Lovecraft Game Comp Winners

TIGSource has just, well 5 days ago, announced the top games from its Commonplace Book Competition. All games in the competition must somehow relate to the notes in Lovecraft's commonplace book, and TIGSource received an impressive 35 entries.

The games, or at least all the ones I tried, are fairly straightforward typical arcade/platform games, which is odd in itself -- most Lovecraft-inspired games are heavy on narrative and tend to be adventure games of some sort. But they're all fun, and they collectively demonstrate the myriad ways that Lovecraft's works -- even if they're ideas scribbled into a book -- can leak out into the world.

Here's a short list of the top ten (full results here):

1. Verge, by Kyle Pulver
2. From Primordial Egg, by Fifth
3. Eversion, by Zaratustra
4. This Cursed Rock, by deadeye
5. Lost in Eldritch, by Bob le Moche
6. My Entry, by cactus
7. Herbert West in ‘Carrion Re-animating!’, by captainbinky
8. The Clatter of the Keys, by Pishtaco
9. The Lake, by agj
10. Doorror, by Pencerkoff

For mine, I'd say Carrion Re-animating is the best of the bunch, but the mob has spoken.

Grab the official torrent of all games here, or you can pick and choose here.

And if you want more games relating to HPL's commonplace book, the Illuminated Lantern has been running a similar project for a while.

Nyarlathotep Comic

Artist Chuck BB's Nyarlathotep comic is out now. Chuck is adept at combining the weird with a pop surrealist style, so be sure to check it out. If that's enough to get you moving, maybe his own exuberant pitch will sell it:

"My Nyarlathotep Book written by H.P. Mutha-effin Lovecraft dropped in comic shops today! That's Christmas eve! So if you need a last minute stocking stuffer maybe you can go out and grab it. I recieved a copy and It's real swell looking. My first Hardcover, yay! Have a Happy Holiday(s) and I'll see ya in the new year!"

Link.

A Mouldy and Shadowy Christmas

Merry Christmas and happy new year everyone. (Castro's first new year's resolution for 2009: increase the post count.)

Image via Laughing Squid.

Cyaegha Number 2 Out Now

Graeme Phillips's Lovecraft journal, Cyaegha, has hit number 2. For a handful of pounds, you get the following:

Front Cover: Toren Atkinson - 'Rampage'.
[Reprinted from The 1997 Cyber Cthulhu Calendar]
1. Contents.
2. Introduction.
3. Eddy C. Bertin - 'The Creation of Eyurid' (Essay).
5. Tais Teng - 'Eyurid: A Lovecraftian Portfolio' (Art Portfolio).
[Reprinted from Eyurid: A Lovecraftian Portfolio, Dunwich House 1980]
18. Tais Teng and Eddy C. Bertin - 'Eyurid' (Fiction).
[Reprinted from Eyurid: A Lovecraftian Portfolio, Dunwich House 1980]
26. An Interview with Toren Atkinson.
31. A Discography of The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets.
33. Zine Guide - The Pnakotic Series.
41. Wade German - 'Surviving Cyäegha' (Poem).

Link (via The Cimmerian).

Reading Cthulhu Together

BookGlutton is a kind of collaborative online reading site with a simple idea: you select a book to read, and on either side of the page are a chat room and an annotation notepad that let leave messages, ask questions, or interact with people reading the book. Presumably, BookGlutton will support e-readers in the future (if not, then it probably doesn't have much of a future), but in the meantime, it's mostly suited for notebooks and desktops.

I just uploaded the Call of Cthulhu -- check it out for yourself here.

Expedition to the Mountains of Madness

The BBC reports that researchers are preparing for what could be the 'last great' antarctic expedition. The journey will take team to the heart of continent, where they will survey a vast buried moutain range. Dr Ferraccioli from the British Antarctic Survey says:

"This region is a complete enigma. It's in the middle of the continent. Most mountain ranges are on the edges of continents, and we really can't understand what these mountains are doing in the centre."

Such naivety.

