DIVER-IMITATING FISH-LIFE

DIVER-IMITATING FISH-LIFE

"Well, I swam and I swam and I swam. You know how a chase takes you, and somehow being unable to overtake a mere girl made it worse. But I was gaining, age and all, until just as I got close enough to sense something was wrong, she turned sidewise above two automobile tires-and I saw it wasn't a girl at all"

"I had been following a goddamned great fish-a fish with a bright blue-and-orange band around its belly, and a thin white body ending in a black flipperlike tail. Even its head and nape were black, like her hair and mask. It had a repulsive catfishlike mouth, with barbels."

"The thing goggled at me and then swam awkwardly away, just as the light went worse yet. But there was enough for me to see that it was no normal fish, either, but a queer archaic thing that looked more tacked together than grown. This I can't swear to, because I was looking elsewhere by then, but it was my strong impression that as it went out of my line of sight its whole tail broke off." 

James Tiptree Jr., Beyond the Dead Reef

Read Scott's blog-post about this story here.

 

FACELESS GHOST

FACELESS GHOST

"The moonlight shone on his face, and that face was just a slab of smooth yellowish flesh extending from ear to ear, empty as the oval of an egg without eyes or nose or mouth. From the upper edge of the shawl where it crossed the forehead there depended a few wisps of grey hair."

E.F. Benson, The Step

GHOST MONKEY

GHOST MONKEY

"By it stood the alabaster vases containing the entrails of the dead, and at each corner of the sepulchre there were carved out of the sandstone rock, forming, as it were, pillars to support the roof, thick-set images of squatting apes."

"A-pen-ara curses any who desecrates or meddles with her bones, and should anyone do so, the guardians of her sepulchre will see to him, and he shall die childless and in panic and agony; also the guardians of her seulchre will tear the hair from his head and scoop his eyes from their sockets, and pluck the thumb from his right hand, as a man plucks the young blade of corn from its sheath."

"Very pretty little attentions,' he said. 'And who are the guardians of this sweet young lady's sepulchre? Those four great apes carved at the corners?"

"Morris's servant had only had the briefest sight of it, and his description of it at the inquest did not tally with that of any known simian type."

E.F. Benson, Monkeys

WERECAT

 WERECAT
"The form of it, naked, but for a loin-cloth, was that of a man, the head seemed now human, now to be that of some monstrous cat."

E.F. Benson, Bagnell Terrace

 

ELEMENTAL

ELEMENTAL
"It waved as if it had been the head and forepart of some huge snake rearing itself, but it instantly disappeared, and my glimpse had been so momentary that I could not trust my impression."

'"What on earth was it?" he said. "It looked like some enormous slug standing up. Did you see it?"'

E.F. Benson, And No Bird Sings

'“I don’t know, as I told you, what the Thing is. But if you ask me what my conjecture is, it is that the Thing is an Elemental.”'

" It was like the shadow of some enormous slug, legless and fat, some two feet high by about four feet long. Only at one end of it was a head shaped like the head of a seal, with open mouth and panting tongue."

"The Thing, waving its head, came closer and closer to him, and reached out towards his throat."

"Only the collar of the medium was crumpled and torn, and on his throat were two scratches that bled."

E.F. Benson, The Thing In the Hall 

 

CANCER INGLISENSIS

CANCER INGLISENSIS
"For it was covered with great caterpillars, a foot or more in length, which crawled over it. They were faintly luminous, and it was the light from them that showed me the room. Instead of the sucker-feet of ordinary caterpillars they had rows of pincers like crabs, and they moved by grasping what they lay on with their pincers, and then sliding their bodies forward. In colour these dreadful insects were yellowish-grey, and they were covered with irregular lumps and swellings. There must have been hundreds of them, for they formed a sort of writhing, crawling pyramid on the bed. Occasionally one fell off on to the floor, with a soft fleshy thud, and though the floor was of hard concrete, it yielded to the pincerfeet as if it had been putty, and, crawling back, the caterpillar would mount on to the bed again, to rejoin its fearful companions. They appeared to have no faces, so to speak, but at one end of them there was a mouth that opened sideways in respiration."

