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Lovecraft in the prism of the image

13 Saturday Oct 2018

Posted by in New books, Scholarly works

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New in October 2017, and seemingly not yet noticed outside France, the book Lovecraft au prisme de l’image: litterature, cinema et arts graphiques [Lovecraft in the prism of the image: literature, cinema and the graphic arts] (Green Face, 2017). Green Face is a well-regarded and genuine small press, and their book has sixteen essays on Lovecraft’s visual afterlives among makers of pictures, movies, comics and more.

Translation of some of the essay titles:

PICTURES:

“New notes – distance: 1995-2012 – on the poetics of excess at Lovecraft and its graphic solutions”.

“The textual and pictorial fables in At the Mountains of Madness: a genealogical approach to the Lovecraft novella”.

“”The strange and disturbing paintings by Nicholas Roerich”: the pictorial referent and his functions in At the Mountains of Madness“.

“Lovecraft, painter of the unthinkable”.

“The image and Lovecraft”.

CINEMA:

“H.P. Lovecraft as outsider cinema – what changes?”

“The Truth About The Charles Dexter Ward Case: Fright and Excess in The Haunted Palace (Roger Corman, 1963) and The Resurrected (Dan O’Bannon, 1991)”.

“Lovecraft on screen: adaptations, tributes, rewrites”.

“Presences of the unspeakable: found footage and poetics Lovecraftienne“.

COMICS:

“Neonomicon: monstrosity and adaptation after Howard Phillips Lovecraft”. [Alan Moore]

“Lovecraft in the colors of nightmare: a study of Alberto Breccia”.

TRANSMEDIA:

“Adaptation and Transmediality: Kadath, the Unknown City“.

“Howard Phillips Lovecraft: God of Modern Popular Culture”.

“Brett Rutherford’s Night Gaunts: Between Illustration and (Re) Creation”.

“The Necronomicons of H.R. Giger”.

Alfred Galpin papers

13 Saturday Oct 2018

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Published 2016, a full listing and “Guide to the Alfred Galpin papers 1920-1983, at Brown University Library”.

“The Alfred Galpin papers primarily contain autographed and typed correspondence to and from fans and Lovecraft biographers inquiring about his reminiscences and correspondence with Lovecraft and more broadly their own personal day to day struggles with travel, finances, and writing. The collection also includes an Italian program for the fortieth anniversary (1977) of Lovecraft’s passing, a German pamphlet, photographs, photocopies of Lovecraft publications in amateur journalism which include The Rainbow and The United Amateur, newspaper clippings in English, French and Italian, and a full Italian newspaper in which the obituary of Galpin appears”.

Friday “picture postals” from Lovecraft: Gorham

12 Friday Oct 2018

Posted by in Historical context, Picture postals

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Gorham Silversmiths, Providence. Possible employer of H.P. Lovecraft’s father as a salesman or buyer. Although according to S.T. Joshi’s I Am Providence, the only evidence we have for that is Sonia’s hazy 1948 memories of what Lovecraft told her in the mid 1920s. On the other hand, the draft of “Innsmouth” might seem to show that Lovecraft had a special niche in his heart for men who were buyers for jewellery firms…

“Before I knew it I found myself telling the fellow that I was a jewellery buyer for a Cleveland firm, and preparing myself to shew a merely professional interest in what I should see.” [in the Marsh Refinery showroom].

Wollheim’s Avon Fantasy Reader

12 Friday Oct 2018

Posted by in Historical context, Odd scratchings

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The DMR blog has a new post, “The Sword and Sorcery Legacy of Donald A. Wollheim: Part One”, which seems likely to be followed by more. [Update: Part Two] It points to Wollheim’s editorship of The Avon Fantasy Reader, and thus his role in keeping sword & sorcery and weird fantasy available on the news-stands in a post-war era (1948-52) which increasingly seemed to have lost its taste for such things. Or perhaps Wollheim had cannily spotted that there was still a market demand for such tales, but that the market was no longer being served by other editors and magazines. Weird Tales was still around, just about, but was being run into the ground and would cease in 1954.

