Consistent with the visible watermarking, this artwork is by the artist greengriffin. The title is Guilty Pleasures. The monster depicted is (according to the artist’s tagging) an illithid, which are commonly called mind flayers. Mind flayers were created by Gary Cygax and appeared in the first (1977) edition of the Monster Manual for his Dungeons and Dragons game. Cygax once said of his inspiration: “The mind flayer I made up out of whole cloth using my imagination, but inspired by the cover of Brian Lumley’s novel in paperback edition, The Burrowers Beneath.” He’s referring to the first of Lumley’s Cthulhu Cycle Dieties novels, the 1974 Daw “yellow spine” paperback edition seen here with cover art by Tim Kirk.
Image provenance by Bacchus at Erosblog.