Heraclix and Pomp by Forrest Aguirre - Interview by S.E. Lindberg

Forrest Aguirre Bio & Previous Interviews:

Aguirre with Totenkopf

Forrest's short fiction has appeared in over fifty venues, including Asimov's, Gargoyle, Apex, and Polyphony. He is a World Fantasy Award winner for his editorial work, with Jeff VanderMeer, on the Leviathan 3 anthology. His novel, Heraclix& Pomp is releasing now by the Underland Press imprint of Resurrection House (Oct, 2014). Forrest Aguirre has been interviewed several times already (see selection below), but this aims to cover some new ground.The primary theme across all S.E.Lindberg Interviews  is “Beautiful Weird Art/Horror” and there is plenty of that in Heraclix & Pomp. 

1. 2003: Interview by Trent Walters, capturing Forrest Aguirre’s creative process  and interest in Africa.
2. 2013: Forrest Aguirre’s Fantastic Fugue – Interview by Bill Ectric, including Aguirre’s use of a real pen to hand write first drafts.  
3. 2014: Lost in the Forrest: An Interview with Forrest Aguirre – Dan Schwent: The literary inspirations and RPG origins of H&P.

"As a child, I always thought I would die at age 36..." F.Aguirre 2014

How does weird fiction deliver beauty?

What about dark, surreal subjects do you find beautiful? You have a sustained interest in weird fiction, including being the editor of the 2002 Leviathan #3 and #4, collections you described as being "darkly beautiful surreal stories."  The paradox of finding beauty in dark things is the topic we want to explore here: what about dark, surreal subjects do you find beautiful?

FA: Before we begin, let me say that I find beauty in light, as well. I’m a bit of a brooder, admittedly, but I love, for instance, going to our city’s flower garden. I just happen to be willing to peek behind the petals at that dead frog lying on the wood chips and am able to appreciate the irony and pathos there, as well. I think the beauty in the dark and surreal is twofold. First, there is the notion of contrast. Sameness, to me, is not beautiful. Unfortunately, it’s not ugly, either. If it were ugly, at least it would be interesting. It’s contrast that I find intriguing. 

I’ll give an example (that may or may not work for you): a few years ago, my family and I had been out watching my two oldest boys running in a cross country race. It was a beautiful fall afternoon. The leaves were saturated with yellow and red, it was a cool, pleasant day, with blue skies and a few wisps of white cloud here and there. We came home and, as dusk fell, dark clouds started marching in across the western sky. These were odd, though, not your usual rain clouds. They were thin and tall, reminding me a lot of the famous Hubble space telescope shot of the “Pillars of Creation”.  I don’t know that I have seen anything like that before or since. The sun set, the stars came out, and the clouds kept floating in like some sort of dark ghost sentinels. The sky between each pillar was so clear that I could see the stars with no obstruction other than where the clouds occluded them. Then, as I watched, lightning arced from one of the clouds to another, then back again, across the stars! It was one of the most majestic views of the universe I have ever had, from my little vantage point on my front doorstep. I was stunned. Filled with awe. It’s this sort of contrast, lightning arcing between two dark clouds across a field of stars, that I find so compelling. It is unexpected, strange, and fills the viewer with simultaneous respect and terror. This is what I seek in the “darkly beautiful surreal”. 

Second, and the example I just gave leads into this, there is an expansiveness about the dark that is begging to be filled. When we’re filled with awe or wonder, it’s not about what we see, but about what we don’t see. When we stare into the void and the void stares back, the viewer is the source of both actions. Imagination fills in the gaps that the senses can’t grasp, and darkness leaves much to the imagination. White emptiness won’t do for this triggering of the imagination. While a blank page might be filled with awe-inspiring imagery, it’s not the white page that generates the artist’s ideas. It is in the dark recesses of his or her mind that the image is formed, then that emerging image is plotted onto the page. This creation from the imagination engages the viewer. 

This is why people of an artistic bent often enjoy books more than movies. How often have you heard someone say “I didn’t like the movie as well as the book because the way it was shown in the movie wasn’t what I had imagined”? When all the images are provided for you, you are merely a witness. When your mind creates art of its own volition, in the spaces left for you by the author, you become a participant in the art. Weird fiction just provides more quick focus for the imagination. By providing unusual imagery, it homes in on the experience of feeling the strange. I think of Mieville’s Perdido Street Station as a good example of this. Because we begin by focusing on Lin, who has a scarab beetle for a head, and we are introduced to a well-described artificial construct, a gaunt bird-like being who has had his wings sawed from off his back, and other minor, bizarre characters, it is easy for the imagination to populate the rest of the city with all manner of strange beings. We extrapolate, we expand, and our expansions are simultaneously bound and freed by the weirdness that has been provided us by the author. This, in our minds, creates a strange kind of beauty: a contrast to the “normal” world in which we live. I, for one, am appreciative of the gift of being able to enter this dark world and take in its beauty.

Comment on “art” born from death? Were you affected by hermetic muses?

“Think that you are not yet begotten, that you are in the womb, that you are young, that you are old, that you have died, that you are in the world beyond the grave; grasp in your thought all of this at once… then you can apprehend God.” ― Hermes Trismegistus, Hermetica

Heraclix & Pomp opens with a quote from the father (god?) of mysticism, Hermes Trismegistus. Although the Thrice Great Hermes purportedly wrote 100-300 AD (long before the 1700’s in H&P), hermeticism enabled the connection of the intangible of nature (god, life, death…) with artificial, human powers (art, thaumaturgy, theurgy) and was influential during Europe’s Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment.  Indeed, before the 20^th century, most scientists were also artists since they had to record their observations without photographs or computers (Da Vinci, Ernest Haeckel, Robert Hooke, etc.), so the scientists were the ultimate creators.   Assembling and resurrecting a human via necromantic rites (i.e., Heraclix’s birth) certainly demonstrates mystical beauty. Can you comment on “art” born from death?  Were you affected by hermetic muses?

