News...

I know it's been a slow year at Yog-blogsoth so far, but I promise things will pick up. One of the reason's things have been so slow is that I've been working on a few commission pieces. Here's one that I just got the go-ahead to reveal. It's the cover for a horror-fiction anthology titled Zombie Punks Fuck Off! Here's a quote from the publisher:

"As you may know, I run a press called Weirdpunk Books. Well, we are hard at work on our next project, Zombie Punks Fuck Off, edited by the brilliant Sam Richard. Here's the cover by the rad Michael Bukowski. This won't be out until the fall, but you can preorder now at http://freaktension.storenvy.com/. And yes, you can use the discount code."

I've also been slowly getting ready for NecronomiCon 2017! That means printing business cards, stickers and getting new zines ready! I plan on debuting a bunch of new zines at this years 'Con including a mini-Illustro Obscurum based on the works of Manly Wade Wellman, a collection of the first series of Stories From the Borderland with Scott Nicolay and finally...after a lonnnng time Volume IX of Illustro Obscurum!

Check back in to get additional details like cover reveals and where my table will be at NecronomiCon.

SYMBIOTIC PSYCHIC BEETLE

SYMBIOTIC PSYCHIC BEETLE
"I clambered up quickly, to see the largest black beetle I had ever experienced staring placidly down at me from its perch inside the cherub's mouth."

"It was an awesome specimen, big as a field mouse, with a brace of bristling antennae which it waved menacingly at me. "

"'The bug is simply a large black beetle and nothing more!'"

"'You'd better shut up and leave me alone! All I have to do is tell him and h'ell tear your head off.'"

"'Don't bother with that. you won't see him. You can't even touch him. But he can get you.'  Edward chuckled."

"I did not hear Edward's report, for I, too had heard the sleigher, sliding thump down the staircase as if some giant six-legged bull were descending. 

"Whatever it was that Edward's mind had summoned to work his vengeance had disappeared the moment this brain had ceased to function."

"Quickly, I shone my light through the black hole of its neck, where I saw two stubby antennae, bristling and waving furiously at me. The bug was curled back into the recess of the head as far from me as possible."

"Quickly, I recovered my blow and began beating the black beetle madly."

Linda Thornton, The Inhabitant Of the Pond
Read Scott's blog post about this story here.

THAT THING THAT ATE CROW

THAT THING THAT ATE CROW
Tom: Now look what you made me do. 

Mike: I didn't make you...Cambot, gimme Rocket Number Nine 

Tom: An innocent creature! 

Crow: Oh I'll get it you big babies. 

Tom: One of god's children Mike, and if it's dead I'll never forgive myself you letting you make me kill it. 

Mike: I know, I know... 

Crow: Hey, hey it's alive, it's alive! 

Mike: Hey look at him, he likes you. 

Crow: Isn't that darling...get away now. 

Tom: Can we keep 'im, can we keep him Mike, huh?! 

Mike: Well...I dunno I think we better release him back into the wild. 

Crow: He's eating me.
Mystery Science Theater 3000, Episode 804: The Deadly Mantis

News...

Sorry for the silence this last month, but I've been super busy with commission work. I just finished the cover for Scott Nicolay's translation of J.-H. Rosny aîné's The Xipéhuz! 

I also just finished an overhaul of my illustration website. You can find more info on my cover for The Xipéhuz, as well as years worth of archives, at the new Last Chance Illustration site. 

I'm also excited to say that I only have a single H.P. Lovecraft creature remaining to complete my Illustro Obscurum project....and it's a biggie! Expect it soon, along with a few redrawings of older dudes. As to the future of this blog, don't worry. I'll continue to illustrate monsters and gods from other weird fiction authors once Lovecraft is finished. 

 

THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS (NYARLATHOTEP)

THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS (NYARLATHOTEP)

"To Nyarlathotep, Mighty Messenger, must all things be told. And He shall put on the semblance of men, the waxen mask and the robe that hides, and come down from the world of Seven Suns to mock. . . ."

"With Akeley’s permission I lighted a small oil lamp, turned it low, and set it on a distant bookcase beside the ghostly bust of Milton; but afterward I was sorry I had done so, for it made my host’s strained, immobile face and listless hands look damnably abnormal and corpse-like. He seemed half-incapable of motion, though I saw him nod stiffly once in a while."

"For the things in the chair, perfect to the last, subtle detail of microscopic resemblance—or identity—were the face and hands of Henry Wentworth Akeley."

H.P. Lovecraft, The Whisperer In Darkeness

 

TONATIUH

TONATIUH
“Mictlanteuctli, Great Lord, a sign! A sign from within thy black cave! Iä! Tonatiuh-Metztli! Cthulhutl! Command, and I serve!”

