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John Coulthart

@johncoulthart.com
1.9K followers 81 following 4.3K posts

Artist, designer, occasional writer. • Words: www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton • Pictures: www.johncoulthart.com • Linktree: linktr.ee/johncoulthart No DMs. Contact me here: www.johncoulthart.com/contact.html

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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 4h
www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.c...
isfdb.org
Publication: Charles Keeping's Classic Tales of the Macabre
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 4h
Some of the interior illustrations may be seen at the Tumblr maintained by @mattlyon.bsky.social Keeping illustrates Lovecraft! Who knew? Not I... c86.tumblr.com/post/1884954...
c86.tumblr.com
TOMBOLARE
Charles Keeping's Classic Tales of the Macabre, 1987 The Story of the Late Mr Elvesham by H.G. Wells The Statement of Randolph Carter by H.P. Lovecraft The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan...
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 4h
Something wicked this way comes...
The cover wrap of a hardback book: Charles Keeping's Classic Tales of the Macabre (1987) showing a scene from Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad by MR James. A sombre beach scene with breakwaters crossing a shingle beach. A dark figure in the foreground is crouching by one of the breakwaters, hiding from a white shape in the distance.
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Richard Wells @slipperyjack.bsky.social · 6h
Successful first day in Prague. Ended with an evening stroll, passing the Museum of Alchemy just as they were setting up a puppet theatre production of Faust in the courtyard! It was pretty great! Very much informed by Švankmajer (they did the "Padlookay! Pilookay!" routine, I grinned like heck)...
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 6h
Haha, yes.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 6h
I still find it wild that the musician credits for this are Steve Vai: guitar; Ryuichi Sakamoto: Fairlight CMI; Bill Laswell: fretless bass; Tony Williams: drums; L. Shankar: violin. And it got to no. 11 in the UK charts. Laswell sorcery. www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7k4...
youtube.com
Rise
YouTube video by Public Image Limited - Topic
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 6h
Nitpick: the vinyl really ought to be labelled Vinyl if the CD is Compact Disc and the cassette is Cassette. Either that or they all get labelled Album...
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 6h
#nowplaying
An album release on compact disc: Compact Disc (aka Album, 1986) by Public Image Ltd.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 9h
New blog post: Panic by Sándor Reisenbüchler
johncoulthart.com
Panic by Sándor Reisenbüchler
I suspect that if Sándor Reisenbüchler had been French, say, rather than Hungarian his animated films might be better known today. Panic (1979), like Moon Flight (1975), is another of his short exercises in Pop-art science fiction, a rush through a series of vivid and hyperactive scenes where everything is flattened and stylised, often to a point of abstraction. Panic…
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 10h
www.theguardian.com/film/filmblo...
theguardian.com
Remembering the late, great Dan O'Bannon | Phelim O'Neill
Phelim O'Neill: This unassuming, multitalented film-maker, who has died aged 63, was best known as the brain behind Alien. But he was so much more
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The Spaceshipper 🚀 @thespaceshipper.com · 10h
American film screenwriter, director and visual effects supervisor Dan O'Bannon (1946-2009) was born 80 years ago today.
ALIEN: NOW in production, next to Dan O'Bannon
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 11h
I think I'd be more suited to doing some of the weirder aliens.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 11h
This corrosion: CD edition. One careful owner yet it's still ended up looking like this. Especially bad around the edges of the tin.
A CD release of Metal Box by Public Image Limited. Still shiny but blotched with oxidisation.A view inside the same CD release of Metal Box by Public Image Limited.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 11h
That book is illustrated in a very Keeping-like manner by Brian Wildsmith. A generation of illustrators over whom Ronald Searle casts a long shadow.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 11h
If I'd seen this in the library when I was 10 or 11 I would have snatched it up. One of the class reads at school was Henry Treece's Legions of the Eagle which I enjoyed, but Vikings were always preferable to Romans, especially after I got obsessed with this cult volume.
Another Puffin paperback: Myths of the Norsemen by Roger Lancelyn Green. Purple cover with a line drawing of another bearded Norse warrior in horned helmet with shield and sword.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 11h
I like title spreads: that's a long longship. The story concerns an Icelandic boy who joins up with the Jomsvikings (Icelandic raiders) with whom "he learns to fight and kill, to sing their songs, and to accept their rigid code."
The title spread for Horned Helmet by Henry Treece showing a line illustration of a Viking longship with fearsome dragon prow sailing across the pages from right to left.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 11h
The secondhand boxes outside our tiny local bookshop are seldom of interest but today I spotted this 1968 paperback. Albertus typography and Charles Keeping illustrations.
A Puffin paperback book: Horned Helmet by Henry Treece. Cover art shows a bearded Viking warrior in (yes) a horned helmet striding from a ship with shield raised and sword bared. Behind him there follows a warrior boy and more warrior men.
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Josh Rountree @joshrountree.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The Czech language edition of The Legend of Charlie Fish is coming soon!!
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 29/09/2026
I forgot this edition was on its way. Congrats!
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 29/09/2026
Cormac McCarthy would have told you it's fine because it's how our brains operate: nautil.us/the-kekul-pr...
