Tag: John Carpenter

Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown DVD

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It’s that thing again…

There’s much to loathe about this time of year—the short and dismal days whose appalling weather will persist until mid-March, the trees denuded at last of their leaves, the Chinese Water Torture of Xmas trivia—but the post this week at least brought some compensations. As well as the copies of Dodgem Logic there was a box of Penguin book cover postcards which I won in a Guardian Books giveaway, and also the long-awaited arrival of Frank Woodward’s documentary Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown on DVD. I’ve mentioned this latter work before, of course, but I’ll repeat that it’s the best documentary to date concerning the life and career of HPL, and features several pieces of my own artwork as well as contributions from other fine Lovecraftian illustrators. Among the interviewees are Neil Gaiman, John Carpenter, Guillermo Del Toro, Caitlin R Kiernan, Peter Straub, Ramsey Campbell and Lovecraft scholar ST Joshi. The DVD is only Region 1/NTSC at the moment, but is available also as a Blu-ray disc if you need to see the aforementioned in high-definition. The film runs for 90-minutes and the disc includes an additional 70-minutes of interviews, a Lovecraft art gallery and more. Essential viewing for all aficionados.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Lovecraft archive

New things for July

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In Spaces Between from The Great Old Ones (1999).

Some noteworthy pieces of news as the month draws to a rain-sodden and dismal conclusion.

• Frank Woodward was in touch this week to let me know that his excellent HP Lovecraft documentary, Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown, will at last be appearing on DVD in October. This is a feature-length appraisal of Lovecraft’s life, work and influence, and includes contributions from Neil Gaiman, John Carpenter, Guillermo Del Toro, Caitlin R Kiernan, Peter Straub, Ramsey Campbell and Lovecraft scholar ST Joshi. A number of my artworks are included throughout and they’ll probably also be featured in a gallery section on the disc. The film was shot in HD so it’s being released on Blu-ray as well as regular DVD.

• Also Lovecraft-related, and also due out shortly, is DM Mitchell’s follow-up to the landmark Starry Wisdom anthology of Lovecraft-inspired texts and graphics. That volume was acclaimed in some quarters and condemned in others; I don’t doubt that this new work, Songs of the Black Wurm Gism, will manage the same. Contributors include David Britton, Grant Morrison and yours truly. The cover is Alan Moore’s splendid portrait of Asmodeus.

• Last but not least, Paul Schütze was also in touch this week with news that two more audio works have been added to his online catalogue. Soundworks 01 is his atmospherics created with with Andrew Hulme from the recent TV drama series Red Riding, while Tokyo/Osaka Live is two pieces of improvisation with Simon Hopkins. Both releases are available through iTunes.

Berni Wrightson in The Mist

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It’s not giving too much away to let enthusiasts of tentacular horror know that Frank Darabont’s film of The Mist, currently fogging up UK cinema screens, contains these questing things among its torments. The Mist is based on a 1980 novella by Stephen King and the film has a decent King pedigree for once, with the director having previously made The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile while the creature designs are partly the work of Berni Wrightson, one of King’s artist collaborators. Wrightson’s web gallery has a number of his sketches on display although if you haven’t seen the film you should be warned that they spoil some of the surprises.

My good friend Mark Pilkington—weirdness wrangler, editor of Strange Attractor and all-round ubiquitous presence—reviews the film in this month’s Sight and Sound where he points out some of the Lovecraftian resonances. Tentacles aside, there’s a lumbering monstrosity near the end which manages to be far more Lovecraftian than the Cloverfield creature and I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of the larger presences than the lesser beasties. The film’s lead character is a movie poster artist and the opening scene nods to an earlier film with an equally Lovecraftian atmosphere by having Drew Struzan’s art for John Carpenter’s The Thing on the wall in the background. The film’s siege situation is more the kind of story you’d get from an earlier writer, William Hope Hodgson, another purveyor of the malevolent tentacle.

Berni Wrightson and your not-so-humble narrator appeared together recently in Centipede Press’s A Lovecraft Retrospective: Artists Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft (yes, I am going to keep going on about this book for the next few months…sue me). Wrightson is represented there by his comic strip adaptation of Cool Air but his Mist drawings would have made equally worthwhile additions. If nothing else, 2008 is turning out to be a good year for horror enthusiasts.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The monstrous tome
• Octopulps
• Druillet meets Hodgson

New things for July

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The Flapper by Frank X Leyendecker, Life magazine (1922).

• 2008 is turning out to be a great year for Lovecraft aficionados. As well as the stupendous Lovecraft Retrospective: Artists Inspired by HP Lovecraft, we’re also awaiting Frank Woodford’s feature length documentary, Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown. I’m lucky to have my work included in Frank’s film which is easily the best documentary to date concerning the life and work of HPL. Among the interviewees are Neil Gaiman, John Carpenter, Guillermo Del Toro, Caitlin R Kiernan, Peter Straub, Ramsey Campbell and Lovecraft scholar ST Joshi. The film will receive its first (?) public screening later this month at the San Diego Comic Con:

Thursday, July 24
8:00–9:45pm
Room 26AB

• Over the weekend Arthur Magazine cleared the $20,000 it needed to keep running before the three-day deadline elapsed. A stunning piece of fund-raising which shows how much people value Jay and company’s efforts.

• The gorgeous cover above is the work of Frank X Leyendecker (1876–1924), brother of the more well-known (and gay) Joseph C Leyendecker. Makes me think I should make a post of Butterfly Women if only as an excuse to track down more pictures of Loie Fuller.

• Last but not least: happy birthday Lorraine!