Aerial by 2562

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This minimal CD cover is my design for Aerial, the debut album from 2562, aka Dutch musician Dave Huismans. This is another release on the Tectonic label who released Underwater Dancehall, the Pinch album I designed last year. As with that release the photos on Aerial are by Liz Eve.

This is a really excellent album but then I would say that since it’s just the kind of electronica I enjoy, in this case being pitched somewhere between the infectious rhythms of Monolake and the sparse dub sounds of Pole. Mr Huismans knows what’s he’s doing and Aerial has already picked up some rave reviews. The CD will appear on June 2nd with a double-vinyl version to follow.

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Previously on { feuilleton }
New things for November

Horror comics

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More horror…. It’s been a while since I posted anything work-related here, not because I haven’t been busy but because much of the work this year is still waiting to see the light of day as a result of protracted schedules.

The Mammoth Book of Best Horror Comics is an anthology from Running Press (US) that really is mammoth—over 540 pages—and includes a reprinting of my Dunwich Horror pages from The Haunter of the Dark. You can see the selections in the Sprout widget below. (Not any more you can’t. Sprout decided to make everyone pay for their previously free service. Bye bye, Sprout.) It feels a bit fraudulent being in there since my drawings are more illustrations than a comics adaptation but I imagine most people buying the book will be happy to see poor old Wilbur Whateley’s demise receive another airing. Many of the featured strips are in the hokey EC mould which is often more comic than horror (one reason I was never very taken with EC) but the material gets better as it goes along and it’s a pleasure to be in anything with an artist as good as Mike Kaluta.

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The Dunwich Horror, title page (1988).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The Lovecraft archive

The Tell-Tale Heart from UPA

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Among the legions of Poe adaptations for film and television, IMDB lists 21 versions of The Tell-Tale Heart. The UPA version from 1953 is a rare moment of seriousness from a company more well-known for its Mr Magoo and Gerald McBoing-Boing cartoons. This has long been one of my favourite Poe adaptations, not least for James Mason’s pitch-perfect narration. (A quote from this was later sampled by Scorn on the track Night Tide from their Evanescence album.) The animation avoids being too cartoony by adopting an allusive blend of Hollywood-style Surrealism and Expressionist design of the kind more usually seen in live action dream sequences of the period. Paul Julian was the designer, Pat Matthews the animator and Ted Parmelee the director.

Animator Michael Sporn has two pages of frame grabs, including some composites which show the full extent of scenes panned over during the film.

Previously on { feuilleton }
Harpya by Raoul Servais
William Heath Robinson’s illustrated Poe
The art of Harry Clarke, 1889–1931

Saint Sebastian in NYC

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The Archer & Saint Sebastian by Lubomir Tomaszewski.

Saint Sebastian is an exhibition of new interpretations of the image of the pierced saint currently running at the CFM Gallery, New York, in association with JKK Fine Arts, “the Gallery of Modern Symbolism”. The show runs from May 9th to June 8th, 2008, and among the artists there’s Michel Henricot who was featured here recently. You can see more of the works in the PDF brochure. Thanks to Jan for the tip!

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Saint Sebastian by David Vance.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The gay artists archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
The art of Michel Henricot
Guido Reni’s Saint Sebastian
The art of Takato Yamamoto
Fred Holland Day