Bonus post! I’ve been sitting on the April 23, 1951 issue of LIFE Magazine for a couple of years and there’s really no better time than now to show it off. What’s so special about it? A four-page filler story titled “Mythical Monsters: These Beasts Existed Only in Man’s Imagination,” which shares the basic details of seven creatures — Su, Griffon, Yale, Basilisk, Gorgon, Manticore and Unicorn — all illustrated by Rudolf Freund.

I saw this for the first time at the Rockwell Museum, as part of the Enchanted exhibit — they had the magazine in a case, and also the original manticore piece, which resides in their permanent collection! They’re incredibly striking. Freund is a technical master and makes some intriguing design choices that gesture at the real-life animals the legends were garbling up. And they have a little bit of the mid-century modern aesthetic about them too, which is a novelty. Really beautiful work.