As reckoned among the race-stocks of the world, the Indian is certainly not inferior. Neither, for that matter, is the Mongolian race as a whole. It is simply our reaction against the alien and the unaccustomed—together with the circumstance that our immigrant specimens are generally of a low type—which causes us to look down on the Chinese and Japanese. Both of these races, as rationally judged by their history, literature, philosophy, and art, are among the superior biological focus of the planet—and no one who is acquainted with their better classes is ever able to retain that feeling of repulsion which the ordinary American, Australian, or New-Zealander usually feels. — H. P. Lovecraft to Robert E. Howard, 7 Nov 1932, A Means to Freedom 1.481-482
The 1853 Perry Expedition forcefully ended Japanese political isolation, and during the 19th and early 20th centuries cultural and technological exchanges with the rest of the world profoundly affected both Japan and the rest of the world. The Tokugawa Shogunate was overthrown, and a new government overtook Japan—one dedicated to rapid industrialization and militarization, which in practice meant increasing Westernization. The successful adoption of Western military technology and tactics became clear during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), in which Japan’s surprise victory over Russia fueled racist fantasies of the Yellow Peril.
While Westerners feared the rising military might and aggressiveness of Japan, many were simultaneously drawn to Japanese art and culture. Japanese woodblock prints (ukiyo-e) covered a vast range of material, from purely ornamental to combinations of image and text that illustrated stories and scenes; from depictions of ordinary life and nature studies to erotica and supernatural creatures. Western interest in these woodblock prints is evident from before the U.S. intervention, but after trade was forcefully opened, the prints became much more accessible and inspired a Japonisme style in European art during the late 19th century, as well as collections and reproductions.
By the 1930s, Japanese prints collections were being displayed in U.S. museums, and the names of popular and notorious artists like Hokusai Katsushika (葛飾 北斎, 1760-1849) and Hiroshige Utagawa (歌川 広重, 1797-1858) were being bandied about by newspapers. In June 1934, Providence native Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (wife of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.) donated her collection of Japanese prints to the Rhode Island School of Design.
Japanese Prints Given by Mrs. Rockefeller, Jr. PROVIDENCE, R.I., June 7—(AP) The Rhode Island School of Design yesterday announced that a rare collection of Japanese prints had been presented by Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The 623 prints, devoted chiefly to plant, bird, fish and insect life, are by the country’s greatest masters. L. Earle Row, director of the school museum, said that in accordance with Mrs. Rockefeller’s wishes the collection will be shown in selected groups changed at frequent intervals. —Springfield (MA) Evening Union, 7 Jun 1934, p13
That is where and how H. P. Lovecraft came to be familiar with Japanese prints.
Another event was the display of the choicest of the 717 Japanese prints just acquired by the local art museum. This is a really important accession—placing our museum in competition with Boston’s . . . . which boasts of having the finest Japanese print collection outside of Japan itself. The Providence collection is of the first quality, involving large numbers of items by Hokusai, Hiroshige, & kindred standbys. —H. P. Lovecraft to Richard F. Searight, 22 Dec 1934, LPS 343
Another event was an exhibition of Japanese prints—part of 700 magnificent specimens (Hokusai, Hiroshige, & all the rest) just acquired by the local art museum. This acquisition will bring Providence into competing distance of Boston—whose Museum of Fine Arts boasts the finest collection of Japanese prints outside of Japan itself. —H. P. Lovecraft to August Derleth, 22 Dec 1934, ES 2.671
More or less joined to this “art week” stuff was the first display of a choice array of the 717 Japanese prints just acquired by the local museum. This gave me quite a kick, since I am rather an enthusiast concerning Sino-Japanese art. The prints are of the finest quality, with plenty of Hokusais & Hiroshiges. A couple of weeks ago an expert lectured on the making of Japanese prints, & exhibited some of the delicately carved blocks used in their preparation. —H. P. Lovecraft to E. Hoffmann Price, 30 Dec 1934, LPS 159
It isn’t exactly clear when Lovecraft gained his appreciation of Japanese art, although it seems likely he would have encountered specimens among his visits to art museums in Boston and New York in the 1920s.
Providence Journal, 16 Feb 1935, p18
The RISD celebrated its recent acquisition with an exhibition of the works and a lectures, open to the public—which Lovecraft attended, as he often took advantage of the free lectures on art and science offered by the local universities.
Saw a fine exhibition of Hokusai’s prints—with explanatory lecture—at the museum yesterday. —H. P. Lovecraft to F. Lee Baldwin, [13 Feb 1935], LFB 123
Saw a splendid exhibition of Hokusai’s prints—with explanatory lecture—at the museum yesterday. —H. P. Lovecraft to J. Vernon Shea, [19 Feb 1935], LJS 254
Some darned good lectures & exhibitions at one of your two local almae matres—the School of Design. Last week they featured Hokusai—& last night there was an illustrated discourse on Soviet art (in Memorial Hall) which would have had Sonny Belknap jumping up & down & piping! —H. P. Lovecraft to Wilfred B. Talman, [19 Feb 1935], LWT 253
Providence Journal 24 Feb 1935, p55
The Bulletin of the Rhode Island School of Design (Jan 1935) was entirely dedicated to the gift of the prints and their subsequent display, as well as providing some background on Japanese art. Lovecraft was so impressed that he couldn’t help but grab a few copies to send to friends.
This month there was a splendid lecture & special exhibition pertaining to my favourite Hokusai, & the entire quarterly bulletin was devoted to the subject of Japanese prints. The article was so fine, & the illustrations so graphic, that I could not resist getting several extra copies to send to especially appreciative persons. Note one mistake—on p. 19, with illus. On p. 22—where a Hokusai fan print of hibiscus flowers is erroneously attributed to Hiroshige. I wouldn’t have spotted this if I had not seen the original prints & their authentic labels in the museum. —H. P. Lovecraft to Elizabeth Toldridge, 27 Feb [1935], LET 298
Later in February I heard an excellent discourse on Hokusai in connexion with an exhibition of his prints at the local art museum. Japanese art certainly appeals to me as few other aesthetic forms succeed in doing. The current museum bulletin was devoted to this subject, & contains so fine an article—together with so many excellent reproductions—that I can’t resist sending you a duplicate under separate cover. —H. P. Lovecraft to R. H. Barlow, [16 Mar 1935], OFF 221-222
Of lectures there may be noted a highly interesting address on Japanese prints in general & good old Hokusai (1760-1849) in particular, held at the local museum in connexion with an exhibition of the prints. Great stuff—I have always been exceedingly fond of the delicacy, tranquility, & exquisite harmony of Sino-Japanese art. Enclosed are some cuttings illustrative of this event—which ably supplements similar events of last December. —H. P. Lovecraft to Helen V. Sully, 5 Mar 1935, LWT 404
While the clippings don’t survive, several relevant items in the Providence Journal from the period stand out as likely inclusions:
Providence Journal, 1 Jul 1934, p59Providence Journal, 2 Dec 1934, p.47Providence Journal 17 Feb 1935, p.28Providence Journal 20 Feb 1935, p16Providence Journal 24 Feb 1935, p55Providence Journal 1 Sep 1935, p26
Lovecraft makes several other brief references to his trips to see the Hokusai prints to various correspondents throughout 1935:
More recently I heard a fine discourse on Hokusai (an old favourite of mine) at the art museum in connexion with an exhibition of his prints. Sino-Japanese art has always fascinated me extremely, & I wish I could afford a Japanese print collection of my own. —H. P. Lovecraft to Richard F. Searight, 5 Mar 1935, LPS 360
Heard some good lectures recently—a reading by the poet Archibald MacLeish, a discourse on the Japanese artist Hokusai (1760-1849) in connexion with an exhibition of its prints at the art museum, & an account of contemporary Russian soviet art. —H. P. Lovecraft to Duane W. Rimel, 10 Mar 1935, LFB 261-262
Regarding recent events—possibly I told you of the lecture on Hokusai in connexion with an exhibition of his prints. Great stuff—I’ve always been a devotee of Sino-Japanese art. —H. P. Lovecraft to J. Vernon Shea, 13 Mar 1935, LJS 262
Heard some good recent lectures on Hokusai, contemporary Soviet art, & the mosaics of St. Sophia in Constantinople. —H. P. Lovecraft to E. Hoffmann Price, 14 Mar 1935, LPS 173
I thought the Japanese print bulletin especially delightful–you may recall that Hokusai’s “Cranes on Snow-Laden Pine” was one of the things I especially liked in the exhibition last December. I was glad to get so good a reproduction of it. Another captivating print is the one of the cat watching the butterflies—which reminds me that the local feline family is now narrowed down to the mother & one coal-black kitten . . . a delectable duplicate of the lamented Sam Perkins. —H. P. Lovecraft to Elizabeth Toldridge, 25 Mar 1935, LET 300
I managed to get out to several lectures—poetry readings by Susanna Valentine Mitchell & the famed Archibald Macleish—author of “Conquistador”—& an excellent discourse on Hokusai at the local museum, in connexion with a notable exhibition of his prints. Japanese art certainly appeals to me as few other aesthetic forms succeed in doing. —H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, [26 Mar 1935], DS 598
The RISD exhibition seems to have inspired Lovecraft to seek out more of Hokusai’s work, when available. Later in 1935 when traveling in Philadelphia, he stopped in at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which was also having an exhibition of Japanese prints:
I also visited the art museum, where an especially fine temporary exhibit of Japanese prints (including the entire Fujiyama, bridge, waterfall, & poem series of my favoruite Hokusai) was on display. —H. P. Lovecraft to Helen V. Sully, 23 Sep 1935, LWT 438
Despite Lovecraft’s claims to have always appreciated Sino-Japanese art, the specific interest in the prints of Hokusai seems to have come very late in life, driven by the sudden availability of these materials at a local museum. Lovecraft lamented that he could never own a collection of such prints, and in truth there were relatively few published reprints available in the mid-1930s. Buying originals was a game for collectors, and museums were an invaluable resource for those who wished to experience art that they could never afford.
It is important when reading these brief appreciations to understand how thoroughly Lovecraft had absorbed the Orientalist ideas of his day. Racially, the Japanese were other, yet the stereotypes surrounding them were conflicting, covering both admiration for the exotic culture that seemed keenly tied to nature and their own distinct customs, and repulsion at the looming military threat they posed, and their adoption of Western ways. Lovecraft would remark:
After all, as much as the modernisation of Japan is destroying, it may be that the innate aestheticism of the Japanese mind will manage to salvage more from the past than the western world can. — H. P. Lovecraft to Elizabeth Toldridge, [8 Jan 1930], LET121
Japanese culture will be hybridised with westernism—more & more as Japanese conquest increases the nation’s contacts with the west. It is a pity, because Japanese aesthetic traditions are among the finest in existence. —H. P. Lovecraft to Donald A. Wollheim, 9 Jul 1935, LRB305
The fascination with Hokusai and Japanese prints was one facet of Lovecraft’s fascination with Japanese (and to an extent, Asian cultures) as a whole. It was not an exception to his prejudice, but another aspect of a complex set of views that reflected both the deep cultural fascination with Japan and the Yellow Peril racial fearmongering that informed some of his own fiction. Nor did it begin and end with Hokusai; there is plentiful evidence in Lovecraft’s letters of interest in Japanese art and culture before and after…including Japanese poetry.
Let me endorse the Mocratic recommendation to obtain a free subscription to Travel in Japan. I have done so, & am thoroughly enthusiastic over the charm of the publication—its illustrations of Japanese scenery & architecture, its sidelights on Japanese art & design, & its glimpses of Japanese thought & feeling—musical, poetic bits like the extract cited. Mr. Moe has certainly not overrated the charm of this material—& I am led to wonder whether some English or American translator has prepared the visible text of the various articles & poems from originals in Japanese. In the Spring 1936 issue there is an article on the Japanese spring which well matches the earlier autumnal article. In it is quoted a very fine & typical hokku by the poet Saigyo Hoshi—
“Oh, would that I could Split myself into many, And, missing not a twig, See all the glory of the flowers In all the unnumbered hills.”
—H. P. Lovecraft to the Coryciani, 14 Jul 1936, ML 340
So when we read about Lovecraft and Hokusai, we are reading one thread of a continuing and complex interaction. Lovecraft was not quite a Japanophile, and his knowledge of Japan was imperfect and heavily influenced by the popular culture of his day, which presented views of Japan that were selective and not representative of the whole of Japanese culture. Yet these exposures to other cultures, however imperfect, did spark admiration and interest in Lovecraft—and readers today can see what Lovecraft saw, and perhaps will likewise come away with an appreciation for these Japanese artists and their work.
Rockefeller’s donated Japanese prints are still held by the Rhode Island School of Design, and many of them can be viewed for free online.
Lovecraft & Erotic Japanese Prints
Readers familiar with Hokusai will probably note an absence in the above descriptions of Hokusai’s work: the lack of erotica. The Rockefeller collection consisted primarily of nature studies, animals, plants, etc.; as far as I have been able to determine, none of Hokusai’s erotic works—such as the infamous “Diver with Two Octopi” (蛸と海女), more popularly known as “The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife”—were included. Very likely, Lovecraft had no idea about this phase of Hokusai’s career, and possibly had no idea of erotic Japanese prints whatsoever.
Which is not to say that Japanese tentacle erotica had no effect on Lovecraft, only that it likely had no direct effect. Japanese erotic prints (shunga) were popular and influential among European artists in the late 19th century, works like Erotic Japonismeby Ricard Bru and Secret Images: Picasso and the Japanese Erotic Printtrace this influence, and in particular how the erotic tentacle motif became established in science fiction art through works like Henrique Alvim-Corrêa’s The Martian Claims a Victim (1906) from his illustrated edition of The War of the Worlds.
Among the many influenced by Japonisme and Japanese print artists such as Hokusai was Aubrey Beardsley, the famous illustrator of the Yellow Book magazine and the first edition of Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan and The Inmost Light (1894). (For more on which, see Linda Gertner Zatlin’s Beardsley, Japonisme, and the Perversion of the Victorian Ideal (1997).) The image of the tentacle as an alien force spread through the decadent 1890s into the early weird fiction of M. R. James and Arthur Machen as well as the science fiction of H. G. Wells, and by the time of H. P. Lovecraft and his peers the pulp magazines were well-accustomed to this image, and used it in their own work—not generally to penetrate in a sexual manner (that would come later), but as a symbol and motif of corruption and degeneration.
This is the side of Hokusai that Lovecraft very likely never got to see and wasn’t even aware of. The way in which these ideas and images spread and change over time is fascinating and worthy of study.
The following article deals explicitly with antisemitism in a historical context. Frank discussion of these matters requires the reproduction of at least some samples of antisemitic speech from historical sources (e.g. Lovecraft’s letters). As such, please be advised before reading further.
“American literature has produced three great writers of terror fiction: Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce and Howard Phillips Lovecraft. It has been my good fortune—certainly, no inconsiderable one—to have been on intimate terms with tow of these: Ambrose Bierce and Howard Phillips Lovecraft. —Samuel Loveman, “Howard Phillips Lovecraft” in The Arkham Sampler (Summer 1948)
For a matter of three years and more I was actually in daily association with him—years of plenitude and literary activity; years of happiness. I can safely assert that Lovecraft’s conversation takes its place among the masters of that brilliant but difficult art. —Samuel Loveman, “Lovecraft as a Conversationalist” in the Howard Phillips Lovecraft Memorial Symposium (1958)
During that period I believed Howard was a saint. Of course, he wasn’t. What I did not realize (or know) was that he was an arrant anti-Semite who concealed his smouldering hatred of me because of my taint of Jewish ancestry. It would be impossible for me to describe the smug, cloaked hypocrisy of H.P.L. —Samuel Loveman, “Of Gold and Sawdust” in The Occult Lovecraft(1975), 22
H. P. Lovecraft came into contact with Samuel Loveman (1887-1976) in 1917; the two shared a love of poetry and Classical themes, and with their correspondence, Loveman was drawn back into amateur journalism.
Loveman has become reinstated in the United through me. Jew or not, I am rather proud to be his sponsor for the second advent to the Association. His poetical gifts are of the highest order, & I doubt if the amateur world can boast his superior. —H. P. Lovecraft to Rheinhart Kleiner, 8 Nov 1917, LRK93
Lovecraft’s antisemitism, so adamant when speaking about the faceless, anonymous mass of Jews as a people, often broke down at the individual level. Loveman and Lovecraft became close friends, and their acquaintence brought Lovecraft into contact with the poet Hart Crane and his circle. In her memoir, Sonia H. Greene claimed that when she wished to prove to Lovecraft that his antisemitic prejudices were bunk, she invited both HPL and Loveman to New York. During the period of Lovecraft’s marriage and inhabitation of New York (1924-1926), the two were closely associated, sometimes seeing one another on a daily business, and for a time were neighbors at 169 Clinton Street. When thieves broke into Lovecraft’s apartment and stole his clothes and his wife’s suitcase, they also stole an expensive radio set that Loveman had secured with HPL.
Loveman and Lovecraft did not always move in exactly the same circles, however. For one, Loveman was a working bookman, always either employed or operating as a bookseller on his own account, while Lovecraft perpetually failed to find gainful employment. For two, Loveman was gay, a fact that Lovecraft never directly alludes to (and possibly was ignorant of); Loveman’s homosexual affairs are absent in Lovecraft’s letters, and largely only became more widely written about in later decades. After Lovecraft left New York, their lives drew apart, though they seem to have remained in correspondence until Lovecraft’s death.
For the next few decades, Loveman was a bookman. He developed a somewhat infamous reputation for his fanciful catalogues and a few inept attempts at forgery. As Lovecraft’s posthumous star waxed, Loveman produced three memoirs of his friend: the largely laudatory “Howard Phillips Lovecraft” (1948) that barely mentions Lovecraft’s xenophobia in New York, the anecdotal “Lovecraft as a Conversationalist” (1958), and the much more barebones and critical “Gold and Sawdust” (1975), written near the end of his life and addressing, for essentially the first time in print, his reaction to Lovecraft’s antisemitism.
So what changed Loveman’s attitude?
During Lovecraft’s lifetime, he had several Jewish correspondents, including Sonia H. Greene, Adolphe de Castro, Robert Bloch, Julius Schwartz, and Kenneth Sterling. While Lovecraft was an antisemite, these people were still his friends and loved ones; as such, his letters to them are notably absent of anti-Jewish sentiments. Even when Lovecraft was discussing the Nazis with a teenaged Robert Bloch in late 1933, HPL was careful to talk around certain issues, never once mentioning Jews or the Nazis’ antisemitic policies directly, e.g.:
Regarding the defeat of disproportionate cultural & standard-building influence by sharply-differentiated minority-groups—here again we have a sound principle misinterpreted & made a basis for ignorant, cruel, & fatuous action. There is of course no possible defence of the policy of wholesale confiscation, de-industrailisation, & (in effect) expulsion pursued toward groups of citizens on grounds of ancestral origin. Not only is it barbaric in the hardship it inflicts, but it involves a faulty application of ethnology & anthropology. However—this does not obscure the fact that there is always a peril of the concentration of disproportionate power & articulateness in the hands of non-representative & alien-minded minorities—whether or not of alien birth or blood. Cases are very numerous where small groups of especially active & powerful thinkers have tacitly & gradually secured a “corner” on expression & value-definition in nations widely different from themselves in natural instincts, outlook, & aspirations. —H. P. Lovecraft to Robert Bloch, [late October 1933], LRB82-83
Lovecraft’s surviving letters to Loveman are few and end in 1927, so we don’t know exactly how or if HPL discussed the Nazis with his other Jewish friend, but based on his letters to Bloch et al., it seems reasonable to assume that HPL was careful to never give his friend offence on account of his Jewish ethnicity. It is quite possible that at the time of Lovecraft’s death in 1937, Loveman had no idea of Lovecraft’s real thoughts about the Nazis during Hitler’s rise to power, or the discussions he had with others as the antisemitic policies began to go into effect. If Loveman did have any idea about Lovecraft’s antisemitism, it likely came from his friendship with Sonia H. Davis, Lovecraft’s ex-wife.
