Ian Miller - HP Lovecraft Covers

UK based Games Workshop did alot of us a favor in the 80s by approaching the production of their games in a totally insane way. Lots of atmospheric source material, fantastic graphic design & top of the line artists, but not "top of the line" in terms of just being good renderers or looking "professional", that's what we've got now, dry & boring, no, Games Workshop artists tended to actually be ARTISTS. Ian Miller was probably the most ART of all of the Games Workshop crew. Honestly, it didn't really make sense to have an artist like Ian Miller doing art for war-games aimed at 12 year olds, BUT, this was an advanced move that has placed that 80s Games Workshop product in a realm of its own, taking it so far beyond the imagined limitations of the medium that those old books & magazines are still some of my favorite cultural art pieces in existence. Miller's style evokes new Philippe Druillet, Ralph Steadman, & old, Hieronymus Bosch, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Brueghel_the_Elder & Albrecht Durer, giving some of the old a blast of the disjointed new & some of the new the resonance & strength of the old. That's how it should be done right? Here are some HP Lovecraft Covers that Ian Miller did.

Hellmouth

I've been wanting to start a store for a while now... but the whole cyber world & the terrible economy make it almost stupid to start a real world, physical store. Which totally sucks, because a real store is where it's at. Anyhow, i'm gonna start this thing up online first, as a distro for Metal, Punk, Trash Culture & Occult crap. If that works out & i'm pulling money in, i'll open up a storefront & make that shit look wild.






Aeron featured a whole mess of Hellmouths on Monster Brains. CHECK IT OUT!
Here's the argument against online businesses just like that. Presentation. Real world presentation. You can't beat it. You can control the lighting, the smell, the sounds, how stuff is displayed, what people see upon entering, all that stuff. Fire up my smoke machine for special events... weird smelling incense burning all the time. Maybe some retarded black cat lurking around... etc.

Yo, does anyone know what that green monstrous door, i think it's French, from the Art Nouveau period is called? I'm trying to get a good picture of it.

Lest We Forget

For all those who have served.
Bolt Thrower - Lest We Forget

Bolt Thrower _ Remembrance


From Bolt Thrower's "For Victory", one of the best albums ever recorded.

Sausages

Otto von Bismarck has a famous quote involving laws & sausages & their unsightly origins, but this has always seemed a slight against sausages. I could definitely do without laws, but sausages... sausages are another matter altogether. Like the pigs most sausages are made from, sausages take substandard food & transform it, almost magically into something delicious & integral to the culture. There is something alchemical about stuffing this meat back into its own intesting, something ouroborotic about it. No? Maybe Bismarck was right though, in that there is a base reality to the sausage, just like laws, because even though i personally can do without them, they are a dirty mechanism for the messy society we live in.

Hans Volzer - Sausage Magnate from a Children of the Moon campaign i'm running.
"The living being had no need of eyes when there was nothing remaining outside him to be seen; nor of ears when there was nothing to be heard; and there was no surrounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would there have been any use of organs by the help of which he might receive his food or get rid of what he had already digested, since there was nothing which went from him or came into him: for there was nothing beside him. Of design he was created thus, his own waste providing his own food, and all that he did or suffered taking place in and by himself. For the Creator conceived that a being which was self-sufficient would be far more excellent than one which lacked anything; and, as he had no need to take anything or defend himself against any one, the Creator did not think it necessary to bestow upon him hands: nor had he any need of feet, nor of the whole apparatus of walking; but the movement suited to his spherical form was assigned to him, being of all the seven that which is most appropriate to mind and intelligence; and he was made to move in the same manner and on the same spot, within his own limits revolving in a circle. All the other six motions were taken away from him, and he was made not to partake of their deviations. And as this circular movement required no feet, the universe was created without legs and without feet." ~Plato

This fantastic piece "Uprising of Sausages & Hot Dogs" is by Sergey Tyukanov.
Everything in life has an end. Only sausages have two.