FA: Death is the ultimate darkness, the ultimate mystery. As I stated before, the human brain has a way of filling in the gaps created by mystery. Now, the mystery of Heraclix is his past: what was he before he died and was reborn? The death itself is of little or no consequence. It was what happened before death that concerns him.  But, it is only as he travels through the veil of death and into Hell that Heraclix really begins to understand who he (or they) was (or were). I suppose losing one’s memory is a kind of death, in an abstract way. And memory and forgetfulness, change and rediscovery, were the main themes behind Heraclix’s journey. He is not who he thought he was, but he doesn’t know who he was. So many concern themselves about what is coming, about the inevitability of death. Heraclix is concerned with what came before life, a question which many people are even more terrified to explore than the fear of death. 

Pomp, on the other hand, has no innate concept of death. It is only when she realizes that there might be an end to her existence, that it is possible for her to die, that she begins to even understand a concept of time. Her question is: can one understand time, unless one is faced with death, the possible cessation of time? So death itself is merely a trigger to this question. She is not so concerned about what happens after we die. But because of death, the here and now becomes acute and comes into sharper focus. She can’t be as carefree and whimsical as she used to be, because she does not have an infinite amount of time available to her, or at least she realizes now that this is the case. Furthermore, death is the ultimate consequence. As a result of her brush with death, Pomp begins to realize that there are consequences to one’s actions, consequences that affect her and others. So the prospect of death creates empathy within her, as well.

These existential problems can inform art, though they don’t necessarily have to do so. Again, death is a mystery. And art that is drawn from death or that portrays death, allows the imagination to expand and fill in the gaps of knowledge that are inevitably caused by our inability to see beyond death or beyond birth, as in Heraclix’s case.

 "...art that is drawn from death or that portrays death, allows the imagination to expand and fill in the gaps of knowledge that are inevitably caused by our inability to see beyond death or beyond birth, as in Heraclix’s case." F.Aguirre 2014

Do you consider Mattatheus Mowler an artist?

Your necromancer Mowler is reminiscent of Mary Bryce Shelly’s Victor Frankenstein, the infamous artist and scientist, who pieced together body parts to create life via alchemy.  In her prologue, Shelly described how her muse worked though her:

“I saw-with shut eyes, but acute mental vision-I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together.  I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.   Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.  His success would terrify the artist...” (Mary Shelly, The Modern Prometheus 1818)

Were you affected by haunting muses?   Do you consider your character Mattatheus Mowler an artist?

FA: Mattatheus Mowler is motivated by fear. I don’t know that he would consider himself an artist, though he does have an artistic flair. He’s an artist, I suppose, in that he’s an actor, but all of his actions are based on his fear of death. If he’s an artist, he’s an accidental artist, except in the theatrical arts, where he is very intentional!

Do you have a curio cabinet at home, full of Etsy-purchased art? Where did you procure that Totenkopf (death’s head Fez)?

Like Mowler, you don a peculiar Fez cap. The juxtaposition of skull-and-crossbones on the timely headpiece (popular in the 18th century) represents the necromancer, indeed the entire book, well. You claim not to be an artisan as much as you are a writer, but you have a fascination with artifacts; collecting them seemed integral our creative process, at least in (your many virtual "treasuries" on Etsy).  Why brainstorm in a real marketplace of artifacts? Do you have a curio cabinet at home, full of Etsy purchased art? Where did you get that death’s head Fez?

Aguirre's Etsy Treasuries 

FA: Well, I’m not a hoarder, as such. The Etsy lists served many purposes. They helped me visualize things a bit better when I required some focus. They helped me to get the word out about the novel to people who might not otherwise get direct exposure to it. Finally, I just plain love Etsy and want to support the artists there. Since I can’t just go and buy everything on Etsy, I thought I’d give some of these Heraclix & Pomp related pieces a “signal boost”. I don’t know that I can take credit, but some of the pieces in those lists have sold since

 I posted them on my treasuries list. I do have a sort of curio cabinet or cabinets in my writing area. I collect a lot of knick-knacks that serve as writing prompts, distractions, or objects that spur the imagination. I have, among many other things, a small “crystal” (read: cheap clear resin) skull, a number of retro-rayguns, several metal miniatures (killer robots, martians a’la “Mars Attacks,” creatures from the Lovecraft mythos), a few European Renaissance-era and early modern silver coins, a meteorite, a bird cage filled with origami ravens (and a copy of Poes “The Raven” in paperback), and so forth. My Totenkopf was purchased from fez-o-rama.com. I couldn’t afford to buy an authentic Totenkopf (I think starting bids for these were around $2500 on ebay, last I checked). So the $50 I spent on my Totenkopf was well worth the price. They don’t make that particular style any more, but I do know that they recently put up another skull-emblazoned fez. And that reminds me, it’s not a “pirate fez” as I’ve heard so many people say. It’s a decidedly germano-slavic design. I am trying to educate the world about this, but it often feels like I am spitting into the wind. Cretins . . .

Is "mortality" one of your muses? Is there beauty in impermanence?

Heraclix & Pomp explores the boundaries of life and death, which a presumptive interviewer may assume is reflective of a mid-life crisis plaguing the rapidly again author.  Having recently celebrating 45yrs of youth, is "mortality" one of your muses? Is there beauty in impermanence?

FA: As a child, I always thought I would die at age 36. I have no idea where I got this notion from, but it was stuck in my head, nonetheless. As I approached my 36th birthday, I was less and less worried about the prospect. On that birthday, I woke up, looked around and thought “well, that’s over”. My mother’s mother lived to be 96, and since my father was adopted and I don’t know his biological parents, I have no idea what my genetic longevity could be like. For all I know, I’ll live to be 100 or I’ll die on the way to dinner tonight. I think that, more than mortality being a muse, adventuring into the unknown is one of my muses. And going into middle age and, hopefully, old age, is a bit of an adventure. I’m enjoying the ride.

Any tips on how to incorporate humor into Dark Art without ruining the ambience?

