This Thursday, decease Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles will host the reception for The Ghost of Delilah and Other Stories. Conceived by the mystical brain[s] of Travis Louie, illness the unique show will feature paintings and drawings by Travis with Craola, Chet Zar, Lola, Fred Harper, Molly Crabapple, Dave Chung, Ewelina Ferruso, John Park, Lisa Gloria and yours truly.

Kim Boekbinder as The Impossible Girl by Travis Louie

Travis Louie collaborated with each artist to create drawings that merge different styles and concepts in a sort of exquisite corpse format. The result: playful, distinct graphite amalgams unlike anything any of these folks have done before.

Travis working on his section of the collaboration with Ewelina Ferruso, Phelps Dreams of Being a Rabbit

The Ghost of Delilah and Other Stories opens at 7pm this Thursday, December 2. See you there!

Alas, most of us are too old to go door-to-door demanding Halloween candy. (Unless we’re chaperoning/living vicariously through wee ones, that is.) And not everyone who yearns to will get the opportunity walk in a big, fancy, life-affirming Dia de los Muertos parade like this one, or this one. But fear not. There are still plenty of holiday treats to be had.

photo by Tim Piotrowski

Firstly, Dark Dark Dark’s got two tracks available for FREE download (the original version and remix of their song “Daydreaming”) via NYLON. Nona Marie’s voice is tremulously lovely– the perfect entity to kick up autumn leaves and sip cider with.

Secondly, Beats Antique just threw a kooky, kitschy Halloween/AllSaints/AllSoul’s EP up on their Bandcamp page, also free! And you can watch the most recent installment of their ridiculously entertaining tour diary video above, as well as all of the previous chapters.

Thirdly, as a way of saying thank-you to their devoted fans, and to celebrate their 10th “Bandiversary“, the Dresden Dolls are offering their entire full-length album of live material and outtakes, A Is For Accident, for free download. Donations encouraged and appreciated, but not required. (Psst: there’s some violin you might recognize on the track above, titled “Will”.)

“Trailer for the documentary La Santa Muerte (Saint Death), directed and produced by Eva Aridjis, narrated by Gael García Bernal, distributed by Seventh Art Releasing. Film synopsis: In Mexico there is a cult that is rapidly growing- the cult of Saint Death. This female grim reaper, considered a saint by followers but Satanic by the Catholic Church, is worshiped by people whose lives are filled with danger and/or violence- criminals, gang members, transvestites, sick people, drug addicts, and families living in rough neighborhoods. “La Santa Muerte” examines the origins of the cult and takes us on a tour of the altars, jails, and neighborhoods in Mexico where the saint’s most devoted followers can be found.”

Whoa… the DVD was only officially released on October 7th, but quickly checking Amazon, I see the distributor’s already run out of stock! Hopefully they’ll have it back in, soon.

Just in time for Goth Christmas™, Zo has released two gorgeous prints, available over at her site, Biorequiem. Featured are the Snake Charmer illustration from Issue 04, as well as the ravishing Mommy-Four-Legs, originally created for Travis Louie’s group art show, titled “Monster?” The artworks are available for a limited time as  8.5 x 11 prints on velvet photo rag paper, and can be purchased separately or together for a special price. Details here.

Elaine Comparone is the Tony Iommi of Baroque harpsichord, and you’re about to get your face rocked off, Rameau style.

Via Darla Teagarden, who says, “imagine running through a house of mirrors in Greece circa 1927 after smoking hashish while wearing tiny shoes.” (Perfect!)

Comparone claims Rameau’s shredding piece of music was inspired by Homer’s Polyphemus. Other scholars suggest that the French composer was representing the BRVTAL brothers Arges, Brontes, and Steropes –Cyclopean blacksmiths who forged lightning bolts for Zeus– and that the insanely manic percussive runs are meant represent the giants busy at work, hammering and forging thunderbolts. Either way? MMM\m/ETAL.

A preface for the unfamiliar, potentially aghast reader: the English Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter was, according to all accounts, a gentle and kindhearted man. (Read more about him here, and here.) All the animals Potter used in his work were said to have died of natural causes. Apparently, he never harmed any creature presented in his displays. Rather, he arranged to take carcasses off the hands of a local farm and veterinarian. Additionally, as his reputation grew, the community he lived in began to donate expired critters.

Bride from “Kitten’s Wedding”

Today, many perceive his elaborate anthropomorphic dioramas –featuring various dead animals: kittens, puppies, rabbits, ducks, squirrels, frogs, etc, imitating domestic human life– as grotesque, but bear in mind that at the time they were made, and for many decades following, the creatures in Potter’s vast collection were well-admired as an elegant source of “Victorian whimsy”.

