©Skot Olsen

The artist’s own words pretty much say it best…

Saint Architeuthis is the patron saint of doomed sailors. While the origins of the saint remain unclear, it’s recent history and worship are well documented. Whalers who turned their attention to catching giant squid and sea serpents in the 19th century, began asking Saint Architeuthis for mercy whenever a hunt would go awry, which was fairly frequent. When hunting for such animals, one would sometimes be thrown over board or a boat would sink exposing the men to whatever was in the water at the time. A sailor would ask Saint Architeuthis for the quick and relatively painless death of drowning, rather than the hideous demise of being ripped apart by the beak of the squid or chewed up in the sea serpent’s hideous maw. Often, men would have visions of Saint Architeuthis who would appear before them in the form of a gigantic, yet benevolent squid wearing a bishop’s mitre and carrying tools of the squid hunter’s trade.

Still available: Limited Edition (signed and numbered run of 50) Gliclee on heavy watercolor stock; 14.5″ x 27″. $200

This was recently submitted by my friend Will, and it seems particularly timely because I just finished reading Kraken by China Miéville. Although not specifically mentioned in the book, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this painting adorns the secret sanctuary of the Church of God Kraken.

The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite #1 (Sept. 2007) ©Dark Horse Comics

The Umbrella Academy is a thoroughly delightful series written by Gerard Way with art by Gabriel Bá and published by Dark Horse Comics. Instead of a continuous on-going series, Umbrella Academy is released as separately numbered mini-series, beginning with Apocalypse Suite #1 (September, 2007).

The original Umbrella Academy was made up of seven extraordinary children, each gifted with a different ability. Together, they were an unstoppable force against evil, but they eventually disbanded under mysterious circumstances. Now all grown up, the surviving members come together after the death of Sir Reginald Hargreeves, the only father the children had ever known. They realize they must now face a new looming crisis and that only a reunited Umbrella Academy can save the world.

This beautiful cover of Apocalypse Suite #1 by James Jean depicts the Eiffel Tower sprouting a number of giant tentacles. This is, of course, exceedingly cool. It also shows a person (as both a man and a boy) with a mass of tentacles emerging from his chest. This is The Horror, who is long dead when the story opens, and remains one of the most enigmatic members of the Academy. (Incidentally, the blond knife-wielding man is code-named The Kraken, but that is the extent of his cephalpod-ness.)

From the very first page of Apocalypse Suite (below), it quickly becomes obvious to the reader that anything can happen in the world of The Umbrella Academy.

And it does.

©Dark Horse Comics

Also, there are talking chimpanzees. I’m just sayin’…

Available on Amazon.com:

The Umbrella Academy (Vol 1): Apocalypse Suite
The Umbrella Academy (Vol 2): Dallas

A friend of mine picked up this button for me at the San Diego Comic Con a few years back. This baleful cyclops is the logo of Ancient Squid Media, an independent comics publishing collective. The Ancient Squid site hasn’t been updated in over a year, so I’m not sure if they are still active. Perhaps they got hypnotized by the horrible unblinking eye…

Sir Octopus

Brand new from Sir Critter (who previously brought us Sir Squid), is this dapper fellow. He’s all dressed up and ready for your office Christmas party!

Shirts start at $15.99, are available in a rainbow of color combinations, and did I mention the octopus with a moustache wearing a bow tie and flourishing a top hat? Also, there’s just two days left of their big Cyber Monday sale! All orders over $40 are 25% off.

Buy it now from SirCritter.com

Threadless®

Art Is My Weapon and Loch Ness Imposter are back in stock!

Both are currently on sale for $12 each (all sizes and styles).

As we know, Threadless designs sell out fast, particularly when they’re on sale, so act fast!

Squidfire.com

I’ve already featured several different Squidfire designs, but I’ve barely scratched the surface of their vast selection of cephalopod shirts. They are all currently on sale (and all in stock, as far as I can tell), so any of them would be appropriate for this list. For example, here’s the SquidFire Emblem polo. It normally costs $32, but it’s temporarily reduced in price to $27. Buy it now from Squidfire.com.

The Squidfire emblem is also available on regular T-shirts (both men’s and women’s), long-sleeved thermal shirts (men’s and women’s), and hoodies.

Diesel Sweeties Pixel Socks

Clicky the Pixel Squid

Diesel Sweeties is a webcomic by R. Stevens about robots, music, and geek love. Looking for clever, ironic, and/or pixilated gift ideas? Then check out the Diesel Sweeties Store! These women’s knee socks—produced in cahoots with Sock It To Me of Portland, OR—feature an entire school of adorable cyclopian squid and are only $6.99 a pair!

Etsy.com

The Etsy community seems to be a nigh-unlimited source of hand-made cephalopod products, but for the purposes of rounding out tonight’s list, I’m going to narrow things down to neck ties only. Let’s begin with a rather familiar looking design…

(Click the images to visit the each seller’s Etsy shop.)

Sucker! by toybreaker ($30)

Octopus by jesswitaj ($30)

White Octopus by satisfactory ($28)

Polka Dot Squid by makbeauty ($30)

R13: Colossus! #1 (Cover B, front)

The year is 1939, and a Spanish fishing boat has made a strange catch—a metal man whose glass-domed head contains a floating human skull. The only identifying mark on it is the numeral 13 carved into its forehead. No sooner has this mysterious mechanoid been hauled out on the deck than the ship is attacked by a one-eyed, tentacled monster from the deep. Their new accidental passenger grabs a harpoon (and, later, an anchor) and leaps to the crew’s defense. I won’t reveal how this epic battle ends, but I will remind you that this comics isn’t called “One-Eyed Squid Monster 13.”

Who is Robot 13? Where does he come from? He doesn’t know, but he plans to find out.

page 8

R13: Colossus! is the first publication of Blacklist Studios. It is written by Thomas Hall with art by Daniel Bradford (who also did cover version B. Check out more of his work on deviantART!). Issue #1 hit the comic shelves this summer, and it looks like issue #2 just came out.

Look for it at your local comic book shop or order from www.blackliststudios.com.

(Cover B, back)

A Plush A Day: Day 2 Baby Socktopus, originally uploaded by Futuregirl_LeahRiley.

We interrupt Action Figure Week to bring you this really cute hand-made one-eyed plush octopus. It was yesterday’s entry in Leah Riley’s Plush a Day Challenge. That’s right, Leah is making a new plush toy every day until she runs out of ideas or scrap material. Which ever comes first!

Follow her progress at Leah’s Stuff.

www.giantthinkwell.com

Giant Thinkwell, which debuted today, is an international illustrator’s collective currently composed of nine artists. Their kick-off project is called Rise of the Squid.

Here are my three favorite pieces…

Kyle Kesterson

Ryan Tatum

Mark Malazarte

Visit GiantThinkwell.com to see these and the other five awesome pieces in the project. All of the illustrations are available as 8×10 prints, limited edition of 42.

$10 + $3 sh ($5 int’l) – Full artist series $60