Monthly Archives: December 2023

The Conjurers (1974)

07 Thursday Dec 2023

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

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From The Armchair Detective, May 1975, newly arrived on archive.org…

The Conjurers by Marilyn Harris. The evil is connected with ancient megalithic circles [near] a village called Dormeshaven, close to Avebury and Stonehenge in Wiltshire [southern England]. Miss Harris uses themes and incidents that smack very much of some of H.P. Lovecraft’s work [and] the tender stomached may find The Conjurers a bit much at times. [Sadly the Oklahoma-based American] Miss Harris has failed to catch the atmosphere of Britain as a Briton.

The 1974 Random House novel is now on Archive.org.

More LORAs

06 Wednesday Dec 2023

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More free add-ons, for use with free desktop software such as InvokeAI and free Stable Diffusion 1.5 models.

Monster Diffusion – 1.0. Photoreal or semi-toon monsters, and it can also emulate tabletop ‘hand-made figure’ monsters.

Jack Kirby inked by Wally Wood. Apparently the creator of this LORA isn’t convinced its results will pass the ‘sniff text’ among the Golden Age collecting crowd, those who know their Wally Wood from their Bob Wood. But it looks fairly good to me.

LORAs for the styles of Jim Steranko (Nick Fury era), Jack Kirby (late 1960s Marvel), Steve Ditko (Doctor Strange era). All from the same maker, and I didn’t think much of them on testing. But perhaps I was testing them with the wrong Stable Diffusion model (XenoGasm).

Cityscape & character cumulonimbus cloud for creating one of those ‘Cthulhu walking as a cloud on the distant horizon’ pictures. Obviously you would use Photoshop to combine the cloudscape with a more suitable lower-half.

New book: Ancient Egypt and Popular Culture (open access)

04 Monday Dec 2023

Posted by in New books, Scholarly works

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Of possible interest to Tentaclii readers, the new multi-author volume titled How Pharaohs Became Media Stars: Ancient Egypt and Popular Culture. Not a MacFarland book. This one’s from Archaeopress, as Archaeopress Egyptology #48. Only on Amazon as a paperback, but I see that the publisher has a free open-access PDF version for no-hassle download. The book leads with a useful overview of “Theories on Pop Culture and Egyptology”.

The otherwise £170 Megaliths of the World Vol. 1 may also interest some Tentaclii readers. Also open-access, it’s free in PDF.

New Book: Tolkien e Lovecraft

03 Sunday Dec 2023

Posted by in New books, Scholarly works

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My ideal book, and… it’s in Italian and I can’t read Italian. Urg. Tolkien e Lovecraft: Alle origini del fantastico is newly published in the Historica Edizioni series.

J.R..R. Tolkien and H.P. Lovecraft: the gods of fantastic writing, co-founders of a genre that is both deeply ancestral and very modern. The conventional view would place them at opposite ends of the fantastic ecosystem: light and shadow, black and white, Tolkien synonymous with airy fantasy and Lovecraft with deep horror. Yet in the epic of Tolkien’s Middle-earth there is no shortage of flashes of darkness and terror, just as in the dark Lovecraftian cosmos, populated by unspeakable entities, fairy-tale horizons of enchantment and wonder are also found. By analysing their masterpieces, and the reading that inspired both men, this book aims to read the two great architects of the imagination from a more flexible perspective, one which attempts to frame and understand them within their authentic complexity.

Soon to be available via Amazon Italy, which has a 28th November 2023 publication date though the book is not currently listed as shipping. Amazon UK “knows ‘a nurthing” about the book.

Tomas Jr.’s Innsmouth

02 Saturday Dec 2023

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, New books

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Due in November and seemingly shipping now, an illustrated “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” by Spanish artist Tomas Jr.…

Tomas Jr. is a renowned illustrator and a great admirer of the work of H.P. Lovecraft. He has illustrated J.R.R. Tolkien and has collaborated with Guillermo del Toro and the Jim Henson Company.

Tomas Hijo is, in my estimation, one of the great modern engravers” — Guillermo del Toro.

Published by Ediciones Minotauro. I can’t immediately find a Minotauro website, and there’s nothing on the UK or Spanish Amazon sites. I guess a Spanish bookseller might get it for you.

The release prompts Spanish pop purveyors Dawn to note that Dawn also…

published this summer the youth adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, written by Adri Ortiz and illustrated by Maria Garcia.

At Tomas Jr.’s website, I see there’s also a print of Lovecraft available.

And, nicely timed for a post on Spain, S.T. Joshi’s blog offers a lengthy new “A trip to Spain: the photo essay”.

A folksy map of Providence

01 Friday Dec 2023

Posted by in Maps, Picture postals

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This week on ‘Picture Postals’, a folksy hand-draw map postcard which names, and also sometimes sketches, many of the city locations mentioned by Lovecraft in his letters. Possibly 1920s, judging by the design of the back and the existence of the Shepley Library as a possible destination.

As you can see, it can be turned three ways according to whatever direction the holder is walking. As Lovecraft once said…

everything cannot be carry’d in memory; so that it is well always to have a map in one’s pocket.