Many Monsters

Pete Von Sholley is an excellent storyboard artist who has worked on dozens of films and TV shows. And he loves monsters. He also happens to be a customer at my job so I had the uniquely lovely opportunity to discuss monsters with him and of course jumped at the chance to contribute to the kickstarter for his latest book, Pete Von Sholly's History of Monsters.

The book went to print late last year and I've only just now had the chance to sit down and read it. It starts with a few pages describing the monsters you'll see on the art plates in the rest of the book and then it's off to the races with the art.

There are 21 plates in the book featuring hundreds of monsters from the dawn of human myth up until the monster movies of the last few years.

While I do appreciate the earlier plates and their exploration of what different monster myths might have looked like it's the later plates from the 60s on that really tickle my fancy - a lot of which is simply down to the fact that I get to have fun recognizing monsters. There's something delightful about seeing fifty monsters on a page and getting a little jolt each time you recognize a particular set of fangs or a pattern of mangy fur.

I really appreciate some of the more unusual choices as well - one of the later plates features a monster from the movie Evolution. That movie wasn't particularly popular and that monster was only on screen for a couple of minutes so it's great to see this extremely creepy but frequently forgotten face among images of cenobites and predators.

If you're a monster geek I'd say picking up the book is well worth it - it's a great collection from someone who has had a major hand in bringing many monsters to life.

Cheers,
     - Alli

Scream & be free

I found Amrit Brar's work on tumblr about a week ago. I saw exactly one post she had made involving a new tarot suite and its minor arcana and within an hour I'd bought one of her books and a patch.

Amrit Brar is SUCH A FUCKING GOOD ILLUSTRATOR, PLEASE GO FOLLOW HER ON A SHITLOAD OF PLATFORMS AND GIVE HER LOTS OF MONEY IF YOU CAN. (Instagram Tumblr Twitter StorEnvy, btw, in case searching was too much effort.)

Anyway, Shitty Horoscopes is an amazing anthology of bleak, funny, hope/ful/less messages about an uncertain future. It's all skulls and knives and roses, it's beautiful and sad, and I wish I could have a new page every day forever. Brar should do all of the horoscopes ever. Astrologers should all cede their jobs to her, she's the only one who gets how indifferent the universe is and communicates that to the reader while still evoking a "lol, same" reaction.

It's amazing?

For a book with so little writing it's incredibly sharply written, each horoscope lands almost like a poem. The illustrations are infuriatingly good, they make me sad that I'm not anywhere near as good as Brar is and make me want to work harder and better as an illustrator.

I'm obsessed. I ordered this book as soon as I found out it existed and immediately grabbed onto it like a hungry little goblin and never wanted it to leave. It's been more than a month since I've read it but it still lives on my desk so that I can occasionally flip through the pages and marvel at the art.

GOOD FUCKING JOB. I LOVE YOU.

Anyway, I'm 100% serious please order all of this book that you can reasonably order, I recommend it as a birthday gift, especially for people who are skeptical about horoscopes.

Cheers,
     - Alli

ORDER IT HERE.

(oh, this entry is called "Scream & be free" because my order from Brar's Storenvy page came with a couple of postcards, one of which was an adorable and tired bat flapping over the legend "scream & be free" and it really resonated with me.