27 Thursday Sep 2018
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books
French publisher Ki-oon is set to launch a new series of Lovecraft graphic novel adaptations, done in the Japanese b&w manga style by the best Japanese horror-manga artists. At The Mountains of Madness is released in French on 4th October 2018. Here’s a sample of a spread…
It’s being picked up by Dark Horse, for English publication.
25 Tuesday Sep 2018
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, Scholarly works
“Douglas Adams’s” Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” as a Representative of Cosmic Horror”, a new B.A. undergraduate dissertation, in English from Hungary. Online and public. At first glance it looks short for a final dissertation, but that’s a trick of the formatting — since it does run to 6,000 words. It puts forward an interesting claim that some of this blog’s readers might want to note…
Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker series is usually labelled as science fiction. [But] Adams abandons the traditional devices of science fiction and because he borrows from cosmic horror, it could be argued that the Hitchhiker series could be considered a representative of cosmic horror.
Listed as relevant factors are:
* “Cosmos as a threatening entity”.
* “Merciful ignorance”.
* “Merciful lack of self-knowledge”.
* “Irony – the effect and technique”.
24 Monday Sep 2018
Posted in Historical context, Lovecraftian arts
Harold S. Farnese didn’t write any stories, poems, or articles for Weird Tales, nor was he a cover artist or illustrator. His eight letters published in “The Eyrie,” the letters column of Weird Tales, failed to land him in the top twenty contributors in that category. [Yet he] may have been the first person to adapt a work by H.P. Lovecraft to a form other than verse or prose.
Harold S. Farnese, Part Three.
Harold S. Farnese, Part Six (final part).
From Tellers of Weird Tales. See also his post on “The Lovecraft-Farnese Correspondence” with a new timeline.
23 Sunday Sep 2018
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
The Lovecraft Travel Agency has just now opened its doors, with 18 vintage travel and tourism posters.
23 Sunday Sep 2018
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books
Which stories might I want to read in Shadows Over Baker Street, the well-known Sherlock Holmes-Lovecraft mash-up anthology? I rarely glance at such anthologies and, even when I do, I’m not someone who slogs through all stories. Roll on the day we get ‘the Spotify for stories’ and can do our own remix anthologies. In the meantime I just want the best in any given anthology or collection, and am prepared to do 30 minutes of research to find out which stories are deemed the best.
Nor do I care for ‘sidelong stories’, of the sort that often pad anthologies by strapping a minor character into some tangentially connected setting. For instance, Shadows Over Baker Street has a reportedly good story featuring Sebastian Moran on a tiger-hunt in India. But neither the setting or the minor character appeals to me. I don’t read Sherlock Holmes stories for their jungle settings.
Let’s see what the reviews say about the book:—
Baker St. Dozen has a biting review from a sceptical Sherlockian perspective. They only strongly commend the following stories, which use the expected setting and approach:
* Steven Elliott-Altman, “A Case of Royal Blood”.
* Brian Stableford, “Art in the Blood”.
Kirkus has its usual snippy review, though this one is less cutting than usual. They note:
* Neil Gaiman, “A Study in Emerald”.
* Brian Stableford, “Art in the Blood”.
* F. Gwynplaine McIntyre, “The Adventure of Exham Priory”.
The latter is singled out by Kirkus as a “stunning” and “ingenious reworking of the familiar incident of Holmes’s misadventure at the Reichenbach Falls”. An Amazon review also claims it to be darkly comic, if one reads it in the right way.
The Harrow Review has:
* Neil Gaiman, “A Study in Emerald”.
* Steven-Elliot Altman, “A Case of Royal Blood”.
* James Lowder, “The Weeping Masks”.
Innsmouth Free Press singled out:
* Neil Gaiman, “A Study in Emerald”.
* F. Gwynplaine McIntyre, “The Adventure of Exham Priory”.
Note that several of the more fannish reviewers, who I also consulted, also disliked Neil Gaiman’s “A Study in Emerald”. Apparently for its too-whimsical approach. You either love it or hate it, it seems. My own reaction to it takes the form of a short Holmes pastiche story “The Case of the Purloined Prose”.