In the mid-1940s, as WW2 was coming to a close, Loveman was contacted by early Lovecraft biographer Winfield Townley Scott, who was looking for data. Loveman pointed Scott at Sonia, and between Scott’s article and Sonia’s memoir, she seems to have come into correspondence with Loveman again; at least, there are some letters between the two dated 1947. Sonia had been in correspondence with August Derleth, who attacked her memoir and claims of Lovecraft’s prejudice, keeping in mind that this was in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust. Sonia vented her spleen a little to Loveman:
In his Marginalia he is all wrong in stating how much older I am than HP, also that our divorce was the result of HP’s inability to write for money or his lack of desire to write for money. None of this is true. I carried a handsome salary at the time and provided many things for him. I did not leave him on account of non-providence, but chiefly on account of his harping hatred of J__s. —Sonia Davis to Samuel Loveman, 4 Jan 1948, JHL
This is likely why Loveman wrote:
Her treatment by H.P. L. was, whether consciously or unconsciously, cruel. His anti-Semitism formed the basis for their eventual divorce. Howard’s monomania about race was about as close to insanity as anything I can think of. —Samuel Loveman, “Of Gold and Sawdust” in The Occult Lovecraft(1975), 22
Elsewhere, Sonia wrote:
But I told him this very soon after we met; especially when he remarked that it was too bad that Samuel Loveman was a Jew. —Sonia Davis to Winfield Townley Scott, 24 Sep 1948, JHL
This is presumably the source for when Loveman wrote:
Lovecraft had a hypocritical streak to him that few were able to recognize. Sonia, his wife, was indubitably his innocent victim. her love for him blinded her to many things. Among the things he said to her was, “Too bad Loveman’s a Jew; he’s such a nice guy.” —Samuel Loveman, “Of Gold and Sawdust” in The Occult Lovecraft(1975), 22
This kind of context was important because Loveman had relatively little save his own memories of Lovecraft to go by when he wrote his first memoir of Lovecraft, published in 1948. He wrote to Derleth:
I look forward to the publication of the letters [of Lovecraft] with a great deal of eagerness. I have practically nothing at all, or I would have tend[er]ed them to you. All my material was either destroyed or confiscated when I left Cleveland for New York. —Samuel Loveman to August Derleth, 1 Dec 1949, quoted in Letters to Maurice W. Moe & Others 29
How Loveman lost most of his letters from Lovecraft isn’t clear, but in the 1940s Loveman purchased several hundred pages of letters that Frank Belknap Long, Jr. had received from Lovecraft; HPL’s letters were already becoming collectors’ items. When Loveman wrote his second memoir of Lovecraft in 1958, this material was presumably available, but perhaps Loveman had not taken the time to read through several hundred pages of his friend’s infamous handwriting when approached for a brief memoir.
So what happened between 1958 and 1975 that caused Loveman to write:
The one last letter of his I have fills the bill, and a hundredfold more! It advocates the extinction of the Jews and their exclusion from colleges. The letter was written to a partner of W. Paul Cook, who published my books, “The Sphinx” and “The Hermaphrodite.” —Samuel Loveman, “Of Gold and Sawdust” in The Occult Lovecraft(1975), 22
The unnamed “partner” would be Walter J. Coates, an amateur journalist and small press publisher during the 30s; Coates’ letters from Lovecraft had apparently also passed through Loveman’s hands. Several of Lovecraft’s letters to Coates appear to be in private hands or lost, so the exact statements that Loveman found so damnable are not widely available. However, a letter from Lovecraft to Coates contains several of these sentiments:
Undeniably—all apart from the effects of natural change and altered philosophic-scientific-psychological perspective—the world of American taste & opinion is distinctly & lamentably Jew-ridden as a result of the control of publicity media by New York Semitic groups. Some of this influence certainly seeps into Anglo-Saxon critical & creative writing to an unfortunate extent; so that we have a real problem of literary & aesthetic fumigation on our hands. The causes are many—but I think the worst factor is a sheer callous indifference which holds the native mind down to mere commercialism & size & speed worship, allowing the restless & ambitious alien to claim the centre of the intellectual stage by default In a commercialized civilization publicity & fame are determined by economic causes alone—& there is where the special talents of Messrs. Cohen & Levi count. Before we can put them in their place, we must de-commercialise the culture—& that, alas, is a full-sized man’s job! Some progress could be made, though, if all the universities could get together & insist on strictly Aryan standards of taste. They could do much, in a quiet & subtle way, by cutting down the Semite percentage in faculty & student body alike. —H. P. Lovecraft to Walter John Coates, [mid-October? 1929], LWH121
The date is uncertain, but the sentiments are in keeping with some of Lovecraft’s other letters. It followed Lovecraft’s time in New York, when he was most vociferous about the city and its Jewish population. The idea that Jews exerted an outsized influence on national media was one that Lovecraft apparently picked up in New York and retained in follow years, and unfortunately dovetailed with Nazi propaganda. Similar-though-not-identical statements appear in some of Lovecraft’s letters from 1933 and ’34, though this is the most explicit instance where Lovecraft suggests censorship of Jews from universities and academia.
The title of Loveman’s final essay, “Of Gold and Sawdust,” echoes a famous statement from W. Paul Cook’s “In Memoriam: Howard Phillips Lovecraft” (1941), on Lovecraft’s return to Providence after his stint in New York—a frustrating period which had seen Lovecraft married, separated, failed to find employment, robbed, and utterly miserable by the end of it, but had matured somewhat as a writer with his best work ahead of him, still to be written—”He had been tried in the fire and came out pure gold.”
These were happy days when I believed H.P.L. was pure gold—not sawdust! —Samuel Loveman, “Of Gold and Sawdust” in The Occult Lovecraft(1975), 21
What Loveman’s final essay—really, his final word—on Lovecraft captures is the sense of betrayal. These were two men who had been intimate friends, through thick and thin, who had dedicated poems to each other (cf. “To Mr. Theobald” (1926) by Samuel Loveman), who were, if far from agreeing on every subject, at the least open and accepting of differences of opinion. In the 1920s and 30s, when antisemitism was so rife in the United States and rising abroad, there was likely a bit of trust there, that at least Lovecraft was different. Maybe (we don’t know, unless Loveman’s letters to Sonia surface), he even doubted Sonia’s initial claims regarding Lovecraft’s antisemitism, since they didn’t match his own memories.
Then the letters came into his hands that gave undeniable proof.
There is a broader context that Loveman missed, having not lived long enough to see the publication of more of Lovecraft’s correspondence than the first volumes of the Selected Letters from Arkham House. He did not see where Lovecraft’s antisemitism began or where it ended, did not see how and why Lovecraft’s prejudices changed over time and in response to personal and world events. Would it have made any difference? “Of Gold and Sawdust” is the cry of a wounded soul, of memories forever poisoned by the thought that in his heart, Lovecraft had hated Loveman just because he was a Jew.
Lovecraft’s letters do not speak of hatred for his friend Sam Loveman. Imperfect as Lovecraft was, he was loyal in his appreciation for Loveman as a friend and poet. That makes “Of Gold and Sawdust” especially bittersweet; there is no reply that Lovecraft could make, no apology, no way to mend the hurt he had inadvertently caused. While Lovecraft’s friends are all dead, it is a feeling that echoes in the lives of many fans who, wanting to learn more about this Lovecraft person and their stories, finds out about his prejudices. It is something we all have to come to terms with, each in our own way.
“Of Gold and Sawdust” was published in The Occult Lovecraft(1975). It has not been reprinted.
Alberto Breccia (1919-1993) was an Argentine comic artist, acknowledged as a master of the form. He began working professionally in 1939, working on comic magazines like Tit-Bits, and providing illustrations for Narraciones terrorificas, a Spanish-language horror fiction magazine which reprinted (in unofficial translation) stories from the U.S. Weird Tales.
Saturain: Ce qui t’a pousse a creer Captura, outre le fait de gagner des sous, c’etait ton interet pour le genre, evidemment. Et la litterature d’epouvante, tu l’as toujours aimee ou ca t’est venu apres?
Breccia: Avant. J’ai commence ave la collection Narraciones terrorificas des editions Molino. J’ai dessine des couvertures [pour cette collection], Albistur aussi Ce’etait dans les annees 1930, en gros, j’etais encoure celibatair. Ca a dure quelques annees. C’est la que j’ai commence a acheter et lire des recits d’epouvante. Jusqu’alors, je connaissais seulement Poe, qui est plus ou moins un auteur d’epouvante. Ou Conan Doyle et Sax Rhomer avec Fu Manchu, mais ce ne sont pas des auteurs de genre a proprement parler.
Saturnin: Ils combinent l’aventure, les feuilleton et l’epouvante.
Breccia: Oui, et le policier. Mais avec Narraciones terrorificas, je me suis plonge dans le genre, en y decouvrant Bloch, Lovecraft tous ceux dont j’ignorais alors jusqu’au nom.
Sasturain: Et tu commences a les lire pour de bon.
Breccia: Tout a fait, et je ne savais pas que la revue etait une replique de cette celebre revue americaine (Weird Tales), tu vois? Je m’en suis rendu compte longtemps apres. C’est la-dedans que j’ai lu Lovecraft, entre autres. Je possedais surement tous les Mythes de Cthulhu, et j’ai du tout vendre. Parce que j’avais cette idee fixe d’etre un lecteur cultive. Alors j’ai commence a vendre ce qui me paraissait inutile pour m’acheter a la place des livres ennuyeux a mourir Les pensees d’un tel, les maximes de La Rochefoucauld et toutes ces conneries qui ne m’ont absolument servi a rien. Maintenant, j’ai un mal de chien a reuperer ces tresors, que je tretouve mais abimes, manges aux mites. Tu sais, Lovecraft, je pense l’avoir lu bien avant. J’imaginais l’avoir decouvert lors de mon voyage en Europe, mais je l’avais probablement lu tout gamin, sans le savoir.
Sasturain: Quend tu lis de l’histoire, des romans, etc., quelle epoque preferes-tu?
Breccia: J’aime le dix-neuvieme siecele des romans de Dickens, tu vois? Cette epoque me plait: les auberges, les diligences. Mais davantage la litterature europeenne qu’americaine. J’aime les recits dont l’action se situe vers la moitie du siecle dernier, voire avants. Jusqu’en 1915, 1920.
Saturain: What pushed you to create Captura, besides earning money, was your interest in the genre, obviously. And horror literature, have you always liked it or did it come to you later?
Breccia: Before. I started with the collection Narraciones terrorificas from Molino publishing. I designed covers [for this collection], Albistur too. It was in the 1930s, basically, I was still single. It lasted a few years. That’s when I started buying and reading horror stories. Until then, I only knew Poe, who is more or less a horror author. Or Conan Doyle and Sax Rhomer with Fu Manchu, but they are not genre authors strictly speaking.
Saturnin: They combine adventure, soap opera and horror.
Breccia: Yes, and the detective story. But with Narraciones terrorificas, I immersed myself in the genre, discovering Bloch, Lovecraft, all those whose names I didn’t even know at the time.
Sasturain: And you start reading them for real.
Breccia: Exactly, and I didn’t know that the magazine was a replica of this famous American magazine (Weird Tales), you see? I realized it a long time later. It’s in there that I read Lovecraft, among others. I probably had all the Cthulhu Mythos, and I had to sell everything. Because I had this fixed idea of being a cultured reader. So I started selling what seemed useless to me in order to buy instead the boring books The Thoughts of So-and-So, the Maxims of La Rochefoucauld and all that crap that was absolutely useless to me. Now, I have a hell of a time finding these treasures, which I find but damaged, moth-eaten. You know, Lovecraft, I think I read him long before. I imagined I had discovered it during my trip to Europe, but I probably read it as a kid, without knowing it.
Sasturain: When you read history, novels, etc., what era do you prefer?
Breccia: I like the nineteenth century of Dickens’ novels, you see? I like that era: the inns, the stagecoaches. But more European literature than American. I like stories whose action takes place around the middle of the last century, or even before. Up to 1915, 1920.
Breccia: Conversations avec Juan Sasturain 349-350 (This interview was conducted in Spanish by Breccia’s collaborator Juan Sasturain and first published in that language, but I only had access to a French translation.)
English translation
Breccia continued working for local publishers for twenty years before he made his first trip to Europe in 1959, and began working with European publishers. It was then that Breccia became more thoroughly acquainted with the works of H. P. Lovecraft. In the 1970s, Breccia would create adaptations of several of Lovecraft’s stories, not for any specific publisher, but on his own, and using that as an opportunity to experiment artistically with the form:
Sasturain: C’etait un systeme de pensee tres profondement ancre en toi, non?
Breccia: C’es la que ‘ai pris conscience que je devais creer pour moi. C’est la que j’ai commence a dessiner Les Mythes de Cthulhu sans avoir un editeur precis en vue. Je me rendais compte que ce marche s’ouvrait a moi, alors je me suis mis a travailler pour ce marche.
Sasturain: Tu dis toujours que Les Mythes, cette idee de dessiner due Lovecraft, est nee bien avant. Qu’un jour, bien des annees plus tot, tu t’etais achete un petit livre de lui et que tu l’avais lu…
Breccia: Je l’avais achete en 1959, au cours de mon premier voyage.
Sasturain: Et quel a ete le detonateur pour te lancer la-dedans dix ans apres?
Breccia: A l’epoque, j’avais rassemble tous les Mythes, je les avais tudies a fond, et je me sentais capable de m’y attaquer. D’ailleurs, j’avais plaisieurs versions du premier, Le Ceremonial, toutes ratees – j’ai tout jete.
Sasturain: Le Ceremonial est le premier.
Breccia: Le premier que j’adapte. Je ne me souviens plus dans quel order, mais j’ai fait La Ceremonial, Le Cauchemar d’Innsmouth, Le Monstre sur le seuil, et an 1973 j’ai decide d’aller montrer tout ca.
Sasturain: Tu pars avec plusieurs episodes termines. Les autres, tu les as faits a ton retour. Je crois que le dernier date de 1975.
Breccia: Je crois que c’est Celui qui chuchotait dans les tenebres.
Sasturain: Tu es parti en Europe avec ces nouvelles planches.
Breccia: Oui, just celles-la. [179] Sasturain: C’etait la premier fois que tu produisais quelque chose sans savoir qui allait le publier.
Breccia: Exactement, avec amour, en prenant mon temps. C’est tout un horizon qui s’ouvre a moi, je ne suis plus un salarie un professionniel qui y consacre le temps necessair. Je commence a jouir du dessin d’une autre manier. Enfin bref, h’ai du mal a expliquer ce que j’ai ressenti.
Sasturain: It was a very deeply rooted system of thought in you, wasn’t it?
Breccia: That’s when I realized that I had to create for myself. That’s when I started drawing The Myths of Cthulhu without having a specific publisher in mind. I realized that this market was opening up to me, so I started working for this market.
Sasturain: You always say that The Myths, this idea of drawing by Lovecraft, was born well before. That one day, many years earlier, you had bought a little book by him and that you had read it…
Breccia: I bought it in 1959, during my first trip.
Sasturain: And what was the trigger that got you into this ten years later?
Breccia: At the time, I had collected all the Myths, I had studied them thoroughly, and I felt able to tackle them. Besides, I had several versions of the first one, The Festival, all failed – I threw them all away.
Sasturain: The Festival is the first.
Breccia: The first one I adapted. I don’t remember in what order, but I did The Festival, The Innsmouth Nightmare, The Monster on the Doorstep, and in 1973 I decided to go and show all that.
Sasturain: You leave with several episodes finished. The others, you did them when you returned. I think the last one dates from 1975.
Breccia: I think it’s The Whisperer in Darkness.
Sasturain: You left for Europe with these new boards.
Breccia: Yes, just those. [179] Sasturain: It was the first time you produced something without knowing who was going to publish it.
Breccia: Exactly, with love, taking my time. It’s a whole horizon that opens up to me, I’m no longer an employee, a professional who devotes the necessary time to it. I’m starting to enjoy drawing in a different way. Anyway, I have a hard time explaining what I felt.
Breccia would complete ten adaptations of Lovecraft’s stories, the majority of them between 1972-1974, six of them from scripts developed by his collaborator Norberto Buscaglia. The first six stories were published in the Italian comic magazine Il Mago, but were translated and reprinted in other languages, such as the Métal Hurlant/Heavy Metal/Metal Extra Lovecraft Special. Multiple collections of these comic stories have been published over the decades, although ironically, few of Breccia’s influential Lovecraft adaptations have been published in English. While the first nine are relatively well-known and widely republished, after Breccia’s death a new collection of adaptations was published, Sueños Pesados (2003, “Heavy Dreams”). These are painted, in color, and contain one additional Lovecraft adaptation.
It is difficult to overstate how influential Breccia’s Lovecraft adaptations were, from their first publication in the 1970s right up until today, when they are still being reproduced. These are experimental comics, playing with the form, the medium, often combining elements of collage, photography, paint, and watercolors in addition to traditional pen and ink. Breccia’s assistant Horacia Lalia would go on to produce his own highly-regarded series of adaptations of Lovecraft stories, and his son Enrique Breccia provided the artwork for the graphic novel Lovecraft(2004), with Hans Rodinoff and Keith Griffen.
While it wouldn’t be accurate to say that Breccia was the first to adapt Lovecraft to comics, he single-handedly raised the bar for the quality of Lovecraft adaptations. So it is only fitting to take a look at each in turn.
These works were not published strictly in order of completion, although there is considerable stylistic variation between the earliest stories and the last (“El Que Susurraba en Las TInieblas”), and the exact publishing history is a little hazy (since they were all first published in non-English periodicals and collections), so this is a roughly chronological order of publication.
“La Sombra Sobre Innsmouth” (1973)
17 pages. Script by Norberto Buscaglia, art by Alberto Breccia. First published in Il Mago (Nov 1973). This adaptation of “The Shadow over Innsmouth” is verbose, selective in its imagery, evocative and often ambiguous in terms of landscape but with detailed faces and figures that give evidence of “the Innsmouth Look.”
“La Cosa en el Umbral” (1973)
11 pages. Script by Norberto Buscaglia, art by Alberto Breccia. First published in the album Il piacere della paura (Oct 1973), and then in Il Mago (Jan 1974). This adaptation of “The Thing on the Doorstep” begins very sedately, with a heavier emphasis on traditional line work, Breccia’s other techniques mainly adding texture. However, that texture soon comes to grow and dominate as it reflects Edward Pickman Derby’s relationship with Asenath Waite; the depiction of “the Innsmouth Look” is very consistent with Breccia’s adaptation of “The Shadow over Innsmouth.”
“El Ceremonial” (1974)
9 pages. Written and illustrated by Alberto Breccia. Signed “Breccia ’72,” this is the first adaptation of Lovecraft that Breccia completed, but wasn’t published until Il Mago (Mar 1974). Breccia makes the most of the chiaroscuro possibilities, with the white space sometimes doubling for snow, sometimes for light, or simply negative space. The combination of the surreal painting and collage with the ultra-realistic photographs and sketches that bookend the story add to the dreamlike nature of the narrative.
“La Ciudad sin Nombre” (1974)
6 pages. Script by Norberto Buscaglia, art by Alberto Breccia. First published in Il Mago (Sep 1974). The shortest of the adaptations, and dominated by photographs of sandy deserts and rock outcroppings, which are collaged with sketched figures in a way suggestive of alien vistas that pure pen and ink could not capture alone.
“El Llamado de Cthulhu” (1974)
11 pages. Script by Norberto Buscaglia, art by Alberto Breccia. First published in Il Mago (Dec 1974). At 11 pages, this is a very truncated version of Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu,” though it captures all the essential plot points, it also abbreviates the complicated narrative story-within-story structure. What is really striking about this brief adaptation is how well Breccia restrains himself from revealing Cthulhu, even in the image in clay, until the moment that title entity appears on the page, at which point he presents something so truly outlandish that readers almost don’t notice the miniscule human figures that give it scale.
“El Horror de Dunwich” (1975)
15 pages. Script by Norberto Buscaglia, art by Alberto Breccia. First published in Il Mago (Nov 1975). Arguably, this adaptation of “The Dunwich Horror” is the most famous and widely-republished of Breccia’s adaptations, because of its including in theMétal Hurlant Lovecraft Special, and the works that followed from that. Possibly some of Breccia’s finest figure and face work went into the goatish countenance of Wilbur Whateley. Like most of Breccia’s adaptations, the backgrounds and setting details are relatively spare but evocative.
Sasturain: Ce qui explique peut-etre que, pour la creature extraterrestre de <<Tres ojos>>, dans Sherlock TIme, tu n’as pas dessine un monstre. Dans L’Eternaute, tu les as desintegres. Les monstres sont intangibles: tu as dessine la sensation que genere l’epouvante chex les gens, pas l’object qui la prodout. Et tu as fait pareil pour Lovecraft.
Breccia: Je n’aime ni voir ni dessiner des monsters. Ca ne m’interesse pas.
Sasturain: Which may explain why, for the extraterrestrial creature of <<Three Eyes>>, in Sherlock Time, you didn’t draw a monster. In L’Eternaute, you disintegrated them. Monsters are intangible: you drew the sensation that generates terror in people, not the object that produces it. And you did the same for Lovecraft.
Breccia: I don’t like to see or draw monsters. I’m not interested.
Despite Breccia’s comment, when the time came at the end of the story to reveal Wilbur’s unnamed twin, he pulled out all the stops.
“El Color que Cayó del Cielo” (1975)
13 pages. Written and illustrated by Alberto Breccia. This adaptation of “The Colour Out of Space” first appeared in his album Los mitos de Cthulhu (1975), which contained all but one of his Lovecraft adaptations (the last not being published until years later). Compared to the previous stories, this one is much more experimental in style, bolder in its use of collage, stark blacks and blinding whites.
“El Morador de las Tinieblas” (1975)
15 pages. Written and illustrated by Alberto Breccia. This adaptation of “The Haunter of the Dark” first appeared in his album Los mitos de Cthulhu (1975). Again, Breccia pushes the envelope of his experimental style, his pen-and-ink illustrations taking on the more exaggerated style characteristic of his work in the 80s like Drácula, but still playing with texture, shape, and strong contrasts.
