Perfect Goth Theda Bara

Engraved in water

Nightmare Nazi Demons (fragment)

Say hello to a few of the nightmare nazi demons from An American Werewolf In London.

You Finish Eating the Hobbit Corpse

Despite my current analysis of video-games as masturbation: everyone does it, don't be proud of it, don't do it in public, boys do it more than girls. This game has been consistently entertaining since 1987 or so.

LLLLIIIIIIIIIIGHT ANd SOUnd COOOOOONCEEEAAALLL ME THEYYYY...

I’ve been thinking a lot in the last 6 months about the effect of comedy on people. I love comedy and I would certainly never want it to stop,, but I’ve been unable to laugh at a lot of the jokes I used to laugh at,, as I think a lot of them have the power to spread really negative effects in people. In comedy you can make sweeping generalisations, be shallow, childish and downright unpleasant because comedy is almost never 100% reasonable/fair and that’s okay. It is not supposed to be full of water-tight arguments,, but my problem is that people drag all these attitudes into everyday life and there are comedians like Bill Hicks who reinforce this self-righteous but relaxed behaviour that sounds like “Everyone is an idiot and ruining this world except for us”,, I believe that attitude makes all the problems even worse. When you have scared ultra right-wing people making unwise decisions and saying silly things,,,, the last thing we need is an army of politically “enlightened” people telling them that they are stupid idiots who will never understand anything.
Every time you attack someone like that, the less likely they are going to open up to anyone elses ideas but their own kind of peoples ideas,, you are helping them close their minds. If people were to be kinder and more persuasive in a friendly way, you would get so much further if you convinced them that we really all do want basically the same things. Yes, some of these people are extremely stubborn and some of them would never listen,, but the long hard perhaps near-impossible road is always the best road with more lasting success.
One of the things that helped me see this was in my paranoia about censorship,, there were lots of people including myself calling the newspapers/censors/parents/groups “nutters”, but our hostile reaction only makes us look bad to them and only hurts our causes and their causes too. With lots of patience and kindness we could help them see how they are wasting their time attacking us,, and help them find the far more important things which need to be focused on if we are to build a safer place to live.
I don’t hate Bill Hicks, I think his heart is in the right place, but that is the same with a lot of “nutters” (certainly not all of them,, some of them really are sadistic)). And I can imagine people saying “don’t spoil my fun, I want to point and laugh at right wing people”, but I think this fun only prolongs the suffering,, lots of types of fun come with dangers,, and I wouldn’t ask for comedy to become safe and gutless,, but we can be smarter than this,, humour shouldn’t stay cornered with cynicism and dismissiveness. You need to let people know when you heavily disapprove of something,, but you cant act like you’d rather attack them,, than offer help.
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Do you ever think when you are reading some comics,, that it feels too much like hard work? Seems like the comic just doesn’t even function properly? I think that a great bulk of comics run counter to the way our eyes pick up information and the way our minds process that information.

Most cartoony comics work just fine because you are not made to explore the images for any length of time. But most of the comics I read have so much unnecessary writing,, then I just end up saying “screw it! I’m just going to look at the pictures”.
Among a lot of the older artists in the comic industry,, there is an attitude I always notice saying “everything has to be blatantly obvious and hammered into the reader”,, but I think those guys were wrong,, because I have read their comics and they did not function properly. I think one of the biggest problems in comics is that they are patronizing and they spoonfeed information to you in a way that becomes so frustrating that you just give up reading.
When you see something in a panel and then you are repeatedly told that same thing you have already seen,, and they repeatedly do that in every panel, your mind is bound to wander away from the comic,, because your mind does not stick to things that repeatedly repeat themselves,, because the mind is constantly searching for new information and it will switch off when fed the same thing too many times. It should be more like a trail for a dog, where every drop is not overstated, so you are eagerly sucking up each piece of information you get,, wanting to know more. A trail that controls you.
I’ve been looking at a lot of my Gene Colan comics,, and I’ve never seen a comic by him in which the dialog added anything good to his artwork. I was surprised by how good his Dr Strange work is but whenever I read the dialogue,, the writer just spoiled all his mystery and drama. It made me think about my own comics,, and that I have been writing too much dialogue too. I did that because I wanted to hammer in the anchorage of certain ideas that I was worried the reader might not comprehend,, but when they are confronted with both artwork and writing to appreciate the full meaning of,, the artwork is likely to overwhelm the writing. All those things I was trying to nail down in the writing wouldn’t work properly, because the art is too dominating. So I’ve gone back to thinking that for artists like myself,, minimal writing is for the best. And I think that I should try and take most of the writing away from the images so you don’t have two elements fighting for attention,,, like putting the words on the side of the page or at the bottom, or perhaps even putting the words on a separate page, if those words have to evoke something even relatively complex that could be rudely interrupted by the art.

