Illuminations on a Pale Prince
The first place I ever read about Michael Moorcock, or, specifically, Elric, was in the paperback edition of Sam Lundwall’s Science Fiction: What’s It All About? (1969). As me ever-dimming memory recalls, it alluded to some vaguely homoerotic, not to mention vampiric, relationship, he (Elric, not Moorcock) had with the sword Stormbringer. The character sure didn’t sound like the usual run-of-the-mill Bran Mak Morn…
The first time I ever actually read something by Michael Moorcock, it was the Elric story “Kings in Darkness” in L. Sprague de Camp’s collection The Spell of Seven. It was also the first time I had ever heard the name or seen the mastery of FINLAY. The illustration facing Moorcock’s story (which originally was done for something else which probably ran in Famous Fantastic Mysteries) was of a skeleton on fire. A skeleton that looked to be made of jewel-encrusted snow…
Elric has been described at times as resembling bleached bone lit by the fire of his ruby eyes and PAIN… He is naturally then an alluring subject for any and many delineators of phantasy. Jim Cawthorn was one of the earliest, and being a sometime collaborator with Moorcock, probably one of the most accurate. Jeff Jones has painted several covers showing Elric to be worn and haggard, denoting a subtle palette of feeling behind Jones’s usual muted chromatic brilliance.
Wendy Pini did her masterwork in a series of sketches and paintings for a proposed animated feature, which were fortunately collected and published when the project fell through.
P. Craig Russell and Michael T. Gilbert almost simultaneously fixed the image of the Melnibonean for the popular audience in sequential art adaptations. While I like Barry Windsor-Smith’s brief depiction of him in Marvel’s Conan, it was more for Smith’s fine linework than for capturing the true spirit of the character. The same goes for Michael Whelan’s paintings. Rodney Matthews turned armor virtually into exoskeleton, and that was a more interesting take.
Noted illustration historian and artist Richard Schindler singles out Robert Gould as doing his favorite version and there is a flavor to his dustjacket designs of…bleakness? Retaining something of the ornate.
In another medium, Hawkwind successfully mounted a stage presentation of The Chronicles of The Black Sword. Successful because Dave Brock and Co. rock me own little world no small measure, but I digress…Of course black metal bands in Norway such as Emperor and Dimmu Borgir have made their own visual and sonic tributes to “The Lords of Chaos”…
The cover to my Lancer copy of Stormbringer is my personal choice for someone’s depiction of Elric—I believe it to be by Jack Gaughan. The sword is almost as big as Elric, thicker than his arms or legs, which are encased in thigh-high leather boots. He wears a peaked helm resembling a giant thorn matching the spiky minarets of the Dreaming City silhouetted against an autumnal sky. A white metallic rose that can shatter at any second…
Fragility. Strength. Beauty. Horror. Elric has also been labeled an “anti-hero,” but I have never been quite able to view him that objectively. A “Multiverse” reflection of…ourselves? Perhaps. I know doing a depiction of him was the hardest assignment I ever gave myself. But at the very least, this sad, sweet, pale prince will at least remain a diamond embedded in the frost of childhood memory.
“Three Kings in darkness lie,
Gutheran or Org, and I,
Under a bleak and sunless sky–
The third Beneath the Hill.”
Submitted by
The joey Zone
Needle Gunner, Hawkwind Army
ALAN MOORE & STEVE MOORE. The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic. Sherman Oaks, CA: Top Shelf Productions and London, UK: Knockabout Comics, 2024. 350 pp. $49.99 hc. ISBN (US): 9781603095501.
Once on a time
There was a little boy: a master-mage
By virtue of a Book
Of magic—O, so magical it filled
His life with visionary pomps
Processional!
O, so magical gilt & empurpled gift to All!
A cheery chappie clutching caduceus and an Upper Arcana Magician from the Thoth Deck greets one on the cover. Physically reminiscent of a mid-century British children’s annual it is actually a primer, a non-“grim” grimoire or grammar for those of us new to The Language. The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic was first announced for publication in 2007. In 2014 co-author Steve Moore transitioned from this plane of existence leaving Alan Moore to bring the project to fruition by this following decade. The publication of which we have anxiously been waiting for whenever The Stars Were Right.
