Lost Carcosa

Its always fun to come across neat things on the Internet, like this piece by Joe Hoskins, part of his “Death and Desire” exhibit.

Nearby, at the Red Light gallery, UMKC senior Joe Hoskins will be making his own allusions, during an exhibition titled “Death and Desire.”

“(My work) is a mix of H.P. Lovecraft, Tim Burton and ‘Masterpiece Theatre,’ ” Hoskins said.

Hoskins explained that his oil paintings function like pages from a macabre children’s book. He mentioned that the story “follows the tale of this paranormal investigator named Edmund.”

“It’s a typical, gothic, Edward Gorey-type thing,” Hoskins said.

Found at KansasCity.com

ComicBookResources, ever the amazing site for comic related news, has posted an official press release announcing the hard cover version of Joe Hill’s “Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft”.  We’re looking at 152 pages of hardcover goodness, illustrated by the same artist who did Clive Barker’s “The Great and Secret Show”, for only $24.99, set to be released on October 1.

ComicBookResources has much more details.

Somehow, I’ve managed to have a couple of friends and my brother send me this, and yet, I haven’t posted this up yet!  I’m really slacking.  That or just way too busy at work and home!  (It’s actually option 2, busy, unfortunately)  So without further ado, what would happen if Lovecraft had written about tasty chocolate treats?  Would his writing bleed into the descriptions?  Or would they be the usual mundane affair?  We might get something like this:

Caramel Chew

There is a dimension ruled by a blind caramel God-King who sits on a vast, cyclopean milk-chocolate throne while his mindless, gooey followers dance to the piping of crazed flutes. It is said that there are gateways in our world that lead to this caramel hell-planet. The delectable Caramel Chew may be one such portal.

Read all of the sanity shatteringly sweet descriptions at McSweeny’s page.

Stuart Gordon and Jeffrey Combs make a great pair in the movie industry.  At least I seem to think so.  They do a great job creating entertaining movies together, but it looks like Combs has turned down playing a part in Gordon’s adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Thing at the Doorstep”.

Stuart was like, ‘Yeah, I know, being in bed with beautiful women all day, it sounds tough, and I went, ‘You know, Stuart, actually, it is. I’m married, and I don’t wanna do that.’ It’s not part of my world. It was just too much, it was like, ‘And then they’re writhing, and then they’re humping some more, and then they build to a climax, and then they climax, and sweat…” I wish him all the best with that one, but not every project’s right for me.  

~Combs

You can read Comb’s thoughts over at Arrow in the Head News.

I have several odd recurring dreams, but this is one in particular that seems rather Lovecraftian.  It involves… -dramatic pause- … a KittenWitch! Dun dun Duuuunnnnn!

In this dream, it becomes known to me that the cute little soft and purry kitten is in fact a witch or other being intent on the destruction of myself and those around me.  This creature may look all soft and cuddly, but it lives in the spaces between the walls plotting our demise.  This space, of course, is much larger than the actual thickness of the walls, and at an odd angle such that if you were to hold a mirror so that you could see the rooms reflection but off kilter at about 5 to 10 degrees, that space in the angled area; Thats where it lived and performed the evil rituals.

Now, like any good Lovecraftian dream, we have a problem.  I need to kill the KittenWitch to prevent it from killing us and possibly destroying humanity… But only I know the truth of the matter.  No one else sees the evil being in all its horrific ugliness superimposed on its physical kittenish exterior.  All anyone else sees is me choking a kitten.  Or at least that is all they would see if I were to attempt to extinguish said KittenWitch in the presence of others.  Instead I can only hold the thing and keep it from escaping back to its lair within the angles of the walls, while people continuously enter and leave the room.  So I sit there trying to save the world in the brief moments between interruptions by innocent and unknowing minds.

Or am I just slowly going insane?  Is it in fact just a normal kitten, trying to go about its kittenish ways?  Am I seeing something only a broken mind can see?  Or am I really seeing the truth, and by doing this deed, bring my own sanity into question for others?  Either way, it is an insane problem.

Art and comics.  Two great things, that often go hand in hand, much to the argument of certain elitist types.  ComicBookResources has a press release about Ben Templesmith’s soon to be released “Art of Wormwood”, a collection of artwork from the “Wormwood” comic series.

Templesmith’s visual approach, which has been described as “daring, horrific, and sometimes just plain perverse” has gained a cult following for his work in graphic novels including 30 Days of Night, Fell, Wormwood, Gentleman Corpse and more recently Welcome to Hoxford. He has said he is influenced by the science-fantasy cosmos of H.P. Lovecraft’s Old Ones and the work of H.R. Giger.

Read more details about the book and special edition hard cover at ComicBookResources.

In a move that just ruins days for other security guards of the world, one security guard had decided to not only tell a girl she couldn’t take pictures of Lovecraft’s grave, but then kicked it up a notch by adding in demands of image deletion, verbal abuse, and all around jackassery.

Found at BoingBoing

You would have been 118 years old today, Mr. Lovecraft!  Happy birthday to you!

I’m sure most of you who visit my site know who Howard Philips Lovecraft was (or is), and know that he is said to be one of the most influential writers in horror of the 20th century, but for those who don’t know, he has influenced more of our entertainment in the writing, music, and film fields than most of us really realize.  From Stephen King’s “Jerusalem’s Lot”, to the always entertaining “Herbert West: Re-Animator” movies, to Metallica’s “The Thing That Should Not Be”, Lovecraft has snuck his tendrils into immortality.

You can find a whole lot more to read about his life, philosophies, writings, and of course, his influence on contemporary works at Wikipedia’s entry for H. P. Lovecraft.