Tag Archives: tentacles

Medusa trouble

A Medusa, a ray-gun guy, and a sacrificial damsel all on the cover of the Winter 1944 Thrilling Wonder Stories, painted by Rudolph Belarski

I’m aware that I’ve blogged this cover before, back in August 2017, but now that I’m diving beneath the covers to see what pearls I can pull up, I thought it worth doing again. The cover, note, is by Rudolph Berlarski (1900-1983), about whom you can read more here.

There certainly is a lot of fun stuff under this cover, such as this early bit of tentacle-peril art, drawn by Mark Marchioni (1901-1987), illustrating Ross Rocklynne’s “The Invisible Army.”

Tentacle peril illustration by Mark Marchioni illustrating Ross Rocklynne's story "The Invisible Army."
“Hardesty leaped straight up at the monster attacking Ileen.”

And there’s also this bit of cheesecake, sadly unattributed, to Scott Morgan’s wartime fantasy “Trophy.”

“Suddenly, out of the empty air, there appeared a tall, slim girl.”

But leafing through these old, yellowed pages, I should note that it isn’t all fun and games. Amidt all the agreeable escapism there is every now and then a reminder of grim things and grim times, such as this full-page advertisement near the start of the issue.

I don’t want to be a downer, but it may be something to reflect on as we close out the year.

This issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories is available to read and download at the Internet Archive.

Aprender español XL: Carnada 097-100

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

PAGE 97 (Three panels)

Panel 1: Underwater robot removing the cuff from the Creature’s feeding siphon.

CAPTION (1): And so, within a few days…

Translation (1): Y entonces, dentro de unos pocos días…

Panel 2: Chiba standing naked on a diving platform over the tank.

Panel 3: Chiba in mid-air in her dive into the tank, just about to break the surface of the water.

PAGE 98 (Single panel montage, color)

Single panel montage: At artist’s montage of Chiba becoming progressively tentacle sexed-up.

PAGE 99 (Single panel montage, color)

Single panel montage: Artist’s discretion showing Chiba going down the Creature’s feeding siphon.

PAGE 100 (Two panels)

Panel 1: A larger panel comprising most of the page. A man sitting on a simple chain on the floor of the Marine Institute, watching the very special show. He is wearing a suit, and we can see through his suit pants that he has a massive erection.

Panel 2: Smaller, inset, showing light on the face of the man, who we can now see (due to the prominence of his Distinguishing Feature) is Barron Petrobux, Jr. The face shows a blissed-out expression.

CAPTION (1): The end.

Translation (1): FIN.

END.

  Carnada (Español/Versión de página larga)
Carnada (Español/Versión deslizante)

Dark Vanessa’s tentacle realm

An imagined undersea realm of tentacle monsters and naked girls done by Dark Vanessa.
Tentacle Realm by Dark Vanessa. This image was commissioned by Iago Faustus and is presented here by agreement between Faustus and the artist.

This work is from Dark Vanessa’s imagination, engendered by her work on supplementary illustrations to my graphic novella Bait. Captured maidens dwell together in a great erotic and reproductive communion with the tentacle beasts.

You can download the whole image in its full resolution by right-clicking and saving.

Dark Vanessa has a DeviantArt site DeviantArt site here and you can support her on Patreon here.

Apprendre le français LXXXI: Appât Page 92

PAGE 92 (Single panel page – color)

(Note color pagecount=7)

Single panel: Chiba, all tentacled up in the tank, her eyes closed and her head tilted back in ecstasy.

CAPTION – CHIBA NARRATING (1): 私からは観客が見えないので、例えプライベートなものでなくても、そんな風に感じます。それにセックスは本当に最高です。男性のことなど、ほとんど忘れてしまっていました。

SUBTITLE (2): I can’t see the audience, so it feels private even if it isn’t. And the sex is truly amazing. I’ve almost forgotten about men.

Translation (2): Je ne peux pas voir le public, c’est pourquoi j’ai l’impression d’être seule, même si ce n’est pas le cas. Et les rapports sexuels sont vraiment étonnants. J’ai presque oublié les hommes.

Appât (Français/Version longue page)
Appât (Français/Version slider)

Apprendre le français LXXIII: Appât Page 82

PAGE 82 (Three panels, probably the first two across the top)

Panel 1: Closer-in view of the UU Minister, showing part of her at the lectern.

UU Minister (1): But as has been shown by scientific research – including especially that research made possible by the women we commemorate today – we can afford such a retreat into ignorance no longer.

Translation (1): Mais comme cela a été démontré par la recherche scientifique – y compris en particulier celle rendue possible par les femmes que nous commémorons aujourd’hui – nous ne pouvons plus nous permettre d’être ignorants.

Panel 2: Symbolic panel, a human hand reaching out from one side of the panel, tentacle from the other side.

CAPTION – UU Minister speaking (2): The oceanic depths contain things far beyond any of our previous understandings.

Translation (2): Les profondeurs océaniques contiennent des choses dépassant tout ce que nous connaissions.

Panel 3: View scanning across a group of mourners seated in the audience.

CAPTION – UU Minister speaking (3): The future wellbeing of humanity – perhaps the very future existence of humanity – depends on the advancement of our knowledge.

Translation (3): Le bien-être futur de l’humanité – peut-être son existence future – dépend de l’avancement de nos connaissances.

Appât (Français/Version longue page)
Appât (Français/Version slider)

Pre-anime, non-Japanese tentacle monster

From the yellowing paper on which it’s printed, you’ve probably guessed that it’s from the great American tradition of pulp illustration and you’d be right. This one appeared in Science Fiction Quarterly for February 1957, illustrating a story “BEMA” by Wallace West (1900-1980). The artist, sadly, is uncredited.

You can read or download this issue of Science Fiction Quarterly from the Internet Archvie.

It contains a story by Phillip K. Dick, among others.

A bit of sci-fi mutation pulp

It has been a while since I’ve run any classic pulp on this site, and as we’re on a brief break between two comics features now might be a good time for some. Over to Imagination for July 1954.

Harod McCauley cover art -- a giant hand reaches for a spacewoman exploring in her bathing suit.

That’s pretty fantastic cover art by Harold McCauley (1913-1977), complete with rocket and ray-gun tropes. Why the red-headed woman is exploring an alien planet in a bathing suit is perhaps best explained only by Faustus’s Law: If you’re pretty enough it doesn’t matter if your space costume makes any sense. Running the hell away from the giant hand at least seems like a sensible course of action.

But perhaps more intriguing is the interior art for the first story, done by W.E. Terry (1921-1992).

A giant space octopus-woman thrashes a hapless crewman. Spaceman versus octopus woman.

A giant topless space space octopus-woman, tentacles and all. Fuck yeah! I bet your puny ray-gun will be no match for her, capitalist space-tool!

And again with the spacewoman in a bathing suit. Maybe it’s some kind of union rule.

This issue of Imagination is available to be read and downloaded at the Internet Archive.