Tag Archives: Horrors of War

Skook Words (and Pictures) #16

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It’s time to Friday like you’ve never Fridayed before!

These Days …


I made one of my customers’ HOA newsletters! Specifically, one of the residents took a photo of me as I put mail into one of their new CBUs (Cluster Box Units). For more than a year a big condo development on my route has been undergoing renovation. The buildings were constructed in the 70s and, almost 50 years later, needed some serious work. Construction crews have been tearing off the sidings, the roofs and pretty much everything else – replacing the old rotting materials with new shiny ones. As part of the renovation they installed new CBUs for the mail.

The CBUs come without master postal locks. Those locks have to installed by an official USPS locksmith using locks and keys specific to the zip code where the CBUs are located. In Seattle, I’m told, there is only one guy who installs those official locks. None of our stations get to keep locks on hand. In Seattle there’s a construction boom. New buildings are going up everywhere. New buildings mean new mailboxes.

Those new CBUs were installed on my route at the end of 2022. The locks for the CBUs were installed in April, 2023. But only for the boxes on 25th. The boxes on 26th are still waiting for their locks. Hopefully they won’t have to waiting until 2024. The old CBUs on 26th are a mess. I’m really looking forward to seeing them go away.

The Unpublished

For this week’s pictures I’m presenting galleries of illustrations from a couple of the adventures from that never to see print book of WW1 Call of Cthulhu scenarios. These two had nautical settings.

Medusa’s Garden

These illustrations were for a scenario in which American sailors discover the weirdly mummified bodies of a troop of Japanese sailors. The goal of the adventure was to figure out what had happened to the Japanese while avoiding the same fate.

In Which German U-boat Sailors are the Good Guys

During WW1 the Germans got painted with a lot of negative propaganda. In this scenario, the German characters got to be heroes, facing down halfbreed Deep Ones, a corrupt bishop, a cadre of worm sorcerers, and rescuing some orphan kids from sacrifice – twice. This is assuming the players succeed. In Call of Cthulhu roleplaying, success is not guaranteed.

And that’s it for this week. May the next week treat you well. May you treat yourself and others well.

See you in seven!

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Skook Words (and Pictures) #14

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Good morning!

I hope your week has gone well. You deserve a good week. Heck, you deserve a good and happy life. I hope you’ve been having that.

Boosting the Signal

Speaking of things we deserve –

Back in 2020 I did the cover illustration for Spinning Karma, humorous novel by Joshua Samuel Brown. It’s a funny, well written book. You don’t have to believe me, here’s a review.


Joshua is not only an amusing writer, he’s also a friend. I got an email from him yesterday with his publisher’s sales figures for the book in 2020. According to them, no copies had been sold, period, last year. I understand that sales of novels by anyone who isn’t a brand name are way down but, dang, that’s worse than I thought. The book deserves more attention than that!

So, here’s a link to purchase the book via its publisher and another to purchase it via Amazon. It’s a good way to spend a few hours.

While you’re at it –


How Not to Avoid Jet Lag is Joshua’s collection of mostly true short stories. Each story features an illustration by moi. It’s currently only available as an ebook through Amazon. I like physical books so I’m going to have to convince him to put out a print on demand version. But, until then, the ebook version is light and easily carried.

Joshua started his writing career doing travel books. These are worth checking out whether or not you plan to visit the destinations described.

These Days …

I’m back at work delivering mail. Not much changed on my route while I was gone. One customer put a fence around her house so I no longer can walk across her tiny front yard to get to the next delivery.

We continue to be short handed. Yesterday we “rolled” three routes – that is, we only delivered the parcels for those routes. The mail stayed at the station to be delivered today. Next week, when more carriers have vacations scheduled, we’re expecting things to be worse. Our lack of staff has had one possible benefit: upper management called off the route adjustments that were scheduled to begin at our station this month. Upper management didn’t actually give a reason for calling off the route adjustments but trying to get an accurate count of how long it takes to deliver a route is hard to achieve when so many routes are getting split up and delivered by different people every day.

If you know anyone who is physically fit and ready to work 14 hour days (time and a half after eight hours, double time after ten), send them our way!

War and Recovery

I failed to scan the small amount of sketching I managed to get done this week. In lieu of new art, here is a gallery of illustrations from one of the scenarios from an unlikely to ever to be published Call of Cthulhu manual set during World War One. This adventure was set at a hospital for the recovering wounded. The poor bastards have gotten the attentions of both Nodens and Nyarlathotep focused on them. Things won’t go well.

And that’s it for this week. Take care of yourself. Spend some time with friends. Pet a squirrel and chat with a raven.

See you in seven!