I think a lot of my criticisms could really infuriate a lot of people who have been doing comics for their whole life. But I think it is obvious that things are broken and need to be fixed. The question often gets asked “why aren’t more people reading comics?” but I think a part of the answer is that most comics just aren’t good enough. I enjoy the harsh slap of most people saying “the art is good, but the writing is crap”,, and I’ve heard that a few times. Comic readers have built up a tolerance for a lot of things that we forgotten used to bother us((some are more acceptable than others))). I can see the reaction to comics when “outsiders” look at them,, there is always something in their body language that tells you “I’m interested, but this is trying my patience and I ultimately cant be bothered”,, I’ve come to feel like a side of my comics reading history has been erased,, I’ve lost all my patience that I built up and I’ve become like a normal person and I think I’m wiser for it.
Complex comics could never be an effortless reading experience,, but there needs to be comic storytelling worked into a perfect science where all balances keep readers turning pages and forgetting that they are reading a comic. Now that I think of it, I think comic creators have one of the hardest jobs in the art world. Because every different artist will work differently in their combination of words and pictures,, getting the balance is something that needs to be taken far more seriously. Very hard work awaits us.
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Interesting article on designer reality
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I'm really taken by this animator called Alexander Petrov,, I didnt even know this type of animation was possible...

Show is Done

I just had a solo show in Tokyo.

You can see all the drawing HERE

There`s photos of it on HERE

Old Monster Art

I was going through an old portfolio and doing some scanning so I figured I’d post this. It’s some kind of diseased, arachnoid, creature from the black lagoon, thing. From 1987 or 1988 I think. At the time, I remember being fascinated with this book Mythopoeikon by artist Patrick Woodroffe and his technique of marbling the backgrounds of his paintings. I attempted marbling several times with little success. On this one, I think I actually wiped the failed-marbled surface down. Still kinda like how it turned out though…

zombies for returner

These are pictures I took of the members of the Death Metal Band "Returner". And I turned them into zombies (as requested). It was a promotional flyer for their website.

Since Luke asked...

Dad hadnt taken out the trash papers yet, so I could still scan it. In other news,, I finally have all 5 of the William Hope Hodgson books. Has anyone seen a film called Lemora? It really is quite different and although people often mention the low budget,, I think it is one of the better looking horror films I have seen,,, even the weird((Bad?)) acting is quite spooky.

Hands Of A Witch

Two grotesque hands, old and wrinkled, wrap around a neck, squeezing tighter and tighter. Each finger stretches unnaturally apart and around, again and again, coiling down the body. Long sharp black fingernails scratch along the skin. The ribcage collapses, the air escapes in a deep horrified wheeze. The eyes drip blood then pour like running faucets. Every organ bursts, every bone breaks, every muscle rips, the body closes in on itself like a burst balloon. The impossibly long fingers loop in an ever tightening pattern. A strange pulsing occurs, each finger tip like the mouth of a leech, the blood, the bone, the liver and kidneys, stomach and intestines, sucked through the labyrinth passages up and around, towards the ever enlarging hands, floating in the air as they make a disgusting wet sloshing sound, seeming ready to burst.

The fingers release their victim, slowly then quickly winding back into the semblance and size of normal fingers, if only bulging with some sick meal still oozing into the still growing hands. The shriveled body drops lifeless to the floor, an expression remains on the flattened face of intense unimaginable pain. The two hands float strangely, like something from a cartoon, drifting through the open window and into the night.

Somewhere in the forest a dead witch sleeps, her body mutilated and torn apart, piece by piece. Lost are the legs, gone are the arms, eaten by wolves or taken as trophies. But the hands remained, one last curse on man, the nightmare duties given to them through the blood of babies and the hearts of men. Flying like bizarre bats through the trees, across vast fields of corn, into small villages where, drop by drop, bone by bone, the witch's hands return the life taken from her.

Comic Dilemma

To answer Chad Verrill, yes I submitted art to Previews and it ended up in the August issue, but it is nothing really, since it is only a very small part of the fan page,, and I threw my copy out, like any normal issue,, I'm not complaining though, they can only put it so large on the page,, the nice guy encouraged me to keep sending stuff to put in there.
Even though I always keep my expectations low of the feedback I'll get from anything I might do, I was actually surprised that I got no response at all for that drawing,, I should probably try and get a hitcounter for the blog and see if the pageviews increased by much.
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You know how I was lamenting the type of trash people buy? And you also know how I often refer to the mountain of comics I own, which I have been wanting to get rid of?
Well I have a lot of trash which I could probably make a decent lump of money from,, a lot of mainstream comics from 98-2003 and lots of other stuff I regret buying. And I always thought "Heh heh heh... I'll make some money from some sucker who wants to buy this crap",, but this week I realised that would be hypocritical of me, since I would rather no-one wasted their money. And if I did sell them, there would probably be the headache of dealing with buyers who wanted to return lots of stuff that was not in a good enough condition to their liking.
I think it would give me a lot of satisfaction to burn a lot of it ((how eco-unfriendly is that exactly?))),, it would be great if I had a camera and put it on youtube and then posted the video on comic forums of me burning all these "milestone" comics.
It really bugs me about comics that are going to be collected into graphic novels, and then the individual issues are pretty much useless unless you are in the minority of collectors who want them too. And the remaining back issue shops still stock these instead of stocking what you cant get in collected graphic novels yet, which I thought would be the obvious thing to focus on.
I'm 90% convinced I should burn these comics. What do you think?

