Myrdemmon

Myrdemmon 1

Pencil and probably some gouache on photocopy paper.

Myrdemmon is not a native of Owel. He was born and raised in a place called Newgrove in Miras. He ended up on Owel as a result of the machinations of Cairnsa, as did Elbeth and Milae. (Note the mountain of water in the background.)

Myrdemmon 2

Black ink and colour pencil on photocopy paper.

An example of cope (see Copes 1 to Copes 7 in Hellfire 2) behaviour is the day the tidal wave appeared off the coast from Nicotine City. Myrdemmon was standing outside a fish and chip shop waiting for a bus when a sheet of warm water washed over his shoes. Next to him was a local drunk who had decided to adopt the role of tutor to Myrdemmon, to pass on his wisdom for future generations. It was a sunny day so his first thought was a leaking mains, but when he turned to his right he saw the approaching wall of water. He was swept up the face of it and into the body of water. But then the wave stopped moving. Standing there halfway across the CBD. He swam back to the face of the wave and slid down it like a body surfer or tobogganer to the ground, ass first. The water was real, as evidenced by the many drowned inhabitants. As you are no doubt aware, the wave is still there. The volume of water is too great to carry it away or pump it away though each of these projects are under way. Excavation projects uncovering one building and then another.

Myrdemmon 3

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Myrdemmon and the Whale

Pencil on photocopy paper.

People got used to the wave being there. Myrdemmon saw a whale in the water more often than he would have liked. It seemed to be watching him with a kind of mute threat. He did not want to ask anyone if they saw it too.

A bus entering the roundabout at Central Park

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Myrdemmon on the bus.

The Stream

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Logosfield

Black ink and colour pencil on paper.

Another effect of the copes in Nicotine City was a phenomenon that was dubbed "cubist air" or "fractured air". The copes created a strange lensing effect in the air itself, so that the environment took on the quality of an animated cubist painting. It worked somewhat like a mist, in the sense that the environment looked normal for a radius of several metres around the observer. The phenomenon covered an entire suburb of Nicotine City, and part of three others. The zone became known as "Logosfield". The above image shows the view over the back fence of a home in Logosfield. Although the effect was often beautiful, like a fog it made moving around difficult, and it was visually and mentally exhausting. As a result, although the area had originally been relatively well to do; residents moved out and housing prices in the zone plummeted, making it a cheap place to live. As a result of that, Myrdemmon lived for a time in Logosfield.

Another phenomenon in poor areas of Nicotine City, not related to the copes, was a result of brain-computer interface technology (BCIT) after it became possible to transmit this remotely. Like radio, BCIT was always being transmitted. Those who could afford it, carried filters with them to selectively block the signals, but the poor were largely exposed to a constant barrage of advertising and perceptual spam in the form of sensory hallucinations: sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. This was a recipe for mental illness, particularly in a place like Logosfield.

Because the copes may manifest hallucinations physically, people got used to treating them as such. For a while, Myrdemmon had a job stopping clouds from bumping into tall buildings, standing on clouds holding a long barge pole, pushing the building away as it approached, and steering the cloud around it. One day a particularly large cloud approached and he wondered what he could possibly do about it. That was his last memory of that job.

Sunrise in Logosfield

Pencil on paper.

Cows

Gouache on illustration board.

Genetically engineered cow torsos resting on batteries in a paddock.

Laundry Day

Gouache on illustration board.

Some people were having a picnic next to an air car, but something was coming to take them away in a basket.

Buddha Baby

Gouache on illustration board.

Actually the right-hand side from a larger painting.

Showroom

Gouache and acrylic on illustration board.

The rest of the painting that appears in Buddha Baby. If you're wondering why these paintings were left in such a state, I was more interested in them as sources of inspiration than in finishing them.

Iris

A rare abstract. Acrylic on plywood.

Myrdemmon 4

Black ink and colour pencil on photocopy paper.

Myrdemmon at home in a share apartment in Nicotine City. This was after the Domanicha had begun arriving on Owel. Three of these can be seen in the next room with Morgan. Newanda is in the bath.

Myrdemmon 4 (detail)

Detail from Myrdemmon 4.

Domanicha

Pencil on photocopy paper.

The Domanicha were among the first of the alien races to arrive on Owel after contact. They seemed benign initially.

Nicotine City

Pencil on photocopy paper.

City 1

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Towers

Black ink and colour pencil on photocopy paper.

Early design for the apartment building in Nicotine City at one time inhabited by Myrdemmon, Elbeth and Milae.

The Clinic

Photocopy of pencil drawing, coloured in with pencil.

The building was originally an aquatic centre, but is now a clinic for the treatment, or at least accommodation of those rendered catatonic through virtual reality addiction. The surface of the pool is lined with neat rows of motionless patients, fed intravenously and breathing through a clear hose, floating on the surface of the water to avoid bedsores, and fixed to a plastic and aluminium grid. They are active only in the virtual world.

