Monthly Archives: April 2021

The Author and Journalist, 1916-69

24 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by in Historical context, Odd scratchings

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Newly on Archive.org, the U.S trade magazine for writers The Author and Journalist. It appears to be a complete 1916-69 run.

November 1961, a science-fiction special.

August 1948 had Lovecraft’s tips for constructing a tale, via Rimel…

The canny sub-editor has paired the then-unusual name with an article on choosing a distinctive pen-name, and a verse about love.

June 1959 also has Derleth on “The Biographer’s Goal”…

… in virtually nothing of his work save his letters did H.P. Lovecraft emerge, except by indirection, as a reclusive introvert, who lived far more in the past than in the present … it required some psychiatric knowledge to be able to put together even so short a biography as H.P.L. … The Facts — the known facts — occupied only 12 pages of the biography …

The run, as it stands on Archive.org, also includes The Student Writer.

‘Hang them durn new-fangled plots…’

23 Friday Apr 2021

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Lovecraft circle member Everett McNeil, giving good advice in The Student Writer for March 1923.

One can almost hear an echo of his voice at a meeting of the Kalems…

Don’t be deceived by the editorial howl for original plots. Editors don’t want original plots, and authors could not supply them if they did. The last of the strictly original plots was used centuries ago. Even Shakespeare did not create an original plot. An editor would shy violently at sight of an honest-to-goodness original plot. It would be something he had never seen before, something that no magazine, at least in his generation, had tried out.

To which we might imagine Lovecraft pushing back with a comment on new modern ways of telling the story, at least, and musing “Hmmm… The Call of Cthulhu…”.

McNeil may also give us a hint of why he was paid such low rates for a book…

The [book royalty] payments may be scattered over all the years of the copyright, fifty-six in all.

Though that still does not explain why an elderly (elderly, by the expectancy of the 1920s) professional writer would settle for terms that would outlast him by some forty years.

Picture postals from Lovecraft: Shepard’s in Providence

23 Friday Apr 2021

Posted by in Historical context, Picture postals

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Another picture from Lovecraft’s momentous homecoming-day from New York City, which I presume I am soon to encounter again on starting the second volume of Letters to Family. I had already looked at the Art Club and the Strand cinema. Now there’s a newly found picture of the interior of “Shepard’s (neo-) Colonial Restaurant”, also mentioned as a place visited in celebration. Not great, as postcards go, but there are two pictures and it gives an indication. I suspect the blank space may have once held a miniature paper year-calendar. The picture on the right is faintly marked “Club Parlor”.

We went out to an exhibition of paintings at the Art Club, (the colonial house in hilly Thomas Street, in front of which I snap-shotted Mortonius last fall [1923] and had dinner downtown at Shepard’s (neo-) Colonial Restaurant. In the evening a cinema show at the good old Strand in Washington Street completed a memorable and well-rounded day. (Selected Letters II)

Presumably one of his aunts was a member, and could invite family guests. Not the same as his favourite and more affordable Shepard Cafeteria in Providence. Here we see a boy waiter (his face made somewhat animalistic by the chairs seen through the pen-work) bearing a second tray of do-nuts to feed Lovecraft as he dines at the Shepard Cafeteria.

Different version…

“I at once hasten’d to Providence on the rail-road…”

22 Thursday Apr 2021

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, New books

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Now there’s an idea…

Men try to build model railways that are exact miniatures… ‘Crewe 1959’ and so on. [But] there’s definitely more room for fantasy model railways. I would maybe build The H.P. Lovecraft Line.

I was never a practitioner in any serious way as a boy, but it’s still regrettable to hear that the tabletop craft is not being passed down from father to son in the way it once was. It seems destined to join the ‘Endangered Traditional Crafts’ red-list. I imagine that one thing that might pep up the appeal for pre-teens would be to cross-breed it with tabletop fantasy-horror RPGs and card-games. Many might also enjoy a few hours with a ‘Providence 1890-1937’ model railway builder-sim PC game, if it’s chock full of enjoyable Lovecraftian horror elements. Kind of like Sid Meier’s Railroads, but with night-gaunts and tentacles and tunnels under College Hill.

If the meantime the kids have yet another story/colouring-book heading their way this summer.

Slightly heavier in tone, there is also a major new tabletop game from the Achtung! Cthulhu guys. Against The Gods Themselves will be an easy-play story-driven game of time-travelling Nazis, it seems.

“… still forms one of our best compendia”

22 Thursday Apr 2021

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, New books

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I see that Chaosium’s 2006 one-volume Malleus Monstrorum was republished in two handsome volumes at the end of 2020. Originally a 300-page oversize compendium of the Call of Cthulhu RPG mythos monsters and gods, illustrated… “entirely with classic works of art and vintage photos, some real, many cleverly forged” as one reviewer put it. Of course it slithered into Derleth territory and even stretched to Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, and Colin Wilson — but failed to embrace the Dreamlands since that was done in another Chaosium book. “Lovecraft fans interested in the book for non-gaming purposes will probably be disappointed” the reviewer of the 2006 edition usefully concludes, thus saving writers cash and disappointment.

