This Tragic Earth: The Art and World of Richard Sharpe Shaver

by Wm. Michael Mott (Editor), Richard S. Shaver, Richard S. Shaver (Photographer)

Overview

THIS TRAGIC EARTH gives a unique, long-overdue look into the art and mind of Richard S. Shaver.

Featuring a transcription of an actual hand-made book proposal by Shaver, sent to Ray Palmer, this volume also contains 190 images including over a 100 lost images taken from one-of-a-kind "rogfogo" or "rock books" by Shaver. These images, taken from photo exposures of slices of solid rock, contain eerie and inexplicable images of people, monsters, creatures, structures, and devices—images which defy all rational explanation. Shaver claimed that these "books" were records left in crystal holography by an ancient race of beings who preceded man on this planet, or were contemporary with our ancestors.

Also featured are long-lost articles on how to find and create such images, written and illustrated by Shaver himself, along with unique correspondence, interviews, and other material that give a unique look into the mind and theories of Richard S. Shaver, his one-of-a-kind "outsider artwork", and his infamous "Shaver Mystery". Much of the additional material has not been seen for decades, and when it was available, it was not widely circulated and was only seen by a few people, particularly the explanations and theories which were written by Richard Shaver for science-fiction fanzines of the 1940s.

The contents of this book should interest anomalies researchers, Forteans, paranormal enthusiasts and investigators, science-fiction historians and fans, and all those interested in "outsider art". Nothing as utterly dedicated to Shaver's own thoughts and artwork has ever been produced before.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940013375192
Publisher:	Grave Distractions Publications
Publication date:	02/26/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	110
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Wm. Michael Mott has been Creative Director for a national toy and manufacturing company, a high-performance software company, the Art Director for a city newspaper, has worked as an artist/designer for Fortune 500 companies, as well as for an NSF Engineering Research Center, and for a variety of freelance clients such as book and magazine publishers. He is also a freelance artist and writer, and writes both fiction and non-fiction. His artwork and writing have appeared or been featured in many publications, such as Computer Graphics World Magazine, Computer Artist, IEEE Computer, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, Syllabus Magazine, PHOTO/Electronic Imaging, DRAGON Magazine, FATE, NEXUS, World Explorer, Undaunted Press, Lost Continent Library Magazine, and others. He has created artwork and graphic design for mass-market book covers, posters, brochures, packaging, CD-ROM covers and art collections, and digital/web-based media, and has won several design awards, from regional Advertising Federation awards for printed material, to awards for web site graphics and design. His artwork has been featured in the exhibition “In Dreams Awake: Art of Fantasy” at the Olympia and York Gallery, NYC, 1988; at the 1987 World Fantasy Con, Con*stellation, the DragonCon 2001 art show, several one-man exhibits, and digital galleries in various venues. He also researches and writes on Fortean, folklore, comparative religion, and paranormal topics. He is available for contract illustration and design work, particularly book cover artwork, maps, and interior illustration, or creative writing projects.

He is also the author of the satirical fantasy novel Pulsifer: The Omnibus Edition and Pulp Winds as well as the non-fiction books Caverns, Cauldrons, and Concealed Creatures and This Tragic Earth: The Art and World of Richard Sharpe Shaver.
Some of the stories and poems in this book have also appeared in Lost Continent Library Magazine, Planetary Stories, Phantom Stream, and elsewhere. The first story in the Last Plateau series, Temple of the Salamander, was originally published as a chapbook by Undaunted Press in 2000; the third story in the Last Plateau series, To Grow the Road, is also published in Aberrant Dreams: The Awakening, a recent anthology.

If the reader finds occasional hints of the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, the Book of Skelos, the Eltdown Shards, the Necronomicon, and yes, even the mad musings of the Shaver Mystery in