Trailblazing weird authors (i.e., Clark Ashton Smith, Howard Phillips Lovecraft) considered their dark fiction beautiful, but they steered away from incorporating humor.  You style seems is indeed “weird” but you include doses of intellectual laughs.  For instance, Pomp’s idiosyncrasies and mischief are a welcome contrast to H&P’s darker settings.  Any tips for writers who want to incorporate humor without ruining the ambiance? 

FA: Once I had Pomp firmly planted in my head, she did the rest. I’ve always had a strong sense of humor, partially because I lived in England during my teenage years and developed a dark, python-esque sense of humor while I was there. But for Heraclix & Pomp, I didn’t set out to write something humorous. Pomp just sort of took me there. I love Pomp’s whimsy. It’s a healthy contrast to so many grim things happening. The character of Von Graeb also brought a lighter touch to the novel, I think. He’s not hilarious, but he is good-natured, the kind of guy you like to be around at a social gathering: real, but willing to laugh at life. I think many works today are very sarcastic in their humor, and I can appreciate that, in fact the science fiction novel that I’m working on right now, Solistalgia, has a character with as sarcastic a sense of humor as anyone could have. But cynicism mingled with laughter has become endemic in fiction nowadays. In the case of writing Heraclix & Pomp, I wanted to keep the cynicism at a fairly low level, compared to my normal work. Again, Pomp and Von Graeb helped me out a great deal. They kept things lighter than they otherwise would have been, had I let my natural grim sense of humor have its way.

How does your Humanities and African History degrees (Brigham Young University and Madison-WI respectively) inform your weird fiction? 

Your The Butterfly Artist involved Africa, but many of your other works have a European focus (Cloaks of Vermin and Fish, Archangel Morpheus, and Heraclix & Pomp. You even went extraterrestrial with Swans over the Moon.   It seems your interests are shifting from Africa…to Europe…to divine realms.  How did your Humanities and African History degrees lead you on your journey?  Where are you going next?

FA: Keep in mind that I was raised as a bit of a gypsy. My dad was a sergeant in the US Air Force. I was born in Germany, lived in the Philippines (which I still can’t spell, after all these years - thank you, autocorrect), Italy, England, and even Nebraska, for a time. I’ve lived all over the US except the Deep South. And I mean lived in these places, not just visited. It would take me some time to enumerate the countries I’ve visited. So, from my birth, I’ve had a bit of the wanderlust. It’s just how I was raised. I’m amazed when I look back at my time living in Wisconsin. 18 years, it’s been. In my first 18 years of life I had lived in four different countries and four different states: Texas, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Wyoming. 

When I went to college at BYU (in Utah, for those unfamiliar with BYU), I studied humanities with a history emphasis. Most of my history classes were in European History, medieval, renaissance, and modern. It wasn’t until the summer between my junior and senior year, when I did my senior thesis on the Battle of Tanga in German East Africa, that I began to become interested in Africa. That’s what led me to apply to UW-Madison and pursue a Master’s in African History. After I ran out of funding and ambition, I quit grad school and worked in the “real” world (where I am still gainfully employed) and writing fiction whenever I could manage it. We write what we know, so, of course my travels and my studies inform my work. As I mentioned earlier, I’m working on a science fiction novel set, where else? In space. I guess I’ve moved beyond this planet, for a short time, anyway. But I’ll be back. I have a feeling that Heraclix and Pomp might just return at some future point. There are no guarantees, but I hear that there were some interesting things happening between the time of their first adventures and now, maybe something in colonial Africa or in the American west. I’ll ask them if they were involved.

Creative Processes

You already covered your writing process in other interviews, and revealed that H&P evolved, in part, from role playing games, and that you prefer to write the first draft of a story with a real ink pen (see interview list above).  Would you like to comment more on your creative process?

FA: It probably goes without saying that writing, for me, is a holistic experience. I typically burn incense when writing and am rarely without a dark chocolate bar of some kind nearby when I write. Music is critical, too, as you can see from the acknowledgements in Heraclix & Pomp. Each of my characters has his or her own soundtrack, really, and when I need to get into character quickly, I turn on the appropriate music to tune in to that character. Lighting is also an influence for me. My writing area is admittedly dim, as harsh lights tend to blind my imagination, a bit. I am a visual and kinesthetic learner/creator, so this is fairly important to me. I guess, in summation, writing is a whole body, immersive experience. Writing is one of my “happy places,” and you don’t get to your happy place without preparing for the journey!

"Each of my characters has his or her own soundtrack, really, and when I need to get into character quickly, I turn on the appropriate music to tune in to that character." F.Aguirre 2014

Do you find any of your own weird fiction as beautiful?   

FA: I do. And I don’t say that to be vain. There’s something in my blood, probably from my mother, that compels me to create. I don’t have the talent or the patience to be an artist (though my kids are wonderful artists), and though I’ve done acting in the theatrical realm a couple of times, I find that the preparation and execution of acting requires me to “stuff down” my personality. It’s a real chore. Creating through writing, though, comes quite naturally. The experience of writing is a drug, a hallucinogen that brings beautiful things out of my mind. Sometimes, I’m able to capture them and show others, sometimes not. But when I can, I’m not afraid to acknowledge their beauty. I can sometimes look at a sentence and say “That, Forrest, is a great sentence. You rule!” This is to counteract the many times when I have to overcome the sense of inadequacy that arises from those times when I know I haven’t quite captured what I’ve seen or heard in my thoughts. Take your victories as you can, I say. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge the beauty you create. But do be willing to acknowledge when someone else, usually an editor, finds an even better way to express what it is that you thought you had expressed well in the first place. Be proud. Be humble. Just be both at the appropriate times. There’s no shame in creating something beautiful and feeling a sense of satisfaction in not only the creative act itself, but in the results of your efforts. You’ve made the world a more beautiful place for yourself and others. Congratulations!

Thanks Forrest Aguirre for sharing! 

Heraclix and Pomp is available Oct,. 2014.  Check it out now.