Still, it’s worth a quick flick-through in PDF just for the clever art. Also to know what to avoid. I mean that it may be ‘negatively’ useful for writers who need to be sure that their ‘new’ monster is not actually similar to what has already been done in the extended Mythos. In that sense this could be a useful second-opinion after the un-illustrated Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia and other sources such as the Dreamlands book.

However, the budget PDF version of the 2006 original has been removed from sale, and the paper is now at ‘collectable’ prices. Previews of the new 2020 two-volume set suggest why — the old 2006 layout is gone… its eccentric home-brew mix of “classic works of art and vintage photos” has been removed and replaced by more generic ‘fantasy card-art’ style illustrations. These are presumably unlikely to puzzle today’s card-collecting kiddies, or to offend the Holy Inquisition of the Perpetual Outrage.

New edition.

Old edition

Book Covers

21 Wednesday Apr 2021

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In France, Stephane ‘Wootha’ Richard has kindly put all his work under public domain, as he has recently retired from creative work. So here are the five most likely book covers from his kind gift to the world. I’ve extracted these to the Lulu print-on-demand 6″ x 9″ cover requirement of 2935px by 1920px, and as such they may be found suitable adornments for your future POD books.

Credit: Stephane ‘Wootha’ Richard of France. Titles are in the file-names. All are details from larger pictures.

Milking Lovecraft

20 Tuesday Apr 2021

Posted by in New books

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I find my hand-colorised version of the ‘Lovecraft the milkmaid’ picture has found a use, on the cover of Angelo Cerchi’s 2020 book The Hidden Coven. A strange choice of picture for the book’s topic, perhaps, but I’m guessing that ‘the balance’ may have some symbolism in occult circles (scales of Thoth, probably) or perhaps in personal divinatory methods such as the tarot.

The new book suggests that “the real facts” of his tales were not simply invented by Lovecraft and were had from meeting with real cults, and the Italian author seeks for evidence in the work and life. The title Coven hints at what a reviewer makes clear — these were supposedly the same as Miss Murray’s cults. Such claims for Lovecraft’s supposed ‘insider’ occult knowledge have been heard before and are easily rebutted by the letters and the many accounts of those who knew him. Judging by one Amazon review, this slim new book of 150 pages adds little that’s new.

Circulo de Lovecraft / Ulthar

17 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, Scholarly works

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A new edition of the magazine Circulo de Lovecraft, No. 15. Mostly fiction but also the occasional article such as “La Reina del Horror Eldritch: W. H. Pugmire” by Bobby Derie, and a translation by Miguel Fliguer of Pugmire’s story “In Dark of Providence”. Both of these are in the latest issue, No. 15.

This led me to notice the very similar but rather more historically-minded magazine Ulthar, also from South America and with a nice line in cover-art, all by the same artist Sergio Bleda.

Ulthar runs about three substantial single-author essay or survey-essays in each issue. Including some regional surveys, such as fiction featuring “Doctors of the Occult in Spanish”.

Chronicle of Innsmouth: Mountains of Madness

16 Friday Apr 2021

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Another week, another Lovecraft game. Chronicle of Innsmouth: Mountains of Madness (Psychodev, March 2021) was successfully crowdfunded just before Christmas 2018, and is now complete and published for all on Steam. It follows Lovecraftian games such as the recent The Shore and Call of the Sea. Both hard acts to follow, each in their own way. Chronicle doesn’t try to rival either title in slickness and instead purposely evokes the style and mechanics of the classic old-school Lucasarts point-and-click games. The art style is accordingly pleasingly home-spun. All plus-points, in my book.

Loosely based on “Shadow over Innsmouth” and “At the Mountains of Madness”, and apparently “written by a Lovecraft expert” in Italy. We’re promised “many Easter eggs that only the geekiest of Lovecraft geeks will get”. More plus-points.

It’s more than a bit detective-y and has some Lucasarts-style puzzles, though. The player lands in the well-worn gumshoes of Lone Carter, trying not to totter into madness while investigating a series of murders to the beat of an original soundtrack. Sounds fun, as long as fiendish puzzles don’t bring the narrative to a grinding halt, which is always the problem with such games.

Apparently it runs about six hours, or two evenings, for experienced gamers. Maybe three evenings for occasional gamers, or for those not used to detective-puzzlers.

* “a solid point-and-click adventure game … deserves investigation” — TechRaptor.

* “The game is completely voice-acted and that is done excellently … [the art] is looking quite stellar, especially the cut scenes … [game mechanics are] a very smooth experience … a fascinating narrative and characters to go along with it” — Gaming Outsider.

* “… a love letter to Lovecraft [but] the narrative feels cohesive despite shoehorning such disparate [Lovecraft themes and references] … the voice-acting ranges from ‘quite good’ on one end to ‘serviceable if a bit corny’ … it gives a sense of agency beyond discovering otherworldly secrets and being driven mad … strongly suggest giving this one a try” — Indie Gamer Review.