Design-a-Fortean-Christmas-Card

[Quetzelcoatl]

OUCH####

thank you kind sir / madam. I did indeed deserve a smack in the mouth for the first mention of the 'C' word on this board, but I need help.

ethelred must come up with the 2002 ethelred Industries BVD seasonal greetings card and where better to find a fine image and concept and some lines of purple prose than my Fortean chums?

THE BRIEF

er, an image and some writing for a Christmas card to go to our many associates around the globe. Many of these people are guests of long term institutions but the rest include reclusive paraniod creative types, armed and dangerous conspiracy theorists, corporate decision makers, political bottom-feeders and the usual sort of scum one must deal with when operating a pan-global industrial conglomorate.

it'll go to our pals too.

THE PRIZE

a high value item of a Fortean nature which we will try to get the Mods to agree to forward to the winner (they've got your ID so they could get your bank balance and inside leg measurement if they wanted). We send the prize and forwarding postage to a Mod at a designated address, they check its not alive or dangerous, then forward it to the lucky winner.

well? I didnt get where I am today by working for it.

 

[Beakmoo]

When you say a Fortean card, do you mean designed by forteans? Or a fortean subject? If the latter, WTF do you do for a living?
I could do a nice hedge design possibly.

 

[Anonymous]

Why didnt you just photograph the dog turd with the m&ms on it mentioned in the fortean art thread and use that as a xmas card. Or perhaps you could designs your own (as in a different dog turd, not neccesarily your OWN) with sparkly stars on it and perhaps a cheery robin. What better way to share the seasonal spirit with your loved ones.

 

[Quetzelcoatl]

If the latter, WTF do you do for a living?
I could do a nice hedge design possibly.

sadly, I share with AV the rare affliction being overcome with nameless dread at the mention of the 'W' word.

hedges is good, dog turds is good.

a decorated dog turd on a hedge? I'm thinking sparklers, M&Ms, candles. I'm thinking PRODUCTION VALUES.

this ones got legs

 

[Anonymous]

The sensible suggestion
A card celebrating midwinter instead of christmas featuring standing stones

The silly suggestion
Photograph someone in a santa suit to look as though it is a cryptozoological siting and alledge that it was taken at the north pole or on a roof top on Christmas eve.

Something pagan
A green man made out of ivy & holly leaves or a more traditonal picture of a pagan symbol like mistletoe with a paragraph on the back explaining about it

Something traditional for those people who go nuts if your christmas cards don't have christian symbols on them (like they did at my old office): a fine art madonna and child. Pick a black madonna or one of those ones that are alledged to have a ufo on them.

 

[Justin_Anstey]

To be properly fortean it should be about something that is excluded from christmas convention. For example:

"The chief deity of Yule is Father Christmas, personification of midwinter jollity and excess. His other name, Santa Claus, is a corruption of Saint Nicholas, whose feast day is 6 December, right at the beginning of the Yule period [see 'Ho Ho Ho!' by Paul Sieveking. FT56:42-45].

Like many 'saints', however, he is a Christianised version of a Pagan deity. He is the real 'Old Nick', Odin, shamanic chief god of the Nordic pantheon and master of the 'weird space' between worlds. Father Christmas is still depicted in shaman's costume, wearing his freshly-flayed animal skin, fur inside and the bloody side outwards."
-Nigel Pennick, FT60:25.

Also:
BEHIND SANTA'S GENIAL SMILE LIES A 70,000 YEAR OLD ANIMIST TRADITION OF A BEAST MAN PHYLLIS SIEFKER UNMASKS THE ULTIMATE BEDROOM INVADER.
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060109024005/http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/118_santan.shtml

 

[akaWiintermoon]

Do you remember the packs of Xmas cards available (Still so in really, really cheapy shops. ) when you were at school? They started out really sweet with with fluffy animals in Santa hats and sat in stockings, ect. Then when you got down the bottom, you could see why 'those' cards were there. You know the type, a picture of a shitty coloured brown candle (Maybe it was dog turd?! :eek!!!!: ) and a purple tree baubble next to it. Funny how you always found out how popular you were at Xmas time.

 

[Beakmoo]

And halfway down the pack, the dickensian coach and horses, and blokes in top hats standing in the snow.
Why?