Two today

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Numeral by Erté. Via Fabulon.

In which { feuilleton } celebrates its second birthday. As always, it’s a surprise seeing what catches the attention of readers or random browsers. The five most popular posts from the past year were as follows:

The art of ejaculation. I saw Cary Kwok’s work mentioned in a gay magazine so followed it up on the web, whereupon it occurred to me that the male moment of climax was rarely depicted visually outside the world of porn. Hence a necessarily small list of all the examples I could think of which was then linked on a couple of popular sex-related sites.

Two guys kissing. My ungenerous reaction in May to the death of Jerry Falwell, using a splendidly erotic photo by Jack Slomovits. It’s mainly the title which attracts people, I think, some of the most popular search phrases bringing people here are “two guys kissing” or “two gays kissing”. One can only hope that the searchers aren’t disappointed.

The art of Takato Yamamoto. I’m surprised this has been so popular considering the artist isn’t very well-known. If I was a publisher I’d be arranging reprints of his books for Europe and the US.

Barney Bubbles: artist and designer. No surprise that this is still receiving attention seeing as it’s now linked on the Barney Bubbles Wikipedia page as well as a great many design blogs.

Neville Brody and Fetish Records. In a similar vein, one of my earliest posts is still very popular as well, possibly because there isn’t a good selection of Brody’s early album art anywhere else.

And since I started making static archive pages for some categories (for my convenience as much as that of readers), the Gay artists archive has proved very popular even though it’s not been there for long. That’s either an indicator of the readership demographic or evidence that people are more curious than they often let on.

Thanks again for reading!

John x

Jessie M King’s Grey City of the North

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“This dark and steep alley took its name from Sir James Stewart of Goodtrees, Lord Advocate of Scotland, 1692–1713, whose mansion stood at the foot of the close. It was a fashionable quarter in the early 18th century, and here resided Andrew Crosby, the famous lawyer, the original of Scott’s ‘Andrew Pleydell,’ Lord Westhall, John Scougall, the painter of George Heriot, and many well-known people of the time.”

Another book scan from the Internet Archive, this time a title which plays to my fetish for Old Edinburgh. The illustration work of Jessie M King (1875–1949) was featured here in September with a delicate piece from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde. The Grey City of the North (1910) is quite a departure from her usual style, being a collection of monochrome views of buildings, streets and closes of the Old Town. Very nice lettering on all the plates which perhaps shows some influence from her colleague Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Advocates’ Close has particular significance for me since I copied a view of the alley for my adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s The Haunter of the Dark in 1986. Providence looks nothing at all like Edinburgh, of course, but I couldn’t find adequate reference at the time so used photographs of Scotland by Edwin Smith instead. You can see Smith’s photograph and my rendering of it below. Among the Internet Archive’s other Jessie King books there’s a follow-up to the Edinburgh volume, The City of the West; 24 drawings in photogravure of Old Glasgow.

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Another view of the close from Edinburgh and The Lothians by Francis Watt; illustration by Walter Dexter (1912).

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Advocates’ Close by Edwin Smith from Scotland (1955).

This book of photographs was an early Thames & Hudson title using their typically excellent photogravure reproduction. My copy was rescued from a waste bin near Manchester University and I’ve used it so much for reference over the years I’ve often wondered what I would have done without that chance encounter. You can see from my copy below (drawn with a 0.2mm Variant pen) how much detail I skimped and how much I embellished. I skimped rather more than I remember, as it happens. I think if I’d have drawn this a couple of years later I might have been more faithful to the original.

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Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
Ephemeral architecture
The Essex Street Water Gate

Fungal observations

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Seeing as Jeff VanderMeer and his publisher have made the cover for the new edition of Shriek: An Afterword public, I may as well do the same. The design is mine, the cover painting is by comic artist Ben Templesmith. The design and its integration with the book contents are more evident when you see the complete dust jacket, and the rest of the book, of course. Since these are still being proofed I’ll probably post them after publication. Meanwhile, the book has a reduction of 25% if you order a copy now.

