It’s been a long, tedious trek for a certain dream demon named Bill. He scratched his way up from the second dimension, through the Nightmare Realm and into this 3D world, only to fail in his quest to rule … everything. But now he’s back. And he wants you to let him in.
Well, well, well. Here we are at last! I’ve been waiting an eternity to meet you. And I know that you’ve been waiting nearly as long to meet me!
Breathe it in a second, pal—this moment of anticipation! You’ve always suspected this day would come, and finally it has! Your life will forever be divided into two halves: Before you met me and after.
Welcome to the AFTER.
You’re probably wondering, “Bill, you’re an all-powerful being. Why write a book, huh? Why let me read it? Also, aren’t you dead? What’s the deal?”
Pshaw! You may have heard all that malarky from some kids’ TV show. But I’m perfectly fine. In fact, I’m better than fine.
I’m an idea. An idea can’t be killed. So that’s me 1, and you 0, on the immortality front. And if I’m the eternal one, and you’re the temporary one, THEN IT MIGHT BE WISE FOR YOU TO GET ON THE WINNING SIDE EARLY, RIGHT?
If you’re as sharp as I think you are … and if you’re curious about the meaning of life, how to cheat death, and your own interesting future, then I’ll consider making a deal with you.
I don’t need to make any such deal, mind you. It’s not like there’s any barrier between my dimension and yours that I need to break through with my incorporeal 2D form or anything. But I was casually thinking that a trade might be fun, since I haven’t got anything else going right now.
How about if I let you read my book in exchange for a tiny favor down the line? We can work out the details later.
I know you’ll make the right choice, bone-sack. After all, it’s a book written, published and licked by none other than me: Bill Cipher. I’m a bonified dream demon from the Nightmare Realm. But don’t let that bother you. I’ve got so, so much to give in exchange for a pittance.
Now all I need from you is a small bit of blood. You know, it’s sort of like ink. You won’t even miss it. Just a drop or two.
What do you say?
God is never addressed by name, but things related to faith are referenced from time to time in Bill’s recitation of his history. Bill mentions sin, for instance, and later, “God-fearing knights.” And he acknowledges that heaven is real. In fact, he says he’ll tell us how to get to heaven, we simply need to turn to the next page in his book. But that page is blank.
Later in The Book of Bill, he faces off with a powerful deity. And it’s hinted that this being might be God. But this entity doesn’t hold Bill accountable for all his evil or crimes against humanity (or exhibit any of the characteristics of God), it simply sentences him to another dimension that’s the equivalent of an insane asylum.
Bill does, however, refer to himself as a god. And in the course of his history, he clashes with other “gods,” including a powerful infant called Time Baby and a Lovecraftian god/getaway car named Xanther. (Bill fights with Time Baby for dominion over Earth.)
Bill talks of his “unholy powers,” one of which is to enter people’s dreams, read their minds, and take possession of them if they enter into an agreement with him. He also notes that any drawn, scratched, spray-painted or burned representation of this eye-within-a-triangle form will give him a peephole from his reality into ours.
Bill teaches readers “secrets to the Universe.” He talks of codes and puzzles to master in the course of life, and the book is rife with symbols and codes to break. He notes that our reality is made up of “codes, madness and tiny, tiny LEGOs.” He talks about quelling the guilty voice of “morality” using denial, rationalism, and detachment.
As for the meaning of life, Bill encourages readers to “create your own meaning, and defy life to stop you. When it comes to life’s meaning, there is none! Because you get to decide for yourself!”
Bill declares that he created the concept of witchcraft after giving powers and occult spells to unhappy women. We read a journal entry of a Puritan woman who spoke with a goat (Bill) and celebrates the powers she was given to “escape her husband and live a life of sin and pleasure.”
There are other stories of Bill’s hand in occult practices, such as encouraging humans to speak to spirits through a Ouija board and taking possession of several different people, including a priest. (Human groups rise up to battle the dream demon. In one case we see that one of their weapons against him is the Bible.)
Given Bill’s various failures and experiences through the ages, he effectively uses various media—cartoons, music, computers and even collectable figures (the perfect weight to kill a man)—to communicate his doctrines to humans. “Your senses are lying to you,” Bill tells us. “So it’s time to start lying to your senses and pick a better reality.”
We’re told that Bill’s book reappears no matter how many times it is destroyed. Some teens think “Bill worship” is “edgy.”
Several themes in the book warn us about reading Bill’s words “printed on stitched-together human brain matter,” and push us to put the book down. One person warns us that the book “changes and rewrites itself on the mind of any reader with the misfortune to hold it. It will become whatever it must to deceive you.”
Later in the book, however, Grunkle Stan slips in a message that declares, “Bill isn’t a god, he’s a needy theater kid in search of a stage.” And he encourages readers to realize that the best way to fight Bill is to simply ignore him. “Look, take it from a master con artist,” Grunkle Stan tells us. “If a deal seems too good to be true, that’s because it is.”
The book includes uses of “b–tards,” d–n” and a misuse of God’s name.
There are references to people drinking alcohol and using opium. Bill and a human pal “lick hallucinogenic moss” together. One historical figure is said to be such a heavy drinker that he had “hourly hallucinations.”
There are some creepy and bloody illustrations in the mix, too. Sometimes that goop is represented through a bloody fingerprint where we supposedly gave the book our blood. Others are illustrations of instances where people have been slashed or wounded thanks to Bill’s machinations. Blood is splattered over a computer keyboard, for instance, marking where a boy lost a finger to a malfunctioning floppy drive. There’s also a small picture of the Pines kids dead and lying in a pool of blood.
Bill also gathers a group of demonic “Henchmaniacs” to uphold his will. We see these three-dimensional cartoon creatures attack their human victims, since Bill’s 2D form can’t do so. Bill’s visage has sharp teeth and threatening claws at times. A magazine article talks of “losing weight by removing your skin.” Another notes: “A baby and a briefcase? You can eat both.”
There are a variety of other violent or destructive references made, including one situation where Bill offers to scramble an enemy’s face if we write his name in the book.
Bill talks about sexual things on occasion.
For instance, the dream demon notes that Puritans “had the least satisfied women in human history.” He asks the reader if he or she has ever been in love. Then he snorts out, “Tell your mom hi for me. By the way, have you taken a DNA test recently?” He also mentions a pyro-brainiac “beauty queen” henchwoman who seduced “Smokey Bear for the sick thrill of it.”
None.
The Book of Bill is derived from the Disney Channel kids’ show Gravity Falls—a quirky cartoon series that dealt humorously with crazy supernatural shenanigans taking place in a small Northwestern town. The show ran from 2012 to 2016 and gained something of a cult following.
This book’s central character, Bill Cipher, is an ancient “dream-demon from another dimension” that popped up from time to time in that animated series.
Author Alex Hirsch uses this book—Bill’s demon “biography”—to wink at specific events in history and to poke a forefinger of parody into the chest of everything from the meaning of life to demon possession and witchcraft. Hirsch suggests with a chuckle that the Eye of Providence look-alike, Bill, has been a malevolent force throughout human history.
Despite Hirsch’s constant satirical elbow however, parents should note that this book squelches its way through some very dark, sadistic and sometimes bloody situations. Black magic, blood sacrifices, nihilistic value systems and deals with the demonic may be laughing matters for the author, but discerning parents won’t see it that way.
Perhaps that’s also why Disney believed this kid’s show-adjacent book should be limited to “adult” readers.
You can request a review of a title you can’t find at [email protected].
Book reviews cover the content, themes and worldviews of fiction books, not necessarily their literary merit, and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. The inclusion of a book’s review does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
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