Spudd 64 : Matt Kish

Gygax's Inferno

2012-01-27T14:08:00.000-05:00

Okay, I asked and I received. I got a whole bunch of electronic help already...PDFs, scans, links, etc. And I have the promise of some real live books coming as well. So here's where things stand right now for what's coming up...

-Bel, Arch-devil of Avernus (first circle)

-Dispater, Arch-devil of Dis (second circle)

-Mammon, Arch-devil of Minauros (third circle)

-Belial, Arch-devil of Phlegethos (fourth circle)

-Fierna, consort / daughter to Belial and sometimes ruler of Phlegethos

-Levistus, Arch-devil of Stygia (fifth circle)

-Geryon, Arch-devil, deposed ruler of Stygia (fifth circle)

-Glasya, Arch-duchess of Malebolge (sixth circle)

-Moloch, Arch-devil, deposed ruler of Malebolge (sixth circle)

-Baalzebul, Arch-devil of Maladomini (seventh circle)

-Mephistopheles, Arch-devil of Cania (eighth circle)

-Asmodeus, Arch-devil of Nessus (ninth circle)

I'm skipping the Hag Countess Malagard because she is more or less dead and gone and I'm sticking to Baalzebul's non-slug form because I like the way he looked in the first edition Monster Manual way better. Plus, I am pretty much ignoring everything that was created or changed after the Monster Manual II because it's all just so unfamiliar to me.

There will also be these...

-Greater Devil: Horned (Malebranche)
-Greater Devil: Ice (Just can't call it a gelugon, sorry)
-Greater Devil: Pit Fiend
-Greater Devil: Styx

-Lesser Devil: Abishai
-Lesser Devil: Barbed
-Lesser Devil: Bearded
-Lesser Devil: Bone
-Lesser Devil: Erinyes
-Lesser Devil: Spined

-Least Devil: Nupperibo

-Lemure

Looks like a total of 24 pieces. A bit more than I would have imagined, but this should be great fun.

Researching Dungeons & Dragons, need your help...

2012-01-26T11:13:00.010-05:00

UPDATE #2: Last night when I filled up the car, the total was $26.66...which I took as a good sign that this will be an intriguing and enjoyable project.

UPDATE #1: Look down below for adjustments...people have given me lots of help!

I'm looking at you Mordicai and Richard of the Dystopian Pokeverse but I suspect the matter at hand is so large that I will need a lot of assistance from a lot of people.

I did play some Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but never much and this was way back between 1979 and maybe 1981 or 1982. I still have very fond memories of my first character, a human fighter named Ferrus the Mighty. Hey, I was ten years old, give me a break! One of the reasons I never played much is because the people I played with made fun of me endlessly for that name. Ferrus the Mighty. It's not that bad! Ferrus! Like "iron," you know?

Anyway, even though I never played the game much, I did have all the hardcover books and THOSE were what I really loved. I spent thousands of hours reading every single entry in my Monster Manual, my Fiend Folio and my first edition copy of Deities & Demigods. I absolutely loved those books.

Well, this Sunday January 29th markes the one year anniversary of my completion of the final page of my 552 illustration Moby-Dick project and it's been a hell of a year. I am badly in need of a catharsis (more on this catharsis in a post this coming Sunday) and I have decided it's time for me to once again pursue an art project for pure fun alone.
I don't want to say too much more yet until I get started but there are enough clues in this post to give you an idea. And yes, obviously, a big part of this project was inspired by what Scrap Princess of New Zealand is doing on her excellent Monster Manual Sewn From Pants blog.

So here is the help I need. If anyone out there can assist me with the following, I'd be deeply grateful...

1) Good readable scans or xeroxed copies of the pages on Devils from the first edition (or reprint of the first edition) Monster Manual.
(Got this taken care of.)

~~2) Good readable scan or xeroxed copy of the Styx Devil from the Fiend Folio.~~. (I've found a decently affordable hard copy which is not on its way to me.)

3) Good readable scans or xeroxed copies of the pages on Devils from the first edition (or reprint of the first edition) Monster Manual II. I'm pretty sure such a thing exists, and contains Abishai and other stuff, right?

~~4) An explanation of just what the hell Baatezu means. This was way way after my time.~~ (This has been explained to me, in all its lameness.)

5) Most importantly, some kind of simple and comprehensive list of the names of the levels of the Nine Hells, the Arch-Devils in command of each, and all of the inhabitants of the Nine Hells (Dukes of Hell, Greater Devils, Lesser Devils, Least Devils, etc.) There is a TON of stuff that happened after I stopped paying attention and tracking it all down myself through the myriad modules, Dragon magazine articles, Planescape adventures, and so on would be impossible - financial and timewise - for me. Links or pointing me toward resources is totally fine. I'm interested in canonical stuff, officially part of the D & D universe, nothing else. As Mordicai commented, this does indeed seem to be a moving target and a near impossible goal, so I'm pretty content with what I've been able to learn so far and with relying on what was around when I was a kid and looked at these books.

When I played the game and read the books, the Devils were always my favorite. Well, actually, the Slaadi and the Modrons were my favorite, but this project wouldn't fare so well with a bunch of chaotic neutral bipedal frog monsters or living geometric shapes, so Devils it is.

If you can help, I would really appreciate. You can leave comments or email me or whatever, and I'll see if I can find some way to make this worth your while. This little project is going to be a BLAST.

Go, look at these...

2012-01-26T11:12:00.001-05:00

Or "look at this" since this time it's just one.

Those who have visited this blog regularly are probably already aware of my fondness for collage. I recently became aware of the artist John Moriarty who maintains a blog called YawnMo Productions where he has been posting work in metal, in gourds (!) and in collage, like this...

That is but one of many, and there is more intriguing work at the link so take a look.

ROBOT MASTERS: Bomb Man

2012-01-26T11:11:00.000-05:00

7.75 inches by 10.75 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
January 29, 2011

ROBOT MASTERS: Ice Man

2012-01-26T11:10:00.000-05:00

7.75 inches by 10.75 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
January 27, 2011

ROBOT MASTERS: Guts Man

2012-01-25T11:11:00.004-05:00

7.75 inches by 10.75 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
2009

ROBOT MASTERS: Cut Man

2012-01-24T11:11:00.002-05:00

7.75 inches by 10.75 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
2009

ROBOT MASTERS: Split Fountain Man

2012-01-23T11:11:00.004-05:00

7.75 inches by 10.75 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
July 29, 2009

ROBOT MASTERS: Polychromatic Pontification Man

2012-01-22T11:11:00.005-05:00

7.75 inches by 10.75 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
April 7, 2009

ROBOT MASTERS: Devil Skull Man

2012-01-21T11:11:00.004-05:00

7.75 inches by 10.75 inches
acrylic paint, crayon and ink on found paper
January 1, 2009

ROBOT MASTERS: Brass Man

2012-01-20T11:11:00.003-05:00

7.75 inches by 10.75 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
June 25, 2008

ROBOT MASTERS: Frog Man

2012-01-19T11:11:00.004-05:00

7.75 ink by 10.75 ink
ink on found paper
June 25, 2008

Come see me in Minnesota

2012-01-18T11:14:00.008-05:00

Tomorrow night I will be giving a rather lengthy talk about art, Moby-Dick and my own book at 7:30 pm in Room 212 of the Jones Science Center building at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. You can find more details here or at this really nice looking flyer they put together...

