Lovecraft has inadvertently become rather fortunate, posthumously, in the timing of his birthday. The rush to Halloween now comes so early that, at least in terms of new commercial products and their ever-bubbling pot of publicity, it now seems to start around 1st Sept — a full two months before the actual date. So one wonders if we’re moving toward a situation where the 20th of August will effectively serve as the “starting gun” for Halloween?

But here we are for 2014. Happy 124th birthday HPL, wherever your dark shade lurketh in Providence. What free presents or cool tributes have pitched up on ye Great Interwebs, so far today?

* Pete von Sholly has painted a very handsome new triptych portrait in oils…

* A big Lovecraft Readathon at the Providence Public Library. Also a big slide-show ‘sitting tour’ of Providence which is… “a joint production of Hamilton House, The H.P. Lovecraft Archive, and The Lovecraft Arts and Sciences Council”.

* The city of Phoenix, Arizona stages a big arty Lovecraft party. Play ‘Pin the tentacle on the shoggoth’, anyone?

* 2014 Second Life H.P. Lovecraft Festival, in the online world of Second Life.

* Queen City Gallery, Buffalo, USA, has a Lovecraft themed art show to celebrate the 124th birthday.

* A free tabletop role-playing game adventure for HPL’s birthday, ‘The Serpent Ring’ for the Unbelievably Simple Roleplaying (USR) game system.

* Geoff Gillan’s “The Machine King” is a free “Chaosium Dreamlands book”, launched for the birthday under Creative Commons, that has not seen the light of day until now. It’s for the Cthulhu by Gaslight role-playing game…

* The Voice Before the Void has completed an audio reading of “Bothon” by Henry S. Whitehead with H.P. Lovecraft (published Amazing Stories, 1946).

* Very possibly a fake, but a nice birthday fake if that’s the case…

Update:

* Dakota Rodeo visits the Arthur H. Goodenough house with her sister and friend, for H.P. Lovecraft’s birthday, and makes interior photos.

Update:

Jason S. Voss of Arizona made a new portrait for the birthday, “Lovecraft: Explorer of Strange Worlds”, which seems to me to capture the flinty side of HPL’s character.

Update:

NecronomiCon 2015 announced with guest details and more for this major Lovecraft convention of scholars and fans.