Paul Charles Smith on Defining the New Weird

Blogger Paul Charles Smith has posted an in-depth discussion about the ambiguous "New Weird"--if there is such a sub-genre--which has risen to the surface the past few years mainly due to the editorial cohesion offered by The New Weird anthology. Smith, like the Vandermeers (Ann and Jeff were the editors of the anthology mentioned), seems to lean toward the idea that the New Weird exists. His article is an extended commentary, chronicling how and why this term has evolved the way it has. To understand what this fairly new concept is believed to be, it would be difficult to find a more comprehensive and intelligent entry than Smith's.

However, like others working with purportedly New Weird materials, Smith cannot totally prove this genre exists, though doing this is probably not his goal. For myself, the jury is still out. Although promoters and students of the New Weird undertake a valuable service by highlighting important authors forcing speculative fiction in new directions, and by rendering scholarly observations on contemporary weird literature, they fall short in divorcing the New Weird from the old.

Again, though, semantic battles over what New Weird actually means is half the issue. Nearly everyone would agree that weird fiction is experiencing a vast explosion in quality works. There are new weird authors and artists, but whether or not their new creations are sufficiently weird enough to be classified as a distinctive genre remains to be seen. That's not to say this couldn't be generally agreed upon at some point. After all, most weird fiction today is recognized as being Gothic literature's distinctive offspring, as well as a niche operator within the nebulous "horror" field.

While questions about a detached New Weird won't be resolved for some time, discussion about it is likely to gain prominence in the coming years. Marketers will continue to use the phrase, and critics will try to demarcate new literary civilizations as foundations for a better understanding of certain writers. Anyone looking to keep up with weird fiction's future is encouraged to check out Mr. Smith's article. It's an easily accessible tool for understanding the New Weird controversy so that individuals can begin focusing their own thoughts on this matter.

-Grim Blogger

Paul Charles Smith on Defining the New Weird

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How Cthulhu Works?

When I first saw an entry for Cthulhu on the Howstuffworks.com website, I was beyond skeptical about the quality and intent. Did this stepchild of Wikipedia really intend to unravel the mysteries of H.P. Lovecraft's most famous elder monstrosity? Fortunately, no. It aims at a much more simple task, but one that may be almost as important.

Instead, the Cthulhu entry is actually a well written summary of R'lyeh's sovereign by Jonathan Strickland that touches on other interesting Lovecraftian matters. The piece offers a picturesque tour through Cthulhu's real and fictional existence. It goes beyond mere encyclopedic article, though, by analyzing several modern features connected to Cthulhu: his place in "geek" culture, and the strange phenomena of real Lovecraftians religion like Darrick Dishaw's Cult of Cthulhu and the Simon Necronomicon.

Of course, I suspect most readers here are already very familiar with HPL and his literary output. But what about others? There's a good chance many Lovecraft fans have encountered trouble when trying to impress the significance and wonder of Lovecraft's fiction upon curious friends and family. Now, at least, the Cthulhu entry on Howstuffworks has made things easier as a gathering point for Lovecraftians-to-be.

-Grim Blogger

How Cthulhu Works?

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Weird News: Scientists Fear Determinism's Consequences

A chilling article (Bering in Mind: Scientists Say Free Will Probably Doesn't Exist, but Urge: "Don't Stop Believing!") from Scientific American underscores the recent suspicions of neuroscience and philosophy. The question of free will has raged through the West since the dawn of its intellectual history, but to find out the whole thing may be a flustered chattering over something that was never present is like the gradual onset of a living nightmare. And the horror may not end there: consider the study discussed in the article, where it appears that some portion of those subject to enlightenment about their puppetry turn anti-social. Would civilization itself begin to fray if enough people dropped their belief in free will, and found that their society is possibly as much of a deluded farce as its constituents' self-important dogmas?

Hard to say, but the article, which is a bit too lengthy to post in full here, raises some fascinating questions. They are the same ones discussed at length by Thomas Ligotti in his new book, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. Luckily, weird fiction and its actors have always seemingly been ahead of the curve in meditating on determinism's quandaries. Supernatural possession and domineering personalities have long been at work in weird fiction's pages, raising the possibility that this small genre has harbored scientific truths too monstrous for most to accept.

