Sketchbook of Straw (Cover Art)

Even as the snow once again covers Ichabod's Cottage (seems like there has been snow on the bogle since late October), the Bindlegrim goblins have remained busy at work with lots of new spooky goodies for 2012.

The holiday was a great time to get some writing done, and work is progressing on that new collection of Bindlegrim short stories (and perhaps poetry) called Sketchbook of Straw. There are two dark tales written and edited: The Jitter Dance and The Herbivorous Witch for definite inclusion. A third tale is undergoing editing and there is some back-and-forth decisions on if this lighter tale (along with the 4th lighter story now being written) will be included in the same volume - perhaps this will be a book with sections for darker and lighter moods?

As shown above, in preparation for the cover, I've been going through some of my old pen/pencil drawings from sketchbooks (which seemed appropriate) of the late 1980's to the early 1990's - when I was thoroughly enjoying the world of surreal and abstract art, with influences such as Dali, Miro, Tanguy, and Klee to name a few. Above are a few working ideas of how the cover might appear.

As if this wasn't enough to keep the goblins busy with all those art and literary pursuits (I'm not sure exactly when there will be enough stories to complete a full volume), there are also some design pursuits occurring with vintage-style Halloween lanterns for 2012, and keep an eye out for that news too!

Ghost Radio - The Carriage of the Rokurokubi

Still progressing on the music video animation work for the new release by girabbe, and thought it might be of interest to post this odd little snippet from that work, of a carriage-like structure that hints at a Japanese yokai called the Rokurokubi moving through a landscape of ghost-ridden cathodes...

After all summer in Japan is the time for ghost stories... because the thought is that the chill you receive from the telling will cool you off from the hot weather. (Here's a link to The Roving Ronin who tells the history of Japanese ghost stories with a selection of different tales)... the ghost story candle ceremony the Roving Ronin describes on his page can be seen in a trailer for the movie Yokai - 100 Ghost Stories.

And, my favorite Japanese movie for ghost stories, for its beautiful cinematography and music of the biwa has to be Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan (based on stories from Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folk tales):

Hauntings in the Cathode Tubes

Have started getting the new book "The Pumpkin Dream" lined up for availability in a few brick-and-mortar stores this coming fall... (I am in discussion with three stores in the Denver/Boulder area)... and while those are in process - trying to see what additional elements and sneak peeks I can add for the book via online venues. Most recently I added images from the first few pages of the book recently available on Amazon - see The Pumpkin Dream: A Cautionary Tale from the Library of Mr. Bumble Bindlegrim (image gallery) on Amazon.com.

As that progresses I'm further delving into surrealist mode for the video project of Ghost Radio part 1, and here's another sneak peek at what oddities come from the mind working in autonomic mode - these images takes advantage of some cool cathode tubes that were found once in a sadly now defunct store in Seattle called Ye Olde Technology Shoppe: