A serious Lovecraft infestation spreads its tentacles through comics in early 2012. Infestation 2…

“is a 2012 multi-property crossover event that includes most of IDW Publishing’s licensed [comics] properties at time of publishing” […]

The first manifestation is an interesting concept… steampunk-era Transformers “strive against the incomprehensible evil of H.P. Lovecraft’s Elder Gods” during America’s Industrial Revolution, with the aid of Telsa…

This gripping [comic book] issue sets the stage for Lovecraft’s “Old Ones” to break through time and space and invade many titles, including TRANSFORMERS, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, and a special fifth-week one-shot, INFESTATION: TEAM-UP, featuring Bat Boy and GROOM LAKE’s grey alien Archibald in February. Then in March, the Infestation spreads even further, infecting TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES and G.I. JOE. In April, vampires battle zombies in 30 DAYS OF NIGHT: INFESTATION, followed by the stunning closing issue, INFESTATION 2 #2.

I’m not sure if the plots of all these get interlinked, but it sounds like they do. I somehow doubt I’ll be reading these to find out, but I love to observe the clever combinations of talent, conceptualisation, and marketing that goes into time-limited storytelling campaigns like this. There are even special temporary tattoos in each issue, thus kicking back against digital piracy. Perhaps the more staid book publishing world has something to learn from this sort of advanced combination of marketing and interlinked talent, focused into a three month period and harnessed to brands?

Great little animated short from Dublin, The Last Train, with a Lovecraftian feel and a kicker…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKf1k08JS_E&w=640&h=360]

Coming in early 2012. Part two of a graphic novel, Howard Lovecraft and the Undersea Kingdom (Arcana Studio) by Dwight MacPherson and Thomas Boatwright. Imagining Lovecraft’s adventures as a young child. Amazon has it as being published today, but that could be a database bot doing some wishful thinking? Since Amazon UK has a more precise date of 3rd April 2012. [Update: 3rd April is the actual date, confirmed]

The first part is reviewed here…

Got monsters? Ray Harryhausen‘s Fantasy Scrapbook Animation Competition…

“Your task is to create a winning storyboard on the theme of monsters for a stop motion animation short — that, when shot, would last between 30 seconds and 3 minutes.”

Deadline: 12th February 2012. Note that they only want the storyboard, so real-time software such as iClone 5 (with its new sketch mode) could easily and quickly produce the stills for such storyboards.

Greg Brotherton interviewed by Don’t Panic…

Many will have a horror of poetry. Possibly this was inculcated by being forced to wrestle with Beowulf and Chaucer in school English Literature lessons; then having to endure dire performance poets at “open mic” student nights while at university; and perhaps also by a simple 21st century incomprehension of any media form that does not immediately reveal its meanings. But poetry can have a horror all its own. Evan Peterson mused on the form a few weeks ago, in his article “Intimate Monsters: Examining the Value of Horror in Poetry“. I was inspired by this article to go in search of similar open access articles, and found “Fresh Graves: An Essay On Horror Poetry“; “The Stigma of Horror Poetry“; and “Horror Poetry: Why The Hell Would You Want to Write That Shit?“. There is also a newsletter, Dark Metre: The Free Newsletter For Horror Poetry which was started in 2011 and which has so far produced a laudible 11 issues. I also noticed that there’s a mild debate on ‘can heavy metal music lyrics count as horror poetry?’

Well, that’s it for this blog until after Christmas. Hope you’ve enjoyed the writing and links I’ve posted during 2011. I leave you with a suitably festive and irreverent image, courtesy of the inventive Apollo over at Word Virus…

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.