All this rivalry, however, was conducted with the utmost good humour, Mrs. Sawyer, for the National, insisted that her society was larger and older—that the United was merely a smaller, later society. To this I replied that the analogy of organic nature held good—the National was the crude, primitive, coarsely organised monster of prehistoric times—the dinosaur or pterodactyl of amaterudom; gigantic in size and anterior in date, but forced in the course of evolution to give way to the later-comer of smaller size but incomparably greater intelligence—the United, corresponding to mankind. This bit of biological repartee seemed well received, judging from the hilarity it caused. — H. P. Lovecraft to Sarah Susan Lovecraft, 24 Feb 1921, Letters to Family and Family Friends 1.28
According to the 1880 Federal census, she was born Laura Anna Moody in Massachusetts in May 1865, the youngest of three children of Nathaniel D. Moody and Eliza M. Moody; her older brothers were Everett E. Moody and John T. Moody. The family history is a bit vague; her father served for a month in the Union army in 1864, and by the time Laurie was 15 in 1880 the federal census lists her parents as running an alms-house. Later census records indicate that Laurie A. Moody graduated highschool, and a marriage is recorded 25 November 1885 with Charles Millet Sawyer, a salesman; from that point on, she was known as Laurie A. Sawyer.
The 1900 Federal census lists a child: Marshall M. Sawyer, age 8 (born 18 Jul 1891). However, the census also lists that Laurie bore two children; Lovecraft refers in one letter to “the eldest of the now grown, wedded, and departed Sawyer boys” (LFF1.33), so there was another son the census lists failed to capture. A little digging revealed birth, baptism, and death records, and gravestone for Gerald Francis Sawyer (b. 10 Nov 1889, d. 13 Jun 1897); such childhood mortalities were all too common.
Her profession in 1900 and 1920 Federal censuses is given as “housewife,” while the 1910 Federal census lists Laurie as a bookkeeper at an electrician’s office, and 1930 Federal census lists her doing clerical work at Symphony Hall. She was, at any rate, literate, good with numbers, and had some talent for organization.
Mrs. Sawyer, though widely read, makes less claim to literary achievements than the others; being noted chiefly for a scintillant and inimitable humour which is employed on all occasions both in speech and on paper. Such a perpetual fountain of wit is quite remarkable, and is much more acceptable to amateurdom than the dull and heavy effusions of less gifted but more ambitious scribblers. […34] Subjects tended to change according to audience—thus Mrs. Miniter seemed mainly interested in the past history of amateurdom, Mrs. Sawyer in present amateur controversies, and Miss Jackson in general literary and poetical matters. — H. P. Lovecraft to Sarah Susan Lovecraft, 24 Feb 1921, Letters to Family and Family Friends 1.33, 34
It is not clear when Laurie A. Sawyer began in amateur journalism. She is listed in 1909 as the final President of the Interstate Amateur Press Association, and newspaper accounts in 1916 list her among the attendees of the National Amateur Press Association. By the time Lovecraft met her at an amateur gathering in Boston in 1920, Sawyer was a staunch member of the Hub Club, associated with the NAPA, and her house at 20 Imrie Road in Allston, a suburb of Boston, was a gathering place where she hosted dinners. Sawyer’s correspondence with Lovecraft appears to date from after this meeting, as there is a brief reference to it in Lovecraft’s letters:
I have not heard from the Hubited—save the mimeographed Sept. meeting card—for a month or so; not since I sent Mrs. Sawyer those anti-National verses I quoted you. — H. P. Lovecraft to Winifred Virginia Jackson, 7 Oct 1921, Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner & Others 335
Lack of further reference suggests that this correspondence was likely brief and impersonal, dealing with amateur affairs, submission and proofreading of poetry to be published in various amateur journals, etc. Which was apparently sufficient contact for her to be included among Lovecraft’s Christmas Greetings. How much they kept in touch is purely speculative, although they met at occasional amateur gatherings in Boston, there would have been a long gap during Lovecraft’s marriage and move to New York.
After the 1930 NAPA convention that they both attended, Sawyer published the one-shot amateur periodical Mrs. Dooley Attends The Convention (Aug 1930). “Mrs. Dooley” was a parody of the popular Mr. Dooley article series that ran in Chicago about a stereotypical Irishman; Sawyer wrote her with a thick brogue, and Lovecraft commented once on her “Dooley papers” which indicates a semi-regular series of such humorous productios (CE 1.296). She describes several of the attendees, including Lovecraft:
Mr. Lovecraft came up from Providence, the same fine lad as iver. Wan thing he did that no wan else has iver done at the Dooley house—he tamed the wild baste we have there that answers fer a cat. Shure she is a baste, she scratches an bites ivery wan what comes near her but he petted her fer a good half hour, while I meself just held me breath ivery minit, I was that scared.
This is a bit of fun—on his 1921 visit, Lovecraft also spent quite some time petting the Sawyer’s cat, which was named ‘Tat’ at that time. In his own account of the July 1930 convention, Lovecraft noted that:
The gathering on this occasion assumed an aspect of happy reincarnation of the Old days, beginning with one of Mrs. Sawyer’s old-fashioned New England bean suppers […] It was symbolic of the spirit of reincarnation and propitious Renaissance that the 1921 convention napkins, properly surcharged for 1930 purposes, were provided for use at this function. —H. P. Lovecraft, “The Convention” in The Tryout (Jul 1930), in Collected Essays 1.363
However, 1930 would not be a happy year overall for Laurie A. Sawyer. On 11 November 1930, her husband Charles M. Sawyer passed away, two weeks to the day to what would have been their 45th wedding anniversary.
The next indication of further epistolary contact is over a decade later, with the death of Edith Dowe Miniter and the disposal of her mother’s cremains:
Regarding the logical person to visit the libitinarius & secure the cinerary reliques—I don’t see why Mrs. Sawyer is so necessarily such. She has (vide suam epist.) merely notified amateurdom of a condition, & left it up to others what to do about it. The only thing necessary in connexion with her is to thank her (which Culinarius can do) & assure her that something will be done. That would constitute no slight—in fact, I fancy she’d even prefer it, since she has plainly stated her inability to get about much now in cold weather (& how I sympathise!). Of course, if some sort of credentials were required to claim the urn, she could be called up or written—but that might not be needed. […] From the tone of Mrs. Sawyer’s letter I see no ground for Cook’s fear that she will obtrusively butt in. — H. P. Lovecraft to Edward H. Cole, 11 Feb 1935, Letters to Alfred Galpin & Others 104
I enclose a letter received today from Laurie Sawyer. She acts very fine about the matter,—willing to help but no obtrusiveness. In fact, her idea is the same as yours and mine. If Cole will do this it will be a magnificent thing.
Hastily Cook […]
The important thing, of course—as Mrs. Sawyer says—is to get the task performed . . . no matter how or by whom!—W. Paul Cook to H. P. Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft to Edward H. Cole, 19 Feb 1935, Letters to Alfred Galpin & Others 105
The disposal of Mrs. Dowe’s ashes was a well-meant affair, probably made all the more difficult by having to arrange everything by letter and sorting out who had a sufficient family relationship to the deceased, geographic proximity, and willingness to take action. For more details, see Lovecraft’s correspondence with Mrs. C. H. Calkins. Laurie A. Sawyer is not known to be a relative, and appears to have merely brought the existence of the ashes and the question of their disposal to amateurdom’s attention. It is notable in the 1920 Federal census that there were several lodgers in the Sawyer house on Webster St., including the amateurs Winifred V. Jordan (living with her mother Myra Jackson) and Edith Miniter. That might have made it a convenient hub for amateur activities, and no doubt was a reason why Lovecraft visited Sawyer in 1920 and 1921, and such close proximity might explain how Sawyer knew of the ashes.
After this episode, there is no further mentions of Laurie A. Sawyer in Lovecraft’s letters, and no letters from her to Lovecraft (or vice versa) survive. Presumably, as Lovecraft’s involvement with the NAPA declined, so too did any reason for them to keep in touch.
The 1940 Federal census still lists Laurie A. Sawyer, now widowed, still alive at 74 and at her house on 20 Imrie Road where she had once entertained H. P. Lovecraft, Edith Miniter, and many other amateurs. A social security death index entry for Lauria A. Sawyer, born 3 May 1865, says she died in March 1965. We can only imagine what she might have thought of H. P. Lovecraft, her old associate in amateur journalism, whom she outlived by almost thirty years.
Most science fiction writers were once fans. There’s a habit they have, not of paying back, but of paying forward; I know of no other branch of literature where the established “names” so keenly encourage wannabe writers to become their competitors. —Terry Pratchett, “Paperback Writer” (2003) in A Slip of the Keyboard18
The development of organized science fiction/fantasy fandom in the United States during the 1930s was essential for the culture of writing that exists today. Fandom is older than those first fanzines, but the marriage of genre fiction and the amateur journalism organizational framework resulted in a movement that engaged people of all ages across a relatively narrow common interest, and encouraged recruitment, participation, and publication. Professional writers and fans didn’t just connect, they encouraged each other.
While not every fan was part of organized fandom, nearly every science fiction writer was a fan—and the extent of fandom networks in the United States, especially in the 1940s-1980s, is often remarkable. Big name fans and big name authors past, present, and future rubbed shoulders at conventions, corresponded, contributed to the same fanzines. Before the internet, social media consisted of the letters-columns of fanzines which might be read by as few as a handful or as many as dozens of people. It was smaller, more intimate, with all of its feuds and silliness that comes from people just being people, developing their own lingo and sharing an interest—which might include fiction, poetry, comics, radio, film, television—any media that existed, science fiction and media had touched, and so was fair game.
Over the past decade or so, efforts have been made to preserve and digitize some of these fanzines; to capture these communications (however poorly and cheaply printed) for future generations. While many pages have about as much interest as your average forum thread from the 1990s, there is gold dust among the spill, if you’re willing to sluice it out.
One nugget that emerged from the depths of the Fan History Project (fanac.org) is Lighthouse #15 (1967), which includes “The Invaders vs. The Milford Mafia” by Joanna Russ. For readers used to Russ’ professionally published fiction, stories like “I Had Vacantly Crumpled It into My Pocket … But By God, Eliot, It Was a Photograph from Life!” (1964) and “My Boat” (1976), this is something different. Fanfiction in the oldest sense of the word, not a story based on some fandom, but a story written by a fan, for fans. The title alone might clue savvy readers at the time what they’re in for: The Invaders (1967-1968) was a vaguely Hitchcokian science fiction thriller television series that ran for two seasons on the ABC network, a melodramatic cash-in on the UFO craze with perhaps a more than generous dollop of Red Scare paranoia thrown in.
Of course, alien invasion plots were standard fare for science fiction fans in the 60s and 70s—which is where the Milford Mafia comes in.
The Milford Science Fiction Writer’s Conference in 1956 was formed by three of Futurians: Damon Knight, James Blish, and Judith Merrill. Then as now, science fiction and fantasy fandom had a tendency toward cliquedom, and the Milford conference in particular addressed the literary quality of science fiction. Just as, thirty years before, H. P. Lovecraft had striven to raise the general literary level of amateur journalism, so too did the Milford attendees seek to raise the literary standards of science fiction, which eventually led to the formation of professional writers associations like the Science Fiction Writers of America. Those put out at the high-minded literary standards referred to attendees (or those pushing higher standards) as “the Milford Mafia”—and Russ would be using the term in a jocular fashion, counterpoising the rehashed plots of The Invaders episodes against the higher standards that some folks in science fiction were pushing for.
It’s a fun piece, silly and light-hearted, and in keeping with that spirit, Russ slipped in a little joke about Lovecraft:
Anyhow, here’s this poor slob of an architect, David Vincent, who alone knows that They are invading—though how he could find out, or why on earth he should be an architect, I can’t imagine, unless the Aliens have begun their plan to insidiously warp the human psyche by distorting the lines and angles of our better known architectural monuments like, for example, Grand Central Station. (Something of the sort happens in a Lovecraft story called The Call of Cthulhu, which I offer you free of charge, especially since it isn’t mine.)
