The trouble with Edward Gorey

In the brief-but-grand mental_floss tradition of superimposing one great artist's work on another's (see our piece "If Prokofiev Wrote Death Metal"), we bring to your kind attention yet another unlikely stylistic mashup. The late Edward Gorey is every goth chick's favorite illustrator, whose fascinating, queerly-drawn little scenes of ghastly Victorianesque morbidity has tickled imaginations (and given us nightmares) for half a century. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you'll surely remember the intro to PBS' long-running series Mystery!, which Gorey drew (but didn't animate):

Now that we're all talking about the same fella, try to imagine, around about 1977, Edward Gorey for the first time in his adult life becoming an avid TV watcher, and one of his favorite shows being the original Star Trek. Despite being a fan, by the time he was asked about it in a 1978 interview with the Boston Globe, he reported never having seen, somewhat regretfully, the show's most famous episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles." For those of you unfamiliar with the Enterprise's most famous encounter with asexually reproductive balls o' fluff, here's a 24-second refresher:

Feeling a twinge of regret at the great creative collaboration that might've been, blogger and artist Shaenon set pen to paper in order to imagine what Gorey's version of "The Trouble with Tribbles" might've looked like. The results are fun and hilarious. Here's a sneak preview:

For the whole shebang, check out Shaenon's blog.