EXCLUSIVE NYARLATHOTEP COLLABORATIONS

Now that Volumes VII and VIII of Illustro Obscurum have been up for sale I'm ready to tell you guys about my next Yog-Blogsoth project.

This all started the end of last year when I dove head first into researching avatars of Nyarlathotep. I realized that since HPL mentions that the god has a thousand forms, any other guise author is canonical and gives me a reason to draw pieces based on some of may favorite and iconic mythos authors (past and present).

Around the same time, I started talking to Jason McKittrick of Cryptocurium about collaborating on something, but his work wouldn't fit with Guests In the Witch House. Then I thought, if I'm already incorporating all these other weird descriptions of Nyarlathotep why not come up with our own. The two of us sat down, and outlined a story for our original vision of the Mighty Messenger and devised a plan. We're going to work together to create a Nyarlathotep collection that will include artifacts sculpted by Jason and an extra long volume of Illustro Obscurum that includes all the avatars of Nyarlathotep (well most). It will include tons of extra goodies and be available on both our sites.

After that I got to scheming even further. If I can include any description of Nyarlathotep why not ask authors for brand new ideas? There are authors I've wanted to collaborate with but couldn't figure the means until now. So, I sent out a request for a fragment of a story that describes how each author envisioned the Crawling Chaos. That was it, I gave no other guidelines. The response was jaw dropping. Not only did I get quick enthusiastic responses but I got some of the weirdest, most bizarre imaginings I could've asked for. I couldn't wait to get to work.

So, starting next week, I'll be posting the first of two weeks worth of Yog-Blogsoth exclusive author collaborations. Some wrote brand new fragments, some wrote almost full stories, some gave me permission to use stories already in existence and one even gave me a story not yet published. Here's a rundown of week one:

1-LAIRD BARRON: Laird is, hands down, my favorite modern author and top five of all time. His collections The Imago Sequence, Occultation and The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All have received amazing praise from just about everyone. The novella The Light Is the Darkness (one of my favorites) and his novel The Croning are masterfully crafted to create a world and mythos all his own. Laird contributed an original fragment to this project and even though it's only a paragraph long, he manages to conjure up a mood and setting both ominous and terrifying.

2-VICTORIA DALPE: Victoria is an extremely multi-talented person. Her bone-obsessed oil paintings are stunning and I often find myself gazing at them on her blog. Her short stories have appeared in 100 Doors To Madness, The Dark Hall Press Ghost Anthology, as well as the Shub-Niggurath themed collection The Conqueror Womb. The long fragment she provided proved to be my favorite. It's disgusting, creepy and above all weird. It presents Nyarlathotep as a manipulator and destroyer that takes pleasure in destroying men. Hers will be NSFW and possibly the most obscene thing I've ever drawn!

3-ORRIN GREY: Orrin Grey's collection Never Bet the Devil, was one of my favorites from last year. He's got a way of putting a fresh spin on well worn horror tropes making them interesting and creepy. The story The Reading Room is a clever twist on the forbidden tome story and Black Hill manages to make an unlikely, yet terrifying revelation about the Mythos. Orrin's fragment was the most fun to draw and probably the most ridiculous! It harks back to Out Of the Aeons and the living mummies created by Ghatanothoa!

4-JOHN LANGAN: John's collection Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters contains my favorite modern mummy tale, and his other collection, The Wide Carnivorous Sky contains my favorite modern vampire story. When I approached John about this collaboration he told me he had just written a story that involved Nyarlathotep that was not yet published and asked if I'd want to use that. I was so excited. Not only did I get to read this epic futuristic/sci-fi/horror tale, I got to illustrate a character from it!

5-MOLLY TANZER: I first encountered Molly's fiction in The Book Of Cthulhu which contained her eerie story The Infernal History Of the Ivy Bridge Twins, which inspired me to redraw my Peculiar Dolphin to fit with her story! Molly was super enthusiastic about this idea and pointed me towards a story she had published in Book Of the Dead where The Faceless God takes on a Tesla/Houdini type guise somewhat akin to his appearance in Lovecraft's poem Nyarlathotep.

In a few weeks there will be a second round featuring SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA, PHILIP GELATT, W.H. PUGMIRE, LIVIA LLEWELLYN and more!