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The Morbidly Beautiful Art of Chris Mars

The Morbidly Beautiful Art of Chris Mars

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Trial-by-Smoke-Chris-Mars-small

Two weeks ago I posted an article about Thomas Ligotti’s new Penguin collection Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe. I was quite taken with the cover art, but was unable to track down the name of the artist. In the Comments section, Robert Adam Gilmour correctly fingered the artist as Chris Mars, with a piece titled “Puppeteer.”

While confirming the details, I educated myself on the entirely splendid and macabre art of Mr. Mars. His work is simultaneously gleefully traditional — filled with spooky landscapes and close set, haunted villages — and relentlessly modern, refusing to give us what our eyes expect, instead cramming every inch of his canvas with vibrant colors and tortured visages. A fine example is the above piece, titled “Trial by Smoke.”

But as they say, writing about art is like dancing about architecture. I’ve collected a few of my favorite samples of Mars’ art below, so you can see for yourself.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Frederic Dorr Steele

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Frederic Dorr Steele

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Colliers Black PeterBack in July, in a post on Sidney Paget, I wrote “Along with Frederic Dorr Steele, Paget is certainly one of the two most significant illustrators of the great detective.” Having covered Paget, now we look at Dorr Steele.

In 1893, Doyle, feeling that writing Holmes stories was holding him back from more important works, did the unthinkable: he killed the world’s most popular detective. In 1902, he revived Holmes for one adventure in his most famous story, The Hound of the Baskervilles, with good old Sidney Paget illustrating again. Doyle made it clear this was an earlier case of Holmes’ and that the great detective was, in fact, still dead.

The stories from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes had been illustrated by various artists in America, where they appeared in different magazines and newspapers. There was no sole source for the stories, as there was in England with The Strand. For the most part, the drawings were rather uninspired

Some of Paget’s were also used, but often just a few, not the full set for each story. Thus, a common image of Holmes had not evolved from the drawings. There was no Sidney Paget in the United States. But there was about to be!

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The Search for Perry Rhodan 50

The Search for Perry Rhodan 50

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Perry Rhodan 50-smallBack when I was a teenager in the 1970’s, I was a big fan of the Perry Rhodan series.

The English edition was published by Ace Books, and edited by Forry Ackerman. Forry offered subscriptions to the series, and I started subscribing as soon as I found out about the series.

The primary cover artist for the first 100+ issues was Gray Morrow. Morrow’s cover for #50, “Attack From the Unseen,” showed Perry posing heroically.

In 1976, Ace ran a survey in the back of issue #s 86-91, offering a free poster of the cover for #50 if you cut out the survey and returned it to Ace. I filled out my survey the day I got #86 in the mail, and sent it back immediately.

And then I waited. And waited. And waited. And no poster ever showed up. I’ve never seen one of these posters, have never heard of anyone who actually got one, and don’t think they were ever printed. My disappointment with Ace over this was deep.

Fast forward 28 years to the 62nd Worldcon, Noreascon 4, held in Boston. Prior to the convention, Deb and I visited our friend, Jerry Weist, and his wife Dana, who lived in the area. While going through stacks of art in Jerry’s flat files, I was astounded to find the original Gray Morrow painting for Perry Rhodan 50!

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Vintage Treasures: The Ballantine Paperbacks of Vincent King

Vintage Treasures: The Ballantine Paperbacks of Vincent King

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Light a Last Cande Vincent King-small Another End Vincent King-small Candy Man Vincent King-small

The sixties and early seventies were a very fertile era for science fiction in America. Writers like Frank Herbert, Roger Zelazny, Samuel R. Delaney, Ursula K. Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, and many others were busy launching decades-long careers. Their books are still read and enjoyed today.

And then there are those writers who weren’t so lucky. Who never really connected with a wide audience, and whose entire catalog has been out of print for three decades or more. Folks like the British writer Vincent King, who published three paperbacks through Ballantine in 1969-1971, all with eye-catching covers by Robert Foster and Dean Ellis. None of them was ever reprinted in the US, and they quickly vanished.

There are no digital editions. King is the kind of writer who can only be enjoyed the old-fashioned way: by hunting down his books.

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The Round Table at Winchester Castle: A Genuine Arthurian Fake

The Round Table at Winchester Castle: A Genuine Arthurian Fake

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Cool looking, but not Arthurian. Photo courtesy Martin Kraft.

King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table are shrouded in myth. While stories of their deeds have been popular since the Middle Ages, there’s no hard evidence that they actually existed…

…except that the Round Table hangs in the Great Hall of Winchester Castle!

Well, not really. For centuries it was reputed to have been the genuine article, until archaeologists took it down in 1976 and using radiocarbon and tree ring dating found that it had been made in the 13th or early 14th century, long after King Arthur and his merry knights were supposed to have lived.

Killjoys.

The dates vindicate historians’ long-held belief that the table was made by King Edward I (reigned 1272-1307) around the year 1290 to celebrate the betrothal of one of his daughters. Generally a tournament would be held on such an occasion, and since the chivalry of the day loved to hear stories of Arthurian romance and derring-do, a Round Table would be a fitting decoration. Places around the table are set with the names of Arthur and 24 of his famous knights such as Lancelot and Galahad. One wonders if Edward and his knights actually sat around the table for a feast, and which real-life knights were honored with which places.

