Good Omens

Join me and a unique selection of brilliant Seattle artists for Book Club. Come see the visual interpretations of the book Good Omens “the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch”. Artists were asked to read the book and select an passage from which to draw inspiration for a personal rendition on scenes, moods, characters, and interpretive illustrations. The opening reception is Friday March 11, 6-10pm at Bherd Studios in the Greenwood Collective Seattle. The show will be up until the end of March and will then be transported to the 619 Western building for an encore showing.

Continuing with my new exploration of media utilizing old photographs from the early 1900’s I’ve delved deep to reveal my very own character interpretations from the Good Omen’s graphic novel. Mixing up the media by layering acrylics on top of the relic photos was a bit of a challenge. Achieving the exact antiqued tones that vary from monochromatic sepia to faded warm grey tones can be a tough balance. Getting the gradations, textures, and form is pertinent to create a seamless blend of paint on print. Below are my character renditions which will be at the show. I’ve chosen to frame each original piece with antique frames to further heighten the vintage aesthetics.

SATAN aka BEELZEBUB:

Beelzebub is introduced as “A Likewise Fallen Angel and Prince of Hell” (13) in the Dramatis Personae. He is briefly mentioned when a worried Crowley, trying to get his mind off misplacing the Antichrist puts on a tape in the Bentley. The first line is from Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, “Bee-elzebub has a devil put aside for me” Crowley begins to introduce Beelzebub but is cut off at “he’s the Lord of–” (349). The Hebrew origin of the name, Baʽal zĕbhūbh, literally means lord of flies. In the Old Testament, Baalzebûb was the Philistine god of the city Ekron, also called lord of the flies because he drove flies away from the sacrifice. In the New Testament, an evil spirit named Beelzeboul “destroys by means of tyrants, causes demons to be worshiped, arouses desires in priests, brings about jealousies and murders, and instigates wars”. He is also called the prince of demons. Though it is unclear whether Baalzebûb and Beelzeboul were intended to be the same figure, elements of both are included in this novel’s Beelzebub, as well as generally in popular culture today.  My Satan is rather a mixture of Death and Demon.

As an investigator of evil and darkness it was my pleasure creating the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse characters. I blended Death with Satan as the sinister dark side is prevalent in either mentioning. The following character pieces represent the remaining riders of the apocalypse. I dug deep in my collection of age old photos to get the perfect feel for each.

FAMINE:

The sophisticated Horsemen who goes by the name of Dr. Raven Sable, at least during canon: if he’s had other names, they’re not mentioned — looks like a “pleasant, thrusting, successful businessman” (338). He’s thin, of course. He has black hair, a short black beard, and he dresses all in black. He has “dark grey eyes” (63). The International Express delivery-man finds him from the description of a “tall gent with a beard, nice suit.” Famine comes off as the most human of the four Horsepeople, perhaps because he has the most interaction with humans (War also deals with them, but those meetings tend to be short-lived by nature). When he first appears, he’s doing drinks with his accountant Frannie after having dinner with her. He knows her well enough to have bought her a laptop computer “as a personal present,” (64) which implies a certain amount of familiarity. Famine’s earlier internal meta-commentary suggest that the Horsepeople are aligned to one of the sides — namely Hell — in the coming conflict.) He takes pleasure in his job: “Sable grinned, the honest, open grin that goes with job satisfaction, perfect and pure. He was just killing time until the main event, but he was killing it in such exquisite ways. Time, and sometimes people” (64). Famine is a most deceptive character and fits the suit of an astute pre-depression gentleman quite swimmingly.

WAR:

In the Good Omens universe, War isn’t a man, but a woman, who calls herself Scarlett. She is perhaps the most deceiving of all Horsemen on the surface. She has an air of danger about her: her voice sounds like “something that lurks in the long grass, visible only by the twitching of its ears, until something young and tender wobbles by” (45), her laugh is like “machine-gun stutter” (314), and though she’s described as beautiful, it’s “the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close” (104). My depiction of War isn’t literal of the descriptors in the book, but my take on the “two-faced” and disingenuous qualities of the character. A seemingly beautiful flower from the front with a hidden dark demon lurking behind and from within.

There’s no sense that War regards the people around her as anything other than playthings for her amusement. She’s polite enough if she talks to someone, but the closest to prolonged interaction with anyone besides the other Horsepeople is with her (human) fellow war correspondents: “Ms. Zuigiber just smiled and bought another round of drinks for everybody, on the National World Weekly. And watched the fights break out around her. And smiled” (100). Only with the Horsepeople does she act anything like human, comparing Armageddon to “waiting for Christmas. Or birthdays.” When Famine reminds her that the Horsepeople don’t have birthdays, she retorts, “I didn’t say we do. I just said that was what it was like” (236). War is the car-crash you can’t help but watch.

POLLUTION:

In the traditional reckoning of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, this horseman is Pestilence. However, apparently Pestilence retired in 1936, “muttering about penicillin” (263), and Pollution took over. He looked like Victorian Romantic poets looked just before the consumption and drug abuse really started to cut it” (185). “His skin was pale, his hair a faded blond, his eyes light gray. He was somewhere in his twenties at a casual glance, and a casual glance was all anyone ever gave him. He was almost entirely unmemorable” (64). “Farther down the riverbank sat a young man dressed all in white. His hair was white, his skin chalk pale. For the most part, however, nobody notices him. That’s how he works. “He was unobtrusive; his presence was cumulative” (65). He’s responsible for massive oil spills, for nuclear plant meltdowns, for the development of “the petrol engine, and plastics, and the ring-pull can” (65). I decided to further push the sense of Pollution’s essence and motive I would include a smoking cigar jutting from his pale and ugly face. Modeling the tones of paint on the awkward head of a late 1800’s countryman was a great undertaking. The photo was relatively miniature which meant breaking out the one-haired brushes.

All Images © Nick Beery | All Rights Reserved | www.BEERYMETHOD.com