The Art of Darkness

Leather Link Dumps of Phobos

December 30th, 2016 by Cobwebs

How to Keep Your Guy From Removing the Neck Ribbon That Keeps Your Head Tied On – Don’t you hate when this happens?

Bruce Campbell Reality Show Now Casting – A horror-themed reality show hosted by Campbell is looking for horror fans to participate. (via Beth)

List of inventors killed by their own inventions – Wikipedia is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

Frankenstuffies – Etsy shop which sells chimeric abominations “lovingly re-assembled by hand from cleaned, recycled and, um, dismembered stuffed animals.”

Hiné Mizushima – Artist who creates felted mashups of flora and fauna, like the Venus Anttrap Beetle and the Florapede.

Skull Handbag – Neat glow-in-the-dark molded latex skull purse.

Wolf Meets Dog – This thoughtful cartoon casts dogs in a fairy-tale light.

7 Monsters That Bigfoot Hunters Are Too Scared to Believe In – A roundup of particularly unlikely-sounding cryptids.

Death Wish Coffee – Highly-caffeinated “extreme” coffee.

The Raven – The Library of Congress has a high-resolution scan of a rare edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” with gorgeous illustrations by Gustave Doré. (Note that there are several scans of blank pages, which can be a little confusing; the library aims to capture the physical book as closely as possible, which means including the blank pages.)

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Link Dump On 34th Street

December 23rd, 2016 by Cobwebs

Ash Dancer – Amazingly detailed graphite sculpture of a human skeleton.

Cryptomancer – RPG created “by hackers for hackers.” It’s your standard fantasy-world setting, but you win by creating and undermining cryptographically secured networks of magical gems.

Mama In Her Kerchief and I In My Madness – A “truly awful Christmas volume” of fictional pre-Santa lore. (Hat tip to pdq)

Whimsy Calling – Etsy shop specializing in absurdly cute clay animals, including dragons, ponycorns, and what may possibly be the cutest bat (with a full moon on his tummy) that I have ever seen.

Crochet Sugar Skulls – Free pattern with tutorial and photos.

Art of Mr. Werewolf – Artist Jakub Rozalski creates wonderful paintings depicting rural Eastern European folk fighting against mecha warriors, werewolves, and demons. His Krampus vs. Santa is awesome.

Ghostfish: Catfished by a Ghost – Five-minute dark comedy.

Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling – Anthology of works which take tired storytelling tropes (Love at First Sight, Damsels in Distress, Yellow Peril, The Black Man Dies First, etc.) and turns them into something fresh.

Monsters – Artist Len Peralta does many geeky works, including some great monsters. He also does custom holiday cards and “pets drawn geeky.”

15 Creepy Vintage Toys – How most of these haven’t already shown up in low-budget horror movies, I have no idea. (Hat tip to pdq)

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Bringing Mary Home

December 19th, 2016 by Cobwebs

Shadowboy was recently introduced to Bluegrass by his viola teacher, and encountered this song at a concert. It’s an example of the “vanishing hitchhiker” urban legend which inspired Jan Harold Brunvand’s seminal collection of such legends.

The song itself is a fine bit of Bluegrass, with a chillingly understated final line.

Posted in Paint It Black | 2 Comments »

The Link Dump on the Hearth

December 16th, 2016 by Cobwebs

Marty Mouse House – A site which follows the adventures of Marty (who, despite the site name, is a rat) and his friends.

The Voynich Manuscript – An authorized edition of the mysterious manuscript, using photos taken for this purpose.

The Raven – Neil Gaiman reads the Poe poem. (Hat tip to Pixel Pixie)

Chocolate Frog Ornaments – Jen from EPBOT made these adorable ornaments as party favors for a Potter-themed ball.

Ghost in the Machine – A look at the lore of haunted televisions.

The NecroNomNomNomicon: Cookbook of the Dead – This appears to be a novel rather than an actual cookbook, which is a pity, but I’d buy it for the name alone. (Hat tip to Kitten Herder)

Gold Rush – Porcelain “statement” necklace which looks like a horde of mice swarming your neck. It might be possible to DIY something similar with spray-painted rubber mice.

Christmas Ghost Stories – Article which discusses the tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas.

Carol of the Brains – A zombie-filled Christmas carol. (Hat tip to Devries)

Razorback – A lovely short story by Ursula Vernon.

Posted in Link Dump | 6 Comments »

Vincent Price’s Dracula

December 12th, 2016 by Cobwebs

The fabulous Pixel Pixie shared this with me, commenting, “This is pretty horrible. You should watch it,” which neatly sums up our friendship.

As a bonus, she also shared Price doing the Monster Mash. Yowza.

Posted in Whatever | 1 Comment »

A Link Dump of Mars

December 9th, 2016 by Cobwebs

A Very New Wave Christmas – Set of Christmas ornaments depicting musical icons. I think Siouxsie Lou Who is my favorite.

So You Want to Read Urban Fantasy – Suggestions for gateway books to the genre.

Unsettling Victorian Christmas Cards – I want to know what kind of drugs were involved in somebody thinking, “You know what really says, ‘Christmas?’ Frogs murdering each other.”

Spider Crown Tutorial – Cute accessory for a costume.

Lego Addams Family House – Who do we have to kill to make this proposed design become a reality?

Castle McQuade – Etsy shop specializing in geek-friendly holiday cards and ornaments.

Skull and Crossbones Bun Holder – This wire bun holder is adorable.

Full Body Costume Made of Artificial Human Teeth – Jesus Christ.

Eye of Sauron Holiday Ornaments – These would probably be reasonably easy to DIY if you can’t afford to buy enough to cover your tree. Surely you’d want to cover the whole tree.

‘Way Out – Did you know Roald Dahl hosted a Twilight Zone-type show in the early 60s? I didn’t.

Posted in Link Dump | 3 Comments »

Seen Online

December 6th, 2016 by Cobwebs

If I’m ever being followed in a car, I’m gonna go to a fast food drive-thru and test their commitment.
rShowerThoughts

When Frankenstein Jr. was kidnapped, his father cunningly just waited for the kidnappers to send him all the bits.
OhLookBirdies

There’s a foster home for body parts in my neighbourhood and it’s raising a lot of eyebrows.
DurtMcHurtt

A baby werewolf would be great, as one day a month, your baby would turn into a puppy!
ShowerThoughts

People always slam elevator music and that’s very hurtful to those of us who have spent years learning to play the elevator.
Tmoney68

Late at night leave some broken, muddy planks outside an undertakers with a note: “Your puny coffins cannot hold me. I shall return.”
thewritertype

If you’re about to be turned into stone by Medusa, strike a hilarious pose and at least lighten things up for the next guy.
badbanana

I get home and realize where my house stood a shark now sits dressed as a house with its mouth open
Shark:[nervously makes house noises]
upsidedowntrash

If the movie “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” took place in Australia, those kids would have died real fucking quick.
rShowerThoughts

“The Monster Mash” is my favorite song about a scientist making excuses to his wife for coming home late and smelling of monster.
rolldiggity

Posted in Funny Peculiar | 1 Comment »

Holiday Gift Idea (Woo-Hoo)

December 3rd, 2016 by Cobwebs

ShellHawk of ShellHawk’s Creations makes beautiful ceramics, both for Halloween and for the rest of the year. Right now she’s got some great ceramic spider and jack-o’-lantern ornaments, as well as some gorgeous impressionistic ornaments.

She’s doing a special promotion right now for the Holiday season so you can pick up a few things for yourself and those special people on your shopping list. Use code HOLIDAY2016 at checkout for 15% off your minimum purchase of $25.

You can find her store here.

Posted in Needful Things | No Comments »

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Link Dump

December 2nd, 2016 by Cobwebs

Dear 2016 I Made You This Ornament – Tutorial for making a dumpster fire ornament, which is pretty much a perfect summation of this whole fricking year. (Hat tip to pdq)

The Strange Tale of an X-rated Haunting – This early-60s psychology experiment was sort of adorable.

Progress – Great post about “society” despairing of the modern woman…in 1915.

Disney Halloween Medley – Neat a capella performance.

Creatures of The Cthulhu Mythos – Some great illustrations. Here are Part 2 and Part 3.

Ghostbusters 2016 Proton Pack – Instructable for a DIY version of the new gear.

Munsters House – Preassembled model of 1313 Mockingbird Lane, suitable for HO scale train layouts.

Pranking a Motion-Sensitive Camera – Police in Kansas set up a camera to investigate reports of a mountain lion in the area, and somebody decided to have some harmless fun with it. (Hat tip to xJane)

Selkies and Swan Women – The visual on this is just spectacular.

Gift Shrouds – Gift wrap with spooky designs like bats and spiders. Just in time for the holidays!

Posted in Link Dump | 4 Comments »