I receive a smorgasbord of robot-generated spam on this site, most of which I delete. But every once in a while a receive a gem so perfect, so diamond-like in its sheer garbled incompetentness, that I have to share it. This one read like a randomly constructed SF novel. He was still stuck on thats …
Category: Humor
Santa Horror
Since the 18th century, when images of Santa Claus began to be disseminated through newspapers, books, and periodicals, his appearance has changed quite a bit. Often those earlier depictions are a tad grotesque, as much for what was considered appealing at the time as the skill of the artist and the means of reproduction. When …
Worldbuilding Wednesday 10/31/18: Gothic Mansions
It’s Halloween. And what better way to celebrate than by visiting a spooky old mansion? Old castles, manses, and abbeys are a mainstay of Gothic literature. Manderlay, in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, is practically its own character, along with its housekeeper. And who can forget “The Great House of Collinwood” mentioned at the beginning …
A Medical Student’s Nightmare
This isn’t the only antique photograph I’ve come across of a doctor surrounded by cadavers intent on dissecting him. It says a lot about gallows humor in the profession. The ghostly legs below the table add to the spooky feel, but it’s likely they were the result of a double exposure used to create the …
The Lady and the Dragon, Part IV
Portrayals of women with dragons continued to rise throughout the 1970s, boosted by the rising genre of adult comics, forerunners to today’s graphic novels. The French magazine Metal Hurlant (Howling Metal) showcased many of these new artists like Caza, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Moebius, who later went on to design book covers and movie and TV …
The Lady and the Dragon, Part III
Before the printing press and paper production on an industrial scale, there were very few mass-produced dragon depictions in popular culture. Most of the ones I referenced in Parts I and II of this series were oil paintings intended for the nobility or wealthy merchants, or in illuminated manuscripts for the Church. The majority of …