Hey, here's a cool link. Its a listing of comics that cover lovecraft themes. Not the actual comics themselves, but a list.
You'll have to do some lovecraftian research to locate the actual issues. And then you'll go mad...

http://www.carpenoctem.pl/pages/hplkomiks.htm

This'll blow your mind: http://lovecraftismissing.com/?p=930

This might be a bit left-field. I just watched "the screwfly solution" from the "masters of horror" TV series. it was a neat 1 hour chiller, neither great nor awful. But the ending was intriguing enough. Turns out it was based on a short story by Raccoona Sheldon. It has a subtle element of minimizing the importance of our civilization, which seems to be a modern version of cosmic horror. I could almost imagine the final scenes written in italics... I recommend checking it out.

Gah, just reading up on her on wikipedia. The author ended up killing her husband and then commiting suicide. Scary. I think I'll have to check out some more of her work. Morbid!

Leman is a genius. Amazing read.

BTW - i think "The Street" is a good episode just from the point of view of what is a good podcast episode. Very informative, and very funny. Sometimes listening to Chris and Chad rip into one of the stories can turn a sour day into one of sunshine and gay birds.

@DMcCool To my knowledge, the invention of cosmic horror is universally attributed to Lovecraft.

@TransconaSlim - Yeah, i'm waiting for my next paycheck and then I'm buying it. There's a great review of it, arguing that Houellebcq is satan himself and that his book celebrates Lovecrafts darker side in the book rather than condemning it. http://www.curledup.com/lovecrft.htm
(There's also what appears to be an amateur translation here: blog.urbanomic.com/dread/archives/houellebecq-lovecraft.pdf) (?)

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Now, after reading Callaghan's arguments, it sent me off thinking. The idea of mundane/cosmic/dream strands in Lovecraft is useful to spark new ideas. And something occurred to me, namely Lovecraft's view of psychology.
Think of either Poe's "black cat" or Stephen King's "Shining" (Lovecraft connections on either side of time). Both stories show from within the descent into madness, something that I think is a very popular horror trope.
But can you think of any story where Lovecraft's characters break down psychologically due to human pressure? You know: from grief, greed, disappointment, torture- whatever?  Did Lovecraft ever engage in the study of the human mind? I cant. In Lovecraft's pieces, madness and evil is explained instead as either inherent in biology, or caused by exposure to cosmic horror.

And that helps me understand his dream stories better.
Those stories suggest that Lovecraft viewed that the mind of healthy individuals was not only sane and good, but awesome in power. The psychology of Carter once we probe it is that of a demi-good.
To me, it seems that Lovecraft cannot consider the possibility that a healthy man of English decent to be evil or go mad, unless through a heroic-but-doomed encounter with the great powers.
There seems to be a contrast in his mind between the sanity of the isolated, pure mind and the horrors of the materialistic world lacking in humanity and aesthetics.
While Lovecraft expresses his fear of biological causes of evil and madness through racism, this view puts Lovecraft himself in the spotlight. Didn't his father go mad? If "bad stuff" is biological and genetic, doesn't that mean that Lovecraft had "bad stuff" in HIS genes? It's almost as if his racism is a way to express his own worst fear in what he felt was a less personal, less subjective way. He is shameless in his racism, so it seems like he was absolutely sure his audience agreed with him. Maybe he tapped into what he saw as an accepted, universal fear of biology, but which was really only reflecting his own fear of his own destiny.

Wow, what a ride! I got through the first ship adventure and it was a blast. What a geek-fest! It's like Lovecraft was doing reunion tour, playing all his greatest hits to his fans. Remember Barzai? Remember the cats of Ulthar? Remember the white ship? Remember the squat beasts of Lomar? Woooot! No wonder i couldn't read this when i was a teenager, i had not read any of his other dream stories, so i had nooooooooo idea what he was talking about...

Ok, the zoogs. Awful, silly name. Awesome concept! I love the idea of Carter resigning himself to having them follow him through the story. I love the reason they ultimately stop following him.

The merchants and their mystery rowers... frickin' awesome man! The image of mouths that are too wide, its the kind of quesy idea similar to the somewhat fishy look of the innsmouth folk at the start of that tale. Their city: horrific! I love it, and just wish Lovecraft had milked it for longer, for more horror.

I read somewhere that Lovecraft was unhappy with this story since the sheer volume of weirdness numbs the reader, making the impact of each impact less. I can see where he is coming from. He could have written an entire novel just on the concepts introduced so far.

