Dave Carson
Commissions | Projects | History | Copyright
UPDATED : Buy Dave Carson Prints here
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EXCLUSIVE SHUB-NIGGURATH TSHIRT NOW AVAILABLE !
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With Dave Carson cover art : The Awful Transmutation of the Hills
Five time British Fantasy Award winner
Artist Guest of Honour World Horror Convention 2010
If you've ever wondered what H.P. Lovecraftian things really look like - I mean, really look like - you should go and inspect Dave's art.
Neil Gaiman
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I have no desire at all to provide you with free artwork. Here's an excellent post about free art, it may amuse you.
My preference is black and white pen & ink, but have been known to do the odd digital piece, and sculpture.
I only consider projects that interest me.
If you wish to commission artwork please read this carefully : All jobs are unique and some require significantly more time than others, email me and explain clearly what your project is, what the deadline for the completed artwork is, and how much you wish to pay. I will then let you know if I can accomplish that work within your budget.
In the works - a book of my collected drawings entitled Called by Cthulhu : The Eldritch Art of Dave Carson, with an introduction by Neil Gaiman. It's taking a while.
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Still working on my Memoirs to Prove the Existence of Cthulhu. It's taking a while.
Recent projects :
Completed the cover art & design for The AKLONOMICON, coming soon from AKLO PRESS . Contributed artwork to INHUMAN #5 magazine.
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Had the honour to do some CD artwork & band tshirt for the most excellent Black/Death/Thrash/Mythos/Lovecraft influenced THE ZIGGURAT . Check them out, they deserve your support.They will blow you away.
Photo Copyright 2011 © Lynsey Callahan / Photography & Design. Used with permission of the band.
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Was an Artist Guest of Honour at the World Horror Convention held in Brighton UK in March 2010 and had work featured in both the hardcover pocket programme and the convention souvenir book.
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Had some prints on display as part of a Lovecraftian art gallery show at the Observatory, New York.
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Contributed artwork for the awesome collection of Basil Copper's tales Darkness, Mist and Shadow: The Collected Macabre Tales of Basil Copper from PS Publishing.
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Cover art for H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life by Michel Houellebecq (Orion, UK), cover and interior art for the Reader's Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos(Gakken, Japan). Artwork also featured in the documentary film The Eldritch Influence : The Life, Vision and Phenomena of H.P.Lovecraft (Hermetic Productions, USA), A Lovecraft Retrospective : Artists Inspired by H.P.Lovecraft (Millipede Press, USA), Digital Horror Painting Workshop (Ilex, UK) .
I've been involved in horror and Lovecraftian art since the 1970's. My first professionally published work was in The Encyclopedia of Horror (Octopus Books, UK, 1981). Contributed artwork to the Shadows Over Innsmouth book , Goth Chic: A Connoisseur's Guide to Dark Culture (Plexus, UK), Book of Dark Wisdom magazine, Fighting Fantasy : Beneath Nightmare Castle (Puffin Books, UK), Horrors Beyond, Horrors Beyond II (Elder Signs Press, USA), Fear magazine, the Dark Voices series from Pan Books, The Best Horror from Fantasy Tales (Robinson, UK), White Dwarf magazine, The Giant Book of Fantasy and The Supernatural (Parragon, UK). Conceived, co-edited (with Stephen Jones) and illustrated H.P.Lovecraft's Book of Horror (Barnes & Noble, USA), and many Chaosium publications. Past clients include Weirdbook Press, Dagon Press, Blitz Verlag, Interzone magazine, Palladium Books, Robinson Books, Nyctalops magazine, James Van Hise, Necronomicon Press, Chaosium, Games Workshop, Pan Books, Dead Letter Press , Whispers magazine, Octopus Books, Elder Signs Press, Fantasy Tales magazine, Kadath magazine , Rosemary Pardoe's Ghosts & Scholars magazine, Dave Reeder's Skeleton Crew magazine.
Copyright : My images may not be reproduced or used in any form without my written permission.
All images © 2012 Dave Carson. All rights reserved.
All artwork on this website is the property of the Dave Carson. You may not copy, modify, re-use, download, or distribute these images without the express written permission of Dave Carson. Yes, that includes even YOU.
HPLHS Bibliophile Cthulhu T-shirt available now. Support the H.P.Lovecraft Historical Society and buy one !
My H.P.Lovecraft poster (above), drawn in 1979, has been widely reproduced, appearing in publications as diverse as The Encyclopedia of Horror from Octopus Books, Fortean Times, The Observer's Review supplement, and the cover of H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life from Orion.
I had one of the posters delivered to the great horror and fantasy writer Fritz Leiber at The 5th World Fantasy Convention in Providence, Rhode Island back in 1979, and he was kind enough to send me this note.
Some of my influences :
H.P.Lovecraft | Arthur Machen | Harry Clarke | Charles Fort | M.R.James | Norm Saunders | Clark Ashton Smith | Nigel Kneale | Lee Brown Coye | W.B.Yeats | Aubrey Beardsley | William Hope Hodgson | Virgil Finlay
Some comments by professionals in the fields of horror and fantasy :
"It's surely a most handsome artwork by Dave Carson - perhaps a scion of Great Cthulhu... "
"I don't know of any artist who can touch the heights (depths?) of decaying and liquiscent horror in visual form as you do..."
"Dave is an absolute master of black & white illustration...I've been known to call him a 'Master of Tentacular Pustularity', and it's been my pleasure to have him illustrate quite a few of my stories..."
"For two decades Dave Carson has been the premier Lovecraftian illustrator. Nobody does eldtritch, ichor and ichthyoid like Dave. His artwork opens a gateway to the darkest corners of our imagination and shows us horrors which our minds would rather remain hidden"
"Carson sure does like to draw tentacles and talons and fangs and pincers and bristles and spidery legs and rotting flesh and crumbling bones and oozing sores and ... brings a ghoulish enthusiasm to his work that has lately been tempered with maturing draftsmanship. The nightmare monsters and corpses of his earlier work still creep across his pages as nastily as ever, only now they carry more conviction. Either Carson has rapidly increased his technical skills as an artist, or else, as I suspect, he now uses live models "
"Was delighted to see that my old friend Dave Carson has a web site - If you've ever wondered what H.P. Lovecraftian things really look like - I mean, really look like - you should go and inspect Dave's art. I bought a picture called THE KISS from him in 1986, which my wife, seventeen years later, will still not allow to be hung anywhere in the house where she might have to see it, so it is only ever hung on walls she never looks at..."
"Having cut his teeth on Lovecraftian themes in the 70s and 80s, his work over the past twenty years has managed to incorporate everything from Goth Vamps to Death Metal. And he shows no sign of slackening. If I were in a Satanic rock band I'd definitely be using him to desecrate my CD covers, and if I was writing a popular horror novel I'd be pressing my publisher to have him darken up my book jacket... "
" ...I never lost touch with his work, I was amazed by it all those years ago and I remain equally amazed today. And I'd keep seeing it, in books and magazines and even being bootlegged on the occasional T shirt..."
