Vivid Expressions

 

Every year, Piedmont Arts Association, our local arts center, features an exhibit called "Expressions," which showcases the work of local artists, and this is the second year that Ms. B. has entered some of her work. This year, both of her pieces — "Scarlet Elf Cups" and "Lake Superior" (shown above) — won purchase awards, meaning that one of the show's sponsors purchased the works prior to the show's opening. (In the left-hand photo, we see friend/artist Charles Hill's "Statue of Liberty" below her painting.)

 

"Expressions" typically has a theme, and this year's is the United States's 250th birthday. The exhibit showcases 150 works by 80 local artists, so receiving purchases awards for both of her entries is pretty damned impressive in my book. Kimberly has really devoted herself to her art in the past few years, especially since she joined Piedmont Arts a couple of years ago, so I love seeing her creative efforts so nicely rewarded.

 

In the early 1980s, after I graduated college with a Bachelor of Fine Art degree, I was an active member of Piedmont Arts, where I frequently exhibited and taught classes. I don't do much in the way of fine art anymore, but I very much enjoy revisiting my artistic roots at Piedmont Arts. And I'm sure Ms. B. will do plenty more exhibiting (and hopefully selling her work). "Expressions" will be up for the month of July, so if you're local, you should stop in and check out some truly excellent art.

L: "Scarlet Elf Cups" (pen & ink, watercolor); R: "Lake Superior" (mixed media); click to enlarge

"Threnody" Depiction by J.B. Lee

In April 2024, I posted an interview with artist J.B. Lee (see "A Graveside Chat with J.B. Lee"), showcasing a variety of his works, most of them in the cosmic horror and/or Lovecraftian mode. Just the other day, he posted one of his illustrations, which was based on my 1987 story, "Threnody," It perfectly captures the atmosphere and horrific elements of the tale, and I most heartily approve.

I originally published "Threnody" in Deathrealm issue #2, and it was subsequently reprinted in Robert M. Price's anthology, The New Lovecraft Circle (Fedogan & Bremer, 1996) under the title "The Spheres Beyond Sound." Now, I had used the title, "The Spheres Beyond Sound" for entirely different (though related), but Mr. Price liked it so much, he wondered if I'd allow "Threnody" to be published under that title. I reluctantly agreed, and to be sure, it's fitting for the story. Later, "Threnody" appeared, with its original title, in my collections The Last Trumpet (Wildside Press, 2000) and Fugue Devil: Resurgence (Black Raven Books, 2022).

Here is Mr. Lee's description of the art: "A scene from Stephen Mark Rainey's 'The Spheres Beyond Sound' ('Threnody'). And before any Stranger Things fans get started, that giant arachnoid critter is copyright 1987. Painted with the usual digital tablet. NO A.I."

Now, I don't know about any Stranger Things comparisons, but I will tell you that when I wrote "Threnody," I had never seen either The Evil Dead or The Evil Dead 2. However, it wasn't long after I wrote the story that I did, and I was mortified that a few of the plot elements corresponded a bit too closely for comfort (although, in all these years, I've never heard anyone make that comparison, for which I am relieved).

 

"Threnody" is not the first of my stories for which J.B. has created a lovely piece of art. His interpretation of my story "Stalker of the Wild Wind," which originally appeared in Robert M. Price's The Ithaqua Cycle (Chaosium, 1999) also does the tale more than justice. That's it below. (Click on the photos to enlarge.)

 

Thanks, J.B.

WIP Excerpt: The House at Black Tooth Pond

Not very long ago, I wrote a haunted house story, titled "The House at Black Tooth Pond," for an upcoming anthology, which will be appearing later this year. I've made blog posts about the place I call Black Tooth Pond, which is inspired by an honest-to-God location here in Martinsville (the most recent blog being "Black Friday at Black Tooth Pond," Friday, November 25, 2023). For the story, I combined that real-life setting with another: an ancient, crumbling house my brother and I discovered not far from Martinsville in the early 1990s. I called it the House of Cabiness because, inside the place, I discovered a massive cache of old mail, all addressed to members of a certain Cabiness family. I suspect that place is long gone, since so little of it remained intact even then, but the memory of it has haunted me ever since.

The drawing above is one I did back when Brother Phred and I found the place.

I believe the story makes for a fine stand-alone tale, but the more I contemplated the idea, it felt like one that could be expanded into a full-length novel. So, quite recently, I set about scheming and plotting and plotting and scheming, and I came up with a workable novel project. At the moment, I'm roughly 30k words into the writing, so I thought I'd offer a little excerpt. Here she be:

#

As Martin sauntered along the walkway, mostly looking at his feet, he heard a deep, booming voice rising above the soft student babble around him. The voice was shouting, “Sinners, take heed! The end times are near! Take heed, all of ye!”

Oh, hell. One of the endless supply of proselytizers that seemed to target the campus more and more lately. They’d always been around, maybe even more so back in his university days, but there recently seemed to have been a resurgence.

The voice came from a huge, black-suited man, with wide, glittering eyes beneath a heavy brow. He stood on the walkway just shy of the stairs to Reynolds Hall. Unless Martin diverted around to the side door, he couldn't avoid walking directly in front of the fellow. In one hand, the man held a thick sheaf of papers—flyers or tracts, no doubt. None of the students passing nearby appeared to take even the vaguest notice of him.

Good for them.

As he approached, he kept his eyes down and walked by without the fellow taking any special notice of him.

Until he reached the stairs of Reynolds Hall. And then the deep voice bellowed, “Beware, Dr. Pritchett, the doom that came to Eden, the country of the snake!”

Martin whirled around, incredulous, and saw the figure standing on the walkway with one arm outstretched, pointing directly toward him.

