{"id":18861,"date":"2018-09-28T00:59:07","date_gmt":"2018-09-27T23:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=18861"},"modified":"2022-07-13T15:40:28","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T14:40:28","slug":"illustrating-lovecraft-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2018\/09\/28\/illustrating-lovecraft-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Illustrating Lovecraft again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"dunwich.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Dunwich Horror (1972). Art by Victor Valla.<\/em><\/p>\n

El horror de Dunwich y otros relatos<\/em> is the last of the books I was working on earlier this year for Spanish publisher Editorial Alma<\/a>. This was a more stimulating Lovecraft collection to work on than the previous two-story volume<\/a> since three of the stories were ones I hadn’t dealt with before. The fourth story, The Dunwich Horror<\/em>, I partly illustrated back in 1988\/89, and I took the liberty of reusing the best of that set of pages showing Wilbur Whateley’s messy demise. This picture has been reprinted a few times elsewhere so I was reluctant to recycle it again, but the collision of deadlines earlier this year meant that once again I was pressed for time on this book, and having an illustration already done was a great help. It’s taken me 30 years to finally get round to depicting Wilbur’s monstrous brother.<\/p>\n

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The Dunwich Horror 1.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Dunwich Horror 2.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Dunwich Horror 3.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Dunwich Horror 4.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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The Dunwich Horror 5.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Colour Out of Space<\/em> was the second story of Lovecraft’s that I read after encountering The Moon-Bog<\/em> in a collection of adult ghost and horror stories reprinted for younger readers. I was only about 12 at the time, and Lovecraft’s meteorite made such an impression that I spent an hour or so feverishly recounting the whole thing to a friend a few days after. The story still strikes me as one of Lovecraft’s very best (he thought so as well), and it’s one I’d always recommend to first-time readers. One of Virgil Finlay’s handful of Lovecraft illustrations shows the climax of the story (see this earlier post<\/a>) so I avoided that scene in favour of other moments. And before anyone complains, the well seen below isn’t the type that’s described in the story (with a bucket depended from a “sweep” on a long, moveable pole) but this was the best option for the composition.<\/p>\n

\"hpl06.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The Colour Out of Space 1.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Colour Out of Space 2.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Colour Out of Space 3.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Colour Out of Space 4.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Colour Out of Space 5.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward<\/em> isn’t an easy story to illustrate since it’s less overtly visual than the others, concerning a case of spiritual possession with many of the key events taking place off-stage. Ideally I would have preferred a little more time to work on this one.<\/p>\n

\"hpl01.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward 1.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hpl02.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward 2.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hpl03.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward 3.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hpl04.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward 4.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"hpl05.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward 5.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Whisperer in Darkness<\/em>, on the other hand, is much more promising with its intelligent alien invaders skulking around the woods of Vermont. The final picture, showing a view of the planet Yuggoth, is the one that inspired this subsequent piece<\/a>. As usual, all the pictures may be seen at a larger size here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"hpl16.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The Whisperer in Darkness 1.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Whisperer in Darkness 2.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Whisperer in Darkness 3.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Whisperer in Darkness 4.<\/em><\/p>\n

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The Lovecraft archive<\/a><\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 A view over Yuggoth<\/a>
\n\u2022 Illustrating Sherlock Holmes<\/a>
\n\u2022 Illustrating Dracula<\/a>
\n\u2022 Illustrating Frankenstein<\/a>
\n\u2022 Narraciones extraordinarias by Edgar Allan Poe<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Thing on the Doorstep<\/a>
\n\u2022 Die Farbe and The Colour Out of Space<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Dunwich Horror (1972). Art by Victor Valla. El horror de Dunwich y otros relatos is the last of the books I was working on earlier this year for Spanish publisher Editorial Alma. This was a more stimulating Lovecraft collection to work on than the previous two-story volume since three of the stories were ones … Continue reading “Illustrating Lovecraft again”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,42,22,48,26,23],"tags":[9211,1687,9708,1895],"class_list":["post-18861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-books","category-horror","category-illustrators","category-lovecraft","category-work","tag-editorial-alma","tag-hp-lovecraft","tag-victor-valla","tag-virgil-finlay"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-4Ud","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}