
Closer Productions’ Matt Bate is a writer, director and producer working across drama, documentary and VR. His debut feature film Shut Up, Little Man! premiered in competition at Sundance 2011, and his sophomore film Sam Klemke’s Time Machine, selected for Sundance New Frontier 2014.
James Kerr is a digital artist based in Montreal, best known for his animated GIF project Scorpion Dagger, where he mixes cut outs from various paintings from art history to create a world where he comments on our modern age, and pop culture in general. His GIFs have been shown in art galleries throughout North America and Europe.
