Category Archives: Lovecraftian arts

Graham Plowman’s Lovecraftian classical music

18 Tuesday Jun 2019

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

≈ Leave a comment

A new classical music piece from Graham Plowman, evoking Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook”. I see that in 2017 he also released an album, The Great Old Ones and Other Beings which is available on YouTube.

“For non-commercial projects no license is required” for re-used of his music, unless tagged with his publisher’s name “CD Baby”. Best to check with him and get permission in writing though, as YouTube and other postings are only “likely be tagged by my publisher CD Baby” — and “likely” implies it may not always be so tagged.

New documentary: “Memory: Origins of Alien”

15 Saturday Jun 2019

Posted by in Films & trailers, Lovecraftian arts

≈ Leave a comment

Alexandre Philippe’s new feature-length documentary, Memory: Origins of Alien (2019, 94 mins) is currently doing the rounds of film festivals and related gallery shows…

On the eve of Alien’s 40th Anniversary, Memory (the title of the script’s first draft) unearths the largely untold origin story behind Ridley Scott’s cinematic masterpiece: its roots in Greek and Egyptian mythology, underground comics, parasitology, H.P. Lovecraft, the art of Francis Bacon, and the symbiotic genius of Dan O’Bannon and H.R. Giger.

Sundance reviews say it tries to take an intellectual angle, but is a bit wobbly in terms of achieving that. Also that it’s about the original 1979 Alien, rather than the later world-building and cash-ins.

The documentary is currently on pre-order on Amazon, with a “student grant-money cow-catcher” release-date of 2nd September 2019.

Three surveys

10 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, Odd scratchings

≈ Leave a comment

Black Gate has a new survey of “The Weird Tales Anthologies”. With covers and some tables of contents. It’s not comprehensive but lays out what you might find cheaply and has useful brief assessments. Note that some of the book covers may not be “safe for work”, in these prudish days.

Another new survey is a detailed evaluation by The Pulp Hermit of the run of Bronze Shadows, the ground-breaking early Doc Savage / Shadow fanzine which ran for 15 issues in the 1960s. Altus Press also has an evaluation of its place in history, in “Bronze Shadows & The Moon Man”.

Also in the category of retrospectiva posts, Murray Ewing has a new long post in which he revisits Erich von Daniken’s influential Chariots of the Gods? book and its claims…

Von Daniken’s own method mostly consists of rhetoric rather than proof. [His] technique is to find oddities, puzzles, and things that the average reader might be surprised to find in the ancient world, then point at them and say, “Well, who can say it’s not aliens?”

The making of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

09 Sunday Jun 2019

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

≈ Leave a comment

PC Gamer this weeks reprints on the Web an article from “issue 172 of Retro Gamer” (not on Archive.org). It’s a long and detailed insider account of “The making of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth“. The game was made in the early 2000s and it’s widely hailed as one of the most authentic and lovingly-made Lovecraftian videogames. It was largely developed in the West Midlands of England, if I recall correctly, somewhere just north of Birmingham.

The best free HD texture-makeover I could find in a few minutes of searching is the HDR ReShade together with step-by-step install instructions…

Joshi in France – the report

06 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, New books, Odd scratchings

≈ Leave a comment

S.T. Joshi’s blog has updated with an illustrated report on “A Trip to France”, made to promote the French translation of his monumental Lovecraft biography. Among much else, he ventured down into the Catacombs of old Paris…

Traversing this site was a suitably grisly experience for a devotee of the weird and macabre.

Suitably primed, he later discovered the young artist Laurent Gapaillard, who does epic architectural prints in the Piranesi and Prout style, and from my cursory searches seems to be known in France for his book illustration and concept art for videogames.

The French ‘Lovecraft & Sonia’ play Howard, Mon Amour is being translated to English, and Joshi hopes to find a publisher for it.

Also, Joshi has had a copy of his The H. P. Lovecraft Cat Book in print. The hardcover first edition has sold out already.

NecronomiCon 2001

06 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

≈ 3 Comments

Snagged from a sale listing, a pretty good scan of a NecronomiCon convention cover. Done in very pleasing pen and ink by an unknown artist, for the 2001 convention. Search doesn’t immediately land me on the artist’s name.

Update: the artist has been suggested, by the style, as the British artist Dave Carson. Following that I’ve found a credited Dave Carson piece which has the same maker’s mark on it, so this cover is indeed by him.

Lovecraft’s “Memory”

04 Tuesday Jun 2019

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

≈ Leave a comment

Librivox’s latest Short Ghost and Horror Collection 033 has appeared, and has a wealth of amateur Lovecraft readings. Including “Memory” which is a very short prose poem written in 1919.

This led me to discover that the excellent reader Ian Gordon has also done a new free 10 minute reading of “Memory” by H. P. Lovecraft. This was posted by him on YouTube, a couple of months ago. The story itself is quite brief and followed by music.

At the Mountains of Manga

03 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

≈ Leave a comment

The 298-page Vol. 1 of the English translation of At The Mountains of Madness graphic novel, by cult manga artist Gou Tanabe, has a release date of 25th June 2019 from Dark Horse.

The 365-page Vol. 2. of Mountains of Madness now also has a release date, of 29th October 2019. At which point the work will apparently be complete in English translation. Even if there’s some padding from the publisher, it looks to be more than 600 pages in total.

This is what his style looks like…