31 Monday Aug 2020
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books
There’s a crowdfunder to publish a sumptuous illustrated edition of Lovecraft’s “The Haunter of the Dark” for Brazil. Apparently as yet unpublished in this translation…
“Lovecraft’s scariest tale in an unpublished version in Brazil, with art by [experienced comics artist] Salvador Sanz.”
It’s already 281% funded, and set to be published in a “widescreen” print edition…
I’m guessing the wide format would allow for English on one side, and Portuguese on the other, and on the same page.
31 Monday Aug 2020
Posted in Odd scratchings
Yours for a mere $65,000, H.P. Lovecraft in Weird Tales, in print and in Near Fine condition.
Or you could just go over to Archive.org and get the same in digital scans for free, and the R.E. Howard and ‘early Bloch’ issues too.
30 Sunday Aug 2020
Posted in Historical context
A new mapped cache of photos of New York City in 1939/1940, drawn from mundane tax-record photos of buildings.
It appears this is 169 Clinton Street. Though it’s difficult to be 110% sure as the buildings all look much the same. Also, both the site’s address-lookup and the 1939/40 in-photo numbering appear to be astray in terms of matching with house numbers. While the corner location, door, windows, roof-line and adjacent windows all suggest it’s almost certainly 169, modern pictures show a large front door on the building immediately to the left side — a door that isn’t present here.
Lovecraft seen in front of 169. Possibly late spring 1925, judging by the leafy tree behind him. Evidently the exterior fire-escapes were added to the building in the 1930s. A city report on the local juvenile gangs stated there was almost no easy roof-access in Red Hook at that time, in contrast to Hell’s Kitchen. If there had been a fire Lovecraft would presumably have had to fling himself from the window, Dagon-style.
29 Saturday Aug 2020
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
So, kiddies, it’s back to school on Tuesday 1st September. Here are a few suggestions for last-minute rush-orders for school stuff, to arrive Monday. All available now on eBay…
The H.P. Lovecraft shoulder bag for all your stuff, robust in black and blood red…
Gym-kit bag…
Stickers…
Cuddly ‘therapy Cthulhu’ doll…
Pencil and pens zip-case…
And matching cute sew-on-patch…
Rare tradez for schoolyard barter…
Sanity-check kit, for testing your xrazee new frendz…
Flag for your stand at the School Clubs recruitment fair…
Notepad for your Club rules and names…
Members’ pin-badge to entice potential Club members to become your minions…
A 3D printed Lovecraft bust, which your Club will diligently seek to smuggle into the School Trophy Cabinet…
29 Saturday Aug 2020
Posted in Scholarly works
This book chapter may well be the result of a time-limited public freebie from publisher Springer (they occasionaly do such things), so get it while you can if you’re interested. I can get both the full HTML and the PDF…
M. Ricciardi, “He Haunts One for Hours Afterwards”: Demonic Dissonance in Milton’s Satan and Lovecraft’s Nyarlathotep, chapter in the book The Hermeneutics of Hell, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
29 Saturday Aug 2020
Posted in New books, Odd scratchings
The Pulp Super-Fan considers what should be in the next Who’s Who in New Pulp. I was surprised to read that Cirsova wasn’t listed under magazines. I thought that Cirsova Magazine #1 (Spring 2019) was a key recent moment and exemplar for New Pulp (of the sort that attempts to emulate the old magazines)? But perhaps the Who’s Who compiler considers the title to be a book series? I’ll take a look when I get around to fully reading the Kindle ebook version. I featured Who’s Who in the latest Digital Art Live magazine, but it probably needs a full review here at some point, paired with some of the other new and older books on pulp writing.
I’d add another suggestion for a future edition: writers who state they are interested in: i) licencing their plots and characters for production by comics publishers; and ii) writers interested in considering a ‘proposal for collaboration’ with indie comics artists; with a pointer to iii) an appendix outlining a brief standardised ‘approach package’ that artists should send to writers, to aid in easy evaluation of the proposal.