"...but at this time and place, with those dark, unknown mountain peaks soaring stupendously ahead, that anomalous elder-world discovery in our minds, and the pall of probable disaster enveloping the greater part of our expedition, we all seemed to find in it a taint of latent malignity and infinitely evil portent." - At the Mountains of Madness

Night of the Cephalopods

This is a fantastic little number from Spooky Squid Games. On the surface, it's a pretty ordinary isometric action game, but what makes it special is the dynamic narration that describes your gradual loss of sanity as the game progresses. From the official site:

Throughout the game your status, the actions you take and the locations you explore are narrated back to you in the style of classic horror master H.P. Lovecraft with full high quality voice acting.

To get a sense of how the narration works, check out the slightly spoilery video, or just go and download the damn thing.

Re-Animator, the Younger

A few days ago, Bloody Disgusting dropped a tasty bit of news about an upcoming TV series based on Lovecraft's Herbert West—Reanimator. Apparently, Transition Entertainment is putting together a pilot for a sci-fi series that depicts "a teenage Dr. Frankenstein" as he dabbles with raising the dead.

B-D has now dropped a few more hints, thanks to a courtesy call from writer William Butler:

"This project in no way is connected to/or like the original classic movie [RE-ANIMATOR], which we respect and honor with all of our being, but rather a growing narrative inspired by all of HP Lovecraft's early works as well as new science fiction elements." (emphasis added)

Presumably, the series will draw from all areas of the Mythos, rather than just Reanimator, and perhaps from other sci-fi realms. It could be a stroke of genius, or it could be an unimaginably terrifying abomination.

Link (via JustPressPlay).

Lovecraft on Stage

Now here's something we (unfortunately) don't see everyday: A stage play based on a Lovecraft story. Specifically, we're talking about WildClaw Theatre's adaptation of The Dreams in the Witch House, which runs from now until 21 December at Chicago's Athenaeum Studio. Tickets are a cool US$20, so if you live in or near Chicago, there's no reason why you shouldn't head along.

Link (via Ghost Radio).

Lovecraft Spotting: Fallout 3

Fallout 3 players: Spend some time at the Dunwich Building, which you can find in the southwest corner of the map.

Spoiler: As told through a series of personal audio logs, a poor soul, seeking refuge in the building, discovers a 'book', written by a certain Arab, which eventually turns him... well, you know the rest.

If it weren't for the ghouls trying to tear you to shreds, it wouldn't be particularly scary -- in fact, it would have been creepier if Bethesda had ditched the ghouls altogether. Still, the obelisk that the ghouls were (presumably) worshiping is pretty neat.

(Sadly, the Necronomicon isn't in the building -- or if it is, I couldn't find it).

More Mountains of Madness Madness

Guillermo Del Toro has been shooting his mouth off about his forthcoming adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness. When Del Toro signed up with Paramount to work on The Hobbit, the status of AtMoM was uncertain, but it seems the deal has turned out to be quite fortuitous for the project. Del Toro speaks to Fear.net:

"Part of the arrangement with Universal – in being essentially there for now until 2017 – part of the arrangement was they would finance research and development for Mountains of Madness. And we are doing it."

And how's the R&D going? According to Del Toro, Lovecraft didn't take into consideration the limitations modern CG technology when he described AtMoM's Shoggoths and Elder Things:

"If you talk about shape-shifting to the degree that these creatures do, then you're talking about, essentially – if you're using traditional tools – you're going to need to generate 30, 40 models fully rendered per creature. That's A, limiting and B, incredibly expensive."

Apparently, like Peter Jackson did with Lord of the Rings, Del Toro will need to create original technology to handle the modelling (which he says will be called 'The Howard'). I admire directors that adapt technology to their vision, rather than the other way around, but I also think there are clever ways to represent the Mythos bestiary without resorting to CG. Case in point: the HP Lovecraft Historical Society's spectacular radio play.