'“It has got funny feet, too,” he said. “They are like crabs’ pincers. What’s the Latin for crab?”

“Oh, yes, Cancer. So in case it is unique, let’s christen it: ‘Cancer Inglisensis.’”

E.F. Benson, Caterpillars

Merry Christmas E.F. Benson!

This coming week is Christmas, and to celebrate I'll be posting a monster a day (including Christmas day) based on the works of E.F. Benson.

Benson was the author of mainly satire and romance novels. However, we're concerned with his short horror stories. They run the gamut from eerie chillers, comical farces and even truly Weird. His most popular horror story was The Bus-Conductor which was adapted for the British film Dead Of Night and also as a Twilight Zone episode. A repeated phrase "Room for one more" was even the basis for an urban legend and worked it's way into Oingo Boingo's song Dead Man's Party!

Lovecraft had high praise for Benson. In his book Supernatural Horror In Literature, he praised the Machen-influenced story The Man Who Went Too Far.

You may ask, why Christmas? What's the connection. Well Benson was not only a member of The Chitchat Society with M.R. James (where he witnessed him read his first two stories) and the Twice A Fortnight Group with him but the two were friends for over 50 years. So, seeing how James' ghost stories are so well loved on Christmas, I thought it only fitting to include his long time friend.

Above, I've included a picture of the Twice A Fortnight Group which included M.R. James, E.F. Benson and his brother R.H. Benson. Not only them but also J.K. Stephen who is a Jack the Ripper suspect (albeit a rather dubious one)! 

PLAYER FROM BEYOND THE VOID

 PLAYER FROM BEYOND THE VOID

 "I saw Zann start as from the hint of a horrible shock. Unmistakably he was looking at the curtained window and listening shudderingly. Then I half fancied I heard a sound myself; though it was not a horrible sound, but rather an exquisitely low and infinitely distant musical note, suggesting a player in one of the neighbouring houses, or in some abode beyond the lofty wall over which I had never been able to look."

"But I did not pursue this course for more than a moment; for when the dumb musician recognised the whistled air his face grew suddenly distorted with an expression wholly beyond analysis, and his long, cold, bony right hand reached out to stop my mouth and silence the crude imitation. As he did this he further demonstrated his eccentricity by casting a startled glance toward the lone curtained window, as if fearful of some intruder—a glance doubly absurd, since the garret stood high and inaccessible above all the adjacent roofs, this window being the only point on the steep street, as the concierge had told me, from which one could see over the wall at the summit."

"Yet when I looked from that highest of all gable windows, looked while the candles sputtered and the insane viol howled with the night-wind, I saw no city spread below, and no friendly lights gleaming from remembered streets, but only the blackness of space illimitable; unimagined space alive with motion and music, and having no semblance to anything on earth. And as I stood there looking in terror, the wind blew out both the candles in that ancient peaked garret, leaving me in savage and impenetrable darkness with chaos and pandemonium before me, and the daemon madness of that night-baying
viol behind me."
H.P. Lovecraft, The Music Of Erich Zann

FALSE FRIENDS

FALSE FRIENDS
"... suppose there are ... things ... that live in people places.  Cities.  Houses.  These things could imitate -- well, other kinds of things you find in people places ...
"Maybe they're a different kind of life-form.  Maybe they get their nourishment out of the elements in the air.  You know what safety pins are -- these other kinds of them?... the safety pins are the pupa-forms and then they ... hatch.  Into the larval-forms.  Which look just like coat hangers.  They feel like them, even, but they're not ..."
"All those bicycles the cops find, and they hold them waiting for owners to show up, and then we buy them at the sale because no owners show up because there aren't any, and the same with the ones the kids are always trying to sell us, and they say they just found them, and they really did because they were never made in a factory.  They grow.  You smash them and throw them away, they regenerate ..."

