Hand of doom.

First of the bat , I’m experimenting with art. The image above is an attempt to create some scaled down, simple retro graphics ,heavily inspired by the wonderful retro,anolog hand made game designer Alfred Valley . Go check out his you tube , its wonderful!

Anyway, back to the tale in hand, so too speak.

When I was kid, about eight or nine, me and my brother shared a room. It was a great den, full of movie stuff, sci fi toys, action man, Mego figures and lord know what else. It was an organised bedlam as my Mum could not do with mess in any shape or form. We loved it.

However, at night, I used to have the most terrifying nightmare, the same one, night after night. It’s burned into my memory. I think they known as night terrors and a pretty normal thing for a kid to go through, although my brother has always told me it’s something he never suffered from. Because he was tough as old boots of course and could be in the SAS ( or so he told me at age 12 🤣)

The terror began when my brother and I would go to bed as usual. Then, at some point I would here this creaking noise and a whistling wind. I would look around from my bed, terrifies knowing what was coming. Slowly, the wall near my bed would start to move like water. The ripples becoming larger and then a spiral of water like a water pool. Then as the tension mounted, fingers of a giant old white hand would appear from the grimy liquid.

Eventually the full horror of an appendage would appear from the liquid wall. Imagine a horrific hand, the size of king Kongs. Its fingers scraped at my bed clothes. Inching close r to me. I would then turn to my brother, who was fast asleep and scream at him for help. Or I would if I could. No sound came from my throat. Just a quiet rasp. The hand moved closer, grabbing my feet, pulling me towards its full grasp and the liquid brick. No matter how much I tried to scream, nothing, my brother never moved. The hand would eventually grab me in its fist, squeezing the air out of me, dragging me into the wall. I would scream and scream in silence as it dragged me under then….

I would wake up with a bolt, sweating crying, frantically looking around me. Just a dream. Just a dream.

This seemed to go on night after night. Only on occasion waking my parents and brother as I woke with a screech. They usually just told me to not worry, calm me down and go back to sleep, and my brother no doubt laughing. The sod.

However, it was my brother who saved me in the end.

One night, the dream started in as terrifying a manner as usual. The hand grabbed me in its fist. A final attempt to shout out.

This time, I had a voice. I crackle at first and then a full-blown screech. My brother woke from his slumber, to seem me in the grasp of this giant evil, weird hand. He set to straight away, kicking it, punching git, stabbing it with swords (no idea where they came from, we did have a plethora of toy ones to be fare) until the hand released its grip, withered and shook and sunk back into the wall.

I woke up, looked around and at my sleeping brother, went back to sleep and never had the nightmare again.

That’s just one of the reasons why my brother is still the best friend I have ever had. Don’t tell him though. The nob

Cheers

Dan

All of the links!!!

You Tube- Dan’s Monsters

Ko-Fi - Help me make monsters

Gumroad - Free Art Books!

My website! I need to update to be honest!

Instagram ( a necessary evil i suppose )

Here are a couple of links to buy some actual books:

Books with my art!

Notebooks from Hell

Dansmonsters Strange Paper Books - Pulp reviews from my stupid collection

Keep Creepy.Make Weird. Draw Monsters. Have Fun.

Come on , you know these rules by now!

1. They are not real, so draw them any damn way you want.

2. Forget stuff like anatomy. Who cares.

3. Use any tool and as many as you like as long as it makes an unholy mess.

4. Most importantly, have some bloody great fun!

I don’t want to be a “content creator”. I’m an artist, not a list of ingredients.

So, over recent weeks and months I have been creating and experimenting with different ideas to develop my artwork, get my name out there and push myself a bit more. I needed to practice and create more, get my brains running. I run through many ideas in my head and have a notebook full of random squiggles with plans. Life gets in the way as usual, like recently when I have had to be away from home for nearly six weeks on and off. It interrupts my flow, as they call it, but I can get back on the horse pretty quickly.

I draw everyday if I can, sometimes a quick shape, sometimes a full sketch. I can spend an entire Saturday just sat at my desk making monster and other various shapes. I recently started posting videos of me creating monster drawing’s from rocks out of my garden. This links to a story and a video I made about a giant ancient rock creatures called Megalithions. You can see the original video below.

The idea to do the videos came from advice about how to get more people to see your work on social media. There was very sage advice, I have to say. However, the thing that struck me and horrified me most was the idea of Content creation. The advice was not to worry about your work just create content. Even if it doesn’t relate to your actual work, it’s about the content.

Now, I found this a somewhat depressing idea, although I would have to agree. Social media is not about the great artistic good (although there is great stuff out there) it’s just about gaining people’s attention. I really knew this anyway ,I suppose.

My problem is that I don’t want to be a content creator. I’m an artist. Some would say good, many would say bad. Especially as I mainly draw monsters all the time. But to get it in someone’s eyes, you have to create a whacky hook to draw them in. Filming, editing, script and all the other nonsense. The shortform game takes longer to make than the length of the bloody video. I actually don’t mind the long form process, but it again takes time and takes me away from actually making art. Just making a video of me drawing in silence does not cut the mustard, apparently. Well, not according to my you tube figures anyway. I’m sure I could jazz things up a bit more and God knows I’ve gone down various rabbit holes of how to improve things. Honestly, I just can’t be bothered learning these new skills to improve chances of the algorithm. A word I didn’t even know existed 10 years ago. That’s not helping me create art. It’s stopping me.

The wonderful Laura Kidd aka wrote an article about this concerning a recent musical project that I created some art for. I felt guilty about not posting on here for nearly a week until I read it. We shouldn’t have to apologise for working on stuff and not posting on whatever platform. We also chatted recently about the fact we make art, not content. If we don’t like making it, just don’t.

I just want to make stupid stuff and talk to people about it and share it to people. There is no doubt my work would have never been seen by so many people, and I have had the chance to work with so many people, if it was not for social media. However, at what point to you go “hang on, who am I actually making this for and who is seeing it?”

Before the dawn of the microcomputer that lives in my pocket, I would buy comics and art books, go to art galleries, watch films, buy music and so on. I would consume it like food getting great sustenance from it.

I now find my myself consuming empty calories as it consumes me.

I think this image from artist Yo Runner says it all.

So, I’m going to be taking a break for a month or so while I concentrate on my art. Read some more books. Visit some galleries and get some fresh air. I want to improve and learn. I also want to get my art out in the real world and not just the digital. I’m in the middle of organising a small gallery show for Halloween. Among other plans. I will keep you posted in a few weeks.

Thanks for sticking with me. Very much appreciated

Dan

Video Nasties

I can’t really remember the day we got a video player. Obviously in the early 80’s. Rented as we did with the TV. Everyone in the UK pretty much rented any kind of tv stuff back then in the UK. Radio Rentals or some such. The explosion of Rental Video shops meant every little corner shop was getting on the band wagon before the big boys like blockbuster moved in. Our local village one was called Franks video store. The curmudgeonly owner of the shop went from occasional visits for people to buy newspapers, bread and sweets, to dropping everything for shelves of the garish and wonderful art of VHS tapes. He continued to sell the sweets, but the real winner was the Fish and Chio shop next door. The main UK takeaway of choice until the invasion of MacDonald, there were three in the village. This one hot paydirt every weekend, with everyone popping into Franks to get their tapes, and then hitting the chippy for the food to watch the movies.

They were the days of static crackling TVs as we turned it on, flickering VHS tapes, and the smell of greasy chips with cheap pop.

Now, as many of you may know, the VHS boom was a bit of a wild west world until Mary Whitehouse and her National Viewers and listeners association and gutter press like the daily mail brought about the downfall of this with the video recordings act.

They were glory days of visiting the rental shop with its unclassified tapes and lurish covers. My parents would pick up anything with a great cover, action, horror and sci fi. They did love a good horror movie, and we spent most of our Fridays watching the horror double bill on the BBC. This was Hammer Horror, old black and white stuff and the occasional 70s gem like The Crazies, Amityville horror etc.

These of course paled into insignificance once we started renting these vids. The one standing out the most for me of course, Evil Dead. It did get banned at one point as a video nasty as I have mentioned before. However, all the Italian exploitation stuff was essential (Zombie Flesh Eaters, The Beyond, Suspiria etc) plus standard stuff I never got to the cinema as I wasn’t old enough. (Alien, Xtro, American Werewolf in London). I was only 10 or 11 at the time.

My parents had always loved Horror and sci fi stuff. They had a pretty easy going attitude to that stuff. They were cool with gory monsters, action and over the top gun battles. Sexual violence was a no! I did not see I spit on your grave or The Exterminator until years later. They would send me out of the room for any sex related stuff. I was always a bit bemused but totally understand now of course. I wasn’t bothered as I would just get some crisps or something. I just wanted to see monsters eating peoples arms and heads exploding. I think I must have loved being scared as some of these films terrified me so much, I would sit there sweating with fear, hands over my face, peaking between my fingers. My t-shirts soaked with sweat and splattered with chip shop grease. Much to my brothers amusement. My parents and brother still laugh about it today, no matter how terrified I was though, I always wanted more.

