The Imagination Fully Dilated Blog

A Raffle of an OF THIMBLE AND THREAT-inspired painting by Alan M. Clark

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:07:08 +0000

This is the final announcement for the raffle of a free painting by Alan M. Clark to promote Of Thimble and Threat: The Life of a Ripper Victim, published by Lazy Fascist Press. The image on the left is the painting by Alan M. Clark for the raffle [details below]. The image is inspired by Of Thimble and Threat: The Life of a Ripper Victim, and is currently unpublished. The painting is acrylic on hardboard with dimensions of 12″x18″.

For those of you who missed the initial announcement, here’s how to enter the raffle:

A. Take a picture of yourself with Of Thimble and Threat: The Life of a Ripper Victim and post it online (on your blog/website, Facebook, Twitter, or elsewhere). Send a link to the photo to lazyfascist@gmail.com.

B. Correctly answer the following trivia questions (send your answers to lazyfascist@gmail.com):

1. What song did Katie sing in the novel during her cousin’s execution?

2. What was given to infants by the childminder, Patricia Ennis, in order to quiet them?

3. What item in the novel is referred to by the slang expression “nose warmer”?

No purchase necessary. If you have any questions about the raffle, please email lazyfascist@gmail.com. The winner will be announced on June 4th, 2012.

Of Thimble and Threat: The Life of a Ripper Victim is a story about the intense love between a mother and a child, a story of poverty and loss, fierce independence, and unconquerable will. It is the devastating portrayal of a self-perpetuated descent into Hell, a lucid view into the darkest parts of the human heart.

Alan M. Clark is a World Fantasy Award-winning artist. He has illustrated the works of Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Jack Ketchum, Joe R. Lansdale, Richard Laymon, Brian Lumley, F. Paul Wilson, Brian Keene, William F. Nolan, George Orwell, Poppy Z. Brite, and Christopher Golden.

Raffle of a Painting by Alan M. Clark Inspired by OF THIMBLE AND THREAT

admin — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:34:51 +0000

The image above is Alan M. Clark’s sketch and contrast study, produced with black and white pencil on brown paper, for the painting he will later produce for the raffle [details below]. The image is inspired by Of Thimble and Threat: The Life of a Ripper Victim, published by Lazy Fascist Press. In a final message about the raffle, just before the drawing, we will post the image of the painting.

For those of you who missed the initial announcement, here’s how to enter the raffle:

B. Correctly answer the following trivia questions (send your answers to lazyfascist@gmail.com):

1. What song did Katie sing in the novel during her cousin’s execution?

2. What was given to infants by the childminder, Patricia Ennis, in order to quiet them?

3. What item in the novel is referred to by the slang expression “nose warmer”?

No purchase necessary. If you have any questions about the raffle, please email lazyfascist@gmail.com. The winner will be announced on June 4th, 2012.

Of Thimble and Threat: The Life of a Ripper Victimis a story about the intense love between a mother and a child, a story of poverty and loss, fierce independence, and unconquerable will. It is the devastating portrayal of a self-perpetuated descent into Hell, a lucid view into the darkest parts of the human heart.

Dilation Exercise 53

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:15:38 +0000

Below you’ll find Alan M. Clark’s weekly Dilation Exercise. Please look at the picture, read the caption, above and below the image, and allow your imagination to go to work on it. If the artwork inspires a story, please say something about it in a comment. Need a further explanation? Go to Imagination Workout—The Dilation Exercises.

Banished from her home on a world orbiting a star in the constellation, Musca, Arachnius was sent to the backwater world, Earth, to live out her life as a lowly creature.

Hope against hope, her plan for ending her exile was outrageous, but when the stars above her stirred and showed interest in her construction, she crouched in preparation for her leap.

Artwork: “Said the Spider to the Fly” copyright © 2000 Alan M. Clark.
Interior illustration for Imagination Fully Dilated, Volume II edited by Elizabeth Engstrom and Alan M. Clark – IFD Publishing.

Captions are original to this post and have nothing to do with the literary project with which the artwork first appeared.

—Alan M. Clark

Eugene, Oregon

Dilation Exercise 52

admin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:25:14 +0000

Saint %$&@#, the patron of free speech, had lain dormant for almost seventy years, her sleep made fitful only periodically by events among human kind.

Strange that in the information age she would awaken with a start and begin to struggle against her bonds.

Artwork: “Censorship” copyright © 2000 Alan M. Clark.
Interior illustration for “Pain and Other Petty Plots” by Alan M. Clark and Randy Fox, which appeared in Pain and Other Petty Plots to Keep You in Stitches – IFD Publishing.

Captions are original to this post and have nothing to do with the literary project with which the artwork first appeared.

—Alan M. Clark

Eugene, Oregon

Dilation Exercise 50

admin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:11:13 +0000

Sold as a miracle cure for death itself, the dreaded mummified cat tea was said to work only if taken by a willing subject postmortem on Wednesday the 29th of February.

With Leap Year just around the corner, the product leapt off the shelves as countless people, wanting to thumb their noses at death, trusted the ad campaign and prepared to commit suicide.

Artwork: “Miracle Cure” copyright © 2004 Alan M. Clark.
Interior Illustration for DEAD CAT TRAVELING CIRCUS OF WONDERS AND MIRACLE MEDICINE SHOW, an anthology edited by Gerard Houarner and Gak. Published by Bedlam Press.

Captions are original to this post and have nothing to do with the literary project with which the artwork first appeared.

—Alan M. Clark

Eugene, Oregon

Dilation Exercise 49

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:15:39 +0000

They shared many hours together in the bed, passionate hours, hours of rest, hope, dreams, nightmares, illness, and finally the moment of death.

Once they were gone, the bedding could not be changed and the room could not be used, as the memory of their love and passion for each other demanded privacy.

Artwork: “Frontispiece for ‘Candyland’” copyright © 1998 Alan M. Clark.
Interior illustration for “Candyland” by Elizabeth Engstrom, which appeared in The Alchemy of Love, by Elizabeth Engstrom and Alan M. Clark, published by TripleTree Publishing.

Captions are original to this post and have nothing to do with the literary project with which the artwork first appeared.

—Alan M. Clark

Eugene, Oregon

Dilation Exercise 48

admin — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:02:19 +0000

She was trouble, but I couldn’t stay away and I knew that one day temptation would get the better of me.

Noticing how frequently I cruised passed her corner, she knew it too, and she made special efforts to display her charms when I drove by.

Artwork: “With an Afterbirth Death Mint” copyright © 1989 Alan M. Clark.
David Conover wrote the story, “In Living Color (A Denouement),” based on the artwork. The image and story appeared in IMAGINATION FULLY DILATED, THE LITERARY WORKS OF ALAN M. CLARK, edited by Elizabeth Engstrom and Alan M. Clark, published by Cemetery Dance Publications.

Captions are original to this post and have nothing to do with the literary project with which the artwork first appeared.

—Alan M. Clark

Eugene, Oregon

Dilation Exercise 47

admin — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:17:21 +0000

The commute was a bitch, but it gave Goatman and his pet snail, Tilde, plenty of time to read and rehearse together for their demanding role.

“One day,” he said, glancing up at Tilde, “when I’m famous as the guy who saved the princess by devouring her horrid brats, we’ll move out of the slums of West Fairyland and get a place in town.”

Artwork: “Scholar and Goose” copyright © 2004 Alan M. Clark.
IIllustration for “At the City Of Rectified Errors” by Jay Lake with Alan M. Clark & Paul Groendes. This is one of four pieces of art produced by Alan M. Clark during a multi-media, collaborative endeavor which included writer, Jay Lake, and sculptor, Paul Groendes. The effort was to produce a fully illustrated story in front of customers during five working days at Borderlands Books in San Francisco. Paul Groendes produced a sculpture to help illustrate as well. Later, the painting appeared in the art book, Alan M. Clark, The Paint in My Blood, Fine Art and Illustration, published by IFD Publishing.

Captions are original to this post and have nothing to do with the literary project with which the artwork first appeared.

—Alan M. Clark

Eugene, Oregon

Dilation Exercise 46

admin — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:37:48 +0000

In the secure privacy of her own thoughts, she was proud of her attention to detail.

Even so, as she checked and rechecked the crime scene within memory to make sure she’d left behind nothing incriminating, the stress of it began to take a toll on the rest of her life.

—Alan M. Clark

Eugene, Oregon

Dilation Exercise 45

admin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:47:24 +0000

Below you’ll find the weekly Dilation Exercise. Please look at the picture, read the caption, above and below the image, and allow your imagination to go to work on it. If the artwork inspires a story, please say something about it in a comment. Need a further explanation? Go to Imagination Workout—The Dilation Exercises.

While surrounded by his followers at the convention, if I had merely pointed to him and called him out for the evil, alien creature I knew him to be, no one would have believed me and I would have been ostracized by a group I had come to know and love, but during my painting demonstration that day, I seized upon a plan he would not suspect or recognize until it was too late.

I used my skills to render him, as apparently only I could see him, and offered the painting to him as a gift in a gesture of friendship before many witnesses at the event, knowing that with time my depiction of his bald head, mutton chops, and beady, little eyes would inevitably seep into the consciousness of all who saw it and register a disquieting match with the visage he had been showing us all for so long.

—Alan M. Clark

Eugene, Oregon