Horizon

Black ink and colour pencil on photocopy paper.

A few of the residents of Logosfield had reported encountering a vast lake of mud apparently inhabited by lethargic demons. They each described a causeway that was being constructed across the lake, though the length of the causeway varied inconsistently. A yellow bulldozer flattened the mud that was being pushed up helpfully by the demons in the vicinity. Behind the bulldozer was a truck on top of which were 5 angels. Their wings were made of wire and tissue paper. They were unwell because of small tears in their tissue paper wings. The causeway was being constructed to the setting sun that was always in the same place on the Western horizon.

Myrdemmon's Hideaway 1

Pencil on photocopy paper.

While I have no very early portrayals of the exterior of Miras, I do have interior views, particularly of Newgrove, dating all the way back to art school in the 1980s. Such as this one drawn in art school.

The original idea was that Myrdemmon lived here alone, but when the Newgrove idea developed, this became Myrdemmon's "hideaway". A place no one else knew about where he went to be alone.

The Master Bedroom in Myrdemmon's Hideaway

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Mydemmon's Hideaway Entrance

Pencil on photocopy paper.

The entrance to Myrdemmon's hideaway was concealed behind a pile of junk. The drawing dates from the same time as Myrdemmon's Hideaway 1. In fact it's drawn on the same piece of paper.

Myrdemmon's Hideaway 2

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Another version of Myrdemmon's hideaway. The "ocean" is visible in the distance.

Demon

Pencil on paper.

He looked into a red rose, and sitting within the petals was a little red devil.

Myrdemmon in Hell 1

Photocopy of a pencil drawing, coloured in with colour pencil.

One day, Myrdemmon left his home in Nicotine City, and could not find his way out of Logosfield, or back to his home. He was feeling frantic. Logosfield began to clear like an evaporating mist, and he found himself in a desert of dry savannah. It stretched as far as he could see. After walking for what seemed a long time, he found a cave opening in the ground, finding his way there by the flickering heat haze in the column of air above it. The bedrock around the opening seemed to have been twisted by some great force into a vortex. Over the entrance was carved the words "GATEWAY TO THE ETERNITIES".

Hot air emerged from the opening, and the ground leading into it was worn into a deep groove, he knew, by the many feet that had walked down it over countless ages. It was dark inside, and ominous. So he went away without going in. And walked, and walked, in the hope of arriving somewhere. As he walked, his mind wandered, and eventually he would arrive back at the opening. He could not see the sun in the sky, but hours passed and it did not get darker or lighter. No cloud troubled the blue sky. The landscape was flat like a table, but a ring of low hills formed the horizon all around, but did not get any closer as he walked. The trees and grass and looked the same. And he was back at the entrance again.

He stood at the mouth of the cave, peering in, but could see nothing. The stone was worn smooth and slippery, and he slipped on some pebbles a few feet into the cave, scrambling quickly out again in a panic as if he had fallen into a cold river. He sat nearby and got hungry. He eventually inched his way into the dark of the cave, feeling his way, and as his eyes adjust he sees a path weaving downwards. The place seems uninhabited. Just rock all around.

Myrdemmon in Hell 2

Photocopy of a pencil drawing, coloured in with colour pencil.

The path went down and down. He stopped many times on the way, and sat, not wanting to go further, but there was nowhere else to go. The path leads down till it reaches a large open space. An enormous tunnel, blocked at one end. The path was in a grove in one sloping wall of the tunnel. At the bottom, the path reached a wide raging river of clear, cold, dark water. Logs and dead trees were carried along quickly by the river, bobbing in the waves. In the distance Myrdemmon could see the river reach a high wall of rock, honeycombed with caves, and the river seemed to drop as it reached it. The logs and trees were smashed as they hit the wall before being dragged under. On the far side of the river was another wall of rock, riddled with caves. Myrdemmon sat here, at the end of the line. Too tired to make his way back up the slope to the surface. He fell asleep there.

Myrdemmon in Hell 3

Pencil on photocopy paper.

When he awoke, his arm was in the water. He moved suddenly, removing his arm from the water. While he slept, his clothes had become brittle, as if greatly aged, and fell away in chunks of rags that turned to powder underfoot. His body and hair were stained grey with dust from the rock. The drops of water from his arm landed on the rock, making it shiny, and when he stepped on it, it smeared, making the rock slippery and he went straightaway into the river, hitting his shoulders and head on the edge as he went in. This part of the rock wall was slightly indented, like a little bay, and out of the main current of the river. Here the surface of the water was smooth like a mirror until he started thrashing in it.

Myrdemmon in Hell 4

Pencil on photocopy paper.

His hands were wet as he tried to grip the rock to pull himself out.

Myrdemmon in Hell 5

Pencil on photocopy paper.

He crawled carefully on hands and knees up the wet path. A few metres up, daring to stand, then slipping over, hitting his teeth and lip on the ground and rolling in shock and pain. Leaning on the wall he stands again. Then like an inelegant skater, careens backwards into the river.

