Beautiful Creatures II

The next instalment of my Beautiful Creatures sequence is now up where it should be for all who are interested. You can find it published right here at Serpents of Bienville where it belongs. I hope you dig it - this one's a little more personal than the first. Hopefully I'm finding my groove early on with this. The wheels are already spinning over where I'm going next. 

This instalment features the inimitable Arthur Rackham. I hope I did him justice.

If you're new to Rackham (and the only excuse for that would be if you are young) you can find a stack of high res images here, but his entire life's work is probably online if you want to dig.

The Magazine went to the print shop today - that's another thing off the desk for a few days. Slowly, the pile of things to do is getting smaller - but only in theory, because as soon as one thing disappears from it, there's always another ready to take its place.

Anyway, I've downed tools for the rest of the day to get a grip on real life for five minutes - and that requires a soundtrack... and today, Act V: Hymns With The Devil In Confessional from The Dear Hunter is making quite an impact. It looks like this and you can find the band here.

It's great to see a band still putting some thought behind their album art instead of running up junk with a band pic on the front alongside the first font that became available. Their previous - Act IV: Rebirth In Reprise - was also looking sharp and is also a damn fine album. 

This is not a hit 'n' run listening affair however. You will need all of your senses and no small amount of attention span... but you will be well rewarded.

There is obviously also Acts I-III available but they're not up for streaming so you'll have to put your hand in your pocket if you love them.

And while I'm on the subject of beautiful things, I found these images of home yesterday. I've been away too long and need to head back just to check in with my soul.

These shots were taken by Richard Outram who you can find here on twitter. The man sure has an eye for what makes home 'home' that's for sure.

Now... there must be some food somewhere in the house.

Literary Things

This turned up earlier this week and I hid it from myself and forgot to post it:

Somebody went to a lot of trouble to do that - or at least it looks that way. Maybe it was some slacker working in a corporate job who figured 'fuck it' and spent a morning doing his own thing that was worthwhile. I'd like to think that's how it was put together anyway.

So if you're struggling with some writing, what we can gather from this diagram is... just keep going. Even when all hope is lost, keep putting one word after the other because you never know how things might turn out. More than anything, perhaps this is a diagram of hope.

Meanwhile, my love of noir and pulp novels is no secret. I think everybody loves pulp really - they just don't like to admit it in public. Whether you're a public or a closet lover, if you're also into comic books, Hard Case Crime and Titan are about to release a couple of noir/pulp serials - Triggerman and Peepland. While they appear to be pushing Peepland as the flagship title in the series, it's Triggerman that I'm liking the look of... here's some sneak things that they unleashed earlier today:

There's a lot of scraps around the web trailering both titles so I won't kill the treasure hunt for you but it looks good to me. 

The crows upgraded their gift allowance this week too. After feeding the rabbits, I accidentally left a whole bunch of things on top of their houses along with a whole bag of fresh straw. The following morning, I let Hector out and wandered up the garden with him and found this sitting on top of one of the roofs:

At first, I thought it was a metal dog stolen from a Celtic hoard but on second inspection, it appears to be a plate from the front of a drawer - the fixing that the handle attaches to. I wish I had stuck with my first inspection now, but the thought is there. I'm not sure how good this next photograph is but here they all are... doing their thing:

I tried to make out the sky writing and what they were trying to say but I wasn't quick enough... maybe next time.

That's all for today... Friday's Burn Baby, Burn playlist will be with you sometime late Friday night along with some other random scraps of happiness for the weekend. Meanwhile, I must deliver my next instalment of Beautiful Creatures to Sean, go through some pictures I took of a Gateway To Everlasting Fire I found, finish up a travel piece on Siberia that I'm working on for The Mag, rustle up a synopsis for a big push on the 'finally completed forever' Family Of Noise (did I not mention that before?), and ummm... that's probably enough. 

Oh yeah... and put out the trash for collection. I'll do that now. 

Walkin' The Dinosaur

It's Friday. For those of you who like to drown your life in sound, here's the link to this weeks playlist: Burn Baby, Burn - how did it get to week eight already!

I saw on Mr Gaiman's blog today that he had big plans to visit a hairdresser for a tidy up but due to a rather large storm in those parts (that I thoughtfully sidestepped on my return trip) the only place left open was A Barber Shop. You can read the whole story here. Being a barber is a cool job but let's face facts here... you only walk through that door if you don't want any hair when you come back out. I know this to be true because Once Upon A Time back when I was about ten years old, this very same thing happened to me after I had spent months trying to cultivate a good David Starsky kinda thing:

I have never since stepped through one of those doors again. 

Scarily, looking at this pic here, I see that I have just bought a pair of trainers rather like these. Maybe some things are written in stone.

I've been looking into doing some more book cover design lately - mostly because I like it, it's fun and erm...  therefore I need no other reason. Anyway, the last few things I've worked on that weren't my own (which I should probably post here somewhere because that's whats blogs are for) have mostly been 'literary' affairs, like this:

But I saw this today and thought it was as good as an adventure book could get...

...so I went out and did the unthinkable. I bought a ton of art materials to sketch some ideas out. Me and art materials don't usually mix so well but a plan is a plan is a plan and I'm going work on some alternate covers for H.G. Wells' The Time Machine which has a big anniversary in 2020. Not that it will take me three years (or at least I hope it won't) but it does mean I can play with some big ideas without any pressure.

Not that there's anybody breathing down my neck but you get the picture. 

Three years. Wow. Sounds like a lifetime away. What great things can a man achieve in three years? He could watch a lot of TV that's for sure but I'll try and make sure that's not the only thing I can manage.

Meanwhile, on my travels of working up my next column of Beautiful Creatures, I came across this neat looking movie poster for The Monster. Based on Bertino's previous movies, it might just be something out of the ordinary. It had better be anyway:

Here's the trailer:

That's it for the week. I got some writing to do...

Be cool to each other.

The Serpents Of Bienville... and STICKS THAT HURT

A little update - over at The Serpents Of Bienville, Sean Herman has gone public that I'll be writing a monthly blog series for him, so that means I can too. Sean rather eloquently puts it like this: 

Sion is also our newest contributor to the Serpents of Bienville collective, bringing us an amazing blog series entitled “Beautiful Creatures” starting at the end of this month.  Make sure to check back regularly to check out his amazing stories about the artists that created monsters and creatures throughout history.  We are excited and grateful to Sion for his involvement. 

I'm genuinely excited too. I think first in the series goes live next Tuesday (23rd August) but I won't give anything away. Sean pretty much said all I have to say in his quote but when it goes live, I'll explain a little bit more about it and more importantly, where we go next. Did somebody mention podcasts?

Something to note here... Beautiful Creatures is not what is known here as Project X. That's something different altogether. 'We' hooked up about it yesterday and churned our way through some minor details and well... moved forward with it some more. It's a huge project and isn't something that will be finished soon, but there will be sneak previews along the way and if everything goes according to plan, some golden opportunities for interested parties to get their hands on some items that are quite original and unique.

Meanwhile, I have returned to this and it's fucking wonderful.