H.P. Lovecraft & Adolphe DeCastro, The Electric Executioner

"The Aztecs viewed Tonatiuh as a god constantly threatened by the awesome tasks of his daily birth at sunrise, by his death each sunset, and by the immense effort of making his journey across the sky each day. According to Aztec traditions, the gods themselves were believed to practice voluntary sacrifice, first to create Tonatiuh and then to feed him and encourage him on his path through the sky. The worship of Tonatiuh, whose sustenance required human blood and hearts, involved militaristic cults and the practice of frequent human sacrifice to ensure perpetuation of the world."

"Tonatiuh is generally represented by a colourful disk. He is best known as he is depicted in the centre of the Aztec calendar, with his eagle’s claw hands clutching human hearts."
Encyclopedia Britannica

News...

Hey everybody! So Scott Nicolay's essay for the Xipéhuz edition of Stories From the Borderland is now live! AND we've announced that we're partnering with Dim Shores to a print run of Scott's brand new translation of the story including my illustrations as well as a brand new wraparound cover and interior illustrations!

I've also got the tentative 2017 lineup for Seventh Church Ministries! Artists tend to have busy and slow commission periods so many of these zines may not come to fruition and some may come ahead of others. As of right now we're looking at: 

Illustro Obscurum secret benefit zine (bonus prints by Caitlin McCormack, Brad Omen & Kati Driscoll)
Paradise Lost by Dave Felton (bonus print by Alex Eckman-Lawn)
The Yellow Wallpaper by Jenn Woodall
Panchatantra by Anoop Bhat
Unnamed zine by Ana Armengod
Unnamed zine by Ketch Wehr inspired by James Tiptree Jr.
Unnamed zine by Justin Gray illustrations of Doc Savage villains
Illustro Obscurum Volume IX

POLYHYMNIA

POLYHYMNIA

"And Polyhymnia lays aside her psalms: 

The fair Thalia smiles with brighter grace,

And gay Terpsichore suspends her pace."

H.P. Lovecraft, R. Kleiner, Laureatus, In Heliconem

"POLYHYMNIA, a daughter of Zeus, and one of the nine Muses. She presided over lyric poetry, and was believed to have invented the lyre. In works of art she was usually represented in a pensive attitude."

Aaron J. Atsma, The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology

URANUS

URANUS

"In Tartarus the Titans writhe, and beneath the fiery Aetna groan the children of Uranus and Gaea."

H.P. Lovecraft & Anna Helen Crofts, Poetry And the Gods

"And Ouranos came, bringing on night and longing forlove, and he lay about Gaia spreading himself full upon her. Then the son from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father's members and cast them away to fall behind him."

Hesiod, Theogony

"May the great wide bronze sky (ouranos) fall upon me from above, the fear of earth-born men."

Theognis, Fragment 1. 869

"OURANOS (Uranus) was the primordial god (protogenos) of the sky. The Greeks imagined the sky as a solid dome of brass, decorated with stars, whose edges descended to rest upon the outermost limits of the flat earth. Ouranos was the literal sky, just as his consort Gaia (Gaea) was the earth."

"Ouranos does not appear in early Greek art but Egyptian depictions of their sky-goddess Nut demonstrate how he was imagined--as a gigantic, star-spangled man with long arms and legs, resting on all fours, with his finger-tips in the far east, his toes in the far west, and his arching body raised to form the dome of the sky."

Aaron J. Atsma, The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology 

METZTLI

METZTLI

"The searchers had found the place only because of the chanting and the final cry. It had been close to five that morning, and after an all-night encampment the party had begun to pack up for its empty-handed return to the mines. Then somebody had heard faint rhythms in the distance, and knew that one of the noxious old native rituals was being howled from some lonely spot up the slope of the corpse-shaped mountain. They heard the same old names—Mictlanteuctli, Tonatiuh-Metzli, Cthulhutl, Ya-R’lyeh, and all the rest—but the queer thing was that some English words were mixed with them."

H.P. Lovecraft, The Electric Executioner

"The Aztec goddess named 'golden bells' was among Coatlicue's children, who tried to kill their mother rather than let her bear rivals to them. Coyolxauhqui tried to warn her mother, so her siblings decapitated her and threw her head into the night sky.  A grieving Coatlicue place Coyolxauhqui's shining head in the night sky. Coyolxauhuqui may have descended from the older moon goddess Metztli, who had two phases: One that promoted growth, another that discouraged it."

Patricia Monaghan, Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines

"From that day forward, Metztli, the moon, was forever dimmer than the sun, his face permanently marked with the imprint of the rabbit, visible in pattern of light and dark patches on the full moon. Metztli was sometimes portrayed as a goddess rather than a god, and though she controlled fertility, she also represented night, dampness, and cold."

Tamra Andrews, Dictionary Of Nature Myths: Legends of the Earth, Sea and Sky

"The dying Coatlicue gave birth to Huitzilopochtli, who, armed with his xiuhcoatl weapon, dismembered Coyolxauhqui and routed the Centzon Huitznahua at the hill of Coatepec."

Mary Miller & Karl Taube, The Gods and Symbols Of Ancient Mexico And The Maya