Which is poking fun at a familiar element of Lovecraft’s story:
Without knowing what futurism is like, Johansen achieved something very close to it when he spoke of the city; for instead of describing any definite structure or building, he dwells only on broad impressions of vast angles and stone surfaces—surfaces too great to belong to any thing right or proper for this earth, and impious with horrible images and hieroglyphs. I mention his talk about angles because it suggests something Wilcox had told me of his awful dreams. He had said that the geometry of the dream-place he saw was abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours.
For readers who are familiar with Joanna Russ only for her fiction or her writings about fiction, this is an example of the fannish side of her: more playful, with all the in-jokes one would expect of someone that’s been part of the scene for a while. A good-natured piece of fluff that jokes about how bad television writing could be…and, perhaps, how bad science fiction could be, if writers didn’t strive harder.
The notice of the Algiers restaurant is charming; but alas, they spoil it all by babbling of “plain, home cooked food.” Alas, alas—when I crave dishes neither home cooked nor plain, but poisonously spiced with saffron and cardamon [sic] and ginger and fenugreek and cumin and chilis and cayenne and coriander and pepper; when I crave a place serving curry and kous-kous and sheesh kabab and humus bi-tahhini and babaghanouge, tacos, enchiladas, tamales, and what have you, smoking, fuming, exhaling corrosive blasts of weird spices and foreign condiments! But the decorative scheme and the historical note is indeed appealing. —E. Hoffmann Price to H. P. Lovecraft, postmarked 12 Sep 1934, MSS. Brown Digital Repository
Weird fiction and exoticism have long gone hand-in-hand; from the 1,001 Nights and William Beckford’s Vathek to when Farnsworth Wright launched Oriental Stories as a companion to Weird Tales, the weird and fantastic in Western literature has often included a fascination for other cultures, far places, the novelty of unfamiliar religions, folklore, art, music, and customs. At its worst, this tendency could lead to the promulgation of stereotypes and prejudice, Yellow Peril stories and Orientalism. Yet for many it represented an honest and active interest in other cultures, at a time when information on those cultures was often scarce and flawed.
Edgar Hoffmann Price (b. 3 Jul 1898, d. 18 Jun 1988) joined the army in 1917. As a private in the 15th Cavalry Regiment, he shipped out to Fort McKinley in the Phillippines with his unit. He passed through Honolulu in Hawaii, then a U.S. territory, to Manila. A few months later the unit returned to the continental U.S. from Manila via Nagasaki, Japan. Although his time in Asia was brief, Price soaked up the local color and remained for the rest of his life a devoted Asiaphile, fond of Turkish coffee, Persian carpets, Buddhism, Islam, and Asian food in general. His early pulp fiction in magazines like Weird Tales often featured Asian and Middle Eastern characters and settings, and his personal memoirs and letters include snatches of Arabic, personal anecdotes from his travels, affections such as signing his letters with a Chinese chop, and in making curry. When Lovecraft met Price for the first time, in New Orleans in 1932, Price reported:
When I mentioned my Indian curry recipe, he sighed. Not even he, with his love of spices from Araby and Ind, would be equal to a pot of curry—he had ingested quite too great a quantity of chili with beans.
Although HPL’s fame rests on his Olympic status in ice-cream eating, I remember him as one who found his peak in dishes featuring coriander, ginger, cardamom, fenugreek, cumin, oregano, tamarinds, and violent little peppers which tender-skinned folk should never touch until first putting on rubber gloves.
In two letters to his friend H. P. Lovecraft, Price gives his recipe for “East Indian curry.” But what is curry?
In the 1930s, “India” and “East India” in common use were synonymous with what was called British India or the British Raj. In 1858, the United Kingdom had taken over direct rule of the territories controlled by the East India Company in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, which would persist until the partition of India in 1947. While the British governed and frequently thought of India as more-or-less a single political and economic unit (notwithstanding the several nominally independent states which administered themselves, though under British suzerainty), the idea of a singular cultural or geographic “India” is a bit of an anachronistic simplification—or, perhaps more accurately, a colonial ideology imposed on the colonized.
The region historically comprising contemporary India (historically referred to as “Hindustan” or “Hind” after the Indus River) was never one single historical state, ethnicity, or identity. Rather, the region has throughout history been a multicultural and multiethnic crossroads; sometimes parts of it have been unified politically, but the peoples and polities of India often remained distinct—and this diversity extended to their approach to food. There was no single national cuisine of India; every individual region had its own peculiarities based on available ingredients, food traditions, and the cultural, social, and religious preferences and mores of the local population.
From Persia came rosewater and saffron; from Afghanistan and Central Asia, almonds, pistachios, raisins and dried fruit; from the Middle East, sweet dishes and pastries. They introduced sherbets and other sweetened drinks; pulaos and biryanis, elaborate dishes of rice and cooked meat; samosa, a meat- or vegetable-filled pastry; dozens of varieties of grilled and roasted meats called kabobs; yakhni, a meat broth; dopiaza, meat slowly cooked with onions; korma, meat marinated in yogurt and simmered over a slow fire; khichri, a blend of rice and lentils; jalebi, coils of batter deep-fried and soaked in sugar syrup; and nans other baked breads. —Colleen Taylor Sen,Curry: A Global History (2009), 19
The European colonial period in India began with the arrival of the Portuguese in the late 15th century, and introduced new foods from both Europe and the Americas to India, such as chili peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins, and turkeys. The Europeans brought along their own preferences and dietary habits, which were adapted to local conditions and ingredients. For example:
Vindaloo is normally regarded as an Indian curry, but in fact it is a Goan adaptation of the Portuguese dish carne de vinho e alhos, or meat cooked in wine vinegar and garlic. The name vindaloo is simply a garbled pronunciation of vinho e alhos. The Portuguese particularly savored the sour, but fruity, taste of meat marinated and cooked in wine vinegar. When they arrived in India, however, they found that Indians did not make vinegar, though a similar sour-hot taste was produced by south Indian cooks using a combination of tamarind and black pepper. Some ingenious Franciscan priests are said to have solved the problem by manufacturing vinegar from coconut toddy, the alcoholic drink fermented from the sap of the palm tree. This, combined with tamarind pulp and plenty of garlic, satisfied the Portuguese cooks. To this basic sauce they added a garam masala of black pepper, cinnamon, and cloves, some of the spices in search of which Vasco de Gama had made his way to the Malabar Coast in 1498. But the key ingredient, which gave bite to the granular sauce of vindaloo, was the chili. Like their Spanish counterparts in South America, the Portuguese in India had developed a liking for the fiery taste of the chili pepper and they used it in excessive quantities in a vindaloo. Some recipes call for as many as 20 red chilies. —Lizzie Collingham, Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors (2006), 67
A masala refers to a pre-prepared mix of spices. While most cooking in India before refrigeration would have been done with fresh ingredients and fresh-ground herbs and spices, each added to the dish separately at the appropriate time, sometimes ground herbs and spices would be pre-mixed together for convenience—an idea universal to many cultures, from French quatre épices and Chinese five spice powder (五香粉) to the pumpkin spice and Italian seasoning blends found in many North American grocery stores. Garam masala is the most common such spice blend, although “common” is perhaps a misnomer, as the ingredients and proportions vary from region to region and taste to taste. Common ingredients include cumin, fenugreek, turmeric, and coriander; other typical ingredients may include cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, dried chilies, black pepper, mustard seeds, curry leaves, fennel, asafetida, and bay leaves, though rarely all of these, and often in varied proportion.
When Europeans began to transmit recipes from India back to their own countries in the 17th century, one of the defining characteristics was the mix of spices used. In The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by Hannah Glasse, for instance, there is a recipe “To make a Currey the India[n] Way”:
Take two Fowls or Rabbits, cut them into ſmall Pieces, and three or four ſmall Onions, peeled and cut very ſmall, thirty Pepper Corns, and a large Spoonful of Rice, brown ſome Coriander Seeds over the Fire in a clean Shovel, and beat them to Powder, take a Tea Sponful of Salt, and mix all well together with the Meat, put all together into a Sauce-pan or Strew-pan, with a Pint of Water, let it ſtew ſoftly till the Meat is enough, then put in a Piece of Freſh Butter, about as big as a large Walnut, ſhake it well together, and when it is ſmooth and of a fine Thickneſs diſh it up, and ſend it to Table. If the Sauce be too thick, add a little more Water before it is done, and more Salt if it wants it. You are to obſerve the Sauce muſt be pretty thick.
Take two ſmall Chickens, ſkin them and cut them as for a Fricaſey, waſh them clean, and ſtew them in about a Quart of Water, for about five Minutes, then ſtrain off the Liquor and put the Chickens in a clean Diſh; take three large Onions, chop them ſmall and fry them in about two Ounces of Butter, then put in the Chickens and fry them together till they are brown, take a quarter of an Ounce of Turmerick, a large Spoonful of Ginger and beaten Pepper together, and a little Salt to your Palate; ſtrew all theſe Ingredients over the Chickens whilſt it is frying, then pour in the Liquor, and let it ſtw about half an Hour, then put in a quarter of a Pint of Cream, and the Juice of two Lemons, and ſerve it up. The Ginger, Pepper, and Turmerick muſt be beat very fine.
While Glasse uses European cooking terms like fricassee, fry, and stew, the process is reminiscent of an Indian cooking technique:
A common Indian cooking technique with no exact equivalent in the West is called in Hindi bhuna. Spices and a paste of garlic, onions, ginger and sometimes tomatoes are fried in a little oil until they soften. Pieces of meat, fish or vegetables are sautéed in this mixture. Small amounts of water, yogurt or other liquid are then added a little at a time. The amount of liquid added and the cooking time determines whether the dish will be wet or dry. This is the basic technique used in making the dishes called curries. —Colleen Taylor Sen, Curry: A Global History (2009) 24-25
This was the first form of “curry” in English, and while the language is a bit antiquated and the recipe pretty simple and straightforward, the essential takeaway is a dish like a stew or ragout, with a thick, spicy sauce. In a very broad sense, that is the definition of curry as it is currently used today; although in the more British sense of the term “a curry” can be used to refer to almost any dish associated with any of the cuisines associated with India. As Collingham puts it:
The idea of a curry is, in fact, a concept that the Europeans imposed on India’s food culture. Indians referred to their different dishes by specific names and their servants would have served the British with dishes that they called, for example, rogan josh, dopiaza, or quarama. But the British lumped all these together under the heading of curry. —Lizzie Collingham, Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors (2006), 114
The export food culture from India was (and is) a centuries-long process; new ingredients are swapped in and out, recipes simplified, translated, and transformed by different tastes. Islamic dietary laws are observed by Muslims in India, and similarly many Hindus are vegetarian; these aspects of culture and religion are reflected in their respective cuisines. By contrast, most Europeans did not have the same cultural mores against eating animals except in certain circumstances (such as Catholic fast days), so European curry recipes tend to reflect European eating habits with meat as a major ingredient.
As the British spread throughout India, the uniformity of British experience helped to transmit and to a degree unify disparate aspects of various regional cuisines, or at least to begin to export a version of those familiar dishes back to the United Kingdom and its colonies. It was the beginning of what would become a loose canon of “curry” dishes, including vindaloo, kedgeree, korma, mulligatawny soup, and kebabs/kabobs, but also a growing uniformity in how to prepare those dishes. These were dishes that came from all across India and its many food cultures, but were often transformed, simplified, and then formulated for easy preparation—often using curry powder.
Hannah Glasse in The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy provided instructions for the preparation of spice mixes, and so did many other recipe books. Those that were more accurate to indigenous Indian methods emphasized grinding your own spice pastes and powders, but the simplification and adaption of Indian food in Britain led to the commercialization of these masalas into pre-made curry pastes and powders. Curry powder, which often utilized similar ingredients to various Indian spice mixes, became a defining staple of the more Anglicized recipes, and through the British Empire spread the British idea of “curry from a can” around the world.