This is weird and exciting for a lot of reasons. First, due to work commitments, my wife will not be able to make the trip for me so I will be all alone. Second, I've never ever been to North Dakota so I am imagining a white hell with snowdrifts 75 feet tall. Third, I've enjoyed all of my book events a great deal, but the ones at colleges or universities where I've been able to talk to students and educators have been the most intriguing. And fourth, I might be part of a short documentary on comics while I am there. It should be an interesting trip.

I am interviewed, and I say that something sickens me...

2012-01-18T11:13:00.006-05:00

Over at the southpawfilmworks blog, filmmaker Greg Carlson, who will be the host for my upcoming trip to the wintry Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead, Minnesota has posted a rather extensive new interview with me. You can read it all here and see me unload on a few things that really kind of make me sick to my stomach. Feel free to read it and then come back here and call me on it.

Go, look at these...

2012-01-18T11:12:00.022-05:00

(All images in this post are the copyright of their respective creators.)

From time to time, I do find something online which excites and inspires me and is well worth looking at. I've already gone on at length about Scrap Princess' amazing Monster Manual Sewn From Pants, which is exactly that and more and I am still smitten with. Here, take a look at her basilisk...

And here's another good one. If you've got a copy of my book Moby-Dick in Pictures: One Drawing for Every Page then go ahead and read the Acknowledgements. I'll wait.

Okay, in those Acknowledgements you may have seen me thank Shawn Cheng, calling him "the best artist I know." I'm serious. The man is so gifted it's kind of sickening. Anyway, Shawn's got his first fine arts gallery show coming up in February at a gallery in Minneapolis. As soon as I know the name I'll post it. The show opens on Friday February 17th. Shawn's been keeping an incredible blog called, appropriately enough Shawn's Studio Log diligently tracking the progress of the massive and incredibly complex paintings he's working on. You should really be visiting early and often, so take a look at this painting of Shawn's entitled "Ball Game" and you'll be convinced...

Now, according to Christine Mannix, somehow my project inspired her to start a blog. I find that highly suspect since she was a gifted artist long before she ever knew I existed, but it is cause for celebration nonetheless. Christine has a long history of creating things, and what's fascinating about her blog "A" for idea, "C" for execution is the way that she is unearthing all of these projects and objects from her past and revisiting them in the context of her current creativity. She has some penetrating insights about the entire creative process as well, and this is one blog I enjoy reading as much as looking at. Christine does primarily three dimensional, textile and object based art which has been difficult for me to wrap my head around, but it is always a draw for me. Here is one of her pieces entitled "Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't"...

And finally, another artist and blogger who wrote some kind things about me, Elizabeth Bauman is just today embarking on a project to create one illustration for each page of J.R.R. Tolkien's book The Hobbit, which fascinates me. Her style is so markedly different from Tolkien's and from anything I've ever seen applied to The Hobbit so this should be an intriguing and unique look at the novel. Here is a painting of Elizabeth's entitled "Capturing the stars before they faded to memory"...

I'm looking forward to following along with this.

ROBOT MASTERS: Submolecular Man

2012-01-18T11:11:00.003-05:00

7.75 inches by 10.75 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
June 24, 2008

ROBOT MASTERS: Black Skull Man

2012-01-17T11:11:00.004-05:00

7.75 inches by 10.75 inches
acrylic paint, ink and sticker on found paper
June 23, 2008

ROBOT MASTERS: Eat Man

2012-01-16T11:11:00.005-05:00

7.75 inches by 10.75 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
June 20, 2008

ROBOT MASTERS: Flying Snail Head Man

2012-01-15T11:11:00.006-05:00

7.75 inches by 10.75 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
June 19, 2008

ROBOT MASTERS: Combustion Man

2012-01-14T11:11:00.003-05:00

7.75 inches by 10.75 inches
ink and crayon on found paper
June 19, 2008

ROBOT MASTERS: Bolt Man

2012-01-13T11:11:00.007-05:00

7.75 inches by 10.75 inches
acrylic paint, ink and colored pencil on found paper
June 16, 2008

Robot Masters

2012-01-13T11:11:00.006-05:00

In retrospect, this is more interesting than I realized.

In the early summer of 2008, just about one year before I would begin the Moby-Dick illustration project, the artist Shawn Cheng invited me to be a Guest Artist on the Partyka site for a second time. Partyka is a comics and art collective, founded in Brooklyn by four good friends. I'd met Shawn and a few of the others at various small press shows and, smitten with his art and his zines, sent him several adoring emails which eventually gave way to a long distance friendship.

Since this was to be my second appearance on Partyka as a Guest Artist, (my first had been a collection of the Archons drawings that I am so fond of) Shawn asked if I had any new work I could share. At the time I didn't but I was already feeling the stirrings of artistic restlessness that eventually led directly to the Moby-Dick thing.

Casting about for ideas, I was drawn to something really ambitious. I knew I wouldn't be able to finish it all in time for my appearance as a Guest Artist, but I wanted to do something big. Funny. See how weirdly prophetic this was for what was to happen the following summer? Anyway, lacking any world-shattering ideas, I settled on my childhood love of the Mega Man videogames, especially the old 8-bit classics. One of the many things I loved about those games was the seemingly endless inventiveness of the designers who came up with hundreds of different robot designs, each unique and distinctive and delightful, for the hero Mega Man to fight. At the end of each level, Mega Man would face a boss, called a Robot Master. Each of these Robot Masters had a name that started with some descriptor or power and ended with "Man." So in the games you'd have bosses like Cut Man and Fire Man and Elec Man and Air Man and Oil Man and so on. It was great fun.

I decided I wanted to create my own Robot Masters, and since I wanted to be ambitious (and I have weird numerological superstitions) I set out to make 111 of them. Also, and this too is prophetic, I had been holding on to a big pile of TV repair diagrams that I had snagged during my days working in a used book store, and I thought that since I would be creating my own Robots, why not use this paper and paint over it? So odd how this all laid the groundwork for Moby-Dick.

I'm still quite fond of these Robot Masters. I think they're really charming. I never finished the 111, but I did create 11 of my own and 4 based on the Robot Masters from the first Mega Man game. You'll see them all. Only one at a time, instead of 15 in one day. I don't want to do that to anyone again!

"Followers"

2012-01-13T06:56:00.000-05:00

Those of you who have a blog of your own probably already know that others can "follow" your blog and thus receive updates about new postings each time they sign into Blogger or Google or Gmail. And even if you don't have a blog of your own, you may have noticed how on some blogs, in the sidebar or down near the bottom, there will be a cluster of thumbnail images showing all of the people who are "following" a certain blog.

I've always been a bit uncomfortable with that term since "following" also implies "leading" which is a weird fit for me. Still, this blog does have "followers." I decided to uninstall that from the layout of the blog so that there is no list of followers on the public side of things. I mean, it just felt a little egocentric to me on a personal level.

Still, each and every single time I sign in to create a post, right away on that blogger dashboard I see a notification of how many "followers" I have. And yes, that number rises and falls.

It's hard to know what to do with that. Against my better judgment, when the number goes up and the blog has a new "follower" I do find myself getting a little excited. Like "Cool! Someone likes my art!" And yes, when that number falls, I do feel bad. Worse than I should, really.

It's funny, I did have some concerns that posting 26 pinhole photographs in 26 separate posts in one day might alienate a few people and it seems to have done just that. The "followers" number dropped precipitously this morning. Was it the Vegas thing? Is it that lack of constant Moby-Dick coverage? Is there anything to be gained from even wondering about that? Probably not.

