Releasing my Tuesday Post early this week as Tuesday will find me soaring over the Atlantic Ocean in an airplane! Please forgive my time warp.

Silent Era film holds a very special place in my heart, particularly the darker end of its spectrum. Though I’ve nothing against lighthearted comedy, to me, silent film has always been more about darkness, psychological horror and tormented monsters. It was to my favorite silent monsters that I dedicated my PhD thesis at the University of Edinburgh – to the vampiric grandeur of Nosferatu (1922), the duality of Jekyll and Hyde (adapted no less than 20 times in the Silent Era alone), to Phantom of the Opera (1925) with its soundless music conveyed through gesture and shadow, and many more.

My love and knowledge of silent film plays a huge role in my art, influencing the themes and imagery of my films and graphic novels.

My design of Proteus’s winged form in the latest issue of The Metamorphist for example, draws visual inspiration from two great Silent Era films directed by German Expressionist filmmaker F.W. Murnau – Nosferatu (1922) and Faust (1926). Although Proteus is not specifically a demon nor a vampire, the rodent-like quality of the vampire’s fangs in Nosferatu suited Proteus’s rabbit image well, so vampiric bat wings felt like a natural choice. The stunning shot of Mephisto looming over a doomed village in Faust convey a sense of mythic menace and power that I wanted to capture in Proteus’s pose, so I referenced the angle and span of Mephisto’s wings when developing Proteus’s poses.

If you’re inspired to check out these incredible films, they’re both public domain and available freely on youtube:

I hope you find them as terrifying and wonderful as I do. Maybe they’ll inspire you in your own creative work.

If you are a fellow lover of Gothic silent films or monsters in general, I’d love to hear from you!

Next week’s update will be all about Phantoms of Vendôme, which pays playful visual homage to my favorite silent adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera.