Tenacious and gentlemanly, even when brought low by chronic coronary artery disease, my metalworker father was going to die. Or at least that’s what 11-year-old me thought. A number of heart attacks and ongoing angina had rendered dad unfit to continue the life of heat, flames and particulate-heavy fumes, and prolonged exposure to ultraviolet light, that he’d known during the course of his decades as an A-grade welder and boiler maker. Soon enough I was bedside in the intensive care unit of the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Hospital, not far from our modest weatherboard home in Salisbury East, listening to talk of coronary artery bypass surgery and praying that, whatever the procedure constituted, it would somehow free dad of his wretched state and restore him to his reassuringly stoic best. Continue reading
Tag Archives: heavy metal
Jagged Visions Part 3: Souls At Zero… The Art Of Simon Bisley
‘all structures collapse, mysteries unfold
borne from the skies in these times of grace’Neurosis
Whilst John Blanche is quite rightly regarded as the undisputed master of grimdark within the Warhammer realm, there are myriad other artists working beyond that it’s narrow borders whose visual aesthetic could certainly be considered ‘grimdark’ and thus partially responsible for the ritual scarification of my adolescent mind. As an act of penance on my part if you will, to provide a cultural counterweight to my forthcoming Rob Liefeld confessional, I want to cleanse my soul by turning my attention to a master of the form. A man, much like John Blanche, whose sense of grim splatterpunk violence and gallows humour was crucial in shaping my own tastes and approach to artistic endeavour. Guys, can we just take a minute and talk about Simon Fucking Bisley?
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