Anyway, to those that have continued to "follow" and those who visit regularly, or even semi-regularly, thank you. I do appreciate very very much you making me a part of your day, and I promise to always do my very best to show you something interesting, worth looking at, and hopefully intriguing enough to talk a bit about in the comments.

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 6:02 am - The Last Redoubt, Dawn

2012-01-13T06:02:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 5:12 am - Dirac Sea II

2012-01-13T05:12:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 4:44 am - Dirac Sea I

2012-01-13T04:44:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 4:33 am - Immolation

2012-01-13T04:33:00.005-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 4:20 am - Plumed Emissary

2012-01-13T04:20:00.004-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 3:59 am - The Archangel, Terrible and Without Pity

2012-01-13T03:59:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 3:38 am - Leviathan

2012-01-13T03:38:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 3:03 am - The Last Redoubt, Under Heavy Assault

2012-01-13T03:03:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 2:22 am - Angels Carrying Savage Weapons

2012-01-13T02:22:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 1:55 am - Staring into the Abyss

2012-01-13T01:55:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 1:16 am - Over the Strip

2012-01-13T01:16:00.004-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 1:02 am - Satan's Horn

2012-01-13T01:02:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: Midnight - Sweet Sweet Toni

2012-01-13T00:00:00.006-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 11:10 pm - Flamingo Flames

2012-01-12T23:10:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 10:08 pm - Tropicana Walls, Night

2012-01-12T22:08:00.004-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 9:37 pm - The Last Redoubt, Night

2012-01-12T21:37:00.004-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 6:40 pm - Ancient Astronaut

2012-01-12T18:40:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 5:18 pm - Gold Lion

2012-01-12T17:18:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 4:20 pm - Tropicana Walls

2012-01-12T16:20:00.002-05:00

pinhole photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 2:24 pm - Behind the Strip

2012-01-12T14:24:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 1:20 pm - Yet Another Motel

2012-01-12T13:20:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: High Noon - Detritus

2012-01-12T12:01:00.000-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: High Noon - Unconscious

2012-01-12T12:00:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 10:55 am - Pink Hotel

2012-01-12T10:55:00.004-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 10:15 am - The Long Walk

2012-01-12T10:15:00.002-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS: 9:11 am - The Last Redoubt, Near Dawn

2012-01-12T09:11:00.002-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

24 Hours in Las Vegas

2012-01-12T08:46:00.000-05:00

I have a real love / hate thing with Las Vegas. Somewhere I read that Las Vegas was the "brightest star in the neon firmament of post-modernism" and that description seems especially accurate. My wife and I got married there in 2001, by a slim and sexy Elvis. That was mostly because we wanted to do anything BUT have a traditional church wedding, but we had a great time and the whole ceremony was quite memorable.

We go back often. Not every year, but quite a bit. What's good in Vegas is the heat, the overwhelming brutality of the sun which seems to literally hammer down on you, and some of the food. What's bad is, of course, the astounding and despicable excess of so many of the people that fill the streets and casinos. At first it's kind of fascinating to watch them, with their ten thousand dollar handbags and horrific plastic surgery. After a while though you get kind of numb to the horror of it all, and a quiet hour or two by a pool staring up into the cloudless desert sky has some real charm.

Anyway, in 2006 I took my newly crafted pinhole camera - the one my friend Fred made for me that took all those blurry and distorted photos - and set out to document a single 24 hour span in the city. The following 26 photographs, which will be posted on the blog at the precise time each was taken nearly 6 years ago, are the story of that day in Vegas. I did sleep a bit, somewhere in there. I can't remember where exactly but, as you'll see, there's a decent amount about that day that I don't remember.

"The Hobbit" by Gene Deitch and Adolf Born

2012-01-11T23:11:00.003-05:00

An astounding 12 minute version of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, directed by legendary animator and artist Gene Deitch with art by Czech painter Adolf Born. I absolutely love The Hobbit as much as I love Moby-Dick so seeing this was a special treat for me. In spite of the incredible liberties taken with this adaptation - Smaug is called Slag, Thorin Oakenshield is Torin Oakenshield and a general of Dale, there is a princess (!), Gollum is pronounced "Goo-Loom" and so on - I'm really quite smitten with this. It is visually lush and lovely, and Smaug, or Slag, looks amazing.

Much more information about the video from Dietch here at Cartoon Brew. Now check this out...

Go, look at these...

2012-01-11T09:37:00.004-05:00

It's time for a pause, so I've compiled a post full of interesting and unique things to look at on the internet. Some of them relate to me and this blog, but many of them are just things I thought were worth some time.

Richard's Dystopian Pokeverse
First, in response to my recent re-posting of all of my older Strange Satellites drawings, blogger Richardjohnguy wrote this very flattering piece on his "Richard's Dystopian Pokeverse" blog offering up my Strange Satellites as a kind of new Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. There were some kind comments as well, especially one which read "At the very least, these look like who you’re put in contact with when casting “Contact Higher Plane.” I liked that quite a bit.

For those unfamiliar with the Monster Manual, it is a bestiary providing all sorts of monsters, beasts, dragons, demons, devils and other creatures for use in Dungeons & Dragons games. Truthfully, I never played many RPGs, especially the paper and pencil kind, although I did play D & D a bit when I was young. In spite of that though, I was very aware of the Monster Manual and absolutely, in every literal sense of the word, obsessed with it. I paged through my copy so many times that it fell apart and had to be rebound with copious amounts of masking tape. I still love that book, especially the original version, and that connection from Richardjohnguy was one of the best compliments my art has ever received. Here's the original cover, which still moves me...

Scrap Princess
I am thinking that as a result of that mention on "Richard's Dystopian Pokeverse," Scrap Princess (aka Toilet World! -- who will devour the sun) found out about my blog and left me a few kind comments. Those comments led me back to her own blog (I am always curious about people who leave comments) and at that moment my mind was blown forever. Scrap Princess runs a blog called Monster Manual Sewn From Pants and it is more or less exactly that. She is a brilliantly warped artist and is working her way through the Monster Manual sewing all the creatures from pants, buttons, and other fabric. It's just so stupendous it almost makes me want to cry. I am stealing one of her photos and posting it below so that, like any sane person, all of you will follow that link back and look at the marvels she has wrought. It's difficult to pick just one but...ah, screw it, I am posting two. First, her Gorgon...

And second, her Barbed Devil...

So so good. Scrap Princess has hinted at a possible trade, so I am looking high and low through all of my remaining drawings to find something suitable to offer her. I'd be deeply honored to give one of her beasts a good new home. And I can't wait to see what she does with my favorite D & D monster of all time, the remorhaz.

Sean Singer and Whale Poem
Moving along, I recently received a very kind email from writer and poet Sean Singer whose Whale Poem basically stunned me with its power and its imagery. A longer poem, and very worth every second spent savoring it.

Virtual Margin
Librarian and blogger Jessica runs a blog called Virtual Margin and in this intriguing post she addresses illness, relating it back to my own series of Radians. Those drawings were so personal and private for so long, so it's strange but good to see that they've made some kind of impact with visitors. I never would have expected that.

