Today in pulp I look back at the work of Victorian illustrator Sidney Sime.
Come this way...
Sidney Sime was born in Manchester in 1865. After working as a miner for five years he studied illustration at the Liverpool School of Art. His work was first exhibited in 1889.
Sime rose to fame through fantastical illustratons, working initially for Pick-Me-Up and The Idler magazine. In 1899 he used money from an inheritance to purchase and edit The Idler, before selling it on in 1901.
In 1904 he began work for Lord Dunsany, illustrating his first book The Gods of Pegana. Dunsany then became Sime's patron, and the artist worked for him on his books throughout his life.
There's a sly humour in Sime's work for Lord Dunsany: the gothic terror is always undercut with a dash of satire or a witty visual joke. Sime's experience as a caricaturist is evident in many of these drawings.
Sidney Sime has often been compared to Aubrey Beardsley. Both artist emphasized the grotesque, the decadent and the erotic in their work.
Poe, Heine, De Quincey and Meredith were great influences on Sidney Sime's aesthetic. He would read them late into the night at his Crown Cottage studio in Worplesdon.
In later life Sime became obsessed with the Book of Revelation and went on to paint his own visions of the Apocalypse. He also became a recluse, drawing and painting only when he felt like it.
Sidney Sime passed away on 22nd May 1941. His grave in St Mary's Churchyard, Worplesdon, near his studio. A gallery dedicated to his work has been established nearby: sidneysimegallery.org.uk
Sidney Sime is somewhat overlooked nowadays. That's a huge shame as his imagination and skill mark him out as an excellent and evocative illustrator of the macabre. Do look out for his work, it's very rewarding.
More stories another time...
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Today I'm looking back at the work of British graphic designer Abram Games!
Abram Games was born in Whitechapel, London in 1914. His father, Joseph, was a photographer who taught him the art of colouring by airbrush.
Games attended Hackney Downs School before dropping out of Saint Martin’s School of Art after two terms. His design skills were mainly self-taught by working as his father’s assistant.
Today I'm looking back at the career of English painter, book illustrator and war artist Edward Ardizzone!
Edward Ardizzone was born in Vietnam in 1900 to Anglo-French parents. Aged 5 he moved to England, settling in Suffolk.
Whilst working as an office clerk in London Ardizzone began to take lessons at the Westminster School of Art in his spare time. In 1926 he gave up his office job to concentrate on becoming a professional artist.
Today in pulp I look back at the Witchploitation explosion of the late 1960s: black magic, bare bottoms and terrible, terrible curtains!
Come this way...
Mainstream occult magazines and books had been around since late Victorian times. These were mostly about spiritualism, with perhaps a bit of magic thrown in.
But it was the writings of Aleister Crowley in English and Maria de Naglowska in French and Russian that first popularised the idea of 'sex magick' in the 20th century - the use of sexual energy and ritual to achieve mystical outcomes.
Between 1960 and 1970 Penguin Books underwent several revolutions in cover layout, at a time when public tastes were rapidly changing.
Today in pulp I look back at 10 years that shook the Penguin!
Allen Lane founded Penguin Books in 1935, aiming to bring high-quality paperbacks to the masses for the same price as a packet of cigarettes. Lane began by snapping up publishing rights for inexpensive mid-market novels and packaging them expertly for book lovers.
From the start Penguins were consciously designed; Lane wanted to distinguish his paperbacks from pulp novels. Edward Young created the first cover grid, using three horizontal bands and the new-ish Gill Sans typeface for the text.
Today in pulp: a tale of an unintentionally radical publisher. It only produced 42 books between 1968-9, but it caught the hedonistic, solipsistic, free love mood of the West Coast freakout scene like no other.
This is the story of Essex House...
Essex House was an offshoot of Parliament Press, a California publishing company set up by pulp artist Milton Luros after the market for pulp magazines began to decline. It specialised in stag magazines sold through liquor stores, to skirt around US obscenity publishing laws.
By the 1960s Parliament Press was already selling pornographic novels through its Brandon House imprint, though these were mostly reprints or translations of existing work. Luros was interested in publishing new erotic authors, and set up Essex House to do just that.
Today in pulp... one of my favourite SF authors: Harry Harrison!
Harry Harrison was born Stamford, Connecticut, in 1925. He served in the US Army Air Corps during WWII, but became disheartened with military life. In his spare time he learned Esperanto.
Harrison started his sci-fi career as an illustrator, working with Wally Wood on Weird Fantasy and Weird Science up until 1950. He also wrote for syndicated comic strips, including Flash Gordon and Rick Random.