Given the time put into the creation of this book by all involved, any “review” by a neophyte in matters Occult such as myself can only be the working start of the critique it deserves. “…The process of analysis, of taking things apart…which the alchemists referred to in their principle of Solve” which is “only half of that procedural formula…[with] Coagula, the act of synthesis.” Perhaps a summary of this work’s physicality could start this process, an appreciation of a visual entrée in the first of many feasts. Although its focus is broader, the whole product is comparable in heft and brilliance of hue to Manly P. Hall’s Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928) and it’s oversize plates by J. Augustus Knapp. A local library has a copy shelved in their New Graphic Novels section. While many know Alan’s work (such as Promethea and From Hell) it was his friend the writer Steve Moore who first interested him in magic at a deeper level. Credit Where Due, most of the text was researched and checked by Steve. Well, come for the visionary pomps and stay for the secret teachings…
2000 A.D. luminary Steve Parkhouse initiates the proceedings with the eight page “In the Morning of the Mind” depicting the possible source for “The Dancing Sorcerer” in the French cave system Les Trois Fréres. As all art is posited as magical at its inception, “We see art and magic clearly revealed as forever intertwined, eternally interchangeable”. A following “Things to Do on a Rainy Day” section has a spot illustration by indy comic artist Rick Veitch showing a slack-jawed adolescent automatically drawing a Death Posture ala Austin Osman Spare. This and other sections alternate with one another throughout the book. The late Kevin O’Neill (most notably Moore’s collaborator on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) depicts the anecdotal “Adventures of Alexander”–and by hand puppet extension The God Glycon–in the style of cheeky pre-WWII Comic Cuts episodes.
New England stop motion animator and cartoonist Ben Wickey’s fifty pages depicting “Old Moore’s Lives of The Great Enchanters” is a core of this book’s value to the previously uninitiated, covering the entire history of Western magical thought from that cave painting in France to now. In the front endpaper we first see his rightful depiction of Pamela Colman Smith as the Magician of The Rider-Waite Tarot. Writers and members (albeit briefly) of The Golden Dawn Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen (does The Great God Pan in that panel have a Rosaleen Norton glint in Their eye?) are mentioned while H. P. Lovecraft merits a full page. While noting his co-option by cultists such as Kenneth Grant (who established the Typhonian O. T. O.), the verdict is that “attempts to recruit Lovecraft as occultist ultimately distract from his achievements as a genuine literary enchanter”. Regarding art influencing belief, “the arguably post-modern idea of magical working involving knowingly created fictional characters…concerning the possibility of virtually summoning Lovecraftian horrors” asks “why would anyone want to?” ” Wickey (under the detailed instructions of Alan Moore) includes visual nods to Felicien Rops, Arkham House wrappers by Coye and Finlay, Man, Myth & Magic, Ben Wheatley’s film A Field in England (2013) and others.
The foremost artistic contributor to this compendium as well as also being a “floating member of the Moon & Serpent cabal” is John Coulthart, who should be no stranger to The Weird Aesthetic in general. He stepped up to the task of designing its entirety, resulting in it being one of The Most Notable Book Designs of 2024. In handling the artwork for the prose serial herein entitled “The Soul”, his incidental art throughout is also exceptionally fine, for example landscape and figural silhouettes affecting comparison with those of William Heath Robinson.
This is not to mention Coulthart’s twenty full-page illustrations for the section “Magical Landscapes”. “Landscapes” depict The Kabbalah’s spheres in The Tree of Life, and these depictions are some of the best work that this artist has ever done which is saying a lot. These include the juxtaposition of Tiphereth’s The Christ to Kali in Geburah; Daath’s inhabitance by Lovecraftian/Haeckelian entities, that sphere having association with “Cthulhu”, the Goddess of Abyss & The Alien; The dark mirror image of the Qliphoth; A magisterial Goat of Mendes presiding over The Witch’s Sabbat…These are supplemented by the fun activity pages “Join the dots!” Baphomet and Sephiroth Labyrinth, not to be outdone by a “Cut and Assemble Moon and Serpent Temple”. But use a copier without assailing The Bumper Book itself! And there are Tables of Correspondences, Magical Alphabets and Useful Figures—the last being a Shining Trapezohedron “Ask a grown-up before experimenting with this one”—A hint of Coulthart’s upcoming revision of his Haunter of The Dark. The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic is the major work thus far of this artist’s career—one of the finest arty-facts on these bookshelves here, let alone produced last year. This grimoire’s design and the majority of illustrative effort by John Coulthart make this a shining monument to his career and higher magics in general.