Tom Barczak Interview

This continues the interviews of weird/speculative fiction authors on the themes of Art & Beauty in Fiction.  Tom Barczak is an artist/architect who delivers splendid adventure with interesting characters, a beautiful style, and a haunting medieval setting. His fantasy fiction is compelling and poetic, and saturated with angelic warfare. We corner him here to learn more about his heroic journey, his creative process, and the spirits motivating him.

"I can’t not write about loss and love, death and rebirth.  It’s very much a part of who I am... Everyone has their own Heroes Journey. Tell it. And if you’re still on it, finish it. Then tell it." Tom Barczak 2014

The Cover: Gossamer covered sword

The cover of your debut novel Veil of the Dragon features a subtle, splendid weapon design.  It displays the sword of your crusader-like Servian Knights who swore oaths to only strike at evil demons, and to be merciful toward humans so much as to not strike them.  A symbol of their conviction was to cover their magic blades in fragile cloth. This was a great design that highlights the paradox of a military legion representing a benevolent religious organization.

Was this based in history or was this a Barczak creation?

TB: It was an image I carried in my head long before I even finished the story. Like a talisman. It carried so much meaning for me. Still does. In architecture there is a word we have, called a Parti. It is the essence."

Early Muses and “Studio”

Your online Bio goes as: “My background is an Artist turned Architect who is finally getting around to finishing those stories I started writing when I was sitting on my front porch as a kid.”  Of course, you are also illustrating those stories (see http://tombarczak.com/sketches.html ).  Given the poetic, fantasy milieu you created, I picture your childhood porch as the gateway between Dante’s Inferno and Purgatorio. 

• What was your early muses and porch-studio like? Was that porch haunted?

TB:  Hehehe. Nope. No gargoyles on my porch.  Just pretty much a normal porch. Problem was I’ve never done very good with normal. A large portion of my childhood was me wishing I was someone else, doing something else, somewhere else. I always had a hard time just being where my feet were. Basically I was just a weird little kid. And I would just sit there for hours just making stuff up.

Creative Processes

Clearly you’ve had stories brewing in your head since childhood, and have develop a portfolio of artistic talents along the way; so your thoughts have been growing simultaneously with the tools you used to capture them.

• What type of art did you create prior being an architect?
• Does your architecture background inform your planning of a story? 
• Do you plan all your work to be illustrated?

TB:  For a long time, particularly during my art school / college years, my painting was therapy for me. It was the only way I knew to take those places in my head and make them real. It was very dark. But it was like magic. It let me have some control over my feelings, instead of just getting swept away. But, looking back, I think that control I thought I had was only an illusion. What it did, was help my outsides match my insides a bit, which for the moment at least, would give me a little peace. The illustration I do now is just that, illustration. Not nearly the cathartic work I sought in my paintings. 

As for my writing and architecture, well, that’s an entirely different thing altogether. I believe that part of me allows my stories to have structure. And it also gave me an important tool. I tend to write with brevity. Very few words compared to what I see others do. Almost like a movie script. But a novel needs a bit more flesh than a movie script. So when I finish a piece, then I get to go back and do what I call, painting between the buildings. 

At least for now, I intend to illustrate my books. It’s hard for me to separate the two. But I understand it may not be appropriate for everything either.

Faith-inspired Fairy Tales:

Until I read your work, I had not stumbled across religiously-inspired fiction since C.S.Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien (fantasy also derived from Christianity). As a die-hard agnostic, I thought the delivery of The Veil of the Dragon was wonderfully obscure; any audience can enjoy it (see review) .

Even though it is far from a controversial novel, I imagine that ultra-conservative religious folk may think it improper to dream up fantasy evolutions of religion…just as paranoid atheistic readers may fear they may be subverted into being exposed to religion involuntarily. 

• Please confirm if faith played a role in writing or reading (i.e. is Faith a Barczak Muse)
• Conversely, does the process of creative writing evolve your own faith?

TB: The biggest criticism I’ve ever had regarding my work has had had to do with the undertones of religion there. I don’t feel particularly bad about that. I certainly have no intention of converting anyone to anything. Nor is it any of my business what someone else believes.

Fact of the matter is I have to write what I know. I’m a Catholic and a Christian, but most of my faith I learned outside of a church. I’ve had the benefit of good teachers in my life. Men and women who taught me how to live a life based on principals and not on how I felt or thought at any given time. They continue to teach me to live a life not based on self, but one of being of service to others. I get to live a spiritual life today. It’s solely because of that, I believe, that I even get to write today.

So yes, some of that gets into my work. Anything less wouldn’t be the truth. And as a writer, I have to tell the truth. 

Symbolic vs. Allegorical fiction: 

In a Facebook conversation, I proposed categorizing your work as “Sword & Faith” or “Sword and Ghosts”; you replied that you preferred “Allegorical Fiction.” 

• Just how allegorical is it?  Avoiding spoilers, can you clarify if specific people/ideas are re-casted in the book?  
• Or is your more work more metaphorical and generalized? Any design strategies for those wanting to create allegorical fiction? 

TB: Some of what I discussed above. A big influence as well, was the death of my daughter, Olivia, when she was 2 ½. I think because of that, as well as some of my own other trials, I can’t not write about loss and love, death and rebirth.  It’s very much a part of who I am.

As for strategies, tell the truth. Doesn’t matter what your beliefs are. Everyone has their own Heroes Journey. Tell it. And if you’re still on it, finish it. Then tell it.

Beautiful Evil:

Master writers like Clark Ashton Smith, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, and Edgar Allen Poe professed that weird fiction is Artistic, one goal being to terrify readers (see essays).  From the Dragon, its disembodied shadows, and the beings it corrupts, your manifestations of evil are indeed emotive, and arguably beautiful. Here are some excerpts:

"Behind him, a bitter sigh resounded through the bent and broken wood. The forest was speaking. Behind him, the path he’d only just cleared had gone. From the trees, shadows bled like oil, folding down amidst the branches.”

