Fabian Fröhlich | Fantastische Illustrationen | Fantastic Illustrations

Illustrations for short stories

Illustration for “Ronnies Vorrat” (Ronnie’s Supply), 2012

Lothar Nietsch, Ronnies Vorrat

 

Short story illustration for the webzine LITERRA. Arranged as a still life on my desk. photographed and photoshopped. Originally i wanted to draw it later, but than I thought the image worked as a a photography as well.

 


Illustration for the Short Story “Das Sandmädchen” (The Sandgirl) by Malte S. Sembten

Fabian Fröhlich, Malte S. Sembten, Das Sandmädchen

 

 

Fabian Fröhlich, Malte S. Sembten, Das Sandmädchen, Detail

Detail

The drawing is the first finished illustration for a story collection by Malte S. Sembten, to be published in 2013. There will be round about a dozen illustrations, one for each story.

I have worked with Malte now and then during the last 20 years, but this is the first time I have the pleasure to illustrate his stories.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Illustrations for Edition Metzengerstein and Festa, 1996–98

Henry S. Whitehead was an American writer of horror and fantasy fiction and a friend of H.P. Lovecraft. His portrait (embellished with details from his stories “The Chadburne Episode”, “Scar Tissue” and “Bothon”) was a commission for the short fiction collection Der persische Ghoul. The book was edited by Marco Frenschkowsky, translated and designed by Malte S. Sembten. and published within Frank Festa’s Edition Metzengerstein in 1996.

The acrylic painting portraying H.P. Lovecraft was used as a interior illustration in Lovecrafts Dunke Idole, an anthology with Lovecrafts favorite authors, edited by Frank Festa in 2007.

The cover illustration for Die geheime Kammer by Eddie Angerhuber, also an acrylic painting, wasn’t used for the book. Regardless of whether you like the picture or not (I do like the privet hawk moth, but not the rest), I have to admit that it wouldn’t have matched the edition’s design.

A fourth commission for Edition Metzengerstein were the illustrations for Von Heiligen und Mördern by Brian Hodge.

Cover: © Festa


Illustrations for Fanzine Short Stories and Articles, Part 2, 1994–96

During the 90s a lot of my drawings were published in fanzines and literary magazines. More here. My favourite among these is probably Michael Siefener’s “Fliegen” (Flies), a short story which reminds me of Maupassants “Le Horla”, Kafkas “Metamorphosis” or Lovecrafts “Cool Air”.
 


Illustrations for Fanzine Short Stories and Articles, Part 1, 1992/93

 

A rare attempt to draw with a dip pen instead of a technical ink pen

During the 90s a lot of my drawings were published in fanzines and literary magazines. Most of them were re-prints of commissional work for Bastei or drawings with no particular source; about 50 were created as illustrations for short stories or articels. Part 2 here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Illustrations for “The Outsider” by Howard Phillips Lovecraft, 1992

Two-plate linocuts, 12 x 20 cm each.

“…I know not where I was born, save that the castle was infinitely old and infinitely horrible; full of dark passages and having high ceilings where the eye could find only cobwebs and shadows. The stones in the crumbling corridors seemed always hideously damp, and there was an accursed smell everywhere, as of the piled-up corpses of dead generations. It was never light, so that I used sometimes to light candles and gaze steadily at them for relief…”

I discovered Howard Philips Lovecraft (1890 – 1937) in 1985. I was 14, and Lovecraft was the right thing at the right time; within a year I read everything there was (at least in German). “The Outsider” from 1926 (The full text here) has always been one of my favorite stories, I think it’s one the saddest and most disturbing short stories Lovecraft ever wrote.

I made the linocuts during a seminar with Klaus Ensikat (known, for example, as the German illustrator of The Hobbit) at the Kunsthochschule Kassel where I studied Art History, but also had the opportunity to work practically now and then. I used the chance to try things I didn’t do at home, like linocut, etching or drawing from the nude (I am wondering where all these drawings have gone, I am afraid I threw them away, like all the preparatory sketches for paintings – unfortunately).