11 Saturday Sep 2021
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
In French, the new 150-page designer/arts magazine SICK — les numeros Lovecraft, a Lovecraft special issue.
Also, in public on the site, what appears to be a sample article “Cassiodore souligne l’intemporalitt des textes de Lovecraft a travers l’art de la calligraphie”, which translates as something like ‘Lovecraft’s timeless texts and the art of the calligrapher’.
11 Saturday Sep 2021
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books, Scholarly works
Cthulhu Libria Nr. 2 is a ‘horror on the railways’ themed issue. Lovecraft, a long-time reader of rail-roader magazines in his youth, would surely have approved. Sadly the magazine is in German, but one review indicates a number of non-fiction articles among the stories. If you’re in need of a Lovecraft Mythos + railways article, I’m guessing there may be one here to be translated.
Appears to be a ‘new series’ for the title, which (judging by a quick search) had more of a newsletter appearance for its first series.
10 Friday Sep 2021
Posted in Night in Providence, Picture postals
Waiting for the night bus, Westminster Street, Providence. Probably the first 4.30am early-service, given what’s on the clock. Or perhaps a tram-car, as the road-rails and cables can still be seen.
Lovecraft often departed or arrived in Providence at odd hours, and not always by train. The ends of his local night-walks may also have entailed waiting at various types of transport stop. Night scenes such as this one in the city’s main Westminster Street seem likely to have been relatively familiar to him.
He also, briefly, worked as a ticket-booth man. Mostly likely at a cinema on Westminster Street, which may have entailed some late working hours.
10 Friday Sep 2021
Posted in Historical context
The Reason for the Darkness of the Night: Edgar Allan Poe and the Forging of American Science is a new and well-regarded ‘full scientific biography’, in which the author works through Poe’s scientific ideas and his advancement of science. As such it seems of obvious relevance to his youthful devotee H.P. Lovecraft.
I guess “Forging” was chosen by the marketeers for the title because it reminds the shelf-browser of “Forgery”. Poe did sometimes run pranks and hoaxes, and certain things — phrenology, spiritualism, animal magnetism, the ether and the like — were then still open to debate. Though the title’s use of “Forging” might give young minds the unfortunate first-impression that all of early American science was somehow a “forgery”. But if they are intelligent enough to read the book, then I guess they would soon learn their error.
As I’ve suggested here before, one of his hoaxes may have had an unintended small-but-positive effect on global history. Poe was also likely leaning on what was then a relatively recent past for hoaxes. This history is surveyed by another new book The Century of Deception: The birth of the hoax in eighteenth-century England. Also relevant to Lovecraft, perhaps, due to his devotion to the wits and writers of the 18th century. Also because of his own liking for staging the occasional hoax. The book is said to ably document the range of hoaxers and hoaxes which emerged at that time. From canny amateurs out to trip up the growing class of ‘experts’ and puffed-up ‘celebrities’, down to moustache-twiddling cads and their complex hoax-based swindles.
09 Thursday Sep 2021
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
I recently interviewed Steele Filipek’s parter in 3D comics Andrew Buttigieg, for VisNews, and was pleased to learn that Steele has also just launched a Lovecraftian comic Arcane #1 (Sept 2021). It’s published and can be had in digital for a 20% discount on Gumroad. It should also be on Amazon soon in digital, although they’re closing down their Comixology store soon so I guess there may be a bit of delay there.
Arcane is a Young Adult take on Lovecraft, with very attractive artwork…
It’s finally here! First envisioned by ten-year-old me and set into motion four years ago, my ongoing, monthly series, Arcane, is finally here! If you like Lovecraftian horror, Saga of the Swamp Thing, and Young Adult media, check it out! Fourteen year-old Hogan Serrano accidentally touched the Oculus and gained the memories of the hundreds who bore that ancient artifact before him. Now, every wannabe cultist, esoteric magician, and maniac would kill for the secrets in Hogan’s brain to help them control reality… and beyond.
