“[I]t was a labor of love for Joe Wrzos, and me, and Helen de la Ree, and my wife Dorothy. Helen helped with her experience in the publishing business, while my wife helped me with the artwork by doing much of the inking. As the 'project' evolved we all met periodically at my home to review and comment on the progress of my artwork and the overall design of the book. Until one day, the big boss Joe Wrzos said 'Done' and off it went to the printer. That's as good as it gets folks.” — Stephen Fabian

Stephen Fabian’s birthday was January 3. I missed it. August Derleth’s one hundred fifteenth birthday was February 24. I missed it. Missing the latter was somewhat due to events at my job—I missed my middle sister’s birthday as well—and to ongoing cyber-hijinks. I decided to not wait until Augie’s memorial day before attempting to wrench this project back on track. I’ll just bite the bullet and get this out there, pushing everything else to the back burner.

To quickly recap things... Back in May, 2020, I did a blog entry on In Lovecraft's Shadow, which was published in 1998. That book contained most of Derleth's Mythos-related short stories and poetry. It was beautifully illustrated by the legendary Stephen Fabian and those illos were the focus of my post. The first post only got through the introductory material—In Lovecraft’s Shadow is absolutely packed with illustrations. Part Two only got to page 111. This post will be the longest, illo-wise, covering all the art from page 112 to page 233. I hope that will make up, somewhat, for the drawn-out nature of this series thus far.

Scans courtesy of Bill Thom and the Stephen Fabian Fan Facebook Group.

So, sit back and enjoy some of Stephen Fabian’s best macabre art!

Another atmospheric section-heading from Fabian. This section of In Lovecraft’s Shadow highlights Mythos tales set beyond North America that are not part of a particular series, such as the Laban Shrewsbury stories.

“Those Who Seek” is one of Derleth’s more obscure Mythos tales, but that is a great story-header illo. Once again, we see the use of the Deep One/batrachian initial.

In this illustration, we see another use of the classic ‘Fabian trilithon’.

Another obscure, early Derleth tale. I love the illustration of that ruin.

Yet another great illo, with the image and ornate borders working together.

Yet another great section illustration. The title says it all. These are the Derleth tales set in the heart of Lovecraft Country.

One of Derleth’s most famous Mythos stories.

With that last, exquisite image from Mr. Fabian, I will close this blog entry. Hopefully, I’ll publish the fourth and final post in this series sooner than later.