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Post by Knygathin on Oct 26, 2022 15:17:29 GMT
Currently, I am very busy writing a Jamesian story. It's about the ruins of an abbey in a fictional Walloon village, near the French border. I've always wanted to write something like this, and it's only when you start it that you realise how incredibly difficult writing a good horror story is! ... For a writer who knows what he's doing, it should not be difficult at all, but only a pure pleasure.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 28, 2022 5:18:33 GMT
... "The Lurking Fear" - H. P. Lovecraft. As a kid, I was fascinated by Michael Whelan's pulpy cover for the Del Rey edition of The Lurking Fear and Other Stories; when I read the story itself years later, it lived up to the image. ...
If I may say so, I was too, ... standing there in the bookshop in the early 1980s, completely mesmerized. I bought it only for the cover art, even though I already had the stories in the traditional Arkham House editions.
But in hindsight I find the cover of the old Avon The Lurking Fear paperback much much better; it's as classic as it gets.
To me "The Lurking Fear" is Lovecraft's quintessential horror story. And has the most memorable title of all his stories. ... Perfect paranoia. Delicious.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 24, 2022 13:23:41 GMT
As mentioned earlier in the thread, he reads like EC stories. Entertaining in a simple and chocking way. And he is a humorist. And surely, not lacking insights either. "Petronella Pan" has a very silly and funny ending, but the central idea is so preposterous that it is hardly convincing at all. "Couleur de Rose" was quite good and striking, the perspective turning upside down like a pancake on the very last sentence.
He is worthwhile, kind of, and I will read more eventually, ... but not in a hurry. I don't know what other writers he most aptly compares to. But he is surely not as deeply satisfying as Charles Birkin, not for me at least. Someone mentioned Roald Dahl (whom I am only vaguely familiar with), and that may be right. I understand that Cross wrote mostly for children otherwise.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 2, 2022 14:49:48 GMT
An honorable gentleman sent me "Petronella Pan" and "Couleur de Rose". I shall read these pages with the pious attentiveness and relish of a medieval scholar.
Thank you again!
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 1, 2022 9:12:25 GMT
I hope someone will make a digital file of the original John Westhouse edition and put on Archive.org or similar place. Or, only the stories "Petronella Pan" and "Couleur de Rose" would be great too!
I am very curious about it, but much too uncertain to pay a small fortune. And I am sorry to say I don't find the Valancourt edition attractive enough to want to own it.
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Post by Knygathin on Aug 21, 2022 16:20:53 GMT
Off topic, ... but there was a brief exchange of ideas earlier in this thread about writing or not writing, being an author or not being an author.
What is the greatest thing about being an author? I should think (besides immersing into creativity, fantasy make-believe, and rooting into various existential issues), it seems to me that instead of hating, shouting, shaking with indignation, sputtering and making a fool of oneself, revenging and thrashing people in real life, with all its negative consequences, one can have the joy of doing all this in the fictional world. Killing off the bastards inside the book. A safe release from pressure and frustration. A relief. Sort of what L. P. Hartley does in "The Travelling Grave".
Any thoughts on this, or objections?
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Post by Knygathin on Jul 31, 2022 14:24:16 GMT
Remarkable photographer! From a spook perspective I like the picture of the old toothless lady with hat.
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Post by Knygathin on Jul 31, 2022 14:03:35 GMT
I see. Thank you. Interesting video.
Unsure why they used that particular photo in connection to Aickman. I guess it was the atmosphere of the gravestones at Whitby and the classical horror literature background of Dracula.
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Post by Knygathin on Jul 31, 2022 12:10:09 GMT
Is he Aickman? The man in the middle of the picture? Finding the picture in connection to an article about Aickman, I quickly deduced it must be Aickman. He is not all unlike him, but having a closer look now, I think I may have been wrong all these years. He doesn't seem to exude quite the same flair as Aickman.
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Post by Knygathin on Aug 14, 2021 11:06:35 GMT
... Frank was bored around the last one [Conan the Buccaneer]: he really didn’t want to do them anymore so he just sort of copied one of his old Tarzan drawings and called it a day. Did you know he’s gone back and repainted it since then? It’s funny that Frank became so famous for Conan: it was just a job to him and his Conan doesn’t look anything like Howard’s Conan, not that Frank cares. ... FF: My interpretation of the feeling I get from it. Roy might have given me some ideas based on Howard, but he’s all mine. Some of these goofy fans say I look like Conan! That’s nuts! Look at those arms! Look at those scars! Yesh! [Laughs] Interesting interviews! Frank's Conan for Conan the Buccaneer must be one of his absolutely worst figure studies. With those narrow shoulders, Conan looks a degenerate hillbilly out of some Manly Wade Wellman story. His repainting of it was a definite improvement, and at the same time ended up being an excellent "self-portrait". Surely Frazetta must have read the Conan stories; he captured both setting and atmosphere. Not "nuts" at all. There is a photograph in some book, of Frank modeling himself for Conan the Adventurer, and he looks exactly like Conan in the painting, only slightly less muscular. Sinewy and rough. He was an incredible athlete and fighter spirit.
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 12, 2021 14:33:58 GMT
Here is another version of the Little People, done by Barry Windsor-Smith and Tim Conrad for Marvel Comics in 1976, an adaption of R. E. Howard's Worms of the Earth, a Bran Mak Morn story. Bran Mak Morn was Howard's doomed Pict hero, after the Romans were in Britain. ...
I like the landscape illustration, with the beautiful clouds and sunset. But the characters and monsters in the top two pictures are really cheesy. It is children's comic book cheap entertainment.
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 12, 2021 10:04:45 GMT
While I agree that most art that depicts Them is disappointing, I still think efforts are worthwhile for the sake of creative imagination, and the pure fun of attempting it. Although an extremely difficult endeavor, if being ambitious about it. From your mentioning of George Russel's paintings, I assume you prefer to see the little people as spiritual presences or "angels". I see them as physical beings, with magical or mystical skills. More physical than faery nature spirits, such as dryads. Sort of like trolls, but more directly related to biological anthropoids. My first mature encounter with the little people in fiction, was Machen's "The Red Hand" and I still think it is the most powerful one, even though very little is actually shown. I was slightly disappointed with "The Shining Pyramid" where They are more directly exposed; the expectations of their physical presentation fell flat. In "The Red Hand" we are only given a suggested glint into Their abode by the end of the story, grabbing firm hold of us after much built-up suspense, and it is up to our awed imagination to fill in the rest. It terms of depiction in art, I like the dwarfed demon children in Cronenberg's The Brood. I see them, more or less, in Machen's "Out of the Earth".
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 10, 2021 15:37:53 GMT
You and I seem to be the only ones here who thought this was a very promising depiction of the Little People. I wonder how everyone else here envisions them??? Perhaps like a pixie, with green vest, pointed curled shoes, and tiny bells jingling? Please share your thoughts. Having looked at it again, I take back any indication that I thought it might have been real. It looks too good a photo capture to be true. Oh! I still find it very interesting. I agree that the photo may be unrealistically good. But aside from that, the anatomy, squatting posture, and cold blue griminess, convinces me.
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 10, 2021 15:04:32 GMT
I'm very skeptical myself when it comes to photos of this type (cryptids & other strange creatures, 99.9% of ghost photos since the advent of cell phones). Too bad this one has proved to be fake.... You and I seem to be the only ones here who thought this was a very promising depiction of the Little People. I wonder how everyone else here envisions them??? Perhaps like a pixie, with green vest, pointed curled shoes, and tiny bells jingling? Please share your thoughts.
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Post by Knygathin on Jun 9, 2021 19:33:06 GMT
... "Oh Whistle & I'll Come To You" from 2010, which, despite starring John Hurt, is lousy. This one from 1968, on the other hand, is stellar! Has nothing of cheesiness or false notes in it. A masterpiece of supernatural realism.
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