“Candlewax” (1990) by W. H. Pugmire & Ashleigh Talbot

Eldritch Fappenings
This review deals in part with artwork that includes nudity and/or sexuality explicit content.
As such, please be advised before reading further.

---

In the 1985 Christmas supplement to the fanzine Fungi, W. H. Pugmire‘s story “Candlewax” first saw publication. This was one of Pugmire’s earliest efforts at Mythos fiction, and is a part of his Sesqua Valley cycle—his own corner of Lovecraft country set in the Pacific Northwest, populated by characters like Simon Gregory Williams. While Pugmire would go on to write many more tales of Sesqua Valley, which have been collected and published in various volumes, “Candlewax” is one of the comparatively rarer tales, having been reprinted only a handful of times—and, most interestingly, in an illustrated edition.

Discrete Ephemera (1990) is a limited edition (500 copies) book art project by Ashleigh Talbot, and illustrated texts by Steven J. Bernstein (“Face”) and W. H. Pugmire (“Candlewax,” as “W. F. Pugmire”), made possible by an art grant. Madame Talbot is presented throughout via a symbol:

The book exists in different states. My copy of 136 unnumbered sheets is bound between sheet metal plates with a small brass padlock, while others are bound in textured wallpaper; with a fingerprint imprint in gold ink (some listings say blood, but it looks like gold ink to me) on the limitation page, and a tipped-in photo of Pugmire in the nude. The overall aesthetic is strongly reminiscent of underground comix, punk zines, and copybooks of the 1960s-1980s, with an emphasis on cut-and-paste techniques, surreal imagery, the presentation of familiar images in unfamiliar contexts or subtly distorted, and a Burroughs-esque eye for the unfiltered and sometimes teratophiliac reality presented by medical textbooks and cabinets of curiosity.

The illustrated version of Pugmire’s “Candlewax” is distinct from the rest of the project, but mostly because it has a coherent, linear narrative, with a darker, more Gothic tone than the more stylized kaleidoscope of images that preceeded this section, or the much more comic-strip style collaboration “Faces” with Bernstein. While Talbot continues to use the same distinctive style, the illustrations work to complement the text, at times a strict depiction, and at times more abstract and evocative.

The story itself is a sketch in miniature of bibliomania, murder, necromancy, hubris, and revenge. A fitting snapshot of the kind of obsession that has characterized aspects of the Mythos (and readers of the Mythos) from the beginning.

At least two versions of the “Candlewax” text have seen print. Pugmire had a tendency to rewrite his stories when they were reprinted, and this seems to be the case here as well. To give the flavor of the difference:

The man was a dwarf. His bent and twisted frame, disfigured by age and nameless ailments, seemed perpetually trembling. Drool moistened thin black lips, and yellow pus oozed from reddened eyes. A skeletal finger tapped the book that lay before him, and he addressed his visitor in a whispered voice. “His name was Simon Gregory Williams. He wrote this book of spells in the late 1960s. That in itself makes it unique. Most of my books are ancient tomes, crumbling and worm-infected. But, as you see, this looks almost new.”

The tiny man bent his twisted frame toward the curious tome. Drool moistened his thin grey lips; yellow pus oozed from his reddened eyes. A skeletal finger tapped the yellow cover of the book. He addressed his visitor in a low whispered voice. “His name was Simon Gregory Williams. He wrote this book of spells thirty years ago, while visiting the poet William Davis Manly, in your curious Sesqua Valley.” Here he opened the book and turned to various illustrated pages. He stopped at a vivid depiction of a tremendous mountain of white stone, the twin peaks of which resembled wings folded up on a daemon’s shoulders. “The infamous Mount Selta, of which I’ve heard so much. And below, in purple ink, the name ‘Khroyd’Hon’; such a strange name.”

“Candlewax” in Discrete Ephemera (1990)

“Candlewax” in Mythos Tales & Others #1

The 1996 text deals much more with the Sesqua Valley cycle, probably to better incorporate it into the loose collection of stories and the Mythos that Pugmire would continue to build on in tales like “An Imp of Aether” (1997). Readers hunting this particular text may find themselves like the protagonist Oscar James, hunters of arcane lore about that mysterious vale and its even more mysterious occupants.

With an edition of only 500 copies, Discrete Ephemera and its illustrated version of “Candlewax” is very scarce and relatively expensive. Graeme Phillips reprinted the entire illustrated story in the chapbook Sesqua Rising (2016), but that was limited to only 50 copies, and is even scarcer, making this one of the rarest of Pugmire’s collaborations.

Madame Talbot also collaborated with Pugmire on some illustrated prose poems, and wrote:

I was thrill’d when one of my early Mythos stories, “Candlewax”, appear’d fully illustrated in one of Ashleigh’s hand-made books. There is nothing more thrilling than working on projects with outstanding artists 

W. H. Pugmire, “In Collaboration with Genius” (2016)

What is Discrete Ephemera and “Candlewax”? A collaboration of talents, a cross-pollination of ideas, attitudes, and styles. Discrete Ephemera is a kind of punkish grimoire, an art object to be experienced more than a text to be read and consumed, and in that sense “Candlewax” almost feels like a metatext…or, perhaps, a warning. For now, this copy is in my library. In time, it will be passed on to someone else. Hopefully, someone who gets it.

---

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.