Greetings ghosts and ghoulies and welcome to The Theatre of Terror the home of horror comic news, reviews, classic comic scans and creepy art from around the world. Just remember, it's not for the nervous!
Cereal Killer Trading Cards from Wax Eye are an instant throwback to the 80’s when collecting Garbage Pail Kids trading cards were all the rage. I remember being delighted when I could afford to purchase a new pack to see what horrors I would get. Some of the pictures were so grotesque that I’m surprised parents didn’t burn down the newsagents that sold them.
Artist Joe Simko has lovingly created these fantastic images which will delight horror fans. Joe also works on the modern series of Garbage Pail Kids so he has a full pedigree when it comes to designing trading cards.
Other catchy names include Village of the Grahamed, The Weatful Dead, Shredded Feet, Fiber the 13th and many more…
You can purchase these great cards from the Wax Eye site and they’ve proved so popular in the States that you can even find them in Toys’R’Us. The 3-Pack Mini Cereal Box Set contains:
20 cards per cereal box, 60 total cards per 3-Pack
Joel-Peter Witkin is a photographer whose images explore grotesque aspects of the human condition including physical deformity and sexual deviance. Witkin gets much of his inspiration visiting medical schools, morgues and insane asylums. Born (1939) in New York later in life he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. This allowed him to be near the Mexican border where he was able to get hold of corpses and body parts needed for his art without being arrested!
Witkin begins each image by sketching his ideas on paper, perfecting every detail by arranging the scene before he gets into the studio to stage his elaborate tableaus. Once photographed, Witkin spends hours in the darkroom, scratching and piercing his negatives, transforming them into images that look made rather than taken. The effects are both frightening and fascinating.
As you can see from the gallery Aeron Alfrey has a vivid and nightmarish imagination. His art includes freakish abstract landscapes filled with bizarre creatures, each image detailed with more disturbing imagery inside of it (Take a closer look at the larger landscapes below to see what I mean.) These strange vistas and unworldly images have seen Aeron’s art appear in many books and galleries around the world. He also excels at creating unique monstrous portrait of creatures composed in a collage-like style or laying images on top of photos to create pictures which suggest a hidden underworld of terrors just beyond the veil of normality.
Actually I’m struggling to find the words to describe his artwork. They are such work of pure imagination that it makes it hard to categorize or explain. His long time love of all things horror and a desire to macabre Lovecraftian beasties makes his work stand out.
Norwegian artist Erlend Mørk uses photography as his medium to create psychologically disturbing images. Born November 1, 1983 he describes his work as ‘manipulated dark and surrealistic photography’.
My works are symbolic representations of my views and reflections about these. The creatures in my works are as such mad, lost or isolated, in search of some absolute among the relative, trying to know an objective truth, or just become complete nihilists.
Take a look at some of his work below.
The recent tragic bombings and shootings that took place in Norway came as a huge shock that united many Norwegians in grief. It will be interesting to see how the events of 22nd July will affect the country, especially Norway’s artistic output which will be reflective of the mood of it’s people.
For dark artists like Erland you have to wonder if his work will move away from disturbing visual imagery or if he will delve deeper in to the macarbe. When true horror presents itself in real life, complete with stark images of bodies, eye witness accounts of truly terrifying moments, all played over and over by the media on TV, will the public’s appetite for fantasy horror be diminished or will it grow?
Back with a bang this week with the fantastic artwork of Laurie Lipton. Born in New York, she began drawing at the age of four. Having lived in various European countries, where she perfected her art, Laurie now lives in London.
Lipton was inspired by the religious paintings of the Flemish School. She tried to teach herself how to paint in the style of the 16th century Dutch Masters and failed. When traveling around Europe as a student, she began developing her very own peculiar drawing technique building up tone with thousands of fine cross-hatching lines like an egg tempera painting. “It’s an insane way to draw”, she says, “but the resulting detail and luminosity is worth the amount of effort. My drawings take longer to create than a painting of equal size and detail.”
As you can see from the gallery of images below the artist has an extremely vivid and disturbing imagination. As usual I will let the pictures do the talking…
We have another historical art post for you today horror fans. This time we take a look at Dutch artist Jeroen Anthoniszoon van Aken (1450-1516) more famously known as Hieronymus Bosch. Much of his work depicts religious scenes which scholars believe to be interpretations from biblical scenes used as guides to medieval morality. An abundance of hellish scenes and dancing devils would certainly make you think twice about sinning. He also has some great sketches of fantastical monsters which are creative fiction at its finest.
