VALUSIAN SERPENT PERSON

VALUSIAN SERPENT PERSON

"There was a mind from the planet we know as Venus, which would live incalculable epochs to come, and one from an outer moon of Jupiter six million years in the past. Of earthly minds there were some from the winged, star-headed, half-vegetable race of palaeogean Antarctica; one from the reptile people of fabled Valusia; three from the furry pre-human Hyperborean worshippers of Tsathoggua; one from the wholly abominable Tcho-Tchos; two from the arachnid denizens of earth’s last age; five from the hardy coleopterous species immediately following mankind, to which the Great Race was some day to transfer its keenest minds en masse in the face of horrible peril; and several from different branches of humanity."

H.P. Lovecraft, The Shadow Out Of Time

"It was treasured and placed in its curious box by the crinoid things of Antarctica, salvaged from their ruins by the serpent-men of Valusia, and peered at aeons later in Lemuria by the first human beings."

H.P. Lovecraft, The Haunter Of the Dark

"I can compare the sound to nothing more aptly than to the roar of some dread monster of the vanished saurian age, when primal horrors roamed the earth, and Valusia’s serpent-men laid the foundation-stones of evil magic."

H.P. Lovecraft & William Lumley, The Diary Of Alonzo Typer

"For as he watched, Tu's face became strangely dim and unreal; the features mingled and merged in a seemingly impossible manner, Then, like a fading mask of fog, the face suddenly vanished and in its stead gaped and leered a monstrous serpent's head!"

Robert E. Howard, The Shadow Kingdom

This week's creeps are all deep cuts that aren't as well known in HPLs canon as the more classic creatures from the last two weeks.

The serpent people first appeared in Robert E. Howard's story The Shadow Kingdom but were reference by his circle often. HPL in all three of the above stories as well as CAS in The Seven Geases. However, it seems like HPL was the only person to really feature them. The Shadow Kingdom was originally published in the August 1929 issue of Weird Tales. It featured some lackluster, sloppy art by my nemesis Hugh Rankin. If you look really hard you can kinda make out that Conan is chopping off the head of a serpent person.

Obviously, Tom Sullivan did an amazing job with his illustration in Sandy Peteresen's Field Guide To Creatures Of the Dreamland. His cover illustration of the wizard serpent person in his study was an inspiration for the skeleton necromancer on the cover of my own book Monstrous Mythologies.

Because Conan was a Marvel property for so long, it was inevitable that the serpent people would show up there. Their first appearance was in Kull The Conquerer from May 1971 with art by Marie Severin, John Severin and Sam Rosen. And of course Thulsa Doom in the Conan movie is an obvious reference to Howard's serpent people. 

As for my own version of the serpent people, I tried to make them less human and more serpentine; long neck, slender shoulders and pronounced scales. I imagined the fingers and toes to be smiler to a lizard's fingers and toes. And in this redrawing I actually exaggerated all those features. I lengthened the neck, tail and fingers as well as the usual clean up of linework, color and rendering.

The next three days are going to be even more obscure monsters, all from Lovecraft's Commonplace Book. These are things that were only ever mentioned and never made it into full stories.