Online Card Game: The Necronomicon

And yet another free game from (or of) the Mythos has hit the wires. The Necronomicon, by Games of Cthulhu, is a straightforward dueling card game, based around the seemingly standard gameplay tropes you'd expect in a Lovecraftian game (e.g., spells, insanity, taints, and so on). Check it out on Kongregate, or download it direct from Games of Cthulhu.

Link (via the Cthulhu Room.)

New Lovecraft MMO: Cthulhu Returns

There's a new MMO on the block going by the name Cthulhu Returns. Apparently, it's wall-to-wall Lovecraft -- the game boasts that you'll find every location mentioned in the Lovecraft canon somewhere in the game -- and completely free.

It's not the first Cthulhu MMO, what with CthulhuMud and Cthulhu Nation having been around for some time, but it seems to hit all the right notes, despite the cutesy J-RPG graphics:

Cultists are not for the faint of heart, and have some notable differences from regular professions. They can be attacked by anyone, are treated as criminals by police, and are ignored by some shopkeepers. Keep searching, or ask a Cultist player...if they aren't busy trying to kill you. The Cultist profession master is hidden, and cultists can be very secretive.

More information here, and you can download the open beta here.

Lovecraft on the BBC

A short radio documentary that aired on the BBC a couple of years ago has found its way onto YouTube. It's a punchy introduction to Lovecraft's significance, featuring snippets from the usual suspects, such as S.T. Joshi and Neil Gaiman.

 

Thanks, Weird Tales.

Free Lovecraft Audio Books

Incredibly, people will actually work for fun, send their product to a website at no charge, which will then offer said products to an audience as free downloads. In this case, the people are volunteer Lovecraft fans, the site is LibriVox, the product is over seven hours of Lovecraft audio (24 short stories), and you can get it all here. 

New Comic: Lovecraft is Missing

I'm a few weeks late on this, but Lovecraft is Missing, a new online comic serial, is finally up. It's something of a labour of love for creator Larry Latham, who originally planned to make a CD-ROM game in the nineties, then an adult-targeted TV series. And it's pretty good, too. Comics are released semi-regularly every few days, and the first one popped up on October 1.

Link. Check out the trailer here.

Cthulhupocalyptic

Privateer Press will launch its tabletop monster mash on October 10. Monsterpocalypse pits martians, dinosaurs, robots, and the Lords of Cthul against each other as they run amok in a miniature metropolis.

From the Cthulian backstory:

Followed by a legion of towering monsters and nightmare spawn, Cthugrosh wasted no time in spreading his primordial corruption across the globe. Where the Cthulians tread the earth blackens, vegetation withers, and humans bow in abject worship before the might of these eldritch demi-gods.

I love the concept art (right), but the Cthluian miniatures (below) doesn't work hard enough for me. Plus, a single Cthulian would surely wipe out any other monster army in the first round, so it'll be either a short game, or Privateer Press has weakened the unweakable in order to make the game balanced.

But if it works for you, and you're comfortable pouring money into a collectible miniatures game, check out the details at official site, and stick the Monsterpocalypse blog straight into your RSS reader.

Link (via AICN).

Four New Lovecraft Games

Well, new to me anyhow. The first is the rather neat looking Call of Cthulhu: The Darkness Within which has been around on mobile phones for a while, but has now only just come to the iPhone. It's a classic puzzle-solving pointy-and-clicky that's apparently based on Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu RPG, though I can't really work out the relationship except that they share the same name. Hopefully Mayhem Studio will see the sense in releasing a downloadable PC version for a couple of bucks. Kotaku has some screens, and the tasty trailer is below.

Next, there's the Crysis of Cthulhu. I know even less about this, but the screenshots and concept art are promising. I do know it's a Crysis mod, set in South America, and there's a lot of flashlight action. Here's an early gameplay trailer, showing similar gameplay to the rather excellent Penumbra series (which I also raved about in my Top 5 Lovecraft Games):

Speaking of Penumbra, the third episode just popped out of nowhere. Penumbra: Requiem is an expansion of sorts to the second game (in that you'll need a copy of Black Plague to play it), which fleshes out the creepy plot -- you're trying to find your father in a research station built inside an abandoned mine in the Arctic Circle -- and retains the same moody atmosphere and psycho-trickery. It's exclusively puzzle based, however, and I'm not sure if I like this yet, but if you've played the first two, it's a no-brainer. Get it from GamersGate for less than $10. And here's a trailer:

Finally, this really isn't news at all, but a pointer to a Lovecraftian game I'd never heard of, and which I feel slightly embarrassed about. I came across The Legacy: Realm of Terror by way of Alec Meer's retro lookback at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and while it looks like it has all the right ingredients, it doesn't hold up well.