I’m sure we picked up more dreadful movies than good, forgotten in the mists of time. The main label that seemed to have some of our faves was Medusa Video.

Horror, action, post-apocalyptic mad max rip offs abound the wonderful Italian movie posters by artis such as Casaro adorned the walls of the video shop. I even wrote to them at one point to ask if I could have any poster. Once a month, they would send me a tube of the glossy posters for the new releases. What a label! At 11 years old I had some of the greatest bedroom walls, full of obscure Italian movies, while everyone else had the latest music sensation. Heady and wonderful times.

Once the Video Recordings Act came into place , many titles where either banned or censored. Shops shut down and the fun was taken away as the major studios just put out the big movies and the small distributors disappeared. It was all Disney Movies and Steven Spielberg.

However, there was a burgeoning underground video distribution service that I will talk about on another date.

If you want to see what a local shop in the UK would have looked like, check out 80’s store in Alfreton.

Keep Creepy everyone!

Dan

All of the links!!!

You Tube- Dan’s Monsters

Kofi - Daily Monsters Zine Volume 1 available now! Thanks!

Ko-Fi - Help me make monsters

Gumroad - Free Art Books!

My website! I need to update to be honest!

Instagram ( a necessary evil i suppose )

Here are a couple of links to buy some actual books:

Books with my art!

Notebooks from Hell

Dansmonsters Strange Paper Books - Pulp reviews from my stupid collection

Come on , you know these rules by now!

1. They are not real, so draw them any damn way you want.

2. Forget stuff like anatomy. Who cares.

3. Use any tool and as many as you like as long as it makes an unholy mess.

4. Most importantly, have some bloody great fun!

Whoever made the infamous Snakes on a Plane movie must have read this. I’m convinced. Except this is Snakes in a Village

The quality of Guy N Smith’s books can be hit and miss. He certainly churned out the volumes for cash. I’m a big fan. They are not for everyone, and he never won any of the big awards. He was writing novels to entertain, read quickly and move on to the next one, using whatever writing hook he could use (gore, action, sex!!). The literary equivalent of a TikTok video! Although not one of his best, Snakes is another fabulous, over-the-top nature gone bad novel from the master. This is a classic B movie Packed into a 176-page treat.

His story revolves around a zoo being shut down. While transporting the snakes, the lorry is involved in a motorway pile-up, resulting in the rag-tag bunch of snakes hightailing it to the nearest village, feeling very angry. Not before a boa constrictor crushes a policeman to death, of course, in wonderful gory detail. What ensues is a parochial and quiet British village under lockdown, locals disobeying the rules, people getting poisoned or crushed, the army searching the surrounding countryside during the hottest summer on record and our chief protagonist snake expert trying to find a way to defeat the snakes with revenge in his blood after his aunt dies. And boy does he save the day.

Now although this is full of the classic Mr Smith tropes, there are only a few mentions of sex but no full-blown accounts of couples getting the love on! There is, though, a plethora of snake violence as they slither into bedrooms, sneak up on people in cornfields, crawl into a pram (a particularly disturbing scene), and various insights into characters that you know are going to die horribly. Including a bizarre series of chapters another of our heroes is stuck in a boiling hot car with his girlfriend as a snake patiently waits for them to die in the heat.

Smith even manages to tell the tale from the snake’s point of view, when they hide themselves in a secret lair (which a policeman falls into this by accident and meets a grisly demise). He creates a strange conversation between the different species of snakes and why they make the Boa Constrictor King of the Snakes.

Strangely for a Smith novel, the hero does not meet the woman of his dreams They are usually always hitting their forties while married /dating/having an affair with someone 15 years younger. Also, although he is a main character, it does not focus on him. Just the various villagers and how this sudden invasion is affecting them. Generally, not in a good way!! He creates these wonderful, short vignettes of characters, that are all destined to die.

My biggest criticism would be the deaths, although great when described, are limited. Apart from being crushed or poisoned, there isn’t any other way to meet the end. So, it’s not quite as packed with visceral details as Night of the Crabs, Alligator, or The Festering.

However, this rips through the tale at speed to the quick and sudden ending. It does read like he ran out of steam towards the end, like Night of the Crabs and he was not sure how to end this. However, this is classic Smith, like putting on a big warm jumper on a cold night and a cup of tea to hand. Always reliable! If you can find a copy, which is getting rarer these days, grab one for yourself. The perfect read for the recent red-hot days in the UK while having a picnic. Keep your eyes out for snakes though.

Thanks for stopping!

Dan

I’m not a massive fantasy fan. I have dipped my toes in occasionally. When I worked at Waterstones book shop I realized there was so much of it!!! I like Sword and Sorcery movies, some of the Conan stuff, and I enjoyed John Carpenter from Mars ( film and books Sword and Planet I believe these are called! Joe Abercrombie’s grimdark stuff and didn’t like Game of Thrones ( yes, we exist). So, I found some of these Brak novels very cheap and thought, why not? The covers are always pretty good and I’m a sucker for that.

John Jakes started writing Science Fiction and Fantasy stories i the 1950’s . He was a contemporary of Lin Carter and a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers Guild of America. The group was formed to promote science fiction and Fantasy writing. His most popular novel that made his name , however , was the Civil War historical fiction series North and South . This was made into a very successful ABC miniseries.

The Brak stories where originally published in Fantastic Magazine in 1965, then printed as a collected volume in 1968. So What is Brak the Barbarian about? It’s a collection of adventures where Brak has to overcome variuous threats on his quest. With his broadsword long braid of blonde hair and only dressed in a loincloth, he’s setting out to to find the fabled land of Kurdishan the Golden, as he has been thrown out of his tribe for questioning there allegiance to the war gods. In the first tale, He ends up in a town and gets harassed by some fellows who end up being these great, weird creatures with knives for hands who follow the spectacular H P Lovecraft-sounding Yob Hoggoth, bringer of dark. That’s where it all kicks off.

There is the evil, soul-taking Septegundus, who promises a dire revenge for Brak’s humbling of himself and his dark god. Later, Brak is enslaved at the terrible mines of King Ushiram of Toct and starts a slave rebellion; confronts the conjurer Ankhma Ra whose Silk of Shaitan can rip the living heart out of anyone it touches; battles the treacherous Zama Khan at the ruins of cursed Chambalor and frees thousands of ghosts who had been trapped there in prolonged torment; and saves the life and throne of Queen Rhea of Phrixos (after she first saved him at considerable risk to herself) averting her enforced betrothal to the odious Lord of the Tigers. He’s a prisoner, a doppelganger for a dead prince, a bodyguard, and an assassin in various tales.

We also enter a world of weird Lovecraftian horrors, evil wizards, and some amazing monsters! The Doomdog, haunting the caverns of Toct; the Fangfish, in a deep pool at a sinister mountain pass above the realm of Tazim, Lord of the Tilling; T’Muk, The Thing which Crawls, a highly poisonous giant spider at Chambalor’s desert; and a giant scavenger slug, which in the aftermath of battles at Phrixos feeds on dead (and wounded) soldiers. )

Brak has a strict code of honour that he adheres to at all times, even if it puts him in harms way. He is also determined to continue his quest at all costs, even abandoning the gifts of Kingdoms and the unrequited love of Queens and Princesses.

A lot of gruesome violence that surprised me. Some of the writing is typical old-world Conan-style fantasy but the fight scenes are more brutal and gory than any Conan novel. I have to admit, about a quarter of the way through I was ready to give in. The style of writing was very meandering and cliched fantasy and I was not feeling it at all. However, as the action ramped up and the story got weirder, I really did enjoy it. It’s a quick fantasy romp of pure pulp pleasure. I recommend you give it a go!!

If you want to read more about Brak, there is a great article on the Dark Worlds website .

All of the links!!!

You Tube- Dan’s Monsters

Kofi - Daily Monsters Zine Volume 1 available now! Thanks!

Ko-Fi - Help me make monsters

Gumroad - Free Art Books!

My website! I need to update to be honest!

Instagram ( a necessary evil i suppose )

Here are a couple of links to buy some actual books:

Books with my art!

Notebooks from Hell

Dansmonsters Strange Paper Books - Pulp reviews from my stupid collection

Come on , you know these rules by now!

1. They are not real, so draw them any damn way you want.

2. Forget stuff like anatomy. Who cares.

3. Use any tool and as many as you like as long as it makes an unholy mess.

4. Most importantly, have some bloody great fun!

Ok, so, as some of you may have noticed I have had a touch of a rebrand, or a retro active rebrand. My old mucker George the beast has been the mascot for the Monster Bomb Club for a while, and he was the image I used for a long time before I changed to the one with my face and the sunglasses. I was going to stick with it. Certainly, as my dansmonsters moniker consistently had the problem of people thinking it was dancemonsters and a line dancing thing.