Limited Edition: 500 signed numbered hardcovers
Expected Publication Date: Second quarter 2008

“Like some delicious mashup of H.P. Lovecraft, Mervyn Peake, and L. Frank Baum, but with his own verbal dexterity and perverse ingenuity…An affecting narrative about love, art, sibling rivalry, commerce, history, and some really nasty ’shrooms.” The Washington Post Book World

A year’s best selection of The San Francisco Chronicle, The Austin Chronicle, and SF Site, World Fantasy Award winner Jeff VanderMeer’s Shriek: An Afterword is a triumphant return to the author’s imaginary city of Ambergris—the setting of his critically acclaimed, best-selling City of Saints & Madmen.

Shriek: An Afterword relates the scandalous, heartbreaking, and horrifying secret history of two squabbling siblings and their confidantes, protectors, and enemies. Narrated with flamboyant intensity and under increasingly urgent conditions by ex-society figure Janice Shriek, this afterword presents a vivid gallery of characters and events, emphasizing the adventures of Janice’s brother Duncan, a historian obsessed with a doomed love affair and a secret that may kill or transform him; a war between rival publishing houses that will change Ambergris forever; and the gray caps, a marginalized people armed with advanced fungal technologies who have been waiting underground for their chance to mold the future of the city.

Experience the beautifully strange novel that received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and was praised by, among others, Elizabeth Hand, Gene Wolfe, Zoran Zivkovic, Hal Duncan, and Jeffrey Ford.

Shriek: An Afterword further established Jeff VanderMeer as the finest fantasist of his generation.” The Austin Chronicle

“Five stars! A stunning and very different fantasy novel.” BBC Focus Magazine

“In the telling, Shriek: An Afterword is an exceptional novel, a tapestry of fine writing, deep psychological insight, and acute narrative excitement…. a dark fantasy of tremendous distinction.” Locus

Previously on { feuilleton }
Shriek: The Movie
New things for April II
Jeff on Bldgblog
An announcement redux
City of Saints and Madmen

Engelbrecht again

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I’m surfacing this week from a busy couple of months having finished (more or less) two substantial book designs. I mentioned the redesign of The Exploits of Engelbrecht a couple of weeks ago and it’s been a pleasure to have another bash at this. The original design wasn’t bad as such, especially compared to the rudimentary first edition from 1950, it’s more that the production standards were raised so much by the Savoy titles which followed that I frequently felt dissatisfied with it. You can see the new cover above and I’ll post some additional examples nearer publication (ETA for that is still vague).

Maurice Richardson’s tales of the dwarf surrealist sportsman are classics of eccentric comedy and it’s been a privilege having the opportunity to reintroduce them to a new audience. I intended the new dust jacket to be reminiscent of an old theatre or boxing poster and the brown and red design will be printed on uncoated textured paper to augment that effect. In addition to this volume I’ve also designed an edition of Jeff VanderMeer‘s Ambergris novel Shriek: An Afterword for Wyrm Publishing. Once again, I’ll post more details of that closer to release.

So now I take a deep breath and see what’s next. There’s another book project imminent but I’ve been asked not to say anything about that for the time being (don’t you love a mystery?). In spare moments such as these I’ve been trying to keep working on the collected edition of the Reverbstorm comics I created with Dave Britton for Savoy. That series has always been an important part of my work, more important in many ways than The Haunter of the Dark, and it’s frustrating to have over 250 pages of some of my best artwork sitting around virtually unseen. I was supposed to have the book finished off last year but other projects kept intervening. One of the resolutions for this year has been to at least complete the scanning and re-lettering, then we’ll see where it fits into Savoy’s schedule. Watch this space.

Witness my hand and official seal

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Anxious purchasers of the lavish Lovecraft art book from Centipede Press may like to know that the European signing sheets have arrived here safely ready to be scrawled upon by yours truly. I was surprised to find that these are big pages which means this book is going to be a real monster in all senses of the word, and certainly worth every dollar of its considerable cost. And I was pleased to find myself listed on the same sheet as the great Ian Miller, an artist I had the pleasure of meeting some years ago and whose Lovecraft covers for the Panther Horror series in the Seventies went some way to inspiring my own efforts a few years later.

Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s still a lot more sheets to sign…