"The spirits’ breath hung like a black vapor in tendrils about them. Armored veils hid all but the abyss of their eyes. Beneath them, their acrid laughter shrilled out amidst the grinding clatter of their teeth. Yet it wasn’t laughter. No; it was a desperate sound, one of anticipation, the kind that a starving cur utters for carrion."  

• Is it enjoyable or scary to capture evil in art?
• Do you find it therapeutic (or helpful to contemplate) unknown concepts (from the divine to evil) by turning them into art? 

TB: A few thoughts. One is I believe I have a mild case of synesthesia. My senses are a little cross –wired, so sometimes I describe colors as smells and tastes as sounds. I think some of that comes out as a sensual quality of my work. 

The second one is that I absolutely believe evil can be just as beautiful as good. Often it’s more so. Check out the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Ever really looked at a black widow? Maybe not evil, but it’s certainly as beautiful as it is deadly. It’s captivating.

Bad is always going to look cooler than good.We’re drawn to the fix not consequences.And yes, it is therapeutic.  All of it.

It’s coming out of darkness that we best appreciate the light.It’s hard to appreciate heaven until you’ve been through hell.  

Thanks so much for having me. This was a lot of fun.Tom

Thanks to you, Tom, for sharing your soul in novels, art, and this interview! 

Readers can learn more about Tom Barczak and his work on his website:  http://tombarczak.com/

Check out other interviews by S.E. on the topic of  “Beautiful Weird Art/Horror”:
http://sethlindberg.blogspot.com/p/interviews.html

C Dean Andersson / Asa Drake - Interview by S.E. Lindberg

Image #1: Portrait of Hel  - Illustration by C. Dean Andersson

Interview with C. Dean Andersson by S.E.Lindberg

It is not intuitive to seek beauty in art deemed grotesque, but most authors who produce horror/fantasy actually are usually (a) serious about their craft, and (b) driven my strange muses. This continues the interviews of weird/speculative fiction authors on the themes ofArt & Beauty in Fiction.  Here we corner C. Dean Andersson (a.k.a. Asa Drake) who has written Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror since the 1980's and just released Hel X 3 (an eBook omnibus of his Bloodsong saga; check out my review of Hel X 3 (link).  Let’s learn more about his artistic inspirations.

Grotesque Beauty: 

You seem fascinated with the Goddess Hel. The Hel X 3 trilogy is titled and inspired after her after all (with a fourth Valkyries of Hel in progress), and you received a Bram Stoker Award finalist ranking for your story about a modern encounter with the Goddess Hel, "The Death Wagon Rolls on By."  Hel has a wonderful character design, being half-living-beauty / half-corpse; she explicitly represents the paradox of attractive horror.  In the anthology Pawn of Chaos: Tales of the Eternal Champion, your short story "The Warskull of Hel" has Bloodsong working with Michael Moorcock's eternal champion (the Urlik Skarsol incarnation); Urlik discovers Hel and suggests that her corpse-side may be beautiful:

"So, you think me beautiful, do you, Urlik Skarsol?" The woman on the throne laughed, a sound like a raven's call.  "Yes, your thoughts are known to me, and that this image of beauty is the most dear to you of any in existence.  But you have not seen my other side."  She pulled back her hair and revealed the half-face of a rotting corpse.  Her laughter again echoed from icy walls.

Urlik quickly concealed his shock and said , "Someone in horrible pain might think Your face of Death most beautiful."

Your own fiction is "horrific" but you share it nonetheless, and invite others to share in the grotesque.
How do you make the corpse-side of Hel appealing?  

CDA: It is beyond my power to do so, without audience participation. If the Thanatos in Eros-Thanatos triggers your libido and stimulates fantasies darker than most can stand, kissing the corpse-side of Hel’s face may be your cup of tea. But whatever affects you strongest, the mythic power of Hel’s image comes from the emotional tension generated by its Ying-Yang juxtaposition of Life and Death.

Hel, whichever side you prefer, can be a kind of visual Norse aphrodisiac. Her dead side reminds you, at least on a subconscious level, to beat the genetic clock and reproduce before it’s too late. Of course in our too-clever-for-our-own-good human ways, sexual gratification is often consciously unrelated to reproduction. Hel’s appearance also inspires an appreciation of our current life because she reminds us of our future death. She holds, in addition, in her life qualities, the promise of rebirth to new life. Some Norse believed in reincarnation within family lines. If that is your belief, Hel’s death side is a door your spirit must pass through to get to your future.  

I probably need to point out, for the Norse challenged, Hel is not Death. She takes care of the Dead. But her realm is the Norse Underworld where the environment itself was believed to be unpleasant, dark and cold, like a grave. In fact, one suggested origin for her name is that it simply meant “to cover over,” as in a burial. 

Hel is a goddess whose concept probably predates the Norse Myths. How old is the awareness of an eventual, personal, physical extinction?  In the myths, she is portrayed as a special child disfigured at birth but loved by her mother, a Jotun, giantess—Neanderthal?—whom the myths call Angrboda, Anguish-Boding. The gods kidnapped Hel and her brothers, Fenris the Chaos Wolf and Jormungandr the World Serpent—two other ancient power symbols--from their mother because Odin and company feared their potential roles in Ragnerok, where gods are predicted to die.

At Ragnerok, Fenris is to kill Odin. Jormungandr is to kill Thor. And Hel sails to battle from the Underworld with an army of the Dead in Naglfari, a ship made from dead men’s nails. It is said the Norse kept their fingernails short to delay Naglfari’s completion. Fenris was chained on an Island. Jormungandr was thrown into the ocean. But Hel was exiled to the Underworld where, still possessing power in all the Nine Worlds, she established a refuge for souls unchosen by other deities. In HEL X 3, I named her the Goddess of the Forgotten Dead.

Drawing vs. Writing: 

Depicting a character in words requires a different creative process than drawing.  For The Brutarian #52, Fall 2008, you tapped into your fine arts training and depicted a dark goddess to complement an interview (VAMPIRES, WITCHES AND WARRIOR – OH MY!   by Michael McCarty) and a short story featuring the Queen of the Sumerian Underworld, Ereshkgal (MAMA STRANGELOVE’S REMEDIES FOR AFTERLIFE DISORDERS  OR, HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE MOTHER DEATH).  I was surprised to learn that you had a drawing side to you, and even sold illustrations at science fiction conventions. 

