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

GEIRAVÖR

GEIRAVÖR

"The voice of Thor resounds again on high,

While arm'd Valyries ride from out the sky;

The Gods of Asgard all their powers release

To rouse the dullard from his dream of peace."

H.P. Lovecraft, The Teuton's Battle-Song

"Wise thought her the valkyrie; were welcome never

men to the bright-eyed one, her who the birds' speech knew well.

Greeted the light-lashed maiden,the lily-throated woman,

The hymir's-skull-cleaver as on cliff he was perching."

Þorbjörn Hornklofi, Hrafnsmál

"Gol and Geiravör (Spear Bearer),
Randgrid and Radgrid,
And Reginleif;
These bear ale to the einherjes.

These are called valkyries. Odin sends them to all battles, where they choose those who are to be slain, and rule over the victory. Gud and Rosta, and the youngest norn, Skuld, always ride to sway the battle and choose the slain. Jord, the mother of Thor, and Rind, Vale’s mother, are numbered among the goddesses."
Snorri Sturluson, The Prose Edda

"They favor the most heroic fighter: those most highly qualified to join the heroes already in Valhalla. Each Valkyry identifies such a man and urges him into the thickest of the fray, sharpening his bloodlust with her savage cries and bidding him to ignore the wounds which sap his strength. At last he falls to the weapons of his opponents, and his attendant Valkyry waits by the bleeding corpse."
Michael Page & Robert Ingpen, Encyclopedia Of Things That Never Were

ERATO

ERATO

"Fleet Pegasus th' enchanting music hears,

And beats his pinions, and pricks up his hears;

Whilst the skill'd Erato, with sacred lyre,

Joins in the strain, and feels the noble fire."

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

"ERATO was one of the nine Mousai, the goddesses of music, song and dance. In the Classical era, when the Mousai were assigned specific artistic and literary spheres, Erato was named Muse of erotic poetry and mime, and represented with a lyre. Her name means 'lovely' or beloved' from the Greek word eratos."

Aaron J. Atsma, The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology

URANIA

URANIA

"Calliope and Clio rest their quills, 

As wise Urania at the chorus thrills"

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

"OURANIA (Urania) was one of the nine Mousai, the goddesses of music, song and dance. In the Classical era, when the Mousai were assigned specific artistic and literary spheres, Ourania was named Muse of astronomy and astronomical writings. In this guise she was depicted with a celestial globe."

Aaron J. Atsma, The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology

EUTERPE

EUTERPE

"Euterpe close his piping lay attends, 
And with his notes her own in concord blends."

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

"EUTERPE was one of the nine Mousai (Muses), the goddesses of music, song and dance. In the Classical era, when the Mousai were assigned specific literary and artistic spheres, Euterpe was named Muse of lyric poetry. Her attribute ws the double-flute."

Aaron J. Atsma, The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology

TERPSICHORE

TERPSICHORE

"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

"TERPSIKHORE (Terpsichore) was one of the nine Mousai (Muses), the goddesses of music, song and dance. In the classical era, when the Mousai were assigned specific literary and artistic spheres, Terpsikhore was named Muse of choral song and dancing."

Aaron J. Atsma, The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology

CLIO

 CLIO
"Calliope and Clio rest their quills, 

As wise Urania at the chorus thrills"

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

"KLEIO (Clio) was one of the nine Mousai (Muses), the goddesses of music, song and dance. In the Classical era, when the Mousai were assigned specific literary and artistic spheres, Kleio was named Muse of history. In this guise she was represented holding an open scroll."

Aaron J. Atsma, The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology

THALIA

 THALIA

"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

"THALEIA (Thalia) was one of the nine Mousai (Muses), the goddesses of music, song and dance. In the Classical era, when the Mousai were assigned specific artistic and literary spheres, Thaleia was named Muse of comedy and bucolic poetry. In this guise she was portrayed with the attributes of comic mask, shepherd's staff and wreath of ivy."

Aaron J. Atsma, The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology

MELPOMENE

 MELPOMENE

"Melpomene forgets her dark alarms,
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

"MELPOMENE was one of the nine Mousai (Muses), the goddesses of music, song and dance. In the Classical era, when the Mousai were assigned specific artistic and literary spheres, Melpomene was named Muse of tragedy. In this guise she was portrayed holding a tragic mask or sword, and sometimes wearing a wreath of ivy and cothurnus boots."