-Grim Blogger

Weird News: Scientists Fear Determinism's Consequences

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Observations on 2009 Best Horror of the Year List

A couple weeks ago, Ellen Datlow (editor of the well known The Best Horror of the Year series) released a lengthy list of 2009's best horror stories, mostly through an extended set of honorable mentions. The judgments of Ms. Datlow and her peers may not be the end all and be all of the genre, but they're pretty useful at providing a good snapshot of contemporary horror. Fortunately, 2009's list confirms what others have already suspected: weird fiction continues to hold a solid position in horror overall, and may even be trending upward.

Glancing over the names of authors, stories, and anthologies, one finds just how significantly represented the weird really is. Indeed, a case could be made that weird horror comprises at least one third or more of the entire honorable mentions list. Amid the weird itself, overtly Lovecraftian fiction also has a strong presence--a surprising glimpse at the allure of contemporary Cthulhu Mythos fiction. In the eyes of speculative literature's primary catalogers, at least, weird fiction remains a major contestant in horror, capable of matching and even outshining more popular dark variants.

Ellen Datlow's selections also give a little well deserved recognition to the weird's brightest stars. I was personally glad to see multiple stories chosen from the following: Reggie Oliver, Gary McMahon, John Langan, Richard Gavin, Simon Strantzas, Joel Lane, and R.B. Russell. There are plenty of other excellent weird writers who had a single story or two chosen: Michael Cisco, Laird Barron, and W.H. Pugmire, among others. These authors are certainly at the forefront of crafting the finest new oddities, and their appearances in the Best Horror of the Year serve the dual purpose of entrenching them in the sub-genre, while expanding each author's own niche in wider horror.

-Grim Blogger

Observations on 2009 Best Horror of the Year List

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The Art of Extreme Madness

Mental derangement is one of the most horrifying and awe inspiring forces when it shows up in the visual medium. The crawling influences of depression and violent trauma upon art of all kinds are known to many. Schizophrenia, in particular, is an old psychosis that has engendered some of modern art's more freakish treasures. To fully appreciate the following examples of allegedly Schizophrenic art, it's worth exploring the form's aesthetic contrasts spelled out here, as well as this discussion of the Schizophrenic capacity to understand visual art. The Schizophrenic artist is often the ultimate outsider, one who "sees" terrors hinted at in the pages of the weird, and who is themself the subject of otherworldly shadows.



Cat painter Louis Wain is the most famous instance of Schizophrenic art. Wain's outlandish felines have graced the pages of many college psychology textbooks, and his condition is one of Schizophrenic art's most recognized cases. Some researchers have even made an argument that the disorder can arise due to parasites excreted by cats, lending a possible ironic twist to Wain's torture. Wain's hellcats are beautifully rendered and unsettling demons brought into our world by extreme psychic duress. His artistic life and descent into a frightful existence are stunningly recounted by Heather Latimer in The English Cat Artist.


Roughly contemporaneous with Wain is Adolf Wolfli's art. Unlike Wain, Herr Wolfli led a tragic life of abuse and crime. His violent nature resulted in his internment in an institution, where his visual productions and musical experimentation resulted in a small following. Wolfli's eyeball bursting nightmarescapes bring to mind the psychedelic age that emerged decades after he died, and also mirrors the inhuman colors and sensations found in weird literature.


In more recent times, David Marsh is an example of Schizophrenia inspired artwork. His planetary paintings, for instance, don't seem as hallucinatory as the other artists mentioned. However, as he says in this article describing one of his newer exhibits, Marsh appears just as driven by his demons. His art shows a great inclination toward the imaginative and fantastic, another consequence of their illness that Schizophrenics appear to share with both sane and crazed weirdscribes.

-Grim Blogger

The Art of Extreme Madness

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King in Yellow Tribute

Just for fun, I thought I would share this atmospheric tribute to Robert W. Chambers' most eerily numinous creation. Usually, these sort of image montages with background music are common and hardly unique in Youtube's community. There's something compelling about this one, though. It could be the nicely selected slide show of imagery from Carcosa, its terrible sovereign, and other cosmic blasphemy that makes this stand apart. Or it might be the ambient music in the background. But regardless, this tribute stands alongside a large array of videos (many of them bands or music related) inspired by Chambers' weird fiction.



-Grim Blogger

King in Yellow Tribute

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Miskatonic River Press Staff on Writing

The chief staff members of Miskatonic River Press served up some writing advice at a fantasy convention earlier this month. Those with an interest in weaving their own weird fiction stories might do well to read this Q & A transcript. It's fairly rare to find lengthy discussions of the craft by publishers, especially ones close to the Lovecraftian tradition.