Anyway, I had paid for a website, t shirts, ink stamps business cards, stickers all with that moniker and of course my email. I pondered for a long time about scrapping them all in favour to the monster bomb art stuff. I would have to basically scrap all the George stuff and start a fresh.

After much deliberation, question asking and research about branding etc I got very confused and bogged down in the minutia of it all.

So, I just thought sod it. I have spent a fair few years building the Dansmonsterverse Why spend time trying to create a whole new world when I was happy with the one I had, even if it made people think I was a demonic line dancer.

So, George has returned. He is going to be getting a bit of work soon, as he has got a bit battered and worn after not being properly honoured. He is still the mascot of the MBC and if anyone buys anything from me, they automatically become a member. The Dansmonsterverse has some big plans, but I’m just taking my time as I need to apologise to George for putting him on a shelf for a while. He gets quite angry and hungry, so I need to appease him.

I hope you still stick around.

Stay Weird. Draw Creepy. Have Fun.

Dan ( and George)

All of the links!!!

You Tube- Dan's Monsters

Kofi - Daily Monsters Zine Volume 1 available now! Thanks!

Ko-Fi - Help me make monsters

Gumroad - Free Art Books!

My website! I need to update to be honest!

Instagram ( a necessary evil i suppose )

Here are a couple of links to buy some actual books:

Books with my art!

Notebooks from Hell

Dansmonsters Library of Doom - Pulp reviews from my stupid collection

Come on , you know these rules by now!

1. They are not real, so draw them any damn way you want.

2. Forget stuff like anatomy. Who cares.

3. Use any tool and as many as you like as long as it makes an unholy mess.

4. Most importantly, have some bloody great fun!

Honestly, this is one of the proudest I’ve ever been of any artwork i have ever created. Not sure wether i’m just buzzing of the fact I got the chance to do some art for Ste aka Myths and Monsters, a musical artist I have admired for a while now and still honoured to be asked to contribute. Plus, we found out we only live around the corner from each other!!

The EP is released today on bandcamp , avaiable on tape and ( this is from the bandcamp page!)

“ a 3D-printed, hand-assembled USB cartridges inspired by classic Sega Mega Drive / Genesis games.

Each USB contains three EPs - Genesis, East and West, and Beyond - with 11 tracks in total (320kbps audio). Purchase also comes with a download of Genesis in multiple formats.

USB carts are 3D printed in black resin, featuring a high-quality vinyl sticker on the front and an embossed Myths and Monsters logo on the back. “

If synthwave retro game inspired music is your bag, please go support ! It’s a great DIY music project that I love! You can find everything here:

https://mythsandmonsters.bandcamp.com/

Plus you can follow Myths and Monsters on the gram: https://www.instagram.com/myths_and_monsters/

Anyway, a quick breakdown of how the idea came about!

Ste sent me some ideas and we chatted back and forth. We both liked the idea of doing something Star Trek Borg like but not as menacing. I sketched some ideas and eventually came up with something so sent him the basic idea. Luckily, he like it!

I pencilled it up , taking probably the longest I have ever done in a while as I really wanted to get this right! Then, using my trusted parallel pen and a quick prayer to the art gods and Jim Mahfood , I inked the thing. God, how I hoped I was not going to make a crap attack of this part! For the first time ever, I impressed myself! Not something I would normally attempt but always wanted to. I can draw monsters with my eyes shut at this point. This was a great way to stretch my skills and learn new ones!

Then onto colouring. I originally had the whacky plan of painting it and adding wires and stuff, like a Dave Mckean or Russell Mills painting, but realised i neither had the time or talent for that. So , onto some digital magic and hey presto, after much colour way deliberation it was done!

Luckily, Mr Myths and Monsters was very happy! he then did his design magic on the tape and cart and boom its out for you to get in yer ears today! Please go support indy music!!

As always, cheers for the support

Dan

All of the links!!!

You Tube- Join the Monster Bomb Club

Kofi - Daily Monsters Zine Volume 1 available now! Thanks!

Ko-Fi - Help me make monsters

Gumroad - Free Art Books!

My website! I need to update to be honest!

Instagram ( a necessary evil i suppose )

Here are a couple of links to buy some actual books:

Books with my art!

Notebooks from Hell

Dansmonsters Library of Doom - Pulp reviews from my stupid collection

Come on , you know these rules by now!

1. They are not real, so draw them any damn way you want.

2. Forget stuff like anatomy. Who cares.

3. Use any tool and as many as you like as long as it makes an unholy mess.

4. Most importantly, have some bloody great fun!

Before I start, you are probably thinking whats going on with the name? I decided Library of Doom just didn’t reflect tha nature of all the different genre of books Ive been reading. I was never really happy with the name, but when tis one opped into my head, I thought it sounded good! I am also going to create a physical zine. I make far too much work for myself!! Anyway, that’s the housekeeping done, onto the review.

A Hamlyn novel from 1980 by Mark Ronson, (not to be confused with the musician!!!) a pseudonym for Marc Alexander. He wrote several titles including Ghoul, Blood Thirst, and one of my favourites and a best-seller at the time, The Plague Pit. Ronson was a pseudonym for Author Marc Alexander, who wrote about 70 books and was a fleet street journalist and professional photographer. He was also the Anchor man in the fascinating documentary film ‘Bangladesh, I Love You’ starring Muhammad Ali and following him as he visited the area. He died in 2020 aged 90. So now you know!

The plot revolves around Photographer Richard Finlay who moves into an old farm left to him by his uncle after discovering his wife has been having an affair. Once he has moved in a reporter by the name of Patricia Derbyshire comes to talk to him about the family house ( Calgarth House, Richard’s uncle being the last of the Calgarths), but is there to investigate the mysterious boarded-up tower and the legends behind it. I don’t need to tell you how this relationship develops. At the same time, a serial Killer is on the loose called the Leopard Man, and with some mysterious deaths, the villagers are pointing the finger at Richard. Then the killer is caught, but the deaths continue. The action then ramps up for a moment, with a Straw Dogs style attack on Richard’s home, as one of the villagers, Clegg, has a historic dislike of the Calgarths. Once this madness is dealt with, We then discover from a local Vicar, a friend of Richard’s uncle, that the village church of St Michaels was built on a pre-Christian site and the Calgarth tower is connected in some way to the current deaths as vagrants who had slept in the tomb and died where in the same condition as the recent ones.

The story then ramps up to be part folk horror, part Quatermass ( government ministers, scientists ) part disaster movie. It’s a strange title for the book. I was expecting The Ogre to be a horrible fang-toothed beast. It’s a life-sucking amorphous blob, moving along the tunnels under the village and moors. When it finds a victim, it crushes and drowns them with its slime and sucks all the liquid out of them leaving a broken husk behind. There are several, gruesome attacks and attempts to destroy it, which include a claustrophobic tunnel chase. Then we get airplanes trying to bomb it, soldiers attacking with flame throwers to no avail and the final battle in the village pub and church, basically melting everyone in its path and a final standoff between Clegg and Richard is a brilliant, gory b movie style delight with an added twist at the very end.

Although a bit slow to start, it’s a great read once the action is turned up. The Ogre dispatches people in a slime-filled, bone-snapping, blood-drenched wonder, sucking the very life out of them and leaving the occasional husk in its wake. The cast of characters, if very stereotypical of the type of novel, are well written. It’s a classic British-style horror novel,a fun, gory, by-the-numbers pulp horror classic. It wastes no time setting up the characters and diving headlong into the horror and action.

I’m not normally a fan of photograph covers. I do like this one. It reminds me of low-budget horror movie effects. The lighting is just right. Sometimes, similar to the Pan Horror books, the imagination of the photographer wins out over a painting! A rare occasion!

I enjoyed this wonderful bit of British horror pulp! See if you can grab a copy. I don’t think you will be disappointed!

I love science fiction movies and TV series from the highest quality to the lowest b Movie exploitation ones with terrible special effects. However, Science Fiction Literature is something I have never really got into. Apart from Novelisations, I have read very few. I respect writers like Asimov, Clarke, and Aldiss, but I could never really get any joy out of them. Sometimes I thought I must be missing out on something as I just didn’t get the appeal. During my time as a Bookseller at Waterstones running the sci fi section, I challenged myself to read some more modern ones. Becky Chambers The Long way to a small angry planet was one of the standouts for sure. Gestapo Mars by Victor Gischler and Behind The Throne by K B Wagers were others I enjoyed very much. However, apart from some classic sci-fi like Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and short stories from the likes of Harlan Ellison, it certainly was not a genre I gravitated to.

I had read some of Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat thanks to the adaptation in 2000ad.

I enjoyed it. Several years later I came across a couple of volumes. I enjoyed them and loved the humour. However, they did not leave me wanting any more so never pursued the rest of the series. Harrison also wrote the classic sci-fi novel Make Room! Make Room! Which was adapted into the movie Soylent Green.

