Pen and Ink 9×12 on 140 lb wc paper.
This is an idea as old as man. If you ever see a big buck goat kick up on its hind legs, you will know where these legends come from. Here in the US we can’t have our goats dancing nekkid in the woods and playing music like Pan.
Nope.
Ours guard bridges with axes and straight murder folks they catch slipping.
Made for a fun thing to draw, and he will show up all though the shows on Relevant Irreverence and my art here.
I had the robot tell me a story about the goatman….and this is the dribble it kicked out. It can fake a style…but it cannot tell a story.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, in the tangled thickets of Prince George’s County, where the trees grow gnarled and hunched as if they’re plotting something sly, and the moon’s light casts shadows deep enough to make a body question his own eyes, there lived—or rather lurked—the Goatman. And I, having heard tales enough to make a preacher skip his Sunday supper, decided it was high time to find out the truth.
Now, before you go painting me as some foolhardy rascal with more guts than sense, let me assure you, I had both in fair measure and a pocketful of chicken livers as bait. You see, it’s not every day one sets out to meet a cryptid whose résumé reads like a cross between Hercules and Old Scratch himself.
The old-timers around the fire at Ted’s General Store had plenty to say about the Goatman. They spoke in tones low enough to sink into their boots, eyes darting to the woods as if expecting the beast to materialize then and there, all horns and malevolence. “Seen him, I did,” muttered Jeb Holcomb, who hadn’t told a story straight in all his seventy-odd years. “Ripped the door clean off my cousin’s truck. Left hoofprints so deep, you could grow corn in ’em.”
“It’s the government,” another man whispered with the certainty of a prophet. “Ain’t you heard? The Beltsville Agricultural Research folks, messing with things man was never meant to meddle with. They took a billy goat and some poor soul and twisted ‘em together in the name of science.”
“Or Satan,” his neighbor added darkly.
I listened, half-amused, half-intrigued, my own mind painting wild images of the Goatman standing proud and furious on a moonlit hill, casting long shadows like the Devil’s own apprentice.
The night I chose for my expedition was warm as a coal stove, and the cicadas hummed so loud they could’ve drowned out a marching band. I trekked through the woods, lantern swinging like a lighthouse beam, chicken livers dripping a trail of grease and scent potent enough to lure an angel down to Earth. The trees creaked and whispered, their leaves rattling as if gossiping about the intruder passing beneath them.
Now, I’ll tell you straight—most legends are as flimsy as a politician’s promise. But there, in the dark, with the full moon casting an eerie light on the scene, I began to doubt my own steady reason. The woods seemed alive, breathing with the wind, shifting with unseen movements. And then, just as my heart had begun to settle back into its usual, respectable rhythm, a sound cracked the night air—a shriek sharp and high, enough to peel the bark off a tree.
Before I could turn my heels toward the safety of civilization, I saw him: standing half-shrouded in shadow, horns gleaming like the points of a sickle, muscles coiled and rippling beneath a coat of bristly fur. He was tall—taller than any man I’d ever met—and the way he glared, eyes glowing an unnatural crimson, I felt he could see right through to the back of my soul and take inventory of my sins.
“Well, hello there,” I said, in a voice meant to sound brave but quivering enough to betray me.
The Goatman snorted, a sound like a bull that’s just caught a whiff of something foul. His claws flexed, sharp as a blacksmith’s finest tools, and I swear I saw a grin—not friendly, mind you—spread across that uncanny face. We stood there, eyes locked, the woods holding their breath as if even they feared to break the spell.
Now, the stories don’t tell you that the Goatman has a voice, but he does, deep and gravelly, like the rumble of distant thunder. “Why have you come?” he asked, and it was as if the ground itself spoke.
“Curiosity,” I stammered, my knees quaking so hard they threatened to betray me to the ground.
The creature tilted his head, an animal’s gesture mimicking a human’s, and for a moment, I wondered if there wasn’t more man than beast in him after all. He looked past me, into the woods, where no doubt he had prowled, watched, and waited, centuries old and wiser than all the men who spun tales of him.
“Curiosity,” he echoed, and the word settled heavy between us, like the moral of a story.
What happened next? Well, dear reader, it’s not mine to tell—not fully. Suffice it to say, I limped back to Ted’s General Store with a tale rich enough to earn me a week’s worth of free coffee and all the skepticism one heart can hold. And as for the Goatman? He remains where he’s always been, in the woods and in the stories, waiting for the next fool with a lantern and a pocketful of chicken livers.
