title: Popular Skullture: The Skull Motif in Pulps, Paperbacks, and Comics
author:  Monte Beauchamp 
description: Monte Beauchamp is an award-winning art director and graphic designer whose work has appeared in <i>Graphis, Communication Arts, SPDA, Print, American Illustration</i>, and <i>The Society of Illustrators Annual.</i> He has received numerous awards and honors, and has served as a juror for both American Illustration and The Society of Illustrators.<br /> <br />He is the founder and editor of the graphics-illustration-comics annual <i>BLAB! </i>His books include: <i>The Life &amp; Times of R. Crumb</i> (St. Martin's Press), <i>Striking Images: Vintage Matchbook Cover Art </i>(Chronicle Books), <i>The Devil in Design </i>(Fantagraphics), and <i>New &amp; Used BLAB!</i> (Chronicle Books) and many more. The author lives in Chicago, IL..
zlib_text: THE SKULL HARVEST
  
  
  
  
  
  Graham McNeill
  
  DEAD, GLASSY EYES stared up at the bar patrons from the floor as the rolling
  head finally came to a halt. It had been a swift blow, the edge of the
  killer’s palm like a blade, and the snarling warrior’s head was ripped from
  his neck before the last words of his challenge were out of his mouth.
  
  The body still stood, its murderer grasping the edge of its crimson-stained
  breastplate in one gnarled grey fist. Blood pooled beneath the head and
  squirted upwards from the stump of neck. The body’s legs began to twitch, as
  though it sought to escape its fate even in death. The killer released his
  grip and turned away as the body crashed to the dirty, ash-and dust-streaked
  floor in a clatter of steel and dead meat.
  
  The excitement over, the patrons of the darkened bar returned to their drinks
  and plotting, for no one came to a place like this without schemes of revenge,
  murder, pillage and destruction in mind.
  
  Honsou of the Iron Warriors was no exception,