According to a note by Latino Imperato in later collections, many of the original pages for this story have been lost, and subsequent reproductions were made from the first Italian printing.
“El Que Susurraba En las Tinieblas” (1979)
15 pages. Script by Norberto Buscaglia, art by Alberto Breccia. First published in the Argentine magazine El Pendulo (Sep 1979). This adaptation of “The Whisperer in Darkness” was the last of Breccia’s Lovecraft adaptations to be published, and the last to be collected. It is in many ways the apex of the artistic experiments and strongly points to some of Breccia’s stylistic choices in subsequent works during the 1980s like Perramus. For the most part, however, it is the most deliberately choppy and nightmarish of Breccia’s adaptations.
“El anciano terrible” (2003)
7 pages. Painted, in color, as are the other works in Sueños Pesados. The last page is dated “Breccia ’81.” Here, Breccia takes more liberties with the text than usual, eschewing much of Lovecraft’s exposition and description to give the characters a bit of dialogue, letting the art do most of the talking. The art is characteristic of this period, with vibrant colors, rich textures, but muddier faces, deliberately stylized and evocative.
It is just possible that Ernest Hemingway knew the name H. P. Lovecraft. Though they moved in very different literary circles and Hemingway was not known to have ever picked up a copy of Weird Tales. Yet they both earned three-star ratings in Edward J. O’Brien’s The Best Short Stories of 1928, Hemingway for “Hills Like White Elephants,” Lovecraft for “The Color Out of Space.” They both made The Best Short Stories of 1929, too. For Hemingway, that was the likely the beginning and end of their association; there are no mentions of the master of the weird tale in Hemingway’s letters. It was easy, in the 1920s and 30s, to know nothing about Lovecraft.
For H. P. Lovecraft, missing Hemingway would have been much more difficult—nor did he. Though they were very different in their fictional focus, output, and success, Lovecraft and Hemingway were still contemporaries, and there are a number of references to Hemingway and his works in Lovecraft’s letters. These mentions of Ernest Hemingway, who had not yet become “Papa” of later years, reflect more on Lovecraft than on Hemingway himself, but show Lovecraft both coming to grips with a Modern writer of very different style and interests and how Hemingway’s influence spread.
Trends come from deeper sources than what is written on the surface of literature, and the average domestic adjustments of 1980 or 2030 will not depend on the question of whether Ernest Hemingway is suppressed or encouraged in 1930. —H. P. Lovecraft to Maurice W. Moe, June 1930?, LMM 267
The date on this letter is approximate, but the reference appears to be to the ban of the June 1929 issue of Scribner’s Magazine in Boston, which contained the second installment of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Lovecraft did not normally read Scribner’s, but his aunt did (ES1.141), and he sometimes read it at the library (ES2.670). This was likely where Lovecraft first encountered Hemingway’s prose. Hemingway came up again in Lovecraft’s ongoing correspondence with Moe circa 1931:
It does not take a microscope to perceive that Ernest Hemingway and John V. A. Weaver have a much greater intellectual command of their material than would the kind of people they depict! But they are right in stripping down to vulgate essentials when they wish to say what they have to say. Life could not possibly be interpreted without this intelligent adaptation of medium to subject matter ….. Indeed, the blank record of the nineteenth century in saying anything of real significance or reality is sufficient proof of the validity of the assumption. […] To suppose a man with the aesthetick and philosophic vision of Hemingway could say anything in the French pastry jargon of Thornton Wilder, or that a sensitive perceiver like Marcel Proust (the one real novelist of the last decade or two) could get anything at all over in the stereotyped phrases and attitudes of the “great tradition”, is to miss the whole point of the purpose and mode of functioning of language. What any guy has to say, is what’s in him–and every fresh combination of a guy and wot he’s got on his chest calls for a distinctly individual use of language. […] Honest depiction of life must be based on realism, no matter how much that realism may be suffused with imaginative overtones derived from subjective attitudes toward reality and dream. —H. P. Lovecraft to Maurice W. Moe, March 1931?, LMM 285-286
John Van Alstyne Weaver, like Hemingway, worked with American vernacular English; Thornton Wilder was the author of the acclaimed novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), which is set in the 18th century and whose language is full of decorative frills—very different from Hemingway’s usual laconic approach. Hemingway himself would call the book “a well hung together collection of short stories” (LEH 4.152) and elsewhere wrote:
Writing whether you want it or not is competitive—Most of the time you compete against time and dead men—sometimes you get something from a living (contemporary competitor) that is so good it jars you—as the story of Esteban in Thornton’s last book. But as you read them dead or living you unconsciously compete—I would give 6 mos. of life to have written it. —Ernest Hemingway to Maxwell Perkins, Sep 1928, LEH 3.434
Was Lovecraft in unconscious competition with Hemingway? If so, it never showed in his work. Yet Hemingway was not wrong. Both writers focused on realism as a key aspect of their writing. Hemingway wanted to write about real things; Lovecraft used realism as the basis for his weird tales, and wrote about one of his dead competitors:
Poe’s spectres thus acquired a convincing malignity possessed by none of their predecessors, and established a new standard of realism in the annals of literary horror. The impersonal and artistic intent, moreover, was aided by a scientific attitude not often found before; whereby Poe studied the human mind rather than the usages of Gothic fiction, and worked with an analytical knowledge of terror’s true sources which doubled the force of his narratives and emancipated him from all the absurdities inherent in merely conventional shudder-coining. This example having been set, later authors were naturally forced to conform to it in order to compete at all; so that in this way a definite change began to affect the main stream of macabre writing. —H. P. Lovecraft, “Supernatural Horror in Literature”
A couple of months after his letter to Moe, Lovecraft would be unknowingly stepping onto Hemingway’s own turf—his southern travels in 1931 carrying him down to Florida, to Miami, and then by motor coach and ferry to Key West itself.
Ernest Hemingway and his second wife Pauline had first come to Key West in 1928. They left and returned again sporadically for the next few years, with an eye toward permanent settlement, and on 29 April 1931 they purchased (with the aid of Pauline’s uncle Augustus Pfeiffer) the large but dilapidated French Colonial-style house on 907 Whitehead Street. They did not, however, move in right away; by May the Hemingway family was on their way to Europe, so that when Lovecraft arrived in Key West on June 10th, the chance of even an accidental meeting was nonexistent. Lovecraft had hoped to make the crossing to Cuba, but he was traveling on a tight budget and could not afford it. What he could afford were expansive letters, describing Key West as he—and perhaps Hemingway—might have seen it:
As utterly isolated from the populous part of the world as Block Island or Nantucket, Key West has retained an unique provincial character differing vastly from that of any other place. It is simple & village-like, & extremely frugal & primitive in all things. Spanish influence is everywhere observable—Cubans being about as thick as French-Canadians in Fall River or Jews in New York. One of the two cinema theatres (both owned by a Spaniard) has its films in the Spanish language. There is, however, no Spanish newspaper. Vegetation is thick, splendid, & tropical—including great trees & surpassing that of any of the other keys. There is, however, no Spanish moss so far as I can see. Under cultivation, the greenery assumes an unbelievable luxuriance in gardens. Coconut palms are frequent.
Unlike Dunedin & Miami, this is an old town with a natural growth; & it is certainly refreshing to be back in such a place. The town was founded under the Spanish regime—though not, I think, till the early 1800’s. The original name is Caya Huesco, (Bone Key) which American usage soon corrupted into the present title of Key West. Early in the American regime it became an army post, & it has always since remained a military & naval station of importance; because of its strategic control of the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico. In the Civil War it pursued the anomalous course of supporting the Federal side despite the secession of Florida as a state. In the Spanish war it was a great naval base & hospital centre. The harbour is of exceptional depth & convenience, & many steamship lines—to Tampa, New Orleans, Havana, &c—converge here. The principal industry—employing most of the Spanish population—is the manufacture of cigars. Next come fishing, sponge-fishing, ship supplies, & fruit growing—the latter accomplished largely on the adjacent keys.
Houses are largely small wooden cottages set in fenced-in gardens, recalling the old America of the 1840’s. Tropic balconies are frequent on both residences & shops, & the latest buildings (though not many new ones are built) have them as well as the old ones. Some shops have folding doors of many sections, which can be so opened as to throw the entire front open to the street—forming a sort of open-air bazaar, as it were. This is especially true of drug stores & soda fountains. In the residences, most front doors have auxiliary doors with shutters like those of blinds—a fashion which also existed in New England during the late Georgian period, & which is well exemplified by fine hillside colonial house at the corner of Angell & Congdon. Some of the houses have window blinds hinged at the top, which open outward like awnings & are propped with sticks. A distinct Latin touch pervades everything. Chimneys are very rare, & roofs tend to come to a central point or ridge like those of most far-southern towns. It is a relief to be in a really old & naturally developed town once again. Miami & all it represents seems in another world—for Key West is one with Charleston & Providence & Salem as a representation of pre-machine-age America. The city has a population (1930) of 12,613; being therefore about the size of Bristol, & somewhat larger than Athol or N. Attleboro. Its size is almost identical with that of my favourite village of Hempstead, Long Island. It is the seat of Monroe County, which includes all the keys. Up to 1911 or 1912 its isolation from the world was even more profound than at present; but at that time the Florida East Coast Railway completed its causeways & opened service from the mainland. Lack of highway access continued to keep it semi-isolated, but in 1928 the present motor route (interrupted by two 2-hour ferry trips) was opened. But for the business depression, these ferries would have been eliminated by this time—but lacking money, the state has not been able to construct the desired causeways. This delay is probably all that saves Key West from tourist invasion, standardisation, & self-conscious showmanship. As things are, the town is absolutely natural & unspoiled; a perfect bit of old-time simplicity which is truly quaint because it does not know that it is quaint. There is only one luxurious winter hotel, & one first-class city hostelry like our Biltmore. I am stopping at the latter—because the poor business season has caused them to quote fine single rooms with hot & cold water at only $1.50. It is the Key West Colonial—owned by the same chain which owns Charleston’s palatial Ft. Sumter Hotel on the Battery. There is a widely advertised roof garden with a magnificent view of the whole city & surrounding keys & ocean, which I intend to investigate tomorrow morning. But my own room has a fine enough view.
The coach drew into Key West at sunset, when the whole tropic scene bore an aspect of ineffable glamour. This approach was along a wide seaside boulevard; & betwixt the observer & the mystical westward gulf there rose a low, picturesque line of old-fashioned roofs & steeples which even the tall skeleton masts of the wireless station could not spoil. On the farther side one could note great ships tied up at the docks—messengers from Caribbean realms of still more enchanting glamour. In reaching the hotel—which is also the bus station—the coach passed through a large part of the town; so that I formed an excellent general impression at the very outset. With the coming of daylight, I shall do further exploration on foot—as well as consulting books in the local library. So far I have studied only the few Chamber of Commerce leaflets procurable at the hotel desk. The local Cubans are very picturesque—& not even nearly as squalid as our Federal Hill Italians. They are addicted to sporty clothes of a flamboyant striped pattern. Most of the younger ones, locally educated, speak fluent English. —H. P. Lovecraft to Lillian D. Clark, 11-12 Jun 1931, LFF 2.909-910
The Key West Colonial was formerly La Concha; and the locals still called it that, as did Hemingway (LEH 3.510). Hemingway’s own description of the town in his letters was much more laconic; two examples highlight some of the differences between the two men:
Tonight is a big night (Saturday) although not so cheerful because another cigar factory has closed down. This is a splendid place. Population formerly 26,000—now around ten thousand[.] There was a pencilled ins[c]ription derogatory to our fair city in the toilet at the station and somebody had written under it—’if you don’t like this town get out and stay out.’ Somebody else had written under that ‘Everybody has.’ —Ernest Hemingway to Maxwell Perkins, 21 Apr 1928, LEH 3.382-383
That was was where I went best when I was writing it—Swim all winter—Everybody talks Spanish—The old Gulf stream just seven miles out and all the uninhabited keys to sail to. Good Spanish wine from Cuba on every boat—Whiskey $5.00 a quart—Bacardi 4.00—Fundador 4.50—We’ll get a house and two niggers—[…] The fishing is as exciting as war only you can go home nights. Grand people. —Ernest Hemingway to Archibald MacLeish, c.9-13 Sep 1928, LEH 3.436-437
Lovecraft was a teetotal and not a sportsman; but both men found charm in the small town, though only one of them was destined to ever return and stay there. Some months after his return to Providence, Rhode Island, the subject of Hemingway came up again:
I like Cather and Hemingway . . . . Hemingway is the sort of guy I intensely admire without any great impulse to imitate him. His prosaic objectivity is a very high form of art—which I wish I could parallel—but I can’t get used to the rhythm of his short, harsh sentences. —H. P. Lovecraft to J. Vernon Shea, 18 Sep 1931, LJS 56
Willa Cather won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for her novel One of Ours (1922); a thematic companion to Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms (1929), which still seems to have been the only prose of Hemingway’s that Lovecraft had read. Hemingway’s prose style would be marked by Lovecraft in further discussions:
Of course, one oughtn’t to strike a cloying sing-song like Thrift’s pale-Hubbardesque iambicks in the Lucky Dog, or like some of my own “and”-balanc’d periods of yesteryear; but just the same, there’s no excuse for barking out an Hemingway machine-gun fire when one could weave prose which can be read aloud without sore throat or hiccoughs. […] The best prose is vigorous, direct, unadorn’d, and closely related (as is the best verse) to the language of actual discourse; but it has its natural rhythms and smoothness just as good oral speech has. —H. P. Lovecraft to Maurice W. Moe, 26 Mar 1932, LMM 322-323
Tim Thrift was an amateur journalist whose publication was The Lucky Dog; A Magazinelet of Uniqueness. The reference is likely to the sometimes long, terse dialogues in A Farewell to Arms, where an entire conversation could be had in a couple dozen words. Dialogue was not Lovecraft’s forte, as he himself admitted. As for the content:
As for Mr. Hemingway—opinions may well differ on the exact amount of sanguinary virility best fitted for daily life, but these extremist dicta are well worth recording for correlation with the effeminate pacificism & supineness of other extreme schools of thought. —H. P. Lovecraft to J. Vernon Shea, 12 Jan 1933, LJS 309
It’s worth pointing out that Lovecraft had been corresponding with Robert E. Howard for some years at this point, and would make a similar statement on the Texas pulpster who specialized in lusty and bloody adventure:
About the Conan tales—I don’t know that they contain any more sex than is necessary in a delineation of the life of a lusty bygone age. Good old Two-Gun didn’t seem to me to overstress eroticism nearly as much as other cash-seeking pulpists—even if he did now & then feel in duty bound to play up to a Brundage cover-design. —H. P. Lovecraft to Willis Conover, 14 Aug 1936, LRBO 382-383
While they did not share the same experience of war—Lovecraft’s effort to enlist in the Great War came to naught, and he did not seek to drive an ambulance as Hemingway did—they were neither of them pacifists, and each had their own concerns about masculinity and masculine behavior.
Hemingway’s star was on the rise; A Farewell to Arms was adapted to film and released in 1932. Lovecraft saw it, though he wrote almost nothing about what he thought of it; “about as you say” (LJS 122) would be more helpful if we knew what Lovecraft’s correspondent had said about it. In 1933 Esquire began publishing a series of short essays from Hemingway. One of these, “Monologue to the Maestro” (Esquire Oct 1935), between Hemingway (Y.C.) and a young fan (Mice) appears to have been the subject of discussion:
Mice: Well what books are necessary?
Y.C.: He should have read WAR AND PEACE and ANNA KARENINA, by Tolstoi, MIDSHIPMAN EASY, FRANK MILDAMAY AND PETER SIMPLE by Captain Marryat, MADAME BOVARY and LʼEDUCATION SENTIMENTALE by Flaubert, BUDDENBROOKS by Thomas Mann, Joyceʼs DUBLINERS, PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST and ULYSSES, TOM JONES and JOSEPH ANDREWS by Fielding, LE ROUGE ET LE NOIR and LA CHARTREUSE DE PARME by Stendhal, THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV and any two other Dostoevskis, HUCKLEBERRY FINN by Mark Twain, THE OPEN BOAT and THE BLUE HOTEL by Stephen Crane, HAIL AND FAREWELL by George Moore, Yeats AUTOBIOGRAPHIES, all the good De Maupassant, all the good Kipling, all of Turgenev, FAR AWAY AND LONG AGO by W.H. Hudson, Henry Jamesʼ short stories, especially MADAME DE MAUVES and THE TURN OF THE SCREW, THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY, THE AMERICAN—
Mice: I canʼt write them down that fast. How many more are there?
Y.C.: Iʼll give you the rest another day. There are about three times that many. —Ernest Hemingway, “Monologue to the Maestro”
Hemingway’s list of classics is a curious one—but perhaps typical of a disjointed transitional age. —H. P. Lovecraft to J. Vernon Shea, 5 Dec 1935, LJS 275
As it happened, Lovecraft himself was creating a list of suggested books for readers as part of the revisions for a textbook titled Well-Bred Speech. They had several titles in common, including Madame Bovary, War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina, and Joyce’s Ulysses. But Lovecraft felt it necessary to add: “Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms)” (CE 2.190).
While vastly different in style, that both men shared an appreciation for some of the same authors and works, or at least recognized their importance, should not be surprising. They were only nine years apart in age, both white men raised in America, voracious readers who loved literature. One notable fantasy writer that they both appreciated was Lord Dunsany, who was a major influence on Lovecraft:
Often a wonderful moon and the guy’s would have me read Lord Dunsany’s Wonder Tales out loud. He’s great. —Ernest Hemingway to Grace Quinlan, 8 Aug 1920, LEH 1.237
Fantasy would be the subject of the final comment from Lovecraft on Hemingway, written only a month before HPL’s death:
I am, incidentally, amused by the definition of fantasy which you quote from Hemingway. The trouble with our literary toreador is, of course, that he tries to draw a parallel betwixt two utterly different and irreconcilable types of aesthetic emotion, each with an antipodal set of goals and origins. Fantaisistes and realists resemble each other only in the accidental circumstance that both usually employ paper and ink. Aside from that, they have no aims or wishes in common. —H. P. Lovecraft to J. Vernon Shea, 5 Feb 1937, LJS 294
The phrase “literary toreador” shows that Lovecraft was at least aware of Death in the Afternoon (1932), Hemingway’s treatise on bull-fighting. It is not exactly clear which statement of Hemingway’s Lovecraft is discussing here, although there is another passage in “Monologue to the Maestro” which may fit:
Your correspondent: Good writing is true writing. If a man is making a story up it will be true in proportion to the amount of knowledge of life that he has and how conscientious he is; so that when he makes something up it is as it would truly be. If he doesnʼt know how many people work in their minds and actions his luck may save him for a while, or he may write fantasy. But if he continues to write about what he does not know about he will find himself faking. After he fakes a few times he cannot write honestly any more.
Mice: Then what about imagination?
Y.C.: Nobody knows a damned thing about it except that it is what we get for nothing. It may be a racial experience. I think that is quite possible. It is the one thing beside honesty that a good writer must have. The more he learns from experience the more truly he can imagine. If he gets so he can imagine truly enough people will think that the things he relates all really happened and that he is just reporting. —Ernest Hemingway, “Monologue to the Maestro”
There is at once a convergence and divergence here between Hemingway and Lovecraft. Both emphasize the necessity of realism in writing; both differ as to the approach. Hemingway’s laconic “just reporting” works for his style of fiction, but as for Lovecraft:
One cannot, except in immature pulp charlatan-fiction, present an account of impossible, improbable, or inconceivable phenomena as a commonplace narrative of objective acts and conventional emotions. Inconceivable events and conditions have a special handicap to overcome, and this can be accomplished only through the maintenance of a careful realism in every phase of the story except that touching on the one given marvel. The marvel must be treated very impressively and deliberately—with a careful emotional “build-up”—else it will seem flat and unconvincing. Being the principal thing in the story, its mere existence should overshadow the characters and events. But the characters and events must be consistent and natural except where they touch the single marvel. In relation to the central wonder, the characters should shew the same overwhelming emotion which similar characters would shew toward such a wonder in real life. Never have a wonder taken for granted. Even when the characters are supposed to be accustomed to the wonder I try to weave an air of aw and impressiveness corresponding to what the reader should feel. A casual style ruins any serious fantasy. —H. P. Lovecraft, “Notes on Writing Weird Fiction” (CE 2.177)
Hemingway and Lovecraft, though they never met in person or by letter, were both products of the same era, read some of the same books, wrestled with some of the same issues both in their life and their writing. Both might be seen as modernists; both at least acknowledged the necessity for realism in their fiction, though their approaches to achieving that differed markedly. Each had their harsh sentences in life, and served it ‘til the end.
