I couldn’t find a decent online cover gallery for Tales of Jerry. Jane Oliver published 11 issues of the series but I wasn’t able to find a page that featured images of every one. Most cover images are terribly low rez. I will add a link here if I find a good compilation.
The world is, and has been, full of unnoticed pioneers. They go unheralded because they took the road not taken and either no one followed or someone else followed in such a noisy way that the original pioneer was forgotten. This happens in all realms of human endeavors – art, invention, commerce, philosophy, physical exploration – you name it. I have an admiration for the unsung explorer, even when (sometimes especially when) they went down a path I wouldn’t travel myself.
One such pioneer was Jane Oliver. Most of what I know of her is from the article linked to her name here. She was a cartoonist who published her own work from 1976 until cancer killed her in 1992. She was a woman practicing an art form mostly done by men. Her stories were about vampires and rock and roll. She doesn’t have an entry in Wikipedia. Neither does Wikipedia have an entry for Tales of Jerry, her primary comix endeavor. I met her once, briefly, in 1992, shortly before she passed away. She asked if I’d be interested in contributing anything to Tales of Jerry. I don’t remember my exact answer but I suspect that I was non-committal. Jerry (a series about a red haired hippie vampire) wasn’t really my thing.
25 years later I’ve finally gotten something done. Cheers Jane!
The Sasquatch have a dance for every season. And every half season. The Sasquatch like to dance.
What time is it?
Time for more Little Red!
GORGO is the name of the baby monster in the movie. The mother’s name is Ogra. She’s the one that stomps all over London in her search for her missing child. The moral of the story – mother monsters are not to be trifled with. I learned this lesson well. I leave baby monsters alone.
When I was a kid I wanted to be a giant monster. I wasn’t a dumb kid. I knew that I couldn’t actually become a giant monster. Not only was I generally the wrong species I knew enough about the square cube law to understand that really giant monsters were impossible. I could, however, grow up to be a giant monster actor. That was a job that a human being could have.
Except.
Most movies of the movies that I saw that featured giant monsters (at least the type that required humans to wear monster suits) seemed to be made in Japan. Only a very few got made in English speaking countries. And none in America.
So I had to pursue other career opportunities.
GORGO was one of the few giant monster movies made in an English speaking country that used a human actor to play the monster. Mick Dillon had that role. He seems to have mostly worked as a stunt double and wasn’t very tall – he played jockeys in more than one movie. Cheers Mick!
If machines did become self aware and develop a desire to eliminate our species I suspect that they’d stick to using biological or chemical weapons on us. Explosives and projectile weapons are awfully messy and require a lot of clean up.
I’m not worried about machines gaining sentience and then deciding to wipe out humanity. Maybe if machines could think they’d decide that we should be exterminated. Or ruthlessly dominated. Maybe they would have other ideas. We won’t know until it happens.
I’m more worried about programming machines to act as soldiers or as law enforcement. Programming has limitations and those limitations will get innocent people killed. The excuse for the tragedy will be, “We couldn’t have foreseen … “
What sort of hungers do the Great Old Ones have?
Lovecraft described some of his creations in great detail. Others are described in ways that are give the reader a vague sense of the thing and leave the specifics to his/her imagination. And others are left as vague eldritch monstrosities, barely comprehensible to the human mind. Shub Niggurath is one of those. So she (it) can be depicted however seems most appropriate.
I did a simple version of this illustration last October for the Drawlloween/Inktober challenge. I liked the results so much that it seemed worth trying again.
