Angus McBride's Legendary Beasts
Several years ago, I wrote a post showcasing the fantasy art of Angus McBride. I'd already devoted most of it to his terrific Middle Earth Role-Playing game art, so by the time I got around to mentioning his 1966 series on mythical creatures, I didn't give it much space.
The series ran on the back pages of 36 issues of the British weekly educational magazine for children, Finding Out – although I mistakenly called the magazine Look and Learn, since the two titles merged in 1967 and McBride did a lot of illustrations for it after that as well.
History and fantasy are among McBride's most frequent subjects, and here, he combines the two concepts, looking back at beings and monsters from different cultures around the world.
Daisy at the Beautiful Books blog deserves all the credit for this collection: She tracked down all the scans. I'm just collecting my top 12 favorites.
In a few cases, I scrounged up a larger scan than Daisy had, but even then, most of them have an annoying "Fine Art America" watermark at the bottom. I am proud of finding a great scan of the Irish fairies, though!
We'll start with a classic McBride dragon.
What makes a mythical McBride stand out to me? Bold color choices, judging from this set of gryphons.
Or this phoenix!
But scenes like this are even better: We're seeing the aftermath of an entire story being told here.
The mermaids are joined in the "threatening mythical women" category by McBride's depiction of harpies and his take on the old hammer-wielding Celtic mother goddess, Cailleach-Bheur.
I also love every time McBride leans into the eerieness of fantasy creatures, setting scenes during a forboding, if well-lit, night, like the little people emerging from this Irish hillside.
This white buffalo is a similar one. It's one of the few fairly normal animals here, an American bison with white fur that is sacred or spiritually significant in several Native American religions. McBride adds red eyes that give the entire scene a ghostly vibe.
On the entire opposite end of the "normal animal" spectrum is McBride's depiction of an Australian bunyip, which doesn't seem to have an agreed-upon physical appearance.
This one is probably the closest to depicting an alien life-form that this series gets.
Some of the creatures remind me of McBride's Lord of the Rings fantasy art. Here's the Leshy (or Leshi), a forest guardian deity from Slavic mythology, along with a domovoy, a Russian household god.
Finally, here's the Wild Hunt: “On wild, dark, stormy nights, when the thunder crashes and the wind howls, have you ever thought that you heard the baying of ghostly hounds, and the thunder of the hooves of a phantom horse?” the magazine asks.
There's a lot more unicorns, gnomes, and centaurs over at the Beautiful Books blog post, so you should check out all 36 of McBride's legendary beasts over there, or read my previous Angus McBride post for a little more background on the artist himself.
Cool Links
Cover Reveal! The Art of the Unknown: A Visual Treasury of the Esoteric, Uncanny, and Unexplained
My friend S. Elizabeth just opened up preorders for her new art collection on the unknown - basically a history of cosmic, liminal, mysterious art. Get a copy here if you're interested!
You might not realize that you want to listen to an entire short crime story from 1933, but you do! It's a lively 40 minutes with a morbidly fun ending that really reminds me of a Saki story, for anyone familar with his stuff.
Shedunnit doesn't typically do audio fiction, but it's a great podcast exploring golden-age detective stories that you should all check out. I think I recommended it back when it first started in 2018, but now that I have five times the followers, I guess I should mention it again! Here's an older episode I enjoy.
Bud Plant is calling it a day: A conversation with the comics retail pioneer - The Comics Journal
Interesting interview with a long-time comics/art book retailer that spans six and a half decades of comics history. I bought a handful of art books off of this guy's site a few months back.
Music rec: A coworker of mine did a disco remix of the 1975 funk song "Funky Weekend" by The Stylistics. I believe it's the first remix ever for this one, so now's your chance to get in on the ground floor.
Next Time: Spot the Difference