Winter is Here, Officially

I hope you enjoyed your winter solstice night. We had rain and fierce gusts of wind, and I was entertained by the noisy drama of this infrequent storm. After I post this, I will make a fresh pot of coffee before I venture outside to look for damage.

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Seven Ales and Ciders

The two Geranium Lake Properties comics in today’s post were not published in newspapers. They were included with six...

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Maybe Titania, Maybe Mab, Maybe Not

These four masks are the results of Yost messing around with the character design of...

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Sharp as Holly

We are not famous in our neck of the woods for...

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Eighth Day Cake

...on the eighth day, jackalopes will tell you, He Ate Cake. Which brings us to the honored-but-not-too-revered Jackalopian tradition of eighth day cake....

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Jackalope Mask

Another fine jackalope mask designed by Alice Aroumbeyski, a mask that Yost presented as one of her self-portraits. In the “The Ringer in the Substratum”, Alice has a conversation with her childhood friend Kamlyn about the suitability of wearing this mask to the wedding of a cousin who is essentially a stranger. (Alice had not spoken to her cousin for 16 years.) The two women decide that Alice should save the mask for her own wedding to Jack Loki.

Kamlyn was actually named Alice when they first met, when the girls were four years old. They did not become boon companions instantly, but because “a lamentable conspiracy beyond our control” (Alice’s words) kept throwing them together, they agreed to an alliance. The two girls decided that having the same name was “tiresome and traumatic” (Kamlyn’s words), so one Alice became Gwynne and the other Alice became Kamlyn. After a few years, Gwynne decide to become Alice again, but Kamlyn kept her name into adulthood.

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Bat Signal

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6. Maskyrinth 2024

5. Masks For All Seasons 2024

4. Twenty-Two Variation 2024

3. Twenty-Three Masks 2024

2. Full Phiz Masks 2024

1. Masquerade 2024

The Five Masks of Aybahjee

These five masks of the person known as Aybahjee are a mixture of published and unpublished Geranium Lake Properties comics. I am not going to bother sorting out which is which in this post, for reasons that are not reasonable and somewhat inexpressible. Also maybe I wish to avoid possible adverse legal repercussions.

In the tales told by the Inultaru, Aybahjee is an entity best described (I think) as a giantess, although sometimes she has been called a troll, an ogre, or a queen of the wild. She does not seem particularly wild to me; in several stories she appears...

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Firebird

According to historical legends of the Inultaru, the Sunissan-Pessoa was the cultural analog of...

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The Gaze (& Calendars!)

“Curiosity is gluttony. To see is to devour.” So writes Victor Hugo (Les Misérables). But do not forget that the one you devour...

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A Door Stands Open Today

The first image in today’s post comes from Jack Loki’s escapade in “The Conundrum of the Butcher’s Broom”, and the second is a mask...

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The Green Map

There have been many people who have attempted to use the Green Map to find Ulciajheyld Shain Erin, aka Near Faraway Mountain, only to discover that this map can be a perilous pathfinder. The Second House Cartographers Guild in Outer Tald Busket will adamantly refuse any commission to draw or copy the Green Map. Jack Loki was an apprentice for 13 months at the Outer Tald Busket Guild*, where he gained his Journeyman Certification. He achieved his Mastership in Mapmaking through years of practical experience and independent study. When he felt confident enough in his skills in augury, thaumaturgy, cartography and mythopoeia, Jack made his own Green Map, which led to the grievous occurrence in “The Journey to Near Faraway Mountain”, which was one of the few barely-survivable adventures Jack came to regret.

* His first choice was the Cartography, Mythopoeia and Zymurgy (CMZ) program at Gurrackelleen College, his mother’s college, until almost the last moment, when he decided he did not want to be her legacy.

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Plummeting Into Fall

We had our first rain yesterday, today is the first of October, and autumn is...

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Movements and Gestures

austice

n. a wistful omen of the first sign of autumn–

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Night and Day

I am now able to tell you that this mask by Alice Aroumbeyski is a portrait of the demmalyun Yemjeyjey-ollu-Zoyozaya, who is often depicted as...

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Masks of Verisimilitude

“We did not develop language to tell the truth. Yes, we first used language to communicate, in desperation...

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Yellow Porch, Blue Gull

This portrait mask of Disappear-Out-of-the-Sky, the blue gull demmalyun, was designed but not...

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The Mask of Neivrilyadan

Today’s post features two interpretations of the Mask of Neivrilyadan. Because of various...

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Seasons Change and So Do I

Summer is overblown and aging fast, so I feel that I need to post this one quick, before the season falls apart. There are four panels in this series, one for each season. I believe Yost used the Winter mask for a Christmas card in 1998, but other than that, the four masks (which I plan to post in their appropriate seasons) have remained unpublished until now.

The Big Bang of Pyrotechnocracy

July 4th is a night of unhappiness and terror for American dogs.

Wise King Og, Tales of the Rephaim

King Og of Bashannon appears in two of Jack Loki's adventures, "Illimilku's Treasure" and "Feather of a Swallow, Blood of an Owl". Both are treasure hunts instigated by the visions of a character named Jonesy Stoneseer, a Mahquam-nanteerf of the Second House, who is also an infamous fascrinnaytor. King Og recommends Jonesy Stoneseer to Jack, telling him that the fascrinnaytor currently enjoys Lady Fortune's good and generous favor.

"However, I must include this caveat," warns the king. "Do not employ him more than two times. A broken clock tells the correct time only twice. Do not rely on him for a third."

A fascrinnaytor is a person with apparently fraudulent magic or "psychic power", who somehow manages, by accident, by luck, by who-knows-what-mystery, to produce an end result of real value.

Postcards fom Zichia

Part of the Fifty Cent Trip, an intermittent series that appeared from March 1986 through 1989.

Dragons Know How to Make Gold into Straw

Another design by Alice Aroumbeyski in my collection of masks never before published in...

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Triangle Girl

Today’s post features more examples of masks that were not published during the...

We don't use AI

We don’t use AI to create the images on this blog. By the word “we”, I mean Wm. Yost, Alice Aroumbeyski and...

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Absent-Minded Theurgist

This mask of a onnijo-iwin-yikka, also known as a...

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Nine Mysteries

The Conservator's Allotment

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An Effigy for Rosewoods and Wildings

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The Chariot That Swings So Low

Happy Lantern Day!

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Red is Gray and Yellow White

It was not until mid-December that I decided to put together a series of Geranium Lake Properties comics for Christmas. I wanted to continue with the masks and faces I have collected from the GLP archive, and my idea was to knock them together with an angel theme. A concept that almost immediately became problematical. Really not my most brilliant idea, but I persisted. It is not like I have a shortage of...

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Charlie Chaplin Might Have Said This

This Geranium Lake Properties comic is not about Valentine’s Day, but it is pink and red and includes...

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Another Lichen Poem