I got hooked on Lovecraft when I was just starting to read English, which I taught myself so I could buy and read horror and SF, which was practically unavailable in my own language (Flemish, which is another version of Dutch typical for Belgium, at last for the Flemish-speaking part, since French is our national second language). […] During January-April 1963 I wrote a novelette, titled “De Poort in het duister” (A Way into Darkness”), which was “published” in 6 copies in a carbon-typed fanzine I was “publishing with a friend.” […] I mentioned “A Way into Darkness” several times to correspondents, and it was noted down in one of the Reader’s Guides to the Cthulhu Mythos. —Eddy C. Bertin, “Darkness: Your Name Is A Story” 63
I was very ill at the start of 1963, and for three weeks I suffered from a high fever and horrible nightmares. I had just discovered the work of H. P. Lovecraft, and in those nightmares I was constantly involved in a very surrealistic battle between immense inhuman forces, who took the form of geometrical patterns, which were fighting a war in a world outside of our space and time. It was around this time that I wrote “De poort in het duister” aka “The Way into Darkness” […] (Boekestein 2014, 7)
It is difficult to say when Lovecraft first came to the Low Countries. Belgian writer Jean Ray appeared in Weird Tales in the 1930s, under the pseudonym John Flanders.Kalju Kirde talks about running across copies of Weird Tales in Estonia during the late 1930s or early 1940s, possibly copies of the British edition of Weird Tales which appeared in the 1940s (Kirde 121). It is not unfeasible that some American pulps or copies of the British Not at Night series containing Lovecraft’s stories appeared in Belgium or the Netherlands at this time. But for the most part Lovecraft appears to have been a stranger to the Dutch and Flemish readers, at least in their native language.
After the death of H. P. Lovecraft in 1937, Arkham House was founded to publish his work and oversee his literary legacy, and began publishing his work in hardcover editions in 1939. Arkham House exercised de facto control of the Lovecraft copyrights, including foreign translations and a proprietary interest in who published Cthulhu Mythos fiction in the United States. During World War II, translations of Lovecraft’s work to non-English markets were largely unfeasible, but after the war the small publisher began to find some success.
French translation collections of Lovecraft’s work began to appear in the 1950s, beginning with La Couleur tombée du ciel (1954, Editions Donoël), and German in the 1960s with 12 grusel Stories (1965, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag), but it would be years before a Lovecraft collection was translated for the Dutch language market. During the 1950s, science fiction and fantasy fandom in Belgium and the Netherlands was largely disorganized, but groups began to coalesce and fan-publications proliferated in the 1960s. (Boekestein 2000; Dautzenberg 174)
Enterprising fans like Eddy C. Bertin would learn English and import British and American editions, and his story “De Poort in het duister” (“The Gate into Darkness,” also published as “A Way into Darkness”) is the first known Cthulhu Mythos story in Dutch, published in the fanzine Nachtmerrie (vol. 4, no. 4, May 1963)…“published” in an edition of only six copies. As Bertin recalls:
I knew Lovecraft from two stories, “The Rats in the Walls” and “the Thing on the Doorstep” (published in two now very rare Dutch horror anthologies), neither of which I really liked. […] There were however very few books of horror available in Dutch, but the English and American paperbacks found in the supermarkets and bookshops contained a much larger variety of it. So I started teaching myself to read english, with a dictionary at hand. […] one of those books I tackled was Best Supernatural Stories of H. P. Lovecraft in a cheap hardcover from Tower Books. I found his language and style very hard reading (for a beginner) but his ideas and images hooked me for life. I started hunting for his other books, discovering the “collaborations” with August Derleth, Arkham House, and later the works of others who had expanded and changed his Mythos, such as J. Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, and so on. (Bertin, “My European Mythos”3)
The first Dutch translation of Lovecraft I’ve found is “Het Ding op de Drempel” (“The Thing in the Doorstep”) in Voor en na Middernacht: Zijnde Vijfendertig Spook en Griezelverhalen Alsmede Andere Fantastische Vertellingen (1949, Elsevier, trans. A. Verhoef; a different edition was also released in 1954); “Ratten” (“The Rats in the Walls”) was published in Griezelverhalen (1959, Het Spectrum, trans. W. Wielek-Berg), and it may be other single stories were translated and published in anthologies or magazines from 1940 to the 1960s, when the first Dutch language collection of Lovecraft would appear.
Macabere Verhalen (1967, Uitgeverij Contact), translated by Jean A. Schalekamp, and began a small boom in Dutch translations of the American horrorist’s work. This was quickly followed by Het gefluister in de duisternis: Greizelverhalen (1968, A. W. Bruna & Zoon, trans. R. Germeraad), and Heksensabbat: Griezelverhalen (1969, A. W. Bruna, trans. C. A. G. van der Broek). The Dutch translation “Heksensabbat” (“The Dreams in the Witch House”) in the latter volume may have inspired Julien C. Raasveld to write “The House of Keziah Mason,” which first appeared (in English) in his ’zine Parallax #0 (March 1971), and was itself later translated as La Mansion de Keziah Mason (Las Mejoras Historias de Fantasmas, 1973); this is the second known Cthulhu Mythos work by a Flemish author.
The Bruna editions also contained the essay “De ‘verboden’ boeken van H. P. Lovecraft” by Aart C. Prins, one of the earliest Dutch critical works examining Lovecraft’s themes. Prins also edited Het Monster in de Liftan andere griezelverhalen (1967, Bruna) which contained the Hazel Heald/Lovecraft collaboration “The Horror in the Museum”, and De Bewoner van het Meer (1968, A. W. Bruna & Zoon), which contained translations of non-Lovecraft Mythos stories by Clark Ashton Smith, Ramsey Campbell, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and Robert Bloch. Also in 1968 was published Wie Kan-ik Zeggen Dat er is? (Bruna, trans. J. J. van Olffen), which included several of Derleth’s “posthumous collaborations” with H. P. Lovecraft.
The 1970s saw more of Lovecraft’s work published in Dutch. A. W. Bruna & Zoon began the Bruna Fantasy en Horror series with De droomwereld van Kadath (1972, trans. Pé Hawinkels), and further volumes included De bergen van de waanzin (1973, trans. Heleen ten Holt), and De zaak Charles Dexter Ward (1974, trans. J. F. Niessen-Hossele); their last Lovecraft volume was Het huis in de nevel (1976, trans. Pon Ruiter). The number of different translators who had worked on bringing Lovecraft into the Dutch language at this point likely added to an uneven quality to the fiction—yet it did capture the public imagination, and avid fans became a part of the worldwide network of Mythos fiction writers.
Miscellaneous Lovecraft stories were also translated in various anthologies. One editor used the pseudonym “E. L. de Marigny” (from a character in Lovecraft’s “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” and “Out of the Aeons”) in publishing Fata Morgana (Maulenhoff, 1980) and Griezel-omnibus: Het verschrikkelijke geheim (1982, Elsevier), both of which contained Lovecraft translations. Other anthologies featuring Lovecraft translations include: Vampier! (1972, De Arbeiderspers), 50 beroemde griezelverhalen (1974, Elsevier), Kleine Griezelomnibus 1 (1976, A. W. Bruna & Sons), Land van de Griezel (1976, D.A.P.Reinaert Uitgaven), Van Edgar Allan Poe tot Roald Dahl, De 50 Beste Griezelverhalen (1980, Borsbeek & Loeb), Van Jules Verne tot Isaac Asimov: De 50 Beste Science Fiction-Verhalen (1981, Publioboek/Bart), De Beste Griezelverhalen (1982, K-Tel), De Beste Science-Fiction Verhalen (1982, K-Tel), Duistere Machent (1982, Loeb), and In de Geest van Tolkien (2003, Uitgeverij M). Some stories have been translated more than once, which combined with reprints has led to a little confusion at times.
The Dutch fantasy fan scene was also developing at this time; a notable publication was Drab, “eerste nederlandse tijdschrift voor Horror & Fantasy” (“first Dutch magazine for Horror & Fantasy”). Beginning in 1973 and running irregularly through 1980, it published sixteen issues in four volumes. Roeland de Vust provided three original translations for the magazine: the short story “Yule Ritus” (“The Festival”) Drab 1, No. 3 (1975), the R. H. Barlow collaboration “En de zee was niet meer” (“Till A’ the Seas”) Drab 3, No.2 (1976), and the poem “Waar eens Poe wandelde” (“In a Sequester’d Providence Churchyard Where Once Poe Walk’d”) Drab 4, No. 3 (1978); which issue also included Temme Tams’ translation “Van wat daarbuiten is” (“From Beyond”). In addition to this, de Vust provided a review of L. Sprague de Camp’s biography of Lovecraft in Drab 3, No. 2. Regarding the translations, Roeland de Vust wrote:
For me, translating was a challenge, trying to maintain in Dutch the “ancient” literary style of H.P.L.
A sentiment many of Lovecraft’s translators no doubt agree with.
Sometime in the ‘60s or ‘70s Eddy C. Bertin conceived a project for a booklet of five horror stories, to be published in Dutch, two of them involving the Mythos. One would have been “He Who Feeds on Thoughts,” which would be an adaptation of his science fiction story “De Gedachteneter” (“The Thought Eater,” published in De Achtjaarlijkse God, 1971, Bruna), and the second “The Sound of Silver Rain.” However, the project failed to attract subscribers and was scrapped (Bertin 2008a, 4).
Bertin and Julien C. Raasveld’s contributions to the Mythos were both duly recorded by Robert Weinberg and Edward P. Berglund in the Reader’s Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos(1973). It was through these fan-connections that the next phase of Dutch Mythos work was published—in English! With the death of August Derleth in 1971, the Cthulhu Mythos became free of his more restrictive attempts to control the publication of new Mythos material. Berglund noticed while compiling the Reader’s Guide that there were enough stories by professional authors for an anthology, and at Donald Wollheim’s suggestion solicited Bertin for stories with the idea of proposing the anthology to Arkham House. (Berglund x; Bertin 2008a, 4) Bertin sent him “Hingoo” (“All-Eye”) by Bob van Laerhoven “which I just changed slightly to fit better in the Mythos” Bertin 63) and Bertin’s rewrote “Darkness, My Name Is,” Arkham House turned the anthology down, but Berglund later published it as Disciples of Cthulhu(1976, DAW).
These early works of Dutch Mythos fiction were fairly typical of the time; Bertin’s “Darkness, My Name Is,” Raasveld’s “House of Keziah Mason,” and van Laerhoven’s “All-Eye” are pastiches of various degrees of creativity and skill, and went little beyond what Lovecraft and Derleth had written. “Darkness, My Name Is” however saw Bertin take a step beyond and begin to craft his own original Mythos, introducing his own tome (Von denen Verdammten by Edith Brendall—an occasional pseudonym for Bertin), his own Mythos entity Cyäegha, and an isolated geographic setting akin to Lovecraft’s Miskatonic Valley and Campbell’s Severn Valley. As Bertin put it:
It was never really my intention to develop a series of stories and novelettes dealing with Lovecraftian creatures, but set in Europe—it just happened along the way. Just as Lovecraft himself wrote his Mythos stories loosely, without really trying to put them into a rationalised fictional universe, then so did I. […] (Bertin 2008a, 3)
Bertin quoted from Von denen Verdammten as poems, in German, English, and Dutch. Some of these were published in collections of weird verse for younger readers: “De Weg in het Duister” (“The Way into Darkness”), “De Brandende Kat” (“The Burning Cat”), and “Dunwich Droomt, Dunwich Gilt” (“Dunwich Dreams, Dunwich Screams”) in Griezelverzen 1 (1998, Het Griezelgenootschap). Griezelverzen 2 (1999, Het Griezelgenootschap) included “De trap bij Maanlicht” (“The Stairway by Moonlight”) (Bertin 2008a, 5).
Disciples was successful enough to get French (Las adorateurs de Cthulhu, 1978) and German (Cthulhu’s Kinder, 1980) translations. Fandom was not exclusive by language, so in Belgium, for example, you had publications such as H. P. Lovecraft Inedit: Fantastique et Mythologies Modernes (1978) by Jacques van Herp, published in French, closely following the French translations of Lovecraft and his letters, but adds:
Quant à la quatrième génération elle s’annonce avec Brennan, Walter C. de Bill Jr, Bob Van Laerhoven, Eddy C. Bertin, et compte désormais des européens continentaux. […] On peut espérer plus de la voie ouverte par Eddy C. Bertin. Une nouvelle région maléfique apparait, un lieu maudit en Allemagne. Et l’on se dit que l’Europe offre un vaste champ d’implantation avec ses vieilles cités gothiques, et ces villes mortes. Bertin nous apprend que Ludvig Prinn vécut à Gand et à Bruges avant de monter sur le bûcher à Bruxelles. Il presente Liyuhh, une trduction allemande des Textes de Brendal, se nom Von denen Verdammten, eine Verhandlung über die unheimlichen Kulten des Alten. Et l’on retrouve le climat et la mesure de Lovecraft.
As for the fourth generation, it is announced with Brennan, Walter C. de Bill Jr, Bob Van Laerhoven, Eddy C. Bertin, and now has continental Europeans. […] One can hope for more from the path opened up by Eddy C. Bertin. A new evil region appears, a cursed place in Germany. And we say that Europe offers a vast field of settlement with its old Gothic cities, and these dead cities. Bertin tells us that Ludvig Prinn lived in Ghent and Bruges before going to the stake in Brussels. He presents Liyuhh, a German translation of the Brendal Texts, called Von denen Verdammten, eine Verhandlung über dieunheimlichen Kulten des Alten. And we find the climate and the measure of Lovecraft.
Bertin then translated the English story into Dutch, where it was published by Robert Zielshot in the semi-prozine Essef No. 4 (Feb 1978); he later re-wrote the Dutch version into a two-part novel and sold it to the Belgian gentleman’s magazine Hoho where it appeared in issues 313 and 315 (Feb & Mar 1978) as “De Vallei der Nachtmerries” (“The Valley of Nightmares”) and “De Berg van de Demon” (“The Mountain of the Demon”), adding sex and gore, changing the setting the Mexico, and publishing it under the pseudonym Juan Fernandez Sonando. Bertin would end up re-writing the novel once again and titling it Cyäegha, My Name Is Darkness in 1983, but this longer version was apparently never published (Bertin 1985, 64; Bertin 2008, 5).
The continued publication of Lovecraft and other Mythos fiction (Robert E. Howard was also notable for having many stories translated into Dutch in the 1970s) was having an effect: other Dutch writers began to write their own stories, including Mark J. Ruyffelaert, who published “Het boek Tegrath” (2e Land van de Griezel, ed. Albert van Hageland, D.A.P. Reinaert, 1978) and “Il Vit!” (Tussen Tijd en Schaduw, ed. Danny De Laet, Walter Soethoudt, 1978), where they appeared alongside non-Mythos works by Bertin, Raasveld, and others. Ruyffelaert’s “boek Tegrath” (inspired probably by Jean Ray’s “Le Grande Nocturne” (1942)) and would become part of his own personal Mythos, reappearing in stories such as the “Brieven aan Randolph Carter” (“Letters to Randolph Carter”) series; Marcel Orie would use it as well.
While still writing Lovecraftian pastiche, Ruyffelaert’s fiction draws more influence from some of the later writers, notably by the development of Bubastis (a Dreamlands city, not the ghoulish goddess as conceived by Robert Bloch in “The Brood of Bubastis”) in a series of tales: “Nocturne” in Vierde Ragnarok (1998), “De Droomwereld van Mahal” (“The Dreamworld of Mahal,” 2005), “Paradise Regained” (2008), “Sedlec, Bubastis” (2009), “De beul van Molsheim” (“The Executioner of Molsheim,” 2010), “De ondergang van Bubastis” (“The Demise of Bubastis,” 2014), “Een feestmaal voor kraaien” (“A Feast for Crows,” 2016), and “De vierde ruiter – de Dood” (“The Fourth Horseman – Death,” 2018). Ruyffelaert describes his relation with Lovecraft:
Reading Lovecraft was for a long time a great spiritual comfort to me: my belief in reaching the true haven of inner peace I owe to him. As a 14 year “old” I was confronted with the horror behind the horror and it provided me with an additional career. Lovecraft understood how to make enjoyable art out of his own fears, and then opened up his dream-world to many talented visitors. […] My intention: a salute to that fantasy giant who taught me how to dream. (Ruyffelaert)
In the early 1980s, many of the previous translations and some new ones were collected into an omnibus edition and a new collection: Griezelverhalen (Loeb, 1982) and Het gefluister in de duisternis: Griezelverhalen (Loeb, 1984), the former included the essay “Het fenomeen Lovecraft” by editor Erik Lankester, and the latter a translation of Robert Bloch’s essay “Heritage of Horror”—unfortunately, most of Lovecraft’s letters and biographies and critical studies have yet to see translation into Dutch, leaving the audience with relatively less insight into the man and his work in that language, although Michel Houellebecq’s flawed but popular monograph on Lovecraft was included in De koude revolutie: confrontaties en bespiegelingen, translated by Martin de Haan and published by Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers in 2012.
The 1980s saw a few more efforts from Dutch Mythos authors. First among these was Eddy C. Bertin, who produced two notable Lovecraftian publications. Eyurid: A Lovecraftian Portfolio with Tais Teng (pseudonym of Thijs van Ebbenhorst Tengbergen) was originally published in issues 21-25 of Bertin’s magazine SF-Gids (1976-1978), SF-Gids also published numerous book reviews of Lovecraft and related works published in English and in translation; issues 119 and 120 were devoted to various versions of the Necronomicon. Bertin, following in the footsteps of August Derleth, couldn’t help referencing his own additions to Mythos-lorekeeping in his story “The Piercing of Priscilla Petersen”:
Research in the archives and in Fandata by Jan Meeuwesen and Jos Lexmond, a bibliography of fantastic literature published in Dutch, showed that in the Netherlands alone at least fifteen short story collections by Lovecraft had been issued by various different publishers. Contact, Bruna, Loeb, Bakker, Meulenhoff. Not bad for a writer who’d never even had a single collection published under his name during his own lifetime. Further investigation yielded a rather sloppily produced fanzine, SF-Gods, which was published in Gentbrugge in 1989, nos. 199 and 120 when taken together formed a double issue on the famous Necronomicon. (Bertin 2013, 23)
Eyurid was later published as a standalone loose-leaf portfolio in 1980 by Dunwich House—Bertin’s own small press. (Bertin 2008c, 3) The other was Dunwich Dreams, which ran for eight issues from 1982 to 1984 in the Esoteric Order of Dagon amateur press association, and featured Lovecraftian illustrations by Bertin, editorials, the Mythos story “Concerto for a Satin Vampire” (vol. 1, no. 1), the essays “A Chronological Bibliography of the Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft Translated in Dutch Language, and Published in the Netherlands (Holland) and Belgium from 1949 up to March 1983” (vol. 1, no. 3) and “Addenda to HPL Bibliography in Dutch Language” (vol. 1, no. 4). Bertin also placed Mythos stories in the American ‘zine Crypt of Cthulhu, with “The Waiting Dark” in vol. 4, no. 4 (Candlemas 1984), and “The Gibbering Walls” in vol. 8, no. 6 (St. John’s Eve 1989), which were rewritten versions of stories originally written and published in Dutch in the 1970s (Bertin 2008a, 8-9).
This was a very typical practice of Bertin, who remarked:
I don’t translate into English, I just rewrite it and then compare it with the original to see if I missed anything. Most of the stories in Dutch are not Mythos, the Mythos ones are all the rewritten versions and thus are completely different from the originals. “Darkness, My Name Is”, and “Waiting in the Dark”, were rewritten in Dutch from the English originals, and so are the same. (Bertin 2008b, 18-19)
Bertin’s fiction during this period still tended toward pastiche, expanding on Lovecraft’s creations, but he was also expanding on his own corner of the Mythos—“The Gibbering Walls” tying into his previous stories “A Way into Darkness” and “Darkness, My Name Is,” while remaining a standalone tale. Many of the stories involve similar themes, dealing with internal struggles that become externalized in monstrous fashion. In an interview, Bertin wrote:
A recurring theme is the fact that monsters are not born but created by society, just as the monster of Frankenstein turns into a killer because society doesn’t accept him. […] transformation of man into something else is the main theme of all my shorter Mythos fiction. (Bertin 2008b, 18)
Bertin also dabbled in verse, including the poem “Meeting a strange guy, called Lovecraft, close to the cemetery of Providence” which was published in the Dutch magazine Rakis #1 (Oct 1989). Bertin was also an organizer of the “Dunwich Experience,” a multimedia installation that toured Flanders in the early 1980s (Van de Wiele).
A notable problem that Bertin had as a Belgian writer in getting published was dealing with issues of language and dialect:
Publishers and compilers of anthologies often complained about the many dialect words that Bertin used in his texts. Julien Raasveld once told me that the editors of De schaduw van de raaf [The Shadow of the Raven, Bertin’s 1983 collection] went through the text first and erroneously deleted all of the occurrences of the words ‘gans’ and ‘doorheen’ and only then did they actually begin reading it. Why this act of stubbornness? Because it wasn’t literary enough. Apparently the man who expressed himself at conventions in a broad Ghent accent was no different in this respect to the writer in the attic. (Moragie 4)
Many horror writers face discrimination for using colloquial language to better address their audience, so at least Bertin was in good company, but it is a particularly Dutch problem to deal with issues of linguistic determination because of small dialectal differences between the Netherlands and Belgium.