nautil.us
The Kekulé Problem - Nautilus
Where did language come from?
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 28/09/2026
I'd say Assignment Two, the haunted railway station. It's a bit too long but I find it more chilling than the photographs one (episode four). Second choice would be the final episode but that builds its power from being a culmination of all that's gone before. Not sure it would work as a standalone.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 28/09/2026
I doubt I'll ever have to draw any of the Futurama characters but I always like seeing guides like this: www.cartoonbrew.com/interviews/f...
cartoonbrew.com
How 'Futurama' Is Drawn: The Rules For Fry, Bender, And Leela
Futurama co-creator David X. Cohen and supervising director Peter Avanzino discuss how the series has maintained its visual identity for almost 30 years.
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Catsuka @catsuka.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"Syd Mead Ultimo", a new massive 320-page artbook dedicated to the late, legendary designer (Star Trek, Blade Runner, Tron, Aliens, Star Wars, Gundam...) Pre-orders >> www.catsuka.com/shopping/ind...
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 28/09/2026
New blog post: Percy Billinghurst's fables
johncoulthart.com
Percy Billinghurst’s fables
These are actually La Fontaine's fables illustrated by a British artist, Percy J. Billinghurst, but I try to avoid unwieldly post titles that mix artist and writer. There isn't much of a biographical record for Percy Billinghurst, and what records there are don't agree about his birth and death dates which are generally given as 1871—1933. One thing that is certain is Billinghurst's fondness for drawing animals.
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Johnny Mains @johnnymains.co.uk · 28/09/2026
Trish Keenan would have been 58 today. Everyone go listen to some Broadcast.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 28/09/2026
"Atilla competed in the first Calypso King contest in 1939, and won the title in both 1946 and 1947. "Known as a defender of the poor, Atilla was able to transition to a political career. When several of his records were censored he composed 'The Banning of Records', which was itself banned."
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 28/09/2026
Mighty Sparrow is an unusual nom de plume but not as unusual as some other calypsonians, eg: Raymond Quevedo who performed under the name Atilla the Hun.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 28/09/2026
www.theguardian.com/music/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Mighty Sparrow, the Trinidad and Tobago singer known as the ‘calypso king of the world’, dies aged 91
Slinger Francisco, who performed as the Mighty Sparrow, died on Sunday surrounded by family in New York
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Marc G @gravesnailyard.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
RIP the mighty Mighty Sparrow - youtu.be/leZ70lFJIsI
youtu.be
Mighty Sparrow - *Music and Rhythm*
YouTube video by mightysparrowaz
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 27/09/2026
I was thinking when writing the post that there must be other examples beyond the inevitable metal and goth records. But how to find them?
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 27/09/2026
The whole of Dee's book for Latin readers. Or you could just look at the pictures. archive.org/details/mona...
archive.org
Monas hieroglyphica Ioannis Dee, Londinensis, ad Maximilianvm, Dei gratia Romanorvm, Bohemiae et Hvngariae regem sapientissimvm
Pref., dedication, and author's statement on p. 107 bear dates in Jan., 1564, the year of the 1st ed. 3rd ed. appeared in 1591. See Hogart
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 27/09/2026
Not noticed before that Bill Nelson used John Dee's Monad glyph on a single sleeve in 1984, years before Coil used the same symbol for their Time Machines album. A foretaste of Nelson's later occult preoccupations.
The title page of Monas Hieroglyphica (1591) by John Dee. In the centre of the page below the book title is an engraved emblem showing the Monad glyph, a symbol that creates an abstract human figure by combining the astrological symbols of the planets. At the four corners of the emblem are graphics depicting the four elements: fire, air, earth and water.A seven-inch single sleeve for Acceleration by Bill Nelson. Grey background with a graphic in white lines of two nested squares that frame a circle, triangle and Dee's Monad.One of the insert cards from Time Machines (1998) by Time Machines. A white border with the words Time Machines -- Persistence Is All printed in black. Inside the border is a black square; inside the black square is a white oval; inside the white oval is a small green Monad glyph.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 27/09/2026
That's good to know. The place was long gone by the time I started visiting Manchester.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 27/09/2026
#nowplaying
An album release on compact disc: Variations (2002) by Steve Reich. Featuring Variations For Winds, Strings And Keyboards; Music For Mallet Instruments, Voices And Organ; Six Pianos.
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S. Elizabeth @mlleghoul.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I am watching Halloween for the gazillionth time, and I just noticed there's a James Ensor poster hanging over Laurie Strode's dresser. Ensor almost made it into The Art of the Unknown.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 26/09/2026
New blog post: Weekend links 849
johncoulthart.com
Weekend links 849
Mushroom Lady poster (1967) by East Totem West. • “I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music.” Composer Steve Reich talks to Flora Willson about his long career. More Reich: live performances from 1976 by Steve Reich and Musicians of Six Pianos and Music For Mallet Instruments, Voices And Organ. • At Aeon: …
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 24/09/2026
Don't look for it, it's not there any more.
A Street View shot of a car park in a Manchester street.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 24/09/2026
Another House on a different Borderland. Manchester's first SF bookshop, early 1970s. Prop: D. Britton, Esq.
A promotional shop leaflet, red paper with black print:

