Category Archives: Lovecraftian arts

H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands, back in print

15 Thursday Dec 2011

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Chaosium have put their H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands book back into print. It seems to be one of those collectable tabletop RPG guides that also serve as a handy encyclopaedia for writers using the setting…

“Includes […] a huge gazetteer [examining the distinct regions of: The East, The North, Oriab, The Seas, The South, The West, The Moon, The Underworld, and Worlds Beyond.], [descriptions of thirty] People of the Dreamlands, lists a number of important non-player characters within the Dreamlands […] over 60 monsters dwelling within the Dreamlands, descriptions of the Dreamlands gods and their cults […] and a fold-out map of the Dreamlands by Andy Hopp.”

256 pages in paper, and now with a PDF version available.

Transmedia Lovecraft – call for creatives

14 Wednesday Dec 2011

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A Lovecraftian transmedia storytelling project is calling for Writers / Storytellers…

“Not a paid gig, but minimal commitment; compensation will include early access to cool new story-related technology.”

The call’s coming by a web developer and multimedia producer based in Boston, USA.

Some key lessons I learned from a transmedia ARG masterclass during the summer: transmedia works need multiple time-sensitive entry-points to the narrative, not just one entry-point at the start; lead the audience into two x half-hour blocks over four weeks (eight weeks is too long).

Several folks have had similar ideas. A Twitter-based game called Cthalloween is discussed here (as if Twitter isn’t horrific enough…). And Alchemic Dream apparently have a game wireframed, called Kadath Quest. Others have apparently mumbled on Twitter that the format might be a way to get away from having to actually read Lovecraft’s fiction. Personally I would have thought that a well-acted audio narrative, incorporating chunks of Lovecraft’s own words, would be an excellent scene-setter for such a creative game.

More podcasts on Lovecraft in the comics

13 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, Podcasts etc.

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More new Panel Borders podcasts, examining Lovecraft in the comics…

#2. Alan Moore: The Horrors at Red Hook: Alex Fitch talks to Alan Moore about his final graphic novel.

#3. Panel Discussion: “Alex Fitch chairs a panel discussion on Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, with contributors including novelists China Mieville and Denise Mina, and illustrators Mark Stafford and Alice Duke.” Recorded earlier this year at the British Film Institute.

Fungi grows…

07 Wednesday Dec 2011

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Innsmouth Free Press has the guidelines online for the anthology of short fiction titled Fungi…

“Fungi is an anthology of dark speculative fiction (horror, fantasy, science fiction, and any other variant, such as steampunk) focused solely on the fungal.”

Don’t forget that most of the fungi is down below ground, and what we see as toadstools and mushrooms are just the fruiting bodies. I also discuss bio-luminous slime molds at length in my long essay on the sources and wider historical contexts of Lovecraft’s “The Colour out of Space”, to be found in my Lovecraft in Historical Context: Further Essays and Notes (2011).


Above: Sea Anemone Stinkhorn (Aseroë Rubra), native Australian fungi.

Joanna Makes a Friend

07 Wednesday Dec 2011

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An interesting-sounding new short film from Jeremy Lutter and Ben Rollo, Joanna Makes a Friend…

“when Joanna, a lonely nine-year-old girl, is ostracized by the other kids at school due to her love of the macabre and a fascination with Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft, she ends up making a robot friend out of spare VCR parts in her father’s garage.”

Funded by a $115,000 award from the Motion Picture Production Industry Association, and also IndieGoGo crowd-funding.