Dungeon Degenerates: Troll & Homunculus

The Troll is a loathsome, ravenous carnivore that lurks through the darkness, avoiding fire & the sun. If wounded the Troll will regenerate its clammy, rubbery flesh. If body parts are severed they will slowly squirm back to the largest piece of body & re-adhere themselves.

The Homunculus is a wizard's servant, made from clay, ashes, mandrake root, spring water & the wizard's own blood. This is all fashioned into a tiny person & many spells are laid upon it which then brings the Homunculus to life. This creature then serves the wizard in whatever capacity he desires.

Good Vs Evil (Art Zine)

Check out this interesting looking art zine titled "Good Vs Evil" featuring many artists of the more bizarre underground variety. I'm thinking about hitting them up to do work for a future issue, the rest of you interested in getting published in an intriguing art zine like this might do the same.

You can obtain the zine through their blog.

Dungeon Degenerates

Juiblex, also called The Faceless Lord, is the demon lord of Slimes and Oozes. Juiblex's lair is on the 222nd layer of the Abyss. He is also known as Szhublox.

The Naga is a quasi-demonic monster, pulled up from the bowels of hell to guard entrances. It is semi-intelligent, enjoys the taste of living flesh, has a hypnotic gaze & poisonous bite.

Doré illustrates Münchhausen

Here are some illustrations from a 1917 copy of Münchhausen which I recently got really cheap on a flea market here in Berlin. The drawings are - obviously - by the incredible Gustave Doré, one of my personal runner-ups for Greatest Graphic Artist of the Known Universe. This is one of his lesser known works, so some of you might not have seen these before. It's been really hard to make a selection from the countless brilliant drawings in the book. I'm not quite pleased with the one presented here, but I think any other would have been equally dissatisfying.

Dungeon Degenerates: Orc

I'm working up the prototypes for this new project. This is about how they'll look.

Stupid, bent & strong, the Orc lives to serve great & evil wills who can push him out of filthy, animalistic degeneracy & onto the battlefield.

Civilization has touched the whole world, but Barbarians saw that hand coming & got their weapons ready. Raw, brutal, straight-forward & full of unrefined dynamism, the Barbarians live & die by the sword.
Unfortunately i chose very similar color-schemes for these two, but it just fit...

recent sketchbook stuff

Good scenes

This is the best scene from a tv movie called “Woman In Black”,, which was a Susan Hill novel. But it is a SPOILER!!! The whole film is on Youtube, but not very good quality. Universal is not allowing it to ever be shown on tv again or be released on DVD. Why in the world would they decide to keep it away from people. It’s a decent film, I wouldn’t urge you to watch it or anything.
I recently saw Martyrs, I had mixed feelings about it but the only thing I really loved in it was that wild woman, That was actually surprisingly scary. I just wish the whole film was supposed to be scary. I’m still a bit angry at the lack of films that even try to be scary, it seems so obvious to me that there should be horror films that try to be scary. I’ve encountered so many people who are too scared to watch horror films, I envy those expectations they have.
I think the whole “unpleasant and thought provoking” movement is not nearly as intelligent as people convince/lie themselves that it is. I dare you to scare me, stop trying to find a way to convince the literary crowd that your horror stories have some political “relevance”.
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Just over a year ago, before I got my job, I felt like I could really bite into an atmosphere in any given place/room/time as if I could taste and smell it. The autumn of 2007 had a really vivid flavour and I haven’t felt anything like that in the last year. Every season used to have this strong feeling about it which would grow over time and become exaggerated in the memory.
I’m a bit worried I’m losing some sensory sensitivity. I used to be able to walk into a place and really relish the atmosphere, maybe I’ve just got bored of my surroundings or maybe the fascination with these things just comes and goes at certain points in your life.
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I used to be of the opinion that comics should be a small cult thing that could be further “ruined” by the masses if the masses started liking them. Then I changed to think that comics should be for everyone,, as big as any other medium and therefore there would still be 90% trash, but the 10% of good comics would expand along with the expansion of trash.
Now I’m starting to wish the medium just died and it would be a tiny niche of people who really NEEDED to express themselves that way.
All the comics I see look like they don’t really truly need to be doing this, they just cant find a better way to make a living. I don’t want to insult these people, I truly want to help them now. I think if everyone was shown the more amazing ends of what can be achieved, they would start wanting to be something amazing.
I don’t mean to ass kiss, but Monster Brains and various other art blogs and all the great music has shown me the light, I would’ve been a much lesser artist if I hadn’t looked at these things. You only go for the good things when you have seen them and know they really exist.
I want to be like a motivational speaker who shows people what they can achieve if they pull themselves out of the muck and aim for the sky.

