The Dead God

My career as a graduate student in Greek and Latin was probably doomed from the start because all I really wanted to do was paint fantasy pictures. I did this one, and many others, in my dorm room, rather than study. This is another image from the Elric "Stormbringer" series by Michael Moorcock. It shows a scene from one of the books where Elric, at the left with his demonic sword, and his cousin, from the right with another demonic sword, attempt to attack a hideous, multi-dimensional godlike being. The acolytes of this "dead God" crouch around him begging for protection but all he wants to do is eat them. Note the bodies of acolytes appended to the Dead God, one of them in an "interesting" place (center of picture). Also note the title caption, something I quit adding to my art early on.

I used to do a lot of these phantasmagorical pieces but now all these years later I don't do them at all and even my fantasy art is "realistic." I think this is not just due to choices I made but from general style changes in culture and art. Moorcock's writing arose in the era of psychedelia in the 1960s and 1970s but nowadays that stuff just isn't as popular as it used to be, except for "revival" or retro treatments of it. Just my opinion that is. I wonder what I'd come up with if I re-read Moorcock nowadays. But hey, one thing at a time, I am easily distracted.

"Darnizhaan, the Dead God" is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 10" x 14", September 1976. Click on the pic for much larger view.