The next installment of the Out of the Blue anthology series sets out to discover the thrill of old pulp comics by way of the bizarre. After an enthusiastic submission period, 20 short comics were selected for inclusion in the largest Out of the Blue yet! And once we got a look at the finalists a title was obvious: TWISTED PULP!

A twisted collection deserves a twisted cover artist: enter Kelly Williams! He’s recently illustrated variant covers for Action Lab Danger Zone’s Puppet Master; and his horror illustrations have appeared in Dark Horse anthologies Creepy and Eerie. He’s also a returning contributor to Out of the Blue. In Campfire Tales he bit into “May Contain Peanuts”. For Twisted Pulp he again teams with the ever-emphatic Chas! Pangburn on “The Hidden Man.”

For the “pulp” cover Kelly was given free reign for the initial concept. He joked, “I’ll just do Man Thing in a trench coat standing in the rain. You’ll only be able to make out his feet and eyes.” A quick sketch followed along with two cover concepts that focused on a noir angle.

The noir concepts were solid but the editors really wanted to play up the strangeness that the Out of the Blue series is known for. The team thought his original “Man-Thing” joke sketch had the right magic. Kelly was asked to go a bit crazy with it. He picked up his brush and soon an arachnid sleuth crawled out of a wet gutter onto an alien cityscape glossed with neon. The concept perfectly married the familiar and the fantastic!

With the ink lines laid down, Kelly tweeted the rest of the art process through watercoloring. While you follow the work be sure to follow the man on Twitter for incredible stuff like this every day! (If not every hour — Dude arts like a beast.)

Stuff 'n stuff I'm working on and stuff. pic.twitter.com/lO7iO6k2oL — Kelly Williams (@TreeBeerd) August 25, 2016

More or less where it's going. pic.twitter.com/LZ8iY6Nx2j — Kelly Williams (@TreeBeerd) August 25, 2016

I'm a not so clear evening.. pic.twitter.com/Tl1e6yMs75 — Kelly Williams (@TreeBeerd) August 25, 2016

Slowly but probably surely… pic.twitter.com/tVWJUSdjQ5 — Kelly Williams (@TreeBeerd) August 25, 2016

Now they're looking a little more sign-ish. pic.twitter.com/zvSbHnJ2TF — Kelly Williams (@TreeBeerd) August 26, 2016

You better bet there will be rain. pic.twitter.com/LTBdDUQX3h — Kelly Williams (@TreeBeerd) August 26, 2016

What time is it?! Rain time. It's rain time. pic.twitter.com/M6rLIt0IeO — Kelly Williams (@TreeBeerd) August 26, 2016

Right up until I run out the door. I'll finish it up when I get back. pic.twitter.com/QcaEr42RiQ — Kelly Williams (@TreeBeerd) August 26, 2016

The original 11″ x 17″ hand colored art will be available exclusively during the Twisted Pulp pre-sale campaign. It’s one-of-a-kind so be sure check Kickstarter on October 1st for a chance at it! It’d make a great kitchen piece.