Lovecraft and the Ravens

There are a few projects I’m working on inbetween the major stuff. One of these is something I started off posting on facebook photo by photo as a way of keeping my hand in fiction while editing anthologies. As it evolved, it became “Lovecraft and the Ravens” and included Borges and others as characters. It also began to include my own very primitive artwork, with some of the “pages” actually written on my hand. The plan as I finish this is to retake the photos that need to be high-res and to continue to write “pages” on all kinds of surfaces. So any final book would have to be a series of photographs. Above you’ll find an incomplete slideshow of the pages…

Bellysnatcher

Another project I’m getting back to is Bellysnatcher. I jokingly used the word with the artist Eric Orchard, and then we got to talking and it seemed like a cool idea. Eric then filled a notebook with his paintings and drawings while on the road, sent it to me, and I’m in the process of creating a narrative around it. Samples below.

He found the journal in a pile of junk. It wasn’t food so he tossed it aside. But, eventually, he came back to it. “Bellysnatcher.” A cover smudged and dusty. Once, in his other life, he’d read a lot. He’d written a little, too. Now he was a nomad, had a backpack and dirty clothes and wasn’t sure what city he was in.

He took the book out at night, around the fire, with people watching. A risk, but he was a big man and had hands that made fists like clubs…Some of the pages disturbed him. At first he thought they frightened him, but that wasn’t it. Inside, in their muteness the pages made him want to create a story around them. To make what seemed random have meaning.

The Situation

And, finally, despite some delays, Orchard is working on The Situation. I think it’s just amazing. Here are some sample images from the work in progress—the lettering is placeholder.