Image #2: Watercolor "Portrait of a Vampire" by CDA 
(shown in art shows but never been published elsewhere, until now!).

Did your fine arts education/creative-process inform your fiction?  Do you still create illustrations, perhaps as part of the creative writing process?  

CDA: I doodled spaceships and robots all over the margins of my first grade papers. The teacher, Goddess bless her, encouraged me to keep at it. I had no formal art training until college, where I abandoned the music major I had planned at the last minute and, on an unplanned urge, switched to the art registration line instead—try explaining that one to parents who had scraped and saved to help you afford college.

But somewhere in high school I started writing stories. After college, I spent four years in the Air Force then worked in art before I started being serious about my writing and trying to sell it. Images I visualized and drew or painted have been used in my books. The “Portrait of a Vampire” here (Image #2) is a watercolor drawing that I created years before I wrote about Tzigane, Dracula’s mate. Tzigane undergoes rigorous training and devotes her life and Undeath to becoming a powerful Vampire-Witch, with a mission to convince Dracula of a destiny that requires he voluntarily allow her to initiate him into Vampirehood.

My watercolor is a drawing overlaid with washes using vivid “Dr. Martin’s” dyes. In retrospect, it has much of my future Tzigane in it, or vice versa. It is based on a still from The Ghost, showing the star, Barbara Steele. Her extraordinary eyes and face and acting is an inspiration to many artists, writers, poets and dark fantasy aficionados in general (see Paghat's review of Barbara Steele work.)

At one time, a number of art pieces I created had inspiring visions of Steele as their theme. Then, at an SF convention art show in L.A., the late Forrest J. Ackerman, editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland and, of course, a childhood hero, bought one, “for a Barbara Steele collector in Belgium,” was all he would say. That collector’s name remains a mystery to this day, but I hope he or she enjoyed the art. 

Another example, not shown here, because I couldn’t find the original to scan, is a drawing that was my version of the time-honored “Death and the Maiden” theme. Edvard Munch’s famous drawing of “Death and the Maiden” is an interesting example. But my version was placed in a dungeon and later used in the second Bloodsong book, where the character named Huld is captured by the villain, Thokk, chained in Thokk’s dungeon, and tormented by a living skeleton.    

Traditional and modern “Death and the Maiden” images are analogous to Hel’s image, by the way. A young woman is a potential source of new life, while the contrast of a figure representing Death twists the emotions into a stimulating brew. And it does not have to be a Grim Reaper reminding you of Death. A place of Death like a tomb haunted by spiders or a place that threatens horror and death like a rat-infested Inquisitor’s dungeon can serve just as well.

In general, I don’t see any difference in the basic inner creative process when creating visual art or creating stories. I see the scenes I create in books as if I had drawn them first, whether or not I actually have. I write from one scene to the next. The scenes I see could be illustrated, if I had the time. One day I hope to illustrate a book or books I write or have written. That, too, would be fun. 

Image #3: "Gorgon Goddess" - ink illustration by C Dean Andersson

Illustrations

CDA: The full-faced drawing is an ancient and monstrously powerful “Gorgon Goddess” (Image#3) who has broken her chains and is rampaging against those who tried to destroy her through prejudiced patriarchal propaganda and fear-centric “new religions.” She’s loose! Watch out! Be afraid! Unless you’re her friend.

The half skull-faced “Portrait of Hel” (Image #1) was later adapted from the “Gorgon Goddess”  for use as an Internet avatar. Portrait of Hel shows the living half of her face as black and featureless, in total shadow, and the dead half of Her face as skeletal white and skullish. 

Can you comment on your own attraction toward repulsive/terrifying things? 

CDA: I did not at first go looking for scary things as a kid, but if something scared me enough, it ran the risk of getting chased down and tackled. A good example is my first Dracula movie. For some reason, the concept of a corpse sneaking into my house to suck my blood while I was sleeping gave me nightmares. The idea threatened me. I needed to know more about it. 

I found and read Stoker’s Dracula, which also scared me, then a disturbing non-fiction book about worldwide vampire beliefs, Montague Summers’  The Vampire, His Kith and Kin. Vampires, it turned out, were everywhere, and always had been. Nevertheless, the next Halloween, I went trick-or-treating as Dracula. I was not too comfortable doing it. But it gave me a feeling of power and pride. I thought, if worse things than a Vampire showed up, a kid who dared to play Dracula could probably survive them. And because I wanted to find those worse things before they found me, I started looking for scary stuff in books, magazines, and movies. 

Looking back, instead of being attracted to repulsive and terrifying things, I was seeking them out and studying them, to gain power over them. I’ve had many people say horror writers seem unusually well adjusted. Maybe it’s because we explore our fears in our stories. More likely, insert ominous laugh, it’s a trick. On ourselves.   

Should horror be "fun" or "monstrous"? 

In the 2008 interview, you mentioned "I find [horror] fun, for starters, and these days, I don’t want to waste time on fiction writing that is not fun…If I need an artsy excuse for my motivation, I can quote Tristan Tzara’s 1918 Dada Manifesto: “Art should be a monster that casts servile minds into terror.”   Should horror be "fun" or "monstrous"?

CDA: If I have fun creating something, you stand a better chance of having fun experiencing it. I don’t enjoy reading a depressing, no hope in sight horror story, no matter how important and realistic such stories are sometimes judged to be. So, I do not have creating stories like that as a goal. Having horrible things happen in horror stories is required, and even likeable characters may not have happy endings. But someone in my stories has to fight back and hope to win, which in my experience is far more realistic than give-up-and-die tales. People do not accept defeat easily.