The late Christopher Priest said of Harrison:”Harrison was an extremely popular figure in the SF world, renowned for being amiable, outspoken and endlessly amusing. His quickfire, machine-gun delivery of words was a delight to hear, and a reward to unravel: he was funny and self-aware, he enjoyed reporting the follies of others, he distrusted generals, prime ministers and tax officials with sardonic and cruel wit, and above all he made plain his acute intelligence and astonishing range of moral, ethical and literary sensibilities”

Although a prolific and popular sci fi author, he never won any major awards during his lifetime but he was a cult hero in Russia .

I didn’t know anything about Deathworld when I came across them in a second-hand bookshop. Of course, I had to buy them because of the title. They had been sitting on my shelves for a while before I took the plunge. I’d decided to try a couple more modern sci-fi novels and gave up, to be honest. These had me intrigued by the title and synopsis so took the plunge, and boy am I glad I did!

Deathworld was originally serialized in astounding science fiction, then in Analog magazine in the sixties. The collected story was Harrison’s first published novel. The plot is based around its central character, Jason dinAlt a professional gambler with psi abilities, who is hired to run a stake up into the billions by some colonists of the Planet Pyrrus. After success, he opts to return to the planet with the colonists, fascinated by what they have told him about it. However, Pyrrus is the most hostile world in the universe, with every life form bent on the extermination of the colonists, even the plant life. The colonists have almost superhuman strength due to the planet’s hostile environment.

What unfolds is a tale of all-out action, alien horror, nature attacks, betrayal, and conspiracies. What a rip-roaring ride it was! A brilliant, old-school pulp sci-fi adventure with some great humour. Considering when it was written, it does not feel as dated as some of these early sci-fi tales can be. It’s also a bit of a clunky anti-war novel. The main protagonist Jason Dinalt is a really likable rogue and has a great cast of characters around him. It’s almost an origin team story as well, as the books continue up to volume 7, the last few written in conjunction with the Russian authors Ant Skalandis and Mikhail Akhmanov but, strangely, never published in English. I have the three first volumes and will certainly be reading the continuing adventures.

Another great thing about this book, it’s a short punchy read. If you want inward-looking sci-fi about the meaning of the universe, this is not for you. It’s a quick, entertaining sci-fi romp, punching to the end. Wonderful!

You can find the novels pretty cheaply, but not available on the Kindle. However, there is a really good audio version free on Libravox.

The Ancient Dark

It’s hard to believe that I started the ancient dark project Nearly 10 years ago. 2017 was when I drew he first of these. I t went through various iterations before I came up with the name. Dark Shadows, Shadow Demons, Shadow creatures and others. The Ancient Dark actually came to me winter solstice evening, if my memory serves me right.

My art has spun off into another direction now, but those deep shadows still permeate it on many occasions. Discovery of new tools, digital colours have all contributed to the different directions I have taken.

I struggled for years to come up with a style and still don’t think I have quite nailed it. However, I’ve always drawn pretty scratchy and messy. I always wanted to draw like the artist of early 2000ad, Carlos Esqueera, Steve Dillon, Alan Davis and Belardinelli to name a few. Then the painted stuff suddenly appeared like of Bisley, Cliff Robinson. I was always more taken with the work of the late John Hickleton or Mike McMahon. Then, when the cover work of Dave Mckean appeared (through whom I was introduced to the work of Russel Mills) and the phenomenal Electra Assassin by Bill Seinkiewicz and his even more outstanding Stray Toasters, wanted to do this kind of art.

I tied all sorts of different directions, but nothing seems to fit for me. I think I just wanted it to work and I’m impatient. The thought of spending years perfecting my art never occurred to me. Also, comics are hard. I just could not be bothered with this taking all my time. I just wanted to draw stuff.

So, comics bit the dust, art wise as I realised it was just not for me then. So, entered an art desert, not really knowing what I wanted and not drawing anything of great importance for many years, but certainly reading and absorbing a lot. I was looking through my Instagram feed and the art styles over the years have spun off into all directions! Collage, 3d, oil painting, digital, sculpture. Lots of really detailed messy stuff, lots going on.

It’s pretty obvious that a lot of my work has been influenced by Mike Mignola. His Hellboy stuff with all the monsters was right up my street. I had a friend who worked in a comic shop and introduced me to his stuff plus Ben Templesmith. I think that’s why I decided just to concentrate on the more horror side of stuff. Ditch the sci fi and fantasy attempts. Just keep it monsters. I also think Millers Sin City had an influence. The use of simple shapes, like Mignola, led me to a new way of looking at my work.

As much as I hate to say it these days, I think Instagram helped me form myself into the direction I go in now. It’s a fascinating art time machine and I can certainly see how I have improved. Back in those halcyon days, it was a place of magic and wonder for discovering art. That’s where I discovered the early work of Godsteeth. His simple black and white drawings of grim reapers just struck a chord. He was producing these wonderful little images, and he had hit it big time with his Instagram number, back when it meant something. I must have also seen the work of Jeffrey Alan Love, with his big, blocky wonderful textures.

At the same time, I was reading a lot about folk horror. There have been a million different articles about this, so I won’t go into it now, but I found it fascinating. I was listening to a BBC radio article about religious history of all things. The author explained that we had to remember, back I the 1500’s etc, people were terrified of things in the dark. They believe with terror there where creatures hiding behind trees and in the dark and deep in the woods.Terrifying shadows that would drag you to hell or worse. A time of witches, demons and other horrors the human imagination could muster. I had never really thought of it like that and that’s when it struck me, what would these shapes be and how could I draw these, terrifying ancient shadows. Thus, The Ancient Dark was born. I thought of these ancient creatures, here older than the rocks built in circles to honour them, old as time, pushed further into the dark corners as the world has become more diffused with light!

I started drawing these shapes in my sketchbook, simple forms that I would expand into larger drawings with claws and eyes, but just black and white. Very much in the Mignola/Millar style at first. I then started adding a touch of splatter and a splash of red.

Suddenly, I was inspired. Something clicked that made me want to draw more. Lashings of ink, reams of paper. For almost 2 years, I pretty much just drew these shapes. This was the start of the dansmonsters art journey. As time has moved on, I have developed different style, more details, but it’s always about the shapes.

Some years later I discovered the work of Shapecarver, and he very much spoke my language. Getting those shapes down, simple forms that will inevitably form something strange and wonderful!

I paused a few times, wondering why I was bothering, as I’m sure we have all done. Now, I’m happy with what I do and hopefully the people who do get to see it enjoy it as well.

Oh, and the name. I was sat in a pub next to a roaring fire. It was the at the Winter Solstice here in the UK. The weather was wild and angry. Rain and wind of epic proportions. We had been to Castlerigg Stone Circle in the Lake District earlier that day. Stone Circles and the many theories behind them are yet another historical mine I often dig deeper into. It is a dark, ancient place. I imagined these creatures, hiding behind the monoliths in the shadows, waiting for their victims. I suspect the lubrication of a couple of beers helped me formulate this idea!

You can buy a book with a number of the images and upated ones here if you like.

As always, cheers for the support

Dan

All of the links!!!

You Tube- Join the Monster Bomb Club

Kofi - Daily Monsters Zine Volume 1 available now! Thanks!

Ko-Fi - Help me make monsters

Gumroad - Free Art Books!

My website! I need to update to be honest!

Instagram ( a necessary evil i suppose )

Here are a couple of links to buy some actual books:

Books with my art!

Notebooks from Hell

Dansmonsters Library of Doom - Pulp reviews from my stupid collection

Come on , you know these rules by now!

1. They are not real, so draw them any damn way you want.

2. Forget stuff like anatomy. Who cares.

3. Use any tool and as many as you like as long as it makes an unholy mess.

4. Most importantly, have some bloody great fun!

I was fortunate to pick up a large collection of the Apache books at one of my many bookshops and market visits. Apache is one of the many gritty and brutal Adult Western series, 27 in all, that came out in the 1970s-1980s from the infamous Piccadilly Cowboy Authors. The Piccadilly Cowboys were a group of British writers who gathered in a pub in Piccadilly in London and wrote a series of violent, brutal Western paperbacks in the 1970s and 80s.

These are far removed from the Louis Lamour style westerns popular in the 50s and 60s. They do not take any reference from the Hollywood John Wayne movies but lean into Sam Peckinpah’s Wild Bunch territory. The style and tone are more Spaghetti Western, but with the brutal violence and gore dialled up to 200 %! Each bullet wound could take at least a whole page with its description of the damage inflicted on the human body. The authors were having a great time trying to outdo each other with these!

Although they claim to be written by William James, this was a house publisher’s name and could have been written by either Terry Harknett, John Harvey, or Laurence James. The Apache story is as cliched as the rest of the genre titles, so I pretty much knew the story basics of all these Westerns ( revenge!), I read volume 2 as I have yet to get hold of the first one at a decent price. Currently £45.00 on eBay. You get the basic catch-up of the story so far in the first few pages, so I didn’t miss out on much. I’ll probably download an eBook version. In this one, Cuchillo has recovered from his injuries in a brief couple of weeks ( this guy is tough!) and is out for revenge on the nasty bastard that is this series’ nemesis, the ruthless and sadistic Captain Pinner. the man who killed his wife and child and chopped his fingers off !!! He is going to kill him with the dagger he was accused of originally stealing from Pinner. Pinner originally tortures Chuchillo with said knife ( the finger removal!)