Again, this neophyte’s response is mainly to that of the visual content. Scientific rationalists ala Lovecraft or Joshi may just stop their appreciation there. Considered daily as a metaphysical workbook this may glean more value, however. Practice of True Will for all artists and writers involved, readers who further involve themselves within its pages should have illuminated days that pass by pearlescent and harmonious.
One suburb, is stablished on firm earth; but one
Floats founded vague
In lubberlands delectable–isles of palm
And lotus, fortunate mains, far-shimmering seas,
The promise of wistful hills –
The shining, shifting Sovranties of Dream.
–Henley
The joey Zone
ROGER HILL, The Chillingly Weird Art of Matt Fox. Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2023. 127 pp. $29.95 hc. ISBN: 9781605491202.
This volume not only is a worthy tribute to one of the most idiosyncratic of Weird Tales illustrators, but to its compiler, Roger Hill, who passed away at the end of 2023 at the age of 75. Hill was one of those responsible in firing off the rockets of early comics fandom, specifically giving Credit Where Due to the EC (Entertaining Comics) artists of the 1950s. This reviewer adds this capstone to the career of Roger Hill to the packed shelf next to other works by that scholar highlighting the works of Frank R. Paul and Wally Wood. Unsurprisingly, next to that shelf are teetering rows of the obligatory archival collector boxes, one containing copies of that initial EC fanzine, Squa Tront, which Hill also had a hand in editing with fellow enthusiast Jerry Weist.
“Squa Tront!” “Spa Fon!” were two alien exclamations of alarum first coined in Weird Fantasy #17, in one of the many meta graphic narratives (some comical and not as apocalyptic) presented by EC. Their more infamous horror titles had a trio of hosts, The GhouLunatics, made up of The Crypt Keeper, The Vault Keeper and The Old Witch. Their sardonic commentary on EC’s exaggerated morality plays shined a light on the suburban dark as it really was.
But about Matt Fox: Possibly the most representative of his works is a two-page spread reproduced as this collection’s title page. Originally published with Famous Fantastic Mysteries June 1944 reprint of Algernon Blackwood’s “The Wendigo”, this illustration has the Herne-horned elemental snatching the guide Défago away into the higher spaces…Cartoony some might classify its style, but like the art of Fox’s WT contemporary Lee Brown Coye, perhaps also just true. Matt Fox’s possible influence can be felt in the work of Kim Deitch or more recently the artist Skinner, who contributed original art by Fox that he owns for reproduction here.
Some of Fox’s most notable pieces in Weird Tales were for Mythos tales such as August Derleth’s “The Dweller in Darkness” (November 1944). His cover painting probably was meant to depict Nyarlathotep in the story, albeit with some blind idiot god’s daemon flautists working a side gig. Boris Dolgov’s interior title page piece hewed closer to the story’s mood. The opening illustration for Robert Bloch’s “Notebook Found in a Deserted House” (May 1951) depicts a many hooved horror that is comically far over the top of any shoggoth hinted at in the telling. Far superior to these were headers used with some of the occasional verse that ran in that publication. Matt Fox’s design for “The City” by H. P. Lovecraft in the July 1950 number, for example, is one of the finest illuminations ever affixed to Theoboldian poesy, let alone eerily showing Providence(?) architecturally as it is now, a Dream of Future Past…
Fox went from doing artwork for the pulps to horror comics when the former went out of vogue. While one of these tales, “The Hand of Glory” (Chilling Tales #13, December 1952) is reprinted here in color, one longs to see the denouements of other stories teased with reproductions of their splash pages, especially “Witch-Hunt!” (Strange Tales #18, May 1953).