Another Dutch writer who began pursuing the same general path at this point was Jan Bee Landman, who published “The Flood” in Alpha Adventures (Jan 1985) and “The Canals of Delft” in Etchings & Odysseys #7 (1985). The latter story is one of the first by a Dutch writer to use a Dutch setting (Raasveld’s “The House of Keziah Mason” was set in Antwerp), and the description of that old city is as loving as any that Lovecraft bestowed on New England:
By the close of the 20th century it still retained much of its old glory, despite the sacrilegious presence of motorcars, electric lights and parking meters. To the casual tourist it was just another attractive landmark, but to a more sensitive soul it breathed a different atmosphere. In the dark water of the canals, that lay as still and inscrutable as it had in remote ages, he could still see the cruel grave of 16th century heretics and the home of the great little sailing ships that roamed the oceans pugnaciously ins search of exotic goods and slaves. A small light behind some attic window in the depth of night would recall the times when Dutch alchemists worked their silent evils in secret. No number of swarming cars on the market square, between the dizzying tower of the big church and the stolid medieval town hall, could silence the echoes of howling witches that had once smouldered there at the stake. (Landman 71)
Jan J. B. Kuipers also wrote around this time, their story “Het teken van de Geit” (“The Sign of the Goat”) appeared in Brieven aan Satan: de beste griezelverhalen (1990, Meisner, Stichting Fantastische Vertellingen). Kuipers did not write extensively in the Mythos, though some of his stories take influence from or refer to Lovecraft or the King in Yellow, including “Rondom Hygelac” (“About Hygelac,” 2014), “Offa’s bruid” (“Offa’s Bride,” 2016), “Een man van zijn woord” (“A Man of his Word,” 2018), and “De Jutterstoren” (“The Beachcomber’s Tower,” 2019). Much of Kuiper’s Mythos fiction focuses on historical settings; one recurring aspect is Saint Muirgen, a mermaid (descended from Father Dagon and Mother Hydra) which the early church adopted as a saint.
One of the major hindrances for prospective Dutch Mythos writers appears to have been the lack of a Dutch-language market for new Mythos fiction—as opposed to Mythos fiction in translation, which continued sporadically in anthologies. Peripheral works were also translated into Dutch and filtered slowly into the pop culture of Belgium and the Netherlands. For example, the popular Flemish graphic novel series De Rode Ridder, published book 124 Necronomiconin 1987. The book and amulet in that comic derive from the Simon Necronomicon (first published in English in 1977 by Schlangekraft), although it is otherwise a sword & sorcery tale. Roleplaying games also provided an introduction to the Mythos for many, with the Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game from Chaosium being a gateway to Lovecraft’s fiction:
My love for H. P. Lovecraft started with a board game. For evenings on end, my friends and I attempted to save the world from slumbering Evil, while trying to maintain our sanity. Nine times out of ten, we succeeded, by clever planning and by careful division of our resources. This was all well and good, until I actually started reading the stories and I realised that ‘winning’ was in fact the exception. (den Heijer 41)
The influence of roleplaying games can be seen in stories like Johan Klein Haneveld’s “Spelavond” (“Game Night”) in Lovecraft in de polder, which explicitly references Call of Cthulhu.
In 1988, Dagon Press published Het Onnoembare: Fantastische Griezelliteratuur In De Traditie Van Weird Tales, Arkham House En De Cthulhu Mythologie: Inleiding, Catalogus En Bibliografie by Dennis Schouten, a comprehensive overview of the Mythos, Arkham House, and Weird Tales for a Dutch audience.
By the 1980s, individual collections by Dutch and Belgian authors were being published that contained their original Mythos fiction. Notably, Eddy C. Bertin’s collections De Griezeligste Verhalen van Eddy Bertin (1984, Loeb) and Krijsende Muren (1998, Babel), and Mark J. Ruyffelaert’s Nocturne (2007, Verschijinsel) collected some of their Mythos works for the first time and made them available to a wider audience. However, there is a discontinuity in the late 1980s: as Bertin put it “the bottom fell out of the market,” and there was very little Dutch science fiction, fantasy, or horror fiction being published (Boekestein 2014, 4).
Because of this, Bertin transitioned to writing and selling horror fiction for a younger audience in the 1990s, focusing on the horror-obssessed Anton and the teenage witch Valentina. Both series began to incorporate elements of his Mythos fiction. The Von denen Verdammten appears in Overal Vuur (1996, Elzenga), Dorstige Schaduwen (1997, Elzenga), Duivelse Dromen (1999, Elzenga), Kille Dromen (2001, Elzenga), and Valentina’s Schaduwboek (2004, Leopold). The Valentina books were translated and published in both German and Swedish (Bertin 2008a, 6-8).
The Dutch magazine/anthology Waen Sinne premiered in 2002, with stories by Martijn Adelmund (as by Maarten Krohn), Jaap Boekestein, Dirk Bontes, Eddy C. Bertin, and Remco van Straten. Jaap Boekestein was also one of the editors, and his story was “Connectie Den Haag” (“The Hague Connection”), which makes reference to the Necronomicon and Von Denen Verdammten and adds Boekestein’s own contributions: the Liber Buccesteynus and Die Unaussprechliche Kosmologieën, which would be used by later authors. About the story, Boekestein later confessed:
At the time that we decided to do a Mythos Waen Sinne, I’d never actually written a Mythos story. I wasn’t even that well versed on the Mythos itself. […] All I basically knew was that Cthulhu was still sleeping, and that every self respecting Mythos author who’d ever lived had, at one time or another, had a go at inventing his own forbidden book or Mythos entity. I didn’t really feel comfortable about trying to invent a new Old One, but creating some evil tome was definitely doable. (Boekestein 2013b, 18)
Waen Sinne lasted two more issues; the second was devoted to Sword & Sorcery, and included Jan Mara’s “Verzengende Angst” (“Flaming Terror”), which references the Mythos. The third was devoted to classical monsters and contained no Mythos content.
Jaap Boekestein’s next two Mythos stories appeared under the pseudonym Claudia van Arkel, “Schepper van dood en leven” (“Creator of Death and Life”) in Pure Fantasy 8 (June 2007), and quickly followed that up with “Drie laatste nachten” (“Three Last Nights,” published in English as “The Devil-God of Captain Underwood”) in Zwarte zielen 2 (Verschijnsel, October 2007). His next story was under his own name, and in another of his zines, Wonderwaan: “Shhh shhh Cth… Shhh shhh Cth…” (Wonderwaan 6, June 2008). “Warme Rode Zee” (“Warm Red Sea”), Wonderwaan 23 (September 2012) and an English story, “Under the Keeper of the Key” which appeared in the erotic anthology Lovecraft After Dark(James Ward Kirk Publishing, 2015), both deal with a combination of the Mythos and BDSM. This reflects his approach to the material:
What kind of people, I wondered, wouldn’t have much of a problem with the Mythos Universe? People who were different from the norm, was my conclusion. People who perceived reality differently. “Transformation is the key. Transformation of both the body and the mind.” If you live in a non-mundane world, you don’t feel mundane fears. The monsters might even welcome you in as one of their own. (Boekestein 2013a, 47)
Boekestein collaborated with Tais Teng on the English-language “Dancing for Azathoth” in The Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Vol. 2, (CreateSpace 2017), then back to Dutch for “Het dorp der Engelen” (“The Village of Angels”) in Wonderwaan 41 (Spring 2017). His Mythos story, “Van de Ouden” (“From the Ancients”) appeared in Lovecraft in de polder (2018); it was translated into English and published as “The Allure of the Old Ones” in Cyäegha 21 (Winter 2019). Hallmarks of Boekestein’s Mythos fiction are the use of the Netherlands and especially the Hague as a setting.
Computercode Cthulhu(2005, ebook 2018) by Paul Harland is an original Dutch-language Mythos novel with illustrations by Tais Teng. “Stoor niet Cthulhu’s slaap!” (“Do not disturb Cthulhu’s sleep!”) became an appropriate tagline for Harland’s novel, as the 2000s inaugurated the most active period of Dutch-language original Mythos fiction—likely buoyed in part by the greater ease and lower cost of desktop publishing and print-on-demand works, but also a reflection of a burgeoning market for weird fiction and Dutch and Flemish writers eager to write and publish their own Mythos fiction.
Frank Roger’s Mythos story “Duisternis, duisternis, verzwelg mij” (“Darkness, Darkness, devour me”) appeared in his collection De Trein naar Nergens en Andere Verhalen (2005, Free Musketeers). This is a story of a writer’s search for isolation, sudden inspiration and slow degradation, calling back to Lovecraft’s Gothic roots.
Later that year, Eddy C. Bertin’s “Dunwich Dreams, Dunwich Screams” appeared in Tales Out of Dunwich(Hippocampus Press), a successor volume to editor Robert M. Price’s anthology The Dunwich Cycle(1995, Chaosium), and concerns his latest addition to the Mythos library: Von denen Verdammten, a relatively recent (1907) German text which deals with unspeakable cults—a counterpart to such tomes as Ludwig Prinn’s Vermis Mysteriis or von Junzt’s Unausprechlichen Kulten (created by Robert Bloch and Robert E. Howard, respectively). The story would bring Dagon and the Deep Ones to Dunwich, England, which was the probable inspiration for Lovecraft’s Dunwich, Massachusetts. Bertin would write of the story:
This story is based on my own visit to Dunwich, and my research there. It continues my “European” cycle of Mythos stories, began with “Darkness, My Name Is” and others. I always wanted to write a story about the real dunwich, England, incorporating its weird history into the Mythos. […] Well, I did it now, as my tribute to HPL. (Price 302; cf. Bertin 2008a, 10)
Bertin’s next contribution was “De piercing van Priscilla Petersen” in Horrorarium (2006, Suspense Publishing). As with many Bertin stories, this was not originally a Mythos tale, but became so during its many rewrites. While not strictly a Mythos tale, Bertin also considers “Rose Nere” (“Black Roses”) in Phantoms of Venice (2001, Shadow Publishing) to belong to his conception of the Mythos (Bertin 2008a, 10-11).
The Dutch fantasy magazine Wonderwaan premiered in 2007, the publication of the NCSF (Nederlands Contactcentrum voor Science Fiction/Dutch Science Fiction Society). As the editors Jaap Boekestein and Marcel Orie put it:
We both grew up reading about the Lovecraft Circle and “pulps” like Weird Tales and Wonder Stories, always wishing that there were still magazines like these out there, to which we could pitch our own attempts at writing weird fiction. In a way Wonderwaan is a homage to these pulps. Wonderwaan (an invented word which combines the Dutch words for “wonder” and “delusion” aims to collect the best fantastic stories from Holland and Belgium. We select well-known themes and clichés from the pulp era, and challenge our authors to put new and strange spins on them. (Boekestein & Orie 3)
Since then, a number of issues of Wonderwaan have been dedicated to Mythos fiction, including issues 6 (June 2008, “Cthulhu Fhtagn!”), 8 (December 2008, “Iä Yog-Sothoth!”), 23 (September 2012, “Iä Shub-Niggurath!), 24 (December 2012, “Azathoth!”), 36 (December 2015, dedicated to Ruyffelaert’s Brievan aan Randolph Carter series), and 41 (Spring 2017, “Dromen vanuit R’lyeh”). In addition, individual stories are scattered among regular issues. The contributors included a number of familiar names such as Eddy C. Bertin, Mark J. Ruyffelaert, Jaap Boekestein, Jan J. B. Kuipers, Tais Teng (“Lovecraft, My Love”), and Mike Jansen, one of the editors of Lovecraft in de polder, who contributed to Wonderwaan with “Opdracht in Amlwch” (“Assigned to Amlwch”).
The magazine also introduced several new writers to the Dutch Mythos, most notably Marcel Orie with “Ansichtkaarten uit Carcosa” (“Postcards from Carcosa”) in Wonderwaan 6 (June 2008), followed by “Een handleiding voor later, voor na de apocalypse” (“A Manual for Later, for After the Apocalypse”) in Wonderwaan 24 (December 2012), “Keizer der waanzin” (“The Emperor of Madness”) in Wonderwaan 33 (March 2015), “Dode mannen dromen niet” (“Dead Men Don’t Dream”) in Wonderwaan 37 (Spring 2016), and “Het feestmaal onder de catacomben” (“The Feast Under the Catacombs”) in Wonderwaan 48 (Winter 2018). Marcel Orie’s “De poppen van dr. Edelweiss” (“The Dolls of Dr. Edelweiss”) also appeared in 2015 in both Ganymedes 15 and Cyäegha 14. Orie’s work is characterized by a conscious effort to expand the Mythos, tying into the work of Lovecraft, Ruyffelaert, Thomas Ligotti, and others. Their major invention was the Wurmwater, a kind of limbo or hell populated by the ghosts of pirates and criminals—including the Marshes of Innsmouth.
Other writers whose Mythos and Lovecraftian fiction appeared in Wonderwaan include Cornelis Alderlieste with “Fantoompijn” (“Phantom Pain”), Frank Daman with “Trô d’diâle” (a nonsense title, possibly means “The Devil’s Pit”), Auke Pols with “De ademer van de wateren” (“The Breather of Waters”) and “Overleef jij het maan-beest?” (“Can You Survive the Moon-beast?”), Jos Lexmond with “Weg…wachter” (“Gone…watchman,” translated as “The Watcher of the Way,” reprinted from Spaciale Aanbieding‘s 153-157, June 2009-April 2010), Nieske den Heijer with “Het doek” (“The Canvas”), Chantal Noordeloos with “De hongerende diepten” (“The Starving Depths”), Martijn Adelmund with “Schipperskind” (“Skipper’s Child”), Richard Meijer with “Vakantie Bali” (“Bali Holiday”), Jack Schlimazlnik with “Van oude goden, de dingen die niet voorbij gaan” (“Of Old Gods, The Things That Don’t Pass Away,” a play on the Dutch classic “Van oude menschen, de dingen die voorbijgaan” by Louis Couperus (1906)), and Tom Thys with “De Lijkenkrabber” (“The Corpse Scraper”).
The importance of Wonderwaan in the development of Dutch Mythos fiction has been to both recognize the fanbase for Mythos fiction among readers and to provide a market for new writers. Much as Weird Tales provided a receptive forum for writers and fans of weird fiction, Wonderwaan has served as a locus for the development of the Dutch Mythos, the special issues helping to emphasize the different voices and takes on the Mythos setting.
Outside of Wonderwaan, a few other stories found a home too. Tais Teng’s “De Tempel van Cthulhu” appeared in the ebook Met Gebroken Oog en Botte Klauw (2011, Verschijnsel), and the humorous short-short “Growing up in the Cthulhu Home for Deserving Orphans” was posted to DeviantArt in 2019. Eddy C. Bertin’s “My Fingers are Eating Me” appeared in The Whispering Horror (2013, Shadow Publishing). The latter story has a typically Bertinian convoluted history of rewriting and publishing (Bertin 2008a, 9-10).
Another important ‘zine has been Graeme Phillips’ Cyäegha. From the very first issue in 2008, which includes an Eddy C. Bertin interview and article “My European Mythos,” the zine has worked to bring the Dutch-language Mythos to a wider English-speaking audience, often featuring the first English translations of Dutch Mythos fiction and insights and commentary from the most prolific and important Dutch and Flemish authors of Mythos fiction. This is especially the case in the nine “Dutch/Flemish Special Issues,” which have brought the majority of Dutch Mythos work into English translation. In 2015, Phillips also began publishing the ‘zine Forbidden Knowledge, which includes translations of the introduction to Wonderwaan’s Mythos special issues.
Lovecraft in de Polder(2018, EdgeZero), edited by Laura Scheepers & Mike Jansen, is the first book-anthology of Dutch-language Mythos fiction. The list of authors includes both newcomers and old familiar names: Boukje Balder, Jaap Boekestein, Anaïd Haen, Johan Klein Haneveld, Abram Hertroys, Mike Jansen, Peter Kaptein, Jan J.B. Kuipers, Roderick Leeuwenhart, Django Mathijsen, Mark J. Ruyffelaert, Jack Schlimazlnik, Tais Teng, Dack van de Bij, and Adriaan van Garde. In discussing the impetus for the anthology, editor Mike Jansen noted of Dutch Mythos fiction:
My own experience, from compiling four Ragnarok anthologies for Babel Publications, judging four years of the Millennium Prize and three years of the EdgeZero competition, is that perhaps one story in fifty submitted falls within this category. So from almost 4000 stories (King Kong Award, Millennium Prize, Paul harland Prize, Harland Awards, Fantastels and Trek Sagae) written by nearly 1500 Dutch and Belgian writers, since the King Kong Award first began in 1977, we are talking about maybe eight stories Compared to the English-language production this is a mere drop in the ocean.
However, in general, the production of genre stories has dramatically increased over the past two decades, and a quick count of all of the stories submitted to these competitions shows that more than half of them were written in the last ten years. This means that there have been so many new Lovecraftian stories added in such a relatively short period of time that an anthology of these stories written by the top Dutch writers has become an increasingly enticing prospect. (Jansen 2)
Reception was mixed, however; Tom Thys in reviewing the book noted the speed in which the anthology was assembled:
Unfortunately, this has resulted in a somewhat lopsided collection as some of the stories fail to rise above mere pale imitations of the various rituals and creatures of the Lovecraftian pantheon. I really have to be strict here: the authors should have been given more time and the editors should have taken more time to select and streamline this collection. (Thys 4)
Also in 2018, Eddy C. Bertin died. The Dutch science fiction and horror community mourned the loss of one of their earliest and most prominent voices. Yet he left behind a legacy that continues to grow, as more writers use Cyäegha and Von Denen Verdammten. As he put it:
From the very beginning I’ve always tried to create my own version of the mythos, and in my own modest way, I think I’ve succeeded. (Boekestein 2014, 7)
Those who recall that South Africa featured as the setting of “Winged Death,” ghostwritten by H. P. Lovecraft for Hazel Heald and published in Weird Tales (March 1934) may wonder if any Lovecraftian fiction has been published in Afrikaans. As in the Netherlands, South Africa has a rather small market for science fiction, which was dominated by English-language imports from the United States and the United Kingdom (Byrne 522). Letters from South Africa were published in Weird Tales in the 1930s and 40s, and addresses published in WT show members of the Weird Tales Club in South Africa during Dorothy McIlwraith’s editorship. Unfortunately, I have been unable to verify any information on an Afrikaans translation of Lovecraft, or any Mythos works published in Afrikaans.
Bertin, Eddy C. (1985). “Darkness: Your Name Is A Story: On The Writing Of ‘Darkness, My Name Is’” in Etchings & Odysseys #6, 63-64. Madison, WI: The Strange Company.
__________ (2008a). “My European Mythos” in Cyäegha #1 (Spring 2008). UK: Graeme Phillips.
__________ (2008b). “Interview: A Conversation with Eddy C. Bertin” (trans. Graeme Phillips) in Cyäegha #1 (Spring 2008). UK: Graeme Phillips.
__________ (2008c). “The Creation of ‘Eyurid’” in Cyäegha #2 (Winter 2008). UK: Graeme Phillips.
__________ (2013). “The Piercing of Priscilla Petersen” in Cyäegha #8 (Spring 2013). UK: Graeme Phillips.
den Heijer, Nieske (2013). “Afterword” (trans. Graeme Phillips) in Cyäegha #9 (Summer 2013). UK: Graeme Phillips.
Jansen, Mike (2018). “Introduction: Foreward to Lovecraft in de Polder” (trans. Graeme Phillips) in Cyäegha #21 (Summer 2019). UK: Graeme Phillips.
Kirde, Kalju (1989). “Recognition of Lovecraft in Germany” in Books at Brown XXXVIII-XXXIX. Providence, RI: The Friends of the Library of Brown University.
Landman, Jan Bee (1985). “The Canals of Delft” in Etchings & Oddyseys #7, 71-81. Madison, WI: The Strange Company.
Moragie, Max (2019). “The Ghent Night-Writer: ECB” (trans. Graeme Phillips) in Cyäegha #22 (Autumn 2019). UK: Graeme Phillips.
van Herp, Jacques (1978). H. P. Lovecraft Inedit: Fantastique et Mythologies Modernes. Special edition of “Ides… et autres.” Belgium.
Note: With thanks and appreciation for the help of Roel Konijnendijk, Roeland de Vust, Graeme Phillips, and Ben Joosten. Any mistakes in the above are my fault, not theirs.
France, 1974. Jean Giraud (Mœbius), Philippe Druillet, Jean-Pierre Dionnet, and Bernard Farkas came together to create Les Humanoïdes Associés, a publisher for a new type of comic magazine: Métal Hurlant (“Howling Metal,” 1974-1987). Initially released as a quarterly and focused on science fiction, Métal Hurlant featured some of the best international comic artists of its time, as well as some of the most daring content, not just featuring sex, drugs, and rock & roll—but humor, horror, gory violence, politics, and philosophy.
