Sunday, September 02, 2007

Diana Death Cult: Cthulhu Implicated

Keith Richards on Princess Diana: 'I never knew the chick'.

Ozzy's take on the Virginia tech shootings: 'That's just fookin' crazy. You can't explain that'.

Despite massive, drug-induced cognitive impairment, these two coke-addled alcoholic rockers (one of whom bit the head off a dove) are among the few public figures still capable of looking through the correct end of a telescope. If politicians and pundits had even half a gram of Keith and Ozzy's integrity we could have ended all this nonsense years ago.

I was recently pointed in the direction of this Lovecraftian comic, the creator of which lists Freddy Kruger, Lord of the Rings, Wizards, and heavy metal music among his interests. Straight up. H.P. Lovecraft himself was an altogether more complicated man. In letters to his acolytes he stressed the importance of avoiding needlessly baroque descriptions. This advice came from a man who used the word 'Cyclopean' seventeen times in one story, and more than once on a single page of it.

"I felt the strangling tendrils of a cancerous horror whose roots reached into illimitable pasts and fathomless abysms of the night that broods beyond time."

At the very least he gave in-house illustrators plenty to work with. When critics say he was a bad writer many of his fans concede the point. For me he is like the perfect DIY indie band - shambolic, but with some really great ideas. Here he is then. Howard Phillips Lovecraft: The Pastels of horror literature.

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3 comments:

Neil Stewart said...

I think Tolkien's a good comparison with Lovecraft- both extremely silly, but there's something about them that gets under your skin...

Alex Bertram-Powell said...

If you would like to experience some kind of hybrid Tolkien-Lovecraft vision, for fuck's sake play Shadow Of The Colossus already. Nobody listens when I say this and I want to know why. Play it.

Nick Talbot said...

Noted, Alex.