{work} – Page 76 – { feuilleton }

Cthulhu under glass

Having had two separate visitors to the British Library’s Out of this World exhibition tell me that some of my work was featured there, it’s been a good to finally discover what was on display. Many thanks to John Keogh for notifying me of his exhibition photo set which includes the above shot of the relevant display case. This is an odd collection for what’s been widely advertised as a science fiction event. Pages from my 1988 adaptation of The Call of Cthulhu are in there along with other fantasy and horror titles including Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Incarnate by Ramsey Campbell, an edition of Fantasy & Science Fiction with Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood on the cover, and a Sidney Sime illustration for Lord Dunsany’s Gods of Pergana. Cthulhu originates out of this world, of course, and that phrase is general enough to encompass other genres.

This page from the climax of Lovecraft’s story was the first drawing I made of the living Cthulhu, all earlier representations following Lovecraft’s scheme of the creature manifesting throughout history in different human artworks and religious icons. Since most of those representations are highly stylised I wanted to make the awful reality seem a lot more visceral and even incoherent, hence the mass of flailing tentacles and ropes of slime. This is also the only full view you receive, everything else is fragmentary and allusive so there’s space for the reader’s imagination. I think the book in the library display is the Lovecraft anthology The Starry Wisdom but The Call of Cthulhu is also present in my Haunter of the Dark collection which includes a couple more portraits of “the green, sticky spawn of the stars”.

Out of this World is a free exhibition which will run to September 25th, 2011.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Lovecraft archive

Lovecraft’s favourite artists revisited

HP Lovecraft (1937) by Virgil Finlay.

I was asked recently to join the bloggers at Tor.com writing about art as it relates to fantasy and science fiction, so for today’s post your attention is directed to this piece, an expanded version of a rather half-hearted list I put together a few years back concerning HP Lovecraft’s favourite artists. Half-hearted or not, people kept linking to that list so it seemed a good idea to make more of it. I’ll be writing these posts a couple of times a month, provided I have the time to do something worthwhile. Watch this space.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The monstrous tome

The Steampunk Bible

Cover and interior designs by Galen Smith.

Arriving in your book emporia this week is The Steampunk Bible by Jeff VanderMeer & SJ Chambers, a comprehensive guide to the sub-genre which is now a thriving sub-culture. I contributed some bits of graphic design as well as a bespoke dirigible illustration (see below). The book also features a few other steampunk-related pieces of mine among its wealth of photos and illustrations. This is a typically lavish production from Abrams, beautifully designed by Galen Smith with a cover based on the celebrated Hetzel editions of Jules Verne’s novels. Inside there are essay contributions from Bruce Sterling, Catherynne M Valente, Jess Nevins and others. If you’re a steampunk enthusiast (or know one) this is an essential purchase. Some links and page samples follow below.

• The official Steampunk Bible site
• The Steampunk Bible: Mecha-Elephants, Raygun Rocketships, and Great Stories, a feature by Jeff V.
• Amazon US | Amazon UK | Book Depository | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound

My cover for KW Jeter’s Morlock Night which has just been republished by Angry Robot.

My brief was to create a cannon-bedecked piscine dirigible so this is what I came up with. See it in all its belligerent glory here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Steampunk Reloaded
• Steampunk overloaded!
• Vickers Airship Catalogue
• The Air Ship
• Dirigibles
• More Steampunk and the Crawling Chaos
• The art of François Schuiten
• Steampunk Redux
• Steampunk framed
• Steampunk Horror Shortcuts
• The Airship Destroyer
• Zeppelin vs. Pterodactyls
• The Hetzel editions of Jules Verne

Weekend links 55

From the Ornamental Age series (2009) by Seher Shah.

Seher Shah has recently updated her website giving us a better view of her extraordinary art.

• The Demon Regent Asmodeus, my short film of Alan Moore’s reading from the first Moon & Serpent CD, has been posted to YouTube. In other self-promotion news, Mahakala, a drawing of mine from 1984, finds an audience on Tumblr.

• Yet more Moore: Alan Moore & Iain Sinclair “explore psychogeography” at the Cheltenham Festival in June. Alan will also be discussing science and fiction with Robin Ince. Then in July he’s performing with fine fellow Stephen O’Malley at Alexandra Palace as part of Portishead’s I’ll Be Your Mirror festival. They’ll be providing text and music for Harry Smith’s Heaven and Earth Magic.

In most countries, parents can tell their kids that if they work hard and do everything right, they could grow up to be the head of state and symbol of their nation. Not us. Our head of state is decided by one factor, and one factor alone: did he pass through the womb of one aristocratic Windsor woman living in a golden palace? The US head of state grew up with a mother on food stamps. The British head of state grew up with a mother on postage stamps. Is that a contrast that fills you with pride? (…) Earlier this month, David Cameron lamented that too many people in Britain get ahead because of who their parents are. A few minutes later, without missing a beat, he praised the monarchy as the best of British. Nobody laughed.

Johann Hari kicks the royals.

• Related to the above: Lydia Leith’s royal wedding sick bag.

• Beautiful Century relates a dispiriting (and very common) encounter with Google’s blog prudery. The new Beautiful Century is now at Tumblr.

• In the future, everything will be on Tumblr for fifteen minutes. Among this week’s discoveries there’s Writers and Kitties, attractive men and vintage photos at Stuff Doer, and all manner of things at Maggs Counterculture including a picture by Jim Leon I hadn’t seen before.

From the Ornamental Age series (2009) by Seher Shah.

“Sidewalk cafés, free from conservative business attire…” Film of groovy Greenwich Village in the late 1960s. Related: groovier fashions in Art Nouveau Barcelona.

• Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009, a book from MIT Press.

• The Delian Mode, a film about electronic musician Delia Derbyshire by Kara Blake.

• Austin Osman Spare, a biography of the artist and occultist by Phil Baker.

• Lando Jones is giving away three limited edition prints of his artwork.

• Plano Creativo, a blog (in Spanish) by Alejandro Jodorowsky.

• B Magazine is a new publication for gay Americans.

• Diaghilev gets his due at Coilhouse.

• Baby’s On Fire (1973) by Brian Eno | Baby’s On Fire (1976) by 801 | Baby’s On Fire (from Velvet Goldmine) (1998) by The Venus In Furs.

The Arms of the Art

The Arms of the Art (2000).

An addendum to the Splendor Solis post. The Arms of the Art was a drawing I did in 2000 intended to inaugurate a series of pencil improvisations based on the Splendor Solis alchemical plates. As things turned out I only managed the first in the series (the picture it uses as a starting point is here) and about half of the second one which is languishing in a pad somewhere. Nothing in this drawing was planned or sketched beforehand, it was all done directly onto the paper, the idea being that I’d take the basic symbols or elements of each plate as a starting point and see what emerged once I began moving the pencil around. What usually emerges in these situations is a kind of abstracted landscape of hybrid forms that could be either mineral, organic or something in between. Some of the paintings I was doing in the 1990s followed a similar process, the challenge being to see how far you can develop things without the result becoming either too pictorial or too abstract; the painting below is an earlier example. I still like the idea of re-interpreting the Splendor Solis, and if I didn’t have other projects in progress I might be prepared to try it again. Maybe later.

Eidolon (1997).

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Splendor Solis