The Shadow Over Innsmouth - Part six of eight

Yes, well. Here we are, in the year two thousand and nine. Congratulations to you all who have survived so long. Only three more years until that magnificent rainbow-snake Quetzalcoatl descends on our frail people before devouring the sun and ending us all. Until then, let's do our best.

Furthermore, it's time to continue our swim through bleak Innsmouth. The gloomy shore approaches; we are almost done.

Obed Marsh, the man who first drew the Deep Ones to Innsmouth, thought himself a greater man than he was and spurned his Fishy masters. Well, "spurned" is a subjective term. Really, he just stopped offering his townsfolk up as sacrifices to their Old Gods. Of course, somebody's blood must be spilled into those cold seas to slake Cthulhu's endless thirst. Might as well be the regular folks of Innsmouth.


When Obed goes too long without offering flesh, the Deep Ones come for it in the night. At this point in the story, Zadok Allen goes into something of a drunken rage at the recollection of certain other things the Deep Ones brought with them from the ocean floor. Just some of the unimaginable (and thereby unillustratable) things from the Lovecraft mythos.

Anyway, that one is a really simple image. Not the best, not my favorite, but a story-flesher.

This next one was a lot of fun, and is probably the most detailed of all of them.
This doesn't partane to any particular point in the story, other than the general impression that the people of Innsmouth have access to an infinite supply of fish and sea-life because of their pact with the Deep Ones. I kind of went nuts with this one and just put more and more different types of sealife into the net, whether they were logical or not. You might notice a few funny things in there.

I bought a ton of books over the holiday break that I am slowly tackling. Part of it was the backlog of books I simply didn't have a chance to read when I was first recommended them by whomever. There was also the rapidly approaching start of this next and last semester which brings with it yet another bout with Allan Comport's Illustrated Book class, which yielded these submarine fever dreams. I will do a post later about my acquisitions and my findings therein.

I also had a chance to see The Wrestler and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The former is, as you have heard, a spectacular character study by the famously inventive Darren Aronofsky (pleasantly restrained here). The latter is beautiful and well acted, but ultimately ends up being a pointless retread of Forrest Gump with an interesting premise that never comes to fruition satisfactorily. Very nice effects, though.

You may perhaps remember these three charmers? Well they have all been accepted into Society of Illustrators West 47. Congratulations to all who got in. I'm not sure if I'm sending these off to the show at Gallery Nucleus, but I may yet. I may yet.

I might also be headed into New York this weekend with Kali and Jeremy to see the James Jean show at the Jonathan Levine Gallery. God, it's going to be spectacular/crowded. Hope to see you there (if I am there).