Well, one thing I’m not doing is having fun. Maybe I’m spoilt by modern standards and associated snobbishess, but certainly this revisit to a game from my childhood has turned entirely sour by now.

And just for consistency, here's a video of the promising intro:

Stephen King Does Lovecraft

I'm not sure what's more interesting -- that Stephen King has a new short story compilation coming out featuring an obviously Lovecraft-inspired tale, or that Simon & Schuster's released a cool little serialised, web-based, graphic novel promo.

First, N. It's a short story, so a synopsis wouldn't be useful, but take a look at the ingredients: a psychiatrist, a troubled patient (referred to as N), madness, suicide, New England, mysterious stones, cosmic importance.

As for the promo, it's a slick, 25-episode comic-style version of the story. It's free, features professional voiceovers, and according to S&S, is designed to be web friendly. I won't embed the clips here, as you can watch the higher resolution videos at the official site.

The story will appear in King's Just After Sunset, and apparently Marvel will release an actual ink-on-dead-tree graphic novel shortly.

Link (via Chris Perridas).

Sex on the Doorstep

Another one for the What-Would-Lovecraft-Say files: Stuart Gordon's upcoming Thing on the Doorstep has a female protagonist that can take control of bodies by having sex with them. Women? Sex? It's just not right.

Jeffrey Combs isn't having a bar of it either. Despite working alongside Gordon in the racy Re-Animator, the "wall-to-wall" sex in the Thing on the Doorstep, was just too much for him:

"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 [Gordon] all the best with that one, but not every project's right for me."

A project that is right for Combs is Leigh Scott's upcoming adaptation of The Dunwich Horror, which is due for a limited theatrical run in October before heading straight to DVD.

Link.

Lovecraft Markets Chocolate

Timothy McSweeney has posted handful of chocolate advertising blurbs penned by Lovecraft:

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.

Link.

Pinhead Does Lovecraft

Actor Doug Bradley, famous for playing Pinhead in the Hellraiser series, has voiced a reading of one of Lovecraft's early stories, The Outsider.

A video accompanies the 16-minute reading, which is unfortunately hit and miss. The rolling artwork in the background is great, but the frequent jarring cuts to Bradley while he stands in awkward poses and reads from an autocue seems a little unnecessary. Now, if Bradley was kicking back in an armchair by a fireplace, smoking a pipe, and reading from a big ol' book, then we'd have a winner. Bonus points if he dons the Pinhead garb.

Link to the preview. A couple of pounds gets you the whole thing.

Another Lovecraft Gallery: Les Edwards

I just bumped into an excellent album of Lovecraft- (and Robert E. Howard-) related sketches. Les Edwards, who supplied a bunch of illustrations for Gollancz's Necronomicon: The Best Weird Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, has kindly uploaded them to his online portfolio.

The Innsmouth Chief of Police (right) is the clear winner.

Cthulhu Harder Than a Unicorn

Kotaku AU cultist Logan Booker points us to Chris Zukowski's handy God of War II Bad-Ass chart of monsters. Cthulhu, unsurprisingly, sits at the top, or rather the bottom (the scale actually rates Pansy-Assness). Given Cthulhu's immense hardness, Zukowski's choice of a log graph is appropriate.



Link.