29 Saturday Aug 2020
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, Scholarly works
New on Archive.org and in the open, the book The Novels Of Colin Wilson (1982). With a chapter discussing The Mind Parasites (1967), a novel that attempted to weld together Lovecraft-via-Derleth pulp, 1950’s ‘ray-gun’ science-fiction, and high philosophy.
28 Friday Aug 2020
Posted in Night in Providence, Picture postals
A night-view from Prospect Terrace, Providence, 1930s, as published in the city’s local newspaper.
The twilight is now getting too dim for writing—this [letter] being indited on Prospect Terrace, a small park not far from 10 Barnes [address of Lovecraft’s home], on the crest of the steep hill overlooking the spires & domes of the lower town out-spread to the west 200 feet [below]. The view from here is especially alluring & mystery-suggesting at sunset, & I not infrequently bring my work hither at such—& other—times.” — Lovecraft letter to Toldridge, 12th August 1932.
There’s a long dot, just to the left of the tower, that I haven’t cleaned away. It could be an airship of the 1930s.
On the 1928 tower, and its effects at night, see the Christmas 2018 Friday ‘picture postals’ from Lovecraft: the Industrial Trust Building.
27 Thursday Aug 2020
Posted in Scholarly works
Robert F. Kilker at Kutztown University has a call-for-papers out for “Critical Approaches to Horror in Doctor Who“, to form a book-length collection. The book will aim to be…
“a thoughtful examination of the ways Doctor Who operates in the horror genre, in its complication of generic definitions, its ideological work, and its relation to fandom.”
Studies of particularly famous ‘horror’ episodes seem to be especially welcome. There should be obvious scope for a discussion of Lovecraftian influences, present as late as “Heaven Sent” (Nov 2015) which drew heavily on both recently-discovered and published plot ideas from Lovecraft. Deadline for abstracts: 4th January 2021. There’s no mention of if the book will be Open Access or not, so I assume it’ll be a commercial academic book.
26 Wednesday Aug 2020
Posted in Scholarly works
Proliferations of Lovecraft: An Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference. 18th to 19th April 2021, Vienna, Austria.
“The organising committee welcomes proposals on any subject linked to Lovecraft’s thinking and writing.”
Although note that the conference is being run by an outfit called “Progressive Connexions” who have it pegged under their “Evil” category. So something tells me that “Inclusive” here doesn’t mean that Robert M. Price is going to be a keynote speaker, in the cause of promoting intellectual inclusivity. Still, it’s an interesting topic and well stated, and at least it’s set to happen. Deadline for abstracts: 2nd October 2020.
26 Wednesday Aug 2020
Posted in Odd scratchings
“The Six Hoaxes of Edgar Allan Poe”. The final “Gold Rush” one was perhaps the most interesting, and then only for the motive…
My sincere opinion is that nine persons out of ten (even among the best informed) will believe the [hoax newspaper interview, a new way to cheaply ‘make’ gold] thus, acting as a sudden, although of course a very temporary, check to the gold fever, it will create a stir to some purpose.
So he may actually have changed history there, very subtly. By ensuring that slightly less young men carrying ‘the gullibility gene’ were headed west from Boston, during those vital few weeks of spring 1849. The paper, The Flag of Our Union, was a popular cheap Saturday ‘family miscellany’ newspaper, then two years’ strong.
25 Tuesday Aug 2020
Posted in Odd scratchings, Scholarly works
S. T. Joshi’s revivified blog has a new post. Among other things, he reveals that he appeared by video feed at one of the recent big Mexican events for Lovecraft’s 130th birthday. I blogged about these some days ago now, re: my first round up of the Birthday doings. Joshi also notes the Russian Darker magazine has new translations of Lovecraft’s “Vermont – a first impression” and of Joshi’s own “Autobiography in Lovecraft”.