However, he is not very good at pacing, is he? After that adventure was over, and he prepares to leave with the ship to Baharna, suddenly the text becomes too dense again. Carter has discussions with various people, but instead of letting us listen in, their content is delivered in flowery prose. I couldn't get through this bit in one reading, so it became a natural chapter break for me.

I can see now why people like the dream quest. Its pretty funky fantasy with some small doses of the horrific. Its somewhat difficult to relate to the quest, since its a purely personal quest. I mean, the hobbits were trying to save the world. What Carter is going through is like a blown up version of someone trying to find that restaurant again that he likes so much when he was younger. That's the problem with dreams and why I hate listening to other people's dreams. They always involve horrors or passions that cannot be communicated afterwards.

Well, I suppose the motivation for the discussion came out Mr Callaghan's axe to grind. Joshi has been working hard to establish the literary and historical importance of Lovecraft. Callaghan is not dismissing Lovecraft, but rather arguing that Lovecrafts literary and historical significance is a corrupting one. And it is not only because of Lovecraft's silly-old-grandpa bigotry that we have all come to know and skim over. But rather, Callaghan is arguing that Lovecraft elevates this bigotry to a cosmic level, thereby setting a dark precedent for horror writers to come.
So i dont think the discussion was conducted for the sake of discussion. Callaghan is clearly upset about what he feels is an shameless xenophobia in modern horror, and Lovecraft's role in it. And while I think he mellows out towards the end of the discussion, maybe he feels a little that Lovecraft fans are complicit.

But in terms of how I see it, yeah i agree with you, we experience what Lovecraft intended. The mundane is needed to bring the horror home close, to give us some way to relate to his more cosmic themes. So, what you said. And I find the mundane easy to shrug off, while the cosmic horrors have stayed with me at the back of my mind, and after a 15 year hiatus stirred me to re-discover his writing.

The reason I posted the link is that it threw light on several interesting symmetries and connections that I had not considered. I often find that the people who disagree with you for intellectual reasons can teach you a great deal.

The most horrific nightmare of my life occurred as recently as February this year. My ex-girlfriend had moved back to Shanghai as we were in a drawn-out process of breaking up. I was trying to suffocate my depression with booze and work, which resulted in me falling asleep in odd places (and waking up in even odder places!). I dozed off one dawn in the sofa within my study, with a bottle of vodka at my side (but not a glass in sight). The nightmare did not start as such. Rather, in it, I saw my ex open the door to the study, as if nothing bad had happened between us. She had that naughty smile as she walked up to me, undressing. However, suddenly the dream-logic collapsed and I remembered that she could not conceivably be here, since I had called her only last night and then she was still in Shanghai. At this realization, it became clear that whoever was in front of me could not be her. I wanted to escape this thing, but I was paralyzed by sleep. The thing that wore the mask of my ex cuddled up to me and as her beautiful face came nearer to mine, it did that horror-movie thing were it instantaneously turned into a sharped-toothed grin that thrust towards me to devour me.

And then I woke up. The frightful thing was that when I woke up, what i saw was exactly the same perspective of my study as was the last thing I had seen in my dream. So to my groggy state, it was not so much waking up as this apparition just suddenly disappearing. The only reason I have not gone mad is that I still remember the dream-logic operating when she first entered the study.

But I have to admit, if I were in the audience of a horror-flick with this exact scene, I would have been screaming at my own stupidity. "Comon! The place is obviously haunted! What are you doing staying there, move out!"
So I guess now that I have had my own "hallucination", I should be more generous to the hapless fools we see making all the wrong decisions in slasher movies...

While sating my addiction for lovecraft discussion, I came across this fascinating discussion on another forum.
Its wonderful to see two people with such contrasting opinion debate and discuss without getting into a flame war.
I am referring to the exchange between Gavin Callaghan, Kyberian and Sverba.
http://www.eldritchdark.com/forum/read.php?1,3963,page=5

The Callaghan POV paraphrased: Lovecraft wanted to produce cosmic terror, but his horror writing relied more on xenophobia, fear of biological corruption and fear of human urges. These are the components that inspired horror writers such as Stephen King more than the cosmic nature, and therefore Lovecrafts impact on our culture has been as a source of shameless bigotry underpinning horror-writing.
The most positive impact that Lovecraft has had is in his reversal of Hellenistic imagery. For instance, how the color out of space boosts vegetation being a sign of corruption rather than creation./end paraphrase

And here is a full quote: "I think it is a testimony to Lovecraft’s power as a writer that he was able to communicate his own xenophobic fears and paranoia so seamlessly to the reader without the reader even being aware, and that he was able to elevate that mundane horror which he felt at foreigners and so-called “mongrels”/"hybrids" etc. to a seemingly cosmic level. "

The discussion that follows is fascinating. Personally I don't agree with Callaghan's overall conclusions, but his critical perspective does provide some wonderful insights on aspects I hadn't considered. Such as the parallels between the pedestals of Cthulhu and Lilith; the similarities between the description of Cthulhu and the beast in the picture in the house. I do agree that Lovecraft was incredibly bigoted, and probably more bigoted than I thought before reading through his arguments. What I do NOT agree with is that this negates Lovecraft's contribution in terms of cosmic horror.

