Tuesday, August 15, 2006

H.P. Lovecraft in Children's Programming

If you never thought you'd see the above words linked together, well, now you have. My son and I watched The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy on Cartoon Network today, and were privy to an episode called "The Call of Cthulhu." It gave the classic a new twist: Cthulhu was summoned to conquer humanity via a telephone in the Grim Reaper's basement. Frolicsome fun ensued, and Cthulhu was eventually foiled by a cell phone.

If you're saying "Huh?" you may want to look at this site http://www.hplovecraft.com/. He was one of the founding fathers of horror fiction, influencing many greats such as Stephen King and Clive Barker. The movie In the Mouth of Madness, with Sam Neill, was an appropriate homage to his works, and last, any fan of Dungeons and Dragons knows about the Cthulhu Mythos. (How did I know that? I must be a nerd.) My novel also has a touch of Lovecraftian fun towards the end, maybe, just a touch.

"In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming"

3 comments:

Bernita said...

He created incredible atmosphere.

ivan said...

Yeah, Lovecraft. Colin Wilson copying HP rather deftly. Iris Murdock--love Iris Murdoch, but forgotten how to spell her name.
Talk about putting yourself in a man's way of thinking, an aristocratic man's way of thinking...Iris could really do it.

Nice reading all these people, but I wish the hell I could write like them.

Cynthia Bronco said...

But then if we all wrote like our favorite writers, there wouldn't be much variety out there & we'd all be completely bored... P.S. Have you ever considered a NY agent? (as per your last post).