The magazine was successful enough to inspire spin-offs in other countries, largely based, at least initially, on material translated from Métal Hurlant. So in the United States and Commonwealth countries, Anglophones could read Heavy Metal (1977-2023), with various special issues, spin-offs, graphic novels, and other projects; in Italy, the localized version of Métal Hurlant lasted only 12 issues (1981-1983), with several standalone Metal Extra issues, though the sister magazine Totem lasted longer (1980-1984). In West Germany, Schwermetall (“Heavy Metal,” 1980-1984) lasted a respectable 57 issues under its first publisher, and eventually ran to issue 219/220 (1998). Spain had their own translation of Métal Hurlant in the 1980s, the Netherlands had Zwaar Metaal (“Heavy Metal”), Denmark had Total Metal, Finland had Kylmä metalli (“Cold Metal”), Sweden had Tung Metal (“Heavy Metal”) and Pulserande Metal (“Pulsing Metal”), Turkey had Heavy Metal Türkiye…most of these international runs didn’t last long, but they spread the stories and art far and wide.
The creation of Métal Hurlant coincided with a number of other trends. H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and other early contributors to the Cthulhu Mythos became more widely available thanks to paperback reprints, and with the death of August Derleth, Arkham House lost its grip on the Mythos. New anthologies like The Disciples of Cthulhu(1976) proved that anyone could now play with the shared universe that Lovecraft and his friends had created. Argentinian master Alberto Breccia began and completed a series of Lovecraft adaptations for comics from 1973-1979, many of which first appeared in the Italian magazine Il Mago. Underground comix in the United States like Skull Comix (1970-1972) were giving way to semi-prozines like Star * Reach (1974-1979), and publishers also found they could side-step the Comics Code Authority by publishing magazines like Creepy (1964-1983) and Eerie (1966-1983) instead of standard-size comics, all of which featured material inspired by or adapting Lovecraft. H. R. Giger’s Necronomicon art collection was published in 1977, and quickly inspired the aesthetic for the film Alien (1979).
There was, in other words, a small revolution in Lovecraftian art, comics, and fiction in the 1970s. Not all at once, but from many different angles—and Métal Hurlant, the international crossroads where underground American artists like Richard Corben; French masters like Mœbius, Druillet, and Nicollet; Swiss artists like Giger; and Argentinian masters like Breccia could all come together at once.
That is what happened in September 1978, when Les Humanoïdes Associés published a 150-page special issue of Métal Hurlant dedicated to H. P. Lovecraft. The idea was so attractive that the next year, the English-language Heavy Metal magazine released their own Lovecraft special issue to coincide with Halloween, and when Métal Hurlant was translated in Italy, they released a one-off Metal Extra special issue dedicated to Lovecraft.
All three of these magazines share certain common elements, largely because the English- and Italian-language productions included material translated from the French special Lovecraft issue. Yet they were each different as well…and that’s kind of fascinating in itself, how these three magazines represent three different takes on the material, each tailored for their respective audience.
What follows is a survey: what each Lovecraft special issue contains, and by comparison, what they do not contain. To avoid excessive repetition, each issue and its unique contents are discussed separately, and then a single section discusses all the shared features. Because this is a long, image-heavy post, a table with links is provided to aid navigation:
150 pages, counting covers, the table of contents, ads, etc., Métal Hurlant Special #33 bis (“extra”) was one of several themed issues released by Les Humanoïdes Associés, with the other themes including Fin du monde (“the End of the World”, #36), Rock (#39), Guerre (“War”, #42), and Alien (#43). Not every feature in this issue involves Lovecraft or the Mythos, but a majority do. There are errors in the table of contents as printed, so a full list is given here.
Features involving Lovecraft or his creations are marked in bold; color pages are marked [c].
Front Cover: H. R. Giger
“La cimetière” (illustration) by Souchu, 2-3
Advertisement for Heilman by Voss and A l’Est de Karakulac by Daniel Ceppi, 4
Table of Contents, 5
Edito triste./Edito gai by Philippe Manœuvre, 6
“La Chose” by Alain Voss, 7-12
“Lettres de Lovecraft” by François Truchaud, 13
“La Retour de Cthulhu” by Alan Charles & Richard Martens, 14-15
“La Nuit du Goimard: Un ecrivain nommé Habileté-à-l’amour” by Jacques Goimard, 16-18
“Le Monstre Sur le Seuil” by Norberto Buscaglia & Alberto Breccia, 19-29
“Je m’appelle Howard Phillips Lovecraft” by François Truchaud, 30-32
“L’Homme de Black Hole” by Serge Clerc, 33-36
“Hommage à HPL…” (uncredited), 37-39
“Petite bibliothèque lovecraftienne” by François Truchaud, 40-41
“La Trace Ecarlate” by Jean-Jacques Mendez & Daniel Ceppi, 42-43
“Excursion Nocturne” by Frank Margein, 44-47
“Le langage des chats” by Nicole Claveloux, 48-49
Untitled illustration by Richard Martens, 50
“L’Indicible Horreur d’Innswich” by Philippe Setbon, 51-52
“Amitiés Rencontres” by Vepy & Daniel Ceppi, 53-57
“Barzai le Sage” by Marc Caro, 58-65
Advertisement for Richard Corben’s Den, 66
[c] “Le Chef d’Œuvre de Dewsbury” by Yves Chaland & Luc Cornillon, 67-70
[c] “L’énigme du mystérieux puits secret” by Yves Chaland & Luc Cornillon, 71-74
“A la Recherche de Kadath” by François Truchaud & M. Perron, 75-78
“H. P. Lovecraft 1890-1937” by George Kuchar, 79-81
“Les Bêtes” by Dank, 82-84
Advertisement for Le Diable by Nicollet and Les Naufragés du Temps by Paul Gillon, 85
“Le Necronomicon” by Druillet, 86-96
Advertisment for La Boite Oblungue by Edgar Allan Poe and La Rivier du Hibou by Ambrose Bierce, 97
Advertismenet for Les Trafiquants d’Armes by Eric Ambler
“Les 3 Maisons de Seth” by Dominique Hé, 99-101
“Les 2 Vies de Basil Wolverton” by Yves Chaland, 102-103
Advertisement for back issues of Métal Hurlant, 104-105
Advertisement for Métal Hurlant posters, 106
[c] “H.P.L.” by Jean-Michel Nicollet, 107-109
[c] “Ktulu” by Mœbius, 110-114
“Plat du Jour” by Vepy & Daniel Ceppi, 115-117
“Le Pont Au Dessus de l’Eau” by Luc Cornillon, 118-119
“Cauchemar” by Alex Niño, 120-129
“H. P. Lovecraft au cinéma” by Jean-Pierre Bouyxou, 130-131
“L’Abomination de Dunwich” by Alberto Breccia, 132-146
Back cover by Richard Martens
Unique Content
Front Cover: A plate from H. R. Giger’s Necronomicon(1977).
“Cauchemar” (“Nightmare”) by Alex Niño is a 10-page black-and-white comic that showcases a series of nightmares realized in surrealistic and highly detailed form; Niño pays homage to the styles of other artists, naming Heinrich Kley, Arthur Rackham, Phillip Druillet, and Jean Giraud (Mœbius). Not explicitly Lovecraft-related.
Edito triste./Edito gai (“Sad Editorial/Gay Editorial”); “Edito triste” is written as by “Abdul Fernand Alhazred”, while the “Edito gai” (as in happy, not homosexual) is by Philippe Manœuvre. Both concern how the Métal Hurlant Lovecraft Special came together.
“Je m’appelle Howard Phillips Lovecraft” (“I am called Howard Phillips Lovecraft”) by François Truchaud is a brief biographical sketch of Lovecraft’s life, fairly accurate for the compressed time and space, with illustrations by Richard Martens and Druillet; the Druillet illustration is the same as the cover to the Lovecraft special issue of L’Herne(1969).
“La Nuit du Goimard: Un ecrivain nommé Habileté-à-l’amour” (“The Night of Goimard: A Writer Named Able-to-Love”) by Jacques Goimard is an essay on Lovecraft’s fiction, illustrated by Perry’s silhouette of Lovecraft.
“Le Monstre Sur le Seuil” (“The Monster on the Threshold”) by Norberto Buscaglia & Alberto Breccia is an 11-page black-and-white comic adaptation of Lovecraft’s “The Thing on the Doorstep.” Breccia’s art combines traditional pen-and-ink with collage, which leads a strange, otherworldly aspect to the artwork.
“L’énigme du mystérieux puits secret” (“The Riddle of the Mysterious Secret Well”) by Yves Chaland & Luc Cornillon is a 4-page color comic where an investigative duo investigates a mysterious well and uncovers some counterfeiters; slightly reminiscent in overall style to Hergé’s Tintin. Not explicitly Lovecraft-related.
“Lettres de Lovecraft” (“Lovecraft’s Letters”) by François Truchaud is a review of Lettres 1 (1978), the French-language translation of the first volume of Lovecraft’s Selected Letters. Illustrated by Mœbius’ cover for Lettres d’Arkham (1975).
“L’Indicible Horreur d’Innswich” (“The Unspeakable Horror of Innswich”) by Philippe Setbon is a short fiction that purports to be the last story written by H. P. Lovecraft, complete with a mock reproduction of the original manuscript written on an envelope, based on the famous At the Mountains of Madness envelope.
“Petite bibliothèque lovecraftienne” (“Little Lovecraftian Library”) by François Truchaud is a brief survey of Lovecraft-related material available in French publications, as well as some related publications such as The Occult Lovecraft (1975) and H. P. Lovecraft: A Biography (1975) in English.
Back cover by Richard Martens, based on a photo of Lovecraft.
Heavy Metal H. P. Lovecraft Special Issue (Oct 1979)
This material is taken, for the most part, from a bizarre and eldritch tome written in a strange tongue, the “Homage á Lovecraft” issue of Métal Hurlant. We trust it will add just the right touch to your Hallowe’en festivities. —Sean Kelly, editorial for Heavy Metal vol. III, no. 6
96 pages, counting the ads, table of contents, etc., which makes for a thinner magazine that can still be side-stapled. Heavy Metal magazine vol. III, no. 6 is part of the normal numbering rather than an extra or one-off issue. While it draws much of its material directly from the Métal Hurlant Lovecraft special, the publishers chose not to reproduce all of the Lovecraft material from the French.
What didn’t they translate? The text pieces, the Georges Kuchar reprint, several of the more humorous and less Lovecraft-related comics, a couple pages of Druillet’s Necronomicon, and oddly the Breccia adaptation of “The Thing at the Doorstep.” What remains isn’t exactly entirely dedicated to Lovecraft, either, so that the “Lovecraft” issue has rather less Lovecraft-related material in it than might be expected.
Maybe there was a crunch with time to put the issue together, or some issues with the right. However, they also added a few things that didn’t appear in the Métal Hurlant issue, notably the J. K. Potter cover and “The Devil’s Alchemist,” a work of fiction. Unlike the Métal Hurlant Lovecraft special, the majority of Heavy Metal pages are in color, including colorizing some works that were in black-and-white in Métal Hurlant.
Lovecraftian items are marked in bold; color pages are marked [c]; items from the Métal Hurlant special are marked with an asterisk (*).
Front cover (“Mr. Lovecraft”) by J.K. Potter
Advertisement for Strategy & Tactics, 1
[c] Table of Contents, 2
[c]Advertisement for Job Cigarette Papers, 3
“…Thirty-one…” (editorial) by Sean Kelly w/ J. K. Potter, 4
[c] Advertisement for The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 5
[c] “Final Justice” by Chateau, 6-14
[c] Advertisement for Heavy Metal posters, 15
[c] Advertisement for Heavy Metal subscriptions, 16
[*] “The Dunwich Horror” (“L’Abomination de Dunwich”) by Alberto Breccia, 17-25, 74-80
[c] [*] “Ktulu” by Mœbius, 25-29
[c] “Xeno Meets Dr. Fear and Is Consumed” by Terrance Lindall & Chris Adames, 30-31
[*] “The Thing” (“La Chose”) by Alain Voss, 32-37
[*] “The Beasts” (“Les Bêtes”) by Dank, 38-40
[c] [*] “The Man from Blackhole” (“L’Homme de Black Hole”) by Serge Clerc, 41-44
[c] [*] “H.P.L.” by Jean-Michel Nicollet, 45-47
[c] “Love’s Craft” by Sean Kelly & Matthew Quayle, 48-49
[c] [*] “Dewsbury’s Masterpiece” (Le Chef d’Œuvre de Dewsbury) by Yves Chaland & Luc Cornillon, 50-53
[c] Advertisement for back issues of Heavy Metal, 54-55
[*] “The Necronomicon” by Druillet, 56-61
[*] “The Language of Cats” (“Le langage des chats”) by Nicole Claveloux, 62-63
“Chain Mail” (letters page, but comic by Christopher Browne) 64
[c] Advertisement for Dragonworld, 65
[c] “Pat and Vivian” by Frank Margerin, 66-68
[c] “The Alchemist’s Notebook” by David Hurd & William Baetz, w/Walter Simonson, 69-73
[“The Dunwich Horror” continued, 74-80]
[c] Advertisement for The Grailwar by Richard Monaco, 81
[c] “Bad Breath” by Arthur Sudyam, 82-89
[c] Advertisement for Heavy Metal books/graphic novels, 90-91
[*] “The Agony Column” (“Amitiés Rencontres”) by Vepy & Daniel Ceppi, 92-96
Back cover (“Elizabeth”) by George Smith
Unique Content
Front cover: “Mr. Lovecraft” by J.K. Potter. Before digital image manipulation programs existed, Potter was producing strange, disturbing images with a combination of photographs, airbrush, and traditional pen and ink. The effects, with Potter’s imagination, could be quite stunning. In this instance, he uses it to place Lovecraft in a cosmic scene. Potter would lend his talents to several future Lovecraft-related projects, including the cover for Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1990).
“The Alchemist’s Notebook” by Byron Craft (as by David Hurd & William Baetz) is an original work of Mythos fiction, with illustrations by Walter Simonson. A note on the first page says that this story is “an excerpt from the novelization of the upcoming movie, The Cry of Cthulhu“—but the film never made it past pre-production (Cthulhu Calling: An Interview with Byron Craft). In 2016, Craft published the full version of the novelization as The Alchemist’s Notebook, which was later changed to The Cry of Cthulhu.
“Bad Breath” by Arthur Sudyam is an 8-page comic that is principally black-and-white with color tints on Selected panels and figures; it follows an amorous young man whose bad breath is impacting his love life, and the solution he attempts has horrific—and amusing—consequences. Not explicitly Lovecraft-related.
“Final Justice” by Chateau is a 9-page color comic where a couple in Europe to write a book on historical crimes watch the re-enactment of a medieval murder at an ancient chateau. Not explicitly Lovecraft-related.
“Love’s Craft” by Sean Kelly is a poem, accompanied by an illustration by Matthew Quayle. Tentatively Lovecraftian based on the title, but with no direct references to Lovecraft or the Mythos.
“Pat and Vivian” by Frank Margerin is a 3-page humorous comic about a woman awoken by a strange entity at the door. Not explicitly Lovecraft-related.
“…Thirty-one…” (editorial) by Sean Kelly, discussing Lovecraft in brief. Accompanied by a photo-manipulated image of Lovecraft by J. K. Potter.
“Xeno Meets Dr. Fear and Is Consumed” by Terrance Lindall & Chris Adames is a two-page color fantasy/horror comic with a distinct textured painting style. Young Xeno, asking a fundamental question about certainty, sets off in dreams to find Dr. Fear—and does. Not explicitly Lovecraft-related.
Metal Extra Speciale Lovecraft (Nov 1982)
Cui, questo numero speciale di Métal Hurlant e un vero e proprio “omaggio” nei limiti è nei termini in cui puo esserlo una realizzazione a fumetti. Essa però dimostra sino a che punto è giunta oggi l’influenza del “solitario di Providence” e del suo mondo di sogni, di miti, di realtà alternative. E’un “ommagio” che ciascun disegnatore o scrittore ha estrinsecato secondo la sua predisposizione, il suo modo di vedere, il suo atteggiaento mentale, culturale, di spirito. E cosi (non ci si meravigli di ciò) vi saranno controbuti (fumetti) “seri” e meno seri o aprtamente ironici, allucinati e satirici. Un autore è amato non soo quando si prende sul serio il suo universo incubico (come ne L’uomo del Buco Nero, Il capolavoro di Dewsbury, ecc.), ma anche quando ci si scherza su, fra il serio e il faceto (Cthulhu), lo si prende aperamente in giro (La traccia scarlatta, Escursione notturna, Il ritorno di Cthulhu e cosi via).
Hence, this special issue of Métal Hurlant is a real “homage” to the extent that a comic book production can be. However, it demonstrates how far the influence of the “solitary of Providence” and his world of dreams, myths, and alternative realities has reached today. It is an “homage” that each artist or writer has expressed according to his predisposition, his way of seeing, his mental, cultural, and spiritual attitude. And so (don’t be surprised by this) there will be “serious” and less serious or overtly ironic, hallucinatory and satirical counterparts (comics). An author is loved not only when his nightmare universe is taken seriously (as in The Man from the Black Hole, Dewsbury’s Masterpiece, etc.), but also when he is joked about, half-jokingly (Cthulhu), and openly made fun of (The Scarlet Trail, Night Excursion, The Return of Cthulhu, and so on).
Gianfranco de Turris, Metal Extra Speciale Lovecraft, 5
English translation
Instead of trying to publish this as part of their regular series of issues, the editors in Italy essentially excerpted the majority of the Lovecraft comics content from the Métal Hurlant Lovecraft special and squeezed it into a 100-page (counting covers) square-bound Metal Extra issue. They also added some additional materials not in either the Métal Hurlantor Heavy Metal Lovecraft special issues
Lovecraftian items are marked in bold; color pages are marked [c]; items from the Métal Hurlant special are marked with an asterisk [*].
[*] Front Cover by Mœbius
Table of Contents, 3
“Howard Phillips Lovecraft” by Gianfranco de Turris, 4-5
[*] “Annunci sul Gironale…” (“Amitiés Rencontres”) by Vepy & Daniel Ceppi, 6-10
[*] “Barzai il Saggio”(“Barzai le Sage”) by Marc Caro, 11-18
[c] [*] “Ktulu” by Mœbius, 19-25
“Il Nome e la Cosa” by Luigi de Pascalis, 24-26
[c] [*] “La Traccia Scarlatta” (“La Trace Ecarlate”) by Jean-Jacques Mendez & Daniel Ceppi, 27-28
[*] “H. P. Lovecraft al Cinema” (“H. P. Lovecraft au cinéma”) by Jean-Pierre Bouyxou [uncredited], 29-30
[c] [*] “Il Capolavoro di Dewsbury”(Le Chef d’Œuvre de Dewsbury) by Yves Chaland & Luc Cornillon, 31-34
[*] “Il Ritorno di Cthulhu” (“La Retour de Cthulhu”) by Alan Charles & Richard Martens, 35-36
[*] “La Cosa” (“La Chose”) by Alain Voss, 37-42
[*] “Alla Ricerca di Kadath” (“A la Recherche de Kadath”) by François Truchaud & M. Perron, 43-46
[*] “H. P. Lovecraft 1890-1937” by Georges Kuchar, 47-49
[*] “Il Linguaggio dei Gatti” (“Le langage des chats”) by Nicole Claveloux, 50-51
[*] “Il Piatto del Girno” (“Plat du Jour”) by Vepy & Daniel Ceppi, 52-54
[*] “Escursione Notturna” (“Excursion Nocturne”) by Frank Margerin, 55-58
“R. H. B.” by Andreas & François Rivière, 59-66
[*] “H. P. L.” by Jean-Michel Nicollet, 67-69
“Incubo Londinese” by Riccardo Leveghi, 70-72
[c] [*] “Il Ponte dull’acqua” (“Le Pont Au Dessus de l’Eau”) by Luc Cornillon, 73-74
[c] “Oltre L’autore Lovecraft” by Onomatopeya, 75-82
[*] “Le 3 Case di Seth”(“Les 3 Maisons de Seth”) by Dominique Hé, 83-85
[*] “La Bestie” (“Les Bêtes”) by Dank, 86-88
[*] “L’Uomo di Black Hole” (“L’Homme de Black Hole”) by Serge Clerc, 89-92
[*] “Le 2 Vite di Basil Wolverton” (“Les 2 Vies de Basil Wolverton”) by Yves Chaland, 93-94
[*] “Omaggio a H. P. Lovecraft” (“Hommage à HPL…”), 95-97
“Piccola Bibioteca Lovecraftiana” by Gianfranco de Turris & Sebastiano Fusco, 98
Unique Content
Front Cover is a colorized version of Mœbius’ depiction of Lovecraft at his desk from Lettres d’Arkham.
“Howard Phillips Lovecraft” by Gianfranco de Turris is a two-page editorial-cum-introduction to the issue and Lovecraft, illustrated with reproductions of photos of Lovecraft.
