Saturday 24 September 2016

'West of Arkham the hills rise wild...'

I spend a lot of time at deviantART looking for interesting pictures of spaceships, monsters, and other stuff. That's how I roll. If you don't know the site, it's essentially a forum for everyone to post art of all kinds, from photography to oil painting. And it's not surprising that classic horror fiction provides inspiration for many 'deviants'.

This chap is a case in point. He's produced some excellent, atmospheric illustrations to Lovecraft's stories, among other things.

Uncanny Valley...

Blast Off

Lovecraft, like Poe, remains a huge inspiration for artists. If anyone doubts old Howie's influence on popular culture, just check out the sheer number of people still illustrating his work. Sure, there are more people doing vampires and zombies, and indeed superheroes. But HPL's Mythos/franchise is surely the only inter-war fictional creation to remain in such excellent fettle today. Compare and contrast with, say, Tarzan. Here are a few other examples from deviantART.

Another take on that pesky meteorite problem
Artist is here.

A Flying Polyp(!)
The Flying Polyps were of course Lovecraft's favourite skiffle band. Artist is here.

'No, we are not going to your mother's for Christmas'

Yes, it's a Deep One in a right old strop. Artist is here.

Finally, some photos of actual objects created for the true Lovecraft fantatic. Jason McKittrick has produced, among other things, the Joseph Curwen Journal Collection. Very nice. 


Slightly more pricey (and already sold, it seems) is Professor Angell's box o' weirdness, as described in 'The Call of Cthulhu'. Notice the Norwegian's sailor's journal, and the notorious bas-relief.


And, you guessed it, there's a 'genuine' Necronomicon, a thing of eldritch beauty indeed.


So, if you're ever at loose end, you could do worse than mosey on over to deviantART, type in the name of your favourite weird tale by old Howie, and see what pops up. There are some amazingly creative people out there.

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