Myrdemmon in Hell 6

Pencil on photocopy paper.

(Mydemmon visible at bottom of image.)

In moments the current took him deep down and the surface above receded with distance as he tumbled along the rock wall, becoming momentarily wedged in a nook with some log fragments. Removing himself from the cavity he was immediately swept away again, toward the surface this time, but also out toward the middle of the river.

Myrdemmon in Hell 7

Photocopy of a pencil drawing, coloured in with colour pencil.

He grabbed the root of a floating tree under the water, sliding down it toward the narrow tip. He was too busy to notice what was beneath him until he had clamoured out of the water and onto the log. Whatever it was, didn't seem to have noticed him, or was indifferent to him.

Myrdemmon in Hell 8

Photocopy of a pencil drawing, coloured in with colour pencil.

The sound of the great cataract and the smashing logs was loud now. In the far wall he could see a large opening like a steep stone ramp leading up out of the water. He started running along the logs, jumping and swimming from one to another to get to the other side before missing the ramp. Some of the logs had spines on their surface, tearing his flesh.

Myrdemmon in Hell 9

Photocopy of a pencil drawing, coloured in with colour pencil.

As he got closer he saw the ramp was huge and very steep. At the base where it met the water he could just make out a cluster of tiny people.

Myrdemmon in Hell 10

Pencil on photocopy paper.

When he reached the ramp, he joined the others preoccupied with getting out of the water and finding a safe ledge. Myrdemmon kept a wary eye on the dark waves in case something living emerged out of them.

Myrdemmon in Hell 10a

Pencil on photocopy paper.

An earlier draft of Myrdemmon in Hell 10.

Myrdemmon in Hell 10b

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Another draft of Myrdemmon in Hell 10.

Myrdemmon in Hell 10c

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Another draft of Myrdemmon in Hell 10.

Myrdemmon in Hell 11

Black ink, colour pencil and gouache on photocopy paper.

Myrdemmon ran into a cave. In the middle of the floor was a pool of water. He wondered if there may be another way out of the cave via the pool, by swimming to another cave. So he put his face into the pool. The water seemed bottomless. As if the system of caverns he was running through were in the roof of a vast underground reservoir. The streams of lava he had encountered in other caves, poured from holes in the roof of the reservoir, and fell like rain into the dark void, losing its glow as it cooled and vanished in the dark. Then he saw something rising up from the deep. It seemed to be approaching slowly at first but in a moment it filled his field of vision and serpents sprang out like streamers from its mouth. Each serpent head the size of a microwave oven. Myrdemmon jumped up and backed away from the pool. He couldn't go out the way he came in. The serpent heads would soon fill the little cave he was in. Then he saw, up near the roof, what looked like a metal door built into the stone, with narrow and steeply sloping ledges leading up to it.

Myrdemmon in Hell 12

Photocopy of a pencil drawing.

But the heavy metal door did not have a handle or a knob. No means of opening it. It was a dead end.

Myrdemmon in Hell 13

Gouache on paper glued to illustration board.

He looked down at the floor and the water in the pool bulged up like a dome, then poured away from the snout of the monster as it rose out of the pool toward him.

Myrdemmon 5

Ball-point pen on photocopy paper.

Myrdemmon had a momentary recollection, of a world away, in Nicotine City. When he had breakfast with a family of beautiful people, in a colourful and clean room bathed in morning sunshine. He noticed printed on the back of the cereal box a short article called "The Meaning of Life".

Myrdemmon 5a

Ball-point pen on photocopy paper.

The family's youngest daughter offered to find the plastic toy in the box.

Myrdemmon 5b
Ball-point pen on photocopy paper.

Myrdemmon and the others were eventually freed from Hell when teams of commandos appeared there.

Possibly the first drawing of Myrdemmon

With a lot of Ian Miller influence,

and maybe Doctor Who's (Tom Baker's) scarf.

Pencil on paper.

Baby

Photocopy of a ball-point pen drawing on paper.

An early drawing, possibly from art school days.

Sad Bathroom

Photocopy of ball-point pen on ruled paper.

Bull

Photocopy of partially inked pencil drawing.

Probably drawn within a few years of finishing art school. A variety of creatures inhabited Nicotine City, some manufactured by the copes, others the product of human genetic engineering.

The Tall Girl

Maybe felt-tip pen in a ruled notebook. Photocopied.

(pre Morgan period)

Spinors

Black ink on photocopy paper.

Something seen in the static on the tv one night. The central figure was a giant, swaying slowly. It was a world with very high gravity. Although the atmosphere was clear, it was the density of the deep ocean. The doughnut was a nearby astronomical phenomenon spewing out spinning shapes.

New Stuff Prep.

An alternative vision of Hell

Pencil on photocopy paper.

An industrial city built into a crevasse deep underground above magma.



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