John – Page 615 – { feuilleton }

Detmold’s insects

The White-Faced Decticus.

Edward Julius Detmold’s (1883–1957) skill at drawing animals gave him a great advantage when it came to illustrating Kipling’s The Jungle Book and Aesop’s Fables, still among the very best editions of those books. Less well-known are his illustrations for Fabre’s Book of Insects (1921), a guide by naturalist Jean-Henri Fabre. Bud Plant has details about the artist’s unhappy life, while the Internet Archive also has copies of the Aesop and the Kipling.

The Praying Mantis.

Italian Locusts.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Entomologia
• Fantastic art from Pan Books

Chernobyl’s zone of alienation

Chernobyl/Pripyat (2011) by Paul Curry.

Everyone’s favourite irradiated town, Pripyat in Ukraine, has been in the news again now that twenty-five years have passed since the the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. This photo of the area by Paul Curry is part of a panorama (with the nuclear plant in the distance) taken from a rootop on a clear day. Most photos of the site show the now-familiar abandoned buildings, empty playgrounds and so on; Curry’s view taken on 29th May this year is remarkable for showing how overgrown the place has become.

Chernobyl has become indelibly twinned with Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterwork of grimy science fiction, Stalker (1979), and the novel upon which the film was based, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic, a mesh of connections I explored in an earlier post. Darren Nisbett’s series of photos currently showing at the Rhubarb and Custard gallery, Berkshire, are good examples of how Stalker-like the place is now looking. Nisbett calls his series, many of which are infra-red views, Chernobyl’s Zone of Alienation although there’s no indication of whether he’s alluding to the hazardous Strugatsky/Tarkovsky “Zone”. The photos are on display until the end of this month, and the prints are for sale. The Independent has a gallery feature about the exhibition here.

Update: Simon Sellars from Ballardian alerts me to this blog which is currently running reports from a visit to the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Rerberg and Tarkovsky: The Reverse Side Of “Stalker”
• The slow death of modernism
• The Stalker meme

Clive Barker, Imaginer

Sea Captain by Clive Barker.

The inhabitants of Carlisle in the north of England are fortunate that the town’s Crown Gallery is hosting the first exhibition of Clive Barker’s artwork outside the US with a show entitled Clive Barker, Imaginer which opens this weekend. The artist will be attending the opening this Saturday, July 16th, and there’s also a signing planned the day after. Tickets are required for both these events so anyone interested will need to contact the gallery. No details as to what will be on display but the exhibition will run to August 23rd, 2011. Barker’s paintings, drawings and photo prints can be purchased through Bert Green Fine Art, Los Angeles.

Further oddities

Another of my Lambshead title pages.

A slight return to that book. Co-editor Jeff VanderMeer posted a page of Lambshead links which he’ll be following up with extracts from some of the contributors. He’ll also be having a draw to give out signed copies to people who write something about the book:

Bloggers (non-contributors) who post the link to their mention of the antho in the [Ecstatic Days] comments thread will be in the drawing for a free copy of the book, signed by the editors, as well as a copy of the coffee table book The Steampunk Bible, along with a few surprises…

Monstrum alatum, & cornutum instar Cacodaemonis.

And by coincidence, the latest post at BibliOdyssey is a selection of woodcut illustrations from Ulissi Aldrovandi’s Monstrorum Historia (1642). Many of these (or copies of the same) are familiar from later collections but as always it’s good to see the original printings.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The etching and engraving archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities
• Liceti’s monsters
• Portuguese Diseases
• The specimens of Alex CF
• Walmor Corrêa’s Memento Mori
• Pasticheur’s Addiction
• The art of Ron Pippin
• Custom creatures
• Jan Švankmajer: The Complete Short Films
• Cryptozoology
• The Museum of Fantastic Specimens

Alan Moore: Storyteller

Another book out this month from Ilex Press (the Lambshead anthology should be out in the US today), Alan Moore: Storyteller is an illustrated biography of Mr Moore by comics writer and artist Gary Spencer Millidge whose 50th birthday tribute Alan Moore: Portrait of An Extraordinary Gentleman appeared in 2003.

Subjects covered include rarely-seen early work, breakthrough UK comics, the hugely successful American work that brought comics to a wider, adult audience, and the genre-defying independent stories of the 1990s, up to his current alternative periodical, Dodgem Logic.

Of equal interest, and covered in full here, are Moore’s other endeavours: freedom of speech; magic and ritual; performance art; anarchism; self-publishing; and supporting the arts in his native Northampton, amongst others. (more)

My copy is on its way, apparently, so I haven’t seen the contents yet but it should include some of my designs and illustrations for the Moon & Serpent CDs. The book also includes a 19-track CD of songs, readings, and performances by Alan and co. I’m looking forward to this one.

My insert for the Snakes & Ladders CD (2003).

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Alan Moore: Tisser l’invisible
• Dodgem Logic #4
• Watchmen
• Alan Moore interview, 1988