{ feuilleton }

Weekend links 646

It’s that lethal book again. A sample of wallpaper impregnated with arsenic, one of many such pages in Shadows from the Walls of Death: Facts and Inferences Prefacing a Book of Specimens of Arsenical Wall Papers (1874) by RC Kedzie.

• “I like to spend time in the now because there I can create something new but in the past I cannot.” Damo Suzuki, former vocalist in Can, on creativity and his resilience in the face of long-term illness. Related: a trailer for Energy: A Documentary about Damo Suzuki.

• “I enjoy Carnival of Souls, but it is a dark form of enjoyment, with high stakes, because the enjoyment is predicated on me being able to shake myself free of the film after it is over, and that can be a struggle.” Colin Fleming on fear as entertainment.

• “Some people like fantasy epics or Regency romance or Sudoku or science-fiction world-building or the gentle challenge of cozy mysteries; I like the undead.” Sadie Stein on encounters with ghosts.

• “You’re now standing on the blocks of the Great Pyramid at Giza. For the first time ever you can explore the entire pyramid interior.” The Giza Project.

• “What do we think about when we watch films set in vanished decades that many of us experienced at first hand?” asks Anne Billson.

• At Bandcamp: Touch celebrates forty years of not being a record label.

• “Why scientists are sending radio signals to the Moon and Jupiter.”

• At DJ Food’s: Retinal Circus gig posters 1966–68.

• Steven Heller’s font of the month is Feneon.

• The Pyramid Spell (1978) by Nik Turner | I Am Damo Suzuki (1985) by The Fall | Carnival Of Souls Goes To Rio (2001) by Pram

Fresh BUTT

Yoni by Kuba Ryniewicz.

My favourite gay mag, BUTT, resurrected itself in September by publishing a new issue, something I only discovered by accident and might easily have missed altogether. I ordered a copy as soon as I saw the news. The BUTT brand (for want of a better term) has been continually active via the magazine’s website but with ten years having elapsed since the appearance of the 29th issue I really didn’t expect to see another one. The new issue of the self-styled “Fantastic Magazine for Homosexuals” is no. 31 which leaves us to ponder the question of the missing 30th issue.

Whatever the reason for the numbering it’s good to see BUTT continuing as before, as though it hadn’t been dormant for such a long time. The new issue is almost exactly the same as previous numbers: slightly taller, slightly longer (100 pages) and with its first glossy cover. Under the covers the formula remains the same, all pink paper (with a familiar fresh-paint aroma), minimal design, sporadic nudity and informative interviews. The egalitarian nature of the latter has always been one of the attractions of the magazine, which in this issue features those with public profiles—Hilton Als, Arca, Durk Dehner of the Tom of Finland Foundation—and those without, like cover star Yoni (an Ethiopian currently living in Newcastle) and Stas, a Ukrainian DJ.

• Distribution: UK | EU | US/World

Previously on { feuilleton }
• BUTT covered

Marabout Fantastique book covers

A post for Halloween featuring a selection of covers from the “Fantastique” imprint of Belgian publisher Bibliothèque Marabout. The imprint, which was only labelled “Fantastique” on later editions, was launched around 1969 and ran through the 1970s before petering out in the early 1980s. The uniform cover design—almost always black with titles set in Roberta—is an attraction for paperback collectors even when the titles are very familiar ones, and when the cover art, most of which was the work of Henri Lievens (1920–2000), is sketchy and vague.

Among the Belgian writers rubbing shoulders with their more famous foreign counterparts are Jean Ray, author of the cult novel Malpertuis, playwright Michel de Ghelderode, and Thomas Owen (the pen-name of Gérald Bertot). Not all of the artwork is credited but most of the examples here are the work of the prolific Lievens, an artist whose cobwebbed eccentricities sometimes exceed the bounds of their brief; that flapping creature on the cover of The White People by Arthur Machen has no analogue in any of Machen’s stories. Later covers in the series saw contributions from Jean Alessandrini, with collages that were the subject of an earlier post. Marabout is still publishing today, albeit in a reduced fashion, having relocated to France where the company is now a tiny part of the Hachette empire.

Continue reading “Marabout Fantastique book covers”

The Needful Thing

Very fitting this one turning up today of all days, especially when the story takes place in the month of October. This time last year I was still working on the interior illustrations. It’s a heavyweight volume, bulked out to 730 pages by Richard Christian Matheson’s afterword and the sturdy slipcase; I designed the cover lettering but the rest of the book design is by Michael Smith. I also signed the main run of 1000 copies, with a smaller run (40 copies, I think) being signed by author and artist. Demand from collectors sold out the book very quickly but if you’re really needful you can find them on Abebooks and eBay for the inevitable high prices.

Still to come is a post about the illustrations but before I can do that I need to create a new page for the main website. In the meantime, here’s a picture of Mr Gaunt making Polly Chalmers an offer she can’t refuse.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• All the Things
• Needful Things

Weekend links 645

Halloween (no date) by William Stewart MacGeorge.

• Couldn’t Care Less: Cormac McCarthy in a 75-minute conversation (!) with David Krakauer at the Santa Fe Institute, filmed in 2017 and recently posted to YouTube. Not a literary discussion, this one is all about science, philosophy, mathematics, architecture and the operations of the unconscious mind. McCarthy’s essay about the origins of language, The Kekulé Problem, may be read here.

• At Wormwoodiana: Douglas A. Anderson finds a 1932 reprint of an HP Lovecraft story, The Music of Erich Zann, in London newspaper The Evening Standard. The story had appeared a few months prior to this in a Gollancz book, Modern Tales of Horror which reprinted a US collection edited by Dashiell Hammett. The newspaper printing includes an illustration by Philip Mendoza.

• New Hollywood Vs Mutant Cinema: The flipside of US cinema, 1960s–80s. Joe Banks talks to Kelly Roberts, Michael Grasso and Richard McKenna about their new book, We Are the Mutants: The Battle for Hollywood from Rosemary’s Baby to Lethal Weapon.

• At Bandcamp: Rich Aucoin explains the army of synths on his new quadruple album. The battalion includes the bespoke modular setup known as T.O.N.T.O., a rig that few people get to play with.

• New/old music: Malebox, an EP of Patrick Cowley rarities coming soon from Dark Entries.

• Mix of the week: Samhain Séance 11: endleofon by The Ephemeral Man.

• The surreal photographs of Ralph Eugene Meatyard.

• “NASA team begins study of UFOs”.

• Ghost Rider (1969) by Musical Doctors | Ghost Rider (1970) by The Crystalites | Ghost Rider (1977) by Suicide