Though Roald Dahl is better known in this day as the author of stories for children, he had a parallel career as the author of
short stories with more adult, macabre sensibilities. Some of those stories became part of a short-run series to fill the slot of to not
one but
two ill-fated Jackie Gleason shows. But instead of another game show or talk show, CBS wanted something to pair with the Twilight Zone. That show was
Way Out, though it didn't rate well and only ran for
14 episodes (and
5 episodes are on Archive.org). 18 years later, Dahl returned to TV with his sinister stories, but this time it was in the UK, where
Tales of the Unexpected lasted 9 seasons,
112 episodes in total. You can view
23 or so episodes online, split into parts (YT Playlist).
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Mar 22, 2011 -
27 comments
Michael Mararian creates pen and ink drawings of mischievously macabre babies and children. Meet the dark and wicked little demons in his
current exhibit or explore the world of childhood terrors in his
phobias, foibles and fiends collection (scroll down a few) where humor and horror collide.
posted by madamjujujive
on Dec 14, 2008 -
12 comments
Skelewags - drawings from a delightful Burtonish/Goreyesque world, including some skewed takes on Carroll's
Alice.
posted by Wolfdog
on Feb 6, 2008 -
13 comments
Topor et moi. Roland Topor was the graphic artist behind the beautiful
Planète Sauvage (Cf. a few posts below) but his
body of work also included founding the
Panic Movement with fellow oddballs
Jodorowsky and
Arrabal, writing plays and novels (
The Tenant, turned into a movie by another Paris-born celebrity of Polish extraction and amateur of bizarre, Roman Polanski), and making strange and popular
TV shows for
children (YouTube clips from the 80s). Except for the kids shows, most of the links are
quite NSFW with
abundant sex and/or
violence, though in a
cartoonish,
disturbing,
surreal, or even
political way: Topor
once said (YouTube documentary in French starting with his Phallunculi series) that to renounce sex was to banish oneself from mankind. Topor himself was also a familiar figure of the French cultural landscape, instantly recognisable thanks to his
manic cackle (heard at the beginning of this
video where he explains how to
make art from random pornographic images), that he (over)used to
play the madman Renfield in
Herzog's Nosferatu.
posted by elgilito
on Dec 11, 2006 -
10 comments
Reliquaries are containers built to hold objects of special religious significance, such as the
foot of a saint, or the
skull of a king. The art of European reliquary making reached it's zenith in the Middle Ages when craftsman created fantastic
objets d'art for cathedrals and monasteries in the form of
caskets, bodily
appendages, and freestanding holders built to visually display occasionally
gruesome bits of the venerated individual. The layperson had access to reliquaries as well, typically in the form of small lead
crosses worn around the neck, containing pieces of bone or one of the ubiquitous fragments of the
True Cross. Reliquaries are not unique to the Christianity, but can also be found in
Buddhist and
Islamic tradition.
posted by MrBaliHai
on Oct 6, 2002 -
27 comments
The Zymoglyphic Museum including the works of
Frederik Ruysch.
Ruysch made about a dozen tableaux, constructed of human fetal skeletons with backgrounds of other body parts, on allegorical themes of death and the transiency of life.... One fetal skeleton holding a string of pearls in its hand proclaims, "Why should I long for the things of this world?" Another, playing a violin with a bow made of a dried artery, sings, "Ah fate, ah bitter fate."
Ruysch's work was eventually purchased by his student and admirer,
Peter the Great.
posted by vacapinta
on Aug 30, 2002 -
13 comments