“Il Nome e la Cosa” (“The Name and the Thing”) by Luigi de Pascalis is a short work of fiction about the Golem of Prague, accompanied by illustrations by Massimo Jacoponi, a photo of Lovecraft, and Perry’s silhouette of Lovecraft. Other than the illustrations, no explicit Lovecraftian content.
“Incubo Londinese” (“London Nightmare”) by Riccardo Leveghi is a short work of fiction. Illustrated by Bradley, Druillet’s cover art from L’Herne, a photo of Lovecraft, and two images from Lovecraft’s letters. Other than the illustrations, no explicit Lovecraftian content.
“Oltre L’autore Lovecraft” (“Beyond the Author Lovecraft”) by Onomatopeya is an 8-page fotonovela-style comic about Lovecraft’s life and literary afterlife, a montage of photos tinted, textured, and collaged together with speech bubbles and text boxes to provide a humorous but largely accurate narrative.
“Piccola Bibioteca Lovecraftiana” (“Little Lovecraftian Library”) by Gianfranco de Turris & Sebastiano Fusco; while sharing essentially the same title as its counterpart in Métal Hurlant, this is a brief listing of the relevant Arkham House volumes and the Italian translations of Lovecraft and related materials, including August Derleth’s “posthumous collaborations.”
“R. H. B.” by Andreas & François Rivière is an 8-page, black-and-white comic about Lovecraft’s friend R. H. Barlow.
Shared Content
Listed below are the shared features, drawn from the original Métal Hurlant issue and also appearing in either or both of Heavy Metal and Metal Extra, along with notes on differences between the versions and necessary context.
“A la Recherche de Kadath” (“Alla Ricerca di Kadath,” “In Search of Kadath”) by François Truchaud & M. Perron is a 4-page black-and-white fantasy pictorial map of Lovecraft’s Dreamlands in a lavish, detailed style. Appears in Métal Hurlant and slightly smaller in Metal Extra.
“Amitiés, Rencontres” (“Annunci sul Gironale…,” “The Agony Column”) by Vepy & Daniel Ceppi is a 5-page black-and-white comic. The French title translates literally as “Friendships, Meetings”, and the Italian as “Announcements in the Daily,” but in context it might better be called Personal Ads. The nameless protagonist is in police/medical custody, and flashes back to when he answered a personal ad in the paper, and received a response. When he goes to meet the woman, he is waylaid: the whole setup has been a trap. Not explicitly Lovecraftian. Appeared in Métal Hurlant, Heavy Metal, and Metal Extra.
“Barzai le Sage”(“Barzai il Saggio,” “Barzai the Sage”) by Marc Caro is an 8-page comic composed of several extremely dark, heavily-exposed photos of a sculpture of a figure in various poses and backgrounds; the text is derived from Lovecraft’s “The Other Gods.” Appears in Métal Hurlant and in Metal Extra, where text boxes replace the original typed text annotations.
“Excursion Nocturne” (“Escursione Notturna,” “Noctural Excursion”) by Frank Margerin is a 4-page black-and-white comic that is wordless until the final panel; the whole is a careful set-up of horror tropes with a comedic flourish. Not explicitly Lovecraftian. Appeared in Métal Hurlant and Metal Extra.
“Hommage à HPL…” (“Omaggio a H. P. Lovecraft,” “Homage to Lovecraft”) by uncredited is nominally a 3-page black-and-white cut-out diorama inspired by Lovecraft; though the content is more descriptive of general witchcraft and I haven’t been able to source any particular Lovecraftian inspiration. Appeared in Métal Hurlant and Metal Extra.
“H. P. L.” by Jean-Michel Nicollet is a 3-page color fantasy painted comic. A pair of fantasy creatures travel through a city to where a suited, winged figure sits on a throne atop a pillar, and asks a sphinx-like riddle. A panel reveals the figure has the face of Lovecraft. While slight in terms of content, and the events play out with a dry humor, the artwork is fantastic. Nicollet would go on to do many painted covers for weird fiction translated into French, including collections of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, etc. The winged, demonic Lovecraft would reappear on the cover of Robert Bloch’s Retour à Arkham(1980). Appeared in Métal Hurlant, Heavy Metal, and Metal Extra.
“H. P. Lovecraft 1890-1937” by Georges Kuchar is a 3-page biographical comic of Lovecraft’s life, which first appeared in the U.S. underground comix Arcade #3 (1975). Kuchar exaggerates certain elements of Lovecraft’s life and personality for comedic effect, but largely follows the available scholarship and characterization of H.P.L. in 1975. Appeared in Métal Hurlant and Metal Extra.
“KTULU” by Mœbius is a 5-page color comic; a group of politicians, finished with a week’s work, descend to a strange place and ask Lovecraft where to find a Ktulu to hunt. A surreal, sardonic work that owes little to the Mythos but echoes Mœbius’ other work of the period, like Le Garage Hermétique; the image of Lovecraft on a high throne oddly echoes Nicollet’s “H.P.L.” Appeared in Métal Hurlant, Heavy Metal, and Metal Extra.
“L’Abomination de Dunwich” (“The Dunwich Horror”) by Alberto Breccia, a 15-page black-and-white adaptation of Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror”—and a fairly faithful and evocative adaptation, with particular care given to Wilbur Whateley and his unnamed twin. Appeared in Métal Hurlant and Heavy Metal; many of Breccia’s adaptations of Lovecraft stories first appeared in Italian in the magazine Il Mago, which may be why Metal Extra chose not to reprint it.
“La Chose”(“La Cosa,” “The Thing”) by Alain Voss is a 6-page black-and-white adaptation of Lovecraft’s “The Statement of Randolph Carter.” Voss elaborates on Lovecraft’s story a bit, making Harley Warren more sinister and flamboyant, and the grave they break into becomes an elaborate sepulchre, but is otherwise very faithful. Appeared in Métal Hurlant, Heavy Metal, and Metal Extra.
“La Retour de Cthulhu” (“Il Ritorno di Cthulhu,” “The Return of Cthulhu”) by Alan Charles & Richard Martens is a 2 -page black-and-white comic. “Uncle Nyarlathotep” narrates a tongue-in-cheek account of the ritual that results in the reincarnation of H. P. Lovecraft. Appeared in Métal Hurlant and Metal Extra.
“La Trace Ecarlate” (“La Traccia Scarlatta,” “The Scarlet Track”) by Jean-Jacques Mendez & Daniel Ceppi is a two-page, slightly humorless, mostly wordless spectacle. Métal Hurlant printed the comic in black and white, but Metal Extra added a bit of red to actually illustrate the “scarlet trace,” which works much better.
“Le Chef d’Œuvre de Dewsbury” (“Il Capolavoro di Dewsbury,” “Dewsbury’s Masterpiece”) by Yves Chaland & Luc Cornillon is a 4-page color comic that ells an original Lovecraftian story, somewhat in the vein of “Pickman’s Model,” with the mysterious Dewsbury taking the place of Pickman, but truncated and dedicated to not showing the unnamable horror. Appeared in Métal Hurlant, Heavy Metal, and Metal Extra.
“Le langage des chats” (“Il Linguaggio dei Gatti,” “The Language of Cats” ) by Nicole Claveloux is a 2-page black-and-white comic, and adapts an excerpt from “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” involving the cats of the Dreamlands. Appeared in Métal Hurlant, Heavy Metal, and Metal Extra.
“Le Pont Au Dessus de l’Eau” (“Il Ponte dull’acqua,” “The Bridge over the Water”) by Luc Cornillon is a 2-page comic where a man attempts to commit suicide by leaping from a bridge, and finds himself embattled by a protoplasmic tentacled entity. Not explicitly Lovecraft-related, though some might call it Lovecraftian. Published in black-and-white in Métal Hurlant, and colorized in Metal Extra.
“Les 2 Vies de Basil Wolverton” (“Le 2 Vite di Basil Wolverton,” “The Two Lives of Basil Wolverton”) by Yves Chaland is a 2-page black-and-white comic. In Lord Whateley’s residence is uncovered the diary of an old servant, Basil Wolverton (after the comic artist), who had long served the family. The diary describes how Wolverton was a mad genius who sought to use the life-forces of others to extend his lifespan and rule the world—but he chose as his experimental subjects Black slaves, and found afterward his he fell into idleness and stupidity. The story is effectively a brief echo of the kind of weird racism typical of 1920s and 30s pulp fiction, although the artwork is excellent. Appeared in Métal Hurlant and Metal Extra.
“Les 3 Maisons de Seth” (“Le 3 Case di Seth,” “The 3 Houses of Seth”) by Dominique Hé is a 3-page black-and-white comic in the form of a document about an artist’s visit to an ancient temple in Egypt, where he received a vision of the eldritch entity Suthluhlu. The artistic depiction of Egyptian pyramids, temples, statues, hieroglyphs, etc. is exquisite in its precision, though the Lovecraftian content itself is slight. Appeared in Métal Hurlant and Metal Extra.
“Les Bêtes” (“La Bestie,” “The Beast”) by Dank is a 3-page black-and-white comic. The narrative is slight, a soldier or servant informs a man that the Beasts are back, which turn out to be a collection of fanged dinosaurs (and, bizarrely, a rhinocerous of unusual size) that are mowed down with guns; the hunter leaves strange three-toed tracks as he leaves after the slaughter. It’s a surreal bit of fluff, striking for its visuals, but deliberately obtuse. Not explicitly Lovecraftian. Appeared in Métal Hurlant, Heavy Metal, and Metal Extra.
“L’Homme de Black Hole” (“L’Uomo di Black Hole,” “The Man from Blackhole”) by Serge Clerc is a 4-page comic. Howard Phillip Wingate, horror author, recalls a visit to Arkham, where he encounters Nathaniel Jenkins, a retired doctor who lived at Blackhole Cottage, and participates in his experiments. What he sees there causes him to flee, but he hears once more from Jenkins, whose brilliant mind has succumbed… The story is a pure pastiche of Lovecraft, with little visual and written nods scattered throughout. Published in black-and-white in Métal Hurlant and Metal Extra, but in color in Heavy Metal.
“Le Necronomicon” (“The Necronomicon”) by Druillet is 11 pages of black-and-white pseudo-script and illustrations, laid out as pages from an alien manuscript; a photograph of Lovecraft is included on the frontispiece. Druillet’s recension of the Necronomicon was released near-contemporaneously with Al Azif (1973) by L. Sprague de Camp, the Necronomicon (1977) by Simon, and The Necronomicon: The Book of Dead Names (1978) ed. by George Hay. Yet where the others focused primarily on producing some kind of decipherable content or referenced existing cultures and systems, Druillet deliberately made his pages evocative but untranslateable—and as a result, universal across all languages. Published in Métal Hurlant and Heavy Metal, with some slight differences in presentation.
“Plat du Jour” (“Il Piatto del Girno,” “Dish of the Day”) by Vepy & Daniel Ceppi is a 3-page black-and-white comic. A hooded figure buys a spider, takes it home, cooks it up, and serves it to a bed-written individual in a rat costume. The tone is slightly ghastly, but also slice-of-life. Not explicitly Lovecraft-related. Published in Métal Hurlant and Metal Extra.
Cultural Impact
In the decades after the Métal Hurlant Lovecraft Special was published, many of the stories and artwork have been reprinted in various formats and languages. Today, you can find collections of Druillet and Breccia’s Lovecraft comics and art in several languages. What might strike readers, however, is that the bulk of the three issues do not consist of adaptations of Lovecraft’s stories, but also comics, art, fiction, and nonfiction about Lovecraft himself. That issue, and to a degree the English and Italian magazines it inspired, was a nexus of Lovecraftian art and fiction that helped to further the spread of not just Lovecraft’s Mythos, but the myth of Lovecraft and his life, inexplicably entwined with his creations.
For many readers, one of these issues was their first introduction for Lovecraft. For some, it was an example of what Lovecraftian comics and art could be, unfettered by censorship or expectations to conform to commercial standards of what a comic or Lovecraftian work should be like. These works aren’t pornographic or particularly graphic, but they vary from reverent to irreverent, ghoulish to enchanting. Lovecraft and his work are interpreted many different ways by different creators—and that’s okay. There’s room for all those different approaches, and many more.
Métal Hurlant is being published in a new series. Perhaps appropriately, in August 2024 they published a new Lovecraft special—reflecting a new generation of talents to flex their imaginations and showcase their skills. It is a testament to the cultural impact of that first mammoth issue, but also a reflection that these specials are part of an enduring tradition. Creators that are happy not just to read about Lovecraft, his fiction and letters, but to participate in the process and add to the body of art and literature he inspired.
Cuando lea estas lineas yo no estaré ya en el mundo de los vivos . . .
Con estas palabras comienza la carta que Robert E. Howard envía a su amigo, mentor y famoso escritor. En un escrito delirante el auto tejano describe su progresivo descenso al infierno de la locura y la desesparación después de visitar una antiqua tumba india sita en el interior de una cueva.
En la narración se mezclan los sueños con la realidad, la escritura, la relación con los amigos y su novia, la salud de la madre y su dependencia de ella . . Sin salida, totalmente acorralado por sus miedos, Howard debe buscar una solución, una huida, un sacrificio . . .
Dear H. P. Lovecraft,
When you read these lines, I will no longer be in the world of the living . . .
With these words begins the letter Robert E. Howard sent to his friend, mentor, and famous writer. In a delirious letter, the Texan author describes his gradual descent into the hell of madness and despair after visiting an ancient Indian tomb located inside a cavern.
The story mixes dreams with reality, writing, his relationship with his friends and girlfriend, his mother’s health and his dependence on her… With no way out, completely cornered by his fears, Howard must find a solution, an escape, a sacrifice…
Querido H. P. Lovecraft (2017, Spanish), back cover copy
English translation
Rusty Burke, a scholar of the life and work of Robert E. Howard, has noted that REH was one of H. P. Lovecraft’s major correspondents—but that HPL was Howard’s major correspondent. The bulk of the surviving letters we have from Robert E. Howard are to Lovecraft; and while many of Howard’s other letters—to Clark Ashton Smith, Farnsworth Wright, C. L. Moore, Novalyne Price, etc. are important, none of them really cover the same breadth and depth as Howard’s letters to Lovecraft. Nor, in many cases, have we much of the other side of the conversation. In the collected correspondence of both men, at least as much as survives, we gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for the push and tug of the conversation.
This literary friendship has extended far past the limits of the grave. Novalyne Price Ellis mentioned it in her memoir One Who Walked Alone (1986); “Gilgamesh in the Outback” (1986) by Robert Silverberg sees the two palling around the underworld together. The semiotic ghosts of both men have followed each other into novels and comic books, from Rick McCollum’s Ashley Dust (1996) to Lovecraft’s Book(1985) by Richard Lupoff, later restored as Marblehead (2006). Howard makes an appearance in most of the biographical graphic novels that have come out about Lovecraft, and every biography of Howard cannot avoid mentioning their “civilization vs. barbarism” argument in letters that winged their way from Providence, R.I. to Cross Plains, TX and back again.
It is this relationship that Antonio Manuel Fraga has attempted to capture in his novel Querido H. P. Lovecraft(2016, “Dear H. P. Lovecraft), which was written and published in Galician. The novel was then translated into Spanish (Castilian) by Mercedes Pacheco Vázquez and published, also as Querido H. P. Lovecraft, in 2017. It has not yet been translated or published in English, but in brief the novel takes the form of a classic epistolary novel, like Dracula, but consisting of several fictional letters between H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Dr. Isaac M. Howard (REH’s father, with whom HPL corresponded after REH’s death in 1936). The bulk of the novel consists of Howard’s final letter to Lovecraft, detailing the supernatural curse that descended upon him and the real reason he took his life that day.
De ROBERT ERVIN HOWARD para H. P. LOVECRAFT 10 de junio de 1936 Sr. H. P. Lovecraft 66, College Street. Providence, R.I.
Querido H. P. Lovecraft:
Cuando lea estas líneas no estaré ya en el mundo de los vivos, pues pronto daré el definitivo salto hacia las tinieblas. Sin otra salida, y después de lo vivido, espero que la muerte se abra a mi como una madre redentora, un pecho cálido que me ampare y silencie los horripilates alaridos que no dejan reposar mi mente, cansada y enferma.
Puede que este testimonio, dictado por la urgencia y la necesidad de purga, me sirva también para comprender mejor toda esta atrocidad, o por lo menos para distinguirla de un modo más global.
Hace dos semanas me acerqué a Brownwood, donde compré tres tumbas en su camposanto. Los miembros de mi exiqua familia tendrán así cada uno su trozo de tierra donde reposar, donde olvidar tanto dolor embalsamados en la archilla arenosa de Texas.
Las raíces de nuestros padecimientos se entredan en el pasado, se mezclan y alimentan de las mismas sales, pero sus tallos crecen independientes hacia un sol que es fuego fatuo, sin bndad ni compasión.
En el caso de mi madre, la desgraciada Hester, hablamos de una vida marcada por la enfermedad propia y ajena –si como enfermeded se puede calificar mi mal, que después expcliaré detalladamente. ¡Tiempo habrá!–.
El padecimiento de mi padre, el viejo doctor Howard, tiene el sabor de la ceniza del desprecio de su compañera. Durante toda su vida fue un imán para las malas inversiones, en las que dilapidó los escasos ahorros de la familia. ¡Y bien que se lo reprochó Hester! Esa fue una de las causas del désden de su mujer, pero no el único ni el más importante. En esa guerra fue un titán. Por el contrario, sospecho fundadamente que no resistirá el trance de nuestra partida. Ojalá me equivoque.
Y por último está mi padecimiento, el del necio Bob, el torpe ignorante. Afortunademente, pronto será silenciado por este colt que ahora siento en el muslo y que se convertirá en mi redentor, reverendo y verdugo.
From ROBERT ERVIN HOWARD to H. P. LOVECRAFT 10 June 1936 Mr. H. P. Lovecraft 66 College Street, Providence, R.I.
Dear H. P. Lovecraft:
When you read these lines, I will no longer be in the world of the living, for I will soon take the final leap into darkness. With no other way out, and after what I have experienced, I hope that death will greet me like a redeeming mother, a warm breast to shelter me and silence the horrifying screams that keep my tired and sick mind from resting.
Perhaps this testimony, dictated by the urgency and necessity for a purge, will also help me better understand this whole atrocity, or at least to distinguish it in a more comprehensive way.
Two weeks ago, I went to Brownwood, where I bought three graves in the cemetery. The members of my tiny family will each have their own piece of land to rest in, where they can forget so much pain, embalmed in the sandy Texas clay.
The roots of our sufferings are buried in the past, they mix and feed on the same salts, but their stems grow independently toward a sun that is a will-o’-the-wisp, without kindness or compassion.
In the case of my mother, the unfortunate Hester, we are talking about a life marked by her own and other people’s illnesses—if my illness can be described as illness, which I will explain in detail later. If there is time!
The predicament of my father, old Dr. Howard, tastes like the ashes of his companion’s contempt. Throughout his life he was a magnet for bad investments, in which he squandered our family’s meager savings. And well did Hester reproach him for it! That was one of the causes of his wife’s disdain, but not the only one, nor the most important. In that war he was a titan. On the contrary, I strongly suspect that he will not be able to withstand our departure. I hope I am wrong.
And finally there is my suffering, that of the foolish Bob, the ignorant bumbler. Fortunately, he will soon be silenced by this colt that I now feel in my thigh and that will become my redeemer, reverend and executioner.
Querido H. P. Lovecraft (2017, Spanish) 20-21
English translation
Perhaps surprisingly given how prominently the letters formed their relationship—Lovecraft and Howard never met, though they corresponded from 1930 until Howard’s death in 1936—the epistolary format has featured less prominently in their fictional afterlives. In fiction, at least, the two men would get the chance to meet as they never did in life. So too, that way the writer isn’t forced to write as many letters to and from Lovecraft and Howard from the other’s perspective, which would require more than a passing familiarity with both men’s life and letters to convincingly nail the voice and knowledge of each.
It is difficult to judge how well Antonio Manuel Fraga has captured their voices. That Fraga did some research into Robert E. Howard’s life is evident, he obviously read at least the flawed biography Dark Valley Destiny(1983), or Mark Finn’s Blood and Thunder (1st ed. 2006/2nd ed. 2013), which emphasizes the sometimes conflicted family dynamics among the Howards. Some of the choices (filtered, admittedly, through two layers of translation) strike me as unlikely; Robert E. Howard would probably not have referred to his mother by her given name, for example, and never had anything but praise for his father in his letters to Lovecraft. There are a few other details that are “off” in the short novel, but to try and catalogue them would be pedantic. This is a fantasy novel, and some allowances have to be given.
As a novel, Querido H. P. Lovecraft is an interesting example of a familiar idea: the author becoming the character. The Robert E. Howard of this book is not the same REH that comes through in his letters to Lovecraft, but he is recognizable as an interpretation of that person. What it reveals is less about Howard and Lovecraft than it does about Antonio Manuel Fraga—what Fraga has taken away from his research about Howard, the aspects of his life and relationships that he wished to emphasize in telling his story.
