Thou Shalt Not Party In Oprah Winfrey's Mouth

Satan. Beelzebub. Mephistopheles. All those spooky demons and beasties we have come to associate with the Devil and Hell and eternal damnation never really played much of a part in early Christianity. They were primarily invented later by the Catholic Church to scare the hell out of people. Some of these diabolical creatures are contained in a book titled Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros, published around 1775.

Most of the 31 illustrations in the book seem to be warning would-be sinners that women's vaginas are a god-forsaken place full of serpents and nasties and their breasts sagging bags of oozing poison.

Here the rooster demon Cronxtipus is seen shooting a stream of syphilitic urine into a ceremonial cauldron and gently inviting  a young Steven Tyler to bend over and have a drink.

This illustration, one of thirty-one in the book, is titled simply "The Nerd," and is a proscription against fantasy role-playing games and  whacking off to re-runs of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

But it's not all bad news in the Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Here it is foretold that Taylor Swift will murder Michael Bolton on stage at the 2015 People's Choice Awards, thus putting an end to one of the darkest chapters of evil in human history.

"Thou shalt not party in Oprah Winfrey's mouth."

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The Arch Devil Asmodeus was reportedly very angry with the artist over this depiction of his rammalammadingdong, claiming it was a very cold morning when he stood for this portrait. 


I don't have any particular hang up about Oprah Winfrey, but I painted her vajayjay

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Asima The Sinful

When I asked Jenny to do a drawing of the demon Asima I didn't expect see something that looked more like a Mother's Day card than the demoness known for her proclivity for human flesh. I had been told once that the name Asima translated into something like "sinful one" in Arabic, but looking that up I find it is not the case. The name means something more like guardian of protector. Hmm. Maybe what we have here is a Mother's Day card. 

Asima the Sinful. Mother's Day card.

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Titivillus, The Mortal Enemy of Printers, Editors, Typesetters, and Scribes

Most of Christian folklore doesn't have much resonance in my life. But as I walked to the general store for honey for my Earl Gray tea tonight I realized there is one figure that was created to terrify and keep in line medieval scribes that has also been a hobgoblin in my life, and that is Titivillus, better known as The Printer's Devil. My independent literary press, Zombie Logic Press, has been publishing children's books and books of poetry since 1997. As editor of ZLP I design, edit, and supervise the publication of all of our books. Sometimes I spend months with a manuscript combing it over to find the perfect font, trying to cull out grammatical and spelling errors, and just trying to make it as aesthetically pleasing to look at on the page as I can make it. I do this rather well and have even been asked to do it for others. But perhaps if they knew what I was about to confess I would never be entrusted with a manuscript again. In every book I have ever edited, no matter how long I have painstakingly labored over it with hunched shoulders and squinty eyes, I have always found a single editing error in the finished book. One lonely error, but enough to call into question my ability as an editor. Sometimes I see it right away when I hold that first book out of the crate in my hands, other times I notice much later, but it's always there to haunt me. Sometimes I swear it just isn't possible after having read these words dozens, maybe hundreds of times that I could have missed something this obvious. Which is why I tend to believe this demonic entity is more than a creature of medieval folklore, but a real entity and the enemy of all printers, editors, typesetters, and scribes...

Titivillus. The Printer's Devil.

Titivillus, an underling of the horrific demon Belphegor, was said to be responsible for maliciously introducing errors into the work of scribes. But his motivation was said to be pure: to remind scribes to be ever vigilant and concentrate on what they were doing. Also under his purview was recording the idle gossip and chatter of churchgoers so he could report it to his superiors and ensure the guilty would be punished. Not only was he a gremlin saboteur, but a lowly snitch. In medieval times Titivillus was used as a method to teach moral lessons such as remaining respectful in church and staying diligent in one's pious tasks.

But sacred records indicate Titivillus, or an equivalent entity, was active in Egyptian culture, and even the Babylonian culture before that. In these cultures Titivillus performed much the same function, bedeviling scribes and recording the the sins of those who dared transgress in holy places. 

Titivillus eventually petered out as a figure taken seriously in the church, but by this time had made his way into the world of literature as his own character. And to this day we can all identify with returning to some long labored over piece of writing we are proud of and considered finished only to find an error that seems to have appeared from nowhere. Is it a lapse in concentration or The Printer's Devil that causes these blemishes on our masterpieces? The world may never know.

Illustration by Jenny Mathews

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