No surprises, this is a brutal, gory, and violent book. It’s a literary equivalent of a Quentin Tarantino/ Sam Peckinpah/Italian Giallo movie, and maybe a touch of Saw-style horror! When the hero takes down a Mexican raiding party, the bloodshed is worthy of any horror movie! The author does not hold back on the red stuff. From scalping’s to eyeball slicing and brain-exploding bullet exit wounds!

It’s a brief read, and all the volumes follow the same theme, but a roller coaster of gritty violet action novels, well written, well-paced, and knows its audience, giving them ( me?) exactly what it wants.

I recommend any of the Piccadilly Western titles, the full, list of series titles can be found on the website, and they are still putting stuff out, albeit digitally now. There is also a great article on the Six Gun Justice website

Cheers, keep reading starnge stuff!

Dan

Assassins is a great book, don’t get me wrong, but apart from spectacular gang-orientated violence, there isn’t as much “ monster” horror as I was expecting.

This is a well-written, fast novel. Don’t get me wrong. It’s an excellent example of splatter punk writing at its best. He pulls out all the stops and fires all the bullets.

I’ve never known a book describes so many different ways a head can explode when blown apart by a shotgun. Honest, I think he must have had a thesaurus to see how many times you can describe grey matter differently.

It’s a book that ramps up the pace from the first couple of pages. The story starts with a wallop as our main guy, Carter, brother is murdered hail of bullets. He is a bodyguard for a gang boss, Frank Harrison, who is having various members of his team and establishments killed off by some unknown rival. What erupts is gang warfare, involving bent coppers, hired killers, car chases, and exploding buildings. The hired hitman, Mitchell, is a great character. I would have happily read a book all about him. There is also a side story about a bunch of cult-style lunatics who are going around killing rich people in various horrific ways because they “deserve it” This sort of ties two parts of the story together, as they go after Frank Harrison and his wife, which culminates in a finale shoot out, knife fight between them and the gang leaders hoods. There is also a tale of Carter, the main protagonist, having a secret affair with the gang boss Harrisons’ wife, Tina.

When the “supernatural “ horror elements briefly rear their ugly heads, they are gruesome and stomach-churning as only Hutson can do. Elements of Ed Gein flesh peeling are thrown in here! There is an example of Hutson at his nastiest best with the male prostitute and the zombie. Truly harrowing and revolting.

My only real problem with this book is the “ supernatural” horror element seems to be the least important. It feels like an add-on because he’s known for that. It’s more like Hutson wanted to write his version of The Long Good Friday but fill it full of Peckinpah Scorsese-styled violence and a mild coating Argento. He does this, really, well. It starts with a mad old priest being taken away from his church about to be demolished and a zombie hand thrusting through the rubble.

That’s it, by the end of the book, the supernatural element is never explored further. I was hoping for some kind of explanation ( spoiler) of why and, more importantly, how these characters had returned from the dead. Unless I missed something. I’ll admit I found myself speed-reading through some of the chapters as I was losing interest in the characters. Apart from the hired assassin David Mitchell. He was awesome! I would read a series of books about him! Check out his website .

Thanks , keep reading some trash!

Dan

Lord knows why I’ve decided to post these.

I was searching through some files, looking at what to chuck in the recycling bin when I stumbled across these. Some I like, some i most certainly do not. However , I realised that some of them are from 2013! So, hopefully I have improved. I have certainly headed in a different direction and a little more assured of myself as an artist. I have become more relaxed and confident in my style and use of the tools. A lot more energy and not worrying about the way my work looks. I think these where definitely the start of an experiment with digital colouring.

Also, I’m a bit older , stuff has happened in my life . My hair has got greyer and my eyesight worse. Age does not have a great list of good advantages. One of them though is not giving a rats ass about what people think anymore. I just want to make stuff. I’ll just crack on I think. I’ll let you guess who they are.

Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by. Let me know what you think!

As always, cheers for the support

Dan

All of the links!!!

You Tube- Join the Monster Bomb Club

Kofi - Daily Monsters Zine Volume 1 available now! Thanks!

Ko-Fi - Help me make monsters

Gumroad - Free Art Books!

My website! I need to update to be honest!

Instagram ( a necessary evil i suppose )

Here are a couple of links to buy some actual books:

Books with my art!

Notebooks from Hell

Dansmonsters Library of Doom - Pulp reviews from my stupid collection

Come on , you know these rules by now!

1. They are not real, so draw them any damn way you want.

2. Forget stuff like anatomy. Who cares.

3. Use any tool and as many as you like as long as it makes an unholy mess.

4. Most importantly, have some bloody great fun!

Oh wow. This is classic Guy N Smith. Also, look at that cover!!!! I miss the early font design, but presume this was under NEL copyright!

Published in 1989 by Arrow Books in the UK. Set yet again in Smith’s beloved Welsh countryside, the novel starts with a instant sick bag wallop in medieval times as a chap returns to his village dripping in disease, boils, puss, melting flesh, etc. Everyone is horrified and try to throw him out of the place. His disease eventually kills him, swelled eyes and mouth leaking god knows what, and he is buried deep in the ground by the villagers who think it is a curse of the devil of course!

Cut to the modern day ( well 1989) and a couple, Holly and Mike, have moved from the city to the countryside. As seems the norm for a Smith book, there is a 10 year or so age gap between the couple. Also, quite a number of the main male characters in Smiths books either smoke a pipe or have a writing job or both. Not unlike Smith himself. Anyway, they buy a dilapidated cottage with a chunk of land. The plumbing is completely broken, so they must dig a well in the garden.

However, they dig a hole right over the diseased body. A foul stench emits from the hole and the disease is released again, first infecting one of the workers digging the hole. Needless to say, the infection spreads and chaos reigns in the quiet village. The disease not only covers the body in boils and causes the leaking of pus and slime from everywhere, it also ramps up violent and sexual urges. The victims end up wreaking havoc and turning into toxic, disease-ridden creatures unable to control themselves violently and sexually. It’s a simple story that gently leads us into a tale of tension then ramps up the horror in a confined environment. It thunders along with all sorts of pestilence horror and action as it reaches its grim and bleak ending.

This is trashy, over-the-top, gory exploitive pulp horror at its best. Smith knows exactly what he’s doing here and is on top form. He certainly revels in the descriptions of the festering infected , their weeping slimy bodies, various fluids leaking from the poor victims pustules, eyes, ears , mouths and other orifices. These are wonderfully disgusting, reminiscent of the gloopy body horror of the movie Street Trash. He revels in the description of the destruction on the bodies of the diseased victims.

It’s been mentioned a few times that this was a book written in the aftermath of the Aids crisis, so the subject of unknown, rapidly contagious diseases was still on everyone’s minds. Smith even mentions it a couple of times in the novel. Whether or not he had this in mind when writing it, we will never know.

It also throws around a bit of casual misogyny that some may find a bit harsh. I’m not defending it, just warning everyone. It’s a book written in a different time.

If you like your horror with all its wonderful, over-the-top pulp characters and outrageous gore scenes, I can’t recommend this enough. It has to be one of Smith’s finest works.

Its pretty hard to find the actual print version these days. No copies are available on Ebay as of writing this. Below is the original cover for the novel by the wonderful Les Edwards. However, it was rejected for being a bit too extreme. I think they missed a trick! You can actually buy the original work from the artist website.

Guy sadly passed away in 2020 and a memorial convention was organised by his daughter. You can read about it on the Guy N Smith Facebook page

There is a great article with some brilliant cover images worth a look at RVG Fanatic, Remembering Guy N Smith

Thanks and look after yourselves!

Dan- Head Librarian- Library of Doom and Strange Visions

Want a free Zine? Get yourself to my Gumroad store and you can get my little book of skulls as a downloadable PDF here. It has sketches and quotes all about skulls. Skulls are fun!

When I cannot seem to think of monsters or the art well runs dry , I always turn to skulls. Not in a grim, end of the world, EMO i’m so unhappy with the world way. I just love the simple shapes. I love the way Mike Mignola draws them. Simple shapes. You can draw them funny, evil, simple or highly detailed but they are always a skull. I have drawn a lot of them!

This you tube video shows you some of the drawings in the book and myself drawing one of the weird skull zombie things in my sketchbook. I try not to chatter too much. I always think my voice can detract from the art. I also bloody hate my voice.

I have really enjoyd making these videos. I love sharing my art in the hope it gets other ppeople to try it out and make stuff. Weird stuff. Take a look at old school RPG game designer Alfred Valley you tube channel. He makes weird art and it is great. He believes in people making weird art. I’m all for that. Grab some stuff, make something weird. Music, painting, sculpting. Whatever.

Anyway, here some skulls.

Thaks for stopping , be safe!