I then skittered over the Amazon reviews, but failed to spot claims for as-yet un-noticed gems in the collection. F. Gwynplaine Macintyre’s “The Adventure of Exham Priory” did have another bit of acclaim in one such review.
Thus, for those who don’t want to slog through all 480 pages of what is widely regarded as a very patchy collection, Shadows Over Baker Street appears to boil down to…
* Neil Gaiman, “A Study in Emerald”.
* Steven-Elliot Altman, “A Case of Royal Blood”.
* Brian Stableford, “Art in the Blood”.
* James Lowder, “The Weeping Masks”.
* F. Gwynplaine McIntyre, “The Adventure of Exham Priory”.
* Simon Clarke’s “Nightmare in Wax” – this ends the volume, and does get occasional tepid mentions in the reviews.
Only half a dozen. Still, the book is now on Kindle for just 99 pence (about $1.30). Even just for a handful of such crossover stories, that’s not a bad price.
Finally, talking of Cthulhu and Sherlock, avoid this new book series like the plague. Great covers, but bloody awful books from both a Lovecraftian and Sherlockian perspective. And just plain bad writing too.
23 Sunday Sep 2018
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
U.S. Navy Shoggoth, Mark 1? Circa 1945.
22 Saturday Sep 2018
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books
The Art of Ploog (2015), a comprehensive 9″ x 12″ retrospective of the career of a very fine comics artist, who mostly did weird and horror work with an very polished and recognisable style. Still in print, for now. Many will remember Mike Ploog best for drawing The Planet of the Apes, Man-Thing, and his own Weirdworld in the 1970s for Marvel. Also for strips in Heavy Metal and Epic in the 1980s. He was also a storyboarder for the likes of Carpenter’s The Thing and The Dark Crystal.
Original art from Marvel’s Weirdworld.
19 Wednesday Sep 2018
Posted in Historical context, Lovecraftian arts
A curious reader enquires of Amazing Stories, “Was there a Lovecraft?”
His letter was published in the October 1951 issue.
On transcribing the letter for publication, “H. P.” becomes “F. P.”, so we have to assume that the office-boy who typed up the hand-written letter was also unfamiliar with the “H. P. Lovecraft” name. Despite working at a leading science-fiction magazine. And that his error was not caught by the Editor before printing.
18 Tuesday Sep 2018
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
The complete “Typescripts for Volumes Four and Five” of the Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft are currently up for sale. As typed for Arkham House, from the originals, by Wandrei…
There’s also currently a complete set of the published volumes on Abebooks, for just $400…
16 Sunday Sep 2018
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
‘A drawing by CAS’, Acolyte fanzine, Fall 1944. Reproduced on a stencil duplicator.
15 Saturday Sep 2018
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
McRassusArt (Mihail Bila, UK) has made a fine selection of Lovecraft concept art…
Lovecraft’s Providence (as he dreamed it).
“He” (old New York City).
The Strange High House in the Mist.
15 Saturday Sep 2018
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
“Our entire Rome gallery has been transformed into the surreal living room of Mr. H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), and is imbued with his dreamy and disquieting atmospheres. The walls of Operativa have also become animated pages “torn” from painting and sculpture related to the master’s dreamlike narratives and fantastical horrors, intended to evoke the indifferent and indecipherable cosmos for the wandering being called man. An unprecedented, courageous, and fascinating exhibition project … a selection of works by Joanne Burke, Ennio Calabria, Duilio Cambellotti, Giuseppe Capitano, Fabrizio Clerici, Giovanni Copelli, Michela de Mattei, Cleo Fariselli, Luca Grimaldi, Emiliano Maggi, Marta Mancini, Salvatore Meli, Matteo Nasini, Sergio Ragalzi, Vincenzo Simon.” (Rough translation from the Italian).
At the OPERATIVA in Rome, Italy, September 14th to October 15th 2018.
The website doesn’t have details of the show, not having been updated since July. So here’s a picture on the rather pleasing and somewhat cosmic “MONOLITH / catching spaces” by Edoardo Dionea Cicconi, which was in the Operativa in May 2018.