Remembered by my high school
In another completely unexpected development, someone at my old high school, Marion L. Steele in Amherst, Ohio, wrote some very kind words about me and the book Moby-Dick in Pictures on the high school web site. You may have to scroll down a bit to see it, I don't think it's possible to link to a specific post. This was surprisingly moving for me. I graduated in 1987 and while I didn't have a great time in high school, it wasn't especially bad either. I don't think about it all that much, but it meant quite a bit to me to be mentioned like this and I appreciate it very much.

I have been mentioned...
There have been many many more kind mentions of my book in a variety of places so I wanted to link out to them here. First, my book was a featured staff pick of Shawn D. at Portland's esteemed Powell's Books.

Next, someone at the New York Public Library mentioned my book as one of the Best Books I Read or Listened to in 2011. As a librarian myself, you can understand whhy this was so great for me. Although I am a bit puzzled as to why the New York Public Library does not own a copy of the book. What's up?

Blogger Nick Montfort wrote a nice review of the book on his blog Post Position. Thanks Nick.

Patrik Ward wrote some nice things about the book and about my art over at Readhacker. He also put in a plug for buying some art from my Etsy store, which I appreciated. I've still got about 200 pieces left to post and sell, so look for those some time this month.

I am honored, as always, to see some of my art show up on the FuckYeahMobyDick tumblr.

My art in...
And last, here are some photos of my art hanging in people's homes. Brilliant writer Robert Kloss, whose upcoming book The Alligators of Abraham has a cover and three interior illustrations by me, and his wife Karissa have provided a fine new home for one of my Moby-Dick illustrations as well as the three cover roughs I did for RObert's book. Here they are hanging on their walls. First, the White Whale...

Next, the cover studies, in a row, then each shown separately, then a detail of the gorgeous frame they chose...

As you know, seeing my art in a new home always brings me great joy. Many many thanks to Robert and Karissa.

THE DRIFTING MEADOWS: Weirdly Molecular and Biological

2012-01-10T17:55:00.001-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

THE DRIFTING MEADOWS: Sun Shards

2012-01-10T16:44:00.003-05:00

pinhole camera photographs
2006

THE DRIFTING MEADOWS: The Drifting Meadow

2012-01-10T15:33:00.004-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

THE DRIFTING MEADOWS: Periwinkle

2012-01-10T14:22:00.002-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

THE DRIFTING MEADOWS: Summer's Cauldron

2012-01-10T13:11:00.006-05:00

pinhole camera photograph
2006

From Radians to Drifting Meadows...

2012-01-10T11:11:00.003-05:00

And then, it ended. I never set out to do a specific number of Radians drawings, I just did what I needed to do and it ended up being twelve. At that point, I had drawn it all and worked through a lot of what I needed to. I had by and large recovered almost fully and wanted to stop thinking about the illness. Fortunately, I have been able to keep it at bay ever since then, and with proper care and the right choices it should never trouble me again. Here's hoping.

One thing that did become a haven of sorts later that year was the discovery of the Cox Arboretum metropark, near Dayton and about 30 minutes from our new home. My wife and I first ventured there on a swelteringly hot day in the late summer of 2006. I was smitten. Probably much more so than my wife who, while no shrinking violet, generally has an averse reaction to bugs, dirt, weeds, and temperatures over 90 degrees. To me though, the Cox Arboretum was almost paradise. Acres and acres and acres of meadows, fields, and forests, much of it well maintained but still oddly untamed. Nearer the lodge, the grounds are carefully landscaped and full of stunning wildflower arrangements, ponds literally swarming with fish and turtles, a butterfly garden, and so on. It was a wonderful, peaceful place to be, especially in high summer.

For that first trip, I brought along the pinhole camera my friend Fred had made for me in the body of an old plastic snapshot camera. This was a fixed lens kind of thing, about as crude as possible. I'm not sure if it was due to Fred's inexperience making pinhole cameras or by intent, but this thing shot incredibly blurry, distorted photos which took on a surreal, hazy dreamlike quality at times. You can see some of my earliest efforts with this camera in the Night Lights section of this blog, where I experimented with the long exposure times and the blurring.

Anyway, I shot an entire role of photos at the Arboretum that day, and while very few of them turned out, the ones that did charmed me utterly. The five prints I saved had gorgeous, muted colors and strange distortions that called to mind the biology filmstrips I had watched as a child in elementary school in the early 1970s. Everything about these photos seemed to bring the green world close at hand, almost intimately so, and I can still feel the sun and smell the earth when I look at these. A nice antidote to the Radians, I think.

Oh, as you may have noticed, in looking back at all the drawings and comics and photographs I've made over my lifetime, I've taken to seeing them as grouped into thematically consistent groups I've been calling "Works," especially on this blog. While many of these Works overlapped, each exists independently, and I've yet to really understand the progression that led from one to the other. One thing I have noticed is how often other things I have seen have influenced later projects. The upcoming Cox Arboretum pinhole photos I'm about to post came to be called "The Drifting Meadows" in my mind. This is, oddly enough, a reference to a card from a fantasy-based collectible card game called Magic: The Gathering which I have indeed played many times. In this game, you get a whole bunch of different kinds of cards. Some are creatures that you use to battle, some are spells that you use to enhance creatures or hurt your enemy, some are pieces of equipment called artifacts that change abilities, and others are simply land cards. These land cards give you mana, or magic, which are like points you use for your other cards. I was always fondest of these land cards because they often contained beautiful landscape paintings and imaginatively fantastic names for land. My favorite card of all time was one called "Drifting Meadow," shown below. It seemed like heaven to me. Huge meadows atop floating slabs of stone drifting quietly and peacefully through a warm cloudscape. I've never forgotten this.

RADIANS: Abomination Flotilla

2012-01-10T01:11:00.001-05:00

12 inches by 9 inches
ink on manila paper
2006

RADIANS: The Stone

2012-01-09T23:11:00.002-05:00

12 inches by 9 inches
colored pencil on manila paper
2006

RADIANS: Ode to Leeuwenhoek

2012-01-09T13:11:00.003-05:00

9 inches by 12 inches
colored pencil on manila paper
2006

RADIANS: The Messenger

2012-01-09T11:11:00.002-05:00

9 inches by 12 inches
colored pencil and pencil on manila paper
2006

RADIANS: Unclear Vicissitudes

2012-01-09T01:11:00.000-05:00

12 inches by 9 inches
colored pencil and pencil on manila paper
2006

RADIANS: The Bottom Line

2012-01-08T23:11:00.002-05:00

12 inches by 9 inches
colored pencil on manila paper
2006

RADIANS: Radian Tide

2012-01-08T13:11:00.002-05:00

9 inches by 12 inches
ink and pencil on manila paper
2006

RADIANS: The Egg of War

2012-01-08T11:11:00.002-05:00

12 inches by 9 inches
colored pencil on manila paper
2006

RADIANS: Weeping in the Hall of Heroes

2012-01-08T01:11:00.002-05:00

9 inches by 12 inches
colored pencil on manila paper
2006

RADIANS: So Exhausted Now

2012-01-07T23:11:00.000-05:00

9 inches by 12 inches
colored pencil and metallic ink on manila paper
2006

RADIANS: Hybrid Vigor

2012-01-07T13:11:00.000-05:00

9 inches by 12 inches
colored pencil on manila paper
2006

RADIANS: Gently Buoyed

2012-01-07T11:11:00.003-05:00

9 inches by 12 inches
colored pencil on manila paper
2006

About the Radians

2012-01-07T01:11:00.006-05:00

(This is about the next 12 pieces of old art that will be posted to the blog.)

