The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories is a 1997 poetry book written and illustrated by film director Tim Burton.

The poems, which are full of black humor, tell stories of hybrid kids, spontaneous transformers, and women who have babies to win over men.

Some characters of the book would later appear in the flash animation series Stainboy, which was created, directed, and written by Burton.

The characters According to American comics artist and publisher Stephen R. Bissette, the title poem "The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy" was originally conceived as a project for Bissette's comics anthology Taboo and was actually written by horror novelist Michael McDowell, who had previously worked with Burton on the screenplays for Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

[1] The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories has been generally well received by both critics and readers.