“Do you not know what you have disturbed, Dr. Pritchett?"

He took a few steps back toward the towering figure. He’d never seen the man before in his life. How could he know his name? Maybe a former student? No. He didn't think so.

But those words. Martin knew them. They came from the pages he’d taken from the House of Cabiness. But no one besides his brother could be privy to what he’d done. No one else could have been out there to see him. Who could possibly know what was written on those ancient sheets?

No one.

No one alive.

#

More Discoveries

I never thought I would grow weary of finding keepsakes from days of yore, but the sheer number of keepsakes that keep turning up at the old homestead has about done me in. Some of them, at least, are absolutely agreeable, especially the occasional old photo I didn't know (or had forgotten) existed, lots of half-forgotten toys, and scads of my artwork. I discovered a couple more pen & ink drawings from the late 80s/early 90s, which you see above. The critter is Gaira from War of the Gargantuas, my favorite of Toho's non-Godzilla daikaiju flicks. The haunted house is a place my brother and I happened upon while exploring the wilds of Henry County back around 1991. I took quite a few photos of the creepy old place and then made a drawing of it.

I'm reasonably fond of these, so I appreciated actually seeing them again. I remembered them, but I had no idea where they lurked or whether I'd ever see them again. So... yay!

Monstrous! Part 2 — Night of the Firebeast, 1979–1983

Yesterday, I wrote a bit about some of my old artwork I turned up while turning my old homestead inside out for renovations (Monstrous! Part 1 — The Ultimate Godzilla [or Not]). If you were willing to slog through that, I reckon you might be willing to slog through this as well.

In the early 1970s, I composed a silly but fun little SF monster story called “Night of the Firebeast,” which featured a giant winged reptilian critter (see illo above) from the planet Venus called Damiron (or Damarron, in at least one of the tale’s numerous revisions). I drew a ton of pictures of the monster, and friend Bill Gudmundson, who regularly constructed detailed, articulated models (and animated them, à la Ray Harryhausen), built a couple of different versions of Damiron for me. I still have one of those models, a bit worse for wear, but still holding together.

In my final year of college (1981), having discovered the writings of H.P. Lovecraft — and by now entertaining grandiose notions of becoming a famous horror writer — I rewrote “Night of the Firebeast” as a weird hybrid of daikaiju and Lovecraftian lore, still featuring Damiron but under the name “Pachacutec” (the actual name of a Peruvian king, which I considered apt, since the story was now set in Peru). I went full bore illustrating scenes from it, mostly in pen and ink. Although the tale was hardly the masterpiece I had envisioned in my budding little brain, it felt pretty solid (and at some much later time — early 2000s, I believe — I sent a copy of the tale to J.D. Lees, editor of G-Fan magazine, who up and published the thing). “Pachacutec” became the first chapter of my first honest-to-god novel, again titled “Night of the Firebeast,” which I finished in 1983 — just after I moved to Chicago to live with Bill G. The novel rightly never saw the light of day, but I have long considered it a valuable practice run for my novels that eventually did come to fruition.

In later years (2006), Pachacutec appeared again in a short story, this one entitled “The Transformer of Worlds,” published in an Australian anthology of giant monster stories, simply titled Daikaiju, edited by Rob Hood.

Again, for the sake of future history — if any — I am posting the complete set of drawings and paintings I created for Night of the Firebeast, if not for your entertainment then for mine, as I do find these personal chronicles useful for looking back to figure out what the hell I was thinking at any given point in time. These are pretty much in the order of events in the novel, so feel free to draw your own conclusions regarding the context. I don’t have it in me to compose a synopsis for the old beast; as it is, I’m not sure I could even remember, as these go back forty years and more. Click on these little fellows to enlarge.

Please note that I warned you yesterday that this might happen!

Monstrous! Part 1 — The Ultimate Godzilla (or Not)

As Ms. Brugger and I continue our renovation of the old homestead in Martinsville, we continually dig up intriguing relics from the days of yore — well, my yore, anyway. Tucked away in the corners of the house, I have scads of old art portfolios, and this morning, I came upon several pieces I haven’t seen in years. I knew these beasties lurked up in the attic, as I have periodically excavated some of the ruins, but seeing them again brought a lovely onslaught of nostalgia for all things daikaiju.

In junior high school, I created Japanese Giants, a fanzine devoted to Godzilla, kith & kin, more or less patterned after my dear, late friend Greg Shoemaker’s renowned Japanese Fantasy Film Journal. For me, Japanese Giants was a one-shot, but the title lived on, first via editor/publisher Brad Boyle, who took the reins until issue #4, and then by way of friends Ed Godziszewski and Bill Gudmundson, who kept the magazine going for several years into the 21st Century.

By high school, I had grandiose plans of becoming a writer/illustrator, and sometime in my senior year — 1976 or 1977 — I drew up a few pages of what I considered the ultimate Godzilla story. However, around that time, I found myself increasingly distracted by young women of the opposite sex, and my dream project never progressed beyond that initial sample.

For the sake of future history — if any — here it is. Later, if you’re not really good, I’ll post a bit about my other ancient original daikaiju endeavor, Night of the Firebeast. So you just watch yourselves.

Peter H. Brothers is Satan

Apparently, back in the dim, dark 1970s—during the most shadowy of my shadowy youthful years—I sent fellow daikaiju enthusiast/author Pete Brothers some original pen-and-ink drawings of Japanese monsters. Never expecting these ancient cave renderings to resurface, I was taken aback when he posted copies of a couple of them on Facebook. My word! I never!

Evidently, I took myself to be a far better artist than I really was, but it's kind of a hoot seeing these again—especially since I don't remember doing the specific drawings in the first place. Click on the pics to enlarge (if you're feeling masochistic).