we are out of oat milk

College friendship is sending one of your friends who's graduating soon a giant list of monster theory and gothic horror academic reading recs so they can download as many PDFs as possible before they lose their university database access

Got a request for some of the recs here, so here's a short-ish list of some of the reading recs -- I've made an effort to link open source and/or at least slightly more accessible databases like JSTOR wherever possible, but some of these are, admittedly behind various paywalls that I wish everyone luck with circumventing in whatever manner you deem fit

This isn't even everything I've dug into on the subject, but I hope it's enough to get folks started on some reading!

My entries for Mermay 2022!!

We’re only finding out recently that a lot of animals have colors and patterns that we cannot see because they’re outside of our visual range. It calls to attention how much of the world we can’t experience because our senses are limited. When we shine UV lights on them, they glow pink or blue, but these are the colors that we CAN see…. they could be a bunch of different colors, which we SEE as all pink. It’s also interesting to consider that most of these animals are not aware of having glowing patches on their bodies…. isn’t it also possible that we have skin or hair patterns that were not aware of? . . (There is actually some research out there to support the idea that our own skin fluoresces as well and that there are gender differences in the pattern and glow.) Other places to see my posts: INSTAGRAM / FACEBOOK / ETSY / KICKSTARTER    

Some of the production artwork I did for this year’s volume of Almost Real: A Speculative Biology Zine. This cover critter was an interesting puzzle to work with, we wanted it to be colorful and cute while still clearly embodying the theme of biotechnology… though I admit my favorite detail is the dorky little camel spider eyes on the Foot. Our cover artist @aquiboni knocked it out of park with the finished art as well!

For even more unique combinations of animals and electronics, check out the kickstarter. It’s now over 75% funded and only a week in!

Penitent Cover Art

by Lorenzo Mastroianni

A Varric and Merrill piece commissioned by eletania!  I don’t draw the DA2 crew too often, so this was really fun to work on!

Prints available here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CrystalFaeShop