Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith was an American poet, painter, sculptor and author of myriad fantasy, horror and science fiction stories (1893 - 1961). Smith is best known for his many works of 'weird' fiction, including the short horror story "The Maker of Gargoyles".
Real World Background
Clark Ashton Smith was born in 1893 in Long Valley, California. For most of his life, Smith lived in a small cabin in Auburn, California, which he shared with his parents. He had little formal education, only eight years of grammar school and none of high school. Despite this, Smith was extensively self-taught, being a voracious reader gifted with an eidetic memory. At the age of seventeen, Smith began selling his poems and short stories to various magazines including Black Cat and Weird Tales, which eventually brought him into correspondence with other "weird" fiction authors such as Howard Philips Lovecraft and Robert E, Howard. By 1935, Smith had begun losing interest in writing fiction, turning his hand to sculpture. Smith eventually passed away in his sleep in 1961.
Despite being an accomplished poet, painter and sculptor, Smith is best know today for his large oeuvre of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. Many these stories of would eventually be integrated into the so-called "Cthulhu Mythos" due to Smith's long-standing and long-distance friendship with H.P. Lovecraft and the two writers habit of referencing each other's fiction in their own works. Among Smith's most well-known creations are the 'witch-ridden' medieval French province of Averoigne (in which "The Maker of Gargoyles" is set), Zothique; the 'Last Continent' of a far-future dying Earth, and the grotesque Hyberborean 'Toad-God' Tsathoggua.
References to Smith in Gargoyles
First published in the August 1932 issue of Weird Tales, Smith's "The Maker of Gargoyles" served as the main inspiration for "For Not Everything With Wings...", the third issue of the Gargoyles Demona: Better Angels miniseries, for which Smith received a credit.
The issue adapted many characters and concepts originally created by Smith for the original short story, including the medieval French town of Vyones and the ill-fated stone carver Blaise Reynard.
See Also
- Clark Ashton Smith at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
- The Eldritch Dark – The Sanctum of Clark Ashton Smith