That Spatial Anomaly Near IC 2497

Everything about this strange phenomenon is cool. There's the Dutch school teacher who discovered it (Hanny), the name of the anomaly, which is based on the Dutch word for 'object' (voorwerp), and the liberal use of words like continuum, galactic nuclei, and photoionization in William C. Keel's summary:

At this point, we know that the object is rich in highly ionized gas. There is continuum light, especially at the northern tip, but the emission lines are so strong that we can as yet say little about its continuum structure. The high ionization might suggest shock ionization or photoionization by an active galactic nuclei, which would have to be much brighter than any we see in the neighborhood.

Link.

More Beasts and Backs

Ain't It Cool News has the DVD art and trailer for the new tentacley Futurama movie, The Beast With a Billion Backs. The trailer looks a little like an animated version of Itch Monster.

Link.

The Summoning

More microwave action. This one's incredible.

Link.

Another Day, Another Giant Cephalopod

What is it with giant squid and the antipodes? This one, captured in Victoria, is six metres long and weighs 230 kilograms.

Fisheries Victoria says the creature is being kept in a freezer and will be transferred to the Melbourne Museum.

The museum is yet to confirm whether it will be used for scientific research or put on display.

Bob McPherson of the local sport and Game Fishing Club says it is not the first squid netted off Portland, but it is the largest.

(Either that guy in the picture is looking for something, or he's trying to make the squid smile. It's odd either way.)

Link.

The Game Boy That Plays You

Logan from Kotaku.au points us to this Play-Thing of the Awakening Gods. It also looks just like a microwaved Game Boy Advance, but that's just what it wants you to think.

You take a Game Boy, you throw it in the microwave, you can kiss your Game Boy goodbye. Maybe the microwave, too. But if you take your Game Boy then apply some Photoshoppery to it, make it look like its been thrown in the microwave, descended into hell then returned with a thirst for human flesh, well, then you've got this puppy. Truly frightening.

Link.

"It's down, baby, it's down!"

Phoenix has touched down, baby. ABC has the quote:

Pulled by Mars' gravity, Phoenix was tearing along at 20,400 kilometres per hour before it entered the atmosphere, which slowed the craft so it could pop out a parachute and fire thruster rockets to gently float to the ground and land on fold-out legs.

"It's down, baby, it's down!" yelled a NASA flight controller, looking at signals from Mars showing that Phoenix had landed.

The little fella has already started beaming images back to the Earth.

Link.

Squid Banister

There's just nothing wrong with Henri David's squid banister. This pic is from Buzz Andersen's Flickr stream.

Link (via Scott Beale).

New Art Book: A Lovecraft Retrospective

Centipede Press says its Lovecraft Retrospective, an over-sized behemoth of a book containing Mythos-inspired art and essays, is now available:

This 400-page artbook features loads of color and black & white art from the last eighty years, including several pages of fold-out views. Artists include H.R. Giger, Michael Whelan, Lee Brown Coye, Virgil Finlay, Gahan Wilson, J.K. Potter, and dozens of others in a massive, oversize 12 x 15.5 inch book. Includes many previously unpublished works, & several major essays. Introduction by Harlan Ellison, afterword by Thomas Ligotti.

Prices range from US$395 - $2,495.

Link (via Bruce Sterling at Beyond the Beyond).

Face Appears on Book Bound With Human Skin

The lede on this BBC story reads like a one-line synopsis for a Dan Brown book:

A "spooky" image of a priest executed for treason over the Gunpowder Plot has appeared on a 17th century book thought to be bound in his skin, it is claimed.

Link.

Life on Mars, the Vatican, and UFOs over England

Earlier this week, the UK government released its UFO files to the public. There's days' worth of reading material, from letters accusing the government of covering up the truth through to nervous little sketches of UFOs, obviously drawn by someone after their tenth cup of coffee. Even the run-of-the-mill 'lights in the sky' stories are great to read, and each one's slightly different from the last.

One similarity is that so many people report coloured, flashing lights. It's the type of thing an alien probably wouldn't want fitted to his otherwise stealthy flying craft, nor, come to think of it, would a black ops government agency want to advertise its latest special project as it zips over the English countryside.

Oh, and apparently, there was no life on Mars, at least not on the surface. Readings from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter suggest the crust and upper mantle are "stiffer and colder than previously thought", meaning that life -- as we understand it -- could only exist deep below the planet's surface, where liquid water is most likely to form.

