r/oldschoolfantasy

Nick Flook. Painted in 2026.

Part of fantasy is fantastical claims about reality. People are freaked out about these ideas more than ever because the present moment is full of blurred reality & unreality & people’s very real reactions to unreality having huge consequences in the real world. Makes me reading these books & others like Chariots of the Gods & books by Carlos Castaneda, Zechariah Sitchin & David Icke feel quaint & old fashioned. James Churchward developed the concept of the lost continent of Lemuria way back in the 1920s, Lemuria was supposed to be in the center of the Pacific Ocean,50,000 years ago. It was an attempt to explain a lot of similarities between pacific rim cultures, that would go on to be explored by Thor Heyerdahl & his Kon Tiki. Ultimately, all knowledge comes from attempting to understand the unknown & fantasy is a great place to stuff those explorations. For instance, HP Lovecraft included aspects of the Mu research in a bunch of his writings, I think that’s why I looked into the books in the first place.

Jim Fitzpatrick hits a lot of notes as an artist, his main work depicts an heroic, Celtic mythology, which reminds me A LOT of American Cholo art & makes me want to see an Irish incarnation of Teen Angels magazine. He came up doing art for Rock&Roll, starting in the psychedelic days leading up to him doing all of Thin Lizzy’s album covers. You can see those origins in the way he uses color, how the knot work he does is kind of trippy & how there’s a general art nouveau feeling to his work, he also did the poster version of the Che Guevara image that is equally famous as a photo or the poster.

Posting art again after an extended internet break. I also post on BlueSky and Tumblr (Ages End / agesendart respectively). Links in bio. Thanks for looking!

I’m doing some illustrations for an upcoming ‘west marches’ tool-kit publication, and I’m also harvesting more motif ideas so don’t be shy if you have some suggestions.

https://youtube.com/shorts/c90sFLexqFE?is=L98La4rFHRtPsnVr

Savage Combat in 3..2..1...

A cropped version appeared later on the cover of Realms of Fantasy Magazine (December 1999).

This is a character I'm working on for an upcoming old-school fantasy CGI comic. He's a halfling called Gibbo

RL Stine is an American author who has written over 350 books. The biggest series that he is notable for is Goosebumps, second only to Harry Potter (also a Scholastic book series) in book series sales. I was too old for these books - they were a definite millennial phenomenon, however I was a fan of his Bananas magazine, which along with Dynamite & Hot Dog formed the power team of magazines you could order from book clubs in school. Goosebumps’ covers were by Tim Jacobus who did 100 covers for the series!

Source: artist's website. Surprisingly, Gino D'Achille doesn't have a book collecting his art.

Ken Kelly also painted a cover for Birthgrave; link in comments.

Source: artist's website.