Haunted School House

08 Friday Feb 2019

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A double-dose of postcarding goodness, this Friday. As well as the usual Friday ‘Picture Postal’, here’s a curious public domain postcard currently on eBay (not from me). It’s a macabre item from Newburyport, Mass., the real decaying shoreline town that was Lovecraft’s general model for Innsmouth. Of possible interest to role-players as a story-element in a scenario, as well as being a choice bit of Americana.

Regrettable it’s flashed on the right side. But here’s my Photoshop fix for that…

Camera flash-bounce / reflection-speckling on eBay vintage pictures can be covered up, if not entirely fixed, in Photoshop:

1. Make a layer copy, invert.

2. On the copy, loosely select the flash-speckled area with the Lasso tool. Feather selection by 33. Invert and delete unwanted area.

3. On this sort of image you can now use a knockout plugin (such as Primatte) to remove more or less everything except the flash-speckle (which is now very dark).

4. Experiment with the layer overlay mode to see what works best for your picture, in blending the dark speckles back over the top of the flash-speckled area.

5. Merge. Make a few light dabs with the Burn tool, to assist with the blending.

Coffee Canon

07 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by in Historical context, Podcasts etc.

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This week the Coffee Canon coffee history podcast visits The Double R Coffee House in New York City, a New York hangout for H.P. Lovecraft and the Kalem Club.

A promotional card for the new branch at Lexington Av., which wasn’t Lovecraft’s preferred branch at 112 West Forty-fourth Street.

I had another look for information about Lovecraft’s branch. The Soda Fountain trade journal for 1921 ran a profile when it moved from 108 West Forty-fourth Street to 112. I can’t get more than a snippet or two of that, but the article noted…

It is directly across the street from Belasco’s theater, at 112 West Forty-fourth street.

That it was opposite a theatre is new to me, and would help to further explain the ‘theatrical’ aspect to its clientele — further confirming the information in the letter from Kirk. Another snippet of the same trade-journal article notes that board games such as dominoes, checkers and chess were available to drinkers. Pure “Sugar Cane Juice”, apparently a Brazilian drink, was available — which might have suited Lovecraft’s sweet tooth.

Deathbed conversions

06 Wednesday Feb 2019

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A further 1937 edition of the Amateur Correspondent has appeared on Archive.org. I had previously noted two others from 1937. This was, of course, the period of time in which news of Lovecraft’s death was slowly percolating through a fandom that was still decades away from being connected at hyper-speed by digital technologies. Amateur Correspondent, September-October 1937 has a page by R.W Sherman. He talks of the commentators who had formerly derided and shunned Lovecraft while alive — and yet on the master’s death seemed to have suddenly converted themselves into admirers.

Exhibition: Richard Corben – Donner Corps a L’Imaginaire

05 Tuesday Feb 2019

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On now near Bordeaux, France, the exhibition “Richard Corben – Donner Corps a L’Imaginaire”. This is a major retrospective exhibition for the acclaimed comics artist Richard Corben, partly known for his Lovecraft work, and has reportedly been assembled from the best of many Corben collections. The 250-item show… “constitutes the most complete retrospective on Richard Corben, author considered by the profession as one of the most fascinating draftsmen of his generation.”

It’s at the Musee d’Angouleme (alongside the Angouleme Cathedral, about 30 miles north of the Atlantic coastal city of Bordeaux). It forms the flagship exhibition of the annual comics festival there, and runs until 10th March 2019. As such, it may not travel on to museums and I’m guessing that this may be the only chance to see the show.

Poster:

The Miskatonic Scholarship 2019

05 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, Unnamable

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“The Miskatonic Scholarship is awarded each year to a promising writer of Lovecraftian cosmic horror”. It enables an author to attend… “The Odyssey Writing Workshop … an acclaimed, six-week program for writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror held each summer in New Hampshire [on the east coast of the USA].”

“Contact Odyssey Director Jeanne Cavelos (email jcavelos@odysseyworkshop.org with ‘Miskatonic Scholarship Application’ in mail header-line) for the Miskatonic application form, which is due 1st April 2019.”

Applicants must demonstrate financial need in a separate application.

