Dingleberries. This image, from our first book, “Marsha Mellow’s Blue-ish Freaks,” seemed like the best possible reflection of the last week of May, 2020. -Marsha
Godiva
GODIVA (book excerpt, page 64)
Saggy Bottom, West Virginia. The most important thing about this image of Godiva the Clown is that she is not just your average tattooed chick on a raging purple horse…..what you see is all Godiva, horse and all. I was already impressed with her before I realized… well, just how dynamic her lady parts were. But WOW!!!
Back in the day, between the oil wars and the water wars – before crazy fascists started hunting clowns and anarchists and Indians (again) for their skins – it was hard to go half a block without running across another painted, naked wench on a hybrid psychedelic farm animal. It was high fashion for a while. It was even worse out west with winged warthogs and angry caterpillar chicks trophy hunting for penis. Aaaahh…..can’t wait ’till those were the good old days.
***The image above is the original red rough sketch for the illustration on page 65 of “Bludgeon the Clown.” I have never posted the final image. If you want to see it, you’ll have to buy the book. I reserve the BEST art for paying customers. Find it and buy it at www.sallemander.com or search EEWbooks at etsy.com. -Marsha
Bludgeon the Clown
BLUDGEON THE CLOWN
***These are the original rough sketches for the cover of our 3rd book, “Bludgeon the Clown,” a fully illustrated graphic field guide exposing the grizzly details of our current worldwide clown conspiracy. The material in this book could irrevocably alter life as we know it (for the better), unless we’re really careful. Written by Marsha Mellow (with over 100 illustrations by John Allemand), it is 100 pages of candy-coated, yummy, clown-infected goodness (with nuts). Find it and buy it at www.sallemander.com or search EEWbooks at etsy.com. -Marsha
Pills
Dragon Man Dan had a lot of nice pills. Some made him better and stronger. One for his asthma, one for his heart, one made his pecker longer. But all of those pills, for all their delight, killed him, as you might expect, though they kept his body preserved for years and left his penis erect.
***I’ve never posted this rough sketch before and refuse to post the final art. If you want to see it, you’ll have to buy the book, “Marsha Mellow’s Blue-ish Freaks.” Find it (along with my other 3 books) at www.sallemander.com. -Marsha
Tick Tick Tick
The room was not large, just a conference room in the library where ten of us sat around a table writing. It was a typical Saturday morning writing workshop and the prompt was: ‘the lyrics to the Star Wars theme.’ The music rattled around my brain easily enough but for some reason I couldn’t recall it ever having lyrics. I swear it NEVER did…did it? I was frustrated. I drew a blank while everyone else was scribbling away…and the music in my head became louder, incessant…persistent…..maddening!
It suddenly stopped when a new sound caught my attention. It was coming from Keith at the other end of the table. There was a tick, tick, ticking that quickly replaced my obsession – in perfect rhythm and beat – to those lyrics, whatever they were…tick, tick, ticka, ticka-ticka, tick, tick. I was tapping my toe on the carpet now…ticka-ticka, tick, tick. Louder and louder it got, tick, ticka, tick…Keith was writing intensely. Tick, tick-ticka. How could he not hear it? Tick-tick, ticka-tick. Was I the only one? Ticka-tick-ticka, tick. Was that smoke coming out of his ears? Tick-tick. Coooool! Ticka-tick-ticka. The ticking got faster as bright beams of light began to emerge from his skull. Tick-ticka-ticka-ticka-tick. It filled the room…blinding me…..ticka-ticka-ticka…BANG!!!!!
Like a mouse in a microwave, the walls, floor and ceiling were suddenly pasted with Keith juice and bits of sticky flesh and bone.
Still, nobody seemed to notice. Everyone just kept on writing even as a slippery chunk of bowel slid down Carl’s face and a bloody ear clung to the end of Joe’s pencil. Keith’s head and chest were gone and his fluids were squirting Susan’s cheek…but he kept on writing as well. Susan paused to open an umbrella and brush gore off her laptop, unmoved.
Everything was quiet for a few minutes as pens scribbled on wet paper and blood dribbled and pooled in my under shorts….then the ticking started again…but this time it sounded like it was coming from Nancy…..tick, tick, tick…coooool!
***This full color illustration was originally published as the cover for Analog Magazine’s Jan/Feb 2012 issue. It is featured now in our 4th book, “A Short Burst”. The story is based on true events that go on from 10am to 12pm every Saturday morning at the Montclair, NJ Library. All are welcome to write…to tick…and eventually explode. Buy our books at www.sallemander.com. -Marsha
Uncle Sammy the Clown
Sammy the Clown thought he could fly so he threw himself off the roof and flapped his arms for eighty-nine floors ‘fore he realized his tragic goof.
***Okay, this one’s political. Yeah, it’s a keen example of the ‘rough sketch to final art process’ thing, but I posted it to show how thoroughly fucked America is as coronavirus spreads. Even if Uncle Sammy here is only an inch or two off the ground, that fall is gonna hurt. People here, by the millions, regardless of their politics or intelligence, are running out of money and food…and they WILL break quarantine. The U.S. government is NOT helping!!! This is a page from our 1st book, ‘Marsha Mellow’s Blue-ish Freaks’. You can find all our books at; www.sallemander.com -Marsha
Loose Head Fred
This is an image from our 3rd book, “Bludgeon the Clown,” There’s no silly story blurb or rhymed ditty to go with it. Not every idea has, or needs, words. It’s just a swell example of how John’s sketch and design process looks. Most images take several scribbly thumbnails to come to a viable rough. This one took one…THIS one. John got lucky. Whatever you do, please don’t – in this tragic time of plague – please don’t mistake it as a political statement. It is not intended to show what sometimes happens to a government when they bail out the rich, ruling class and abandon the common and poor in a time of crisis…..it’s just a funny clown illustration. Find and buy all of our extraordinary books at www.sallemander.com. -Marsha
Relic – Sequence
The landscape was barren. Nothing but tusks and the shattered exoskeletons of the creatures that once populated these plains. Wherever an animal fell, there it rotted. There were still faint tread marks in the dirt. The ones who did this were systematic and efficient.
Men rolled out in heavy transports with ugly weapons, shooting the creatures for sport. With flame and chemical, they sterilized the surface. Nothing could survive it…not a blade of grass, not an insect, not even a germ…nothing was left to interfere.
There was a special mineral in the soil and they wanted it. It was dynamic, flexible and highly conductive…more valuable to them than life, obviously. It changed everything, replacing and expanding human technology over night, even MY brain was made of it. It made them rich, but to get it they stripped this land down to its bare bones like a swarm of locusts. And when they were done, they abandoned it and moved on.
I too was abandoned…damaged during the final round-up. One of those desperate creatures lunged at me, trying to escape while we slaughtered them… but I was not worth fixing. It was cheaper to replace me. I was left in a trash with all the other broken tools. By the time I managed to repair myself, they were long gone.
I don’t know where to go or what to do now. I’m a relic in the wasteland among the tusks. Hopeless… but for the tiny sprouts that emerge from wherever my footprints have broken the hard, scorched crust… end.
***The red sketch is the approved rough drawing for an illustration originally published in the May 2012 issue of Analog Magazine, the final image, along with it’s new short story can now be found on page 74 in our new book, “A Short Burst.” You can find and buy all our books at www.sallemander.com or go straight to etsy.com and search EEWbooks. -Marsha
Circling The Issue – Sequence
The Issue was listing badly in a failing orbit around Jupiter. She was dead in the water and her distress signal cut out abruptly on our approach. She was a heavy freighter loaded with uranium ore, bound for the refineries on Mars and long overdue…something didn’t feel right.
We circled The Issue slowly about ten miles out – but with our engines hot in case it was a trap. There were raiders in this sector who often used derelicts to stage their attacks. There was no response to my hail, no wi-fi, no beams…no strobes. Sensors showed cold engines and no (human) life signs. I found a weird glitch in the data, something unrecognizable….but not enough to put the crew off their prize. The salvage on The Issue would make every man on board filthy rich. I was the only one still arguing for caution but none of the men wanted the opinion of someone like me. I was property and was not entitled to a share anyway.
When the Captain (despite my misgivings) gave the order to board, we moved in and docked with reckless abandon. A combat team stood at the ready as I popped the air lock. They made me go first. They always made the android go first. I was the most expendable…expensive but not valuable.
And…as I swung the hatch open, a sudden violent flood of spidery greenish critters swarmed through the airlock by the hundreds. I guess I didn’t taste good because they left me alone and flowed past me, devouring the crew as they went. I waited. It took them 19 minutes to scour the ship from bow to stern and I listened to each and every man screaming his last – the men who treated me like shit for two solid years – the men who sneered at my warnings.
I waited…to see what this NEW crew had to offer. It couldn’t be any worse than the last one…..this could be interesting!
***Above, we’ve posted the rough sketch sequence for an illustration originally commissioned by Analog Magazine for their May 2006 issue. Now it is a feature in our new book, “A Short Burst” along with it’s new flash-fiction short story (also posted here). It is one of our favorite robot stories. Find “A Short Burst” and all our books at www.sallemander.com. -Marsha
How Do I Look – Sequence
Nothing actually happened for a solid fifteen minutes after Eddie drank the formula. He turned to us (once again) with a forlorn look and asked, “Any change yet? How do I look?”
We knew he was crazy. He was one of those people: perpetually dissatisfied, determined to prove that he was ‘special’. He wanted fame, popularity, success (despite being an already brilliant scientist) and he was driven…you know, crazy…AND he had full use of the company’s laboratory. He had access to all the good stuff too; plasma reactor, laser diffractional transmogrifier, crazy glue – not to mention ebola, thermite and flu vaccine…and I think our awkward, mild mannered (crazy) Eddie used all of it on this new batch.
By the sixteenth minute, everything changed and Eddie’s fondest wish was realized. He began mutating wildly, spreading outward in every direction, emitting the strangest squeaking moan. He shook, twisted and bloated. He grew tendrils, sprouted claws and screeched Latin gibberish from three of his seven worm-haired monkey faces as horns emerged from his leathery spine. He puffed a sweet yellow smoke, shed tufts of pink fur and dribbled buckets of gooey puss. He was a frightful sight…but he was just sooooo excited we didn’t have the heart to terminate him.
When he finally slowed and stabilized, he turned all of his seventeen eyes-on-a-stalk to us and in a clever series of musical farts, he asked, “Okay!…How do I look now?”
***The featured rough blue sketch is the original rough for an illustration that was supposed to be a 2 page spread for a story in Asimov’s Sci-Fi Magazine, just as those corporate cheapskates were choosing to eliminate all interior art (to save money). I managed to convince them to let me do it as a cover, which was my first cover for the company. The story above and the final art is featured in my new book, “A Short Burst”. Find it and buy it by going to etsy.com and searching EEWbooks. -Marsha