Cthulhu Thing sketch done at this year’s recent Emerald City Comic Con by Warren Ellis’s faux-hawked golem, Ben Templesmith.

Cthulhu Thing [Artist’s Site] : Under Vhoorl’s Shadow

“They’re Little Girls And Boys!” by Sidney Sime for the poem “Zagabog” from the book Fancy Free by Eden Phillpotts. Sime was most famous for the illustrations he did for the Irish fantasy writer Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, or Lord Dunsany. H.P. Lovecraft was a great fan of both Dunsany and Sime, whose influences show themselves often in his work.

Sidney Sime - Zagabog Illustration, 1901 [MONSTER BRAINS] :
The Sidney Sime Page : Golden Age Comic Book Stories

Sotheby’s has another auction coming up for completely amazing things that I will never be able to afford. This month, on the 17th, 42 original drawings by Ernest Howard Shepard for the four Winnie the Pooh books are on the block including this, perhaps the most iconic Pooh image. The catalogue note reads:

This original illustration is reproduced on page 159 of Winnie-the-Pooh and comprises a full-page illustration in the published volume. It represents one of the iconic images of Winnie-the-Pooh and comes from the final chapter in which Christopher Robin gives a Pooh party, and we say good-bye.

“He nodded and went out …and in a moment I heard Winnie-the-Pooh – bump, bump, bump – going up the stairs behind him.”

Estimated value is between 40,000 and 60,000 GBP. I suppose I’ll just have to settle for the catalogue for $48.00.

‘That sort of Bear’: E.H. Shepard’s Winnie-the-Pooh From the Collections of Stanley J Seeger and Christopher Cone [Sotheby’s] : Bibliodyssey

Erica il Cane’s figures — strange fusions of human and animal — form surreal, haunting vignettes. Each character impresses me with their ability to portray emotion while retaining each animal’s distinctive qualities and convey a history, some series of events that led up to the moment illustrated. In the above I can’t help but wonder, is this fox preparing to spring an elaborate trap or is it perhaps a truly, legitimate practice, a version of healthcare singular to this other world?

Ericailcane [Artist’s Site]

Synesthesia by Christopher Reiger.

Christopher Reiger [Artist’s Site] : Phantasmaphile

Friends, Countrymen;

In a few days I will be retracing the path of thousands of ancient conastogas, puttering up Shasta and down Grant’s, charring and grimacing under the Oregon blaze, just to get to my homeland of Seattle, Washington.

It’s very rare that I show my art publicly. After last time, when an angry mob showed up early with torches and pitchforks and ate all the cubical cheese, I had really lost hope in the Seattle art scene. I tried showing down here in the Bay Area, where I now reside, but had to take down early due to hippies protesting a yeti that had climbed one of the campus trees.

It is for this reason that I would be terribly obliged if only you’d find some way to drop in at either one of the art shows I’m launching this weekend.

Continue Reading…

Stefan Glerum addresses the act, nay the obsession, of scouring garage sales and record shops for rare discs of vinyl in his wonderfully Gorey-esque series Crate Digging, Don’t Do It!

Crate Digging, Don’t Do It! [Artist’s Site] : Drawn!

Some preliminary sketches by Koldo Barroso for his tentatively titled book Portraits from the Dreamlands: A Guide to Creatures from the Dream World.

The Boombakaboomkers are creatures who run and play their drums all along the dream lands to find anything you want that you once lost. They take shapes from the spirits of different animals and always come to help you when they’re called.

I am an especially big fan of Boom-baKahog, its face comprised almost entirely of an enormous proboscis.

Portraits From The Dreamlands [Artist’s Site]

I think some credits are in order to James Turner, Creator of Beaver and Steve where that image is from.

Comment by Ben — June 24, 2008 @ 3:29 am

I had heard of Beaver and Steve but never read it, until clicking Ben’s link; and I’m glad I did as it is pure, insane brilliance. Make sure to click the image to see the full comic. Oh Weevil Kneevil, you are sorely missed.

The unfeasible adventures of Beaver and Steve [James Turner]

Listen child and heed my words: beware the Devil Pencil. Ignore its inviting rictal grin and resist the temptation to wrap its phallic body in your sweet, innocent embrace; for while the pleasures to be had are many, the price to be paid is high. The Devil Pencil loves you not. No! No, the Devil Pencil sees you as nothing more than delectable pabulum. Leering, its eyes glide over you, salivating at the thought of your delicious soul, its gaze leaving a glistening trail upon your lily-white, alabaster skin.

So flee, flee my darling from its perfidious promises, ignore its deceitful chicanery — for that is what it is, sorcery of the most vile sort; a false Elysium of cake and kites. Run fast and run far. Run until you can no longer see the Devil Pencil. Run until you forget.

Update: as jont vociferously points out in the comments a high quality version can be viewed here at the Savannah College of Art and Design’s website. Thanks!

the creepy pencil [Live Leak]

From Tom Horacek’s new book “All We Ever Do Is Talk About Wood“, a cavalcade of horrors, hydrocephalia, and hopelessness wrapped up in a darkly humorous package that features each of its characters at a moment of existential crisis. This is Ectomo’s kind of humor, rife with the bitterness and misanthropy we’ve all come to know, love, and assimilate.

All We Ever Do Is Talk About Wood [Drawn!]

The power of Ectomo is both wondrous to behold and terrifying to contemplate, as any ectomite knows all too well. Certainly it is a wonder closet of dazzling proportions but it also has a dark and unholy box perched on its top shelf, high up where little ones can’t get to it. Things lurk in this neat little package, things not fit for the minds of man, let alone his spawn.

One must assume, however, that some will find their way into Ectomo’s stash, perhaps when it was left out on the table; after all, these things do happen and the occasional moment of forgetfulness can be forgiven. Not so in this case, however. No, faithful readers, no in this case we must turn our stern eye of judgment toward one Nathan Myers, a gentleman with a wanton disregard for human life and a destroyer of innocence. Mr. Myers is responsible for the most heinous of crimes he has shown his no doubt wonderful and carefree eight year old daughter Ectomo’s secrets and wrought untold damage.

Once exposed to the tentacled, crawling blasphemy contained therein his once lighthearted progeny at once fell into a deep morass of babbling, incoherent madness; her eyes, no doubt, displaying the same dual irises portrayed in In The Mouth of Madness. Her mind shattered, she shuffled off and immediately took up a waxy writing implement and began to work feverishly, trying desperately to put on paper the horror that now assaulted her mind’s eye in a futile attempt to make sense of it.

The product of this sick experiment was this piece, entitled “Sun Goes Like This”. As you can see, clearly the dank recesses of Ectomo have wormed their way into every aspect of the poor little girl’s world, rendering everything a tentacled nightmare. A parade of transmogrified beasts — Shoggoth, perhaps — travel through an empty wasteland under the scorching gaze of a mindless, Cthulhoid sun, led by what appears to be a banished Innsmouth resident upon a R’lyehan death-horse. Truly a bleak and terrible world and a warning to all: the power of Ectoplasmosis is mighty and not to be wielded by those who would prove irresponsible. Take care, Nathan Myers, your daughter’s lost sanity rests on your head.

A set of fantastically rendered images of android, amputee bondage which reek of the aforementioned Herr Bellmer. The only problem here is that no one seems to know who the artist is. If anyone knows please feel free to leave the answer in the comments section.

Link is NSFW (thar be breasts).

Update: Trevor Brown has finally finally dropped the artist’s name: Itsuki Takashi. Thanks, mkb!

amputee robot doll bondage [baby art]

A bisected look inside the claustrophobic suit-and-tie apocalypse of the 1950s.

Doomsday starts well enough: the Cleavers are able to deftly dodge the superheated radioactive shockwave with a quick duck-and-cover. From there, Father abandons his half-smoked pipe and half-read newspaper, Mother quickly dries the dishes and puts them back on the shelves, the children put their toys in their toy chests. Then it’s time to trundle off to the lead-lined coffin installed by Acme in the backyard, insured for fifty years of Nuclear Winter security!

The fallout shelter has all the amenities of home, including a top-of-the-line geiger counter, a swank Radiolux with both amplitude and frequency modulation, and, the envy of all their neighbors, a swank retractable periscope, perfect for observing the shambling, mutagenic horrors of the nightmare world outside.

Unfortunately, the Cleavers forgot one absolutely vital amenity for the armageddon lifestyle: a toilet. Thus guaranteeing that a thousand years hence, when the mutated archeologists of some post-apocalyptic civilization finally crack open the Cleavers’ chthonic shelter, all they will find is a feculent septic tank full of sewage, upon which drifts a flotsam made up of a string of pearls, a reeking penny loafer and four human skulls of an excremental, nut-brown patina.