Bosch’s most famous work is probably The Garden of Earthly Delights which is the first picture in the gallery. Click on the thumbnail for a larger viewer. Some element included are somewhat bizarre.
Enrique Gomez de Molina’s work is the stuff of nightmares (lovely). Like a genetic scientist on smack, he splices dead animals together to produce unique and distrubring hybrid creatures.
Encouraged by his taxidermist father from an early age, Enrique has created some very special works of art. Things of beauty or mishapen freaks? We’re not too sure but they certainly look like they’re from a bizarre alternative reality. Great stuff
De Molina’s goal is…
to bring awareness to the danger faced by a multitude of species: nuclear and chemical waste, overdevelopment, and destruction of rainforests
Another horror art post my little fleshlings. I’ve always been considered extremely ‘street’ down here in the depths. It’s true! I’ve been rocking the hoody look since before time began.
Today we focus on the work of the Austrian graffiti artist and illustrator Nychos who has been described as…
“Twisted at birth, brainwashed throughout his childhood, poisoned by the media and fostered by the dark side, Nychos, the evil genius has been genetically modifying an army of lime green mutated tentacles, maggots, monsters and femme fatales to take over the world.”
As you can see from a selection of his work below this street artist has a really distinct style within the grafitti genre. Nychos also clearly has an excellent understanding of horror and is able to put that across in his work.
You can find examples of his work scattered across the urban landscapes of major European cities. For those mortals too lazy to find them yourselves visit www.rabbiteyemovement.at
One of our most important task on The Theatre of Terror is to spread horror around the world. This includes comics, video, TV shows, ghastly tales and of course horror art. With that in mind you might want to take a look at the work of Californian illustrator Mike Dubisch.
Mike has a great eye for sketching sinister undertones in to his work as you can see from the delightfully weird image below titled Sesame Strange.
As well as working on comic strips and book illustations Mr Dubisch describes himself as an ‘artist of the fantastic, the C’thonic, and the ascendant’ and has released of book of stunning Cthulu artwork entitled The Black Velvet Necronomicon.
Capturing the essence of horror in any medium is a difficult task, however very very old school painter Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746 – 1828) was extremely gifted at it as you can tell from the selection of his works below. While some of his more horrific works were influenced by bouts of illness and mental issues his main source of inspiration came from observing the terrible acts people forced upon other people. War, Witches, Barbarism and the treatment of the mentally insane were all topics that Goya addressed in his paintings. Through these observations was able to create some truly disturbing images.
Possibly his most disturbing painting is the mesmerising ‘Saturn devouring his son’ which kicks-off our gallery below. Quite possibly the scariest painting of all time!
Mentioned in today’s Sun newspaper is the work of Danish artist, writer and kids TV producer Joon Kenn. When he’s got a spare moment he likes to doodle random scenes from his own twisted imagination on post-it notes.
What I love about this artists work is that each sketch has a story to tell. He manages to portray a great deal in just one small image, some pictures have the power to scare, other to make you laugh. The guy has a great eye for the weird.
Don describes his drawing as:
a little window into a different world
It sets a great example to comic artists to show just what can be achieved in one panel.
Do you want to join the Scream team? We're looking for enthusiastic people to contribute articles on horror or comics here on The Theatre of Terror. Contact me for more info.
Cereal Killer Trading Cards from Wax Eye are an instant throwback to the 80’s when collecting Garbage Pail Kids trading cards were all the rage. I remember being delighted when I could afford to purchase a new pack to see what horrors I would get. Some of the pictures were so grotesque that I’m surprised parents didn’t burn down the newsagents that sold them.
Joel-Peter Witkin is a photographer whose images explore grotesque aspects of the human condition including physical deformity and sexual deviance. Witkin gets much of his inspiration visiting medical schools, morgues and insane asylums. Born (1939) in New York later in life he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. This allowed him to be near the Mexican border where he was able to get hold of corpses and body parts needed for his art without being arrested!
Another horror art post my little fleshlings. I’ve always been considered extremely ‘street’ down here in the depths. It’s true! I’ve been rocking the hoody look since before time began.
Capturing the essence of horror in any medium is a difficult task, however very very old school painter Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746 – 1828) was extremely gifted at it as you can tell from the selection of his works below. While some of his more horrific works were influenced by bouts of illness and mental issues his main source of inspiration came from observing the terrible acts people forced upon other people. War, Witches, Barbarism and the treatment of the mentally insane were all topics that Goya addressed in his paintings. Through these observations was able to create some truly disturbing images.
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