Miskatonic River Press emerged from quasi-dormancy not long ago, and has since embarked on producing new works of Cthulhu Mythos fiction and Role Playing Games. Also of note is the participation of Lovecraft and Necronomicon scholar Dan Harms on this panel.

-Grim Blogger

Miskatonic River Press Staff on Writing

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Excerpt of "Against Religion" by Lovecraft, Joshi, and Hitchens Now Online

An excerpt from the new S.T. Joshi edited collection Against Religion has been graciously posted on the Unreasonable Faith blog. The book is a compendium of H.P. Lovecraft's writings on God, religion, and atheism. Lovecraft, as anyone with a little knowledge of his life knows, was a staunch materialist and an atheist. These beliefs were the foundations of the indifferent Cosmicism lurking behind every monstrous entity and mysterious plot in his fiction.

The excerpts posted at Unreasonable Faith are mostly drawn from his voluminous correspondence. As is the case with other Lovecraft letters, one finds a mixture of wit, intellect, and prejudice. To look at Against Religion as a collection of anti-religious screeds isn't fair, though some may see it this way based on its controversial focus, and the fact that two bullish atheists--Joshi and Christopher Hitchens--helped assemble it. As even these excerpts show, Lovecraft's atheism is intricately linked to his views about everything else--society, politics, science, and art. Consider the new book more than a narrow spotlight on one aspect of HPL, as its beam cuts wide enough to help illuminate the entire Lovecraftian zeitgeist. This can only positively contribute to an understanding of Lovecraft, whatever one's spiritual or philosophical inclinations.

-Grim Blogger

Excerpt of "Against Religion" by Lovecraft, Joshi, and Hitchens Now Online

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Weird News: The Devil in the Vatican?

The below claim is amusing for its manifestation as an exceptionally bold supernatural conspiracy theory. It also suggests how seriously demonic possession and deviltry is still taken within the Catholic Church, the oldest living artifact of Western Christendom. Then again, it's hard to take the veracity of these concerns seriously for those outside of that religious inclination, when the head exorcist reminds us how evil the Harry Potter series is. One shudders to think what Father Amorth would think about the entire genre of weird fiction...

Chief Exorcist Says Devil is in Vatican

-Grim Blogger

Weird News: The Devil in the Vatican?

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Ghoul Zone: Lovecraftian Cookbook Discovered

Ghoulzone.com is musing on what a Lovecraftian cookbook might have looked like had it been written by H.P. Lovecraft himself. The 50 Delicious Gourmet Recipes of Unknown Kadath tells of concoctions man was never meant to consume, and may shed light on Lovecraft's malignant digestive problems. With Lovecraft based humor covering almost everything under the sun, maybe a book of Lovecraftian cuisine wouldn't be so outlandish after all.

-Grim Blogger

Ghoul Zone: Lovecraftian Cookbook Discovered

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HPLHS Releases New Trailer for Lovecraft's "Whisperer"

An excellent new trailer has surfaced of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's forthcoming film, The Whisperer in Darkness, based on the eponymous Lovecraft tale. The black and white adventure appears to be coming along, with the firm adherence to period appropriate equipment and scenery that HPLHS is known for. Their 2005 silent film, The Call of Cthulhu, garnered many rave reviews. Whisperer has been floated as being in the works for several years now following the success of the previous film. An early trailer was released around the time it was first announced, but this was later admitted to be a solely promotional creation. Unlike its predecessor, it will not be a silent film, but will include a full range of sound, despite being shot in a nostalgic 1930s style.

There's no word yet on a tentative release date (at least to my knowledge), but there's a nice blog of the ongoing cinematic endeavor. Look for the HPLHS to once again challenge the standards of Lovecraftian film making, much of which has a fairly poor history spanning the decades prior to the 21st century. Their attempt to produce Lovecraftian movies with the trappings of Lovecraft's own era provides an extra atmospheric component not absorbed in modernized ventures.



-Grim Blogger

HPLHS Releases New Trailer for Lovecraft's "Whisperer"

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Eric Mongeon's 4 by Poe

Designer and artist Eric Mongeon has launched an intrepid project consisting of illustrated volumes that collect four short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. 4 by Poe is a rich, extravagant magazine that seeks to raise the ante on artistic adaptations of Poe's tales. In the words of the creator:

This is going to be an illustrated collection for us grown-ups. One that approaches Poe’s stories of murder, mystery, and mayhem on their own beautiful, sensationalistic terms. One that highlights the black humor, celebrates the philosophical insights, and yes, revels in the violence.

A lifelong admirer of Poe’s work, I’m making the collection I always wanted but could never find.

