A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
Comics
Presenting the best of the architectural shots from the Providence trip. Regular readers will know how much I enjoy an arcade so it was a thrill that the public headquarters of NecronomiCon—Lovecraft Arts & Sciences— was located in the oldest arcade in the United States.
I’ve been working all day to get multiple things finished before leaving for Providence so here’s a handful of Druillet covers pulled from Noosfere. Philippe Druillet must be one of the first artists—possibly the first—whose work is Lovecraftian at core. Artists had been illustrating Lovecraft’s stories since their first publication but Druillet’s work from the late 60s to the mid-70s often seems like a series of reports from Lovecraft’s imagination. This is most evident in two of the artist’s graphic novels, Yragaël (1974) and Urm le Fou (1975), which I find to be more convincingly Lovecraftian than much of the imitative fiction being produced at the time. For more along these lines, see this post about Druillet’s portfolio series, Lovecraft: Démons et Merveilles.
Les Autres Dieux et autres nouvelles (2002).
In 2002, French publisher J’ai Lu used my perennially popular view of R’lyeh on the cover of a small collection of HP Lovecraft’s fiction. This replaced a Michael Whelan painting on an earlier edition which looks fine but which happens to be a detail from one of his old Elric covers.
Par-delà le mur du sommeil (2002). Cover art by Eikasia.
Looking through the Lovecraft pages at Noosfere this week turned up some recent French covers I’d not seen before. One of the striking things about cover art for French genre titles is the amount of artists who also work in comics. This isn’t so surprising given the scale of the French comics world but in the UK the tendency is for people to work in one area alone. Artists such as myself who move freely from comics to cover art to graphic design are a very small minority.
Night ocean et autres nouvelles (2005). Cover art by Richard Guérineau.
Next month I’ll be in Providence, Rhode Island, where I’m the Artist Guest of Honour for NecronomiCon Providence 2015. This is an honour for me in more ways than one: the city of Providence, or its representation in the spectral prose of HP Lovecraft, has occupied a fair amount of my creative life, especially in the comic-strip adaptations I was drawing in the 1980s. I just hope the citizens of Providence can forgive the liberties I took with the city’s architecture in The Haunter of the Dark where the buildings owe far more to the architecture of Scotland than they do to New England.
A nameless entity from Lovecraft’s Monsters (2014).
The main event where I’m concerned will be the Ars Necronomica art show at the Providence Art Club on Thomas Street. This is a few doors away from the beautiful Fleur-De-Lys Studios, a building that Lovecraft mentions in The Call of Cthulhu, and which (having done some research this time) filled a panel in my adaptation. In the story the building is the home of eccentric artist Henry Wilcox so it’s a dizzying prospect to find my own art being exhibited a few doors away. Among my works there will be print enlargements of some of the illustrations from last year’s Lovecraft’s Monsters, Ellen Datlow’s expertly edited collection of recent Lovecraftiana; and the piece I created in 2007 for the Exhibition of Unspeakable Things at Maison d’Ailleurs, Switzerland, has been refashioned especially for this show. My work isn’t the only art on display, there’ll be contributions from 50 other artists which I think must make the event one of the largest Lovecraftian art shows staged anywhere. The show opens on August 11th but the official opening will be on the 20th which happens to be Lovecraft’s 125th birthday. Big thanks to Joe Shea, Niels Hobbs et al for arranging everything.
The convention begins on the 21st, and rather than attempt to summarise the astonishing range of events it’s easier to provide links to the main schedule and the additional programming. For anyone interested in attending, there are still day passes available, while many of the additional events are open to the public. Oh, and I’ve also designed the cover for the convention booklet so attendees will be able to get their copy defaced by my signature. (I’m probably making work for myself here, aren’t I?) And I’ve just noticed that there’s a preview of the booklet cover on the convention Facebook page.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Lovecraft archive
1: A slang phrase
Postcard via.
From the Oxford English Dictionary:
skidoo, v. N. Amer. slang. (ski’du:) Also skiddoo. [Orig. uncertain, perh. f. skedaddle v.]
2. In catch-phrases. a. Used as an exclamation of disrespect (for a person). Esp. in nonsense association with twenty-three. (temporary.)
1906 J. F. Kelly Man with Grip (ed. 2) 99 As for Belmont and Ryan and the rest of that bunch, Skidoo for that crowd when we pass. Ibid. 118 ‘I can see a reason for ‘skidoo’,’ said one, ‘and for ‘23’ also. Skidoo from skids and ‘23’ from 23rd Street that has ferries and depots for 80 per cent. of the railroads leaving New York.’ 1911 Maclean’s Mag. Oct. 348/1 Surrounded by this conglomerate procession as I went on my way, the urchins would yell ‘Skidoo,’ ‘23 for you!’
b. spec. as twenty-three skidoo: formerly, an exclamation of uncertain meaning; later used imp., go away, ‘scram’.
1926 C. T. Ryan in Amer. Speech II. 92/1, I really do not recall which appeared first in my vocabulary, the use of ‘some’ for emphasis or that effective but horrible ‘23-Skiddoo’—perhaps they were simultaneous. 1929 Amer. Speech IV. 430 Among the terms which the daily press credits Mr. Dorgan with inventing are:…twenty-three skiddoo (go away). 1957 W. Faulkner Town iii. 56 Almost any time now Father would walk in rubbing his hands and saying ‘oh you kid’ or ‘twenty-three skidoo’. 1978 D. Bagley Flyaway xi. 80 This elderly, profane woman…used an antique American slang… I expected her to come out with ‘twenty-three, skidoo’.
2: An esoteric poem by Aleister Crowley
[23]
SKIDOO
What man is at ease in his Inn?
Get out.
Wide is the world and cold.
Get out.
Thou hast become an in-itiate.
Get out.
But thou canst not get out by the way thou camest in. The Way out is THE WAY.
Get out.
For OUT is Love and Wisdom and Power.
Get OUT.
If thou hast T already, first get UT.
Then get O.
And so at last get OUT.
From The Book of Lies (1912/13)
3: A film by Julian Biggs
23 Skidoo (1964).
If you erase the people of downtown America, the effect is bizarre, not to say disturbing. That is what this film does. It shows the familiar urban scene without a soul in sight: streets empty, buildings empty, yet everywhere there is evidence of recent life and activity. At the end of the film we learn what has happened.
4: 23 Skidoo Eristic Elite by William Burroughs
International Times, issue 18, Aug 31–Sept 13, 1967.
From Burroughs proceed to Illuminatus! (1975) by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, and many subsequent derivations.
5: A one-off comic strip by Rick Griffin and Rory Hayes
From Bogeyman Comics #2 (1969).
6: A music group
Just Like Everybody (1987). Design by Neville Brody.
7: A poetry collection by Eckhard Gerdes
23 Skidoo! 23 Form-Fitting Poems (2013) by Eckhard Gerdes.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Seven Songs by 23 Skidoo
• 23 Skidoo by Julian Biggs
• Neville Brody and Fetish Records