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Friday, August 20, 2010

Happy 120th Birthday Lovecraft! A Giveaway.


David and I have been reading a lot of Lovecraft recently, usually while we're winding down for the night (as you can imagine, that has a fun effect on dreams :P).

If you're not sure who H. P. Lovecraft is, chances are you've heard of some of his creations. The Necronomicon for example, Cthulhu, and all manner of weird creatures and myths. He's a well loved horror and science fiction writer from the early 1900's, and his work has inspired a huge following of horror writers, game designers, toy lines, and even several of the decals we have in our shop.

If you would like to find out more about Lovecraft, you can find all sorts of information on hplovecraft.com, including full texts of a lot of his public domain writings.

What's really amazing to me about Lovecraft is that over 70 years after his death he's remained a very relevant influence in his genre. As a celebration of his life work, I'd like to feature some of the modern things that he's influenced, and do a little giveaway.

These two videos, both made by badadvicegoodtimes on Youtube, are just great:




Then there's the plush Cthulhu, everyone's favorite Elder God, designed by Toy Vault. My daughter had her very first little stuffed Cthulhu before she was a year old :) This isn't the only stuffed version of Cthulhu out there, and he and several of the other Elder Gods have been turned into statuary and miniature models, from companies like Reaper Minis, among others.

Then there's the endless line of games. Arkham Horror is a fantastic board game, and Call of Cthulhu is a horror role playing game in the vein of Dungeons and Dragons. There are video games for several different consoles, from games based directly on Lovecraft lore, to games that are heavily influenced by his work.

One of my favorite movies made from a Lovecraft story is Reanimator, where Jeffrey Combs has earned a special fangirl slot in my heart for his portrayal of Dr. Herbert West, a doctor who has found a way to beat death. And of course there are the Evil Dead movies, and In the Mouth of Madness. There are tons of really bad horror adaptations of his short stories roaming around too, so if you love really bad horror films as much as I do, they're worth looking for.

His work is featured in several modern songs, including Call of Ktulu and The Thing That Should Not Be by Metallica, Behind the Wall of Sleep by Black Sabbath, as well as inspiring the work of bands like Morbid Angel, Nile, and Cradle of Filth.

He's also inspired other writers in his genre, allowing the Cthulhu Mythos to grow. Brian Lumley has written several books using Lovecraft's mythos, Donald Tyson has turned the Necronomicon into a memoir of the bizarre life of the Mad Arab, Alhazred.

The Giveaway!
As a happy birthday gift, we're offering up one of our Cthulhu decals! The winner can choose from either the Nom, or the O'Rlyeh decals, or any of our Miskatonic University decals, in whatever color they'd prefer.


There are three different ways to enter:
1) Leave a comment telling me your favorite Lovecraft story, or your favorite thing that his work inspired. (Required)
2) Become a follower of our blog! (Optional)
3) Become a fan of us on Facebook (Optional)

Leave one separate comment for each entry, and be sure to leave your E-mail address so that I can contact you if you win! I will choose the winner on August 27th, at 12:00 noon central time. The winner has 48 hours to claim their prize, or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is open to participants world wide!

11 comments:

  1. My favorite thing that Lovecraft's work inspired is the movie "In the Mouth of Madness."

    kiddomsg at gmail dot com

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  2. I'm a fan on FB. (Suzanne Gregg)

    kiddomsg at gmail dot com

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  3. I love Munchkin Cthulhu! Lots of fun to play!

    luckysluna(at)yahoo(dot)com

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  4. i love the shadow out of time.

    abearmaybe at gmail dot com

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  5. I LOVE the O R'lyeh decal. Hahahahaha. I love Lovecraft. I can't pick my favorite story... but I can say I LOVE my leatherbound Necronomicon with gold-leaf pages. :) And I love the crappy movie adaptations, like Re-Animator :)

    lauren.m.gibson AT gmail DOT com

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  6. Ooooo... My favorite has to be the Call of the Cthulhu :D And the stuffed plushes are to awesome! My husband and I plan on getting one for our first kid! :D Movie wise it would have to be Evil Dead :D Sorry Bruce Campbell was awesome for it :D

    Crystalizeddestruction [at] gmail [dot] com

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  7. I follow your blog :D

    Crystalizeddestruction [at] gmail [dot] com

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  8. Oh dear, tough choice. I'm a fan of a lot of his work. In the Vault is probably my favourite of all his short stories, that or Cool Air. Just love the endings to both those stories.

    The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is also excellent, as is At the Mountains of Madness. I love how the latter gives enough description to allow you to picture the scene, while giving you enough freedom to make it up for yourself. I think it's this element of letting us use our imaginations that really creates the horror. We're more afraid of what we don't see than of what's right in front of us. And of course, I must mention the Call of Cthulhu. It was the first Lovecraft story I read, and it completely blew my mind.

    Favourite Lovecraft inspired work would definitely be the Electric Wizard song 'Dunwich.' Guess where they got that one from.

    erzsebet[at]live[dot]com[dot]au

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  9. I tried following, but it's unable to process my request at this time, blah blah blah. So, I suppose I'll comment now and follow later.

    I think that my favorite Lovecraft stories are The Rats in the Walls and At the Mountains of Madness.

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  10. And now I'm following!

    zombiecrafter at gmail

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  11. That sure looks one cool octopus. The layout is really cool. It's animated and looks really fun.

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