Long after Potter’s death, crowds still came to view his thousands of creatures at the Potter Museum in Bramber, Sussex, England. (Then, later, at Cornwall’s Jamaica Inn.) However, sensibilities change.  By the end of the 20th century, fewer and fewer devotees were making the pilgrimage to see Potter’s body of, well, bodies. The vast collection was finally dismantled and sold off in bits and pieces in 2003, to a wide array of buyers, for roughly £500,000.

“Rabbit and Hen”

“It caused outrage when John and Wendy Watts split up and sold the historic dioramas. […] Artist Damien Hirst, a huge fan of Walter Potter’s work, said he would have paid £1 million to keep the collection together.” Now, eight years later, many of the pieces have been reassembled in an exhibition at the Museum of Everything in Primrose Hill, London. Co-curators James Brett and Peter Blake did their best to retrieve as many of the dioramas back on loan as they could. Opening today, the gallery showing includes several of Potter’s most famous pieces: “The Death of Cock Robin,” The House that Jack Built”, and “Happy Families”.

“A Friend In Need”

Unsqueamish Coilhouse readers in the UK/Europe, don’t miss this rare opportunity to see Potter’s fascinating work in person! (It runs through December.) Please be sure to report back. Several more images after the jump.

Curse of the Wolf Girl, by Martin Millar / cover art by John Coulthart

“In London, Kalix is on her way to remedial college to try and improve her reading skills, Vex is going too, and Daniel is still pining over Moonglow. Yum Yum Sugary Snacks are refusing to rehearse, Dominil is getting annoyed and Decembrius is wondering what to do with himself. In Scotland, Markus, now thane of the Werewolf Clan, is wondering if he should tell his girlfriend about his habit of cross-dressing. Malveria, Queen of the Fire Elementals, and Thrix, Werewolf Enchantress, have some important fashion engagements coming up, but the werewolf hunters haven’t forgotten about them, and neither has Princess Kabachetka, Malveria’s deadly rival.”

The above is the author’s  own spirited synopsis of Curse of the Wolf Girl, a follow up to his previous effort Lonely Werewolf Girl, which introduces and follows the tale of  Kalix, the titular lonely werewolf girl, and a cast of gloriously oddball and yet remarkably compelling characters.  Their story – fraught with grunge and gore and violence galore, and underscored by a strange dark humor somehow both sly and ingenuous at once – makes for a gleefully irresistible read.

Martin Millar’s complex series – a veritable lycanthropian soap opera –  features said oddball characters, along with “multiple races, enchanting fashion trappings, business, family dynamics, music, sex, enduring love, romance, business, eating disorders, drug addiction, back-alley fights, epic battles, politics, and, most prominently, the contrary nature of werewolves”.

Millar has also authored The Good Fairies of New York, Suzy Led Zepplin and Me, and The Thraxas series (as Martin Scott) for which he won the World Fantasy Award in 2000.  See after the jump for our Q&A, in which he thoughtfully discusses past and present influences and future endeavors, while hitting The Sex Pistols, Jane Austen and T Rex in between.

First Encounter

A young girl in a scarlet hoodied romper stares gravely up into the heavily furred, ferociously fanged face of a black wolf.  A lesser creature might be shamed by the child’s frank gaze – her features set earnestly, courageously, eyes alight with curiosity, and perhaps, even compassion.

Is the wolf to be deterred by this sweet faced thing, obviously unafraid?  Will it stray from it’s monstrously predictable fairytale course?  No, it is not. Will not.  Cannot — after all, that is what it wolves do, isn’t it?

And before you can blink it has swallowed the girl whole.

But, wait…

The ambitious, online highly atmospheric video for “Devil of Mine” from The Moulettes self titled album resembles nothing less than a Baroque fairy tale “creepshow” and/or meandering  hallucinatory dream told through a “pioneering technique utilizing live action, stuff stop motion, and motion GFX”.

A twisty track that is at turns sinister, playful and cleverly, unexpectedly catchy – at 2:06, for example: the juxtaposition of Hannah Miller in a puritanically prim ruffled night dress and cap surrounded a ghoulishly jazzy, finger snapping beat crowd – this is a delightfully decadent, debauched, yet danceable “cacophony of sound”.  A real toe (bone) tapper!

Bonus!  Here is some sneaky backstage footage of the video.

Second-hand Tang Poem, Maleonn’s series from 2007, is only a small sample of a portfolio overflowing with surrealistic delights, but it is among my favorites. These black and white dioramas tell the story of a mystical, far off land — a tale both somber and silly. It’s a dichotomy seen throughout his work and he uses this balancing act to great effect. His work isn’t on exhibition in the US at the moment, but he does have a show at Blindspot Gallery in Hong Kong.