Weird Wednesday

Mozart meets Krautrock meets... er... mutant Frenchman. One of the highlights, or lowlights, I'm not sure which, of a series of Deutsche rock DVDs I've recently been given. Enjoy!

Monstrous Monday

A drawing illustrating the theme of 'Monsters in Your Backyard' for the June 2009 edition of Paranormal Magazine. The illustration is by Lisa Magee, who was then a student at the North East Wales Institute in Wrexham under the tutelage of Dan Berry.

Brrr!

Finally uploaded some wintry North Wales scenes on my Flickr account, all from last month: http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardholland

Weird Wednesday

Two illustrations by the celebrated art nouveau artist Willy Pogany from 'The Welsh Fairy Book' by W Jenkyns Thomas, first published in 1907. The top one shows the spirit of a lake near Brecon; below a shepherd boy who was forced to dance all night by the playing of a fiendish fiddler because he spied on some fairy revels. This latter story is set on the slopes of Dinas Bran at Llangollen.

Monstrous Monday

A startling image of a wendigo by South Wales artist Simon Wyatt, who carried out a lot of 'monstrous' work for me in Paranormal Magazine. This bold opening spread was used to kick off an article by Richard Freeman in the May 2010 edition.

Saturday Matinee

Having watched a documentary round at Robin and Heidi's on poster artist Reynold Brown, here are a few I hadn't already saved by him which I've hunted up, including (top) the US version of Hammer's 'The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll'. I'm sure many of the poster images I've already got saved are also by Brown: he seems to have been very prolific.

Found Friday

Two final doodles from a school exercise book from when I was 16. The bloke falling into the spiral probably summed up my boredom and despair mid lesson. The little furry fella pooing is just an indication of my very, very peculiar mind.

Weird Wednesday

Two peculiar images by an artist I've just stumbled across, Jean-Francois Le Saint. Le Saint mainly works in pastels, which is unusual in itself, and this lends his pictures a luminous quality which I really like. He specialises in portraits of children and scenes of Breton culture and traditional pastimes. Whether these images, two of a short series of fantasy subjects, are intended to illustrate a particular story or are simply inspired by the artist's imagination, I don't know. You can see more of Le Saint's work at: www.flickr.com/photos/lesaint/

Monstrous Monday

Continuing a series of monsters from the now defunct Paranormal Magazine: a hideous entity said to have appeared in a remote country cottage and emanating pure evil. The illustration is by Shaun Histed-Todd and appeared in PM 54, accompanying an article by Richard Freeman.

Dr Who mash-ups

Robin Bell tweeted about the Dr Who poster mash-ups by 'thedisciple' on the Empire Magazine website. This one is my favourite. See it and the rest at http://is.gd/kuGa2

Saturday Matinee

Something for the weekend, sir? Yes, thank you how about a nice educational film? This Nude World from 1933 is billed as 'the most educational film ever produced'. Billing a tittilating movie as a documentary was an old dodge to get round censorship laws. Shotgun Wedding from 1962 looks like hokey fun and was directed by one Edward D Wood Jr - it's listed as a comedy on IMDB but the poster here certainly seems to push it as a real life expose. Why and when Sweden in particular became associated with sexual licence is a mystery to me, but just adding 'Sweden' or 'Swedish' to a title or description seemed guaranteed to pull in the dirty mac brigade. I can't find this one on IMDB but guess it dates from the late sixties.

Found Friday

Following on from my Christmas card collection, here are a couple of old birthday cards designed by my friend Alan Daulby. The top one makes a joke about my book 'Haunted Wales', which had gone to the printers in 2005. The other, from a few years previously, refers to my Daily Post column 'Wales of the Unexpected' and the fact that I had recently been running a second-hand shop. He's done a lovely job adapting an old EC comic.

Monstrous Monday

Continuing a selection of monstrous images from Paranormal Magazine, I continue with another by Anne Elizabeth Robinson, simply because it's seasonal (just). Anne's scary Santa, commissioned for the January 2010 edition (published at the end of Nov 09) accompanied an article on seasonal spooks by John Stoker. Despite being so grotesque, he manages to look quite friendly.