Why do I personally not agree? The stories of Lovecraft have stayed with me for 15 years. They have played at the back of my mind. Why? Because of the cosmic horror that I remembered strongly was associated with indifferent doom. That is what I remember from the stories and why I've now come back to study his work. What is important to note here is that back then i did not have access to any literary commentary on his work, I only had my own impressions. So I am very confident that however bigoted Lovecraft was, what he managed to project his message into my being about the horror of being alone and insignificant in an infinite space.
I am sure my teenage self was horrified by the biological ickyness of his creatures- paralleling my fear of the unknown ickyness of sex at that time. I am sure I did feel uncomfortable about the threat of "otherness"- paralleling my own xenophobia, as my nordic home-land was slowly integrating refugees from various European unrest at the time. Yet none of that stayed with me, and I've been surprised to discover it now in my more enlightened adulthood. Those were simply forgettable symbols to express horror- momentary scares- reflecting the shared fears of the author and the reader, but the pay-off was always the cosmic horror. Lovecraft's mundane horrors are similar to the "sudden cat jumping out of shadows" in horror flicks, that don't necessarily have to detract from the overall payoff of the actual movie monster.

I was reading some critic's rather comprehensive bashing of Lovecraft when something struck me.
The critic was making the point that while Lovecraft is known for his "cosmic terror", his stories actually rather operate on a fear of biological corruption. Well, so I thought, if you add dreamlands to that, you have Lovecraft exploring three strands throughout his career: cosmic, icky and dreams.

Well, here's the payoff: Call of Cthulhu actually is the most splendid mixing of the three. The first chapter is all dreamy. The second chapter is all icky. And the third chapter leaves us with cosmic dread.
It all works wonderfully, because the dreamscapes are ultimately tied back to our own world in a meaningful way.

@Vlatorium - To answer your question, i think I'll go with Mr Lackey on this one. I'm simply lazy. They are just too dense, and I can't find any motivation to go through it. I appreciate word-smithery, but I need some meat as well.

Having said that, let's work our way to Kadath and let me answer you again when I've made it there. I sincerely hope to be converted.

 

Its funny to read all these posts about Kadath. It feels like i've stumbled on some kind of self-abuse support group.

I've made it through the first two pages.
I hope our fearless hosts give good instructions on where to end each episode. If the whole thing is like the first two pages, I'm going to need hand-holding the whole way.

We all agree that he's trying to instill a sense of alien architecture. Was he also saying something about the literary concept?

• Was he saying that too much Freedom is ultimately alien to us and will drive us mad?
  
• Was he saying that Freedom is not a concept that we can understand with our human morals, as in total Freedom we are faced with an inhuman universe?

Before you say I read too much into it, remember that he was very intellectually hungry, very interested in both science and art. If there WAS an artistic movement at that time around "non-euclidian" concepts, then id bet money he was familiar with them. He wrote primarily for himself and his peers, so he expected his readers to be familiar with the same concepts he was familiar with...

Huh... found this. Cool!
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1575193

reading this literary article, seems like "non-euclidian" geometry was part of a very popular trend at that time to explore scientific boundaries through art. Apparently, "the fourth dimension" was the more popular idea, as "non-euclidian" was not as strong in its suggestiveness. Artists that DID like "non-eculidian" included russian poets, founder of Dadaism and later the Surrealists. The concepts represented "a new freedom from the tyranny of established laws"

Seems to me that the question isn't whether Lovecraft was familiar with the mathematics of it, but rather to what degree his use of "non-Euclidian" was intended to be linked to that strong contemporary movement (the way he was commenting on various philosophies in the silver key) or whether he was just going for "alien"

I came across this: http://obob.com/wowser/warp1.htm

It's a 3D engine that visualizes a world that follows very strange rules. Try it out. It seems ok to start with, like its just a fishbowl effect. Then you try to find that door that you came in through... I can DEFINITELY see how madness could ensue if I encountered this space in reality.

Guys, you should just rename it to the Chris & Lackey show and talk about whatever media you've consumed recently. Id still listen in. Lovecraft and his mythos is wonderful and all, but this show transcends its source material.