My wife and I moved from our home near Columbus, Ohio to a new apartment in a new city near Dayton, Ohio in December 2005. Neither of us has ever been timid or fearful, but this was quite a change. Even though we were only moving about 90 minutes away, by car, from where we had spent the first 10 years of our relationship, we were headed to a very different part of the state where we knew absolutely no one. In addition, my wife had recently completed grad school and was starting her first real post-grad school job, a very challenging position at a university. I was still in grad school, but I only had one semester left so I too was facing the pressure of a grueling practicum followed by the rather urgent need for a new job. All of this happened just as the long grey Ohio winter was settling in, and for our first few months in this new apartment, we both felt trapped, far from home, lonely and a bit lost.

I also got very sick. Very very sick. I don't want to go into too many details for personal reasons, but it was a harrowing experience. I was 36 years old and even though I had never been especially fit, athletic or health-conscious, I had also always been very lucky. I had never smoked, never been a heavy drinker, and never had any substance abuse problems. My biggest vices were probably an affinity for too much soda. All in all, I was, at least up to that point, relatively healthy, happy, and normal. Still, what happened hit me hard and I was facing some worst-case scenarios that would have been devastating.

Over the course of the illness, I began to feel as if my body were being reduced to its component parts. For the first time, I truly felt my own body working against me. I would look at myself in the mirror, at all the parts of my body, and it seemed foreign. Like some house made of meat and bone and crawling with hostile entities. It was deeply unsettling to lay in bed and stare down across the landscape of my own flesh and feel completely disconnected. These 12 Radian drawings were a very primitive response to that, and a way for me to cope with what was going on inside of me. There is also a considerable amount of self-mythologizing coupled with an unfortunate dose of self-pitying going on here, but that was all necessary at the time and I'm not ashamed.

Fortunately, after months of wondering and insecurity and physical misery and tests there was light at the end of the tunnel. Those worst-case scenarios proved to be just that, and I was very lucky to end up squarely in the middle of the best-case scenario. I held on to these Radian drawings for a long time, out of suspicion mostly, and when I finally felt like I was in the clear I burned them all.

As simple, crude, and abstract as these are, the Radian drawings are the most personal pieces of art I've ever created. I wasn't sure if there would be a place for them on this blog, or on my web site, but they are such a part of my own personal history that it didn't make any sense to not include them. So now you know.

Oh, and by the way, I realize that Radians doesn't mean what I thought it meant back then. The name simply stuck, and it has always felt just right even though the meaning is more personal than accurate.

STRANGE SATELLITE: The Nameless Satellite

2012-01-06T11:11:00.004-05:00

11 inches by 14 inches
ink on Bristol board
2007

STRANGE SATELLITES: King Circle

2012-01-05T11:11:00.004-05:00

10 inches by 8 inches
ink on watercolor paper
2007

The end of the book tour part 2: Manhattan (again) and Brooklyn

2012-01-04T15:33:00.065-05:00

Okay, I'm getting kind of confused on the dates here. I apologize, I can't be precise, but the rest of these photos are from Thursday December 1st through Saturday December 3rd. I had a few more book events to do plus I got incredibly sick and lost my voice completely. I knew it was essential that I meet my obligations for publicizing the book, so I guzzled enormous amounts of medicine and soldiered on relentlessly. Which caused everything to blend into a haze of illness, drugs and hallucinations.

Thursday was, I am pretty sure, my only day off. I spent an inordinate amount of time and money at Brooklyn's own Desert Island Comics. I had heard so much about this place and always wanted to visit, but there was never the time. It was a wonderland inside, and I could have spent the entire day browsing. Plus the owner, whose name I never learned, was just tremendously cool. I often worry when I venture inside a store similar to Desert Island that I will be sized up and dismissed as not hip enough since I don't look especially cool or wear thrift store clothes or have an iPhone that I conspicuously flaunt. But the owner was a genuinely cool dude and we talked quite a bit about art, comics, silkscreening and so on. I really liked him. Anyway, here is Desert Island which you should really visit some time...

Thursday night was one of the most surreal events in this long history of surreality surrounding my book. In New York, there is a fine publisher named Archipelago Books and their stated role is "a not-for-profit literary press dedicated to promoting cross-cultural exchange through international literature in translation." Since they are a not-for-profit publisher they depend heavily on pre-sales and other kinds of assistance, and they deserve it because they are really putting out some unique and important titles. Well, Archipelago had gotten in touch with a number of independent publishers, artists, literati and other folks and asked all of them to donate something for an auction Archipelago would be holding at a Manhattan gallery whose name I have truly forgotten. These publishers and artists (me!) and so on all donated books, subscriptions, pieces of art, and other odd things like hours of free art appraisal, a Manhattan lunch date and shopping trip and so on. Right away it was all so strange to me. Rob from Tin House was kind enough to get my wife and I in to the auction so we could watch it all happen. The gallery was packed and there was this huge crush of people at the entrance. People of all sorts too, from what looked to me like wealthy collectors to eccentric art directors to literary folks and so on. It was so strange...

The gallery was an impressive space, vast and lofty with gorgeous raw concrete walls and exposed metal. My wife and I walked around for a while and eventually came across the display of my donation which was a signed and drawn-in copy of the hardcover edition of Moby-Dick in Pictures and a completely new drawing of Moby Dick. Here is the book, with my drawing clipped to a weird metal stand...

Then the auction began. I wish I could remember who all these people were, but I was so sick and delirious from the medication that I don't remember much at all. This guy in the middle here handled the auctioneer chores, explaining each item and coordinating the bids...

There were a whole bunch of items before mine, some of which went for very very good (and high) prices, while others seemed to generate very little interest at all. I was getting freaked out because I felt completely out of place and way out of my league and was convinced my book and my drawing would get laughed out of the place and generate no bids at all. I was starting to wish I had never come, and then it was time for them to bid on my stuff. It was so incredibly strange to see these two ladies hold up my book and my art and parade them around in front of bidders in Manhattan like this. Luckily I don't think anyone there knew who I was so I was able to watch this all with some level of anonymity. Thankfully, there was a great deal of interest in my work, and the auction raised about 5 times more than the original asking bid. I was deeply relieved. And exhausted. So I went back to the room and went to sleep.

The next day, Friday...(and I never thought I would ever in my entire life type or say a sentence like this)...I had a very productive meeting with my agent. This is the outside of his building...

And here is a shot of his office, with one of my own paintings framed and hanging on his wall, which made me very happy...

And here we are together. That's him, to my right (your left). He is such a genuinely decent human being and I feel so incredibly fortunate to have landed with him. I only wish I wasn't so ill. I could barely croak out answers to his questions, but he gave me some great ideas about future projects...

This was on the street somewhere. It was too amusing to not take a photo of...

On Saturday, I traveled again to Brooklyn to meet with filmmaker Dave Shaerf. He's currently working on what looks like it might be an expansive film documenting the continuing relevance of Moby-Dick and its near-constant presence in American culture. He was kind enough to invite me to his apartment so he could film a lengthy interview with me for possible inclusion in the film. I really liked Dave a lot. He was very easy to talk to, had an deep love and knowledge of the game of baseball, and owned an awesome puppy. Here are Dave and I, after the interview...

And here is Dave's puppy Abby, who kept us company during the interview was a really great dog...

Saturday night was the very last event, at Brooklyn's BookCourt...

Someone in the store had prepared this really excellent sign out front, complete with a drawing of Moby Dick...

The staff kind of busted their ass for me, which I really appreciated. They treated my wife and I very well, hustled like mad to set up a podium and a projector and a giant screen and a bunch of chairs, and really talked me up. They were a great crew. Here I am talking about the book...

And of course, drawing in every copy...

A good friend and transplanted Ohioan, Mr. Eric Davidson, lead singer of the New Bomb Turks came out for the event too. It was really good to see a friendly and familiar face...

And here we are hamming it up a bit...

Finally, this is Valerie from BookCourt who was super tall and super nice and made sure that I had everything I needed. Thanks Valerie!

And that was it! All events over, many books sold and drawn in, many many new friends made, and back to Ohio. One last goodbye to the stone puppies from my wife...

I think that probably concludes my book tour. I will be doing something at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota in late January, but that might be the last one. We'll see, and I'll keep you posted.

STRANGE SATELLITES: The Staring Thunder

2012-01-04T11:11:00.003-05:00

8 inches by 10 inches
ink on watercolor paper
2007

The end of the book tour part 1: Manhattan and Philadelphia

2012-01-03T15:33:00.002-05:00

I only now realized that I never posted these photos from the most recent, and probably final, leg of the Moby-Dick in Pictures book tour. I spent nearly a week in late November and early December 2011 in Manhattan, Philadelphia and Brooklyn doing all sorts of book-related events and appearances. Of course I took lots of photos, so here we go...

My first stop was Tuesday, November 29th at Manhattan's McNally Jackson Books where I was invited to be part of their "Ask me about..." series of book talks. Each of these events, co-hosted by Time Out New York, focuses on a particular classic novel which, presumably, nearly everyone has heard of but very few have read. Here is the exterior of that fine store...

As always, I enjoy seeing my book on display in stores...

I never thought I would finally see one of these, but here it is...

Me, just before the event kicks off, with from left to right The Gospel of Anarchy author Justin Taylor and Tin House editor Rob Spillman...

The evening was appropriately lubricated by copious amounts of delicious Whale's Tale Pale Ale courtesy of Nantucket's Cisco Brewers. And yes, I drank my fair share...

We kicked off the night with some mesmerizing music from Therese Cox of the band Balthrop, Alabama, who sang like an angel and played the accordion as fiercely as a demon...

Time Out New York's editor Matthew Love got the book talkin' started with in a suitably rousing manner...

And here I am, doing my thing. And, oddly enough, looking like I am singing a gospel song or something. Must've been all the Whale's Tale Pale Ale...

After all my boring book talking, the stage was commandeered by the Pequod Players who put on the best abbreviated version of Moby-Dick ever. This is three of the four of them, all playing multiple parts, of course. And very ably, I might add...

The close of the performance by the Pequod Players. That's their Captain Ahab lying dead on the ground there...

Again with the talented and beautiful Therese Cox, holding her copy of my book...

And chillin' with Matthew Love, who was genuinely awesome...

After all of that, it was off to my wife's favorite restaurant, Tsampa in St. Mark's Place...

We can never resist a quick visit to the esteemed St. Mark's Bookshop where we always spend far too much time and money. But it was a great thrill and a great honor to see my own book on the shelf there, and in the fine fine company of Walt Kelly's Pogo: Through the Wild Blue Yonder...

The next day dawned bright, clear and cold, and my wife and I were off to Philadelphia on the Amtrak train. This was my first ever train ride, not counting many short jaunts on the Long Island Railroad from White Plains, New York into Grand Central. I was ludicrously excited, and here I am holding up my ticket...

Also, considerably less excited, here is my wife. Sleeping. She's going to punch me for posting this...

My first Philadelphia event was a radio interview with Peter Crimins of WHYY. This is their building...

And here I am in the booth talking to Peter...

We had a few hours to ourselves, so we spent that gazing at the vast assortment of monstrosities in Philadelphia's own Mutter Museum. It was indeed disturbingly informative and I highly recommend it, especially if you want to see real soap ladies, megacolons, deformed fetuses, and so on. So cool...

After dinner, we rushed off to the Rosenbach Museum and Library. I thought I had already seen the most amazing museum at the Mutter, but the Rosenbach topped it and then some. An absolutely astonishing repository of literature, vast bookshelves full of gorgeous editions of so many books it boggles the mind, rooms full of art and sculpture and furniture and all of it steeped in the history of Philadelphia and the United States. My wife and I were very kindly given a private tour of the museum by their incredibly generous staff, and I was able to actually see some of Melville's own furniture, gaze in wonder at some of Maurice Sendak's original drawings, and so much more. What's even more amazing is that the Rosenbach is not only a museum, it is a library! And its collection is accessible! Anyone that is anywhere near Philadelphia owes it to themselves to spend some time here.

Alright, that's probably enough of my gushing. Here is the outside, very unassuming...

And here I am, talking to a fantastic crowd about Moby-Dick, my art and my book...

Signing, after the talk (and very happy to be doing so)...

Then off to Philadelphia's delightful Brickbat Books. They graciously held the store open much later than usual for my event, and treated me with exceptional kindness...

My favorite event picture ever. I think that is the owner's wife staring at the camera, and she was awesome and outspoken and down to earth and really cool to get to know. As was the owner, but you probably guessed that from my description of his wife. I really liked this event. It was a very small, very intimate event and really felt a lot more like a conversation with friends then a book talk.

One thing I will never get used to is people giving me gifts for stuff like this, but I do deeply appreciate it. The folks at the Rosenbach made for me this beautiful little handmade blank book with silkscreened whale covers inside...

And later I spent way way too much money at Brickbat Books, although these books are all treasures. From left to right are the Calla Editions copy of East of the Sun and West of the Moon illustrated by Kay Nielsen, Vovo by demented Japanese artist Ichiba Daisuke, a 1966 children's book called No End of Nonsense with verse by Jack Prelutsky and wonderful illustrations by Wilfred Blecher and a true treasure, a self-published Moebius collection titled Chasseur DePrime in original black and white. It's mostly "Airtight Garage" stories and is huge and gorgeous...

Two more massive zines here. The left, again, from Ichiba Daisuke and the right from self-taught artist Chris Hipkiss...

Part 2 in just a bit...

STRANGE SATELLITES: The Dirac Sea Satellite

2012-01-03T11:11:00.003-05:00

8 inches by 10 inches
ink on watercolor paper
2007

STRANGE SATELLITES: The Grinning Psychopomp

2012-01-02T11:11:00.004-05:00

8 inches by 10 inches
ink on watercolor paper
2007

STRANGE SATELLITES: Air-Walking Calefactor

2012-01-01T11:11:00.004-05:00

8 inches by 10 inches
ink on watercolor paper
2007

2012

2012-01-01T01:12:00.000-05:00

Good luck in 2012, everyone. Seriously.

STRANGE SATELLITES: Nuages (That Which Passes, Passes Like Clouds)

2011-12-31T11:11:00.002-05:00

10 inches by 8 inches
ink on watercolor paper
2007

STRANGE SATELLITES: Metalled Oogenitor

2011-12-30T11:11:00.004-05:00

10 inches by 8 inches
ink on watercolor paper
2007

STRANGE SATELLITES: The Feathered Vastness

2011-12-29T11:11:00.004-05:00

10 inches by 8 inches
ink on watercolor paper
2007

STRANGE SATELLITES: The Mellifluous Pulse

2011-12-28T11:11:00.002-05:00

10 inches by 8 inches
ink on watercolor paper
2007

STRANGE SATELLITES: The Myrmidon Satellite

2011-12-27T11:11:00.002-05:00

10 inches by 8 inches
ink on watercolor paper
2007

STRANGE SATELLITES: The Rootless Wanderer

2011-12-26T11:11:00.002-05:00

10 inches by 8 inches
ink on watercolor paper
2007

STRANGE SATELLITES: The Cruel Satellite

2011-12-25T11:11:00.000-05:00

10 inches by 8 inches
ink on watercolor paper
2007

STRANGE SATELLITES: The Stygian Patriarch

2011-12-24T11:11:00.005-05:00

8 inches by 10 inches
ink on watercolor paper
2007

STRANGE SATELLITES: Flying-Not-Swimming, the Effervescent Satellite

2011-12-23T11:11:00.000-05:00

10 inches by 8 inches
ink on watercolor paper
2005

STRANGE SATELLITES: Ubas Makina, the Grape Thunderbolt Satellite

2011-12-22T11:11:00.000-05:00

10 inches by 8 inches
acrylic paint, ink and spray paint on watercolor paper
2005

STRANGE SATELLITES: Sucrerie No. 20, the Taffy Satellite

2011-12-21T11:11:00.000-05:00

10 inches by 8 inches
acrylic paint, collage and ink on watercolor paper
2005

STRANGE SATELLITES: Vena Kava, the Circulatory Satellite

2011-12-20T11:11:00.000-05:00

10 inches by 8 inches
ink on watercolor paper
2005

Even more on book covers...

2011-12-19T11:12:00.003-05:00

So, these recent posts on book covers as well as the conversations that they've sparked have given me a great deal to think about. I like that very much. So much so that I'd like to make the "Ten Favorite Covers" thing a regular feature with guest contributors. I've already invited my good friend the artist Joe Kuth to contribute at least one post, and I plan on inviting the mysterious RF as well. But if any of you out there would also like to write a "My Ten Favorite Covers" post for me, I'd be delighted to post it here and share it.

Not many real rules, just choose your ten favorite covers, of anything. These can be books, comics, magazines, albums...anything. Write an introductory paragraph, and then write at least something about each image so readers know what it means to you. Also, send me JPGs of each along with credits (title, author / performer, artist responsible for the image, etc.) so I can post those as well.

I'd like to run this once or twice a month, but I don't know how many people might be interested. If you'd like to do this, email me at mattkish87 at gmail and let me know.

STRANGE SATELLITES: Fulgurator

2011-12-19T11:11:00.000-05:00

10 inches by 10 inches
ink on paper
2005

More on book covers...

2011-12-16T12:03:00.002-05:00

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to post this piece on the Tin House Books blog discussing my ten favorite book covers. I posted a link to that piece here on my own blog, and commenter RF shared so many intriguing thoughts that rather than confine the dialogue to the comments field of that post, I decided it would be best to elaborate in a fresh post. I enjoy when people visit this blog and leave comments, but it’s especially exciting to read something as well written and in-depth as what RF wrote which is precisely why I wanted to expand on it.

Below, RF’s comments will be in bold and preceded by the initials RF while my responses will be in normal type. Before we begin, let me first share the ten covers I chose, in order up to my most favorite. I won’t reproduce my thoughts on each of them here, yet. For that, you’ll have to read the original post on the Tin House Books blog. But to understand RF’s comments and my own responses, I think it’s important to have some background.

All images in this post, unless otherwise noted, are presumably the copyright of either the artist, the publisher, or both.

10. Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny, cover by Darrell K. Sweet.

9. Etidorhpa by John Uri Lloyd, cover by unkown.

8. Creepy magazine, issue #28, cover by unknown.

7. Motorman by David Ohle, cover by unknown.

6. At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft, cover by Ian Miller.

5. The Inferno by Dante Alighieri, translated by John Ciardi, cover by unknown.

4. Multiforce by Mat Brinkman, cover by Mat Brinkman.

3. A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay, cover by Bob Pepper.

2. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, cover by Claus Hoie.

1. Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake, cover by Mervyn Peake.

RF: This is an interesting exercise; it's made me recognize how rarely I really like a book cover, and how rarely my favorites are the ones which I actually think are beautifully designed. I think most of these are downright ugly.

I truly appreciate RF’s candor, and willingness to call me out on the perceived “ugliness” of many of my choices. I do think it’s important to note that the framework for that Tin House post was my favorite book covers, and not necessarily the most beautiful or beautifully designed. I did think it was fascinating that RF mentioned how rarely her favorites are the ones which are beautiful and that she, like me, sometimes experiences a disconnect between the content of a book and the trade dress.

RF: A lot of them are also grandfathered in from childhood.

Extremely perceptive, this. I have been thinking about this for almost a day now, wondering why it is that what matters to me most in terms of story, narrative, art and so on is the material I experienced as a child or young adult. These days, as a man in his early 40s, I almost never read anything new or contemporary, turning instead to the classics, mythology, and books from the 60s and 70s instead of diving into the dreck that clogs most bookstore shelves these days. Some, I think, would accuse me of having an underdeveloped or even juvenile aesthetic, unaware or unwilling to engage with subtlety and complexity. Bullshit. Honestly, I think a great deal of what passes for modern creative endeavor (or, I guess, post-modern since so much of it seems to be infected with that) is hopelessly and nauseatingly narcissistic and self-involved. I just don’t care about it. I have enough complexity in my own life, I don’t need it thrust upon me by others, whether they are authors or filmmakers or musicians. This may be a very unpopular thing to write, but it’s honest.

RF: There's the first edition of The Great Gatsby, which can still elicit a perfect mood in the right moment. I think there are excellent reasons why this never really detached from the book: it perfectly captures its interior darkness and humidity.

An excellent point, and a fine cover indeed. I do wonder though how much of this connection between the text and the iconic cover is simply due to the force of history and familiarity. Almost everyone who has read the novel has seen this cover, which, as RF mentioned, “never really detached from the book.” Has this become a self-fulfilling kind of thing?

RF: The Ballantine "hippie covers" to Lord of the Rings by Barbara Remington...

RF: ...and the beautiful Tolkien-drawn cover to the first edition of The Hobbit...

RF: ...at the opposite end of the stylistic scale, I guess. Remington's bold, delicate colors and air of abstract heraldry went deep into my reading of the books and sense of their tone.

This pleased me a great deal. I am incredibly fond of Barbara Remington’s “hippie covers,” and even though I first saw Tolkien’s own delicate watercolor covers to the early paperback editions, Remington’s images for me solidified that sense of fantasy and wonder although I think RF’s mention of heraldry is spot-on as well. I almost included Remington’s covers in my own list of ten favorite covers, but they dropped off near the end.

As an aside, many many artists have lent their visions to Tolkien’s great epic and there is an astonishing variety of approaches. One of the artists whose work has always resonated deeply with me is Cor Blok.

His paintings were chosen for both the 2011 and 2012 Tolkien Calendars and seem to have set off a firestorm of controversy, especially in the Amazon reviews section. This troubles me because it seems emblematic of the creeping death that is devouring modern aesthetics. We as American consumers are presented some corporate vision of a property, one which always caters to the lowest common denominator of broad appeal, and that vision is then enshrined as the only acceptable one. Talented artists like Alan Lee...

