Galleries – Atomic Age Cthulhu

Atomic Age Cthulhu is the last book I illustrated for Chaosium. I did the work in 2012 and the book was published in 2013. It is a collection of adventure scenarios set during the 1950s. I shared the illustration duties with Caleb Cleveland and Marco Morte. There was some miscommunication between the folks at Chaosium who were sending out the assignments so I started some pieces but didn’t finish them because someone else was already doing them. I did maps for the first and, probably the last, time. It was challenging and sort of fun but not something I feel a call to do again.

The three scenarios that are I worked on were –

High Octane – In which Serpent People engage in shenanigans in the Pacific Northwest.

Destroying Paradise, Hawaiian Style – In which an Elvis type singer is targeted by Deep Ones.

Return of Old Reliable – In which a test subject monkey returns from space with a very bad attitude. This scenario was written by Oscar Rios, the future founder of Golden Goblin Press.

There was companion fiction anthology to the scenario book. I was commissioned to illustrate the cover but, for reasons that were not told me, Chaosium chose a different artist to do a new cover and used that instead. Oh well.

Story Seed #99
Start With the End

If you have a hard time starting a story, try beginning with your climactic scene and work your way back. That’s sort of what I did with these story seeds. I started with the hashtag #99stories and despite a delay after the first few (and perhaps some cheating along the way) we’ve arrived at number 99. If I’d planned better I’d have an actual story seed to offer.

Let’s pretend that I did.

Remembrance
Richard Corben

Richard Corben passed away on December 2nd. The image above was a limited editon print he did in 1978. It was the first and,so far, only art print I’ve ever purchased. Sadly, I lost it somewhere in the intervening years. He was one of the illustrators that has most influenced my art. Tributes to him can be found all over the internet right now. I hope to write something longer about his work in 2021. He had a long and impressive artistic run and I’m sad that it has come to an end.

Local News

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This week is my Long Week at USPS. I’ll be working six days in a row. I’ll just do one thing after another until I get to collapse on Sunday.

Last week I was able to finish a Mighty Nizz illustration that had been sitting on my drawing table for over a year. Yes, it was really on my drawing table the entire time. I put other pages of bristol board over and moved it around when necessary but it stayed on the table the entire time. I’d penciled it and started inking it and then got caught up in doing commissioned work.

The space on my drawing table already has more works in progress on it waiting to be tackled. But Christmas and mail first.

Thank you for stopping by. Stay safe. Write letters. Be good to yourself and those around you. See you next week!