{"id":17388,"date":"2015-10-28T01:01:37","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T01:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=17388"},"modified":"2025-09-21T16:08:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T15:08:12","slug":"the-monstrous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2015\/10\/28\/the-monstrous\/","title":{"rendered":"The Monstrous"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous01.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous01.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>One of the books I was working on over the summer is officially published this week. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/bibliopoesy\/monstrous.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The Monstrous<\/em><\/a> is a horror anthology edited by Ellen Datlow, and the third Datlow collection that I&#8217;ve designed for <a href=\"https:\/\/tachyonpublications.com\/product\/the-monstrous-3\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tachyon Publications<\/a> after <a href=\"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/bibliopoesy\/lovecraftsmonsters.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Lovecraft&#8217;s Monsters<\/em><\/a> (2014) and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/bibliopoesy\/darkness.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror<\/em><\/a> (2010).<\/p>\n<p>My work on this new collection isn&#8217;t as full-on as for the Lovecraft volume: I designed the interior, and also illustrated each story but this time many of the illustrations are details or vignettes rather than full-page pictures. There are still 20 stories and over 20 illustrations, however, illustrating pieces by\u00a0Jeffrey Ford, Peter Straub, Dale Bailey, Caitl\u00edn R. Kiernan, Gemma Files, Livia, Adam-Troy Castro, Kim Newman, Jack Dann &amp; Gardner Dozois, Carole Johnstone, Brian Hodge, Stephen Graham Jones, Adam L. G. Nevill, Sofia Samatar, Terry Dowling, Glen Hirshberg, A. C. Wise, Steve Rasnic Tem, Christopher Fowler, and John Langan. Not everything here is a monster in the common sense of that word, the collection explores monstrousness in many different forms, from Sumerian demons and Japanese ghosts to Peter Straub&#8217;s disturbing portrait of a psychotic school teacher.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous02.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous02.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Missing from this selection of pages is additional pictorial material from Fortunio Liceti&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/fortuniuslicetus00lice\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>De Monstris<\/em><\/a> (1665). The capitals on the contents pages are the collaged letterforms by Roman Cie\u015blewicz taken from Dover&#8217;s book of <a href=\"http:\/\/store.doverpublications.com\/048624105x.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bizarre and ornamental alphabets<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous03.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous03.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous04.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous04.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous05.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous05.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous06.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous06.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous07.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous07.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous08.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous08.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous09.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous09.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous10.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous10.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous11.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous11.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous12.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous12.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous13.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous13.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous14.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous14.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous15.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous15.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous16.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous16.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/monstrous17.jpg\" alt=\"monstrous17.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Previously on { feuilleton }<br \/>\n\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2014\/04\/03\/lovecrafts-monsters-unleashed\/\">Lovecraft\u2019s Monsters unleashed<\/a><br \/>\n\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2010\/08\/03\/licetis-monsters\/\">Liceti\u2019s monsters<\/a><br \/>\n\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2010\/06\/24\/new-work-two-forms-of-darkness\/\">New work: Two forms of darkness<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the books I was working on over the summer is officially published this week. The Monstrous is a horror anthology edited by Ellen Datlow, and the third Datlow collection that I&#8217;ve designed for Tachyon Publications after Lovecraft&#8217;s Monsters (2014) and Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror (2010). My work on this new collection &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2015\/10\/28\/the-monstrous\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Monstrous&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,30,42,4,22,23],"tags":[1440,6316,383],"class_list":["post-17388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-black-white","category-books","category-design","category-horror","category-work","tag-ellen-datlow","tag-roman-cieslewicz","tag-tachyon-publications"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-4ws","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}