I first came across Fox’s art in 1966 by way of ads in the magazine Castle of Frankenstein for glow in the dark posters. This book reveals that not one order for these was ever received! (I missed my chance…) No matter his limited success, several photos of Fox in this book show a bemused creator of grim wit, a GhouLunatic in his own write. Still working three years before he passed, Matt Fox had completed 40 illustrations for a special portfolio Beelzebub’s Book. Good news: At the time of this TwoMorrows publication there are plans to publish this.
In pace requiescat then to Matt Fox and Roger Hill. EC or Fox’s art can be rarified flavors of grue, but if you have read this far you are probably anxious to order something from the menu. Thanks to both of them, there is no end to this story within a story, to which we can only say in amazement—SQUA TRONT! SPA FON!
BRIAN STABLEFORD, 1948-2024
The joey Zone
Almost a quarter of a century ago, it was The Fin de Millénaire.
There were tales of Atlantis. Of Carnival and plague and bat-winged batrachians. Of a harpy queen experiencing ecstasy in a death that “need not end desire”. They were related in a style similar to accounts of a lost Hyperborea or prophecies of a dying earth to come and it was a pleasurable geas to illustrate them. A chapbook of saffron enwrapped these Fables and Fantasies for Necronomicon Press in 1996. Brian Stableford was their author.
On February 24th of this past year, Brian Stableford died, age 75.
A Frenchman could look at his bibliography and pronounce it formidable. He had written more than seventy of his own novels as well as shorter fictions. But besides this much of his later career was devoted to bringing over 378 translations of French novels and stories (some dating back to the Seventeenth Century) into English, with fifteen more upcoming titles from publishers Snuggly Books and Black Coat Press.
In 1985, Stableford won The Eaton Award for Scientific Romance in Britain: 1890-1950. It was “….the only academic book I ever managed to publish….[and] only sold 157 copies”. “I became very interested in…comparisons and contrasts between [British & American fictions] and the early evolution of European traditions.”
At ConFuse (19)91 he had the following to say about an early foray into a Trans-Channel anthology, The Dedalus Book of Decadence: Moral Ruins, published in 1990: “[The publishers said] We have put this book in our catalogue and now it is four weeks to go” When asked to make deadline, Stableford ”said “Well, yes, I will do my best.”…I had to do it myself which was difficult [as translations were needed] because I don’t speak French. But now I read French tolerably well. There are dictionaries, you know.” Brian gifted me a copy—not for review but because I evinced a shared comfort found in this literary milieu en général. This kindness gave introductions to the work of Jean Lorrain (A votive candle now tended under the beringed fierceness of Gandara’s portrait in my aesthetic pantheon); supernaturally-tinged erotica penned by Remy de Gourmont, who hid from sight due to Lupus; and Catulle Mendès, whose novel Mephistophela (1890), boasts passages of great hallucinatory diabolism.
Also sent gratis was the follow-up to this collection, The Second Dedalus Book of Decadence: The Black Feast (1992). It is blessed with one of the most gorgeous covers ever assigned to a paperback publication, with matte gold surrounded title and a reproduction of Gustave Moreau’s The Apparition (1874/1876). In this volume I first read the work of Marcel Schwob (Key collection by him being The King in The Golden Mask(1892)) and Anatole France, with an excerpt from The Well of St. Clare (1895), “Saint Satyr”. This and a handful of other works by France were superbly illustrated by Frank C. Papé for The Bodley Head in the 1920s.
The same year I received these (1999), Stableford won The Pilgrim Award, given by The Science Fiction Research Association for a lifetime achievement in Science Fiction criticism. As to research, he labelled himself ”a confirmed antiquarian, fascinated by the thankless task of tracing…ideas through literary history.”
“It is easy to get obsessive about the historical and bibliographical things. When you find, in some sort of forgotten corner…a fact that nobody else knew or…find a book nobody else have ever heard of, this comes to seem like a great discovery…I do take terrible delight in discovering authors that nobody else have ever heard of and writing critical articles about them. I know that the definite critical articles only get read by three people but even so there is a sense in that once they are on the record they are there” Written akin to some Dead Reckonings contributor…
In the November 2011 issue of Locus Stableford vowed to “ try to [translate more works] as thoroughly as I can before blindness sets in or the grim reaper comes knocking.” Seven years after that, the collection Decadence and Symbolism: A Showcase Anthology, published by Snuggly Books continued this promise. A wider aesthetic was previewed by the cover reproduction of Paul Signac’s pointillist Portrait of Félix Fénéon (1890), anarchist and feuillettoniste. Two new introductions were made to me: Jane de la Vaudère, apparently frequenting the same ensanguined jardins as Octave Mirbeau yet not living as long and Henri de Régnier, whose translated collection of dark Fae, A Surfeit of Mirrors, was proffered by Black Coat Press in 2012.
A standout selection was Jean Lorrain’s “The Toad (Le Crapaud)” (1895), the title’s subject an embodiment of the decadent’s revulsion to Nature, both in general and in oneself: “It was, moreover, a monstrously large toad, whose like I have never seen since: a magician toad, at least a hundred years old, half-gnome, half-beast of the Sabbat; one of those gold-crowned toads that one hears of in folktales, set to watch over hidden treasures in ruined cities with a deadly nightshade flower beneath its left foot, nourishing itself on human blood.”
Stableford was then not merely a translator of, but for the material, serving to set the imagery as brilliantly as possible, craftsmanship only found in the rarest bijoux superlatifs. There remain so many writers whose work curated by him this reviewer needs discover! The Vermilion Book of Occult Fiction (2022) and The Alabaster Book of Occult Fiction (2023—both published by Snuggly Books), for example, are two dark mirror images of Andrew Lang’s rainbow-hued collections of fairy tales from the late Nineteenth Century.
It is in this resurrection of imaginations beyond his own that Brian Stableford has kept whole decades alive. “Once they are on the record they are there.” The stardust left in the tail of his comet will remain visible to discerning eyes for years to come–What is remembered, lives.
Sources:
https://www.blackgate.com/2024/02/28/brian-stableford-july-25-1948-february-24-2024/
https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intbs06.htm
https://www.lysator.liu.se/lsff/mb-nr25/Interview_with_Brian_Stableford.html
Sicut describit per j. Zone
ARS NECRONOMICA 2024. A Portal into Bleakness and Wonder. Providence, RI: Providence Arcade. August 10-30, 2024.
I am sick of the old conventions,
… And critics who will not praise,
So sing ho for the open spaces,
… And aesthetes with kindly ways.
In between the partially cobbled streets of Westminster and Weybosset in downtown Providence stands a noble example of Greek Revival architecture birthed in 1828. The two flanks of this edifice facing those thoroughfares boasts six cyclopean Ionic columns measuring 45 feet high. These were quarried, then brought from eight miles away in Johnston, Rhode Island, over dirt roads by teams of oxen. The Providence, or Westminster Arcade, has been the home of Lovecraft Arts & Sciences since 2015, and this year it hosted the 2024 edition of Ars Necronomica.
The last time this reviewer was there, the inside of The Arcade was fairly empty besides the LA&S store and one other business. It was extremely heartening to see that was no longer the case, with new commercial ventures Hey Neighboring the Hub of RI Weird. There was no Artist Guest of Honor this year (Gou Tanabe had preemptively been profiled in the Con’s program book). And although a “fuller” exhibition than 2022 was promised initially, The Lovecraft Arts & Science Council had only invited a smaller group of 25 artists with just 40 pieces among them. In previous iterations of ARS, it had been the curators’ practice to reveal the originals of fine work done to promote the event. If done this year, that would have been originals by RI muralist Michael Ezzell and NJ’s finest Kurt Komoda, but those were not to be seen. And yet the show seemed stronger. The content of about half of the pieces was Lovecraftian, but the high quality of the work was more responsible for elevating the whole presentation to a level better than the previous.
