- Adam Mastroianni: Incentives are for losers. With a reference to Dagon, a short story in which a man goes insane after seeing a weird fish. Mastroianni equates the fish to our unchecked and unquestioned assumptions which would fall apart after a bit of scrutiny but few of us are aware that it exists and even fewer dare examine it. I haven’t seen the fish as much as felt its slimy yet at the same time oddly rough scales while flailing around blindly and even that was enough to, erm, seek other opportunities.
- Bobby Derie: Pre-Code Lovecraftian Horror Comics. [Note: ↬Bruce Sterling on Mastodon. ] in which “The Horror of the Seas” is mentioned among many others, a 1942 comic which copied generously from The Shadow over Innsmouth. This whole blog is a treasure: where else could you find a review of “Relatione del Reame di Congo”, the 1591 (sic!) account of Portuguese missionaries’ voyage to Africa which was transcribed into Italian and published by Filippo Pigafetta, then translated to German in 1597 and — here comes the Lovecraftian connection — adorned with engravings horrific enough to deserve a mention in The Picture in the House?
- Alberto Alcaraz Escarcega: The Racial Imaginaries of H. P. Lovecraft. A terrifically-sourced exhibition/essay on just how much of a racist Lovecraft was (answer: very very racist, over and above what was considered “normal” at the time) and how it affected his work (answer: they are inseparable; without it there would be no diversity horror of The Horror at Red Hook or the genetic horror of the above-mentioned shadow over Innsmouth). Lovecraft died in 1937 at 46, so he lived long enough to overlap with Hitler. This led to some incredible quotes from his many letters to friends and family, such as:
the crazy thing is not what Adolf wants, but the way he sees it & starts out to get it. I know he’s a clown, but by god, I like the boy!
Yikes! I do wonder what he would have made of Lovecraft Country.