sons of kemet

ane brun

princess chelsea

tropical fuck storm

randall enos

randall enos is better known as a cartoonist but, being that he's from new bedford, it seems inevitable he'd be doing some illustrating of moby dick at some point which he does in the form of the story of mocha dick. these linocuts are absolutely exquisite and absolutely worth a browse

timothy lamb

i like the insouciant nature of this image of queequeg by timothy lamb (no web presence?). that said i'm struck by the lack of figurative pictures from moby dick beyond queequeg or ahab. the ahab images seem to lean heavily on the gregory peck iteration which is all fair and good but seems to me rather limiting. as for the queequeg, as far as i can see most of these images are by white artists, who seem to be predominantly american and male. i've always thought of queequeg as polynesian and it would be nice to see some representations from that part of the world.

stereolab

modern nature

carson ellis

it being the bicentennial of melville's birth i cam across this illustration by carson ellis in the new yorker. true, it's more of melville but i think she's managed to capture the essential ahabian in him.

matt kish

matt kish's illustrtated moby dick is a story in itself but it shouldn't take away from the images. i was beguiled by these images from the moment i saw them and was an easy purchaser of his book!

boubacar traoré

super mama djombo

vis-a-vis

k frimpong and his cubano fiestas

mark milloff

i could go on and on about these images from mark milloff but i shan't. apparently there could be more. i'd love the chance to see these in the flesh.

robert shore

it's well worth having a browse through robert shore's images of moby dick which, to my eyes, capture something much more dynamic than the probably better known series by rockwell kent. i also love the bio on shore's page, different times!

mastodon

and here's mastodon. i love the drummer on this. off the top of my head him and the lass from bandmaid are my favourite drummers at this time. and, for whatever reason, while this video's not the best quality i love the off the wall nuttiness of it that seems somehow to capture that essential madness at the centre of moby dick.

paul romano

after yesterday's comment re lack of female artists illustrating moby dick you don't get more muscularly masculine than mastodon's leviathan album the cover art for which comes from paul romano. i love the song blood and thunder but i adore this cover (available as a print from paul romano should anyone want to get me an early christmas present!)

barry moser

this, by barry moser, isn't from moby dick but is instead of jonah, but it appears so often in moby dick illustration lists (as opposed to his actual moby dick illustration!) i thought i'd include it anyway.

as i'm doing this it strikes me that i haven't actually come across any female artists illustrating moby dick as yet (feel free to put me right). i was super keen to read emily wilson's odyssey when it appeared and it'd be interesting to see a female perspective on what seems such a male tome

bill sienkiewicz

as i've got an enduring interest in moby dick it'll be a week, and maybe more of images from there, starting with this from bill sienkiewicz, easily one of my favourite comic artists and up there amongst my favourite (almost) representational artists. this is the cover image from his graphic version of moby dick which, when i got it was only available in french. which, if you don't speak the language, isn't a problem as you're not getting this for the text! an absolute must for graphic/moby dick fans.

ebo taylor

susan

husbandry

charles bukowski

death of an idiot

he spoke to mice and sparrows
and his hair was white at the age of 16.
his father beat him every day and his mother
lit candles in the church.
his grandmother came while the boy slept
and prayed for the devil to let loose his hold upon
him
while his mother listened and cried over the
bible.

he didn’t seem to notice young girls
he didn’t seem to notice the games boys played
there wasn’t much he seemed to notice
he just didn’t seem interested.

he had a very large, ugly mouth and the teeth
stuck out
and his eyes were small and lusterless.
his shoulders were slumped and his back was bent
like an old man’s.

he lived in our neighborhood.
we talked about him when we got bored and then
went on to more interesting things.
he seldom left his house. we would have liked to
torture him
but his father
who was a huge and terrible man
tortured him for
us.

one day the boy died. at 17 he was still a
boy. a death in a small neighborhood is noted with
alacrity, and then forgotten 3 or 4 days
later.

but the death of this boy seemed to stay with us
all. we kept talking about it
in our boy-men’s voices
at 6 p.m. just before dark
just before dinner.

and whenever I drive through that neighborhood now
decades later
I still think of his death
while having forgotten all the other deaths
and everything else that happened
then.

tulip (undressed)

tiffany bozic

i started the week with nature images and that's how i'll finish. tiffany bozic is described as a surreal nature artist but i think that's a bit reductive. i'm really liking her use of forms and colour

will kurtz

yes, you could say there's something just a bit obvious in some of will kurtz's figures. but for me, that would be profoundly ungenerous. i love his use of material. these are joyous

balkan beat box

allen crawford

i do adore my walt whitman's ong of myself illustrated by allen crawford. obviously everyone should have a copy and i can't help feeling that, if we actually did, we'd be better human beings.

lauren marx

there's representative art and then there's lauren marx. if i'd seen these when i was a (n animal drawing obsessive) little kid i'd have been worshiping at her feet!

samuel uria

fu manchu mongoose

arvo part