And if you think that finding life on another planet will force the religious to suddenly wake up and turn toward the light of science and reason, it's not going to happen. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Vatican's chief astronomer (an incredible job title, religious or no), reckons the existence of aliens doesn't contradict the Bible at all.

"As an astronomer I continue to believe that God is the creator of the universe... Just as there are a plethora of creatures on Earth, there could be others, equally intelligent, created by God."

Link to UK National Archives, NASA release, and the ABC's interview with Funes.

Dunwich Horror Done Good?

Director Leigh Scott reckons his upcoming indie horror film The Darkest Evil, based on The Dunwhich Horror, nails Lovecraft. In a recent blog post, Scott criticises the Lovecraftness of Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator, takes a swipe at CGI, and praises The Darkest Evil's main actors Jeffrey Combs and Dean Stockwell.

He also hints at the design of Yog Sothoth:

Lovecraft's creatures are also strange hybrids of the known and unknown. I think people will be really freaked out by the creature Yog Sothoth who plays a big part in the film. It's nothing anyone has ever seen before. So much so that when the producer saw the concept drawings, he said "I don't know what I'm looking at, but it's disturbing". Always a good sign when trying to make a Lovecraft film.

The film's in post-production, and a trailer is due in the next few weeks.

(Image shown here of the thoroughly un-Lovecraft, 1970's version of The Duniwich Horror)

Link.

Gay Pride at Miskatonic U

Miskatonic University's Gay People's Alliance has a bunch of queer merchandise available on CafePress. Here's some background:

Among the first organizations of higher education for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, and queer persons, Miskatonic University's Gay People's Alliance and Gay Alumni Association were founded in May 1971.

After the turn of the second millennium of the Common Era, the Alliance and Association decided to update their original Pink Elder Sign logo with the addition of the Miskatonic U. Rainbow design.

Link.

Needy Stars Need You

Skywatcher Alan Cumming is calling on amateur astronomers to join the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) and record information on neglected stars:

[AAVSO] have recently published a prioritized list of Stars In Need Of Observation, called ‘Bulletin 71’. The AAVSO is perhaps the most direct way that amateurs like me can co-operate with their professional counterparts, and these ‘Stars In Need’ are a group of objects that are in the middle of an interesting and complicated part of their evolution: They are the red and slowly pulsating Long Period Variable stars (LPVs).

The manual's arcane cover (right) is reason enough to sign up right now.

Link (via Sydney Observatory).

Herbert West Hacked/Slashed

Cassie and Vlad go up against everyone's favourite re-animator Herbert West in an upcoming Hack/Slash series. ShockTillYouDrop.Com has the details:

West will rear his bespectacled head in issue #15 for a three-part story arc entitled Cassie and Vlad Meet the Re-Animator.

Hack creator, Tim Seeley, teamed with Brian Yuzna (producer of the Re-Animator and director of its subsequent installments Bride of Re-Animator and Beyond Re-Animator) to make this pairing happen.

Link.

Beyond Space and Time at the LHC

TED's posted a couple of talks based on the search for extra-dimensional space and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Brian Cox and Brian Greene believe there's more to the universe than the conventional three-plus-one dimensions, mainly because there's a bunch of equations out there that don't seem to work. So rather than spend $1.50 on a pad of paper and a 2B pencil to create new equations that do work, physicists instead spent US$10 billion on a machine to tell them how the wrong equations could work. Or something.

In any case, both speakers wax on about string theory, relativity, and sub-atomic particles in a way that a child could understand. Greene's talk is below, and head to over to TED to see Cox and hundreds of other smart and creative people be smart and creative.

Link.

That Squid Colossus, Thawed

New Zealand scientists have thawed out the giant squid caught in the Ross Sea in February 2007. Not only is the 8-metre (26-foot) long creature the largest preserved squid ever captured, but it isn't even fully grown. From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Steve O'Shea, a marine biologist who is part of an international team looking at the creature, said he could tell from the creature's beak that it was not yet fully grown.