But part of me feels a little sad that a lot of these movies and comics don’t have the same power over me that they used to,,, but it’s actually a beautiful thing, it makes us want to find something more powerful and even create something great. All my disappointments turn into motivation. People often complain that humans are never content with what we have,, but I think that dissatisfaction is one of our greatest qualities,,, you’ve heard me say this stuff again and again and again,, but I feel like I need to refine the argument and drum it in. Prepare to hear me repeat this stuff again and again, but hopefully in a more inspiring way each time.

I think I could really make people hate me for all my preaching, because in the comic shops I just want to go up to people and say “Do you really really want this? Why do you want this? Will it really make you happy?”,, the fanboy reaction to this could be really hostile, because most of them have convinced themselves over decades that they really do need Star Wars toys and all sorts of merchandise that I think has no real artistic value.
It was painful when I realised I how much crap I had spent hundreds of pounds on, but it had to happen or else I’d be one of those collectors who ends up believing that he really is getting his moneys worth.
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There is a music journalist called Mick Mercer and he writes a series of books on goth music and I bought his 1997 book the other day,, he is really funny and sometimes a bit rude about bands and fans he doesn’t like. But there were two really interesting things about the book. One thing was that in 1997, that he was saying that the “real” goth had not even begun yet, and his books were part of an effort to help the genre push in more ambitious directions. Everyone has an idealised version or versions of their favourite genres and subcultures, but I thought it was odd that he had a vision of an ideal future version of goth. I wish more people would dress like characters in Cabinet of Dr Caligari and less of the leather and hair dye((( a little bit of that is fine here and there))). More church organs and ghostly choirs I say!
The other bizarre thing was that how much exhaustive info there was. There was a worldwide list of bands, people, clubs, shops and all sorts of cult societies. He was disinterested in all the pagan, fetish and vampire cults, but he included them because they asked for it. The interesting thing is that I used to see lots of odd looking people and shops when I went to town around 1990-2004,, and it all disappeared. The obvious explanation is that all the shops moved to the internet and all the people stay on the internet chatting, only coming out at night to go to obscure clubs. But that doesent explain why I NEVER ever see any odd looking people anymore at all. It’s almost scary,, you used to be guaranteed to see atleast one person dressed like a freak, it’s as if someone has killed them all. You still get your standard looking metalheads, but you never see anyone who looks really extreme or “out there” anymore.
You must have read or heard atleast one sci-fi story where all the outsiders are being picked off the streets by some sinister organisation.
That book proves to me that there was lots of those people going around, I wasn’t imagining it. Where did they all go?
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Some nice art in Monster Club by John Bolton...

Dungeon Degenerates

I'm working on a new series called Dungeon Degenerates. I'm using monsters from Dungeons & Dragons & similar games. Somewhat in relation to my previous post about maintaining the funk & fuzziness & mystery in our cultural output, i am so bored by the current style (which has really been going for almost 20 years or so) of Dungeons & Dragons art. Even when they were still using actual paint as opposed to photoshop to render these worlds, there has been a decidedly inhuman, overly-rendered, muted color, overly distorted & over-all gay feeling to all of it. While i think i like Arthur Rakham's work & even the work of his copiers like Brian Froud, within his style are the seeds of this infestation. The seeds of nutlessness. If you want to see an ideal form of RPG art, check out Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader, 1st Edition.

Grell
The grell levitates through the dank corridors of the dungeon hoping to paralyze its prey with the poisonous spines on its ten tentacles. The Grell's powerful beak can crack open its victim's skull so that it may feast on brains.
They enjoy above all else, a potion made from crack & LSD.

Bullywog
A batrachian race of bipedal monsters which inhabit wet places - rainy forests, marshes, damp caves or virtually any other place which is shady or dark and has water nearby, for bullywugs need to dampen their skins from time to time.
The Bullywog is the favorite food of the Umber Hulk.

Laser Printers

Hey EBD’ers. I hope everyone is having a pleasant and safe summer so far. All the recent posts have been excellent…

Anyhow…I could use a little insight. I’m looking to buy a quality b&w laser printer. I’m hoping to get a 1200 x 1200 dpi. What I really need it for is to print black & white art and graphics, including some intricate line art. And I’m not terribly concerned with the printing speed. I was thinking HP. But after reading some reviews, what concerns me is that the newest models are very flawed. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

~~~Marc