""You got to get the picture. I'm not talking about real pins or hangers. I got a name for the others-'false friens,' I call them. In high school French, we had to watch out for French words that looked like English words, but really were different. 'Faux amis,' they called them. False friends. Psuedo pins."

"By the way ... what's become of the French racer, the red one, used to be here?"

"Oscar's face twitched.  Then it grew bland and innnocent and he leaned over and nudged his customer.  "Oh, that one.  Old Frenchy?  Why, I put him out to stud!"

"And they laughed and they laughed, and after they told a few more stories they concluded the sale, and they had a few beers and they laughed some more.  And then they said what a shame it was about poor Ferd, poor old Ferd, who had been found in his own closet with an unravled coat hanger coiled tightly around his neck."
Avram Davidson, Or All the Seas With Oysters

Read Scott's blog-post about this story here.

SCYLLA

SCYLLA

"Now Scylla's necks menace his decks 

Charybdis threats his ships 

Six men are lost-O! dreadful cost 

But he through danger slips"

H.P. Lovecraft, The Poem Of Ulysses

"Scylla, whose name is derived from skulle, meaning "bitch", is portrayed variously as a beautiful female from the waist up but from the waist down had the heads of six ferocious dogs sprouting from her above twelve dogs' legs' or as an amorphous, tentacled mass with as many as six heads each with three sets of teeth and twelve sets of legs and feet."

"During the Middle Ages, Scylla was often portrayed in bestiaries as a marine monster, described as having the tail of a dolphin on the body of a wolf and from the waist up a young woman."
Carol Rose, Giants, Monsters and Dragons  

"Homer describes Skylla as a creature with twelve dangling feet, six long necks and grisly heads lined with a triple row of sharp teeth." 

"Skylla is probably derived from the imagery of words associated with her name : namely, "hermit-crab" (Greek skyllaros), "dog" and "dog-shark" (skylax), and "to rend" (skyllô). In classical art she was depicted as a fish-tailed sea-goddess"
Aaron J. Atsma, The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology

"She was once a beautiful maiden and was changed into a snaky monster by Circe. She dwelt in a cave high up on the cliff, from whence she was accustomed to thrust forth her long necks, and in each of her mouths seize one of the crew of every 
vessel passing within reach."
Thomas Bullfinch, Bullfinch's Mythology 

THE SHADOW IN THE SHED

THE SHADOW IN THE SHED
"And this Shadow, or whatever it was, was a most peculiar and unusual thing. It seemed circular in shape, tubelike; about five feet through, as near as they could tell, it extended from the dirt floor of The Shed clear to the roof, and up beyond the rafters inside it was too dim to see clearly."

"The thing was of a nondescript color, mostly gray."

"He began poking at two shiny objects, working them across the close-packed dirt floor, ignoring the Shadow, which was rippling and twisting as though annoyed by the intrusion."

"Suddenly they stopped short, for the Shadow now seemed subtly different. More colorful, more solid, and a movement to it that was sort of....an aliveness!"   

The strange and evil mistiness was curling and entwining itself all about and around the cow. Thicker and thicker grew the folds of Shadow-substance."

"The colors of the thing were more pronounced, now. Flaming,  angry reds, flashing blues, sickly greens and yellows."