Here’s how it works: Each season for one year, I will release a short story by Poe in the form of an illustrated, individually-bound softcover volume.

Poe worked as a magazine editor, so it seems only natural to adopt the format of a periodical as the organizing principle of a new anthology.

The illustrated examples available on the website exude a dark, somewhat gritty style, almost reminiscent of 19th century sketches on modern steroids. The exceedingly high quality paper and ink will result in a product that won't be cheapest--subscriptions are offered at $150.00 for four volumes, or $50 per individual issue and per single fine art print. The ultra-luxurious nature of this endeavor means it will make some shy away, while more serious admirers of Poe will gladly stampede forward. The first issue is scheduled for a June, 2010, release.

-Grim Blogger

Eric Mongeon's 4 by Poe

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Newsrama: Lovecraft's Hand Still Felt Across Media

Readers interested in both comics and H.P. Lovecraft's work are hereby directed to this fine article by Newsrama.com's Kyle Duvall. It's a well written expose that offers a generalized overview of Lovecraft's significance, and then digs into his enduring influence over today's art forms--particularly comics. Duvall skillfully brings the most ubiquitous and recent uses of Lovecraft's ideas in comic form to the fore. His article also adds another set of useful observations to a growing trend recognizing the sheer depth of HPL's imprint on contemporary media.

-Grim Blogger

Newsrama: Lovecraft's Hand Still Felt Across Media

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Weird News: Sour Economy Expands Dereliction in Ireland

It seems the domino-like effect of the imploded housing bubble is set to create plenty of modern ruins across the world. In European nations like Ireland, skeletons of unfinished apartments and abandoned houses are joining more ancient ruins in an extended family of decay. In the United States, places like Detroit are ground zero for an long lasting meltdown. The other continents may not see devastation on this epic a scale, but the spirits of dereliction are undeniably hard at work across the world, generating decrepit oases everywhere.

Ireland's Bust Leaves Ghost Houses and Zombie Hotels

-Grim Blogger

Weird News: Sour Economy Expands Dereliction in Ireland

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Chris Perridas on Lovecraft's Health

Before March is out, it would be remiss not to mention this fantastic post about H.P. Lovecraft's health from Chris Perridas' blog--a speculative exercise in attempting to identify the possible roots of his early demise. Yes, another anniversary of HPL's death blurred by on March 15, the unlucky Ides of 1937 that may have been the parting shot in a long line of blows for this man.

Perridas muses on Lovecraft's infamous "nervous breakdown" in 1907, and wonders if it may have been the result of an unknown disease. If so, it would help explain the bizarre state of the Providence writer's health in the three decades he existed after that fateful year. Frequent troubles with cold, bipolar energy fluctuations, and a various digestive issues plagued him. Assuming all of these were not psycho-somatic (after all, the digestive problems proved real and fatal enough), they are well worth investigating in the effort to understand his career.

Lovecraft's life was not a happy one, as is clearly reflected in the worldview left fossilized in his fiction and voluminous letters. But could ill health have been the main cause of his bleak, cosmicist trajectory? Many would say no. They will point to the valid damage inflicted by Lovecraft's environment--most notably his strange, overbearing, and sometimes cruel mother, as well as the lifelong financial siege he weathered as the family fortune wilted.

Still, the involuntary physiological shocks that frequently gripped him may have been the most persistent reminder that he inhabited a frail body in a universe that could do little to offer him relief. The nature of these painful episodes is fairly well understood, but their causes are not. Short of exhuming the old weirdscribe's body, current technology and interest only allows speculation on the origins of Lovecraft's pivotal handicaps. Chris Perridas, however, publishes well thought speculation; ideas that may lead Lovecraft researchers to one day pinpoint his birth as writer and philosopher by demarcating the rise of his bodily downfall.

-Grim Blogger

Chris Perridas on Lovecraft's Health

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Jared Skolnick's Erich Zann

A full version of Jared Skolnick's film, "The Music of Erich Zann," has been uploaded through Vimeo. As most anyone can see by watching the two clips posted below, the movie lives up to the positive feedback it has received in recent months. It's a powerful cinematic distillation of H.P. Lovecraft's strange story, a piece wholly infested with the numinous. In "Erich Zann," there isn't a name like "Cthulhu" or "Yog-Sothoth" that can be attributed to the sanity wrecking malevolence at work on the Rue d'Auseil. There is only unknowable terror.

Fortunately, Skolnick has meticulously preserved this spirit, which may be Lovecraft's ultimate expression of indifferent and unintelligible cosmic horror.

