The second story I illustrated in THE AKLONOMICON back in 2011 was “Whisperers” by Daniel Mills. “Whisperers” has since been reprinted in The Lord Came at Twilight. 
Author Archives: skook
If Company Should Come
Back in 2011 I illustrated two stories for THE AKLONOMICON, an anthology of Lovecraftian stories and poems. The print run of the book was very limited and it has long since sold out. Sadly (for me) I only have a PDF of the book, not a print version. PDFs and ebooks may be the way most things get published (now and) in the future but I can’t put them on my shelves so they just don’t seem real.
Below is my illustration for “If Company Should Come” by Edward Morris. I don’t think the story has seen print yet anywhere else. That’s unfortunate. Ed is fine fellow and his way with words makes me very very jealous. 
Preview Sketches
Here are some of the sketches I plan to turn into colored illustrations over the next few months. No doubt I will get distracted and work up new sketches before all of these get completed. I’ve also started work on a graphic novel commission that I expect will take up most of the time that isn’t currently filled by my day job. This week I’m just posting these previews and a few other, older illustrations that haven’t made it to this site yet. There may be some weeks where I don’t post. Hopefully not but … 
The Girl in the Middle – Color
The woman standing behind Nurri Kala is a Silurian. In the pulp serial, Morgo the Mighty, the Silurians are described as scaled men not man-like lizards or lizard-like men so I’ve assumed that they are a type of human and therefore mammals.
This illustration is the last piece from the batch I sketched up in late 2015. Every sketch from that batch (along with a number of others that I sketched up during 2016) has now been inked and colored. I think some of them turned out really well. I learned something even from the ones that I was … less than satisfied with. There are more illustrations coming. I’m continuing the black and white to color project until the end of this year.
I’m hoping to have a themed illustration project ready for 2018 but, at the moment, I can’t promise that I will succeed. One day at time.
The Girl in the Middle – Black and White
Nurri Kala, the heroine of the pulp serial Morgo the Mighty, has a dilemma.She is desired by three men: Zorimi, the evil despot who raised her from childhood; Jerry McRory, the dashing pilot from the upper world; and Morgo, the mighty young cave warrior. Who will she choose?
Not Zorimi. He’s evil.
McRory? He offers her a return to a world that she has forgotten.
Morgo? He is a fellow cavern dweller.
Choices, choices.
Swimming Up to Sunshine – Color
And if fish did fly, where would the birds and the bats and the bugs go?
Swimming Up to Sunshine – Black and White
Fish would be so much more fun if they swam in the air instead of the ocean.
Sharks might be a bit of a problem.
Strolling Through the Ruins – Color
I don’t just walk, just get out and see where my legs take me, much any more. I work for the post office as a letter carrier and that job has me on the go. When I’m working overtime hours I deliver on routes that are less familiar but it’s all civilization. I miss taking the paths less traveled – the trails to places where nothing was ever built … or where the hold of man has slipped away.
Strolling Through the Ruins – Black and White
I imagine that human beings have been imagining the end of the world for as long as humans have had civilization. Maybe they were imagining the end of the world when they were hunter/gatherers but I tend to think of world ending stories as stories of the collapse of civilization. Before civilization, specifically the sort of civilization that arises for agriculture, humans lived as members of small tribes and could carry their possessions from place to place as needed. After civilization humans had walls and buildings and … stuff. Stuff that filled buildings and required walls. And when humans have stuff they worry about losing it.
The world will end someday. The world as we, 20th/21st Century people, recognize it. Homo Sapiens as a species will go extinct. I hope that will be because a form of humanity evolves that peacefully replaces us. The earth and life will go on. The stuff we leave behind will be consumed by whatever nature throws at it. Or perhaps our descendants will pack it all up and recycle it. If so, good for them.
Face the Fists of the Face – Color
What did these folks do to deserve the beatdown that The Face is giving them? I leave that to your imagination.
