That iconography of monster movies has also inspired many fans to pick up pens and pencils and paint brushes. Reproducing the images from our favorite films is a way of crawling up into them that you can't quite get from simply viewing the movies. It's a way to mind meld with the monsters, the artists putting their own stamps on the monsters as assuredly as the monsters had left their stamps on the artists.
In Classic Monsters, Modern Art, Anthony Taylor plays horror host to nearly fifty contemporary artists who've melded with the monsters. Taylor's definition of "classic" is any horror item that predates the twenty-first century. Naturally, the majority of inspirations come from the big screen, but there are also works based on folklore, literature, comics, and creepy TV shows like Twilight Zone, The X-Files, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
A big part of the fun of perusing a multi-artist showcase is seeing the variety of ways a theme can be depicted. Classic Monsters, Modern Art is nothing if not varied. Works range from cute and humorous, such as Bob Lizarraga's depiction of the Gill Man as a game of Operation and Paul Garner's MAD Magazine-esque approach to the casts of The Addams Family and The Munsters, to pretty goddamn scary, such as Bob Eggleton's rancid portrait of Lon Chaney in London After Midnight.
While there is a clawful of digital art of varying quality in Classic Monsters, Modern Art, the classic theme is also very present in the artists' media choices, with pencils, markers, ink, and an assortment of paints prevalent in most pieces.
For a book so fun to behold, Taylor's text is a touch academic, mostly coming to life when his quotees rhapsodize about their favorite movies or their monster kid pasts. You're likely to do the same while flipping the icon-crowded pages of Classic Monsters, Modern Art.