New book: H. P. Lovecraft: Vida y Obra Ilustradas

05 Tuesday Feb 2019

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New from Spain, some sort of illustrated life of Lovecraft. H. P. Lovecraft: Vida y Obra Ilustradas weighs in at 280 pages but doesn’t appear to be a graphic novel. It seems to be a heavily illustrated book, pitched at the Spanish-reading comics-buying / young adults market…

This book offers an illustrated journey through the life and work of the dark Providence Solitary, from his precocious and strange early fictions to the abominable masterpieces of his maturity.

That sounds like the stories, as well as the life, are being illustrated. The book is also on Amazon UK, without a “Look Inside…” flash.

10,000-word survey of Lovecraft RPG publishing in 2018

04 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, New books

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The Cthulhu Reborn blog has completed a handy and succinct “helicopter” overview of all the Cthulhu/Lovecraft-related RPG releases of 2018. Including pointers to some rather polished new gaming magazines. The survey is now complete, and will thus move on to review individual titles. My Tentaclii blog doesn’t cover such game-books, unless they’re also of use as reference works for writers. But I’m pleased to find someone who does, and who provides a highly informed annual overview which helps non-gamers to keep a finger on trends and sensitivities over in the publishing gamer-verse…

Cthulhu in 2018: A Retrospective, part 1

Cthulhu in 2018: A Retrospective, part 2

Cthulhu in 2018: A Retrospective, part 3

Cthulhu in 2018: A Retrospective, part 4

Fine work. I ported all four parts into Word (a simple copy-paste to Word also auto-imports the pictures) and got a 10,000-word PDF for sending to my Kindle.

For those short of time, the three most interesting points for non-gamers are:

1) the new full-colour magazine, whose cover is seen above, which may well interest artists and writers as well as gamers.

2) there’s now a full-cast high-quality audio production of the all-time role-playing gaming classic Masks of Nyarlathotep, so that non-gamers can now enjoy it too. Select the “MP3’s only” option in the easily-overlooked dropdown box, which has a £27 download option for the six episodes.

3) there’s now (finally, after more than thirty years) a £20 introductory starter-pack for total newcomers to the Call of Cthulhu RPG game, with a rule-book of a mere 24 pages and various other starter bits and pieces.

Caballistics, Inc. complete

03 Sunday Feb 2019

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Caballistics, Inc. was a Lovecraftian strip in the famous British comic 2000 A.D.. Acclaimed, it ran 2003-2007 but abruptly terminated before the grand finale in 2007.

Now there’s a new 300-page trade paperback The Complete Caballistics Inc., which is due in mid February. It collects all the strips, and adds a newly produced finale. Print only for now, though presumably an ebook version will be out soon.

A mysterious reclusive rock star recruits a team of paranormal investigators to delve into Lovecraftian things and cults. All done in a rather British Doctor Who manner, and with nicely stylised art. The same artist went all the way with the strip, and 2000 A.D. didn’t swop in new artists.

Jean-Paul Laurens

01 Friday Feb 2019

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Jean-Paul Laurens, “A Funeral” from c. mid-1870s-early 1880s. Laurens had a macabre streak and was known as “the painter of the dead”, though his online representation today suggests colour paintings rather than shadowy etchings similar to this one. This is my 3,800-pixel rip of a picture now in the public domain under CC0, but which was also locked inside a ‘zoomify’ viewing system. So feel free to use it as a book cover or as the basis of a new paint-over using Photoshop or Krita etc.

Friday “Picture Postals” from Lovecraft: the Providence Post Office

01 Friday Feb 2019

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Following last Friday’s Rhode Island ‘letter carrier’ postcard, this week… the Post Office itself. I don’t know that there was any sub-Post Office up on College Hill, and I’ve never heard tell of one. So I presume that Lovecraft would have been familiar with strolling down the hill to his city’s new main Post Office, after it opened circa 1908. It was replaced in 1940.

On opening, circa 1908:

Seen below about ten years later, settling in to its surroundings and greening up, though now overshadowed by new commercial buildings that have sprung up…

The interior obviously had an interestingly curvy and almost ‘gloopy’ feel to it, which offset the uprights:

I can find no explicit mention by Lovecraft of using the Providence Post Office, in the searchable material I have access to. Those were the days of strong postal censorship, and letters might be opened. So presumably it was best not to mention the building, if his local postal service was working as intended? Yet the wider postal service and its constant use loomed large in his professional and amateur life, as well as for his general correspondence. He does describe the Washington Post Office, though, and in terms that would seem to echo the building in Providence…

Now came stamps — bought at a post office next the station where a grandly cloistral air animated an interior of vast size and drowsily ornate dimness.