Dan

Dan

All of the links!!!

Dansmonsters Library of Doom - Pulp reviews from my stupid collection

You Tube- Join the Monster Bomb Club

Kofi - Daily Monsters Zine Volume 1 available now! Thanks!

Ko-Fi - Help me make monsters

Gumroad - Free Art Books!

My website! I need to update to be honest!

Instagram ( a necessary evil i suppose )

Here are a couple of links to buy some actual books:

Books with my art!

Notebooks from Hell

Come on , you know these rules by now!

1. They are not real, so draw them any damn way you want.

2. Forget stuff like anatomy. Who cares.

3. Use any tool and as many as you like as long as it makes an unholy mess.

4. Most importantly, have some bloody great fun!

After my last post about the state of the nations reading, I thought I would start posting some the reviews of the books from my collection here rather than link to the old medium blog. I just thought it was a good way to share my love of these books and kleep everything under one roof! If you want to see them all you can check them out here . Anywy, let me know what you think and if you would like to see more.

I have an abbreviated version of this on my website so apologies if you think you may have read it before. I have updated the information about the author and added some new links. If you have not, welcome to the Library Of Doom!

Terror of the Seven Crypts the first of the early horror series from NEL, which they randomly just seemed to start and stop numbering for some reason. This is an early one (1974) so not the most gory of tales.

The story is set during the French Revolution and a bunch of characters of noble descent and those connected to them are on the run. After a skirmish, where some Revolutionaries get killed, they are chased from town and eventually find refuge in an abandoned chateau . The cast of characters include a fiery damsel in distress, an aloof noble and servant, a lecherous banker and the handsome soldier to name a few. Plus lot’s of skeletons!

Unbeknownst to them , it is a secret hiding place of the stolen royal treasures of Marcel Fournier, one time partner of revolutionary leaders Robespierre and Marat.

What unfolds is a gothic tale of terror as members of the group disappear. An unknown assailant, chases or leads them to one of the seven crypts, which have various terrible traps and the individuals are despatched in various horrific ways ( spikes, snakes, crocodiles?) .

This a a cheesy, somewhat meandering novel, that seems obsessed with the women’s breasts for a lot of its time! I don’t think it will win any rewards for historical accuracy or characterisation. Saying that, its a light fun read that I really enjoyed. Part murder mystery, part gothic horror. It feels like a novelisation of a Roger Corman movie with Vincent Price, over the top dialogue, strange characters, slight splashes of crimson and with traps as good as any Indiana Jones tale! A cracking hoot of a novel!

Eteinne Aubin was a pseudonym for British author James Moffat. From the late-sixties until 1980 Moffatt wrote for New English Library under his own name and the pen names including J. J. More, Etienne Aubin, Trudi Maxwell, Leslie McManus, James Taylor, Ray Ferrier, Johnny Douglas, Ron Cunningham . He also wrote the infamous Skinhead Books under the name Richard Allen.

Moffatt was born in Canada in 1922 and died in England in 1993. After a spell living in California he moved to England where he wrote a slew of novels between 1965 and 1980, initially for Compact Books and subsequently for New English Library. Unfortunately he took to the drink heavily and didn’t write anything for the last 15 years of his life. His Obituary in the Guardian gives you an idea how prolific he was. There is also a fascinating article here about his Richard Allen Books.

He wrote one more novel under the Aubin moniker, Dracula and the Virgins of the Undead.

More reviews to come. From ultra violent westerns, over the top bloodthirsty action, sword splattering savagery and gore drenched horrors!

Let me know what you think and if you want to see more!!

Dan

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” Ray Bradbury

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
― Joseph Brodsky

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Well, This one turned out a bit longer than I planned.

As I am sure you are all fully aware I read a lot of genre pulp books. Some are better than others, but they come from a time when books where the Kings and Queens of entertainment and made to be avidly read, enjoyed and thrown away. Cheap entertainment for the masses. Quality not always the best but entertaining non the less. Sex, Violence, Horror, Action and short (Many are only 150 pages, some published in series, like the Edge Westerns so you would end one novel and continue the adventures) where the key ingredients. These were churned out at massive scale. Written to be read on the journey home on the bus or train, when more people commuted to work than drove. Certainly, during the 80’s when genre fiction was at its height. I have westerns, adventure, spy, horror, sci fi, fantasy, crime, post-apocalyptic others in my collection. Publishers also started printing books direct to paperback and bypassing the age old hardback first market.

I am sure there are all sorts of socio- economic reasons for the steady decline. Digital technology, better home entertainment, smart phones. I also think a lot of people are put off as a lot of books seem as thick as the bible and it puts people off. We used to get kids groups in Waterstone on world book day, and they just looked to daunting. Publishers are seemingly obsessed with these thick tomes, especially in the sci fi fantasy genre (or Stehen King!) In the UK we had the Net Book Agreement, which was a fixed book price agreement between The Publishers Association and booksellers which set the prices at which books were to be sold to the public. The agreement was concerned solely with price maintenance. It operated 1900 until the 1990s when it was abandoned by some large bookshop chains and was then ruled illegal. A friend of mine worked in publishing and while at a dinner, one of the very senior chaps at Macmillan publishing told him to get out of the game as the agreement was about to be banned and the publishing industry would collapse. My friend did leave a week later to work in the golf industry. Several weeks later, the agreement was abandoned and it enabled supermarkets and of course Amazon* to enter the market and discount at their whim. Independent bookshops went out of business and closed, and many people lost their jobs, just as the Macmillan chap had predicted. There is a great article about the Net agreement here, very interesting and I highly recommend. This rule is still in place in other European countries like France, as they see books as a whole artform to be protected not capitalised ( thus there long arguments with amazon pricing and court proceedings )

However, of course, publishing didn’t die, just went in a different direction. However, the landscape certainly changed, and the mass market paperback went into spectacular a spectacular demise. A recent article in the news has said that Readerlink, US main distributor for mass market paperback has stopped distribution at the end of 2025, you can read more here.

Reading has not stopped, but the way people read has changed. Digital books, digital magazines etc. The more worrying trend it would appear is how little people are reading. I recently discovered that it is National Year of Reading here in the UK. Being an avid reader, one time bookseller, (a job that never leaves you and I still find myself sorting books on shelves at shops) and fan of libraries, I was astonished I had not seen this sooner? I’m not sure what support there is, but in my northern town I haven’t seen anything?

What concerned me most was the terrifying decline in reading. A 40% decline in 2 decades!! Half (50%) of UK adults don’t regularly read and almost one in four (24%) young people (16-24) say they’ve never been readers according to a survey from the reading agency. Plus, there are terrible effects on the lives of people when they cannot read or choose not too!

Alan Moore said read crap books as well as good books, and I could not agree more. I read a lot of crap but also read a lot of non-fiction. I just completed Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman and Careless People by Sarah Wyn Williams (terrifying) as well as Night Blood by T. Chris Nightingale (Rambo meets Salem’s lot) and Deathlands (post-apocalyptic).by Jack Adrian. (I’m going to stat up my book review blog posting again, I will keep you all posted)

Read, don’t scroll, reach for a book in the morning when you wake up, not your phone (or in case anyone wants to know how I find the time. That oni computer can take away time faster than a timelord. Instead of checking my phone in the morning, I have a brew and read for half hour before work. I always have a book at lunchtime in my car and always go to bed with a book /comic / sketchbook/notebook. and leave my phone in another room.

Encourage people around you to read, anything, old books, Crap books, comics, poems, short stories news articles fan fiction, cooking books, anything... Read them digitally or IRL. There is plethora of free digital magazines out there about all sorts. You can learn some amazing stuff. Visit bookshops, not just the big ones, find small ones, buy something if you Cn. Gio to libraries before thy all get shut down. 180 plus libraries have closed in the UK since 2016 and many are now voluntary run.

Ray Bradbury said

“I spent three days a week for ten years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves - you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of ten years, I had read every book in the library, and I’d written a thousand stories.” There is a brilliant video doing the rounds on Instagram where he talks about making a popcorn machine in your head, filling it with ideas.

I’m going to volunteer to read for people. I urge you to do the same. Don’t let Trump and his “I love poorly educated people” be the future. I’m also going to do more stuff associated around books and comics. I know not everyone will like what I like and that fine. Christ, there are enough books in the world too suit everyone’s tastes.

Read Anywhere. On the toilet, read out loud at home, to your pet, to the wall, to the mirror, to a tree , anything but for gods sake please read.

Cheers

Dan

“I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.”

Roald Dahl (British novelist, short-story writer, poet, screenwriter, and wartime fighter pilot)

* Just as a side bar (and as much as we all probably hate it but use it) Amazon did start as a book shop and managed to get a lot of books in peoples hands who may not have had access to stuff. Certainly, for me and the Sci Fi Horror stuff I read that was only published in America. That and the magnificent Bud Plants Books.

Back in August last year, I posted about some of the critters I had been drawing in a sketchbook and the influence of the Italian Artist Spugna ( you can check it out here).

