Sidney Sime and Call of Kafka

[richardthinks]

Why had I never heard of Sidney Sime before? This is the sort of work that makes me think the late 19th century romantics and decadents were much more unsettling than any Shock of the New.
BTW that's Don Kenn on the header, who's also brilliant. The combination of the two kinda bridges the gap between Edward Gorey and Aubrey Beardsley in my mind's

Comments

[gbsteve]

I really enjoy Mythos games when at the end we say, "WTF was that? Well we're still alive, some of us, and now what?". I really don't want to have it explained to me, if I'm a player.

If I'm running such a game, I don't want to explain what happened because I think it spoils the effect, and sometimes I don't know what happened either. A serious of somehow connected events have conspired to lift the veil on a hidden or ignored world, attaching some kind of human meaning to this diminishes it.

That said, I'm fine with misguided human cultists too, as long as their cultist status does not afford them any much protection from the Mythos.

That some ants appear to be keeping out of your larder and merely traipsing across the kitchen floor, doesn't mean you wouldn't kill all of them.

[richardthinks]

I'd like to +1 this. Yes, on all counts.

[nancylebov]

And why didn't I know about monsterbrains? When I looked for some Hannes Bok to show you, that site turned out to have a large collection. Bok isn't as reliably weird as Sime, but Bok hits the note pretty well in a lot of his illustrations.

What Zak Smith said about lack of specifics is exactly what impressed Tolkien about fairy tales. If you get it right, you're invoking archetypes.

[richardthinks]

interesting about the fairy tales thing - that sounds exactly right... up to the point where you discover that the term "house" has different connotations in the tale because language is like that.

All of those Hannes Bok pictures are amazing - thank you! And what variety in style and handling and medium! Wow.

The last third of the page looks like stuff Escher might have made but then decided was too creepy and left out of his "serious" works. Brilliant.