More Fun with ye New Scanner!

Looking for things to scan and thus share with y'all, I found an old issue of Queer Madness (a zine I did for ye E.O.D apa) from 1980.  It's a fun issue to read because it's almoft like a wee journal of things I was doing then -- it amuses me that I was then so intent on writing my first novel, a thing I have yet to accomplish.   I had some remarkably good artwork in that issue -- including these two items (above and below) that were originally drawn for my chapbook tribute to Carl Jacobi.  The artwork above, illustrating the remarkably effective tale "The Face in the Wind," is by David Vosburgh -- an artist I wish I was still in contact with, as it would be wonderful to have him illustrate one of my new books.  The piece below, illustrating "Revelations in Black," is by Canadian artist Maurice Squidd, another rad artist with whom I have lost contact.  The illustrated tales are among the finest in the weird tale genre, and both may be found in the Arkham House collection Revelations in Black (1947), which has had many reprintings in pb format (sometimes as two individual volumes).  The Arkham House edition is well worth buying at o.p. prices -- it is a remarkable collection.

Reading the stories in such a book often wets my appetite to write my own, to really work at finding atmospheric ideas that I can weave into a finish'd tale.  My weird fiction has been influenced more by the books publish'd by August Derleth and Arkham House than by any other element in literature.  It used to be my huge dream, to have a collection of mine own publish'd by AH -- it is still a dream that, coming true, would thrill me beyond measure.

The new book, Depths of Dreams and Madness, is completed.  The new tale I was trying to write for it began to really bore me, so I said screw it ain't gonna write it, and instead I chose two elder yarns with which to fill up ye contents.  & then my editor and buddy, Jeffrey Thomas, sent me his amazing and so amusing Introduction.  I think the book will be one that will please my readers, despite the number of reprints.  Ye contents be:
Introduction by Jeffrey Thomas (3,669 words)
"Gathered Dust" (12,200 words), new novelette set in Arkham; this is a direct sequel to J. Vernon Shea's "The Haunter of the Graveyard," a tale that Vernon wrote for Derleth's original edition of Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (when Jim Turner re-edited the book he removed Vernon's tale).  I originally wrote this as a series of connected vignettes inspir'd by HPL's Commonplace Book, & that version will be included in next year's book from Hippocampus Press, Uncommon Places.  I then rewrote it as a single story, and that is the version in this book.  I think it's one of the eeriest tales I have yet penned.
"Your Kiss of Corruption" (1,255 words, reprint)
"Yon Baleful God" (1,063 words, reprint)
"Time of Twilight" (739 words, reprint)
"These Deities of Rarest Air" (10,000 words, new prose-poem sequence)
"The Boy with the Bloodstained Mouth (253 words, reprint)
"The Woven Offspring" (1,747 words; reprint, but with another revised ending)
"The Tangled Muse" (6,093 words, reprint)
"Let Us Wash This Thing" (2,250 words, new tale set in Gershom)
"Bloom of Sacrifice" (1,670 words, reprint)
"He Who Made Me Dream" (880 words, reprint)
"Cool Mist" (992 words, reprint)
"Descent into Shadow and Light" (1,312 words; reprinted from the Lovecraft eZine, for which I am writing monthly Lovecraftian vignettes)
"Serenade of Starlight" (3,233 words, reprint)
"Graffito Flow" (2,134 words, reprint)
"Depths of Dreams and Madness" (9,500 words; almost a novelette!  This is a new Sesqua Valley tale in which I bring as character's H. P. Lovecaft's sinister artist, Richard Upton Pickman, and Robert E. Howard's mad poet, Justin Geoffrey.  Ye tale is set in 1926.)
"Host of Haunted Air" (4,041 words, reprint)
"A Vestige of Mirth" (1,810 words, reprint)

Because my editor, Jeff, has illustrated many of these for various small press zines, I am hoping to have those old illos used as interior art.  His illustration for "The Woven Offspring" is simply magnificent.  The book may be publish'd as early as this summer!  It will be my first ebook, for those of ye who are into Kindle.  There will also be a trade pb edition and a Deluxe 13 edition.  The Deluxe 13 editions are limited to thirteen copies only, leather-bound and in slipcase, with satin book ribbon and sign'd and so gorgeous you can't believe it.  It will be my third hardcover publish'd this year (following The Tangled Muse and Some Unknown Gulf of Night) -- kinda amazing to me!



Comments

  1. I love scanning old stuff too, may they be photos or anything I find interesting. That's a nice scan you have there. I love Queer Madness. =)

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