Most humans are heroic, often in quiet ways. They fight epic interior wars, invisible on the outside, unguessed by people who pass them in the street and often by people who live and work with them. They resist overwhelming odds, circumstances, sickness, and other people or things that threaten them and their families’ lives, hopes, and dreams. By placing characters in hyper-extreme situations in my stories, I have shown their discovery of strengths they had not known they possessed. I have had readers say such characters are inspirations. I know the same has been true for me, reading other people’s books.

The character I created in Torture Tomb named Bernice, an ordinary young woman with ordinary hopes and dreams, is mercilessly tormented beyond anything she could have imagined surviving. But not only does she survive, though crippled by her injuries she returns, wheelchair-bound, in Fiend to fight for and help others.

The slave woman named Jalna in Hel X 3 survives horrible injuries, too, and becomes one of Bloodsong’s fiercest warriors. Bloodsong herself survives impossible odds and repeated tortures as a slave before leading a rebellion. She even finds a way to return from the dead to save her daughter and fight on.  Everyone breathing is a survivor. And almost everyone, sooner or later, has to fight to stay alive. When backed into a corner, in my horror stories as in life, most people, no matter how docile they might at first seem, will fight back and sometimes win. They grit their teeth and turn into Conan the Barbarian if pushed far enough. So, watch out, power mongers, tyrants, and bullies. You have been warned.  

  

Dark Muses: Have you been trying to put a pretty face on your fears?

It seems that you are not only trying to entertain "servile" minds, but are also driven to realize your own fears.  In your recent Interview with Terry Ervin (link) you revealed that you had a phantom muse: an "Old Woman in Black."  Please expand how this female haunt has motivated your writing.  For instance, Raw Pain Max , Torture Tomb, and your The Bloodsong Saga (Hel X 3) all feature strong woman as protagonists, as does every other book or story you have created. Are these manifestations of your dark muse? Have you been trying to put a pretty face on your fears? Is it therapeutic to give your dark muse substance in art (i.e. are fears heightened or alleviated)?

CDA: My strong female characters are probably inspired in part by the power I sensed in my Dark Muse, whatever she was, when I was afraid of her as a kid. Women I have known well in life, grandmother, mother, childhood best friend, and spouse, are definitely also responsible. As the old saying goes, you write what you know. The women warriors in my Bloodsong books are obvious examples. But all my books have strong women in them. And all have examples of my shape-shifting Dark Muse.   

Raw Pan Max features a female bodybuilder named Trudy who performs as a crack-that-whip dominatrix in live sex stage shows. Trudy is also, she is horrified to discover, the reincarnation of the historical Hungarian Blood Countess, Elizabeth Bathory, the famous mass murderess who tortured young women and bathed in their blood. My Countess was haunted by a powerful Dark Muse, which she called her Ally. 

In Torture Tomb, one of the characters is watched over and protected by a supernaturally powerful female haunt he believes is his dead mother. From early childhood, she visited him at night and forced him to learn dark secrets that, though terrifying, gave him power.

The Goddess Hel in HEL X 3 I’ve already described. Her relation to the Old Woman in Black I feared in childhood dreams and apparitions is obvious.

Tzigane in I Am Dracula and Katiasa in I Am Frankenstein are strong characters I loved creating and intend to use again in new books. I’ve already mentioned Bernice in Torture Tomb and Fiend. The novel, Fiend, also has Trudy from Raw Pain Max in it, and Fiend features my version of the immortal Witch and powerful High Priestess of the Goddess Hecate, Medea. She is a strong woman who is also a Dark Muse to others. Bernice and Trudy are inspired by her and follow her. 

But to me the question now is, did I see that Old Woman in Black as a kid because of who and what I was and am? Or am I who and what I am because I saw that Old Woman in Black, whoever or whatever she was and is? She might have been one thing or a combination of things. There might have been an actual old woman wearing black at the first. There might have been a ghost of a widow who still visited her old home town. I’d like to believe that, a lot. Or, there might have been something that had nothing to do with an old woman in widow’s weeds that my mind interpreted wrong. 

On the other hand, maybe she was a traditional, ancestral, Scandinavian, guardian female spirit like I‘ve read about in Norse Myths. Could she have been, though, some kind of Jungian Old Crone Goddess-Archetype from the human collective subconscious, like the Greek Hecate or Celtic Morrigan or Summarian Ereshkigal or Babylonian Tiamat or Norse Hel? Most days, I’m quite fond of that explanation.  But maybe she was a UFOnaut who repeatedly abducted me for experiments and hid behind an Old Woman’s image that he-she-it-they inserted into my brain. Or was she “just my imagination?” 

More likely, she was Cthulhu in disguise, a Lovecraftian Old One from the insanely vast spaces between the stars who picked me to inspire because I’m not really human but a stellar hybrid with sub-dimensional tentacles that touch things which should not be. Yes, that last one is probably the answer. Excuse me while I update my bio. But whatever I experienced and have fun speculating about now, I don’t think I still fear her. I suspect, should she appear and lift that veil, I would see whatever I needed to see or was capable of seeing. And I believe we could have a very interesting conversation. 

More Andersson (all links):

·         Author Website

·         Wikipedia Entry for C. Dean Andersson

·         2013 interview with C. Dean Andersson (by Terry W. Ervin)

·         Interview about writing the HelTrilogy by GW Thomas

·         Facebook:Bloodsong

·         Wikipedia, Bathory's "OneRode to Asa Bay," dedicated to C. Dean Andersson in honor of Bloodsong

Shedding Light On The Resurrectionist - E.B.Hudspeth Interview by S.E.Lindberg

E.B.Hudspeth: Author & Illustrator of "The Ressurectionist"

E.B. Hudspeth’s novel/art-book combination “The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black” chronicles an artist/scientist as he “revives or brings to light again (aka resurrect)” a dormant beauty inside humanity.  With a horrific tale complementing beautiful anatomical drawings of hybrid creatures, he invites us to reconsider the boundaries (if any) between man & animal…between art & science.  We appreciate E.B.Hudspeth taking the time to “bring to light” the beauty in his art with this interview:

Motivations & Muses: Did a muse similar to Mary Shelly's affect you? Where you terrified by muses?

