Oh hey, a little bit of June holding out in July. If I wasn’t on a legit vacation last week, I’d have gotten this done earlier, but I was, so I didn’t. Sorry about that. Just pretend it’s still Monday.

Monsters, Monsters, Everywhere

I’m getting close to done! There are only a handful of chapters dedicated to one(ish) type of monster left: Djinn, Hell Hounds, Lamia, Manticore (which will include Leucrotta), Shadows, Sphinxes (which will include Shedu and Lammasu), Unicorn, Yeti. I also have three catch-all chapters that will include a bunch of monsters that alone couldn’t really support a chapter, but together will, I think, make for interesting reading. Those are Big Guys (Cyclopi, Giants, Ogres, Oni, Spriggans, Titans and Trolls), Dragon-esques (Behir, Hydra, Tarrasque and Wyvern) and a miscellany (Imp/Quasit, Phoenix, Rakshasa, Stirge, Su-Monster and maybe a couple other odds and ends). 

With that, the core of the book will be complete. I do think that material written earlier in the process is going to require some rewriting. At this point, I am much better at digging out interesting details from historical research than I was initially (and more interested, honestly), so I have a growing concern that the stuff I wrote back in 2022 is going to feel less substantial when compared to, say, the Basilisk chapter I did a couple weeks ago, which had me (poorly) translating scans of medieval illuminated manuscripts from university libraries in order to figure out approximate dates for when the creature from folklore evolved from having a breath attack to having a gaze attack.

The Basilisk is also a good example of how, though I did not know it when I started the book, the story of monsters is often the story of languages and odd etymology and mistranslations and misunderstandings. The Basilisk’s transformation into the Cockatrice is a disaster of adapted language involving crocodiles, mythical snakes, Jesus symbolism and a slew of other bizarre threads. Similar occurrences account for the development of many other monsters, a fact that is crystal clear to me now but is maybe muddled in the batch of earliest written chapters. I’ll be wanting to draw that out more consistently in the sequence of the book. 

Beyond the main portion of the book and tidying up the introductions (I think there are three now, all of which need to be smooshed together), there are appendices! I love an appendix. I think I’d like to do another artist list (I’ve not looked at the MAHG one in a while, but I think I could do a honed-in one for this) and a reading list, both lightly annotated. I am definitely going to write two appendices on monster hunters. One will be devoted entirely to Kolchak (and possibly laying groundwork for a whole book on occult detectives/monster hunters?). The other will be an ode to my favorite authors of the monster books of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s: Willie Ley, Bernhardt J. Hurwood, Georgess McHargue, Daniel Cohen, Nancy Garden and Thomas G Aylesworth. Finally, patron Desiree compiled a list of all the monsters in the original D&D monster books, which I would like to develop into a finding guide and glossary. I think I mentioned previously that Jamie at Strange Attractor was like “Don’t do that.” But I really want to do it, even if it winds up just being a companion zine. We’ll see. Once I get started it might be a horrible slog, but I really don’t know where else I can catalog the origin of the Ketch, and I very much would like to do that, because I don’t think anyone else has? Probably because no one cares. But I never let that stop me!

More Monsters

Speaking of companions, I also think I mentioned that I want to do a fiction anthology that collects stories that are important to some of the monsters covered in the big book. I want to do this in part because I genuinely think it would make for a fun and varied anthology. But I also want to do it because there are a couple historical sources I have dug up that really deserve to be seen by modern monsterphiles (and in at least two cases, also deserve proper translation into English). I’ve not formally pitched this to Jamie yet, and whilst I have him on the record as being on the hook to publish according to my whims, I kinda want to pitch it to youse first. Would you pick this up? Or would a good reading guide appendix be enough. Would original art sweeten the pot? If you have thoughts, drop me a note.

Down Down Down Title Text

Lucas has been really plugging along on the cover art, to the point that I am not really willing to show in-progress stuff anymore; it’ll be more fun to do a proper cover reveal when it is done. I thought it would, however, be fun to show you his four proposed title treatments. The idea is that these will be rising from the cave mouth, the voice subterrene, wafting out in a two-tone sickly green/toxic yellow. They’re all cool, but there can only be one, and I’ve already picked my preference (and I think we’re locked, generally). But I’m not gonna tell youse which one is the one, though. Place your bets!

Enough for Now

That’s all I got at the moment. Keep your eyes peeled for the next newsletter on the 28th, well ahead of me leaving (by train) for GenCon, so I can let y’all know what’ll be going on there.