Having finally got around to hearing Harlan Ellison’s fine reading of Clark Ashton Smith’s “The City of the Singing Flame”, I was impressed and left wondering what the other “Philip Hastane stories” are. “Singing Flame” is the first of these, but regrettably the others are said to be far more plainly written and darker in tone. It turns out all are free on the Eldritch Dark website and can be found in audio…

* “The City of the Singing Flame” (as original + sequel) (& audio);
* “The Devotee of Evil” (& audio);
* “Hunters from Beyond” (& audio);
* “The Music of Death” (posthumous, long fragment and ideas);
* “The Rebirth of the Flame” (posthumous, unwritten, brief outline and ideas).

These are more ‘Lovecraftian + sex’, on hearing.

What is actually similar to the more lyrical and mystical “Singing Flame”? It’s said that the “Captain Volmar tales” are actually the closest shelf-companions to “Singing Flame”. These being collected recently in the print book Red World of Polaris, and also mostly available free online in text form. In order…

* “Marooned in Andromeda”;
* “The Amazing Planet” (originally “Captivity in Serpens”);
* The Red World of Polaris (newly re-discovered);
* The Ocean-World of Alioth (unwritten, synopsis and fragment only).

Some other of Smith’s similar-sounding pulp science-fiction tales from around this time appear to be…

* “The Eternal World”;
* “The Dimension of Chance”;
* “The Immeasurable Horror”.

Of the above and the “Captain Volmar” tales, only “The Immeasurable Horror” is in audio, being free on YouTube here and here.

There are Audible listings for some paid Smith audiobooks, but these are all listed as “unavailable” even when using a USA VPN. Were they ever released? Theoretically an audiobook for the multi volume Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith should have:

Vol. 1: inc. “Marooned in Andromeda”.

Vol. 2. inc. “The Amazing Planet”.

“The Other Lovecraft” by science-fiction author James Blish, written 1964 and seemingly still unpublished.

It appears to be mis-described in the sale listing. The later note appended by the editor says “would have appeared”, not “was” published, in “Epilogue magazine”, and the bundle appears to include an earlier announcement page for the article.

But Epilogue was actually George Zebrowski’s fanzine rather than a regular magazine and it appears to have lasted only three issues… and ended with #3 in summer 1964. I can find no trace of this Blish article on Lovecraft, which had been set to appear in the Halloween issue, and thus have to assume this item has never been published. There’s nothing of it in the Bibliography and no other trace of it.

Judging by what can be glimpsed of the first page, it appears not to be a personal memoir, but who know what lurks on the reverse of the sheet?

More production press-stills on eBay, from The Cry of Cthulhu movie. I had a previous post here on this $7m stop-motion Lovecraft movie from 1977 (set for a 1981 release that never happened). The Cthulhu picture adds a new name to the model makers on the failed project, Robert Skotack, who later worked with James Cameron.

Back in 2012 Tentaclii noted that Horacio Lalia was seeking English licensees and translators for his H.P. Lovecraft comics adaptations. At the time I could only find one book collection of his work, and that not in English.

New to me in 2021, I see that there are now four volumes of Lovecraft comics adaptations from this veteran b&w Argentine comics artist. Three were made for publisher Albin Michel and are now collectable at around £60-80 used, plus a later one for Glenat which is still available at a reasonable price. All were published in French in the French ‘BD’ format.

Lovecraft – La Couleur Tombee Du Ciel (1998)
Lovecraft – Le Grimoire Maudit (2000)
Lovecraft – Le Manuscrit Oublie (2003)
Lovecraft – Les Cauchemars de Lovecraft (2014)

Sadly it appears he never found a way to get an English edition, circa 2012. Possibly the b&w was a hard-sell, at a time when publishers assumed that young audiences needed garish re-colouring if they were to buy comics reprints. But British readers may fondly recall his name from 2000AD and StarLord in the late 1970s and early/mid 1980s. Here is an example from what appears to be his 1970s work, with superb layout and fine penmanship, and another showing the woodcut-like style later used in his Lovecraft adaptations.

A stylish bit of b&w showing Lovecraft, for what appears to be a new Spanish illustrated book by Ziperart, of Cuentos de H.P. Lovecraft. I guess he did sometimes type with his hat on, when the weather was especially cold.

Also of note, though not Lovecraftian, over in Canada the new indie publisher Eye of Newt is growing a small range of quality fantastical art-led books.

The new Froud-alike fairies book launches next summer.