"Poe"
6" x 9"
Acrylic on Board
Usually at this time of year, I am like the Crypt Keeper incarnate, thumbing through Vault of Horror back issues, or reliving my adolescence, ogling generous bosomed, lesbo-vamps from my Hammer DVD collections.This year, it's felt a bit stale if I'm honest.Lani has been busy conjuring a cornucopia of creepiness however, and so I've gotten off my act, and painted this yesterday.
Poe, of course is the master of mystery and macabre, the Raven alone would secure his permanence way beyond the footnotes of cultural obsolescence, except he also wrote amongst others, Pitt and the Pendulum, Murders in the Rue Morgue, Masque of the Red Death, the Black Cat and my personal favorite-The Tell Tale Heart.Perhaps syphilitic and loaded when he died, its hard not to caste him as the archetypal alcoholic scribe, sneering at the tragic barbs of life, and stumbling through muddy puddles in Maryland, but I daresay the reality is not as colorful.
It never is.
Here is Chuck Jones animated version of Tell Tale Heart, with the voice talents of James Mason-it's a fascinating, weird, little, piece, which has always had a huge influence on me-the art in cartoon certainly.