Which is about where curry lay in the Anglo-American world in the 1930s. The Immigration Acts of 1917 and 1924 prevented immigration from Asia, including British India, into the United States which limited the establishment of Indian restaurants during that period. Nevertheless:
By the end of the 1920s New York had half a dozen Indian restaurants known for their fiery curries, among them The Rajah on 44th Street, west of Broadway, and Ceylon India Inn on 49th Street, which operated until the mid-1960s. Thanks to racial exclusion laws, the country’s Indian population remained very small: only around 3,000 people in 1930, many of them students living in New York City. —Colleen Taylor Sen, Curry: A Global History (2009), 57
While Lovecraft did broaden his culinary horizons in New York City in the 20s, getting his first taste of everything from spaghetti to goulash, apparently he did not visit any of these Indian restaurants. If he had, Lovecraft might have found something very different from what we think of as Indian fast food today. The Indian takeaway fast food revolution in the United Kingdom, which has redefined “a curry” for the 20th century, didn’t take place until after World War II—and many dishes like chicken tikka masala had not been invented yet. The curry tradition that E. Hoffmann Price was familiar with would have been any of dozens of variations of a stew or ragout with a thick, spicy gravy, often served on or alongside rice.
After Price and Lovecraft met in New Orleans in 1932, they continued to keep in touch by mail, and in one letter Lovecraft confessed:
Another bit of ignorance. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted East Indian curry—a delicacy so universal in Bayonne that you even feed it to the dogs around the city gate. But if it’s what I think it is, I’d like it—for as you know from my response to chili con carne, I’m all for high seasonings. I suppose the Hindoos go in for that kind of thing because they have a genial climate plus a lack of that refrigeration which makes unseasoned meats dependable. I believe Worcestershire sauce (a favourite with me) is based on some sort of East Indian recipe, is it not? —H. P. Lovecraft to E. Hoffmann Price, postmarked 2 Mar 1933, Letters to E. Hoffmann Price67
This admission of ignorance requires a bit of explanation. Bayonne in France was where Price was stationed during World War I; presumably Lovecraft’s comment on curry was in response to something Price had mentioned at some point, either in person or in a letter that does not survive. “Genial climate” is a discreet reference to the tropical heat of India, since Lovecraft was sensitive to cold and enjoyed semi-tropical climates like that of Florida; “lack of refrigeration” is a reference to the popular (though false) stereotype that Indian cookery used spices to cover up the taste of spoiled meats, which wouldn’t keep in the heat. The reference to Worcestershire sauce reflects a legend used to promote Lea & Perrins’ sauce:
Many years ago Mrs. Grey, author of ‘The Gambler’s Wife’ and other novels, well known in their day, was on a visit at Ombersley Court, when Lady Sandys chanced to remark that she wished she could get some very good curry-powder, which elicited from Mrs. Grey that she had in her desk an excellent recipe, which her uncle, Sir Charles, Chief-Justice of India, had brought thence and given her. Lady Sandys said that there were some clever chemists in Worcester, who perhaps might be able to make up the powder; at all events, when they drove in after luncheon they would see.
Messrs. Lea & Perrins looked at the recipe, doubted if they could procure all the ingredients, but said they would do their best, and in due time forwarded a packet of the powder. Subsequently the happy thought struck some one in the business that the powder might, in solution, make a good sauce. The experiment was made, and by degrees the thing took amazingly. All the world, to its remotest ends, now knows of Worcestershire sauce as an article of commerce; and, notwithstanding that, in common with most good things, it is terribly pirated, an enormous trade is done in it. The profits, I am told, amount to thousands of pounds a year, and I cannot but suppose that liberal checks, bearing the signature of Lea & Perrins, have passed from that firm to Mrs. Grey, to whom it is so indebted for its prosperity. —“History of Worcestershire sauce,” New York Times, 9 Feb 1884, quoted in History of Worcestershire Sauce(2012) by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi
Shurtleff and Aoyogi go on to quote Brian Koegh’s The Secret Sauce: A History of Lea & Perrins:
The section titled “The Sandy’s family” (p. 29-30) debunks the myth of an early and oft-repeated connection between “Lord Sandys” and the invention / discovery of Worcestershire sauce. It states: “… no Lord Sandys (either as Sandys of Hill) was ever a governor of Bengal, or as available records show, ever in India. The identity of the nobleman thus remains an intriguing mystery.”
While the Lea & Perrins legend was basically public relations and embellished over time, it struck a chord with consumers (like Lovecraft), and there is probably a note of truth in it insofar as the original recipe derived from soy sauce, catsups, and Indian spice mixes, tweaked for British tastes.
Which is a long way to say that Lovecraft was effectively ignorant of Indian food except that it was supposed to be spicy. E. Hoffmann Price decided to educate his friend by sending him a recipe for a curry:
East Indian Curry: a dish prepared perfectly in but 2 places holy Shamballah, and the Throne Room.
Directions: Into a small pot put a tablespoon of butter, brown a finely minced, small onion, then a finely minced clove of garlic; add sliced mutton (raw or roasted) veal, chicken, as you wish; add suitable amount of curry powder (conglomerate of from 5 to 10 spices—coriander, turmeric, ginger, cardamon [sic], cloves, pepper, god knows what, including fenugreek) and sauté the meat (if raw, until done; if previously cooked or roasted, until permeated with the fragrance of spices) then add 4 cloves, a cup of soup stock, let simmer 20-30 minutes, then add cup of cream or evaporated milk, thickened with spoonful dissolved cornstarch; stirr [sic] smooth, and when well wobbled around, you are ready to serve, by dumping the tawny, golden curry into the center of a fortress of cooked rice, which forms a parapet about the edge of a platter. May be garnished with sliced, cooked eggs.
Curry may be made, substituting cooked eggs for meat.
A glass of sherry may be added just before serving. Optional.
Lemon rind may be grated into the simmering hell brew. Optional.
It is a dish for gods and demons, and for men also. Oh, divine Curry! It is the peer of dishes, and withal simple.
Get a 15¢ can of curry and try it. Cross[e] & Blackwell has a very good powder, uniform of strength, excellent of flavor, but it costs about 50¢ (though the bottle hold more than a small spice can. —E. Hoffmann Price to H. P. Lovecraft, postmarked 10 Mar 1933, MSS. Brown Digital Repository
Crosse & Blackwell produced one of the first British commercial curry powders, and helped define the taste of Anglo-Indian curry. The pre-mixed spice was ideal for feeding masses of troops, and was adopted by the British Navy for that purpose, which introduced it to Japan. C&B curry powder became the standard for Japanese curry in the early 20th century, until the curry scandal of 1931, when it was found that many of the curry powders sold in Japan were local mixes being sold fraudulently under the C&B brand. Since then, Japan has embraced many different curry powders, and the C&B brand has now been sold and resold. The old jars of vibrant yellow powder are no longer for sale, although the curry powder itself continues to be produced for the Japanese market.
Tracing Price’s recipe back to an original source is tricky. It contains similar elements to several contemporary recipes, and it has features of a number of Anglicized Indian foods, including the inclusion of sliced hard boiled eggs and fried onion (common garnishes), the use of lemon rind (in place of tamarind) to add a note of sour. Curry powder instead of individual spices is highly characteristic of British curries, but unusually Price does not use the curry powder with flour to form a roux, which is also a common attribute of early 20th century recipes. The use of evaporated milk and cornstarch to thicken the gravy seems characteristic of an early 20th-century recipe, since evaporated milk became widely available commercially in the 1920s. While stewing meat in wine harks back to the Portuguese tradition, the addition of sherry “just before serving” seems more like Price’s personal taste. Perhaps like many cooks he simply adjusted the recipe to taste and available ingredients over time; he notably doesn’t give any directions for the soup stock.
Lovecraft was delighted:
Your explanation of the inward nature of curry is surely a tantalisation of the palate! I must sample this gift of the Djinns, in all its perfection, either at the Peacock Thone or in the Citadel of Holy Shamballah, before I make the final incantation precipitating me into Avichi. In the interim, if I can find any 15¢ cans (what’s the make?) I shall make this one of my regular dietary items in place of Campbell’s soups & Heinz’s beans & spaghetti. We shall see . . . . but I won’t make the mistake of confounding any base commercial imitation with the real thing, as prepared according to the precepts in the Book of Dzyan. —H. P. Lovecraft to E. Hoffmann Price, postmarked 24 Mar 1933, Letters to E. Hoffmann Price 73
References to Shamballah, Avichi, and the Book of Dzyan reflect the fact that Lovecraft and Price had been discussing Theosophy, a new religion which drew in part on Eastern esoteric religion for its lore and trappings. The “Peacock Throne” would be Price’s own home; Price had made a habit of reference to Tawûsî Melek (rendered as Malik Taus and variations), the “Peacock Angel” of Yazidi religion, in several of his stories, and Lovecraft had made it a nickname for Price himself.
Lovecraft, like many men during the 1920s and 30s, was raised completely ignorant of cooking. He learned during his brief marriage and years of bachelordom to produce some simple meals so as not to be eating out for every meal, but even these were largely based around pre-packaged or canned foodstuffs, such as the increasingly popular canned spaghetti dinners. This also suited Lovecraft’s pocketbook, since canned goods were generally relatively cheap and kept for long periods of time.
Price, unfortunately, appears to have lost Lovecraft’s question on curry brands in a flurry of short responses on postcards (and Lovecraft appears to have misunderstood that Price was talking about canned curry powder, not a meal-in-a-can). When E. Hoffmann Price made it to Providence in late June 1933, he made his curry for Lovecraft and his friend Harry K. Brobst. In his memoir, Price recalls:
The curry and its preparation fascinated HPL, all the more so because of our discussions of it by mail. At last, he was observing the process, sampling from time to time, as I developed the sauce in which cubes of mutton would simmer.
“By building it up gradually,” I told him, “I’ll get exactly to your taste. At the moment, we have something for women and children, and the American public—a pallid, gutless gravy. Yes, the odor is delightful, but—”
“Bland,” he conceded, as did Harry, after sampling.
I added more spice. After this has blended into the sauce, I asked, “Still more chemicals and acids?”
“Savoury. By no means lacking in fire, but this is not the blighting, blasting, searing mixture you described. Harry?”
“I’m still with you.”
More spicings, more samplings.
Finally HPL said, “To assert that this would raise blisters on a cordovan bot would be poetic exaggeration. Another increment of spices would make your description a statement of fact. If Harry agrees, be pleased to serve us this ambrosia and nectar.”
A few decades later, Brobst remembered the event but had little to add:
We made some Indian curry, and we had some beer—we had a pleasant evening. —Will Murray, “An Interview with Harry K. Brobst” in Ave Atque Vale 322
Price went on to add that Lovecraft relished the curry and rice. This may be why soon after the visit that Price repeated a slightly simplified version of this recipe was later included in another letter:
Indian Curry: In a small pot dump some butter, and brown therein minced onions (1/2 a small onion); when beginning to brown, it is desirable but not necessary to add a clove of minced garlic, & brown. Add 1 cup of thinly sliced veal, lamb, mutton, or chicken—either fresh or previously roasted or cooked. In either case, add 2 teaspoons of curry powder, and let the mixture simmer until, in the case of raw meat, it is done, or if roasted meat is used, until well saturated by the fragrant spices. Then add 1 cup of soup stock or lacking that, a cup of bouillion [sic] made of beef cubes. Let simmer 10 minutes; add 2/3 cup evaporated milk or cream, which has been thickened with teaspoonful cornstarch, and heat until sauce is smooth & thick. Serve with cooked rice. An egg Curry is made as above except that in lieu of meat being sauté[e]d, a curry flavored gravy is prepared & thickened, and into it hard cooked eggs are sliced—and served as noted. —E. Hoffmann Price to H. P. Lovecraft, 15 Jul 1933, MSS. Brown Digital Repository
Lovecraft duly responded:
Thanks abundantly for the mystical curry formula. I’ll certainly have some adept prepare a brazier full before long, to offer up to the gods of Shalmali & Shamballah —H. P. Lovecraft to E. Hoffmann Price, 19 Jul 1933, Letters to E. Hoffmann Price 88
Taken together, these recipes and descriptions should be enough to make a reasonable approximation of Price’s dish.
An Interpretation of E. Hoffmann Price’s Curry
1 tbsp. [14 g] butter* 1/2 small onion [~60-65 g], minced 1 clove garlic, minced 1 cup [340 g] meat (veal, lamb, mutton, or chicken), thinly sliced** 2 tsp. [10-12 g] curry powder*** 4 whole cloves 1 cup [340 g] soup stock**** 2/3 cup [115 g] evaporated milk 1 tsp. [5-6 g] cornstarch; stir this into the milk before cooking 3 hardboiled eggs, peeled and sliced 1-2 cups [340-780 g] rice***** 2 tbsp [28-30 g] sherry****** 1 tsp. [5-6 g] grated lemon rind
* Many traditional Indian dishes call for ghee (clarified butter), and if you have that, use it. Price would probably have been using regular salted butter from the supermarket. Almost any other cooking oils (e.g. coconut, olive, avocado, lard, schmaltz, etc.) can work, just avoid ones with a low smoke point (e.g. salad oils, etc.). ** Price doesn’t specify the cut of meat, but generally you’ll want something without bones or excess fat (i.e. bacon is going to make a quite greasy curry). If it’s a very tough piece of meat like beef brisket, marinate it in yogurt overnight. Price specified “raw or roasted,” and the recipe works whether the meat is pre-cooked or raw, but if the meat is uncooked it will need to cook longer in the pan. Remember to wash your hands & cooking area after handling raw meat! *** Crosse & Blackwell curry powder is still available in Japan, and possibly on the international market. In a pinch, S&B Oriental Curry Powder is generally much more available and has a very similar flavor. **** You can purchase stock or bouillon or make your own (handy 1926 recipe for go-getters); ideally, the stock should complement the meat (e.g. beef stock for veal, chicken stock for chicken, etc.) Prepare the stock before you begin cooking your curry. ***** Price doesn’t specify the amount or type of rice or how he cooks it, so it’s up to you. Electric rice cookers were first introduced in 1923, so feel free to use one, but Price would have boiled his rice in a pot on the stovetop. While any rice you like will do, Price probably would have reached for Basmati rice if it was available. Rinse the rice to remove any powder that will make it extra sticky, and remember to add a pinch of salt and a tsp. [5-6 g] of butter or oil per cup of rice to the water when cooking. ****** Price does not specify the type of sherry (a fortified wine traditionally made in Spain’s Jerez de la Frontera region), and maybe didn’t know the difference between cooking sherry and a drinking sherry like Amontillado. Use a cooking sherry or a dry drinking sherry like Fino. Price specified “a glass” (~4 ounces/113-115 g), but that’s probably excessive if you’re just looking to add the flavor of the wine. If you don’t drink alcohol, skip this, or use 1 tbsp [14-15 g] of white wine vinegar, just to get some of the flavor. Price would have left this out when making curry for Lovecraft, who was a teetotal.
0) Prepare the rice and boil the eggs. When finished cooking, toss the rice to fluff it up, then keep the dish covered.
1) In a medium sauce pan, place the heat on medium high, melt the butter, and sauté the onion and garlic for 3-4 minutes, but don’t let it brown. Then lower the heat.
2) Add in the curry powder—the oils will accentuate the flavor of the spices—and stir until the powder is absorbed by the liquid; let it cook for 1-2 minutes. If you burn the curry powder (you should be able to smell it before you see it blacken if you do), rinse out the pan and start over with fresh ingredients at a lower heat.
3) Add the meat. Toss lightly, so that the meat is evenly coated, then let it cook. Eating raw or undercooked meat is dangerous, so make sure the meat is cooked thoroughly, which should take 8-10 minutes depending on the thickness. Stir to keep anything from sticking to the bottom of the pan, and so the meat cooks through. For thicker cuts of meat, cook longer. If something starts to burn, you’ve gone too far; take it off the heat for a minute, add a little water, and stir, then move it back onto the heat and keep an eye on it. Repeat as needed.
4) Toss in the whole cloves and add the soup stock; try to avoid anything sticking to the bottom of the pan. Wait for the stock to begin to simmer.
5) Stir in the milk and cornstarch slurry. Adding colder liquid will lower the heat of the whole sauce, so do it gradually and try and keep it simmering.
6) Stir until the color is and consistency is even—probably a bright yellow or brown; there might be pools of oil on the surface, that’s fine, the rice will soak it up. Let it simmer and reduce until the gravy is thick enough for your liking, stirring occasionally.
7) Sample the curry and add spice to taste. If you’re adding in the sherry, do it now, stirring constantly, but don’t let it continue to cook for more than 3-4 minutes.
8) When everything is simmering, consistent in color, and hot enough for your taste, turn off the heat, and pour or ladle the curry onto the serving-dish with the rice. Price and many others liked to have the rice around the edges of the serving-dish.
9) Add sliced hardboiled eggs and sprinkle on the lemon rind just before serving.
For the example dish above, I cut up a lamb chop (the bones are in the pot in the back burner, to make stock). I used S&B curry powder and bismati rice, but left out the sherry. No points for presentation.
The resulting mix isn’t hot in terms of Scoville ratings; the spice blend in commercial curry powder tends to be stale and can be a bit bland for those used to cooking with fresh spices and whole chilies. However, if it doesn’t make your tongue burn it is pleasantly aromatic and piquant, and goes well with fluffy rice. Price’s curry is a long way from the actual Indian dishes that inspired it.
Yet once you appreciate the basic nature of the recipe, you can also see how flexible and easy it was to tweak to individual tastes. Chicken on sale at the supermarket? Make a chicken curry. Leftover turkey from Thanksgiving dinner? Turkey curry. Vegetarian? No problem; switch out the meat for your mixed vegetables of choice and the meat stock for vegetable stock. Allergic to dairy? Swap out the butter for coconut oil and thicken the sauce with an equal amount of coconut milk or almond flour instead of evaporated milk. Not hot enough? Add more spice. Fresh spices, different spices. Want to throw some sultanas or chutney in there? No one can stop you. Price himself often varied things a little:
Kiki & Potlikker have licked the East Indian curry from a plate, and seem to relish it. Potlikker’s 1st experience at curry. This was a blighting, blasting, devastating curry of intolerable power. It was worthy to be served in Malayan or Javanese style—with 5 servants to approach with trays of “sanbals” or relishes—embalmed Chinese eggs; mangoes; minced coconut; pickled walnuts; slices of pineapples; chutney; dried Bengal fish, faintly suggestive in odor of zoological specimens not thoroughly preserved; and numerous other relishes. 40 assorted “sanbals” is adequate; but I had to content myself with pickled beets & cauliflower. —E. Hoffmann Price to H. P. Lovecraft, postmarked 23 Oct 1936, MSS. Brown Digital Repository
Kiki and Potlikker were two of Price’s cats; the word he’s looking for is usually rendered in Latin characters as sambal, which refers to a spicy Indonesian chili sauce or paste, or a dish that uses sambal as an ingredient. While European food culture typically serves food in courses, Indian and Southeast Asian food cultures tend to present all the food at once at the beginning of the meal. Thus, a diner at a formal or elaborate meal might be confronted with a table covered with many bowls or plates, with a number of differently-compounded dishes, relishes, and condiments to try. Many of the items Price lists are part of authentic Indian dishes, and might easily find themselves in an Anglo-Indian curry, or accompanying one.
Curry in Context
“Authenticity” is a bit of an odd concept when talking about something practically unrecognizable compared to its source. While Price may have thought he was making an authentic Indian dish, what he was actually making was a translated, redefined Anglo-Indian fusion cuisine dish—and if you look at it as an example of that tradition, it is as authentic as any other curry descended from Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy and its many culinary literature cousins.
To E. Hoffmann Price and H. P. Lovecraft, curry was an exotic food item, a literal taste of a distant culture that they had read about all their lives but had never—and would never—experience for themselves. Their reactions to Anglo-Indian food in their letters are rife with ignorance, stereotypes, and an Orientalism verging on mysticism, but also enthusiasm to try new things and appreciation for something different from their standard bill of fare. In an era when there was so little Indian food made in the United States, where legal barriers prevented immigration and discriminated against immigrants—this little home-cooked meal was almost as close as they could get to a taste of India.
Price was one of the few pulpsters who had met Lovecraft and his contemporaries in person, and over the long decades of his life, he became something of a memoirist, writing the stories of his visits with friends long dead. The tale of that pot of curry was told and retold, over and over. To give a taste:
But in other fields we see each other eye to eye: blistering hot and blighting chili con carne, East Indian curry that would raise welts on a pack saddle, and devastating coffee, night-black and strong enough to tan an ox-hide, are among his greatest gustatory delights. —E. Hoffmann Price, “The Sage of College Street” in Amateur Correspondent (May-June 1937)
He relished highly spiced dishes; and when, a year or so later, I saw him in Rhode Island, he asked me to make him the Indian Curry I had described. The spices—coriander, ginger, cardamon, fenugreek, pepper, Lord alone knows what else—caught his ear, and the blistering, blasting sauce tickled his palate. —E. Hoffmann Price, “Howard Phillips Lovecraft” in The Acolyte (Fall 1944)
While Harry was getting the six-pack, I was making the curry, and HPL was sampling it.
“Is it hot enough for you?”
“Ah, a few more spices from Araby and the Indies would help.”
So I dumped in more curry powder, and yet more. When it was hot enough to raise blisters on a pack saddle, he said, “It is just about right.” —E. Hoffmann Price, “Reminiscences of HPL” in HPL (1971)
Although HPL’s fame rests on his Olympic status in ice-cream eating, I remember him as one who found his peak in dishes featuring coriander, ginger, cardamom, fenugreek, cumin, oregano, tamarinds, and violent little peppers which tender-skinned folk should never touch until first putting on rubber gloves. —E. Hoffmann Price, Book of the Dead: Friends of Yesteryear: Fictioneers & Others (2001), 45
In this way, Price’s curry has become a small part of the myth and legend of H. P. Lovecraft.
Hay quienes consideran el género de TERROR como un subproductio. Es cierto que, como en todo, a veces domina una calidad ínfirma, pero no sólo en los Comics. También en cinema, televisión, literature…
Tal vez porque el tema se ha explotado a fondo con abusos commerciales aprovechando que a la gente le gustan las emociones fuertes y muchos, sin saberlo, las utilizan para liberarse de sus propios miedos. Pero también es cierto que otros se han servido de sus miedos para expresar sus sentimientos y emociones segun su condición psicológica dando lugar a las mejores obras del género. Tal as el caso de POE, LOVECRAFT, KAFKA, y muchos más.
El experto en la materia no dejará nunca de reconocer que el TERROR es un tema de gran interés que además nos revela la personalidad más intrínseca de sus autores. Por eso, repito, el TERROR no se debe subestimar a la ligera sin un previo análisis.
Conociendo lo suficiente (presumo) sobre la vida atormentada y la obra de Los maestros del terror, he seleccionado una serie de relations pasándolos al Comic, Bien adaptando fielmente algunos, Bien dando mi toque personal a otros.
Y aquí está el resultado: Este libro con el que deseo rendir homenaje a los «GRANDES DE LO MACABRO».
Espero que lo pasen de miedo.
There are those who consider the TERROR genre as a by-product. It is true that, as in everything, sometimes a low quality dominates, but not only in Comics. Also in cinema, television, literature…
Perhaps because the topic has been thoroughly exploited with commercial abuse, taking advantage of the fact that people like strong emotions and many, without knowing it, use them to free themselves from their own fears. But it is also true that others have used their fears to express their feelings and emotions according to their psychological condition, giving rise to the best works of the genre. Such is the case of POE, LOVECRAFT, KAFKA, and many more.
The expert on the subject will never fail to recognize that TERROR is a topic of great interest that also reveals the most intrinsic personality of its authors. Therefore, I repeat, TERROR should not be underestimated lightly without prior analysis.
Knowing enough (I presume) about the tormented life and work of The Masters of Terror, I have selected a series of relations, transferring them to the Comic, either faithfully adapting some, or giving my personal touch to others.
And here is the result: This book with which I wish to pay tribute to the “GREAT OF THE MACABRE.”
I hope you have a scary time.
Introduction to Homenaje: Grandes de Los Macabro (1985)
English translation
Joan Boix (born Juan Boix Sola Segales in Badalona, Spain) is not well-known to English-reading audiences, although he has had a long career both in Spain and internationally, able to turn his hand from everything from romance comics in the 1960s to being one of the artists that drew The Phantom comic strip in the 1990s. Yet for those who appreciate horror comics, Joan Boix holds a special place for his work in that field. Even there, in English his work is a bit of a footnote: a story in Marvel’s Monsters Unleashed #5 (1974), which was reprinted in the Monsters Unleashed Annual (1975). Yet his Spanish-language work, never translated into English, is his best. And in 1985 he published a collection of adaptations of classic horror fiction: Homenaje: Grandes de Los Macabro (Tribute: Greats of the Macabre).
“La Maldicion del Amuleto” is an adaption of H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Hound.” In Spanish, the story is typically translated as “El Sabueso,” and while there are many words for dog in Spanish (perro, can or canino, cacharro (“puppy”), chandoso, etc.) “sabueso” has the specific meaning of a hunting dog; we might even say “bloodhound” in English. Which is a nice shade of meaning, given the context.
Boix’s tastes in terms of illustration are gloriously Gothic, redolent of an 18th-century macabre that recalls the horror films of Hammer Films in Britain and Profilmes in Spain. There’s that sense that Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, or Paul Naschy could step onto the panel at any time, and be right at home.
The starkness of the black-and-white works to Boix’s advantage; there are single panels that could be glorious two-page spreads, with a lot of detail that might have been muddied by a careless colorist. The chiaroscuro effect is glorious, the kind of deep shadows that drink in the light which would inspire the likes of Mike Mignola’s signature aesthetic.
For sheer joie de morte, however, Boix’s tendency to revel in a single panel is hard to top. It’s a world where the moon is always full and glaring like the eye of some forgotten God, where every tombstone is encrusted with grave-mould, and the collection of the pair of necrophiles would put Hammer’s prop department into giddy ecstasies of macabre delight.
I think quicksilver leaps along his veins, And if you look too deeply in his eyes, You’ll see behind the ice-thin laughter there The smouldering glimpse of fateful sorceries.
I think that if you listen while he speaks You’ll catch a foreign ac[c]ent on his tongue, That hints a language built of stars and wine A syntax all with fiery jewels strung.
I think that if you miss him some dark night You should not be surprised or wonder where He’s gone; look up, Arcturus greenly burns— Do you not see him on that shining stair? —Evelyn Thorne
The second issue of Alan H. Pestetsky and Michael DeAngelis’ fanzine Asmodeus (Fall 1951) was devoted primarily to Clark Ashton Smith. Lovecraft had been receiving accolades in The Acolyte in the 1940s, so it was only fair. The issue republished a poetic tribute by Lovecraft to his friend, as well as “The Cup-Bearer” (1951) by Lilith Lorraine, and buried among other works was the above dedication by Eveyln Thorne.
While she is mostly forgotten now, in the 1950s Evelyn Aixa Thorne was actively involved with science fiction fandom, not necessarily a Big Name Fan, but not insignificant either. A brief biographical essay in Poets in the South says she was born in Nebraska in 1898, educated in the College of Puget Sound and the University of Arizona, and lived all over the country “working as an interior decorator, an X-ray txnician, and a botancial illustrator” (78). She married William Richmond Tullos in 1946, they divorced in 1952, remarried in 1954, and remained married until his death in 1974.
Thorne is probably best-remembered as co-publisher/co-editor of the New Athenaeum Press with Will Tullos, which published Epos: A Quarterly of Poetry, from 1949 until 1975, which published three of Clark Ashton Smith’s poems. She was also associate-editor of Challenge (1950-1951) under Lilith Lorraine, who also published some of Thorne’s poetry elsewhere. Her books of poetry were Design in a Web (1955), Ways of Listening (1969), and Of Bones and Stars (1982); she also published anthologies of poetry from Epos.
There is a certain incestuous quality to fantastic poetry in the 1950s, an intersection between the “little magazine” movement and science fiction/fantasy fanzines which echos the intersection between amateur journalism and science fiction fandom in the 1930s. That Evelyn Thorne knew and appreciated Clark Ashton Smith as a poet is clear. The reference to “Arcturus” in particular is curious; Smith refered to Arcturus in three poems first published in The Star-Treader and Other Poems (1912): “To the Sun,”“The Song of a Comet,” and “Saturn”—all cosmic poems that echoed or were influenced by Smith’s mentor George Sterling’s “The Testimony of the Suns” (1903).
A detail Smith no doubt appreciated, when he read that tribute.
S. Lilian Middleton-McMullen, whose works are now distinguished by publication in poetry magazines all over the country, is a discovery of Winifred V. Jackson’s, and an added plume in the cap of that noted poetess. She is a native of Ireland, of a loyal British Unionist family, and inherits a trace of French blood through a great-grandmother. In her heredity there is a definitely artistic element, as shewn by the fact that both her mother and sister are poets of no mean skill.
Mrs. McMullen was educated in English private schools, and originally specialised in music; being a violoncellist and pianiste of great ability, and to some degree a composer. At an early age she was given to the writing of verse, but these older specimens are notable only for grace and correctness. Amateurdom has seen two of them—“Late Autumn” in The Tryout, and “The ‘Cellist” in The United Co-operative. They are, quite obviously, juvenalia; though of unusual merit for such work. —H. P. Lovecraft, “The Poetry of Lilian Middleton” dated 14 January 1922, Collected Essays 2.51-52
Susan Lilian Smith was born in Ireland on 18 February 1886. According to the 1910 Federal census, she emigrated to the United States in 1909; as did Michael J. McMullen (b. 1883). The Massachusetts Marriage Index records a wedding in 1910 in Somerville; their first child, Kenneth Barry McMullen, was born on 16 March 1910. The young family are recorded in the Bronx, New York City, with Michael J. McMullen listed as overseer of a drug warehouse. A second son, Edwin Robinson “Robin” McMullen, followed on 10 July 1913.
By the time of the 1920 Federal census, the family was situated in Newton, Massachusetts, about 7 miles from downtown Boston, in their own home on Morton Street; Michael J. McMullen is listed as a broker. By this time, Susan Lilian McMullen and her sister had already been recruited for amateur journalism, and H. P. Lovecraft took notice of her.
The Silver Clarion for February is of ample size and ample merit. Opening the issue is an excellent poem in heroic couplets by Mrs. Stella L. Tully of Mountmellick, Ireland, a new member of the United. Mrs. Tully, whose best work is in a lyric and religious vein, is one endowed with heriditary or family genius; as the Association no doubt appreciated when reading the poetry of her gifted sister, Mrs. S. Lilian McMullen of Newton Centre, in the preceding issue of The United Amateur. —H. P. Lovecraft, “Department of Public Criticism” (Mar 1919), United Amateur, Collected Essays 1.225
One of the editors of The Silver Clarion was Winifred Virginia Jackson, and Mrs. McMullen and Mrs. Tully were apparently two of her recruits for the United Amateur Press Association. Lovecraft mentions her poetry a few times in his editorials, and it was generally positive. At this stage in his life, Lovecraft was getting out and meeting amateurs more often with occasional trips to Boston, and it was on one such trip he met S. Lilian McMullen in the flesh:
Mrs. McMullen was present, & prepared to argue over a criticism I had recently applied to one of her verses; but I quickly ended the argument by calling in as my ally the omniscient James Ferdinand [Morton], from whose decisions there is no appeal. (The question had to do with the use of “mirror” as an intransitive verb. Such usage is incorrect.)[…]The best feature was Mrs. McMullen’s pathetic poem “Desiree Logier”, which is to appear in the July United Amateur. (I tried to get that poem on the front page, but Mrs. Renshaw overruled me.) —H. P. Lovecraft to Rheinhart Kleiner, 10 Sep 1920, Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner172
While a full record of her amateur and on-amateur writing isn’t available, it seems at some point between 1920 and 1921 she began to sometimes use the pseudonym Lilian Middleton. Her interests ran strongly to poetry and music, and she wrote both; Lovecraft noted:
The United takes pride in the new laurels of its scintillant and versatile members, Mrs. S. Lilian McMullen (Lilian Middleton), who is now writing songs for professional publication with the music of Ernest Harry Adams. The latest of these to appear is “The Bumble Fairy”, a dreamily exquisite piece already sung by several vocalists of note. […]
The Boston Amateur Conference of February 22, held at the Quincy House, was successful from every point of view […] A musical programme featuring Mrs. McMullen’s “Bumble Fairy” proved a delightful interlude. —H. P. Lovecraft, “News Notes” (Jan 1921), United Amateur, Collected Essays 1.269
Lovecraft would write at rather more length about the conference in a letter to his mother, which reads in part:
Samuel Loveman’s paper was very poetic—he had asked me to read it, but Mrs. Miniter (in charge of the programme) thought she had better assign it to Mrs. McMullen, who had not felt equal to preparing a paper of her own. Mrs. McM. read it with great success—but not without having to ask me beforehand how to pronounce the name of the neo-Platonic philosopher Plotinus! […] Following this, a musical programme was rendered with great success, the chief ingredient being the McMullen-Adams song, “The Bumble Fairy”, which you played the other day. Mrs. McM was reluctant to sing it, not possessing a voice quite up to her own standard of excellence; but her scruples were entirely unnecessary, since the rendition proved phenomenally pleasing. I was immensely glad to hear the piece played properly, and found that in my own crude picking out I had not correctly interpreted the time. This Ernest H. Adams is certainly a composer of the greatest possible ability, and I think Mrs. McM is singularly fortunate in her opportunity to write words for his airs. Neither suffers by comparison with the other—it is an ideal “team.”
[27] Mrs. McMullen was very glad to hear that you liked “The Bumble Fairy”, and bade me thank you for your favourable opinion. It appears to me that she is destined for professional prominence at an early date—sooner perhaps than many amateurs of even greater genius, such as Winifred V. Jackson and Samuel Loveman. […] The overwhelming majority were adherents of the rival on National Association (which is, of course, now friendly with the United), but the Jackson–McMullen–Theobald group formed a compact minority of purely United enthusiasts. —H. P. Lovecraft to Sarah Susan Lovecraft, 24 Feb 1921, Letters to Family and Family Friends 1.26, 27
Lovecraft and McMullen were, despite any disagreement over metrical regularities, apparently on friendly terms. It is difficult to say when exactly they began to correspond, what prompted the correspondence, how extensive it was or what subjects they covered. None of their letters survive, and we have fewer hints in Lovecraft’s essays and correspondence than usual. We know that Lovecraft included her among his Christmas greetings, and we know that her poem “The Crock of Gold” appeared in his own amateur journal The Conservative (Mar 1921), which suggests she mailed it to him, unless she handed it to him in person at one of the amateur gatherings.
Yet the relationship was probably cordial, not close.
In August 1921, Lovecraft attended an amateur gathering in Boston at the McMullen’s house on Morton St.; McMullen had won the poetry laureateship for 1921:
The Hub Club meeting was yesterday, but on account of the increasing political gap between the (Nationalite) Hub element & the United, [Edith Miniter] set Wednesday as the day for conferring at length with the United element—W. V. Jackson, Miss Hamlet, Mrs. McMullen, &c. […]
[39] After a short argument at this temporary halting-place, the expedition proceeded to 53 Morton St., which I have of course seen before. Here I met Mrs. McMullen, & had the honour of breaking to her the pleasing news that she has won the United’s 1921 Poet-Laureateship. […] After this non-esssential digression the evening assumed more of the aspect of an ordinary amateur gathering, the company being augmented by the arrival of W. V. J., Miss Crist, Mrs. Wurtz, & a neighbour of Mrs. McMullen’s whose name has slipped my memory but who ought to be remembered for the menagerie which she brought with her—two large collie dogs, & the most exquisite kitten I have beheld in aeons. Mrs. McMullen averred that the latter small gentleman was brought especially in my honour, my liking for the feline species being well known in amateurdom. […] Mrs. McMullen played & sang her “Bumble Fairy”, & Mrs. Renshaw sang two songs (of which she wrote the words) in an excellent contralto, with Miss Crist as accompanist. I inflexibly refused all requests for song, & categorically denied the accusation of W. V. J., Mrs. Miniter, & Mrs. McMullen that I could sing. […] So I let mesdames Renshaw & McMullen bear off all the honours. […] Pure literature, grammar, technique, ancient balladry, & the Irish situation (the McMullens are loyal British subjects & Protestants from Ireland) all received attention; & even D. V. Bush & remunerative endeavour were discussed. —H. P. Lovecraft to Annie Gamwell, 19 Aug 1921, Letters to Family and Family Friends 1.38, 39, 40
The Irish War of Independence (1919-1921) was a point of contention for Lovecraft, who was a lifelong Anglophile and was in favor of the British in the conflict. This put him at odds with anti-British, pro-independence amateur journalists like the Irish immigrant John Dunn, and exacerbated anti-Irish (and in a general sense, anti-Celtic/Gaelic) and anti-Catholic sentiments in Lovecraft. That the McMullens were both loyalists and protestants were both definite points in their favor as far as Lovecraft (and presumably his aunts) were concerned.