My time seems to have been very limited artwise at the moment. Christmas always takea punch out of me and I struggle to get back into the flow. I’m sure I am not the only one.

To try and get my goove back on, I have been colouring some of the images i created in the sketchbook mentioned. I’m not great with the software, Affinity Photo, and certainly probably only use about 5% of the power it has. I try to keep things really simple and not get bogged down with too many layers or brushes. I use three amybe 4 brushes which i always forget the name of. Im sure there is a smarter way to organise these sort of things, but i have never investeigated. I have ludite approach that works, so thats the main thing. You can see a part of the process ( screen rocording software died) in my latest You TUBE video.

Anyway, here are some of the images i have been colouring. You can see more them on my Instagram, but i will be posting them here more often. Promise .

Thanks as always!

Dan

All of the links!!!

Dansmonsters Library of Doom - Pulp reviews from my stupid collection

You Tube- Join the Monster Bomb Club

Kofi - Daily Monsters Zine Volume 1 available now! Thanks!

Ko-Fi - Help me make monsters

Gumroad - Free Art Books!

My website! I need to update to be honest!

Instagram ( a necessary evil i suppose )

Here are a couple of links to buy some actual books:

Books with my art!

Notebooks from Hell

Come on , you know these rules by now!

1. They are not real, so draw them any damn way you want.

2. Forget stuff like anatomy. Who cares.

3. Use any tool and as many as you like as long as it makes an unholy mess.

4. Most importantly, have some bloody great fun!

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Ouch, this is a long one. Apologies. It may be the ramblings of a grumpy Gen X old timer and a bit contoversial . You may even think I’m a dick . I hope not. I wasn’t even convinced i was going to post it, but I thought, bollocks go for it. No one cares and no one’s going to read it . I just wanted to get it off my chest. Out in the open. Then I can forget about it.

Everybody is complaining about You Tube reach now (mine is virtually non-existent) and the algorithms of Instagram and the fear of AI and the future of the creative industry as it seemingly extracts all the creativity in the world.

Author Noami Alderman described Ai and social media as “draining the well of human creativity and letting the well go dry” She believes these companies should pay something back for using peoples work for training its models etc. I thoroughly agree with that.

That’s when I had a thought. A dangerous thought. A thought on a subject commented on by YouTuber David Achu link in here and I’ll let you watch the video and you’ll see what I mean, and I think he’s right.

Is it time we should pay for social media?

I think we just need to stop complaining about reach and algorithms and just remember it’s a FREE service. Yes, you can pay for more reach or some such but at its base level it’s a free service. Anything you post is using a FREE for all service, to hopefully share with the world your skills, to entertain or inform and maybe help other people. The software belongs to them though; they just design a bit of software enables you to put your stuff on it and its amazing software and it costs a lot of money to design and update. They let you use it for FREE.

Realistically, what we didn’t know, but we all know now, it comes at a cost, and the cost is your data, information and skills for them to use at their will. We give them all our information for nothing; they charge us nothing. It effectively belongs to them, there has been no transaction, no money paid to use this service so you can complain if the thing you have paid for is not working as per the instructions. You have no consumer rights. Its all about consumerism at the end of the day. They want us to consume; we want to consume.

If they want to use it to manipulate ad streams and use it to sell stuff to people, they don’t need, that is their call. That is how they fund this FREE expensive software. We complain about the ads and the algorithm and how no one is seeing your stuff among the millions of other people. Let’s get real, you are working for them for free, while they offer you a free service that we willingly devour and share our whole life on. We are the content. We help the software CREATE THE ADS THAT SELL THE STUFF THAT KEEP THE SERVICE FREE. Just remember that. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like it. I don’t like the fact that all this is owned by a few mighty evil greedy tech lords that can shut you down on a whim, control every aspect of it. You only must-read Careless People by Sarah Wynn Williams to let you know all about that. However, let’s just remember, they need you to create content. Without you they don’t have a company.

Keeping a social media presence is hard work. It’s a full-time job. You must study figures, there is a whole almost scientific theory that needs to check consistently about what posts do better than other, tags, the right keywords, the right time, the right noise, the right music and on and on. I tried looking at it and its bewildering. However, for as many Mr Beasts style success there are double the number of failures. I’m not sure what success means on social media, I’m obviously too old, I’d be the first to admit. Tik Tok is creating highly paid Influencer superstars out of, what seems to me, the most mediocre of subjects, they even have their own awards now. So, it’s obviously a big thing. I think there is a lot of luck involved, right time, right place and a lot of hard work, I’m sure. It just seems so soulless. I just want to make stuff, share it.

The You Tube premium is now a thing, I have no idea how many people have paid for this and if it makes any difference to how the algorithm sends you stuff. I suppose the big difference with you tube is to get to see what you subscribe to, unlike Insta as you may not see a post from someone you follow for months!

I think we must remember, if Instagram is a place to share silly photos of your dog, then it’s great. Silly videos on you tube with lightsabres, impressive. Funny Vines (God, I loved Vine now tik Tok, let’s be honest) brilliant. It’s what it was built for and did (does?) well. I don’t think anyone ever saw it as a place to create a business. I don’t know if the dark tech lord powers always envisaged a point where it all became a designer addictive drug to sell you Teemu clothes pegs, spread lies and give people anxiety.

Much better people have ideas about this, so that’s a whole other dark discussion for another time. Not to sound to dramatic, to quote Antonio Gramscis Prison Diaries “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born now is the time of monsters”

Anyway, as a creative who uses these services, I think it’s time to stop moaning about them. It’s a first world problem. One way or another, if you want people to see your stuff, its just part of the equipment we need. Like a pen, paper, printing, shoes, toilet roll, a chair. It is an everyday western world tool. Yes, it does terrible things , yes it keeps terrible information on us, yes it send us shite that we don’t want it to but at the end of the day we are offering ourselves up to it like a willing sacrifice, so stop complaining , it’s not costing you anything . Don’t gripe about not getting “the likes” or “the hits”. It doesn’t matter what sound you’re putting your TikTok or what filter you are using. We don’t have to pay any of the software designers, we don’t have to pay any of the engineers, we don’t have to pay anything. We are getting all this wonderfully imagined kit for free. We’d have to pay thousands of pounds for the computers, the software and the hosting.

So, what is a way forward. Well, we happily pay on Netflix for our entertainment and are happy to trawl through for an hour to find something to watch. A lot of its trash every but yes, it’s much higher quality than the stuff that I could make for example. Yet, we are willing to pay for it, so then why would we not be willing to pay for some creative endeavour of an artist.

We need to turn away from these mass corporations and create our own communities who are willing to support a creative endeavour. Music, art, writing. I love making stuff, I love sharing my work out there but to do that takes time takes effort and it costs money to make art, it costs money to create content. Now, to be clear, I have a full time job, not in the creative arts. It’s a good job. It pays for my creative hobby. But why should I not be able to ask for a little bit back if people like it to help my art support itself. I’d love just to do this full time, but circumstances have meant this was never a choice for me.

The best way to support anyone who creates is just to buy their stuff, but not everybody wants to buy things, has the room for more junk or afford it. A lot of people just want to see stuff online and that’s fine. The thing is, being creative costs money. An illustrator still has to create the image, a writer still has to write that novel, that short story, a musician still has to buy that instrument and record that music. I think that’s why I was seeing this sort of rise of paywalls, You Tube Premium, Substack and probably the best of all of them Patreon. Thes small Creators are trying to get something back for all their hard work. However, the percentage of people choosing to pay compared to the amount of people who like, subscribe etc is tiny. Something like 1%. Yet people are willing to get the Sky TV, the Spotify, the Netflix, the apple music, the audible, the subscription toilet roll, their subscription shower gel.

I don’t like paywalls and have always tried to avoid them with my work. I think that’s the way forward. I think we need to get back to websites that are good, informative and a central place for all your creative endeavours, not just a shop. A place where people who love your work will come along and support you. I think this should just become the norm, take away the power of the Soc Media companies, just give them little tastes, but not the whole cake. Use them, like they use us. Don’t give them everything. (I realise these do exist in a small way and I’m shouting out my thoughts into the void.)

It’s difficult times for everyone, there’s no doubt about that. Those who want to create and share their work, I think we need to shut up morning and complaining about it and just take control back.

So, do I think we should pay for social media. Yes. I think it would make it a more competitive market and force each company to provide a better service for its paying customers and consumers. I think these companies should be split into smaller concerns. I think if we pay them, they work for us. I think it would give us choice and create a better market.

If you can, support the artist you love. That give you pleasure. That make you laugh or feel good. Subscribe, like, comment. More importantly , invest in them. Buy something, send them a donation, support them on Kofi, Patreon or whatever platform. Help them continue to make your day better.

Rant over. I’ve been thinking about it for a while.