"37, PORT ST, MANCHESTER 1, HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND

We are carrying an increasing stock of imported Science Fiction, Occult, Comic's, Mysticism, Fantasy, U.F.O. Underground, Rock, and books of a generally bizarre nature. If your taste leans to the far out; Check us out." 

Beneath this is an illustration of some kind of sword and sorcery conflict involving a flying horse, a dragon and a man with a spear.
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Swan River Press @swanriverpress.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 24/09/2026
New blog post: Cthulhu's new labyrinth
johncoulthart.com
Cthulhu’s new labyrinth
Here in The North the weather is slowly turning against the wearing of T-shirts outdoors but this week I've made a new shirt available based on an old design. The first Cthulhu Labyrinth came about when I was putting together pages for a Cthulhu calendar in 2012. In the end it didn't get used for the calendar but the design stuck around even though I was never entirely satisfied with it.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 24/09/2026
Ha, glad to be of service!
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 24/09/2026
Belbury Poly? Yes, released this week: belburymusic.greedbag.com/buy/sorcery-...
belburymusic.greedbag.com
Belbury Poly - Sorcery
Official Belbury Music shop. Buy Sorcery and other music from Belbury Music in MP3, Vinyl and CD.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 24/09/2026
In today's post: retro cosmic synthery and chthonic bass verberation.
A pair of shrinkwrapped compact discs: Sorcery (2026) by The Belbury Poly, and Oblique (2026) by Ghost Dubs.
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Richard Wells @slipperyjack.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Film Time! Back on the Švankmajer train, I revisited his gruesome update of a Czech folk tale, Little Otik (2000). At 132 mins it's very overstretched, but who can resist a flesh-eating stump golem. The director's penchant for hyper tactile detail and squelchy sound design present and correct...
Little Otik the adopted stump baby is bathed by his mother.Little Otik the stump baby is spoon fed.Growing Otik captures a visiting social worker.Illustrated folk tale book page depicting a fully grown Otik swallowing people. Painted by Eva Švankmajerová.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 23/09/2026
SMASHING TIME (1967): Yvonne (Lynn Redgrave) becomes a pop star and throws a party at the top of the Post Office Tower. Brenda (Rita Tushingham) deliberately wrecks the event by making the rotating restaurant spin too fast. (Script by George Melly.)
A screen grab from Smashing Time: a close shot of a party invitation lying on a table: "Join Me At The Top -- Yvonne" printed above a photo of the Post Office Tower.A screen grab from Smashing Time: Rita Tushingham inside the Post Office Tower control room looking at a view of the building from a CCTV camera.A screen grab from Smashing Time: a close shot of the "Speed Control" for the Post Office Tower, with a dial graded from "Slow" to "Danger: Overload".A screen grab from Smashing Time: a close shot of Brenda's hands pulling a lever all the way into the red danger zone.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 23/09/2026
A friend once described the place as looking like something from Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet which is no doubt part of the attraction.
A GPO poster showing a very nice cutaway view of the Post Office Tower.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 23/09/2026
I've wanted to explore the Post Office Tower [sic] for as long as I can remember. It may yet happen. www.theregister.com/offbeat/2026...
theregister.com
BT Tower's rooftop pool plan brings swimmers back down to earth
MCR's hotel proposal puts facility on a lower building, while public access to upper floors set to be restored
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 23/09/2026
New blog post: Two short films by István Orosz
johncoulthart.com
Two short films by István Orosz
Hungarian artist István Orosz has directed fifteen short animated films to date, and co-directed three more, yet he's known more for his drawings than his films, especially those works which follow MC Escher by combining a careful graphic technique with an exploration of optical illusion. Orosz's artistic interests naturally extend to his animations which have never been easy to see online despite so many of them being relatively recent productions.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 23/09/2026
I've had a pair of Mission 701s for the past 25 years, they're fine with Ghost Dubs' low end. I think they were about £300 new. Mission calls these shelf speakers but they're large cabinets which I have on speaker stands. www.vintagechief.com/mission-701-...
vintagechief.com
Mission 701 Speakers
Matching pair of Mission 701 speakers with the original speaker grills. The Mission 701 speakers are a 2 way, 2 driver speaker system.
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John Coulthart @johncoulthart.com · 22/09/2026
Still waiting for the BFI or Švankmajer's Athanor outlet to upgrade all his short films to blu-ray. I'd probably prefer the BFI to do it since their DVD set has some good extras.
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