With The Modern Prometheus (1818), Mary Bryce Shelly grappled with the themes of Science, Art, and Spirit.   Her character Victor Frankenstein, the infamous artist and scientist, pieced together materials from cemeteries to create life via alchemy.  In her prologue, she described how her muse worked though her:

“My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie. I saw-with shut eyes, but acute mental vision-I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together.  I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.   Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.  His success would terrify the artist.” - Mary Shelly ~1818

EBH: No, it sounds like Shelly’s muse would have terrified anyone. The whole thing came about as a simple curiosity. I wanted to know how the anatomy of a winged human would work. It was originally a study for a sculpture but then it turned into something more comprehensive. The artwork came first. After I had a pretty clear idea of the art direction, that’s when I worked on the story, focusing on the nineteenth century. I wanted the artist to have believed in this work, not just a piece of fantasy, to me, that’s where the heart of it is. You know immediately that who ever drew this took it seriously and that provokes a pretty interesting question.

The Process of Creation: Did the process of making the book further evolve your own philosophy on art or beauty?  

Spencer Black learned a lot about himself and humanity during his life, especially when he tried to produce new forms.  Did your views of art change as you realized your vision of the book?

EBH: Yes, my views on art are always changing and they change faster than I can improve as an artist. I feel as though the more I learn, the more respect and appreciation I gain and the more I need to improve. One thing I try not to take for granted in art is the history of esthetics. Their origins, the centuries required to refine them and then their tragic disappearance. There are curves and shapes and line weights that can be lost if we don’t pay attention. Looking back into the 19th century to research certain styles was a wonderful thing to do and a little sad. I am proud of my penmanship but it is nothing compared to the ornate flourish and decoration used commonly in letters.

E.B.Hudspeth: Author & Illustrator of "The Ressurectionist"

Art vs. the Artist: How much of E.B. Hudspeth is reflected in the character Dr. Spencer Black?

We know Dr. Black struggled to reveal dormant/recessive beauty to the public.  The below quote from Spencer seems to echo your motivation: 

"I hear them marvel at my work—my indignant science. I hear them call out in fear of what they see. And there are some gentlemen who doubt what I will tell them. They call me a liar and a charlatan or a quack. But in time the methods of science that I now employ to convince people will surely set them free—alas, this I cannot explain to the angry fools."

I assume you see beauty in the horrific drawings you produced (I do); how do you respond to those who need help seeing the beauty?   Can you help “bring to light” awareness. 

EBH: I am not sure how much of myself comes out in a character. There are certainly going to be things that I write that I am relating to personally. I think it’s common to feel like there is something special and powerful within us that we have a difficult time expressing. Dr. Black is giving the world something that he feels is no less valuable than food, but they won’t eat. I think this sense of rejection is something we all feel at some point in life. 

I wonder if beauty is only in the eye of the beholder. I am not trying to convince anyone. We all love different things and it would be terrible if we all agreed on what beauty was. I personally love the shape and form of organic life. Every specimen is a beautiful mystery, visually and intellectually.

I wanted the artwork in the book to play out as a character. You never really sympathize with Spencer Black until you see his drawings. It isn’t the context that makes you understand him, it’s the sincerity. There are things that artwork can do that other mediums cannot. The same is true for the other mediums i.e., music, writing, dance, etc., they all have their special traits.

E.B.Huspeth: Author & Illustrator of "The Resurrectionist"

Bounds of Humanity: Where does man begin and animal end?

There are real life analogues to the fictitious Spencer. Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) comes to mind. A dedicated, philosophical scientist with outstanding artistic skills, he documented thousands of life forms and published his beautiful plates in “Art Forms in Nature” (translated from German: Kunstforman der Natur). But then his fascination with Art-Nature caused an uproar when he tweaked his drawings of embryos in 1874. 

The setting in “The Resurrectionist” is ideal for redefining the nature of “man.” The turn of the 19th century was rich with advances in evolutionary theory, science, and even speculative fiction. Anatomists, philosophers, and scientists ruminated on how far to extrapolate Darwin’s assertions. Most understood that all vertebrates shared a common skeletal structure; but if animals and man were connected in their development, was it not reasonable to reconsider the existence of creatures termed mythological? Were centaurs real? Harpies? Demons? Spencer Black needed to know. You seemed to use him to lure us on this quest.  So, are there distinctions between man and animal?  

EBH: To get into the real scientific answers to this question you would need to ask someone else, someone far more qualified. I am happy to offer my observations, whatever they are worth. Your question is where a lot of the story was able to breathe. The oceans, so vast and mysterious and still unexplored… what lives in it? Today we entertain the possibility of weird or imagined creatures living somewhere in the world, image what it was like 150 years ago?

Anatomically, it is astounding what similarities occur in animals. The bones following remarkably similar patterns, hands become wings, feet become elongated lower legs etc. Eyes, teeth patterns, and reproductive systems all follow predictable rules. Among all of the animals there are a great deal of similarities. Scientists like Ernst Haeckel were amazing for their times. He did doctor his own work, which isn’t uncommon, especially if you believe in the work and its future— competition was fierce, as I am sure it still is today.

The nineteenth century was a good place to exploit the questions of what is the true origin of man. A question that we still aren’t 100%. It’s that 1% uncertainty where doctors like Spencer Black look for answers.

As far as distinctions, they exist in everything. This is how we quantify our world, we measure and name and make distinctions—there is nothing wrong with this. The danger is when we place values on everything.

More Art: Are there more resurrections in the future (i.e. more horrors to shed light on)? Can we expect more history of the Black family to be revealed?

EBH:  I am working on a sequel. It’s taking longer than I had hoped, but that’s only because I am very excited about it and I want it to be right. There will be more about the Black family. The first book was written and designed with a sequel in mind.

Stay tuned by following this site and checking out the author's website: http://ebhudspeth.com/

...and read S.E.Lindberg's Review of The Resurrectionist (link).