Featured Creature: Girl in the Shadow

"Franklin and I found the missing girl at the graveyard near Hadley Heights.  A faint mist had moved in after sunset and it danced around the gravestones as we searched.  At our approach, the girl seemed to be floating in mid air.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: History Set IV, Border Guard

This piece has been particularly challenging to bring to any kind of completion.  It has gone through four distinct phases where I thought it was finished, yet each time when I moved to post it, it felt wrong or incomplete in some way.  Each time I went back and re-explored it until it felt finished again.  This is the most final it has felt thus far.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: History Set III, Dionysus at Sunrise

Today is the eighth anniversary of my first posts on Zombie Bites.  Although for many of those years this blog has lain fallow in terms of posts, since 2011 there has been a maelstrom of activity.  I suppose that the past two years have been more about playing catch up and getting things up to speed, but there has also been a dramatic change in the attitude and direction of my art.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: History Set II, A Bright and Distant Plain

"In the dream, I emerged from a deep pool.

The liquid was hot and black and nearly reflectionless.  There was an olive coloured steam coming off of it in areas.  The vapor danced across the surface like flame and dissipated quickly as it rose.  The liquid flowed with a rhythm not unlike breath.  At the edges of the pool it expanded and retreated in miniature tides.  Unsettled by its motion, I moved to the edge and climbed out.  The pool was surrounded by a ring of rough white rock and as I climbed I saw the bright desert plains that extended on all sides beyond it.  

Featured Creature UPDATE: The Night Thing Part II

The following is the continuation of the short fiction presented for the Featured Creature piece, The Night Thing.  The good news bad news here is that although I am updating the story here, this isn't all of the story.  Once I got fully into editing, several plot points expanded a bit and so did the page count, which created more pages to edit.  Regardless, I will be posting each update to the original post as I go If you would like to read the pieces as a continuous whole.

The Night Thing Part II

Ricky began sweeping.  Margaret had left him a long list of cleaning duties to be done by morning.  The store was being reviewed next Wednesday and Margaret always wanted the store cleaner than a new car on review day.  That always meant more work for Ricky: clean behind the shelving units, dust every surface, reorganize the freezer, sweep and mop twice during shifts.  Margaret was generally a relaxed manager, she even let him wear his earphones on third shift, but when a review was coming around, she became a relentless bitch.

From the Archives: The Burning Dead

My vision here was of an undying creature that even fire would not destroy.  Kind of the way a burned vampire might look after an unsuccessful assassination attempt, but more of a zombie or a ghoul.  Lack of flammability would certainly makes those guys more fearsome. 

Featured Creature: The Melted Man

"I did not realize it was present until I heard the hollow groaning of its breathing.  As I turned, it made a shrill moaning noise and retreated, its skin visibly boiling at the touch of my flashlight's beam.  I felt pity for the thing's suffering and moved my light away.  I only caught a glimpse as it struggled to escape, leaving a glistening trail of itself behind as it disappeared somewhere in the depths of the cavern.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: History Set I, The Rape of Persephone

I had plans for the History Set pieces leading up to  Zombie Bites eighth year anniversary, but the universe, as usual, has other ideas.  I'm apologizing in advance for the terseness of the History Set posts.  I've run out of time and my energy over the past couple of weeks has completely bottomed out.  I think the events of this past year have taken a much greater toll than I originally thought.  I've been feeling run down lately and each new post gets harder and harder to write.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: Veiled Essence

The slow unveiling of a heart.

The Moth Diaries Trailer

Here is the trailer for The Moth Diaries.  I am fascinated by this girls face.

From the Archives: DC Comics Joker

Here we have a quick sharpie sketch portrait of DC Comics' Joker.  I was trying to bring in some elements I hadn't seen in the Joker while keeping the violent mania essential to the character.  I looked at Tim Curry as Doctor Frank n furter while drawing.

Featured Creature: Priest of the Eye

The following is a translation from Die Tür Des Bösen:

"The Svyash Chenniksglaza, or the Priests of the Eye, are an ancient fanatical sect of devotees to The Great Devourer, Mihreshibal.  As young men, the priests dedicate the entirety of their existence to the service of their master.  They undergo great personal mutilation to become initiated into the cult of the Devourer.  The priests sacrifice their physical vision as an offering to their master during their initiation by having their eyes burned out with a heated iron.  There are unsubstantiated rumors of other, greater mutilations, yet it is also claimed that their vision is replaced with the greater sight of their lord.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: Teachings of the Veiled Fire

Cernunnos in the red room
answers each question
with only a gesture or a look.
The dance of firelight is his mirror,
but there is no flame to be seen.