A new message from beyond…
11 Thursday Aug 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Category Archives: Lovecraftian arts
Necronauts
11 Thursday Aug 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books
I’ve found a interesting-looking 64-page comic novelette featuring Lovecraft as a character. Necronauts (2007, Rebellion) is by Gordon Rennie and Frazer Irving…
“In 1926, while practising a new trick, Houdini has a near-death experience, awakening the mysterious Sleepers. Meanwhile, Lovecraft is visited by a talking raven, and a seance that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is attending is attacked by a strange force that possesses the medium.”
Sounds groovy, although the used print edition has become rather pricey in just a few years. The art looks fabulous, like Berni Wrightson on speed…
Christian Salomonsen
10 Wednesday Aug 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Christian Salomonsen captures the cosmic, in the form of the Northern Lights (charged particles streaming into the Earth’s atmosphere from space, and which hit the north pole more than the south)…
All pictures © Christian Salomonsen. More at his website.
‘… an unearthly cast which made him feel like an intruder on an alien planet. […] he knew of the northern lights, and had even seen them once or twice.’ — H.P. Lovecraft, “The Mound”.
From the penguin-fringed abyss
10 Wednesday Aug 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
A penguin made by Jeremy Mayer from an old antique mechanical typewriter. Those who know At The Mountains of Madness will get the joke…
that nighted, penguin-fringed abyss, whence even now a sinister curling mist had begun to belch pallidly
Neonomicon hardback now on pre-order
08 Monday Aug 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books
Alan Moore’s Neonomicon is now on pre-order as a graphic novel from Titan/Avatar Press, set for release in Oct/Nov 2011. Presumably it’ll be fronted by The Courtyard, then will run through the four issues of Neonomicon to make up a 140-page graphic novel. The hardback, currently listed for pre-order on Amazon, states “176 pages”, so presumably there’ll be a couple of new text-only introductions and maybe even a new Moore essay on Lovecraft. The ending of Neonomicon sets up a sequel, so it would great to think that Moore is going to spring a Lovecraftian novelette on us as a concluding part. The story starts in a modern-day Red Hook in New York, and is sexually very graphic. So much so that I wonder if it’ll even be banned or released only in censored form in the UK.
Cover for Neonomicon #3.
Bruce Pennington exhibition in London
07 Sunday Aug 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Bruce Pennington (1944-), there’s a name that’s a blast from the past. He did a great many British paperback covers in the 1970s, which I collected from the second-hand book stores as a youngster in the 1980s, although no non-Derleth Lovecraft as far as I can see. He has an exhibition on now in London (ends 27th Aug 2011). There are originals and also A3-sized digital prints at just £25 each.
He published the book collections Eschatus (Paper Tiger, 1976) and Ultraterranium (Paper Tiger, 1991).
The Vault to be prepped for a movie pitch
06 Saturday Aug 2011
Posted in Films & trailers, Lovecraftian arts
The Hollywood Reporter reports that Johnny Depp had bought the film rights to The Vault…
the underwater sci-fi story centers on a group of divers who, off the coast of Nova Scotia, uncover a sarcophagus with unusual remains and inadvertently unleash an ancient evil.
Said evil apparently has links to the Great Pyramid, Stonehenge, and the Easter Island statues, etc. Nostrodamus gets a name check, rather than the Necronomicon. But in general it sounds fab and rather Lovecraftian and reminds me of Lovecraft’s story “The Temple” (1920). Apparently it’s out now as an ongoing comic-book series…
A great looking and believable [comic] series, it creates a real sense of danger and is the kind of adventure we rarely see in today’s spandex-epic driven market. — Broken Frontier.
The concluding third comic-book installment is due in October 2011 (don’t read the promo blurb for #3, if you don’t want a huge plot spoiler landed on you by the marketing idiots). Let’s hope the Hollywood machine doesn’t twist a movie version into just another forgetable Alien vs. Predator, or some dumb non-cosmic “it’s the Devil!” stuff.
Night in New York, Martin Lewis
04 Thursday Aug 2011
Posted in Historical context, Lovecraftian arts
Night in New York, pictures by Martin Lewis from The Smithsonian — which has more by Lewis.
“The Great Shadow”, 1925.
“Tree, Manhattan”, undated.
“Arch, Midnight”, 1930.
“Glow of the City”, 1929.
“H’anted”, 1932.
“Spring Night, Greenwich Village”, 1930.
Night Shadows
04 Thursday Aug 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Edward Hopper, “Night Shadows” (1921). New York.
Cartographic octopii
01 Monday Aug 2011
Posted in Historical context, Lovecraftian arts, Maps
Frank Jacobs surveys the cartographic land octopus…
I suspect it’s those tentacles that explain why the octopus became cartography’s favourite land monster. They turn the CLO into a perfect emblem of evil spreading across a map: its ugly head is the centre of a malevolent intelligence, which is manipulating its obscene appendages to bring death and destruction to its surroundings. This is perfect for demonstrating the geographic reach of an enemy state’s destructive potential. […] The migration of the Kraken to land, somewhere around 1870, can be seen as an escalation, symbolising the hardening of international attitudes.
Lovecraftian underground scenes
25 Monday Jul 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, Lovecraftian places
Three Lovecraftian underground scenes that really exist…
‘World’s Largest Cave’ at Phong Nha-Ke Bang, Vietnam:
Giant crystals in Naica, Chihuahua, Mexico:
Majlis Al Jinn Cave, Salma Plateau:
Arkham Sanitarium completes filming
23 Saturday Jul 2011
Posted in Films & trailers, Lovecraftian arts
Dejan Ognjanovic interviews the director of Arkham Sanitarium (an anthology film of: The Thing on the Doorstep, The Shunned House, The Haunter of the Dark), at the close of filming…
“we’re also faithfully recreating a number of Lovecraftian locations including The Shunned House, The Church of the Starry Wisdom, The Crowninshield Place, and Arkham Sanitarium itself (based largely on Danvers).”