Well, sort of. Paleontologists have identified a 430 million-year-old fossil of a multi-tentacled sea creature as a new species and dubbed it Sollasina cthulhu after HP Lovecraft's Great Old One. From Yale University:
The new cthulhu, Sollasina, had 45 tentacle-like tube feet, which it used to crawl along the ocean floor and capture food. The creature was small, about the size of a large spider. It was found in the Herefordshire Lagerstätte in the United Kingdom, a site that has proven to be a trove of fossilized ancient sea animals.
“In this paper, we report a new echinoderm — the group that includes sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and sea stars — with soft-tissue preservation,” said Yale paleontologist Derek Briggs, a co-author of the study. “This new species belongs to an extinct group called the ophiocistioids. With the aid of high-resolution physical-optical tomography, we describe the species in 3D, revealing internal elements of the water vascular system that were previously unknown in this group and, indeed, in nearly all fossil echinoderms.”
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When I reviewed Matt Ruff's incredible Lovecraft Country last February on its hardcover release dates, I wrote, "Ruff inverts the Lovecraft horror, which turned so often on "miscegenation" and the duty of advanced humans to trample those around them in their drive to recapture this lost wisdom (and humanity's lost grace). His Lovecraftian horror is the horror of the people whom the Lovecraftian heroes viewed as subhuman, expendable, a stain on the human race. By blending real history (such as the Tulsa riots) and Lovecraftian tropes, Ruff's characters shine as active protagonists in their own story who have lives, have dignity, and have indomitable spirit that they use to fight back against the power structure that Lovecraft lionized." Read the rest
Tomás Hijo makes linoleum block prints in a medieval style that is well-suited to Tolkein, Lovecraft and other fantasy writers' works. Check out his Nictonomicon bestiary project Kickstarter for more details. Read the rest
Robert Altbauer created this series of illustrations depicting crusaders meeting the HP Lovecraft's monsters, annotated in medieval Middle High German. Read the rest
The Cancer of Superstition, a non-fiction treatise commissioned from author H.P. Lovecraft, was found in a memorabilia collection in a defunct magic shop.
Magician Harry Houdini asked Lovecraft to ghostwrite the text for a book project, but died shortly thereafter. Now it goes to auction.
The collection bounced around after Beatrice Houdini’s death in 1943 and was never truly catalogued or ‘mined’ in all that time. The papers were never researched or inventoried,” said Potter & Potter president Gabe Fajuri. “In all that time, no one seemed to realise the significance of the manuscript.”
Fajuri said the collection was recently bought privately, and when “the new owner began sorting through the mountain of paperwork, he began putting the pieces together, and in the process discovered the manuscript and its significance”
From the excerpts, it sounds exactly as you'd imagine a Lovecraft text about superstition to sound ('superstition is an “inborn inclination” that “persists only through mental indolence”' etc). There is some debate over the authorship, with S.T. Joshi identifying CM Eddy. If you want it, expect to pay $25,000-$40,000 for it. Read the rest
Model railroader John Ott has devoted years to creating a fantastically detailed, HO-scale recreation of Arkham, the site of HP Lovecraft's horror stories, complete with model railroad engines and historically accurate cars. Read the rest
Tentacles made of cubes reach for you from within the watery abyss. "You're not supposed to be here," an unseen being informs you as you descend into the first level of the game Euclidean. Deep sea creatures made of shapes swarm, pulse and strain around you—and soon, they notice you. "Everything here will kill you," the voice intones a few moments later. Read the rest
I took as my source material a particularly lavish passage from Call of Cthulhu. Sorry about it being a screengrab. Allow me to atone by offering a BONUS passage from The Eye of Argon, with adjectives, similes and metaphors edited out:
EXTRA: Hemingway with Lovecraft adjectives edited in.
MORE. Per Alex's request for "Lovecraftian news reports/headlines?"
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H.P. Lovecraft died obscure, but his cosmic nightmares are woven into the fabric of modern horror. Read the rest
David Nickle's horror novel
Eutopia confronts the racial overtones of Lovecraftian fiction head on, revealing a terrifying story of the American eugenics movement and the brutality underbelly of utopianism.
Oculus Rift fans can download 'Banshee Chapter' free today from Jamwix. Released in 2013, the 3D horror film based on H.P. Lovecraft’s From Beyond has been repurposed as a virtual reality feature. Read the rest
Anna-Maria Jung's "Call of Snoophulhu," available as a print. (via Superpunch) Read the rest
Do you love nameless, creeping horrors in the deep? Unnaturally! Do you love fonts? Of course, you do. Thomas Phinney, a veteran type designer, is attempting an unholy union of the two by resurrecting the moldering corpse of three typefaces: Columbus, Columbus Initials, and American Italic. Columbus was used for all the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, in which Phinney played a hand (severed?), designing clues for "Masks of Nyarlathotep."
Back the project on Kickstarter for Phinney to create Cristoforo, modern renditions of these three fonts. Pledges at all but the lowest level come with licenses to use the fonts. Phinney's original work is terrific, and I have no doubt that he'll bring a sensitive hand to re-creating these classic faces. Read the rest
Ian J. Kahn of Lux Mentis, Antiquarian Booksellers, just received this hand-knit Cthulhu hat from his mother as a surprise gift. Read the rest
I'd love to read the H.P. Lovecraft-Tintin crossovers behind the covers expertly painted by Murray Groat.
UPDATE: Murray adds that these aren't for sale as Hergé/Moulinsart S.A.'s rights apply. "I am getting alot of print requests by email, which is nice, but I have to sadly tell each and everyone of them that I cannot." Read the rest
I can't say that it made me a better programmer, but this mashup of Brian W Kernighan & Dennis M Ritchie's classic "The C Programming Language" with the elder horrors of HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos has alerted me to the urgent problem of inadvertent dimensional rifts that may be opened through poor programming practice:
And yet I saw them in a limitless stream- flopping, hopping, croaking, bleating- sorting themselves inhumanly through the spectral moonlight in a grotesque, malignant saraband of fantastic nightmare. Their croaking, baying voices called out in the hideous language of the Old Ones:
void Rlyeh
(int mene[], int wgah, int nagl) {
int Ia, fhtagn;
if (wgah=nagl) return;
swap (mene,wgah,(wgah+nagl)/2);
fhtagn = wgah;
for (Ia=wgah+1; Ia
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