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New Treasures: The Art of Mad Max: Fury Road by Abbie Bernstein

New Treasures: The Art of Mad Max: Fury Road by Abbie Bernstein

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The Art of Mad Max Fury Road cover

Mad Max: Fury Road was a highlight of the summer for me. It was easily one of the best movies of the year, and the long-awaited return to one of the great cinematic settings of my youth, the post-apocalyptic hell of The Road Warrior. It turned both of my teenage sons into Mad Max fans. No small feat, since in general they don’t show much patience with films from the 80s.

Titan Books released a gorgeous art book to accompany the release of the film, The Art of Mad Max: Fury Road, and it’s jam-packed with behind-the-scenes photos, concept art, production stills, interviews with the cast and crew, and an insightful foreword by director George Miller. I received a copy last month, and finally had a chance to sit down with it this week. The timing is actually pretty good, as the Blu-ray was released on September 1, and we re-watched the film at home last Friday.

Below are a dozen photos and art samples from the book.

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Art of the Genre: Kickstarter, Why I Hate Stretch Goals and You Should Too

Art of the Genre: Kickstarter, Why I Hate Stretch Goals and You Should Too

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11708033_10154052455508976_1237746949710068474_oOver the past three years I’ve written a lot about Kickstarter. In fact, I went back and looked at the Art of the Genre archives and found a rather impressive eight articles dedicated to the subject:

The Art of Kickstarter,
The Art of Kickstarter #2
The Pillaging Of Kickstarter
Why and How I Build a Kickstarter
The Pillaging of Kickstarter #2
Front Loading a Kickstarter
The Joy and Pain of Kickstarter (and how backed projects still fail)
Kickstater, It Really Shouldn’t Be About the Stuff We All Get

In those you can find all kinds of advice, statistics, opinions, and introspection, (or as my non-fans like to say, my sour grapes). But if I’ve learned anything over the course of my time on the platform, it is that it is constantly changing.

Sure, there are some static rules, but even those have some latitude if a developer happens to get lucky. And let me tell you, there is a lot of luck involved out there, as well as blind devotion.

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Ancient Damascus: What We Might Lose Next

Ancient Damascus: What We Might Lose Next

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Damascus: the Jupiter temple (III A.C.) in front of Omayyad mosque
Ruins of the Jupiter Temple at the entrance of Al-Hamidiyah Souq. The postcard souq was just to the left.

This week’s destruction of the temple of Bel in Palmyra, Syria, has brought the Islamic State’s brutality into the international spotlight once again, just like they wanted it to. I’m grateful that at least I got to see the place before it was destroyed. I’ve written about it in my post Memories of Palmyra before ISIS.

Palmyra isn’t just a unique archaeological site, it’s strategically important too. Located at a crossroads in eastern Syria, from there it’s possible for ISIS to supply all their operations in that sector, including their push for the Syrian capital of Damascus.

ISIS is already on the outskirts of Damascus and is renewing military operations there. If they take the city, many more antiquities would be in danger.

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The Guanches: Prehistoric Culture of the Canary Islands

The Guanches: Prehistoric Culture of the Canary Islands

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Guanche idol. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Guanche idol. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Earlier this summer I was fortunate enough to spend two weeks working on Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. This island chain is owned by Spain and sits just off the coast of Western Sahara. Besides having my first flying lesson, I got to drink lots of wine explore the island’s culture and history. In prehistoric times, the Canary Islands were home to a native people called the Guanche. While they had no writing of their own, some of their language has survived in the local dialect and has similarities to Berber. For thousands of years they kept their culture intact, being visited by the Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, and Arabs but remaining uncolonized until the Spanish landed in 1402.

The Guanches came to the islands by 1000 BC, although some archaeologists claim they arrived much earlier than that. They survived by a mixture of farming and fishing and were divided into several small kingdoms. Each island was fairly isolated from the others and in fact Guanche is only the term for the people of Tenerife. The other islands each had their own distinct term but Guanche has now become the general term.

Sadly, the Guanches suffered a common fate of colonized peoples. Many died off from war and disease, or merged into the Spanish community through marriage. A significant percentage of modern Canary Islanders boast Guanche blood and names. The coolest survival from those times is Silbo, a whistling language that you can see on this video. The sharp whistles used in Silbo carry far across the mountains and valleys of these rough islands and were a common means of communication until very recent times.

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The Petrie Museum, London’s Overlooked Egyptology Treasure Trove

The Petrie Museum, London’s Overlooked Egyptology Treasure Trove

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Stone bottle with the names of Rameses II and Queen Neferari, Dynasty XIX, 1295-1186 BC.

London is full of museums. While visitors swarm to the Big Three of the British Museum, the Tate Modern, and the National Gallery, there are dozens more that are worth visiting. One that’s of interest to anyone with a taste for history is the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at University College London.

Most international visitors have never heard of this place and head on over to the British Museum to see its stunning collection of mummies and statues. While that experience is hard to beat, I actually prefer the Petrie Museum. The British Museum is a bit of a victim of its own success, and it’s difficult to stand and enjoy the artwork without being trampled by hordes of visitors.

The two museums also have different purposes. The British Museum focuses on Egypt’s Greatest Hits, with lots of gold, fine artwork and, of course, the ever-popular preserved people. The Petrie Museum is a study museum, where Egyptology students come to compare large numbers of objects packed into the cases and see how they changed over time. Cases have drawers underneath that can be pulled out to view more examples. The collection includes some 80,000 items from both Egypt and Nubia, two of Africa’s greatest ancient civilizations.

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