So, going forward, what is the plan. In the next couple of months, I will be experimenting this year. It’s the final countdown. I need to get all my ducks in order. I will be updating my website and try and learn a bit more about the design elements. I have not investigated that for a long time. I’m also going to re-start my Patreon, certainly with a £1.50 tier and maybe one more. Imagine if only half my Instagram followers signed up. That would keep me in pens and paper for a long time. Realistically, I just want everyone to use the website. I need to figure that one out. I want to post on a website where people can visit and have a brew and chat about monsters if they wish. I will not be posting on social media sites as much. I will post on you tube, but not everything. I quite like goofing about on there but will start posting a majority of stuff on the Patreon. It’s going to be a bit more rough and ready, unpolished. I have looked at all the advice, watched the videos etc. Everyone says something different. Longer videos, show your face, use quick edits, use this type of lighting. I’ll just stick to what I’m good at. Rambling on about nonsense, drawing monsters and having fun.

Or, I may just pack up all together, just watch movies and read books. Lets see how it goes.

Thanks if you read to the end . I really appreciate it.

Dan

My Dad wrote this about 40 years ago. I still have the handwritten pages he wrote in black and red Biro in the back of one of my a4 notebooks. They are yellow with age and almost indecipherable because of his madman handwriting. He loves reading and used to write a lot of short stories , even got one on BBC Radio 4. He threw them all away in the end. I took this into my last year in primary school for my teacher to read out just before we broke up for our last Christmas break. It has a very special and chilling place in my heart. I hope you like it. I will let him know if you do. Merry Christmas.

The year was 1874, on a chilly day in November. Nicolas Deyin was walking down a dark London street on the way to his new lodgings. Nicolas was poor but from a good family. By profession he was a lawyer, but young lawyers were plentiful in London and until he was established and made a nay taking on name for himself he had to submit to social petty cases and investigations which just about kept him in bread and a roof over his head.

With fingers numbed by the biting wind he felt in the pocket of his shabby coat for the slip of paper with the address of his new lodgings on. The street was mean and dismal on this November night, empty of any living soul. He peered at the scrap of paper. No 89, Grimsley Road. He looked at the door to his right, Number 73, not far to go anyway. He blew on the end of his fingers and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets and launching his head even further down into the collar of his coat he continued down the street, his footsteps echoing down the hollo canyon of breaks. Coming up to No 89, he grouped the large ant was knocker and rapped it sharply on the door three times.

He waited impatiently stamping his feet and was about to knock again when a glimmer of light revealed itself in the crack between the door and its frame. The sound of a blt being shot back was followed by a creaking as the door opened. An old man stood in the doorway. A candle held in one hand, sheltered from the draft by another, fluttered eerily on the man’s gaunt grey features. His eyes deep rooted in pools of blackness, wispy grey hairs adorning his thinning head scalp. He stood wide to allow Nicholas to step right the hall. “A poor night to be out sir” said Nicholas by way of engaging the old man in conversation. “I was recommended to you by an acquaintance as a respectable yet modestly priced lodging house, have you a room available?” “Yes” replied the old man, “one shilling a week in advance if you please.” Nicholas took the money from his pocket and placed it right in the man’s horn of hand “this way” he said, without a word of thanks and led him along the hall towards the stairs.

Nicholas picked up his bag and followed the floating pool of light caught by the candle up the stairs as the footsteps of the old man. He could see little of the aspect of the place. The stairs were hard and covered in dust, which rose with little puffs at each step. At the top of the stairs the old man led him along a further gloomy hall. Again Nicholas tried to the converse with the old man, but his enquiries as to the number of other lodgers and their occupation was met with a notably silence until realising that he was wasting his breath and coming to the conclusion that the old man was a little peculiar, he fell silent. At the fourth door down the hall, the old man stopped and taking a key from his voluminous black coat, he placed it in the lock, turned it and opening the door he ushered Nicholas inside.

He walked over to the mantelpiece and lit a candle from his own. He left the key next to the candle stick and without another word turned and left the room closing the door behind him. Nicholas threw his bag on the bed with a gesture of resignation. The room was exceedingly cold and damp despite the lack of drafts and Nicholas decided to light the fire before taking his coat off and unpacking. He found a box of matches on the mantelpiece and put a light to the kindling laid on the fire grate. When it was crackling merrily, he placed a few pieces of coal from the scuttle in the grate and stood in front of the fire rubbing his hands feeling some warmth the returning to his chilled hands. When the fire was well established, he took off his coat and had a brief inspection of the room. It was unremarkable in that it was like a dozen other lodgings he had stayed in. The walls were yellowed with age the ceiling marked black with years of candle smoke. The floor was bare except for a square of cheap matting by the bed which with a draw and cheap wardrobe and single high-backed chair was the sole furnishings of the room. A thick layer of dust covered everything; he brushed it off as well as he could before unpacking and placing his clothes in the draw and wardrobe. He undressed and sat in front of the fire. He was exceedingly tired, having had a long day and a long walk to find the lodgings he felt drowsy and content as the warmth of the fire crept over his body. His eyes slowly closed as he began to slip into sleep.

Suddenly he was wide awake, startled by the sound of a voice whispering, first one then a few then a multitude of voices whispering, crying, and moaning in a cacophony of sound. He felt the hairs on nape of his neck rise and he shouted, “hello, who’s there?” The voices ceased immediately at the sound of his voice only ringing back from the walls. The silence that followed was as bad as the voices. The thick utter silence was broken only by the fire burning and spitting.

Nicholas put down the strange voices to a rick of his imagination brought as by his trembling and he resolved to go immediately to bed and put a good night’s sleep.

He placed a good supply of coal on the fire and slipped between the sheets of his bed, which although having a musty smell were reasonable clean and did not have any of danger. In no time at all he slipped into a deep sleep. It must have been some hours later when he woke. He was covered in perspiration and felt exceedingly warm. He was breathing fast and the air entering through his mouth and nose was acrid and hot, stinging the back of his throat. His eyes were watering and with some effort he cleared them and his eyes sprang open. A shout of alarm leapt past his lips he was surrounding by a thick chocking smoke and from the smoke the multitude of voices he had heard earlier roared forth. This time there were louder, comma screaming, moaning, and crying in a heart breaking and terrifying manner. He started from his bed in alarm, but the smoke was so thick he could not even see the corners of his room. He felt his way to the door coughing and choking in the smoke and tore it open, the corridor outside was equally smoke filled and to his right, away from the stairs, a roaring wall of flame stretched from floor to ceiling. It was from this point that the terrible voices roared out, he put his hands over his ears but still they cried on. He thought he saw shadowy figures behind the wall of flame and one form seemed to stand in the middle of the wall of flame. The flesh almost burnt from its head the skull gleaming white the eyes empty sockets, the mouth a black hole, opened in a terrible heart-rending scream.

Nicholas in a fit of terror ran for the stairs his arms flailing as he fought his way through the choking tendrils of smoke. He stumbled down the stairs severally times close to falling full length. He could hear flames roaring behind him and the cries of the tortured souls trapped in them gradually drew nearer until he felt his ears would burst. He reached the bottom of the stairs and ran for the door. He wrenched it open and ran into the air which before was so uninviting now tasted like nectar to his scorched lungs. He leaned on the wall sucking in air in great heaving gasps when he was partially recovered, he turned back towards the door.

The interior of the house was now a roaring inferno. The screams and moans of the terrible shadows haunting the flames roared in his ears and he seemed to a fall into a dark dreamless, bottomless, pit. The faint thing he saw when he awoke was the face of his friend, Stephen Parker bending over him he was a warm comfortable bed and a cheery room which he recognised as Parker’s home.

“What happened to the poor people, were they saved by the fire brigade?” he tried to rise from the bed, but his friend gently pushed him back down. “Come on now, old man” he said to him, “you have had a pretty bad time now drink this.” He drank the potion and once again fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

It was some days before Deyin recovered to enough to explain to his friend the terrible happening that had left him this bad state. Parker was at first dubious then later worried and concerned. “Lord Nicholas,” he said, “you were found at the end of Grimsley St, fully dressed with your bag, you had apparently fainted from the cold and hunger and finding my address in your wallet, save firstly the policeman brought you to my house”. Nicholas protested “but I was in a lodging home in Grimsley St when the fire started,” he shuddered as he remembered the terrible flames creeping slowly towards him, “how could I have been fully clothed, I left in my shirt and nothing else?”

Parker took a newspaper from the side of his chair. “Look at this,” he said not austerely and disgruntled. Deyin took the paper and read. On the front page was an article about a fire in a lodging house in Grimsley St. Twenty-five people had died in a terrible blaze – “there” said Deyin, “I told you – the. it is, 89, Grimsley St. Parker looked at him, - “look at the date on the paper. Deyin could not believe his eyes – November 12^th, two before he had taken a room there. He was flabbergasted, unable to believe the evidence of believer the paper. The day after he and Parker went back to Grimsley St. Number 89 was a ruin of hole where brick. Deyin pushed open the scorched door and out of the corner of his eye he saw the watery winter sun glint on an object lying just inside the door. He lent and picked it up – it was the shilling he had given to the old man on the night of the 14^{th of} November.