E. Everett Evans, The Shed 
Read Scott's blog-post about this story here.

MINISTER OF THE MONOLITHS (NYARLATHOTEP)

MINISTER OF THE MONOLITHS (NYARLATHOTEP)

"The monoliths shook in the soil like the prongs of a tuning fork. As they vibrated they began to sway back and forth, each swing wider than the last until the dirt spewed up at the base of each in a small explosion. It was the legs. Each one had four crustacean-like legs covered in rough shell armor and pointed at the end. Then, as they lifted themselves out of the loam the stone in the center of each cracked revealing a glowing red eye. "

"But the real horror was the center column. The same as the other but larger and engraved with indecipherable glyphs. It loomed over Nick and Denise as the sat in shocked horror. Their mouths agape as their brains tried to catch up with what their eyes were seeing. This was supposed to be a fun trip to see a local oddity. They never would have believed that the legends of living stones were true. Then the largest one opened it's eye. Different than the rest, it was tri-lobed, orange, and horrible." 

Moonlight Obelisk Encouter
Dedicated to Nick Gucker for his birthday and inspired by his amazing piece for Dune

THE SLIME

THE SLIME

"It was a great gray-black hood of horror moving over the floor of the sea. It slid through the soft ooze like a monstrous mantle of slime obscenely animated with questing life. It was by turns viscid and fluid. At times it flattened out and flowed through the carpet of mud like an inky pool; occasionally it paused, seeming to shrink in upon itself, and reared up out of the ooze until it resembled an irregular cone or a gigantic hood. Although it possessed no eyes, it had a marvelously developed sense of touch, and it possessed a sensitivity to minute vibrations which was almost akin to telepathy. It was plastic, essentially shapeless. It could shoot out long tentacles, until it bore a resemblance to a nightmare squid or a huge starfish; it could retract itself into a round flattened disk, or squeeze into an irregular hunched shape so that it looked like a black boulder sunk on the bottom of the sea."

Joseph Payne Brennan, Slime 
Read Scott's blog-post about this story here.

STORIES FROM THE BORDERLAND

It's no secret that I love Scott Nicolay's work. I was impressed by his fantastic debut collection Ana Kai Tangata to the point that I illustrated a creature from his story Soft Frogs. Scott then contacted me to illustrate the cover and interiors for his Dim Shores released novella "after".

Well, Scott and I are working together again. This time we're teaming up on a project we've dubbed Stories From the Borderland. Scott will pick a weird tale that's been overlooked, forgotten or never received the attention it deserved in the first place, he'll write a blog post about why it's important, and then I'll illustrate the "creature" featured in each story. Scott's an author so he tells it better:

"Stories From the Borderland is a collaborative project between artist Michael Bukowski and myself. Beginning Dec. 2, 2015 and continuing each Wednesday for five weeks (skipping Christmas week when Michael has his own special plans), we will simultaneously showcase on our respective blogs one great Weird story that for varying reasons lacks the currency it deserves. I will post a short essay here about each story, while Michael will illustrate some…creature appearing in the story on his blog: http://yog-blogsoth.blogspot.com/"
Tomorow's our first post! Get excited!

DAOLOTH

 DAOLOTH
"The object was not shapeless, but so complex that the eye could recognize no describable shape. There were hemispheres and shining metal, coupled by long plastic rods. The rods were of a flat grey colour, so that he could not make out which were nearer; they merged into a flat mass from which protruded individual cylinders. As he looked at it, he had a curious feeling that eyes gleamed from between these rods; but wherever he glanced at the construction, he saw only the spaces between them. The strangest part was that he felt this was an image of something living - something from a dimension where such an example of abnormal geometry could live."

"'Uthgos plam'f Daoloth asgu'i - come, o Thou who swepest the veils of sight aside, and showest the realities beyond.'"

Ramsey Campbell, The Render Of Veils

THE THING FROM THE FIELDS

 THE THING FROM THE FIELDS

"Once she glimpsed its ribs through a gloomy clump of bushes. Even if it was a greyhound, it looked in need of feeding."

"He turned his head and saw a figure running after him on all fours along the dim road, a thin shape moving faster than the car."

"Was it meant to show a mass of vegetation in the shape of a face? If so, what kind of face? All she could identify was the tongue that bulged thirstily from the jagged mouth, unless the tongue was a swollen root, and the stalks that curled upward from the eyes to form horns above the low forehead."

