Jamesian Fan Art

Canon Alberic's Scrapbook by Eugene Jaworski

Longtime readers and collectors of M.R. James' work have noticed that his chilling ghost stories have a propensity to inspire excellent art. Many James volumes have carried bewitching illustrations on their covers or between stories, numinous ornaments giving form to horrors beyond life. Today, internet artists are taking over where the book illustrators left off. Of course, online galleries like Eugene Jaworski's represent a modern way of displaying these spectral creations, sometimes to a greater audience than illustrations in limited print runs might ever reach.

Oh, Whistle by Athas

Whistle and I'll Come to You by Mickit

No surprise, but Deviantart.com continues to be ground zero for some shockingly good visual renditions of Jamesian entities. Most entries there are driven by his most popular stories, such as "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" and "The Ash-Tree." Artwork by Mickit and Athas represents very dark and literal translations of the most harrowing incidents in James' tales.

The Ash Tree by Mike Nash

These are nicely contrasted with more interpretive designs such as Mike Nash's take on the Ash Tree. Nash's image plays with symbolism to portray the menacing history behind the archaic tree. James' fiction, like Lovecraft's, yields itself exceedingly well to diverse artistic techniques. The literal and more abstract methods can both succeed when coupled with sufficient talent, resulting in fantastically strange iconography. When stretching across the internet, admirable Jamesian art may actually act as the proverbial "book cover" judged by newbies, who will then go on to pick up story collections, and thereby enter the weird fiction genre forever.

-Grim Blogger