Paint it Black: A Guide to Gothic Homemaking by Voltaire (Weiser Books, 2005)

If you've always wanted your own Book of the Dead or have been considering Pimping Your Ride, Dracula Style, or if you just really like black and red, this may be the book for you.

Voltaire is by trade a stop-motion animator, though he uses the techniques he learned for animation to make the props he uses in his gothic decor. Paint It Black is a how-to book. If you can wield a glue gun, aim a can of black spray-paint, and aren't afraid to modify other people's cast-offs, then you too can have a creepy, dark, romantic, Gothic hideaway. Taken further, Voltaire explains how to throw a Goth wedding and even, yes, pimping out that hearse or black K-car in your driveway.

While this book isn't supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, it's pretty hard to take it seriously. Voltaire has a sense of humour about it all, and admits that this look is certainly not for everyone. I am sure there are more than a few seventeen year olds would be happy to follow every instruction to the letter, but more likely it will come in handy just before October, when you are planning that wicked Halloween party.


Buy Paint it Black at Amazon.ca