If you want to see what the title was like, Archive.org has what seems to be a complete collection of scans of Wollheim’s digest The Avon Fantasy Reader. A sampling of the issues there shows that the Reader wasn’t just sword & sorcery, and Wollheim widened his readership by covering a range of material. He often also slipped in some H.P. Lovecraft reprints, including both “Silver Key” stories and two ghost-written stories (“Yig” and “Eons”).

Stockholm H. P. Lovecraft Festival

12 Friday Oct 2018

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Stockholm H. P. Lovecraft Festival, Sweden, set for November 2018.

“The programme is a work in progress but at this juncture includes the short subject “Hypnos” (Juho Aittainen, 2016) and the feature They Remain (Philipp Gelatt, 2018). We will also have the honour of welcoming director Ludvig Gur and actor Kola Krauze who will tell us about their Lovecraft adaptation “The Outsider”, filmer in the Stockholm area this summer. After we wrap up the film screenings and discussions at Serieteket (around 7pm) those interested can reconvene at the pub Queen’s Head, Drottninggatan 108, for something to eat and drink. We also have a Lovecraft quiz ready to be unleashed, if enough people are interested. If you feel like testing your mettle please drop a line to lovecraftfestival@gmail.com and register for the quiz!”

Famous Someday

12 Friday Oct 2018

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Just arrived on the Amazon Kindle, Famous Someday, a collection of biographical R. E. Howard articles originally published in The Cimmerian. The articles arose from trying to track down people in Cross Plains who might have known Howard, back in the day. And finding them, it seems. The book has illustrations in colour, and some extras.

Anthology Of Empire

11 Thursday Oct 2018

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New on Archive.org, Anthology Of Empire (1932). The book is a rich and comprehensive historical survey of the literature, with its pages serving as an unwitting swansong for Lovecraft’s beloved British Empire as Imperial responsibilities began to be divested. To a lesser extent the book is also a hymn to dear old Blighty.

Advert from early spring 1932. At 512 pages the above advert states a longer length than the 480-page edition on Archive.org.

The ardent Anglophile H.P Lovecraft must surely have noted the book among the reviews, and almost certainly asked for it at the local library. At this time he was listening regularly to the Empire radio service from Britain, which sent the signal from London toward Canada from 1932 onward. He also had access to the conservative British weekly The Spectator, offering pithy opinion and book reviews, via the Providence Public Library. The Spectator would surely have reviewed Anthology Of Empire in glowing terms.

“Dawn came at North-Scituate, in His Majesty’s Colony of Rhode-Island and Providence-Plantations; and at six-forty-five a.m. I was deposited at the terminal in my native town. God Save the King!” — H.P. Lovecraft to Morton, January 1933, informing Morton his his safe return from New York City by overnight bus.

“To me, Tipperary or Rule Britannia has infinitely more emotional appeal than any creation of Liszt, Beethoven, or Wagner.” — H.P. Lovecraft to Derleth, November 1930.

Fantastic Universe, August 1956

10 Wednesday Oct 2018

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The cover of Fantastic Universe, August 1956. The inner cover has a short evocation of the cover painting, written by former Lovecraft protege and friend Frank Belknap Long.

The artist was Ed Moritz, who had been a Nedor comics artist in the 1940s on the pre-Marvel Doc Strange. My attempted digital restoration of the painting, not entirely successful on the planet surface. Also, I’m currently having to use a lesser old monitor with a low greyscale response, so it may be slightly ‘off’ here and there…

Teoria dell’orrore

10 Wednesday Oct 2018

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Edizioni Bietti has produced a new Italian edition of Lovecraft’s own writings on Teoria dell’orrore [The Theory of Horror], in 580 pages…

“it is not a mere reprint, but a new edition — updated in the introduction, in the notes and in the numerous bibliographies that accompany it. The aim of the book is to offer Italian readers a theoretical framework as complete as possible”.

Given the size of the book, I’m guessing it also includes relevant extracts from the letters, thematically arranged?