A few more notes on S. Lilian McMullen/Lilian Middleton appear in Lovecraft’s editorials. Later in 1921 he noted:
The continued successes of our Poet-Laureate, Mrs. S. Lilian McMullen (Lilian Middleton), cast additional lustre on the United as amateurdom’s chief source of authentic creative artists. Poetry by Mrs. McMullen appeared on the editorial page of the New York Times for October 15; a distinction which can be appreciated by those familiar with the standards of that celebrated publication. […303] Honours come rapidly to our poets. On November 5 The Literary Digest reprinted a poem of Mrs. McMullens’ from the New York Times […] —H. P. Lovecraft, “News Notes,” Nov 1921, United Amateur, Collected Essays 1.302-303
The poem was reprinted in the Literary Digest and several other newspapers.
In late 1921 or early 1922, Lovecraft wrote “The Poetry of Lilian Middleton”, the draft is dated 14 Jan 1922. It is not clear where this was intended to be published, but an abbreviated version of it was published in “The Vivisector” column in March 1922 (CE 1.315-316). How much contact Lovecraft had with S. Lilian McMullen after that is doubtful, one of his last words on her from this period was:
A special word is due the excellent portraits of eminent amateurs, among which is the first likeness of our poet-laureate, Mrs. S. Lilian McMullen (Lilian Middleton) ever published in Amateur Journalism. —H. P. Lovecraft, “News Notes” (May 1922), United Amateur, CE 1.317
This was in reference to The Rainbow Vol. II, No. 2 (May 1922), which was edited by Sonia H. Greene, and is the only photo of S. Lilian McMullen I’ve found. Readers who turn to read Lovecraft’s “Celephaïs” in that issue may have wondered who that woman was, whose portrait and poem graced the page immediately proceeding Lovecraft’s. Now they do. Her work in that journal suggests that she and Lovecraft may have been in contact at least briefly in early 1922…but after that their relationship seems to break off, or at least the references in editorial and letters dwindle to nothing.
We can only speculate as to the reasons. It seems likely that McMullen and Lovecraft’s friendship was largely based on their common friendship with Winifred Virginia Jackson, and his relationship with Jackson cooled off after Lovecraft met Sonia H. Greene (his future wife) at that August convention in 1921. So too, the McMullens may have experienced difficulties of their own that limited S Lilian McMullen’s further participation in amateur journalism.
The Boston Globe, 21 Aug 1925, p.9
The Boston Globe, 8 Dec 1925, p.19
Taken together, these two snippets paint a picture of strained finances, and perhaps a strained marriage. Michael J. McMullen’s business either failed or his debts grew too much; the wife and children were sent out of the country while he tried to settle affairs, which probably included the selling of or foreclosure on the house at 53 Morton St. What happened to Michael J. McMullen between 1925 and 1930 is unknown; in the 1930 Federal census, S. Lilian McMullen is listed as “widowed,” and she and her sons were renting at Crafts St. in Newton.
Despite this hardship, S. Lilian McMullen persevered. She was naturalized a citizen of the United States of America on 5 April 1954, and according to her obituary finally passed away in 1981 at the age of 95, with 4 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren, and interred in Chatham, Mass (Findagrave).
Who was H. P. Lovecraft to S. Lilian McMullen? Like so many women who interacted with Lovecraft, there is no record in their own words to guide us. Their paths crossed just a few times in the early 1920s, and she made enough of an impression that he wrote in praise of her poetry and songs. We have, for the most part, only Lovecraft’s own sparse comments to guide us. Their legacies are different: Lovecraft’s legacy was literary, and his heirs are his readers; hers was her children, and grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren. It would be interesting to know if any of her family were aware of her connection with Lovecraft…or if they still have any or her songs and poetry to remember her by.
This review deals with a work of art that includes nudity. As part of this review, selected images with nudity will be displayed. As such, please be advised before reading further.
It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. —Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee” (1849)
Skinny Dipper was a successfully crowdfunded multimedia project by Sex and Monsters, who are best known for their retro chic combinations of horror, pulp fiction, and tiki culture to produce works like the comic/cocktail booklet Tiki Surf Witches Want Blood.
The form of this particular project is a 32-page mixed-media comic ‘zine that remixes Poe’s “Annabel Lee” and “The Night Ocean” (1936) by R. H. Barlow with H. P. Lovecraft, re-imagining them against a palette of mixed comic and photographic work by Emily Roberts, April Snellings, Jelena Đorđević, May Nguyen, Dennis Swiatkowski, Sam McKenzie, Slime Sunday, Brite Lite Tribe, and Will Penny; and a 7″ vinyl record by Nite Jewel that contains a soundtrack to accompany the piece. Various Kickstarter bonuses to the campaign add decals, instant film shots of May Nguyen, and other goodies.
The crux of the re-imagining is model May Nguyen, who appears both in photographs and as the character model for the character of Annabel Lee in the story. Told in sparse, evocative images, Annabel Lee shifts from the bright and crowded daylit beach to a lonely moonlit scene, to go skinny dipping alone in the night ocean.
Chunks of Poe’s and Barlow and Lovecraft’s texts are taken out of context and reframed as poetry. The artists are each distinctive in their style and approach to the material; the center black-lettering on black-pages at the center of the story is incredibly evocative of the dark abysses hinted at in poem and short story, here rendered visually—and the combination of Poe’s verse and select snippets from Barlow and Lovecraft work well together with the visuals, terribly suggestive of far more than appears on the page.
Kitsch is a dirty word, but in this case the artists are trying to recapture specific moods and art styles, from the Charles Atlas bully-kicks-sand-in-your-face comics of the 50s to 80s glossy magazine photo spreads that are terribly suggestive of exotic vacations, where the sea foom can lap at your feet as you read and relax on holiday. It is a deliberate effort to reproduce an aesthetic that existed, even if that exact place never did.
One thing that both “Annabel Lee” and “The Night Ocean” capture is a sense of loneliness and longing; that may be why giving Annabel in Skinny Dipper such a distinctive face adds something to the text. May Nguyen provides a sense of reality that might have been missing if this a more traditionally-made comic book; there’s a fotonovella-style sense that these could be stills to some ancient straight-to-video movie that graced the shelves of mom & pop video stories.
It is not horror in any strict sense; not int he bloody bones and a shark coughing up a limb. It’s closer to a vacation where all the time away reminds you that the one thing ou can’t get a vacation from is yourself, can’t get out of your own head. That loneliness and the endless, ageless warm waters of the ocean might swallow you up forever, given half a chance.
Nite Jewel’s Skinny Dipper single is a soundtrack to the story; I’d call it synthwave or retrowave, while the tags for the album on call it chillwave and hypnogogic pop. Combined with the stylistic flourishes of the comic, it grounds the reader in that almost-never-when promised in a thousand 80s and early 90s magazines, comics, films, and music videos. The idea of the beach as this place of escape, the music a poppy invitation that’s a bit more upbeat than tiki exotica, but holds many of the same audio cues, just for a later generation.
At this time of writing, the album is the only thing available for direct purchase, although many stills and videos associated with the project are located on Sex and Monsters’ Facebook page.
Skinny Dipper is an interesting collaboration, one that showcases the abilities and visions of the individual artists that went into it. Copies are still available through the Kickstarter store (click “Order Now”), and will hopefully receive a wider release in the near future.
Absence of much conversation is probably a permanent feature of my style, because the tales I write concern phenomena much more than they concern people. —H. P. Lovecraft to Natalie H. Wooley, 24 Oct 1933, LRBO 193
“The Colour Out of Space” is one of Lovecraft’s most evocative and best-loved stories. It has been interpreted by different folks as an environmental horror, as a rural Gothic, a precognitive flash of the dangers of nuclear radiation. It was not set in the far ago and the long away; H. P. Lovecraft set most of his horrors in his here and now. In the 1920s and 30s, close to home in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York. They were horrors of the moment, and while he largely eschewed flappers and rumrunners, they took on the syntax of the time and place.
Which makes them interesting to update. How many horror stories would be different, if they took place after the invention of cell phones, or the advent of the internet, birth control pills, the Civil Rights Movement? How might that change the story? Not the phenomenon itself, but the people’s response to the phenomenon. Their perspective and understanding of it.
As is appropriate for a story that’s a reworking of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space,” “Violet is the Color of Your Energy” is named after two songs centered on color: 311’s laidback, beachy “Amber,” and Hole’s angry, feminist “Violet.” I doubt that MRA types would like this story. In my defense, though, “The Colour Out of Space” practically demanded a feminist revision. It’s fundamentally a story about a cranky farmer who keeps his family increasingly isolated, then imprisoned, resulting in the deaths of all. There’s a neighbor who seems to check in a lot. Oh yeah, and something’s off about the water and the crops. And the woman locked in the attic is the crazy one? —Nadia Bulkin, “Violet is the Color of Your Energy” [The Playlist]
Nadia Bulkin’s “Violet is the Color of Your Energy” is, in effect, a contemporary re-telling of “The Colour Out of Space.” One that leaves out Arkham, and shifts the point of view focus to Abigail Gardner (née Cuzak), who followed her college-educated husband to Cripple Creek to try and make a go of an old-fashioned family farm. The shift in time and space and perspective skews the story from the phenomenon (Lovecraft’s interest) to the individual. Zeroes in from the impersonal observation of everything going on to the very personal look at how this phenomenon affects Abby and her relationship with her husband and children.
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“What?” her voice broke. “Nate, the boys are right . . . .”
His shout punched down like a hammer of God. “Answer me, Abby! Was this some whore’s bargain? Said you’d jump into bed if he’d just cut your poor idiot husband a break?” —Nadia Bulkin, “Violet is the Color of Your Energy” in She Walks In Shadows39
The result is something like Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth in prose. Things said and unsaid. A woman trapped by the decisions she’s made, the man she trusted, until she has no decisions left at all; yet this is not a morality play about a woman who made the wrong decision. Something is happening, something he won’t tell her about. This isn’t just a tale of spousal abuse, or stress turned to paranoia. Something happened, in the opening paragraph, reverberating throughout the short story. Something that works, unseen, on the corn, the animals, the water, her husband…and her.
If you haven’t read “The Colour Out of Space,” the ending might be confusing. A Shirley Jackson-esque non sequitur, like a needle skipping across a record, jumping straight to the last track. It is like a variant telling of an old and familiar myth, reminiscent of “His Mouth Will Taste Of Wormwood” (1990) by Poppy Z. Brite in that sense. Not a replacement for Lovecraft’s story, but a complement to it; an old campfire tale told to a new generation of campers, a riff on the old motif, recycled and made new again.
Boys and dogs alike asked for things—food, drink—and eventually, after the sun began to set, Teddy put down his American History book and asked for an explanation of Croatoan. —Nadia Bulkin, “Violet is the Color of Your Energy” in She Walks In Shadows39
There is a certain synchronicity between “Violet is the Color of Your Energy” and the 2019 film The Color Out of Space; both seek to update and adapt Lovecraft’s text, both keep the story small, centered on what a small family farm looks like in the 2010s, the breakdown that occurs as something happens beyond their control or capability to understand. The beats are not the same, but they’re working in a similar groove with a sense of isolation and desperation. Of things that have suddenly and inexplicably gone wrong, and the added stress has cracked the facade of normality, to show that maybe, things weren’t right this entire time.
Conan the Cimmerian first appeared in “The Phoenix on the Sword” by Robert E. Howard in Weird Tales (Dec 1932); his immediate literary antecedents were Conan the Irish Reaver in “The People of the Dark” (Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror Jun 1932), and the Atlantean barbarian Kull, who last appeared in “Kings of the Night” (Weird Tales Nov 1930). Like most of Howard’s heroes, Conan was male, and the gender politics of the Hyborian Age tended to be a combination of 1930s Texas and various historical periods and cultures as Howard understood them. There were warrior-women in Howard’s stories: Bêlit, the Queen of the Black Coast; the Valeria of the Red Brotherhood; Red Sonya of Rogatino; and Dark Agnes de Chastillon—but savage as they might be with sword or pistol, these were not barbarians per se, and they were always exceptions in male-dominated settings.
Howard wasn’t alone in producing warrior-women for his fantasy and weird adventure stories, with C. L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry (who first appeared in “Black God’s Kiss” (1934)) being a notable peer to Conan in the pages of Weird Tales. Yet the Cimmerian’s popularity won out, and influenced generations of later media, from pastiche stories and novels to comics, beginning with Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian in 1970, and film, with Conan the Barbarian starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1982.
Many of these adaptations included warrior-women as well. Red Sonja was created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith as a foil for the Cimmerian in the pages of Conan the Barbarian, and went on to an extensive career of her own. Valeria (played by Sandahl Bergman) in the 1982 film served as Conan’s ally and later lover. Later sword & sorcery works sometimes focused on female barbarians, such as Hundra (1983), Red Sonja (1985), Barbarian Queen (1985), Amazons (1986), Stormquest (1988), and Barbarian Queen II: The Empress Strikes Back (1990), but these were mostly poor pastiches that often captured the fur-bikini aesthetic but little to nothing of the character or power of Howard’s warriors, men or women.
So when French director Bertrand Mandico set out to make a film that took the popular conception of the ultramasculine figure of Conan and turned it on its head by making the barbarian female, that was an interesting premise. The resulting film is Conann, released to English audiences as She Is Conann, is a 2023 French-language film written and directed by Mandico.
However, the key aspect of this film is less Howard’s hero, and more Mandico’s definition of barbarism:
I wanted to make a film about barbarism, and tell what is for me the height of barbarism, it’s old age killing youth. So, in the figurative sense, physically, but at the same time, symbolically, by betraying convictions, etc. So I started with this idea and I invoked Conan, the character from Howard’s novels. I even went back to the source that inspired Howard. It’s a character from Celtic mythology named Conan with two n’s who was surrounded by dog-headed demons. I started from this mythology to traverse time, eras and to make a sort of survey of barbarism. All of this carried by a choir of actresses. —Bertrand Mandico, interview with Sara Bradbury
In a purely factual sense, Mandico has erred here. The mythological Conann and the Cynocephali (Dog-Headed People) he refers to appears to be a reference to The Voyage to the Other World Island in Early Irish Literature by Christa Maria Loffler or equivalent source. In that work, Conann (or Conainn) is one of the Tuatha de Danann, and the Cynocephali are another name for the Fomorians whom the Tuatha de Danann overthrew in the conquest of Ireland, as recorded in works like the Book of Invasions. Howard was certainly familiar with some of the content of the latter, because he discusses it in letters to Lovecraft, but it isn’t clear that Howard ever read the Book of Invasions himself, and makes no reference to dog-headed people (or even Fomorians) in his stories of Conan.
Still, the point of this film is not pastiche of Howard, or even of the 1982 Conan the Barbarian film; it is a film concerned entirely with Mandico’s concept of the barbarian, which is radically different from Howard’s, and starring a largely female cast. The film stars Elina Löwensohn as Rainer; Julia Riedler as Sanja; and six actors that play the eponymous Conann at various ages: Claire Duburcq (15), Christa Théret (25), Sandra Parfait (35), Agata Buzek (45), Nathalie Richard (55), and Françoise Brion (Queen Conann and dead Conann).
The film “Conan the Barbarian” was the symbol of virilism, of virility. And I found it really interesting to take the complete opposite of this character. With “The Wild Boys” [“Les garçons sauvages”], I had already wondered about the masculine-feminine shift with fairly aggressive characters. And there, I wanted to work on this barbarity and make it feminine. Then also bring a great breath of romanticism. Because barbarism, in itself, does not interest me. What interests me is the contrast between barbarism and romanticism. —Bertrand Mandico, Sur le tournage de Conan de Déviante, de Bertrand Mandico cf. Le réalisateur Bertrand Mandico féminise « Conan le Barbare »
The Nanterre National Drama Center, well known for its hybrid and avant-garde exhibitions, will welcome the filmmaker from January to February 2021, for a theatrical performance on the border of living theater and cinema which “will also give birth to a film shot in film” , and “will invite the public to settle in the middle of its various paintings and stories, in a circus-hell of rocks studded with bursts of tears and blood” —Bertrand Mandico adapte « Conan le Barbare » pour le théâtre des Amandiers
While production details are a bit hazy, French media reports from 2020-2021 or so indicate that what would become Conann started out as much more focused on the 1982 film for inspiration, which can perhaps be seen in the first act with the 15-year-old Conann, which partially seems a response to the opening of the 1982 Conan the barbarian where Conan’s mother is killed and he is enslaved. The earlier version of what would be Conann seems to have been much more of a multimedia/performance space, which may have suffered delays or transformations due to COVID-19. Yet the final film(s) that resulted seem fairly true to Mandico’s original vision as expressed in interviews and press releases.
I feel like a barbarian-adventurer myself in the way I built this project. As for Howard’s original novels, I have kept the esoteric impulse, the memory of an adaptation by Corben “Bloodstar,” but I especially see Conan as a pop figure, a war cry. In my project, Conan is girl(s) and woman(s), and they will evolve in a feminine world. I decided to offer actresses of all ages and all origins unusual characters and situations . There will be six Conans, as many as there are periods in his life. Each new Conan will come and kill the previous one because, for me, the height of barbarity is to kill one’s youth. —Bertrand Mandico, « Conan la barbare » : Bertrand Mandico nous présente sa prochaine œuvre monstre
Mandico references Richard Corben’s novel Bloodstar, which is an adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s “The Valley of the Worm.” Understanding that Conannis not in any strict or even broadly metaphorical sense related to Howard’s Conan as put on paper is important, because viewers who go in hoping for something like an adaptation of Red Nails where a female Conan and Valeria might kiss are going to be disappointed.
Mandico’s approach to filmmaking is very much surrealist, gritty, and avant garde compared to Conan the Barbarian and its sequel and pastiches. Director Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995) has been described as an Acid Western, and Mandico’s Conann might be described as Acid Sword & Sorcery. It has that punk aesthetic, not just in the sets, the wardrobe, the props where swords look forged out of scavenged bits of rebar, but in the attitude of the characters, which is often nihilistic, focused on the moment, and ultimately self-destructive—just as the darkest part of punk has always been a disenfranchised generation preying on itself.
But is it any good?
I realized, almost while making this film, that it concludes a trilogy. A trilogy that began with “Les garçons sauvages” [The Wild Boys], and continued with “After Blue” [Paradise Sale/Dirty Paradise]. So “Les garçons sauvages” would be paradise, “After Blue” the purgatory, and “Conann” hell. So there’s hell in my paradise, but there’s also a romantic dimension in my hell. —Bertrand Mandico, interview with Sara Bradbury
If you like Mandico’s other films, you’ll probably like Conann. If you haven’t seen his other films, it’s important to go into Conann with an open mind. There is a deliberate sense of theatricality: according to an interview, the sets were built inside a big warehouse in Luxembourg, and there’s a conscious sense that these are sets, not location shots. The camera moves, but it stays close, there’s no peeking around corners, and the narrative structure plays to that sense of place.
From the standpoint of pure cinematography, there are some beautifully shots, even when the subject is ugly; Mandico shot on film instead of digital camera, and that reality comes through in almost every frame. The contrast between the black-and-white and color segments works well. The practical effects come across very well, much like an 80’s horror film, and the visceral presence of the gore effects often blends with the rather surreal nature of the narrative. Costume and makeup deserve all due praise; the dog-like face mask of Ranier in particular is an effect that seems fundamentally simple but effective, as in the Twilight Zone episode The Masks. By contrast, the action sequences are not the best-choreographed; while there is plenty of bloodletting and bladework, the tone of the film and the shape of the narrative doesn’t build up much tension.
If there’s a major turn-off for audiences expecting something more akin to the nearly-dialogue-free first twenty minutes of Conan the Barbarian (1982), it is the script. There’s a lot of dialogue, a lot of philosophy, and a lot of narration, to the point where sometimes the best parts of the film are those rare moments when the characters stop talking and do something. Yet the philosophy is in a large sense why Mandico is here; the story is being told because this is how he puts barbarism—or at least his conception of it, the self-destructive Ouroboros that eats its own tail—on display. You either appreciate the film for what it is, or you don’t.
I want to adapt Conan the barbarian on stage. With only women. Several generations of women, who kill each other, fuck, betray each other, embrace, and love one another in a world doomed to disappear. —”Rainer, A Vicious Dog in Skull Valley”
Filmed alongside Conann and featured on the BluRay as bonus features are “L’Emission a déjà commencé” (“The Show Has Already Started”), an introductory segment to three short experimental/surrealist/metafictional films: “Rainer, A Vicious Dog in Skull Valley”; “Nous le Barbares” (“We Barbarians”), and “The Last Cartoon -Nonsense, Optimistic, Pessimistic.” These are much more in the deliberately arthaus vibe, but can be seen as meta-commentary and interactive with Conann as a film. By their nature, they tend to showcase different aspects of the film and its lead actors’ performances. If you like Conann, it’s worth watching these short films too.
“Rainer, A Vicious Dog in Skull Valley,” for example, is a meta-commentary on the difficulties of filming during the COVID-19 pandemic. A director reading Lips and Conan (a fictional paperback) wants to produce a play and makes a deal with the dog-faced demon Ranier to produce Conann. “The show must go on. At all costs.” The short film can say outright things that the film itself cannot say without breaking character.
Conann is very consciously a queer narrative. The eponymous Conann, in all of her incarnations, is primarily sexually interested in women, but their sexuality is fluid, especially in the short films, with relationships marked by violence, death, and betrayal. While the majority of the cast are women, some of the cast is deliberately more ambiguous: Christophe Bier is presented in drag throughout; Elina Löwensohn’s Ranier is consistently described as male, and all of them have a sexuality, implicit or explicit.
The nudity in the film isn’t particularly egregious as far as Sword & Sorcery cinema goes, but unlike those films the titillation doesn’t seem to be solely targeted for the male gaze. Women aren’t stripped to show vulnerability, but to tease titillation with violence: a recurring image is a breast with a vicious spike growing from the nipple. Sex and violence are often combined, but not in the sense of rape, but more in a BDSM-inflected sense of pain as an enhancement or counterpart of pleasure. Mandico plays with certain fetishistic images, but steers clear of anything to explicit; whatever else Conann may be, it is not sexploitation.
Of all the weird cinema with some strand of Robert E. Howard in their literary DNA, Conann and its bevy of short films are probably the strangest to yet see widespread release—and it can be very difficult, if you haven’t gone back through the interviews and press-releases, to see how Bertrand Mandico got from Conan to Conann. Yet if you are willing to watch it with an open mind, and appreciate the spectacle and the craft, the performances and the ideas on display, then Conann is at least an interesting film, far more than just another Sword & Sorcery pastiche.
This review deals with a work of pornography, and the history of erotic art and writing. As part of this review, selected images with cartoon depictions of genitalia and/or sexually explicit contact will be displayed. As such, please be advised before reading further.
It was a woman, dressed as von Kalmbach had not seen even the dandies of France dressed. She was tall, splendidly shaped, but lithe. From under a steel cap escaped rebellious tresses that rippled red gold in the sun over her compact shoulders. High boots of Cordovan leather came to her mid-thighs, which were cased in baggy breeches. She wore a shirt of fine Turkish mesh-mail tucked into her breeches. Her supple waist was confined by a flowing sash of green silk, into which were thrust a brace of pistols and a dagger, and from which depended a long Hungarian saber. Over all was carelessly thrown a scarlet cloak. —Robert E. Howard, “The Shadow of the Vulture” (The Magic Carpet Magazine Jan 1934)
In his stories, Robert E. Howard had written a number of warrior-women. Bêlit, the eponymous Queen of the Black Coast; Valeria, the pirate; Dark Agnes de Chastillon, who rejected the role of woman in medieval France to take up the blade; and Red Sonya of Rogatino, a fiery-tempered mercenary in the wars against the Ottoman Empire.
In February 1973, Marvel Comics’ Conan the Barbarian was coming close to the end of its second year. Writer Roy Thomas had freely adapted some of Howard’s Conan stories, and written some original stories of his own, generally following the outline of Conan’s career. Now, with issue #23, Thomas and artist Barry Windsor Smith (inked by Sal Buscema, John Adkins, and Chic Stone, adapted one of Howard’s non-Conan tales—”The Shadow of the Vulture” as a Conan tale, following the example provided by L. Sprague de Camp. Where “The Shadow of the Vulture” was set during the Siege of Vienna in 1529, Thomas borrowed from Howard’s references to Turan in stories like “The People of the Black Circle” and set it during a series of Turanian wars.
So Red Sonya of Rogatino was re-envisaged as Red Sonja of Hyrkania.
Conan the Barbarian #23 (1972)
Only a couple of pages later, Red Sonja turned up—dressed in a mailshirt and something which can only be described as red “hot pants,” a type of skimpy garment worn briefly (in every sense of the word) by young women in the early 1970s. This wasn’t the way I had seen Red Sonja in my mind, but Barry was the artist, and I didn’t feel like second-guessing him. Besides, he was a good enough artist to pull it off. —Roy Thomas, Barbarian Life: A Literary Biography of Conan the Barbarian, Vol. 1 (2018) 134
The new character elicited interest, with issue #24 titled “The Song of Red Sonja.” Then, she and Conan parted. She would not reappear until 1974, in the first issue of The Savage Sword of Conan, a full-sized comic magazine—where she played a prominent role. The cover features Conan and Red Sonja by Boris Vallejo; the first story “The Curse of the Undead-Man” was adapted by Roy Thomas from Robert E. Howard’s “The Mistress of Death” (a Dark Agnes fragment), with art by John Buscema, inked by Pablo Marcos, featured Sonja as a supporting character, and later on Red Sonja appeared in her first solo adventure “Red Sonja” written by Roy Thomas, and illustrated by Esteban Maroto, with inks by Neil Adams and Ernie Chau (often credited as Ernie Chan). Only this time, Red Sonja’s outfit had changed:
John BuscemaEsteban Maroto
Maroto had never done any work for Marvel (he would later contribute to Vampire Tales #s 3 and 4), but he clearly admired its books and had seen the two issues of Conan the Barbarian in which Sonja had made her debut. maroto was fond of drawing fantasy women in revealing outfits and decided to send an illustration of Sonja, rendered in this fashion, to the Marvel offices. The response was huge, and Thomas saw no reason why Sonja couldn’t wear a chainmail bikini if Conan paraded around in a lioncloth. In terms of the practicality of it, Thomas “came up with a mildly twisted rationale for her wearing clothing that deliberately tempted men when of course she’d cut off their fingers if they tried to go touchy-feely on her” (“A Fond Look Back at Big Red”). […]
So Red Sonja traded her mail-shirt and hot-pants for what would become an iconic chainmail bikini. She also gained a vow:
Savage Sword of Conan #1
Sonja would continue to reappear periodically in the pages of Conan the Barbarian, Savage Sword of Conan, and the short-lived Kull and the Barbarians both as a recurring character with Conan and in solo stories like “Episode” in Conan the Barbarian #48 (script by Roy Thomas, art by John Buscema, inked by Dick Giordino) but while she had received a great deal of character definition—an iconic outfit, and non-romantic foil to Conan who could fight as well as he could but didn’t let him or anyone else manhandle her—she hadn’t developed much backstory or lore. Like Jirel of Joiry, Red Sonja’s adventures were fantastic and at the same time disjointed. Any fan could pick up any comic with a Red Sonja story and need not have read any of the others. Yet between the cheesecake outfit and serious attitude, Red Sonja developed a fanbase.
So it was that in Marvel Feature #1 (1975), “Red Sonja” by Thomas and Maroto was reprinted in color, with a new story “The Temple of Abomination” written by Roy Thomas with art by Dick Giordino (backgrounds inked by Terry Austin, colors by Michele Wolfman) to fill out the issue. These were still random episodes from an adventurous life, and most of the rest of the stories in Marvel Feature, which despite the title was essentially a soft-launch of a Red Sonja solo comic, are the same: random sword & sorcery adventures with little connective tissue to each other or the wider Hyborian world—except when Conan makes a guest-appearance in her comic for a change!
Yet in Kull in the Barbarians #3, Red Sonja got an origin story in “The Day of the Sword,” with a plot by Roy Thomas, script by Doug Moench, and art by Howard Chaykin. It’s not a pretty story: Sonja’s family is murdered, she’s raped, and then a goddess grants her the power for revenge…at a price. She cannot know the love of man unless defeated in battle. The origin of the vow mentioned back in Savage Sword of Conan #1.
Much ink has been spilled over this decision over the years. The rape-revenge origin was probably only possible because Kull and the Barbarians was a magazine and not a comic book, and so didn’t need to go through the Comics Code Authority; the divine vision is reminiscent of Joan d’Arc, the heroine of France, and there’s a touch of Dark Agnes in Sonja’s early desire to not be treated just like any other woman. The vow of chastity probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but it is needless to say the men writing and drawing Red Sonja probably didn’t ask any women what they thought of the idea.
In the years and decades to follow, Red Sonja’s origin—like her outfit—would be both iconic and problematic, and subject to redesign and reinterpretation from generations of creators, including Gail Simone, Nancy Collins, and Christopher Hastings. Through different series, Sonja has been both sexually active and celibate, worn the iconic chainmail bikini and exchanged it for different outfits, been saved by a goddess and saved herself without any divine help. Fans have alternately applauded Red Sonja’s strength and independence and lamented the focus on her sexuality, and the explicit idea that the only way to have sex with her was through violence.
The second issue of Marvel Feature (1976) was much of the same as the first, with a new Red Sonja story titled “Blood of the Hunter,” scripted by Bruce Jones with all art by Frank Thorne. As the series went on, Thorne would write as well as illustrate most of the Red Sonja stories for the remainder of Marvel Feature‘s 7-issue run. When the character got her own ongoing series Red Sonja in January 1977, it was Thorne who drew her—and would continue to do so through issue #11, when he left the series.
Thorne’s run on Red Sonja is notable for not using much of what was established in “The Day of the Sword,” and for his strong involvement with the Red Sonja fanbase, dressing up as a wizard at conventions and judging cosplay contests. Thorne’s Sonja doesn’t dwell over much on her origin or her oath, and continues on fighting monsters and more human villains, kicking ass and looking good while doing it. Thorne’s artistic take on Sonja was marked by eyes that seemed rimmed with kohl, and a warrior who was both vicious and voluptuous, but with a flirtatious sense of humor.
His last feature was “The Wizard and Red Sonja” in Savage Sword of Conan #29 (1978), a rather bizarre out-of-continuity story where a wizard (modeled on Thorne himself) accidentally summons several different versions of Red Sonja.
Savage Sword of Conan #29
This is, in part, meta-commentary, noting the many different ways that Red Sonja had been written and drawn at this point. She had been conceived without a real character arc, without even a comic of her own, and while she was popular, Red Sonja’s stories outside of her interactions with Conan had little continuity. Random fantasy adventures, often wildly different in tone and style.
Red Sonja #11 was Frank Thorne’s final issue; he left the series, and worked on others for which he had more creative control and artistic license…including Ghita of Alizarr, a fantasy swordswoman who was in many ways Red Sonja without the oath of celibacy and with graphic sexuality.
1984 issue 7
If Ghita of Alizarr was an X-rated Thorne’s Red Sonja with the copyrighted and trademarked serial numbers filed off, well…he wasn’t the only one thinking along those lines.
THORNE: One of the prouder moments is when some guy advertised an eight-page Tijuana bible of Red Sonja in The Buyer’s Guide. [Groth laughs]. I ordered a dozen! [Laughs.]
The title: Red Sonja and Conan, Hot and Dry.
GROTH: [Laughs.] That’s great.
THORNE: I keep, in the first of my really big scrapbooks. I’m just finishing filling up the fourth. These scrapbooks are like two by three feet and two inches thick. Sonja got a ton of media attention.
Red Sonja and Conan: Hot and Dry was an 8-pager (also called a Tijuana bible or bluesie) put together by Randy Crawford, who released a number of other parody sex comics in 1977 including Star Trek: Spock in Heat and a Plastic Man 8-pager. Tijuana bibles had first emerged in the 1930s, often crudely written, drawn, printed, and bound together with a staple or two—but these sexually explicit comics were incredibly popular. They often featured the unlicensed use of existing comic strip characters, popular athletes, Hollywood stars, and politicians, and even early comic book superheroes like Superman, Batman, and the Captain Marvel family.
Interest and production waned during the 1940s and 50s, but still carried on sporadically; the later Tijuana bibles published after the institution of the Comics Code Authority often seem to have crossover with underground comix, and might feature established characters such as Captain Ameria, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and the Archie gang, but publication and distribution were shifting. Within a year or so of Marvel publishing Conan the Barbarian in 1970, the first pornographic parody “Gonad the Barbarian” appeared in the San Francisco Ball, an adult-oriented underground newspaper in mocking parody of the San Francisco Call.
Red Sonja took a little longer. It’s clear from the cover image that Randy Crawford was looking at the Marvel Feature/Red Sonja (vol 1.) Frank Thorne-era Red Sonja for inspiration, with the straps, armlets, gloves, and pauldrons which would gradually be dropped from her wardrobe. There’s no mention of her origin, oath, goddess, or need to battle before the action begins.
Red Sonja #1 (1977)
Conan is an even rougher figure, although clearly John Buscema’s take on the character. Something of the notched nose and posture recalls Conan’s second meeting with Red Sonja.
Savage Sword of Conan #1
Readers can judge for themselves. Sorry for the roughness of these photos, these are the only ones I could get.
The inside rear cover includes a reprint of the cover for Crawford’s Plastic Man 8-pager
Erotica tends to be ephemeral: only 1,250 copies of Red Sonja and Conan: Hot and Dry were published, and they very rarely come onto the second-hand marketplace. Many have no doubt been lost or discarded, or damaged because of their fragile construction. Yet the crude content and art are the point. While today with the internet readers can find dozens of pornographic comics featuring Red Sonja, some lovingly rendered by digital artists, in the 1970s this kind of erotic fan-product was not just illegal (copyright violation, and possibly deemed obscene depending on the jurisdiction), it was representative of a seriously fringe commercial activity.
How the hell do you advertise a Red Sonja/Conan Tijuana bible? Without getting caught?
Randy Crawford apparently published an ad in the Comic Buyer’s Guide, but this was the sort of thing that would probably have been sold under the table at conventions, or by mail-order in severely plain envelopes. It was illicit fare for the true post-pubescent comic nerds to geek out over. It represents almost the opposite of Frank Thorne’s approach with Ghita of Alizarr—none of the characterization, the beautiful artwork, the erotic atmosphere—just a gonzo narrative, straight to sex and ending with a climax.
Frank Thorne, no doubt, got a good laugh out of it. Yet he was an artist; he may have wanted to see his favorite flame-haired swordswoman in flagrante delicto…but he also wanted to do right by her as a character. Nothing quite illustrates the difference between an avid fan’s pornographic fantasy and a dedicated artist’s erotic epic than to look at something like this, and see how crude the work could be, tossed out quick and printed on the cheap to make a few bucks.
Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein 