News
What’s the ‘Tension Experience’?!
“Hell is empty and the devils are here.” – Shakespeare
What the hell is the Tension Experience?
This morning we awoke to the following flyer and website link that led us to something sinister brewing in Los Angeles.
“There is a beast in a man that needs to be excerised, not exorcised.” – Anton LaVey
By clicking on the aforementioned link, you’ll be directed to a website riddled in quotes and symbolism that’s the beginning of a puzzle. Solve this one, and you get added to some sort of list that teases you’ll be “indoctrinating yourself.”
It’s accompanied by the following quote:
“We are what fear aspires to be…
The are the dread that proceeds the dreadful..
All that was dark, will soon be light..
The path to illumination begins here.”
The Tension Experience is both terrifying and enlightening? Please, tell me more!
In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, but it was a cheerful illustrator from England who helped to define the terrifying war-torn imagery that inspired what we now know as Grimdark (a hybrid genre combining horror with sci-fi/fantasy).
Unfortunately for fans of Warhammer 40,000, Trench Crusade and countless other sources of Grimdark thrills, veteran artist John Blanche passed away this week after struggling with health issues for the past few years.
While the artist retired back in 2023, he leaves us with an enormous legacy of iconic artwork that continues to inspire gamers and storytellers around the world to this very day.
The news is especially gloomy as it was only last year that Daniel Lowman and Napoleon Dynamite himself Jon Heder released The Grim & the Dark: The Search for John Blanche, a documentary following Heder’s exploration of the Grimdark genre culminating in a heartwarming encounter with Blanche in his own home.
Below is one of my favorite pieces by Blanche, his highly influential depiction of Warhammer 40k’s God-Emperor of Mankind on his Golden Throne.
We send our deepest condolences to John Blanche’s family, friends, and fans.
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