Aaron J. Atsma, The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology

BIG NEWS

Hey folks! I just wanted to interrupt this month of monsters to give you a heads up on what's going on.

This last week of August/first week of September, I'll be returning to H.P. Lovecraft's writing for a group of Gods In Human Form from some ancient religions. Here's where things get interesting. As I've stated, my original goal was to illustrate every single creature/god Lovecraft mentioned in his works. Well, I'm down to the last 13 gods!

But don't worry. I may be getting close to being done with Lovecraft, but that doesn't mean I'm done with this blog. Drawing monsters based on the writing of weird fiction authors has become a bit of a habit for me, so I'm just going to shift focus. If you've been following this blog, you'll notice I've been delving into more obscure authors and works. That will continue to happen. Right now my goal will be to focus more on the other two authors of the "big three" (Robert E. Howard & Clark Ashton Smith) as well as try to introduce you to some lesser known authors from the pulp hayday, the 80s horror boom and  contemporary powerhouses.

So, just a summary of what's going to happen. I'll be posting the last 11 Gods In Human Form in the next few months (as well as a few redrawings of some older Gods/creatures). Then there is one remaining avatar of Nyarlathotep from HPL's writings I have left to draw. Lastly the final creature I will be illustrating from Howard's work will be the mad god Azathoth. The timeline is a bit loose but we should see Azathoth by Jan/Feb of 2017!

Expect new, weird things from Yog-Blogsoth and Seventh Church Ministries in the future!

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE V)

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE V)
"Their anger appears violent. They clash with motions similar to those one observes when they attack large animals or men, and it is these same battles that have taught me that they were not actually immortal, as I was initially inclined to believe, because two or three times I saw Xipéhuz succumb in these encounters, which is to say they collapsed, contracted, and petrified. I carefully preserved some of these strange corpses, and perhaps they may later be used to discover the nature of Xipéhuz. They are yellowish crystals, irregularly arranged, and streaked with blue lines."

J.-H. Rosny, The Xipéhuz
as translated by Scott Nicolay
Read Scott's blog-post about this story here.

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE IV)

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE IV)

"Here and there among these were other nearly cylindrical Shapes, one thin and tall, another low and squat, all brazen-hued and speckled with green, and all having the same characteristic point of light as the striped Shapes."

J.-H. Rosny, The Xipéhuz
as translated by Scott Nicolay
Read Scott's blog-post about this story here.

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE III)

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE III)

"First came a great ring of translucent bluish cones with their pointed ends upright, each about half the size of a man. Bright stripes and dark spirals streaked their surfaces. Each bore a dazzling star at its base."

J.-H. Rosny, The Xipéhuz
as translated by Scott Nicolay
Read Scott's blog-post about this story here.

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE II)

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE II) 
"Stranger still were the flat sheets that rose behind them, streaked with multicolored ellipses in patterns like birch bark."

J.-H. Rosny, The Xipéhuz
as translated by Scott Nicolay
Read Scott's blog-post about this story here.

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE I)

XIPÉHUZ (PHASE I)
"Regarding the actual phenomenon of their procreation, I have little to say; but that little is characteristic enough. First of all, this reproduction occurs four times a year, right before the equinoxes and solstices, and only on the clearest nights. The Xipéhuz gather in groups of three, and each of these groups eventually assemble themselves into a single extended ellipse. Thus they remain all night and morning until the sun reaches its highest elevation. When they part, vague, vaporous and enormous shapes arise." 
J.-H. Rosny, The Xipéhuz
as translated by Scott Nicolay
Read Scott's blog-post about this story here.

MEDUSE

MEDUSE

"The Meduse were hovering less than a foot away."

"I could hear the others, their near substantial bodies softly rustling as their transparent domes filled with and released the gas they breathed back in. They were as tall as grown men, their dome's flesh thing as fine silk, their long tentacles spilling down to the floor like a series of gigantic ghostly noodles."

"The thing that tore through was like a sword, but thin as paper...and grasped like a finger. I saw it pinch and hook to the flesh near his collarbone."

"The Meduse followed me, their tentacles caressing the floor as they floated. They had no eyes, but from what I knew of the Meduse, they had scent receptors on their tentacles."

"I could see its solid white stinger within the drapes of hanging tentacles."

Nnedi Okorafor, Binti

DANCER OF ULITHIA

DANCER OF ULITHIA

"They were queer, bulky, clumsy-shouldered figures dressed in tight-fitting clothes and hoods and gloves of smooth fur."

"On looking around, however, the travelers were somewhat startled to find that what they had taken for hooded faces were not faces at all' but just smooth, featureless expanses of fur. The back and front of the heads were exactly alike, save for one straight, black gash where the mouth might be."

"They all swung round and round--and round. Why had he thought the dance silent?"

"His hand caught that of the monster nearest him. He remembered afterward that it felt neither cold nor warm, but rather like a fur globe stuffed with wool."

"Beware! You who have escaped the everlasting dance-"

"Ulithia is a place, or rather a condition, which is the one invariable prelude to every adventure I have had. Its phantasmagoria are well nigh as fixed in their nature as what we please to call 'reality'. But of the character of its inhabitants or of the laws which govern its various phenomena, I can tell you but little."

Gertrude Barrows Bennett (as Francis Stevens), The Heads Of Cerberus

THOSE BETWEEN THE SPACES

 THOSE BETWEEN THE SPACES
"'I don't mean like farms and woods, this road connecting to that road so you can go from there to hear. I'm talking about the space in between.'" 

"'I think those gaps between places are filling up. Something's looking for us.'"

"'Guy was peeking out of the trees behind the bathrooms whispering my name. I could hear him grinning. He started talking about the sky dripping on him, the night folded over like a blanket."

"'Some nights I see people running up a ditch to the road as I drive by,' Sally said, 'or standing in the trees. I'd call them pale. I'd call them pale enough to glow, except they're not. They're dark as the dark, but I see them just fine. And then the radio starts crackling and my mama's talking me out of the truck.'"

Michael Wehunt, Greener Pastures

GOSSIP

GOSSIP

"A gossip! An airsucker!"

"Still he came up to look at the thing, lizard forebody, snakefish aftbody, and face like some caricature of an old woman."

He reached out a finger terminating in a nailclaw of uncommon dirtiness and bgan to do a slow stroking under the creatures shallow undertow, and after a moment the mouth pursed and a sucking noise was heard and a slow swelling began to grow beneath his stroking. Something like a bladder puffed and kept puffing."

Avram Davidson, The Island Under the Earth

SENTIENT MUTANT BUTT

SENTIENT MUTANT BUTT
"Today's trial, which I have been randomly selected for as the subject, is going to take DNA from my brain, my ass and a hawk."

"Dr. Porter and I jump in surprise, immediately looking up to find a large, winged butt hovering in the air just inside of the glass."

"The next thing I know, I'm sitting across from my own ass, looking deep within his soulful eye."

"' I feel like you need a name.' I tell my own butt. 'I know that you are a part of me, and I love that about you, but you also need an identity of your own.' 

My ass thinks about this proposition for a moment then nods in agreement. 'Alright, what's my name?' 

'How about Portork?' I offer. 'That's a pretty sexy name.'"

"I watch as Portork slices off a thin, tender strip of meat and then chews it happily swallowing with complete satisfaction."

"As I lean in towards Portork, I see a massive cock beginning to grow out of the front of his body, stretching upward until it becomes a fully engorged shaft."

Chuck Tingle, Pounded In the Butt By My Own Butt

SCALP LEECH

SCALP LEECH

"The next minute something warme and wet had come plopping out of the ceiling and was clinging to the top of my head."

"It caused me no physical pain though, as I afterward discovered, it was attaching itself to me in a leechlike way. (It could get not purchase through my hair, but around the edges of my scalp, where the skin of my face was exposed, it was sucking in.) What I did feel, as soon as the flap of tissued closed over my head, was a blank, paralyzing fear."