As she floored the pedal the two figures raced past the car, their muscles flexing like windblown branches, and turned their face to her as they ran. She saw how their grayish manes grew out of ragged eye sockets, from one of which a clenched flower dangled as if it had be gouged."

Ramsey Campbell, Ancient Images

SERVITOR OF THE MOON

SERVITOR OF THE MOON

"Then the movements clarified and separated, and he saw that there were three shapes, three insects crawling up the rock. Why should the sight of a few insects make him feel he couldn't breathe? his head was swimming by the time he realized that since the pale, thin shapes were crawling on the wall where it merged with the dark, they must really be larger than he was."

"They were the color of the lizard he'd trodden on, the color of things that lived in the dark. They had long fingers they were using to climb the rock, slowly but relentlessly. Two of them were raising their smooth heads toward him in a way that made him thing they had no eyes."

"The van swung round the curve, and both she and Jeremy cowered back in their seats, gasping as the headlights lit up what was standing in the middle of the road, thrusting forward its white eyeless face that bore a gaping smile, its outstretched arms touching the trees on both side of the road."

"It's long oval body the color of a dead fish, its penis dangling like a withered umbilical cord down one fleshless leg. It only smiled more widely, a smile that seemed totally devoid of emotion on the flat, shiny, featureless face, and let go of the trees, ready to reach for the van with its huge splayed hands."

Ramsey Campbell, The Hungry Moon

INSECT FROM SHAGGAI

 INSECT FROM SHAGGAI
"221-Insects or other entities from space attack and penetrate a man’s head and cause him to remember alien and exotic things—possible displacement of personality."
H.P. Lovecraft, Commonplace Book

"At last a shape appeared, flapping above the ground on leathery wings. The thing which flew whirring toward me was followed by a train of others, wings slapping the air at incredible speed... I could ... make out many more details... Those huge lidless eyes which stared in hate at me, the jointed tendrils which seemed to twist from the head in cosmic rhythms, the ten legs, covered with black shining tentacles and folded into the pallid underbody, and the semi-circular ridged wings covered with triangular scales... I saw the three mouths of the thing move moistly, and then it was upon me."
Ramsey Campbell, The Insects from Shaggai

MONSTROUS BABY

 MONSTROUS BABY

"She could feel how it was moving, she screamed that. She could feel it was a monster."

“’You see, it wasn’t her husband who’d told her
originally what would happen to her baby. It was another man, who had power over her and her husband. Those were her words: had power. And he hadn’t just said the baby would be born a monster. He’d said he would make it born that way.”

“’Was it as bad as she feared?’”

“’Yes,’ the doctor said. ‘Yes, it was.‘”

“’This is all I’ll tell you,’ he said, and George felt he hoped it would leave him in the telling. 

‘It was nearly three feet long.’”
Ramsey Campbell, The Doll Who Ate His Mother

SLUG THING

 SLUG THING

"And, truly, if I do say that it was somewhat as that I had seen a monstrous slug-thing, surely I should use wise and proper words to make known to you this horrid brute."

"And truly it moved a little with the head, this way and that, stretching through the dark and the shadows, as you shall see a slug to move, and with no speed or sound, and nowise seeming heedful of aught. But yet did I fear that it smelled us, if this might be; and this, as you shall think, to be a very natural fear."

"Yet had those Slugs that we did see, been black and shining, for the most, as I have told;"

"And the Monster Slug came onward, and as it did go, it set the stalks of the eyes in among the boulders, as that it did search;"

"The Slug-Beast set out a big tongue among the boulders, after that it did peer thereunder; and the tongue did be very long, and white, and something thin-seeming; and the Monster lapped inward in a moment a great snake from among the boulders, and the tongue did hold upon the snake, as that there did be surely teeth or roughness upon the tongue;"
William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land

NIGHT HOUND

 NIGHT HOUND

"And the Hounds were very nigh, as now I beheld with the Great Spy-Glass; and I counted five score, running with mighty heads low, and in a pack."

