A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
Much of the work I’ve been doing for the past few weeks has been steampunk-related so I’ve been searching for more antique reference material than usual. A recent delve unearthed this pair of vintage contortionists. The photograph above dates from circa 1880 and is from the George Eastman House collection at Flickr. Also at Flickr is a great set of vintage theatre posters which includes the example below. (And also at the Library of Congress.) More about the steampunk work in due course.
Arriving in the post this week was this 350-page guide to horror cinema, a Carlton Books reprint of the 2006 Andre Deutsch volume to which I contributed some 30-plus reviews and essays on Dracula, Lovecraft and occult cinema. This new printing is slightly expanded although the production is a lot less lavish than the earlier book which was a hardback with colour photos throughout. I suppose this one goes by the TV chair whereas the previous edition deserved a place on the bookshelf. I didn’t have a lot of time earlier this year to help with the updating but I did manage to write reviews of The Mist and Cloverfield, two recent horror outings I enjoyed a great deal. Despite the proliferation of online reviews there’s still a place for handy guides such as this, and I’d say that even if I wasn’t a contributor. Kim Newman is a contributing editor at Sight & Sound magazine, and both he and James Marriott have produced their own excellent guides to horror cinema. When sites like IMDB are weighed down with an opinionated rabble, an intelligent and informed counterweight is essential.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Berni Wrightson in The Mist
• Stamps of horror
• Horror comics
• Hail, horrors! hail, infernal world!
Well that took a lot longer than it should have done but as I mentioned earlier, the break has enabled me to catch up with some pressing deadlines. Despite the delay the server move seems to have gone better than in the past, and should have the advantage of making this part of the site run a lot more efficiently than it has done when a horde of vistors turn up looking for gay erotica.
I’ve lots of news to post about recent work but for now here’s a picture of Baron Munchhausen on his aquatic horse, a rendering from 1896 by Gottfried Franz (1846–1905) which can be seen at very large size at Wikimedia Commons. Onward!
The server swap is still ongoing here so, for technical reasons I won’t bore anyone with, I’m taking a short break until things are sorted out. Yesterday’s post and a couple of recent comments may vanish for a while but if they do they should be restored soon after. A break would be useful this week in any case since I have a number of competing deadlines to attend to. See you on the other side!
Histioteuthis ruppellii.
Suckered pseudopods flex and writhe again this week with simultaneous postings at BibliOdyssey and Sci-Fi-O-Rama. Coincidence or some cephalopodic zeitgeist thing? You decide. BibliOdyssey has a fine set of natural history plates showing various squid and octopuses while Sci-Fi-O-Rama presents a small collection of illustrations by Barnaby Ward. If it’s boys and tentacles you want (and who doesn’t?), then there’s always the art of NoBeast.
Untitled drawing by Barnaby Ward.
Ernst Haeckel remains my favourite tentacle illustrator, and the octopus below is one of his examples from Kunstformen der Natur (1899–1904). Somewhere (although Cthulhu knows where) I have a drawing by Hal Foster from one of his Prince Valiant strips showing a sinister octopus in a pit which is almost a match for Haeckel’s, and may even have been based on it. If I ever find it again I’ll post it here. Meanwhile, China Miéville’s Kraken is currently lurking on bookshelves, and let me remind you again that he discusses that novel and other works over at Salon Futura. While we’re on the subject, let’s not forget the Octopulps.
Octopus by Ernst Haeckel.
Finally, a note to say that my webhost is moving this site to a new server which may cause some disruption to these pages for the next few days. As always, your patience is appreciated.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Jewelled butterflies and cephalopods
• Haeckel fractals
• Ernst Haeckel, Christmas card artist
• The art of Rune Olsen
• Octopulps
• The art of NoBeast