"I couldn't put my hands to my head to try to dislodge the grayish flap. That would have meant that I recognized the ambiguous tissue as the sourse of my distress, and such insight was beyond me. "

"It was moving a little and looked, she said, like some horrible kind of mobile hair."

"It lay in my hand writhing and humping sluggishly."

Margaret St. Clair, The Dancers Of Noyo

HUNTER

 HUNTER

"It was a tall, skinny thing, human-shaped--Franny said that her father had made the Hunters as a preliminary study for his masterpiece, the Dancers--and it moved in a way that reminded me of an inchworm. It bent over, felt around on the floor with its arms, straightened up, moved on a couple of pads, and repeated the process. It didn't seem to have any face."

Margaret St. Clair, The Dancers Of Noyo

DANCER

DANCER

"The Dancer was standing with his back to us. He was slightly below normal human height, of a uniform deep dusky red, the color of a bad sunburn. I mean, he was red all over-the backs of his heels, his hair, the irises of his eyes. Even the whites of his eyes were of a medium pink."

Margaret St. Clair, The Dancers Of Noyo

PROTT

PROTT

"First, they are a non-protoplasmic form of life. (How could they be otherwise, in this lightless, heatless gulf?) Second, their bodily organization is probably electrical. Simmons, who was electrical engineer on the Thor, found that his batteries showed discharges when prott were around. Third, they appear only to ships which are in motion between certain rates of speed. (Whether motion at certain speeds attract them, or whether it is only at certain frequencies that they are visible, we don’t know.) Fourth, whether or not they are intelligent, they are to some extent telepathic, according to the reports. This fact, of course, is my hope of communicating with them at all. And fifth, prott have been evocatively if unscientifically described as looking like big poached eggs."

"There it was, seemingly some five yards long, a cloudy, whitish thing. There was a hint of a large yellow nucleus. Damned if the thing didn’t look like a big poached egg!"

"I saw at once why everyone has assumed that prott are life-forms and not, for example, minute spaceships, robots, or machines of some sort. The thing had the irregular, illogical symmetry of life."

Margaret St. Clair, Prott

GARDENER

GARDENER

“Then it moved, and I saw it wasn’t a stain at all, but a big brown thing snuffling around on the eutex like a dog after something. Then it stood up. That was when I screamed.”

“Yes, but what did it look like? Go on, Marie! You never want to tell this part.”

“It was a big, tall lanky thing,” Marie said reluctantly, “with a rough brown skin like a potato. It had two little pink mole hands. And it had an awfully, awfully kind face.”

"With ten separate chops of its strong white teeth the Gardener bit away his toes. While Hobbs struggled and shrieked and shrieked and shrieked, the Gardener peeled away the skin on the inner surfaces of his legs and thighs and bound these members together with a length of vine."

Margaret St. Clair, The Gardener

PILLOW

PILLOW

"He’d brought four or five of the pillows (they were a couple of inches in diameter—about the size of sand dollars—and black and puffy) into the laboratory and thrown a bunch of experiments at them; his fellow workers had kidded him both ways from the abscissa, and Dr. Roberts had called him into the office and told him gently that he really wasn’t employed to investigate—ah—children’s toys, and that there was a group of very interesting experiments he’d like him to try on the low radioactives."

Margaret St. Clair, The Pillows

MARTIAN PIG

MARTIAN PIG

"But it was a sluggish, low-grade kind of life. The pig appeared to be basically a collection of fatty tissue surrounded with a pale blue skin. Considering its size it might have been an attractive, appealing little animal, but it wasn’t. It had no personality."

"It was beginning to smell."

Margaret St. Clair, Idris' Pig

GNOLE

GNOLE

"The senior gnole is a little like a Jerusalem artichoke made of India rubber, and he has small red eyes which are faceted in the same way that gemstones are."

"He had got past the sentence about cordage requirements and into an enumeration of the different types of cordage his firm manufactured when the gnole, by turning his head to the side, showed him that he had no ears. Nor was there anything on his head which could take their place in the conduction of sound. Then the gnole opened his little fanged mouth and let Mortensen look at his narrow, ribbony tongue."

"The senior gnole was there before him, his network of tentacles outstretched."

Margaret St. Clair, The Man Who Sold Rope To the Gnoles