08 Wednesday Sep 2021
Posted in Scholarly works
A 2019 call for papers is set to result in a new book on Lovecraft and his relatively recent adaptations (the original call was for the “1990s to the present day”). The publisher’s blurb now makes it sound like a politically-correct dust-gatherer for university libraries only, and so it obviously is… in part. But I’ve seen the table-of-contents and at least the first third of Lovecraft in the 21st Century seems of some interest to Lovecraftians, with items such as…
Lovecraft and the Stage: A Recent (Re)Discovery.
An Uncanny Absence: Lovecraft in Brazilian cinema, 1975-2016.
The Masks of E’ch-Pi-El: Interpreting the Life and Work of H.P. Lovecraft.
Man or Cartoon: H.P. Lovecraft as a Comics Character.
“It Was the Vegetation”: Ecophobia and Monstrous Wilderness in The Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft.
The book looks set to ship in early 2022 from the profit-sharing anti-capitalist ebook collective HappyClappi at a reasonable £30. Nope, just kidding. It’s actually from corporate publisher Routledge, at a list price of £140 ($195).
07 Tuesday Sep 2021
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books
Manga master Junji Ito has a new Lovecraftian 240-page graphic novel called Sensor. Difficult to find mentions that are not just parroting the press-release (“Sensor does Lovecraft better than Lovecraft” and similar gushing), but according to Kole Ross at Smiling Politely… “it’s real Lovecraft-y, but there’s some Borges”. The Daily Crate looked it over and decided it had “some of the best artwork to date” from Ito. IAPT praised the character design and body-language, but found the ambitious story to be anime-level confusing and felt that it fizzled out a bit in the second half.
According to Amazon UK, the English translation — titled Sensor (Junji Ito) — thumps onto the doormat in the UK in hardcover on 30th September 2021. It’s already available here in the UK as a Kindle ebook.
06 Monday Sep 2021
Posted in Odd scratchings
Heritage Auctions now has pictures for the “Pickman’s Model” auction.
05 Sunday Sep 2021
Posted in Podcasts etc.
Horrorbabble has released the fun and pulpy Lovecraft-as-character story “The Space-Eaters” by Frank Belknap Long, as a new audio reading of 70 minutes.
The appearance of this in Weird Tales for summer 1928 had header art obviously meant to illustrate Lovecraft himself. Possibly the earliest public ‘cartoon-izing’ of him, outside of the fanzines and his letters? I don’t know of any comment he made on seeing the artwork, but he did later note in passing that the tale had provoked two pages of very effusive letters in Weird Tales.
Also recent, Horrorbabble’s five-part audio reading of “The Whisperer in Darkness”.
04 Saturday Sep 2021
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
The Lone Animator has made a huge cast of explorer + monsters for a stop-motion Lovecraft animation, Report From the Ghooric Zone. This ensemble still picture doesn’t show the detailing well, but his long post has full pictures of each creature-model, as well as the Explorer of the Zone.
Watch the movie here.
03 Friday Sep 2021
Posted in Podcasts etc.
The first movie for the Dune adaptation has been screened. According to a Variety summary ‘epic world-building visuals, but the story drags under its own weight’ is the broad view from the critics at the screening. Though, as you might expect, Variety also looks at Twitter and gives the impression that it has been astro-turfed with gushing and squeee-ing. If you were thinking of trying to get into the audiobooks before the movie arrives on your screen, I puzzled out the order / readers back in 2018.
03 Friday Sep 2021
Posted in Picture postals
In contrast to last week’s lengthy ‘Picture Postals’, a short one this week.
The cliffs where I am now sitting are magnificent. Eastward there is nothing but water and air till Spain is reached. Northeastward is the green Sakonnet peninsula, crowned by the splendid Gothic tower by Ralph Adams Cram.” (August 1932, Selected Letters IV)
Pleasure to me is wonder — the unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability.