Category Archives: Lovecraftian arts

Album: Resonant Echoes From Cosmos Of Old

22 Tuesday Sep 2020

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Greek Lovecraft ‘mystical black metal’ band Prometheus release their second album, Resonant Echoes From Cosmos Of Old, on 23rd October 2020.

1. Gravitons Passing Through Yog-Sothoth

2. Azathoth

3. Astrophobos (lyrics by H.P. Lovecraft)

4. Resonant Echoes From Cosmos Of Old

5. [Un-copyable Greek title]

6. The Crimson Tower Of The Headless God


HeadBanger Reviews has an early review…

Prometheus has crafted something that instantly shows its quality … it’s a wonder to behold for any fan of black metal. That’s doubly so given the space theme, that has strong notes of Lovecraft that elevates things even further.

gree

Between Waterman and College Streets

20 Sunday Sep 2020

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A picture of a lithograph by Athos Zacharias, titled “Between Waterman and College Streets”, on College Hill in Providence, Rhode Island. What date was it made? Well, Zacharias was born 1927, so although spuriously dated “1900” on its record-page this is likely to be post-war graduation work made while at Rhode Island School of Design. Zacharias graduated from RISD in 1952.

Does it relate to Lovecraft and No. 66 College Street? Probably it’s just an abstracted architectural collage-in-drawing lithograph, though the title, choice of subject and precise position are all rather intriguing re: the possibility that it was meant to evoke the location and spirit of Lovecraft’s last home. The ‘monitor roof’ windows seen in the lower foreground don’t quite match those of No. 66, though, and the whitewash would have had to have peeled off the chimney-bricks between 1937 and 1951. But who knows, perhaps we can fancy that Zacharias read an early Lovecraft collection and then had the cultural-historical foresight to go try to make art at the site? The house was moved to a new site in 1959, so in circa 1951/52 it would still have been there.

Even if the drawing doesn’t show No. 66 in the lower-left then — as a slightly sinister artwork of spidery trees and eye-boggling shifts in building scales — it still unconsciously evokes something of Lovecraft. Also his tucked-away courtyard garden at No. 66, in the shadow of the John Hay Library.

“The Alley Cat”

15 Tuesday Sep 2020

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“The Alley Cat” by one Barmwold, 1924. Rather Lovecraftian, at least in the Letters cat-petting sense of the word. By the look of the hasty lines, it’s probably either a journeyman’s practice etching or the quick draft of a more advanced artist. The central European roofline and the black kitten also evokes “The Cats of Ulthar” quite well.

1924

“I am so fond of cats that I can’t help making a great deal of them, and they usually seem to recognise me as a sort of natural friend. I always play with them extensively — usually with a long, slender branch, or a spool or piece of paper on the end of a string. A hassock is a great aid to feline sport — using it as a screen or barrier behind which to draw… slowly and tantalisingly… the spool on which one’s furry playmate’s eyes are interestedly centred. Cats also enjoy tunnels formed of rugs or newspapers. One favourite pastime of theirs is to leap at anything which moves or bulges mysteriously beneath a covering — as a hand creeping under a rug and forming a curious moving mountain. Considerate attention always pleases a cat. I never evict one from a chair, or disturb his slumbers or repose. … Tones of voice are likewise influential. I always talk to cats individually, and in accents of such obvious friendliness that they seem to recognise me as a fraternity-brother. And I always acknowledge gestures of consideration on their part — talking pleasantly, stroking them, or scratching them gently under the chin when they jump in my lap, rub around my ankles, or otherwise express esteem.” — from a letter to Arthur F. Sechrist, 14th February 1937.

NecronomiCon 2021 / Hungary 2021 update

14 Monday Sep 2020

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NecronomiCon snuggles a small moist tentacle around ‘August 2021’, and appoints the 2021 NecronomiCon Providence Poet Laureate.  Congratulations to Bryan Thao Worra.

worra

And over in Hungary, a post on that nation’s 2021 Lovecraft event.  I like their ‘Pencraft’ logo…

pencraft

And in Germany, a delayed 2020 Cthulhu Fest is now apparently set for 3rd – 4th April 2021. Appears to be a big metal music event, but also has readings and an exhibition.

fest

Inktober 2020

12 Saturday Sep 2020

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It’s only a few weeks now to the annual Inktober challenge. Yes, I know… there’s a so-called ‘controversy’. But I’ve looked at the claim and it’s quite obviously self-serving bollocks — and thus I’m happy to link to Inktober again for 2020.

I see that J. Logan Carey is already limbering up by making a rather pleasing series of inky Lovecraft designs…

Need more inky drawings? The H.P. Lovecraft Archive now has a handy new page linking to Lovecraft’s Drawings in the Brown repository. From “Nude, Bearded Lovecraft” to “Kittens at Play”, as drawn by Lovecraft himself. Now there’s an Inktober challenge for someone — re-draw them with the quality penmanship that the master lacked.

New graphic novels – “Red Hook”, “Herbert West” and “Mountains”

08 Tuesday Sep 2020

Posted by in Kittee Tuesday, Lovecraftian arts, New books

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There’s a new Italian graphic novel of Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook”. It’s actually more a Euro-style ‘BD album’ in page-count and large 17″ x 24″ size. The book shipped in July 2020.

The artist is Stefano Cardoselli. The publisher also offer his “Herbert West” (March 2020) and his the Lovecraftian “The Inhabitant of The Lake” by Ramsey Campbell is due in December 2020. Could be an opportunity here for an Anglosphere publisher to translate and bundle all three.

There’s also yet another graphic novel of At The Mountains of Madness, from Adam Fyda. This appeared in July…

British illustrator Dave Shephard has also announced what appears to be a melding of “Dagon” and “The Call of Cthulhu”, which bills itself in the book’s title as a “graphic novel” — but in the blurb as an “illustrated adaptation”. Due Spring 2021.

Also in graphic novels, The View from the Junkyard recently found a neglected Lovecraftian gem in a graphic novel titled Weird Detective…

The story takes detective fiction and merges it sublimely with the Cthulhu Mythos in ways I’ve seen only in such great books as Shadows over Baker Street; a collection of short stories pitting the Great Detective [Holmes] against the Great Old Ones. Finding something similar in graphic novel format is a treat!

A character that looks like Lovecraft, and he has a talking cat. I like it already.

The View from the Junkyard‘s review also notes his disappointment in discovering that this graphic novel was a trade from 2017 (per-issues 2016), and there have been no more in the years since. He wryly points to the huge difficulty involved in simply finding out about completed-story graphics novels of the pulp entertainment type, which get swamped by endless weekly tidal-waves of manga, superhero, and depressive art-school wrist-slashers…

I might need to hire a weird detective to help me find more like this.

Indeed. In the meantime Weird Detective is currently £9.99 for Kindle on Amazon UK, where for some reason it’s been saddled by Dark Horse with a retro Ditko-like cover that really doesn’t reflect the quality of Guiu Villanova’s interior artwork or layouts. It has about 110 pages of story.

“The Dunwich Horror” on vinyl

01 Tuesday Sep 2020

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New to me, an unabridged recording of “The Dunwich Horror”. As a limited edition twin-LP vinyl album and wall-poster, from Psilowave Records. Listed as “2020”, and shipping now.

Not to be confused with the abridged full-cast vinyl LP recording of “The Dunwich Horror”, issued in summer 2018 by Cadabra Records. That featured veteran screen actor Robert Powell as Dr. Henry Armitage.