September proved to be a moist month here in the English Midlands. A grey mantle of rain often covered even the top-most turrets of Tentaclii Towers, and down below the rain encouraged unctuous fungi to coil above the dewy lawns. But for now the sun shines, picking out treetops of fallow gold among the still-green swathes of surrounding woodland. Faintly from beyond these woods one sometimes hears the grumbling of peasants, as they queue for their meagre doles of donkey-fuel. Thankfully the Towers needs no donkeys and the great estate is, of course, powered purely by cosmic rays and shoe-leather.<\/p>\n
This month the Tentaclii<\/em> \u2018Picture Postals\u2019 posts sat with Lovecraft on the shore at Sakonnet, waited for the night bus in Providence, journeyed to Cykranosh (Saturn) with Barlow, squinted through the keyhole-of-time at his friend Everett McNeil, and dug out the forgotten location of Dana\u2019s Bookshop in Providence. The latter being the last resting place of the remains of Lovecraft\u2019s library, until it burned. I suspect Cthulhu cultists.<\/p>\n The original handwritten \u201cPickman\u2019s Model\u201d is up for auction with Heritage Auctions. It currently has about 11 days to before the hammer, and is at $6,000. But will surely go much higher. I\u2019d expect that you\u2019ll need to cash in at last three Bitcoin to be in with a chance of carrying it off.<\/p>\n The Lovecraft Annual<\/em> 2021 appears to be emerging now from the cargo-hold of its Atlantic tramp-steamer, or is just about to (Amazon UK seems uncertain on that point). It is mooted be an excellent issue. Joshi\u2019s new Penumbra<\/em> mega-journal has now reached No. 2, and has at least five articles that may interest Lovecraftians. The R.E. Howard journal The Dark Man<\/em> is also now available for summer 2021 and has several items of interest. It seems worth obtaining, at just \u00a35 in paper.<\/p>\n S.T. Joshi announced the imminent arrival of his insider-history book The Recognition of H.P. Lovecraft<\/em>. The Lovecraft\/Long travel book collaboration for Long\u2019s aunt, Old World Footprints<\/em>, is now available as an affordable ebook. It appears that the Italians have released Io Sono Providence<\/em>, vol. 3, this being their final volume of the eminent Lovecraft biography I Am Providence in translation. The French can look forward to their Lovecraftian \u2018Campus Miskatonic\u2019 event later in October. The Germans bagged the second volume of Klinger\u2019s annotated Lovecraft in translation.<\/p>\n I found several scholarly journals new to me, the Journal of Science Fiction and Philosophy<\/em>; Volupte: Interdisciplinary Journal Of Decadence Studies<\/em>; and Iris<\/em>, a long-running French journal \u201cto promote and to disseminate research in the field of myths, images, symbols and cultural history\u201d. New scholarly-popular books were spotted, on Poe and Science, and 18th century hoaxes \u2014 both relevant to Lovecraft. A call-for-papers was spotted from the Taiwan\u2019s Wenshan Review of Literature and Culture<\/em> (special issue on the Asian Gothic, some of which Lovecraft has influenced). Several museum exhibitions were noted, including major shows for the macabre dream-artist Redon and Sir Walter Scott (a minor influence on Lovecraft, though at a formative time).<\/p>\n New fan journals noted here included the newly magazine-ized Cthulhu Libria<\/em> #2 (German, Lovecraft and railways theme), the slick oversized SICK<\/em> #5 (English, Lovecraft special \u2018designer arts\u2019 issue), Bare.Bones<\/em> #7 (English, leads with a Lovecraft in the movies essay), and Providence Tales<\/em> No. 8 (Italian, a Mearle Prout special). In old journals arriving on Archive.org I spotted the substantial biographical article \u201cHannes Bok: Artist and Man\u201d.<\/p>\n In audio, Libribox released a three-part \u201cAn appreciation of Poe\u201d reading, giving a useful pre-PC appraisal of one of Lovecraft\u2019s key influences; the Italian podcast Voice of Arda completed an epic 12-part Tolkien and Lovecraft comparison series of short podcasts; Morgoth\u2019s Review<\/em> had a pithy podcast lecture on \u201cLovecraft, Nyarlathotep And Our Changing World\u201d; and the prolific Horrorbabble read \u201cThe Space-Eaters\u201d by Frank Belknap Long. I wondered if the 1928 cartoon header for this story was the first public \u2018cartoonizing\u2019 of Lovecraft as a character.<\/p>\n In Lovecraftian arts I spotted Providence Blue<\/em>, a major new novel featuring Lovecraft (and possibly Wilum Pugmire) as a character and written from a Catholic perspective; I found a major new Lovecraft graphic novel of Dream-Quest, H.P. Lovecraft: Kadath<\/em> (in Spanish); the fine stop-motion \u201cReport From the Ghooric Zone\u201d animation had an extensive \u2018making of\u2019 post; Junji Ito has a new and ambitious Lovecraftian 240-page graphic novel called Sensor; and manga master Gou Tanabe announced and dated his forthcoming adaptation of Lovecraft\u2019s \u201cThe Dunwich Horror\u201d.<\/p>\n I posted another \u2018New on DeviantArt\u2019 survey, and found a fine new 3D rigged Cthulhu on ArtStation Marketplace. I dug out and looked back at the covers for Kaja Saudek\u2019s Lovecraft editions and for various editions of Bilal\u2019s early semi-Lovecraftian Le Bol Maudit<\/em>. I discovered a lengthy \u2018Timeline of Botanical Fictions\u2019, mostly weird or science-fiction and also encompassing fungi and spores.<\/p>\n I completed my series of posts on \u2018Notes on Letters to Family\u2019. I pondered the best season for pavement pounding walking in what remains of Lovecraft\u2019s Providence. I gave readers some advice on translation add-ons and bulk PDF download from Archive.org. Not yet mentioned on the blog, this month I was pleased to discover the old abandonware Digital Film Tools Rays 2.1.2.2 plugin for Photoshop, that being the last version. Their DFT 55mm I know well, but I had no idea their old Rays plugin was so powerful. Definitely one for spooking up your Halloween pictures, if you can get hold of it. Though I daresay there\u2019s now some phone-app that can do something similar.<\/p>\n And finally, the next issue of the free Digital Art Live<\/em> magazine will be a bumper Halloween issue themed \u201cThe Gothic\u201d, and is currently in progress. This is, I think, the first time we\u2019ve strayed into the macabre for a full issue.<\/p>\n That\u2019s it for September. What with a hard winter in the offing, I\u2019m holding fire on book purchases at present. But having a few more generous Patreon patrons could encourage me to spring for selected bargains. Even a dollar or two extra per month is an encouragement. One-off PayPal donations are also very welcome \u2014 you can always find the PayPal button on the sidebar of this blog. Many thanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" September proved to be a moist month here in the English Midlands. A grey mantle of rain often covered even …<\/p>\n