A Glimpse Into the Necronomicon

     Today's offering - poor choice of words - today's subject is another unearthed artifact from history's darkest pits. Discovered in an abandoned farmhouse near Greenwich, Massachusetts in 1937, this peculiar item was sold to a researcher from Miskatonic University for the bizarrely notable sum of three dollars and thirty-three cents. At first glance it appears to be part of an illustrated manuscript similar to those created by monastic orders throughout Europe during the First Millennium. Carbon dating indicates that this particular document dates to sometime around the 6th century AD; a more precise estimation has proven impossible as the exact composition of the parchment defies identification. Certain stylistic choices in the way the bizarre creatures were drawn point to a more recent origin but the compound used as pigmentation contains traces of both flora and fauna attributed to species believed extinct for more than a thousand years.

Document (believed to be from the Necronomicon) currently stored in the Miskatonic University Archives, Arkham, MA.

   
     The illustrations that appear on the page are obviously of no known earthly species and are likely (hopefully) the product of someone's very deeply disturbed imagination. There is no indication of their intended size and means of locomotion or if they are meant to represent aquatic, amphibious, or subterranean creatures (or an unlikely combination of all three).

Detail showing creatures that appear to be either wholly aquatic or amphibious in nature.

     Regardless of when this document was created, most researchers agree that it undoubtedly belongs to the fabled Necronomicon or is a part of some previously undiscovered companion work. If you are unwise... or simply curious... copies of the above pictured piece will soon be made available at Arcane Apparel as prints. Perhaps you will have better luck deciphering the message that the original author intended.
   

Arcane Apparel

     Sometime in the late 90s I started making t-shirt designs for POD stores. It wasn't about making money - it was about making t-shirts that I wanted for myself. Inevitably all of the designs ended up with a bit of a morbid streak and "Arcane Apparel" was born; a Cafepress-hosted poster and t-shirt design shop where I could combine my fascination with the literary genius of H.P. Lovecraft and everything I learned (and unlearned) in Art School.

A montage of some of the older designs from the original "Arcane Apparel". 

      I had a blast for a while and then had kids - three of them - all boys. To my wife's credit she actually had the boys, all I did was... well... I think you know what my part was. Things in my life became very busy very quickly. On top of my responsibilities as a father I found myself in the process of slowly working my way up the ladder as a commercial advertising artist to the level of Creative Director (where I am very happily entrenched today). Anyone who is in the commercial advertising industry knows that long hours and little spare time come with the territory. 

A more recent design for a "Miskatonic University" t-shirt. The characters above Cthulhu's head are from a font I designed called "High Cthonic". I usually write something relevant to the image in english and then switch the font.

     Skip to today where I have decided to re-open AA with some more recent work and as an outlet for whatever scraps of spare time I manage to glean from the nearly picked-clean corpse that my life has become. Not that I'm complaining... Its much better to be too busy than not busy enough.

     Check out Arcane Apparel (currently hosted on Zazzle) and let me know what you think. I may decide to expand back into Cafepress as well and if there are newer, better services out there please let me know. There's isn't much I can do or say about the prices - my "markup" is minimal so the majority of what is charged goes to the POD company. But like I said, this isn't about the money, it's about getting some artwork done and out there.

     Hope you enjoy! Here's a link to the current store... ARCANE APPAREL ... Its a little sparse right now but I will be adding more work as soon as possible.

     Jeff

Azathoth

     " When age fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men; when grey cities reared to smoky skies tall towers grim and ugly, in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of spring’s flowering meads; when learning stripped earth of her mantle of beauty, and poets sang no more save of twisted phantoms seen with bleared and inward-looking eyes; when these things had come to pass, and childish hopes had gone away forever, there was a man who travelled out of life on a quest into the spaces whither the world’s dreams had fled. "

from Azathoth by H.P. Lovecraft

     Of all the things that were conceived and written by H.P. Lovecraft, the opening paragraph to the unfinished short story Azathoth is my favorite. I think most artists feel a melancholic connection to a time when people knew less and imagined more. It may be an immature, overly romanticized way to view the world... so be it. 

     This "Azathoth" will be a place where reason is eschewed for fantasy and madness. A place where artwork is created for the sake of creation. 

     Hope you like it.

     Jeff

Kthulhuamen

     What makes us strive to understand the nature of the universe? As a species mankind is simply the latest parasite on a host that is far more ancient than our feeble intellects can truly comprehend. Our oral and written histories cover less than the last eight thousand years of a planet that is more than four and a half billion years old... think about that for a moment... let the enormity of that uncomfortable cosmic truth sink in. Now consider the fact that the vast universe in which our comparatively insignificant world exists is far older; more than fourteen billion years old by the best estimation of scientists and scholars. To put it mildly, we are latecomers to the show.

     But that does not mean we are doomed to suffer the blind ignorance regarding a pre-human world. There are those who watch carefully for glimmers of light shining forth from the darkness of the past. The signs are there if you know where to look; little tears in the shroud that allow a glimpse into the primordial.

     Take for example the subject of today's post. An archival photograph of an Egyptian papyrus attributed to the twenty-seventh century BCE. For those familiar with the Cthulhu Mythos as recorded in the infamous Necronomicon, I don't need to point out the frightening implications made manifest in the central figure seated on a golden throne. For those who may be unfamiliar with that particularly dark branch of esoteric folklore I can only say that in this instance, ignorance is indeed bliss.

Photograph (c. 1967) of an Egyptian papyrus believed to originate in the twenty-seventh century BCE. Seated on a throne is the image of a previously undocumented figure (presumably a deity of some sort) from  Egyptian mythology. The photograph itself shows considerable "wear and tear" but is the only remaining document of the original artifact, which was stolen from the Miskatonic University Archives in February, 1972.
Photograph courtesy of Miskatonic University.

Detail of the unidentified cephalopodic god from Egyptian antiquity shown as the central figure in the above tapestry. Photograph courtesy of Miskatonic University.

     
     Animal-headed deities appear often (and in great variety) in Egyptian mythology. The apparent exclusion (or possible omission) of some form of "sea-god" with the head of an octopus is perhaps no more than a curious coincidence. Then again... perhaps not. It's possible that this papyrus is evidence of a lost cult. There could conceivably have been a sect of ancient Egyptian society dedicated to the worship of this cephalopedic monstrosity. If so, what happened to them? Were they eradicated over theological differences with other, more established priesthoods? Or did they disappear from history deliberately for reasons of their own? Why does this particular figure appear nowhere else in the entirety of all known recovered artifacts relating to ancient Egypt?

     Consider the possibilities. If this parchment represents a heretofore unknown branch of Egyptian mythology could it be a link to older, darker mysteries? Are we seeing past the veil of time and into an age when the boundaries between the fantastic and the mundane were less concrete?

     Sometimes its better to suffer life's questions, than to live with the awful knowledge of the answers.

("Kthulhuamen" available as a print @ Arcane Apparel.)