Scott Nicolay

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Tag: Lee Brown Coye

Stories from the Borderland #12: “The Damp Man” by Allison V. Harding

weird_4905The previous installment of Stories From the Borderland examined “The Cactus,” a tale by Mildred Johnson, an enigmatic female author who published only two known stories, both in Weird Tales. This week the author of our featured selection is another mysterious byline from Weird Tales. Allison V. Harding was not only the magazine’s most prolific contributing female author: she was its tenth most prolific contributor altogether, well ahead of many of the magazine’s better known male authors such as Ray Bradbury or Frank Belknap Long. And though we know much more about Harding than Mildred Johnson, she remains in many ways even more enigmatic. She may in fact be The Unique Magazine’s most enigmatic author of all, and its most enduring mystery. Continue reading

Nick Gucker: Throwing a Stick at the Moon| The Outer Dark: Episode 13 — SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

KLAW Color cover 72dpiNick Gucker, AKA Nick the Hat, one of weird fiction’s most beloved artists and the designer of The Outer Dark’s logo, shares his secret superhero origin story growing up weird on the water and in the woods of rural Alaska, how he journeyed south to Seattle to study art and play in punk rock bands, his early love of Ambrose Bierce, an affection for the surreal naturalist horror of Algernon Blackwood, physicality and monsters in William Hope Hodgson’s work, strange fish and the deep abyss of the ocean in his art, peeling back and creasing the skin in anatomy class and beyond, an odd subliminal influence of Dr. Seuss fueled PaintedMonsters_cover_001_FC_smallperhaps by the more disturbing aspects of Yertle the Turtle and the sheer terror of the pants with nobody inside them, designing the logo for The Outer Dark, finding a home at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and NecronomiCon Providence, adventures in Bali and Asian influences on his art, his favorite punk rock outsider artists from Blinko to Walsby, complexity in his art as a way to entice observers to explore the image longer and more deeply, collaborating with authors/publishers/magazines/convention organizers throughout the Weird Renaissance, recent work including the cover for Orrin Grey’s Painted Monsters and Other Strange Beasts (Word Horde), his commitment not to indulge in the exploitative side of pulp art, what he’s working on now and next, and his recommended artists working in the Weird today including Mike Dubisch, Mike Bukowski, Jeanne D’Angelo, Dave Felton, Chris Mars, Skinner, Paul Komoda, Josh Yelle, Allen Williams, Robert H. Knox and Liv Rainey-Smith.

This archival episode will be available again at This Is Horror soon. In the meantime, subscribe at iTunes  or Blubrry to make sure you don’t miss an episode.

MythofFallingJacobMore Links:

https://esoterx.com/2013/01/09/the-fearsome-alaskan-tlingit-kushtaka-if-its-not-one-thing-its-an-otter/

“What Was I Scared Of” By Dr. Seuss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxuhKur2IYo

https://www.blancomuseum.com/

https://www.outsiderart.co.uk/blinko.htm

https://www.pusfan.com/art.htm

https://dennisdread.blogspot.com/2007/06/legacy-of-mad-marc-rude.html

https://www.brianwalsby.net/BrianWalsby.net/Home.html

https://witchhouserocks.com/

Next week’s guest: Craig Laurance Gidney, author of Skin Deep Magic (Rebel Satori Press) and The Nectar of Nightmares (forthcoming from Dim Shores)

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