"And there was between them the body of a mighty hound, so big as an horse, that they did skin; and I judged that this beast was on of those fearsome brutes which we did call the Night Hounds."

"And after that there had passed a little time, the while that I did listen very keen,lo! there burst out in the night, as it did seem scarce a mile off, the monstrous deep baying of the giant Hound."

William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land

GREAT AND UGLY THING

GREAT AND UGLY THING

"And surely this thing did prove to be; for there came very quick, a great and ugly thing, that had an ugly way of putting down the feet, and did have seven feet to each side, which was very strange; and the back was as that it were horny, and the belly of the thing did seem to brush heavy upon the earth, and it grunted, as it went, and shook the earth with the weight of it; so that a monstrous noise came from it, upon so hasty a journey."

William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land

HUMPED MAN

HUMPED MAN
"And I crept to the edge and looked downward, and lo! I did see that there came up the rock two Humped Men;"

"And I saw how that the Humped Men did seem to be humpt by reason of their being so monstrous thick and mighty of the neck and the shoulder, as that they had been human bulls. And I saw that they were very strong, and by the speed of their climbing, I knew they were swift;"

"And in that moment that I slew him, I did note curiously how that he had large teeth upon each side of the mouth;"

"And the blow came something short; but yet harmed the Humped Man with a gash upon the belly, very sore and horrid among the great brown hairs of the man. And immediately he sprang after me me; but I smote full at the face; so that he leaped back from the strange roar and blaze of the Diskos, and yet was harmed; for he gat not right free of the blow; but did be cut very sore on the mighty and haired arm."
William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land

 

TERRIBLE YELLOW-THING

TERRIBLE YELLOW-THING
"Mine Own did struggle terribly with a yellow thing which I perceived to be a man with four arms; and the Man had two arms about the Maid, and with two did make to choke
her unto death;"

And surely it was a mighty and brutish thing, and so broad and bulkt as an ox, and the lower arms were huge and greatly haired, and the fingers of the hands did have the nails grown into horrid talons, as that they should grip very bitter."

"I gat the Man by the great throat, and the throat did be haired, and so great as the
neck of a bull."

"And surely the mouth of the Man was small and shaped so that I knew that it did never eat of aught that it did slay; but to drink as a vampire;"

"The Man had never mad to use the lower arms, save to hold unto prey, the while that it did use the upper arms to strangle, as I do think."

William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land

Happy Birthday William Hope Hodgson!

This coming Sunday November 15th is William Hope Hodgson's birthday. To celebrate, everyday next week I'll be posting a new monster from Hodgson's alt-reality apocalyptic novel The Night Land.

Hodgson's story is set in the far future of a strange land. The remainder of humanity lives in a giant pyramid called the Great Redoubt. At one point they had contact with a smaller pyramid (The Lesser Redoubt) but communication has stopped. Now one man must make the journey through a rugged monster infested landscape to see if anyone's left in the other refuge.

It's full of amazing imagery, gloriously strange creatures and interesting concepts. However, it's made almost unreadable by an odd stilted (and extremely repetitious) vernacular (apparently Hodgson was trying to create a future slang based on archaic English?!) and some pretty insidious misogyny.

HOWEVER! The monsters are great and I did my best to bring them to life...

DEMON SPIDER

DEMON SPIDER
"As he turned from the rope, a large spiderlike creature scuttled from an overhead limb down the rope to where Jake's blood mixed with the hemp. The spider-thing lapped the fresh blood."

"The Creature changed. Became larger, dropped from the rope, curled on the ground, and changed more. When the transformation was complete, it moved quickly into the woods.

"Spidery legs broke the surface of the water-too many legs for a true spider, there were ten-wriggling. And then the bulbous body surfaced with them: a giant spiderlike thing with huge red eyes that housed some dark and horrid intelligence."