Highway Star

The nightmare of Puritan* America & my wet dream...

Deep Purple - Highway Star

One day, i'd like to have a studio/hideaway up on a mountain right at the intersection between the dark woods & some nice bit of green fields with wildflowers & the like. This studio might just have to look something like a Cuckoo Clock. Of course, the studio wouldn't be too far from the enormous Goblinist Monastery/walled city that i'm planning on building or at least designing eventually.

* It's important to note that when i say puritan i don't mean "The Puritans" but rather, the starchy moralistic puritan impulse against fun & the maximumization of the material world we live in. Keep in mind that my own desire for maximum fun is tempered by my Platonic notions of Traditionalism.

Blitzkrieg Buttons!

Blitzkrieg Buttons have launched on the internet! I've been manufacturing the coolest buttons around for years now but never got the whole operation "online". In the old days, the only way to get my buttons was to happen into a shop i'd just sold them to before they sell out. Blitzkrieg Buttons specializes in "OH MY GOD, WHERE'D YOU GET THAT BUTTON" Buttons. They are also, like me, BIGGER & BALLSIER THAN THE STANDARD, WIMPY 1" buttons! I do 1.5" & 2" buttons, which are $2 & $3 ppd. in the USA respectively. Go to the Blitzkrieg Buttons catalog & GET SOME FOR YOURSELF!!!

Matthew Hopkins - Witchfinder General

The first book on the occult that i bought was "The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft & Demonology" by Russell Hope Robbins. I loved having it around, it made me feel quite dangerous, especially because it wasn't one of these later-period new age sociable books on how to make love potions & colored candles, this was a straight-forward guide to the roots of Western witchcraft & demonology, straight from the wonderfully distorted minds of medieval European Christians. God bless 'em. It was chock full of old woodcuts from various pamphlets & books, including this fantastic piece depicting Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins interrogating some witches & their various familiars from his pamphlet "The Discovery of Witches". I'm still obsessed with the names "Vinegar Tom" & "Grizzdl Greedigut". Anyhow, Matthew Hopkins was a sadistic son of a Puritan clergyman operating in England during The English Civil War. He is tied to around 200 killings of supposed witches, but not alot is known about him. After attending the Real Witch's Ball/Convention in Columbus, Ohio years ago, looking for something alot more dangerous & exciting than i found, i wanted to become a Witchfinder General myself. Riding a black horse with an even more sadistic side-kick, i would have loved to torture & drown at least ONE witch! ha ha, ahem, but that is neither here nor there.

The Witchfinder General is featured in the fantastic movie by the same name (released as the Conqueror Worm in the USA), starring Vincent Price at his most terrifying as Matthew Hopkins. Check it out if you haven't seen it. Right now.


Witchfinder General is also a pretty good NWOBHM band. Here's their tune "Burning a Sinner". Check them out a bit more maybe.


Matthew Hopkins makes an appearance in Black Adder as Witchsmeller Pursuivant, which is also a band apparently. You'd do well to watch ALL of Black Adder as well. I'm dead serious. I should have mentioned in the last post, you must watch all of the Young Ones also, as part of your Goblinist Initiation.

Bad News: Very Metal

Bad News were the spoof Heavy Metal band created by Adrian Edmondson (Vyvyan Bastard from the Young Ones) for the Comic Strip. The parody launched before America's "This Is Spinal Tap", which i love, but feel that those guys never really got Heavy Metal. Parody tends to be more dated than the thing it is making fun of, but Bad News hold up quite well. I'm waiting for someone to parody the absurdly pretentious world of Black Metal (outside of the actual Black Metal bands). The saving grace of early Heavy Metal is that it is still rooted in the basic reality of Rock & Roll & sure, it delves into fantasy all the time, but nothing like Dimmu Borgir. Love the detail that they're all wearing white shoes (just like early 80s Motörhead) on the cover. Enjoy.
Bad News Tour


Bad News - Warriors of Genghis Khan

There's more. Just look for it.
Make Bad News your own!