This popular late-twentieth-century artist and author utilizes many Gothic conventions, among them persecuted heroines, languidly vampiric characters, and hinted incest. Gorey, however, divorces these conventions from sentimentality. The viewer finds them amusing, or if possessed of a strong sense of decency, offensive. 

The Gashlycrumb Tinies or, After the Outing. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1997. Alderman Library. In this book, Gorey utilizes the children's ABC format to show 26 ways children can meet untimely ends. 

The Curious Sofa. By Ogdred Weary. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1997. Alderman Library. In this book, Alice the heroine is exposed (literally) to a number of Gothic and lewdly elegant characters. The willing Alice parodies the assaulted Gothic heroine. The hint of incest parodies the incest theme of the Gothic, and the mysterious ending in which the curious sofa seems to put an untimely end to the festivities could come right out of Walpole's The Castle of Otranto.