No sign of movement at their website, but one of the venues has some dates for the London Lovecraft Festival of stage shows. Booking now for February 2024.

Old Time Music reviews and explicates The Meaning Behind The Song: “To Life”, a show tune devised and performed a while ago by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. The song can be sampled online.

British Lovecraftians of a certain age will fondly recall the Panther paperback editions. The cover-artist for two of these is having a exhibition of his 1970s covers, in his home town. Bob Fowke did the covers for the books The Horror in the Burying Ground and The Horror in the Museum.

Also for Poul Anderson’s A Midsummer Tempest, one of Poul Anderson’s English and northern fantasies. I had wondered who did that cover, and thought it might have been one of the Ruralists.

His “exhibition of 70s sci-fi art” runs for three days only, part of the Open Studios in the town of Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire, on the border between England and Wales and about 40 miles west of Birmingham. The dates are 16th, 17th & 18th February 2024.

Dark Horse Comics has announced a ‘Deluxe Edition’ of Lovecraft’s At The Mountains Of Madness as adapted at great length by famous Japanese manga artist Gou Tanabe. Apparently set for the end of June 2024, the new and possibly oversize edition of the graphic novel will…

“also include eight full color illustrations, a tip-in title page with silver ink, a sewn-in bookmark ribbon, wraparound cover art, and soft touch lamination with spot gloss.”

In other popcult news, I see that the Ukrainian developer Frogwares has reportedly won its legal battle over its acclaimed Lovecraftian detective videogame The Sinking City. The game hasn’t been sunk, and will become available again soon. Possibly even with some upgrades. I rounded-up the early glowing reviews here.

Frogwares will also release The Sinking City 2 in 2025, this time visiting an open-world Arkham after a major flood. The Unreal Engine 5 game will offer more of a survival horror / equipment / puzzler experience and this time the investigations will be optional extras. And, I would guess, paid DLCs.

Archive.org has the usual Public Domain Day 2024 Remix Contest…

“Make a 2–3 minute movie using at least one work published in 1928 that will become Public Domain on 1st January 2024.”

With one of 2024’s possible themes being “Weird Tales of 1928″ and another being somewhat detective-ish, “Sleuthing the Public Domain”.

A quick look at my Public domain in 2024 post suggests a film-maker could choose from Wandrei’s “Sonnets of the Midnight Hours” series in Weird Tales. In books, small parts of Wild Animal Interviews and wild opinions of us and the prescient The Day After To-morrow: What is going to happen to the world? might make amusing cartoons.

Talking of cartoons, Mickey Mouse’s first appearance finally enters the public domain, so a makeover for the malodorous mouse is not impossible. Imagine…

‘It is 1928. Mickey the Rat is piloting the sinister river steamer Whippoorwill to Providence, with a malign black cat as the skipper. They sail up through the mists to Providence to relieve Mr. Lovecraft of some Lovecraftian creatures which have escaped his imagination and entered reality. A sign indicates the creatures are to be imprisoned on the Isles of Shoals. Mickey also smuggles aboard H.P. Lovecraft himself, who as usual is seeking a cheap ticket to his beloved Newport. But the master’s presence excites the massed weird creatures to a chaotic cacophony of sinister cosmic music, as each one strives to emit its unique sounds. As they set sail again Mickey the Rat then conducts them all in a wild and somewhat co-ordinated sonic worship of their creator. The short ends with Lovecraft ignominiously put off on a lonely lighthouse rock near Providence, while Mickey the Rat is stuck on kitchen duty boiling tentacles… the fun has been foiled by the skipper.’

Whippoorwill was indeed the name of Mickey’s steamboat, captained by a cat. The above makeover closely follows the plot.

The new Conan The Barbarian LORA for Stable Diffusion 1.5 and SDXL, said to be trained on realistic stock photography. But I had it working with Hiccup (heavy inking style for SD 1.5), as you can see in this example…

Possibly also of interest, a new Advanced Dungeons and Dragons – v1.0 covers generator LORA.

More new free LORA plugins for Stable Diffusion 1.5, noted since my last such post and likely to interest some Tentaclii readers. Running these requires free software such as InvokeAI or ComfyUI, a Stable Diffusion model, and a newer graphics-card in your PC.

The new Overgrowth Style which could be used with the also-new Moss Beasts.

Proto. This might be used with the also-new Glass Sculptural LORA, to make new ‘Blaschka glass animals’ as if from the deep sea.

The new R-Fantasy LORA Edition – v1.0. Get the R-Fantasy model’s generic fantasy-art look in combination with any model, potentially. May have problems with the anatomy on fantasy beasts, by the look of it.

New, a LORA for the Alessandro Biffignandi comic style – v1.0. A 1980s Italian comics artist, who a book on his work describes as… “One of the most accomplished and prolific fumetti cover artists was Alessandro Biffignandi, whose artworks featured horror, fantasy and sci-fi elements.” And plenty of big-breasted ladies, by the look of it.

And finally, from summer 2023 but newly discovered, Doomer Boomer – v1.0. Not a LORA but a model. Specifically trained with SD 1.5 at 768px and with quality inputs, to output the styles of the more painterly late 1970s / early 1980s Heavy Metal magazine and similar vintage fantasy paperback-cover / album-cover artists. Can be guided by prompts to make images as if “by Frank Frazetta”, “by Brom” etc.

France has a new National Maritime Museum and its opening blockbuster exhibition examines…

“the representation of the seas and sea-creatures in cinema”

The show is open now in Paris, and runs until 5th May 2024. It covers the entire history of film from the first silents to the latest SFX. There’s also a 320 page catalogue.

Also of interest, the Korshak Collection visits Florida, for a gallery exhibition running 8th March – 28th April 2024…

The Korshak Collection features works by pioneering artists from over a century of published science fiction, horror, and fantasy. These original adventure and fantasy illustrations appeared on the covers and pages of timeless novels, and in classic pulp magazines from the 1930s through 1960s such as Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, Fantastic Adventures, and Wonder Stories.