...and Ted Nasmith...

...have for years provided visual explorations into Tolkien’s world and their work is indeed brilliant, imaginative and magnificent. But Tolkien’s books, like their readers, are a vast mosaic and there is, or should be, room for a wide variety of responses. The venom which greeted these Cor Blok paintings is unexpected and deeply disappointing because what it seems to say is that there is only one way to “see” or “show” something and any vision that does not adhere to, or imitate, that house style is “crap” or “stupid” or “the worst art I have ever seen.”

RF: The Tor adult cover of Ender's Game. It's a wholly generic sci-fi image, but I spent some serious teenage times staring at its icy, ultimately amorphous militarism and many bullshit medallions. It's that amorphousness that keeps me with it.

My earlier response, which I’ll simply reproduce here, was “Funny that you mentioned Ender's Game. I read that based on a strong recommendation from my wife, and quite enjoyed it, but can recall despising the cover. To me it always seemed utterly soulless and bland and actually interfered with my desire to read the story. Then again, as I have mentioned many times, I am hardly the most subtle of illustrators and for good or ill tend to occasionally favor the freakish, iconoclastic, and deliberately obtuse over the subtle.” It bears mentioning though that I absolutely loved RF’s mention of “many bullshit medallions” on the cover. Seriously.

RF: (While browsing Amazon for the image above, I came across this presumably fan-made cover [unless "Ender's" goes sans apostrophe these days], which I immediately liked better than any real one. It suggests decay on many scales, and sums up a lot of what I still love and hate about Card.

True, a much more visually interesting and thought-provoking cover. I wonder though how successful it might be to a new reader utterly unfamiliar with either Card or Ender’s Game? This, to me, calls to mind some of the more effective and experimental science fiction covers of the 70s, but since the genre was so much smaller back then and there was less money at stake, it seems that publishers were much more willing to take chances on cover designs than they are today.

RF: What else? There are plenty of modern covers that I admire, but I'm still finding myself thinking almost exclusively about ones that made a dent in me young. Like this hideous edition of Steppenwolf...

RF: Which I still own, and which has little to do with the book inside, but somehow does contain its synaesthetic, gender-collapsing fervor in a way that absolutely no later image has. You just can't go classy with Steppenwolf.

Having never read Steppenwolf I can’t comment on how appropriate this cover might be for the book, but I do remember shelving many many copies of this paperback during my years working in a used books store and I was constantly fascinated by it. The entire messy sprawl seemed so overdone, so florid, so voluptuous and cheesily sensual. I was always kind of smitten with it simply because, as RF alludes to, it was the polar opposite of classy. It certainly does make a dent, but whether this dent is good or bad seems to vary by reader.

RF: In the more modern arena, Finder: Dream Sequence by Carla Speed McNeil; again, not a pretty cover by any means, but a perfect image for what's inside...

Again, I have not read any of McNeil’s Finder books although I am told they are excellent. I agree that this cover is gorgeous and has a great deal of visual appeal and interest. RF brings up an interesting point though. Just how important is it that the cover image be a “perfect” match for what is inside? Are we all truly judging books by their covers? I understand how, from a marketing point of view, this is the single greatest factor driving cover design, but do we now look at everything through the shrewd capitalist lens of marketing and sales? I don’t know the answer to this at all, but it is something I think about a great deal.

RF: By the same token, the cover of Finder #27, which I actually do think is magnificent on its own, and which I keep by my desk with the Solar Brothers...

(Note: These Solar Brothers are drawings of my own, some of which RF must own since I have sold most of them.)

Agreed, another beautiful and very suggestive image. Somehow though, and I don’t mean this as a pejorative, it is very comic-book-ish. Which is appropriate, given that it IS a comic book cover.

RF: The early '90s Vintage editions of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, with their complementary cross motifs and the perfect, perfect colors (I guess I've learned in the past fifteen minutes that my book-cover preferences are almost exclusively about color)...

Of course. Color can have an enormous impact on perception and emotion and I, for one, am relieved that your cover preferences are driven in large part by color. I actually have a great deal of respect for that, and for what it says about you as a reader and a thinker.

RF: And, fine, I guess I'll cheat and add another comic, Obata Takeshi's cover for Death Note vol. 1. Another artist who likes cross motifs. Maybe not as thoughtful in their use, but also not as totally unlike Crime and Punishment as one might imagine, though with a totally different genre hat. I like the endless, obsessive detail of Obata's cover art, and its unapologetic bombast, and his frank disinterest in the faces (though elsewhere he is almost too interested in them)...

Hmmmm. Here, I think, our paths may diverge the most. Taken out of context, this is a highly effective cover, visually striking and executed very well. But given the context of its intended audience, the heavily and almost miserably serial-oriented nature of manga (with some titles like One-Piece and Dragon Ball running on for years and years and dozens and dozens of volumes with no real meaning to each storyline other than to set up the next) I think these cross motifs might be too easy a target. To me it’s like painting a crucifixion scene but making Jesus a highly sexualized nude woman with large breasts. Sure, at first it seems provocative and highly-charged but ultimately it is shock value and quite shallow at that. Although I think I should back up and say that yes, manga rarely tries to pass itself off as anything other than cheap disposable entertainment, so my comments above about context should be re-phrased. Provided there is an awareness on the part of the reader that what they are engaging in is just that – cheap disposable entertainment only, and not high art (whatever that might mean) – I can accept shock value and obvious visual cues.

RF: (Oh, Jesus -- I'm sorry that I completely misread your cue and started going off on my own favorites instead. I just got caught up in the meme. The Voyage to Arcturus cover got me thinking about Lord of the Rings, and about the disparity between your cover-preference-orientation and mine, and before I knew it, I was talking.)

No apologies necessary at all. I deeply enjoyed your comments and they provoked a lot of thinking in me. Agreements and disagreements are equally valuable to me, and I hope this isn’t the end of the dialogue at all. Thank you, sincerely, for sharing this, RF.

STRANGE SATELLITES: Heliotrope

2011-12-16T11:11:00.003-05:00

8 inches by 10 inches
ink on Bristol board
2005

STRANGE SATELLITES: Otis and His Brother Caleb, the Pillbug Satellites

2011-12-15T11:11:00.003-05:00

8 inches by 10 inches
ink on Bristol board
2005

My top 10 favorite book covers of all time

2011-12-14T11:14:00.007-05:00

Over at the Tin House Books blog, I've got a short piece that I relished writing. It's about my top 10 favorite book covers of all time, and I was able to discuss each one just a bit. Take a look at the post right here. Also, I'd be fascinated to know what you think. Any covers you love that I missed? Any covers I love that you think are just dreadful?

(And yes, the above cover for Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake definitely made the list.)

One of the Most Beautiful Books of 2011

2011-12-14T11:13:00.006-05:00

Alexander Nazaryan of the NY Daily News has named my book Moby-Dick in Pictures as one of the two Most Beautiful Books of 2011. I am joined on this list by a fascinatingly designed exploration of Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire which is fine company indeed. Nazaryan also has some intriguing thoughts on the nature of print versus digital books in the piece, which you can read right here.

Behold the Moby Dick van

2011-12-14T11:12:00.006-05:00

Portland blogger Camas Snake Church shared some photos of his white Toyota van, which he has adorned with images of the great White Whale himself as well as other implements and symbols pertaining to the novel.

Many many more fascinating photos in this post here.