News of a new spring exhibition in New York City, “Line and Frame: A Survey of European Comic Art”. It opens with a Thursday evening launch event on 27th February 2020 (6pm-8pm) at Danese/Corey (511 West 22nd Street) and then runs until 14th March 2020.

The show will feature the work of 40 comics artists “who specialize in science fiction and fantasy”, including Moebius, Bilal, Breccia, Druillet, Nicole Claveloux, Guido Crepax, Milo Manara, among others. I doubt there’s a chance of seeing Lovecraft related art, but names such as Moebius, Bilal, and Breccia certainly overlap with Lovecraft comics.

Well-timed, the show comes at a point when the continental European comics industry is making a very belated push to produce and market more English translations in the USA. The show is supported by the various national cultural agencies in France, Belgium, Spain, etc.

Sketch by Moebius, being used to promote the show.

In other quality comics news, a “new 250-page graphic-novel Monsters from British writer/ artist Barry Windsor-Smith” is apparently due sometime in 2020 from an as-yet-unknown publisher. The basic premise, originating in a rejected pitch to Marvel for a Hulk storyline, is that… “an abandoned Nazi project in genetic engineering had been covertly revived by the U.S. government”. Judging from the sparse publicity it now appears to have become a graphic-novel somewhat similar to Alan Moore’s Providence, in terms of its adult nature and ambition. Just my guess, but I wonder if there may be some back-story links into aspects of the Lovecraft mythos?

Who knew? San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum has an exhibition on now, “Pre-Code Horror: Scary Stories and Ghastly Graphics from EC Comics”. Ends 1st March 2020. “Code” here refers to the Comics Code, an industry self-censorship system in the USA.

“Ad Alta Voce”: Howard Phillips Lovecraft, a recording from Rai Radio 3 in Italy. A 31 minutes recording from last June, of what appears to be “The Festival” professionally produced in mellifluous Italian and with music. It takes some wrangling of the page to start the recording, rather than the station’s live-stream. Kudos to the station for keeping it online so long and making it public to the world, rather than removing it after a month or only making it available to certain territories — as is so often the case with the BBC and others.

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is a classic videogame from 2006, and despite its age and glitches one would expect to find it in any ‘top 20 Lovecraft games’ list. I’m pleased to see that a 5.5Gb HD textures mod has just landed for it.

All textures are original, so the atmosphere is preserved, upscaled to 4x resolution with neural networks. All game textures are upscaled.

Also, Hyperborea Live (Italian sword & sorcery) has just posted a long appreciation of the game, “I Miti del Tubo di Ilario Gobbi – Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth”. In Italian, but a translator-bot is only a click away.

Seemingly on tour in the UK in 2020, “H. P. Lovecraft – A Gallery of Screams 2020”. Including Harrogate Theatres on 6th June 2020…

Adapted and Performed by R. M. Lloyd Parry … who has spent the last 13 years enacting the M. R. James Project, a series of one-man shows based on classic English ghost stories. Here he crosses the Atlantic to pay tribute to James’s exact contemporary — a stranger, sadder man but one with an arguably even greater talent for bringing nightmares to life.

Also to be found in Cheltenham in April, so I’m guessing a ‘early spring to midsummer’ tour of the UK’s theatrical hotspots? The same actor also did the acclaimed The Time Machine a few years ago.

Dagonhills unveils his new custom H.P. Lovecraft portrait, painted by Josh Ryals.

On now in London, the exhibition “Mushrooms: The art, design and future of fungi”. Plus catalogue. 30th January – 26th April 2020.

Sadly it can’t be paired with “Fabulous Beasts” at the Natural History Museum, which runs 22nd May 2020 to 3rd January 2021.

Another survey of some of the best new Lovecraft art on DeviantArt, since my last look.

The Call of Cthulhu: Tale of Inspector Legrasse by DieNCry.

The Terrible Old Man by tomimt.

Pickman’s Model by nightserpent.

Cthulhu creatures, concept sketch by PRED-ALEX.

Boatman by Gobln.

Hastur, the King in Yellow by hubertspala.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft by Tipthehat.

Howard P. Lovecraft by KipiMichaelis.

And one I missed in the summer, C’mon, Howie -let’s wrassle! by Loneanimator. Imagining what might have happened had Lovecraft and R.E. Howard met in Texas.