"The spider-thing opened its black hair-lined maw, and the boat sailed into its mouth, and as the bow of the boat and the boatman disappeared into the black stench of the creature, the Reverend lost sight of the red eyes, and then all he saw was blackness, and that blackness closed out the light behind him and he was one with hell--"

Joe R. Lansdale, Dead In the West

KOBOLD

KOBOLD
"The footprints were wide and not too long and there were drag lines between them, like a heavy tail had followed suit."

'"They live deep insdie the earth. Like men, they like silver. Maybe for the same reasons men like it. I know very little about them, outside of what I've read about them in the Book of Doches."'

'"They're short, and they have tails," the Reverend said. Or some of them do."'

"They were about four feet tall and had wide almost lizard-like tails that dragged the ground as they went. Their eyes were yellow, like massive fire-fly asses. They were without clothes, and one thing was blatantly obvious. They were all male."

Joe R. Lansdale, The Dark Down There

KING WOLF

KING WOLF

"There was a hairy arm pushing up out of the ground, and then this long snout sheddin' dirt, and then this thing pulled its way out of the hole and wobbled up there on the edge of the grave. It was about seven feet tall. It was like a wolf, only it had a long snout and ten times the teeth. Them teeth hung out and twisted ever which way, and tall as it was, it was still bent some. But the eyes, that was the worst. They was as yellow as old custard, except when they rolled, 'cause then they showed a kind of bloody white around them."

"It was a male, that was obvious. Male like all the others, cause the thing that let me know they was all male was hanging out for all to see, long as a razor strap, thick as my ankle. And then it looked right at me."

"The King Wolf's ears flicked, its tongue came out of its mouth and licked at the air and lapped across its own snout."

"It stood on its hind legs and its cock and balls swung about when it moved as if they were a clockwork mechanism."
Joe R. Lansdale, The Gentleman's Hotel

THE THING DOWN THERE

THE THING DOWN THERE

"It had spread its mouth wide, like a snake, and it had more teeth in its face than a dozen folk, and teeth more like an animal, and it was bitin' her head off."

"And then a hand, white and puffy like the petals of an orchid, appeared around the edge of the door, and fingers, long and stalk-like, extended and flexed, and the door moved and a flow of muddy water slid into the room along the floor."

"It moved strangely, as if made of soft candle wax. It was dead white of flesh, but much of the skin was filthy with mud. It was neither male nor female No genitals' down there it was as smooth as a well-washed river rock. It was tall, with knees that swung slightly to the sides when it walked, and there was an odd vibration about it, as if it were about to burst apart in all directions. The head was small. Its face was mostly a long gash of a mouth. It had thin slits for eyes and a hole for anose. At the ends of its willowy legs were large flat feet that splayed out in shapes like claw-tipped four-leaf clovers."

Joe R. Lansdale, The Crawling Sky

GRAVE CRAWLER

GRAVE CRAWLER
"His eyes had been torn out, or blown out is how they looked. Skin was peeled off his head, just leaving the skull and a few hairs. His chest was ripped open, and his insides was gone, exceptin' the bones in there. And them bees of his had nested in the hole in his chest, had done gone about making honey."

"He could see a hand on what appeared to be an impossibly long arm, reaching out to grab at the edge of the door."

"It sat on the window sill, crouched there like a bird of prey, a halo of bees circling around its head. The hive pulsed and glowed in its chest."

"Gimet's head sprouted a few springs of hair, like withering grass fighting its way through stone. A slight turn of its head allowed the moon to flow through the back of its cracked skull and out of its empty eyes. Then the head turned and the face was full of shadows again."

The empty eyes, the sharp, wet teeth, the long, cracked nails, blackened from grime, clacking against the wooden floor."

Joe R. Lansdale, Deadman's Road

Happy Birthday Joe R. Lansdale!

This coming Wednesday is Joe R. Lansdale's birthday. To celebrate, I'll be posting a weeks worth of creatures   from Lansdale's Dead In the West series. Lansdale is probably most famous for having penned the story behind Bubba Hotep but his range is wide and his is staggering. A master of the southern horror, comedy, crime and basically anything else he tries his hand at, Lansdale's love of Americana and characters drives his stories. His genre bending novel Cold In July was recently made into a movie of the same name by Jim Mickle and Nick Damici (the same team behind Stake Land, We Are What We Are, Mulberry Street and the upcoming series Hap and Leonard, which is also based on Lansdale's writing!)

Seventh Church Ministries Showcase!

Seventh Church Ministries will be hosting the very first art show in the chapel of The Convent (1648 E. Berks St., Phila PA) ON FRIDAY THE 13TH OF NOV! 

It's also our very first showcase! James Quigley will be the featured artist, showing his gorgeously gross demon prints inspired by the Goetia. Kyla Quigley will also be showing her Tarot-inspired sculptures (immediately after they've been shown at the NY Tarot Society!). On top of that Seventh Church Congregation members Alan Brown, Michelle Dugan, Michelle Krysztofiak, Jeanne D'Angelo, Sam Heimer and myself will be showing work that has appeared in or with our zines.

  IT'S IN THE CHAPEL OF AN OLD CONVENT!!!!!!

CLICK HERE FOR FULL INFO

 

MOONCALF

MOONCALF

"Of course it is hard for me now to say how much I saw at that time, because my impressions were corrected by subsequent observation. First of all impressions was its enormous size; the girth of its body was some fourscore feet, its length perhaps two hundred. Its sides rose and fell with its laboured breathing. I perceived that its gigantic, flabby body lay along the ground, and that its skin was of a corrugated white, dappling into blackness along the backbone. But of its feet we saw nothing. I think also that we saw then the profile at least of the almost brainless head, with its fat-encumbered neck, its slobbering omnivorous mouth, its little nostrils, and tight shut eyes. (For the mooncalf invariably shuts its eyes in the presence of the sun.) We had a glimpse of a vast red pit as it opened its mouth to bleat and bellow again; we had a breath from the pit, and then the monster heeled over like a ship, dragged forward along the ground, creasing all its leathery skin, rolled again, and so wallowed past us, smashing a path amidst the scrub, and was speedily hidden from our eyes by the dense interlacings beyond."
 H.G. Wells, The First Men In the Moon

Happy Birthday H.G. Wells!

This coming Monday is H.G.Wells' birthday and I'll be celebrating again, with a new monster drawing! This time from his fantastic outerspace epic The First Men In the Moon!

THE INSATIABLE ONE II (NYARLATHOTEP)

THE INSATIABLE ONE II (NYARLATHOTEP)

"They gaped at it. That was all they could do: stare past the horrible bacchanal of dismemberment to the statue itself, as it began to move."

"The blood that had trickled down the front of the idol boiled and steamed, and the head that had been placed atop the neck began to swell. The sockets widened until the nasion popped, revealing a single eye, monstrous and three-lobed. The mouth melted and drooped, sabre-like fangs sprouting from the gums while a livid tongue unrolled down to the statue's chest."

"With a clang, the idol cracked down the middle and each half fell to the side. What was coiled beneath was far too large to have been housed in the shell from which it erupted."

"As the forked tail uncoiled, the head elongated and tapered to match that lower appendage. Membranous wings spread out from its back as its arms stretched forth. A spray of acidic slime spattered the cavorters as they writhed in ecstasy or pain, it was impossible to tell which. What was left where the statue had once stood now resembled an enormous winged worm, with a face and arms."

"Wilenski could not look away from it. He stared into its great eye, and as he did so he felt as if something was being planted in the base of his skull. Then he felt it twitch."

Michael Bukowski & Jason McKittrick, The Bronze God Awakens
Edited by Orrin Grey