BattleDuck

John Struan, the fellow who runs the Super Punch Blog invited me to be part of a online art show featuring art inspired by the books of China Mieville. China Mieville is one John’s favorite authors and is coming out with a new book soon. It sounded like fun so I said yes.

As I seem to be doing a lot of pen and ink work these days, I decided to do up a piece in that media. The show can be seen at this link.

This is the piece I did. They are sky pirates in a pagoda on the back of a giant insect called a gross bottle fly. It is inspired from a scene in Un Lun Dun.

A larger image click lives here.

This past weekend temperatures reached near 65 degrees and what a perfect day for a drive through the Connecticut countryside to go and see some original pulp cover art at the Benton Museum.

The museum is located on the UConn campus and offered a display of works by many well known ‘pulp’ artists.  There was also an exhibit of sensationalist type newspapers from the late 1880′s -1900′s along with a number of examples of the well known ‘dime novels’.  It was a thrill to actually see actual examples.

The paintings were a visual treat and quite instructive. I got to see one of my favorite paintings by James Allen St. John. It is the cover art for the April 1933 issue of Weird Tales and depicts an immense spectral tiger with riders atop a mountain looking down on some men on camel back. No paper image I have ever seen of this piece prepared me for just how beautiful and vibrant the color was and the application of the paint itself is simply lost in translation. Truly beautiful! Right next to it was a smaller piece he did for the December 1936 Weird Tales Cover depicting The Fire of Ashurbanipal by Robert E. Howard and then next to it was a Virgil Finlay and next to that a Baumhofer next to a Rozen next to a Herndon ….and it just kept going like that.

The next room had several works by Frank Paul for Amazing Stories and Wonder Stories. Then there was an entire wall of Shadow and Spider original cover artwork which was followed by a wonderful piece by Laurence Herndon for the Blue Book, November 1930 issue. This depicts Tarzan against a sun drenched ancient temple protecting the hapless female behind him. Overhead he sports an evil doer native and is just getting ready to throw his foe  into a pile of his buddies. Grand adventure!

A jaw dropping show of work and imagery that I certainly won’t forget. Below are some pictures of what we saw.

Templecon 2010 was terrific!

This year, it was held at the Inn at the Crossroads. This site is easier to get to and had plenty of free parking. Having the convention in a large, accommodating,  luxury hotel was a real treat.

On Friday evening, I ran a Call of Cthulhu game for a 4 hour stint. Then we did some shopping with the Clockwork Bazaar merchants.  Saturday was more shopping, doing the art show, and schmoozing. In the afternoon,  Manuela ran a Yoga session and then a jewelry making workshop for the attendees.  Later that evening, we participated in the variety show. Manuela performed two dance numbers and helped me do the last, for awhile anyway, performance of the Tail of the Dorset Duckling along with Terrance and Grimpen at the controls.

A very short but very cool clip of Ameena in Godzilla drag at the variety show at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBcGft28SPU

A steampunk fashion show followed and then a costume contest after that. Then off to an invitation party for the performers which, likely as not, was the coolest party I will ever attend. We finally wrapped the evening up with an independent stop motion film of E.A. Poe’s Annabelle Lee at a midnight showing. The next day, we hung around some more, marveling at the gaming tables and all the miniatures, and then bought more books from C.J. Henderson, one of our favorite authors.

A full and rewarding weekend, indeed. The TempleCon folks wrote me a few days later to tell me people were raving about my Call of Cthulhu session and asked if I would do another in 2011. Well then, that is what I call booking in advance. We are looking forward to TempleCon 2011. Support your local convention!

The folks at TempleCon needed a cover so I did them one up for their program. The convention is February 5-7, 2010.  It is a gaming convention with heavy overtones of steampunk activity. There is also an art show and guest writers. Performing there with a rendition of The Dorset Duckling, will be those famous puppet personalities, Professor Terrance Redbone and The Great Grimpen Mire. If you are in the area, come on down for a different fun event that you will remember for some time to come. For more information regarding TempleCon, click here.

HAPPY NEW YEAR and the best of whatever it is that you seek for yourself in 2010! Yep, I know it is a bit past the new year but Life has a way of sticking her fingers in my pudding and messing things up. The least of  Her meddling lately is a broken rib incurred from sword fighting. I am just going to have to learn to protect myself better! Anyway, the following is a list of the events that I am going to be involved with in the next couple of months. If you are attending, please come on by and say hello!

January 15-17 Arisia 2010 Cambridge, Ma……art show

January 29-30 Birka Market, SCA, Manchester NH……fencing

February 5-7 Templecon, Warwick, RI………..art show, puppet performance, CoC game

February 12-14 Boskone 47, Boston, MA………art show

February 26, Odditoruium, Canbridge, MA……..puppet performance.

The February 26th date at the Odditorium show will be the debut of my new poem called Ten Pound Lafitte.  It’s a rousing story about a chef and an unwilling frog. Terrance and Grimpen will be doing the performance.

Hope to see y’all about!

Illuxcon 2009 has come and gone. I have not been to a con in 3 years by my reckoning so this was a breath of fresh air. A chance to get the fires restoked and meet new folks.  I managed to sneak into the show as some others dropped out. Good for me, bad for them : ) .

Illuxcon was Intimidating. The level of the artwork was phenomenal. There were masters there in their respective fields and some fellas I have not met but all the work was way above the bar. Talk about cream of the crop. No, Pat Wilshire is not paying me to write this.

Illuxcon was Intimate. It is such a small convention you cannot help but eventually meet everyone there. There were 55 artists with a limited amount of guests that can attend. I got to meet a long time influence, Ian Miller.  I was a little leary at first as the last famous British artist I met was total pratt however Ian was sweetheart of guy with some rather introspective questions that I suspect were disguised silly at the time but made me think later on. I also got to meet a slew of other artists and a couple of absolutely incredible sculptors. And of course the best part was saying hello to old friends and just yacking.

Check these sculptors out!

Jordu Schell at http://schellstudio.com/

Thomas Kuebler at http://www.tskuebler.com/

And lastly Illuxcon is Ingenious. Quite a concept to have a convention for artists for the artists. Kudos to Pat Wilshire and his amazing staff for making for an incredible four days for me. There were so many venues, receptions, talks and demonstrations by people who know their craft that it was hard for me to stay at my table. I was falling down tired at the end of each day but eager to get back again in the morning. I hope to return next year but we shall see what the new year brings.

Other Illuxcon stuff:  John Picacio’s , a fabulous artist from Texas (bonus points for that alone ) photostream of the event. http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnpicacio/sets/72157622693706277/