Regulars contributing consisted of Nick Gucker who summoned “The Dweller Beyond The Threshold”, oozing forth midst an ichor of bejeweled acrylic; Liv Rainey-Smith (Without Whom It Wouldn’t Be ARS…) with her latest woodcut depicting “Humanity Uplifted”—by Mi-Go (as you do); Jason McKittrick resinating with “The Seal of Cthulhu”; Josh Yelle (Attendees were chuffed to see Thee Pencilmancer in full force after his early departure due to Covid in 2022) accompanied by “Biddy” in all her mixed media finery; and Mike Knives curating Cultist Couture with his window dressing of “Vvvfurrkgk, The Esteemed Vice-Regent Orator of The Nameless One”. Former Artist Guest of Honor Santiago Caruso returned with three works and provided a highpoint for me and others with his take on Clark Ashton Smith’s “Tale of Satampra Zeiros”. Other submissions included that by Matthew Jaffe (“The Death of Pan”, a gorgeous sepia composition illustrating the Lord Dunsany tale); the Expressionist stylings of Victoria Dalpe; and Gris-gris gathered by one of this year’s GoHs, Billy Martin.
In addition, were notable pieces by Ryan Lesser (“The Gate”, more resin) and Paul Barton (“Priest of Leng”, more ichor). The dark charcoal command of the aptly surnamed Brett Gray has been a mainstay of the horror scene for years and this year we were graced by his “Child of Cthulhu”. Jennifer Hrabota Lesser unleashed “The Acolyte”, a feral flipped version of the cultist that organizers were blessed to have represent the 2017 NecronomiCon campaign. Bob Eggleton, a true Son of Providence—who also is THE Kaiju Master—took sail in a sea of sumptuous oils ‘round a shard of R’lyeh in “Titanus Cthulhu”, an example proving that True Art by him and others like Caruso leaves even the concept of A.I. generated work unworthy for drydock. The artistry of Kelly Kotulak of Hibernacula Studios returned to the convention after she last submitted artwork to the 2015 Program Guide, with an “Alchemical Orchid” bringing a resplendent eldritch flash in its filigree. As a crowning touch, Gage Prentiss of The Rumtucket Trading Company had acquired the “Newman Cemetery Skull” in an East Providence estate sale and graciously loaned it to serve as a literal cornerstone to this year’s show. This relic alone attests to the continued aesthetic influence of Richard Upton Pickman’s oeuvre over the entire Commonwealth, down through the Rhode Island plantations…
While this edition of Ars Necronomica was not in either of the polished halls of The Providence Art Club or the Woods-Gerry, the “pop-up” gallery adjacent to Lovecraft Arts & Sciences no doubt reinforced commercial as well as convivial interests more easily in its café-like atmosphere. One could list, for example, a personal recommendation by Washington Post luminary and bookman Michael Dirda for a novel by Walter de la Mare. Or the banter with a former co-curator and artist over deshabille in convention deportment—the debate sweetened by baklava. This years’ Experience in The Divine City was comprised of many discussions, many conversations. Talk may have been cheap, but oh so priceless.
Here every bard is a genius,
… And artists are Raphaels,
And above the roofs of Patchin Place
… The Muse of Talent dwells.
—H. P. Lovecraft, Summer of 1935
Ars Necronomica 2019
In 1970, Harry O. Morris published the first issue of Nyctalops. It stood out among the small press covering H. P. Lovecraft and related writers at the time for extending the conversation to perimeters of Surrealism and The Occult (Patti Smith and Michael Aquino were two contributors for example). The publication’s art selection was equally sublime—in all that the word entails—ranging from beauty to nightmare. It has never been equaled. It is with great humility and honor then that we present the unpublished piece you see opposite by HOM (Credit due to Sam Cowan and Michael Cisco for facilitating contact).
Our own continuing dialogue started with the reanimation of NecronomiCon Providence and its attendant artist showcase Ars Necronomica. This iconographiam ranges from a Garden of Unearthly Delights choreographed by Carrie Ann Baade to Jon Sideriadis’ dreamlike Sime-scape. It lists the work of Clayton Cameron and Lupe Vasconcelos, both channeling the intensity and Automatism of Austin Osman Spare respectively. Humour is visually extracted from the mouth of HPL by Holly Carden of The Nashville Contingent| (responsible for the Cthulhu Calling art exhibitions, the first held before ours in 2013). Matthew Jaffe imparts a misty-eyed tenderness by twilight in the visualization of Caitlin Kiernan’s story. All these and other dark dreams we summon for The Divine City of Providence. And you beyond…