This month was an indulgence for me in a way as it includes Cthulhu, who is a Lovecraft eldritch horror. If you are not familiar with H.P Lovecraft, he is one of the founders of modern horror and many of the ideas he came up with have become the basis for horror stories today. Many of his stories involve eldritch creatures from beyond time and space - Cthulhu is a god like being, worshipped and feared by strange and dangerous cults. Lovecraft found little recognition in life and died reasonably young but his ideas and mythos live on in a huge way. Lovecraft invented many monsters and horrors but I felt that could have been too niche for a box so I decided to pair Cthulhu with some of the cryptid horrors from this world.
Cryptids are creatures which might exist - there is little evidence to suggest they do for sure but not enough evidence to suggest they don't. Cryptids of all kinds are part of most cultures in the world and have always fascinated me personally - I am very interested in anything weird and supernatural (I even have a monthly subscription to a magazine which covers everything weird in the world!).
Anyway on to the box!
Lets go through the actual designs that make up the box! We have Cthulhu of course who I've already spoken about and I will talk about him more in a bit.
The big blue character is a Yeti, who I'm sure most people are familiar with. A cryptid of the snow and ice, is he the missing link between people and apes?
The bunny is a jakalope, a cryptid of Nothern American folklaw. The jackalope has origins all over the world (a horned hare sometimes has one horn like a unicorn or two like mine) back in the mists of time but was probably popularised in the 1930's by a piece of taxidermy.
The sea serpent is a common cryptid again with sightings all over the world. These guys pop up in the ocean and in fresh water lakes - are they a remnant of the dinosaurs or a brand new species?
My "scary" design for the box is a wendigo. A wendigo is a person converted by greed into an insatiable devourer - usually someone who in real life resorted to cannibalism. They are associated with the winter months and starvation and originally come from North America and Canada.
The horse type creature is the Jersey Devil which comes from Jersey in the USA. Legend has it, a woman cursed her 13th child and when it was born, it was a equine devil creature which flew out into the night. There have been many sightings over the years though the descriptions of the creature vary but 1909 saw a real influx of terror with hundreds of sightings been reported. The jersey devil has been reported as being spotted in the 1960's which would make the creature incredibly old - he was supposed to have been "born" in 1735!
Lastly, the moth man. I know my moth man design is controversial! Originating in the USA, he usually looks like a shadowy human figure with huge wings. His story begins in the 1960's and has been popularised by movies and books. Here, mine is just a chonky moth
Speaking of chonky moths, I made moth man into a sticker. I imagine that even though this guy is pretty cute, he would be huge and would quite easily carry the average person off in his tiny stubbers. Still, he is pretty hairy so it would probably be a warm ride.
Here is our pin for this month and it had to be Cthulhu since I love him. This is actually a redesign of an older piece I did many years ago, hopefully there is some improvement here! Whats that I hear you say? I don't do fan art? Yes, you are right, I don't usually touch fan art with a 10 foot art pole because of the legal complications/moral implications (and the fact that my fan art is generally pretty poor). But while Lovecraft was alive, he encouraged other creatives to use his mythos how they saw fit and many have - Cthulhu appears in D&D, mythos elements show up in Hellboy comics/films, even Batman! - The famous Arkham asylum is taken from Lovecraft. And the mythos is now in the public domain which means anyone can use it. So hopefully no legal complications there!
The mystery item for this month was a post card. I wanted to fit all the creatures on so went for a weird long shape. I quite like the size actually, its weird so fits the theme!
I hope you liked this box if you got one! And thank you so much to you all, this was the best selling Drix box so far!!!! I'm so happy and quite frankly, stunned!
Well, next month is October so that means a spooky theme, we are to be haunted by "ghostly goings on"!!! The pin for this box is my most complicated pin design yet and I'm very excited for everyone to see it. Its ghostly but also pretty Halloweeny as well!
Thank you all!