The Music of Erich Zann - Part 1 from Jared Skolnick on Vimeo.

The Music of Erich Zann - Part 2 from Jared Skolnick on Vimeo.

-Grim Blogger

Jared Skolnick's Erich Zann

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Cthulhuvian Site Abandoned in Russia?

The English Russia blog houses a strange gallery of photos taken at one of the more bizarre abandoned places in Russia, a place that seemingly teems with derelict oddities. There isn't a lot of information about the place, but glimpsing the images alone lets the imagination go crazy, maybe even more so than if there were a history present. The abundant sea symbols make it look like a makeshift base of Deep One operations. The structural crumminess and larger-than-life statues bring to mind the old Soviet optimism, perhaps hinting at a likely origin for this weird theme park.

-Grim Blogger

Cthulhuvian Site Abandoned in Russia?

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Camera Obscura: Lair of Laird Barron

Longtime readers of my blog will know I normally don't spend a lot of time highlighting other blogs in their entirety. However, I had to make an exception after poking around at length on Camera Obscura, Laird Barron's online journal.

His name is one that should be familiar to those who have picked up the top rated Lovecraftian anthologies of recent years. The Imago Sequence, Barron's first short story collection, has received incremental and well deserved praise. It has achieved nearly cult following due to a richness derived from what seems like a bizarre marriage of themes, characters, and styles. Macho men turned investigators confront the cosmic horrors lurking behind our world (and often not for long before they come onto the stage), transcribing their stories through an ink heat storm--vibrant, quasi-experimental prose. For Barron, blasting the Cthulhu Mythos' old remnants into the great beyond to see what new form they have after crash landing has become the norm. This originality will likely be upheld and advanced when his second collection, Occultation, is published later this year.

Getting back to the blog, though. Barron's colorful writing and keen observations are not merely confined to his fiction, as his online presence demonstrates. Between status updates on his work, one will find several year's worth of mini-reviews and other commentary on his contemporaries. Barron's literary tastes and musings on the horror genre poke through--offering rare insight into a weird fiction writer's professional inclinations, and in "real" time too. Moreover, weird fiction readers needn't be familiar with Barron's previous work to appreciate his most recent posts on Gary McMahon and Simon Strantzas. These are a knowledgeable critic's words; definitely ones worthy of attention in supernatural literature's bulging online repository.

-Grim Blogger

Camera Obscura: Lair of Laird Barron

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H.P. Lovecraft's Works...At Sacred Texts?

I ran across an unlikely backup database of H.P. Lovecraft's stories the other day. It seems the weird fiction godfather now has his tales hosted at Sacred Texts, a website otherwise devoted to archiving digital copies of the world's chief religious texts. Next to Lovecraft there are tabs marked Tolkien, UFOs, and Earth Mysteries, which showcases Sacred Text's move into borderline Fortean territory.

However, the inclusion of Lovecraft and the fictional Necronomicon he contrived on the site is a bizarre and possibly timely one. Lovecraft's Mythos, like Tolkien's fantasy worlds, are becoming increasingly serious spiritual pantheons for tiny, but vocal outsider circles looking past "mainstream" religion. Still, putting H.P. Lovecraft's stories next to holy books and historical grimoires says quite a bit about society as a whole, but more importantly, HPL's yawning trajectory away from his literary starting point. Lovecraft's Cthulhu has become an undeniable icon of pop culture on the internet, often with a humorous slant. The opposite end of the spectrum is occupied the other current, best represented by the Cult of Cthulhu, which adopts Lovecraft's outre entities as genuine religious symbols, if not authentic gods and demons.

Lovecraft's addition to Sacred Texts may be part of an expanding move in this direction. Considering fictional constructs as articles of worship is far from popular, though, even among the vast majority of Lovecraft readers. There's no reason to think this will change either. Yet, increased instances of Cthulhu Mythos horrors being appropriated as real spiritual objects, or treated as such, implies a new level of tolerance for this use of Lovecraft's work. And that alteration may generate a permanent and controversial footnote in the future Lovecraftian landscape.

-Grim Blogger

H.P. Lovecraft's Works...At Sacred Texts?

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Mad Laughter for All Fool's Day

The worldwide fame this internet meme has reached in the last few weeks seems like a sinister run up to everything represented by today. If Azathoth's cosmic court jester had his laughter translated to the human plane, it would sound something like this.



-Grim Blogger

Mad Laughter for All Fool's Day

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