Is it a story worth telling? As an exercise in fantasy, it’s fine. There have been innumerable stories that mingled H. P. Lovecraft’s death with his Mythos, that have blurred the lines between reality and fantasy, for fun if nothing else. In that sense, Querido H. P. Lovecraft is something of a fanfic novel, a great and impossible what if, the kind of cache of letters that Lovecraft and Howard fan-scholars might dream of coming across, like the scholarly protagonists of a ghost story that find the document that explains it all at last.
What we cannot forget, however, is that this is not about how Robert E. Howard lived and died, but the stories and interpretations that have grown up around it.
The death Robert E. Howard is tinged with tragedy. This was a man whose life has sometimes been described as a trajectory toward his inevitable demise, with biographers and critics looking back across the whole of his existence for signs that would point to his self-destruction. Howard’s suicide is a part of his mythos, as explored in works like “El guardian” (2010) by Enrique Balmes & Roc Espinet and “Life After Death” (2010) by David Güell, so the focus on his crucial final days isn’t unusual. The addition of a supernatural element throws off the narrative of inevitability; it emphasizes Howard as more of a victim and cheapens a tragic affair by diluting his own agency. He goes out not as the cipher, the man who had reached his hidden limit and came to the final step, but as a haunted man who suffers under persecutions the novel details all too well.
It would be interesting, someday, to read this in a proper English translation. To see what niceties of language I’ve missed, what nuances may come out from having someone fluent translate Fraga’s prose. While I doubt the translation would capture Howard or Lovecraft’s voice in their letters, there are a lot of nods to people, stories, and events in Howard’s life that would get a nod from Howard and Lovecraft aficionados.
The space opera comic strip Jeff Hawke by British cartoonist Sydney Jordan (with William Patterson 1956-1969) ran from 15 Feb 1955-18 Apr 1974 in the Daily Express. While cut in the mold of Flash Gordon, Jeff Hawke was aimed at an adult audience (including some mild erotic elements in the form of topless women, which also appeared in British newspaper strips like Axa), and found an appreciative audience not just in the United Kingdom but in translation outside of English, particularly in Italy, Spain, and Sweden. Because the Express owned the rights to the strip, there were no English-language reprints until the 1980s, wheren Titan Books obtained the rights, although various European collections appeared.
In 1976, Sydney Jordan launched a “new” strip, Lance McLane (1976-1988), which ran in the Scottish Daily Record newspaper (several strips 1-238 also ran in the London Evening News under the title Earthspace.) This was, more or less, a soft relaunch of Jeff Hawke under a different title; Jordan even made it clear in a connecting storyline that “Lance McLane” was simply Jeff Hawke, several decades into the future, and some European editions continued the series numbering without interruption (which leads to some confusion, especially as some strips were created specifically for European magazines or fanzines that didn’t run in the daily paper).
In 1985, the “Even Death May Die” storyline began which saw Jeff Hawke and the telepathic female android Fortuna up against the Cthulhu Mythos—a run has only been collected once in English, in Jeff Hawke’s Cosmos vol. 10, no. 3, a subscription-only publication of the Jeff Hawke Fan Club. The storyline is more available inthe Italian collection Jeff Hawke/Lance McLane 2 Storie Inedite (2014), which also offers some valuable background material, if you can read Italian.
Io fui uno dei pochi a non esere totalmente sorpreso dall anuova direzione che aveva preso la storia, a circa metà di Vele nel Rosso Tramonto, perché sapevo che Sydney Jordan aveva acquisito i diritti di un racconto di H. P. Lovecraft da utilizzare per una storia chiamata The Dark Tower che non fu mai pubblicata. Le prime citazioni derivano da Il Richiamo di Cthulhu (1928), ristampato da August Derleth nella raccolta L’Orrore di Dunvich e altre storie, 1963, e in una selezione di storie da essa tratte, Il Colore dallo Spazio e altre storie (Lancer, 1964). Marise Morland suggerì la litania “O Gorgo, Mormo, luna dalle mille facce, guarda con benevolenza ai nostri sacrifici”, e altri dettagli, perché Sydney aveva letto solo poche storie, mentre lei le aveva lette tutte.
I was one of the few who wasn’t totally surprised by the new direction the story had taken, about halfway through Sails in the Red Sunset, because I knew that Sydney Jordan had acquired the rights to an H. P. Lovecraft story for use in a story called The Dark Tower that was never published. The earliest citations are from “The Call of Cthulhu” (1928), reprinted by August Derleth in the collection The Dunwich Horror and Other Stories, 1963, and in a selection of stories from it, The Colour from Space, and Other Stories (Lancer, 1964). Marise Morland suggested the litany “O Gorgo, Mormo, thousand-faced moon, look kindly upon our sacrifices,” and other details, because Sydney had only read a few stories, while she had read them all.
“Notes on ‘Even Death May Die!'” by Duncan Lunan Translated into English
Sails in the Red Sunset was the storyline immediately preceding Even Death May Die, and includes the first references to Lovecraft and Cthulhu on the lips of a madman; it is this clue that leads McLane and Fortuna to Earth to investigate the cult of Cthulhu. It isn’t clear which Lovecraft story Jordan might have attempted to license for the never-published “The Dark Tower” story; presumably this would have been a deal with Arkham House, based solely on the title, I wonder if it didn’t involve The Lurker at the Threshold (1945).
Duncan Lunan also shared the above image in his post Space Notes 24 Jeff Hawke Part 4 – Not As We Know It (29 Oct 2023), a montage that combines panels and images from several strips in the storyline under the Earthspace banner.
Many of Jordan’s storylines ran 12-16 weeks (~72-96 strips), but but according to Tony O’Sullivan’s index “Even Death May Die” ran for 145 daily strips (A1508 – 1653), making this one of the longer storylines, and according to O’Sullivan’s notes the storyline wasn’t even syndicated in Europe (hence “Storie Inedite”—”Unpublished Stories”). Italian Wikipedia gives a different numbering, 149 strips (A1503 – A1652), but with the way “Even Death May Die” dovetails with the previous storyline and idiosyncrasies of international publishing it can be tricky to decide where one story starts and ends, exactly.
Given that there are ~10,000 strips, that the Cthulhu material came nearly at the end of this long-running project, wasn’t even published in Europe at the time, and that reprints nearly always focus on the beginning of the run, it may be no surprise that collections are scarce and that Jordan’s take on the Mythos has been largely overlooked. I only stumbled across it because the Daily Record archive is available on newspapers.com, while trying to find the first newspaper comic strips to include Lovecraft and Cthulhu.
The story itself follows what is now fairly familiar territory: Lovecraft was writing more than fiction, the Cthulhu Mythos is real, malevolent, and it’s up to Lance McLane and Fortuna to stop their nefarious plans for the human race. The pace of a daily strip can seem plodding compared to a comic book or graphic novel, and the often muddy tones of newsprint often render Jordan’s artwork very dark in the newspaper scans. Which is a pity, because Jordan’s artwork is strongly realistic, grounding the strip in a way that makes the fantasy elements appear as truly intrusive…even if the darker text boxes are sometimes difficult to read.
The 1980s UK sensibilities allowed a degree of eroticism, which is probably one of the reasons Lance McLane never found syndication in the United States newspapers. This is measured titillation (Jordan couldn’t be explicit even if he wanted to), but not inappropriate to the material: the idea of an orgiastic cult comes straight from “The Call of Cthulhu,” after all, and it’s a bold storyteller that manages to get as much on the screen as Jordan does.
It is a pity that “Even Death May Day” hasn’t received a more widespread publication; at the moment, your best bet to read it in English is to get a newspaper.com subscription and manually scroll through the Daily Record day by day. For those that read Italian, Jeff Hawke/Lance McLane 2 Storie Inedite (2014) is a choice option to see the strip compiled and restored, looking better than it ever did on newsprint, being on glossy paper and in color:
Eldritch Fappenings This review concerns a work of adult literature. Reader discretion is advised.
Around November 1923, H. P. Lovecraft sent a letter to Weird Tales editor Edwin Baird, commenting on the contents of the magazine during its first year of existence. The letter was published in the March 1924 issue of Weird Tales, and included a challenge to writers of weird fiction:
Popular authors do not and apparently cannot appreciate the fact that true art is obtainable only by rejecting normality and conventionality in toto, and approaching a theme purged utterly of any usual or preconceived point of view. Wild and ‘different’ as they may consider their quasi-weird products, it remains a fact that the bizarrerie is on the surface alone; and that basically they reiterate the same old conventional values and motives and perspectives. Good and evil, teleological illusion, sugary sentiment, anthropocentric psychology—the usual superficial stock in trade, and all shot through with the eternal and inescapable commonplace. Take a werewolf story, for instance—who ever wrote a story from the point of view of the wolf, and sympathising strongly with the devil to whom he has sold himself? Who ever wrote a story from the point of view that man is a blemish on the cosmos, who ought to be eradicated? —H. P. Lovecraft to Edwin Baird, c. Nov 1923
This inspired H. Warner Munn, a weird fiction enthusiast from Athol, Massachusetts, to write a story and submit it to the magazine. “The Werewolf of Ponkert” (WT Jul 1925) and earned the coveted cover spot. It was Munn’s first professional publication, the start of a long career in science fiction and fantasy, and perhaps most importantly the start of a long series of tales. Subsequently in the pages of Weird Tales, Munn published “The Return of the Master” (WT Jul 1927), “The Werewolf’s Daughter” (WTOct–Nov–Dec 1928), and a series of Tales of the Werewolf Clan published as “The Master Strikes” (WT Nov 1930), “The Master Fights” (WT Dec 1930), and “The Master Has A Narrow Escape” (WT Jan 1931).
Munn also became friends and correspondents with Lovecraft, who referred to the whole work in one letter as the “master” cycle—much as he referred to his own mythos as the “Arkham” cycle. Yet for Lovecraft, Munn had missed the mark:
It is my constant complaint that allegedly weird writers fell into commonplaceness though reflecting wholly conventional & ordinary perspectives, sympathies, & value-systems; & in this instance (as in others) I sought to escape from this pitfall as widely as I could. It pleases me that you grasp this matter so spontaneously—for some persons seem unable to understand what I mean when I bring it up. For example—I once said that a werewolf story from the wolf’s point of view ought to be written. H. Warner Munn, taking me up, thereupon produced his “Ponkert” series; in which, however, he made the werewolf an unwilling one, filled with nothing but conventionally human regrets over his condition! —H. P. Lovecraft to J. Vernon Shea, 19 Jun 1931, LJS 16
The series also suffered from a relative lack of overt weirdness, as Lovecraft put it:
The trouble with Munn’s tale is that it subscribes too much to the conventional tradition of swashbuckling romance—the Stanley J. Weyman cloak & swordism of 1900. —H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, [17 Oct 1930], DS 245
Yes—Munn does get into arid and sterile regions when he tries to hitch his romantic-adventure mood and technique to the domain of the weird. He is drawing the poor Master out to such lengths that one cannot keep track of the creature’s nature and attributes—indeed, the impression is that he merely retains the supernatural framework as a matter of duty—or concession to Wright—whereas he really wants to write a straight historical romance. But the kid’s young, and we can well afford to give him time. Let him get Ponkertian werewolves out of his system, and see what he can do with a fresh start! —H. P. Lovecraft to August Derleth, [Dec 1930], ES1.305
“Romance” in this case doesn’t refer to stories about love or lust, but the older sense of romance as a fictional prose narrative of heroic adventure, in the traditional of medieval romances. The sentiments echo some thoughts by Lovecraft with regard to Robert E. Howard, whose weird fiction often contained a strong action-adventure element, sometimes with the monster or magic a bit of an afterthought. Still, Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright was impressed enough to consider the publication of Munn’s werewolf tales as a standalone volume:
Munn’s effort—I read the whole tale in MS. a year ago—has romantic facility, but to my mind he seldom achieves real weirdness. He is, though, a very capable writer, & ought to have quite a future ahead of him. Wright tells him that his collected “Ponkert” tales will form the third book of a W.T. series beginning with “The Moon Terror”—my own tales forming the second. Personally I’d wager that much time will elapse before W.T. publishes any more volumes. —H. P. Lovecraft to August Derleth, [6 Sep 1928], ES1.155-156
Unfortunately, Lovecraft was correct: The Moon Terrorfailed to sell, and the idea of Weird Tales publishing collections or anthologies was largely abandoned. The Werewolf of Ponkert series would finally be collected in 1958, and when Munn expanded the series with additional tales in the 1970s and 80s was reprinted and recollected again. Of his friend, Lovecraft wrote:
Frank B. Long, Jr., Donald Wandrei, Wilfred B. Talman, H. Warner Munn, August W. Derleth, & Clark Ashton Smith are indeed all friends of mine, but it would hardly be fair to their own talents & initiative to call them my “proteges”. I have tried to encourage the younger ones & help them with their style whenever such help seemed in order, but they all succeed on their own merits. I am proud, though, to have been the first to persuade Long & Talman & Munn to send stuff to W.T. —H. P. Lovecraft to J. Vernon Shea, 19 Jun 1931, LJS 18
So what does this have to do with Pleasure Planet (1974) as by Edward George (pseudonym for Robert E. Vardeman and George W. Proctor), an erotic science fiction novel? Well…read the back cover copy:
Step aboard the sex-computer equipped Intergalactic Vessel Werewolf along with Captain Chad Ponkert and his very horny co-pilot, Janet. Their mission—to find a planet to be used as a sex playground—a place where creatures from all over the galaxy can come together and get it on!
Chad Ponkert, I. V. Werewolf. Yes, it does appear that Lovecraft’s innocent suggestion in 1924 had, fifty years later, inspired a sleazy erotic novel, by way of one H. Warner Munn (who was probably utterly unaware of the borrowing).
The novel itself is almost a parody, although it might be more accurate to call it a pastiche. The oversexed everyman Chadwick Ponkert the Third is a spaceship pilot with a raging libido and a black belt in karate, who plays a few BDSM games with his co-pilot Janet where she refers to him as ‘Master.’ Their ship crash lands on a planet called Keller, which is like medieval Europe if there were no Christian church, a rather open and eager attitude toward sex, and the occasional alien beast. Which is to say, not much like medieval Europe, but not unlike a thousand sword & planet stories that ran in the pulps. Ponkert and Janet quickly establish themselves as lords and ladies in the oversexed land, happily screwing pretty much anyone and everyone they encounter page after raunchy page.
The girl was a veritable wealth of information about Keller. During their endless hours of bouncing on the backs of their sturdy steeds, he had never tired of her explanations of various sights they passed. She had also provided a history of Keller’s development. From what Ponkert could make of the various legends and myths she told, Keller had grown from the remnants of a derelict colonial rocket from Earth. The lost voyage had long been forgotten by the mother planet, which was to his advantage. If the Earth’s residents had known about Keller, they would have come in the teeming millions. —Pleasure Planet 113
Aside from the names mentioned, Vardeman and Proctor make no overt reference to Munn’s werewolf stories, nor are they parodying them. It is, rather, a rather basic and straightforward sword & planet tale fluffed out with a lot of hardcore sex. The difference between this and a mainstream science fiction novel is a matter of degree rather than kind, although there really isn’t anything to recommend it as science fiction. The story hits most of the weaknesses that Lovecraft noted about interplanetary stories in the 30s, following the Edgar Rice Burroughs model of a strong Earthman arriving at an Earth-like planet, rescuing a very human princess, etc.
As with many erotic novels, Pleasure Planet went through a number of titles and author pseudonyms. While it may be of interest to some folks for its place in the history of erotic science fiction, it also demonstrates the ripple-effect that Lovecraft had on science fiction and fantasy—how inspiration spreads out, from one little letter, to a series of werewolf tales, to an erotic novel—and who knows where it might end?
Ghosts and monsters have long been favorite topics for many children, so this Getting Into Literature set has a real built-in motivation factor. The art aids understanding, and the text is set in type (rather than hand-lettered in the traditional comic-book style). These features make GHOSTS AND MONSTERS enjoyable and easy to read. —Teacher’s Guide: Ghosts and Monsters
Imagine yourself in a public middle school in the United States of America, circa the 1980s or early 1990s. A genuine chalk board, rows of desks, an old-style projector. It’s the fall; leaves are falling from the trees, t-shirts are giving way to long sleeves and jackets. The classroom might be decorated with black and orange chains of paper, a cut-out of a witch, a pumpkin with a crooked smile drawn on in sharpie. The teacher passes out a stack of worksheets—but what is this? Comics? Horror comics?
Ghosts and Monsters was published by Educational Insights in 1982. The kind of boxed set of teaching materials that found there way easily into hundreds or thousands of classrooms across the country. The contents were pretty basic: a book of spirit masters for duplicating worksheets (crosswords, etc.) in an age before photocopying became ubiquitous; a brief teacher’s guide with suggested questions and activities; and a package of comic booklets which adapted a dozen tales of horror and weird fiction to comics:
“Feathertop” (1852) by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“The Flowering of the Strange Orchid” (1894) by H. G. Wells
“The Bottle Imp” (1891) by Robert Louis Stevenson
“Man-Size in Marble” (1887) by Edith Nesbit
“The Legend of Gwendolyn Ranna” (1982?) by Frank Maltesi
“The Ghost-Eater” (1924) by C. M. Eddy
“The King is Dead, Long Live the King” (1928) by Mary Coleridge
“The Secret of the Growing Gold” (1892) by Bram Stoker
“The Gorgon’s Head” (1899) by Gertrude Bacon
“The Outsider” (1926) by H. P. Lovecraft
“The Stranger” (1909) by Ambrose Bierce
“The Crewe Ghost” after Oscar Wilde [based on “The Canterville Ghost” (1887)]
It’s an odd mix. Many of these works were in the public domain, while the others were largely drawn from the pulps or (more likely) horror anthologies. “The Legend of Gwendolyn Ranna” by Frank Maltesi is a bit of an enigma, though the name is associated with several other brief legendary tales that have popped up in other educational materials; this may well be its first (and only) publication.
Most of the interest is on the comics themselves. The Teacher’s Guide credits Mark Falstein (well-known author of fiction for young adults) for selection and adaptation, and freelance artist Tony Gleeson for the illustrations. Each comic booklet is basically one large folded page, which gives four pages to tell and illustrate a complete story—a not-inconsiderable task!
The results tend to less grue and taboo than young horror fans might hope for. These were the last generation of “monster kids” that might pick up Famous Monsters of Filmland (1958-1983) on the stand, but they might still find a Helen Hoke-edited horror anthology in the school library, or pick up something from Scholastic involving vampires, werewolves, or bug-eyed aliens at the school book fair. Yet I have to wonder how many kids sat down one day and read Lovecraft for the first time as part of a school assignment—
And then fill out the worksheet afterwards!
Actually, there were two bits of Lovecraft tucked away in this package. C. M. Eddy, Jr.’s “The Ghost-Eater” (Weird Tales Apr 1924) was one of the stories that Lovecraft had somewhat revised for Eddy, and sold to Weird Tales editor Edwin Baird. As Lovecraft put it:
I have, I may remark, been able to secure Mr. Baird’s acceptance of two tales by my adopted son Eddy, which he had before rejected. Upon my correcting them, he profest himself willing to pint them in early issues; they being intitul’d respectively “Ashes”, and “The Ghost-Eater”. —H. P. Lovecraft to James F. Morton, 28 Oct 1923, Letters to James F. Morton57
How much of it Lovecraft actually wrote is a matter for debate; S. T. Joshi in Revisions and Collaborations notes the plot and some of the dialogue seems very typical of Eddy, while much of the prose reads like Lovecraft. In any event, it’s a genuine rarity. While many of Lovecraft’s tales have been adapted to comics, his revisions and collaborations are much less likely to receive the same treatment. This is certainly the first, and possibly the only adaptation of “The Ghost-Eater” to comics.
Given the limitations of space, the monochromatic printing, and the incredibly tight scripts, credit has to be given to Tony Gleeson for doing a very decent job on the art. Stuck with a very boxy framing setup, he nevertheless manages to use perspective shots and shadowed silhouettes to hint and convey something of a horror-mood. While the Teacher’s Guide suggests that the typeset text will make it easier to read, I suspect the real issue was that the budget for this project didn’t extend to hiring a letterer.
When we consider Lovecraft as something more than a cult figure, but as a writer who has entered the canon of world literature—this is a good example of what that looks like. Not necessarily fancy, expensive editions that can only be seen and enjoyed by a few, but stories that penetrate into common educational materials, hitting the masses when they’re young and becoming part of the foundation of reading. Ghosts and Monsters is a core sample of how Lovecraft came to the masses.
It’s a bit of history easily overlooked and easily lost. These were sold for classroom use, not to the public, and not preserved in libraries. How many classes went through Ghosts and Monsters before the comics were too worn for further use, or lost and displaced? Who preserves old worksheets from childhood days? These are deliberately ephemeral products, designed to last a few seasons and then be replaced as educational guidelines shift or a company needs to sell a new product. Edutainment marches on.
(Here are the answer keys to the worksheets if you need them.)
Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein 