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Deimos-Remus — Fantasy Characters: The King in Yellow
#fantasy #augustderleth #ambrosebierce #characterdesign #cosmichorror #hastur #hplovecraft #illustration #thekinginyellow #robertwchambers
Published: 2020-01-19 23:04:03 +0000 UTC; Views: 74756; Favourites: 2212; Downloads: 0
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Description
Third up is the Eponymous King in Yellow from Robert Chamber's landmark collection of strange fiction.The King in Yellow has a weird trajectory of appropriation from other authors. Carcosa comes from Ambrose Bierce's An Inhabitant of Carcosa, in the same collection of short stories containing a figure named Hastur. Concepts from The King in Yellow were borrowed by H.P. Lovecraft, and The King in Yellow was later turned into an entity called Hastur by Lovecraft-collaborator, August Derleth. The posthumous collaboration between Cosmic Horror and Fantasy writers of the day is pretty fascinating, and from a copyright/intellectual property POV, refreshing in its own right.
Coming up with a design for this was interesting- though the association with Lovecraft and Derleth's work is hard to distance one's self from, I tried to. There is no tangible description of the figure, so I mostly went off of the first-printing book cover that features a yellow robed figure with a strange crown. The heaping mass of tentacles are more or less the subconscious Lovecraft-influence.
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Comments: 96
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So what does the King in Yellow do ? Is it beyond good and evil ? Is it malevolent ? Does it drive men to madness ?
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Brilliant design! Such an imposing creature! I'm ready to kneel and swear loyalty to him, but I get the feeling human followers are beneath him.
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you can't have the yellow king without rival cosmic horror icon cthulu!
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Proto-Lovecraft, nice.
Love that you added a crown, don't really see him much with one.
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Heartbreak City
The King in Yellow
The falling rain
They won't help to ease your pain
-- Alphaville, 2017
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I have seen other pictures of the king in yellow in which he was wearing the yellow sign in form of a necklace, but I guess it's not needed if you would actually meet him "in person" (if you can even call it that) because then just seeing him would drive you crazy?
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I like how he looks like a piece of unwrapped corn.
A very delicious squid flavored corn to be more specific.
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Camilla: "You, sir, should unmask."
Stranger: "Indeed?"
Cassilda: "Indeed it's time. We have all laid aside disguise but you."
Stranger: "I wear no mask."
Camilla: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) "No mask? No mask!"
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"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living god."
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Is the King in Yellow actually Hastur or just an avatar of his presence? I'm slowly becoming a big fan of Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos.
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I am a Lovecraft fan since several decades and *The King in Yellow* is on my to-read list since a couple of months; your beautiful drawing gives him/it a "face" I'll invoke in my mind's eye when fianlly reading the novel.
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yeah it gives it a face...
a facIAL that is
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can i fuck it
does it have any holes
that i
can
stick
my
wiener
in
...i had to
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Small correction: "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" does not feature Hastur. He is mentioned in a different short story by Bierce, "Haïta the Shepherd" where he functions as the benevolent god of shepherds.
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Awesome and appropriate pic of He-who-must-not-be-named.
The mind now flies to a certain drunken Scotsman who faced this mighty entity in his own "spicy" way, all thanks to some lawn gnomes...
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It's telling that, though I was pretty much "meh" towards the actual "King in Yellow" book, the character and concepts were compelling enough to stick with me. I love your eldritch interpretation of the character, especially the Sauron-style crown and the "cosmic" look of what's beneath the cloak.
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More like the Deadlights in Stephen King's "It". Light that blinds the eyes and rips the mind and soul apart, leaving only screaming madness.
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Amazing. Love the dream like appearance it has
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"It is time to remove your mask!"
"But I wear no mask!"
"No mask? No Mask!"
I have that book somewhere in my horror collection.
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