"Perhaps the colossal squid gets up to 750 kilograms. That is certainly not the largest specimen out there," he said.

Even more interesting: it has the biggest eyes of any known animal. From National Geographic:

"This is the only intact eye [of a colossal squid] that's ever been found. It's spectacular," said Auckland University of Technology squid specialist Kat Bolstad, one of a team of international scientists brought in to examine the creature.

"It's the largest known eye in the animal kingdom," Bolstad told The Associated Press.

Here's a video of the thawing, which is nowhere near as dull as it sounds:

Link.

Upcoming Comic: The Strange Adventures of HP Lovecraft

Adam Byrne sends us word that upcoming comic The Strange Adventures of HP Lovecraft is expected to hit stores by September this year.

Lovecraft is the comic's protagonist, endeavoring to put things right in a world that's starting to unravel. He may also be dual-wielding a pistol and sword. Here's the skinny:

Howard Phillips Lovecraft is a young writer of penny-a-word pulps in Providence, Rhode Island who suddenly finds himself on the brink of madness. His psychotic father died in an asylum, his catatonic mother is a current patient, and young Howard fears he’s next. When a strangely ominous book goes on display at the Brown University library bizarre murders begin to plague the city and Howard comes to believe he’s somehow responsible.

The art looks neat, the story sounds fun, and the team is oozing with unholy enthusiasm to get it right. The only thing missing is a big, flashing, 'pre-order' button on the front page of their website.

Link.

No Mountains of Madness Until 2012... At Least

Variety reports that Guillermo Del Toro will be too tied up directing a movie adaptation of some book about midgets and dragons that he won't have time to direct his pet project, Mountains of Madness, or anything else for that matter.

With Del Toro blocking out four years for [The Hobbit], it’s likely that the studios are aiming at starting shooting next year and releasing the films in late 2011 and 2012.

Link.

The Cat With Hands

Wow.

Link.

The Comic of Asshurbanipal

Lost Carcosa is in the midst of comicifying one of my favourite Robert E. Howard shorts, The Fire of Asshurbanipal. I read Howard's original story in Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos, but you can also find it free online at Project Gutenberg.

Link.

Monster Brains

I have a new favourite art site: Monster Brains. I've not yet seen such a wonderful, regularly-updated collection of creature art, paperback covers, etchings and illustrations anywhere online. It's a very special place.

Armageddon Art

Indie game developer and all-round nice guy, Vic Davis, just sent through some higher quality shots of the Xenopod card art from Armageddon Empires. (I won't rave about the game again, I'll just say that strategy fans should skip the demo, buy the game, study the tutorials, scan the forums, and then -- and only then -- start up a game.)

That Claw Print on Mars

ESA's Mars Express recently snapped a white 'rock formation' on a dried-up Martian lakebed. Emily Lakdawalla posted an excellent write-up over at the Planetary Society.

One thing you can say is that there's a pretty strong olivine signature in the dark sand of the crater floor surrounding White Rock. Olivine is a very common mineral in the solar system, and its presence generally indicates that you're dealing with an area that hasn't experienced a lot of geologic processing.

By 'olivine', Emily really means cosmic ichor, but she knows our weak minds couldn't handle it.

Link.

SPAG Does Lovecraft

The latest issue of SPAG features an interview with Peter Nepstad, the man behind the HP Lovecraft Commonplace Book Project:

I've always been especially fond of [Lovecraft's] Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath. Through reading about Lovecraft several years ago, I began to learn about his inspirations, and started reading the authors that inspired his works, chief among them, and especially influential in regards to his dream work, Lord Dunsany.

Better still, this issue also reviews every game in the collection. This sums up my own views on the best game of the lot, Jon Ingold's Dead Cities:

I see two clear paths in this game. You can go down the road of forbidden knowledge and discover the ancient writing's of the Kaman-Thah; or, once mastering the game, you can save Arkwright from himself. But, like some of Lovecraft's finest fiction, you cannot have both.

Link.