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BryanBaugh β The Thing on the Doorstep
Published: 2010-07-30 17:58:57 +0000 UTC; Views: 20447; Favourites: 281; Downloads: 1052
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Description
I've always been a big reader / fan of H.P. Lovecraft's fiction. Love his crazy, cosmically horrifying imagination, his wordy, luxurious writing voice, and his dark, unswerving certainty regarding the unavoidable, miserable future for the pathetic little human race.So I've been struck by the urge to do a series of illustrations based on his work.
...
Who says Lovecraft never wrote stories about strong female characters? You hear this criticism of his work all the time, but I say whoever thinks that never got around to reading "The Thing On the Doorstep".
Asenath Waite is a truly memorable Lovecraft villainess.
Well, okay, she is a girl who may (or may not) have been tainted with the monstrous Innsmouth bloodline, and was clearly possessed by the spirit of her evil undead sorcerer father, Ephraim. But that doesn't change the fact that she was a powerfully seductive young woman, who did some very evil things.
"The Thing on the Doorstep" also gets criticized for being such a "simplistic" horror story written so late in Lovecraft's career - right around the same time he was also churning out really complex, cosmic horror stories like the Cthulhu Mythos. Some critics seem almost bitterly disappointed in Lovecraft, for going back to his roots with this story, and doing something more simple and straightforward... at a point when he was "capable of so much more". Personally I disagree. As much as I am a fan of the Cthulhu stuff, I also have an equally strong appreciation for Lovecraft's straightforward horror stories. And this is by far one of his most unusual.
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Comments: 112
I was mildly troubled by that point when I read the story the first time since the main character basically marries Ephriam. which kinda implies Ephriam's into some very non-lovecraftian deviant behaviour.
I look forward to more lovecraft pics from you. what's next?
by the way, Wulf and Batsy vol. 2 was great. so much barfing.... will we be seeing more (not that there's much more to see βrimshotβ) of batsy's new freind?
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Haha! Funny comments. Yeah, the only thing I can figure is Ephriam was a bit of a Crowleyan in his majickal practices... Anything and everything goes as long as it helps you achieve your demonic goals. He wasn't too concerned with the gender of those he occupied and manipulated was he?
Thanks there will be more Lovecraft illustrations coming soon.
Thanks also for your comments on Wulf and Batsy Volume 2... No, Batsy's new friend does not appear in Volume 3 but I have an idea of how she might possibly return in a short story... (My hopeful plan is to publish a Wulf and Batsy short story collection after Volume3). But that said I am glad you like her. Everybody seems to - and has asked about her possible return. Maybe this is something I should think about? Oh and I enjoyed your joke on the subject.
Everybody comments on the barfing, too. Haha, this cracks me up. I never thought twice about it while drawing the story. It always felt natural in those moments. I guess I better put more of that in future volumes as well!!!
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Awesome work as always!
When people say Lovecraft never wrote strong female characters (or even really female characters in general) they're usually speaking in a general sense, Asenath being the exception proving the norm. Plus, I don't really know if a demonic and evil female character really counts as a proper "strong" female character. I mean, sure she can kick some ass but it's also a demonizing of female sexuality and power.
To me the interesting thing about this image is the hinted sexuality of it, which is of course nothing new to your work. I recently read Michel Houellebecq's lengthy essay/monograph 'H.P. Lovecraft: Against the world, against life' which states that there are two things which do not exist in Lovecraft's universe: money and sex. I have yet to read every single Lovecraft story so I can't completely verify this, but according to Houellebecq not a single story in all of Lovecraft's work ever actually directly references a character's sexuality or financial status.
While I do agree that this makes up a large part of the general thought-process of Lovecraft's work (petty human concerns are of no importance) there is an undoubtedly grotesque visceral nature to many of Lovecraft's monsters and especially his descriptions thereof. Lovecraft was a materialist and that meant he valued and believed only in the things he could see, smell, hear and feel. And even though they are offensive to all the senses, Lovecraft's abominations do create immensely powerful reactions to their physical presence and I guess that's something one could interpret either as something very close to a sexual experience or something completely removed from a sexual experience.
Hmm...did I just invoke the image of tentacle porn?
Well anyway, I really like it... your drawing, that is. Not tentacle porn.
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Interesting thoughts!! But for the record I DO consider "strong female villains" to be "strong female characters". A strong character is a strong character no matter what their affiliation to good or evil.
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By the way, did you hear the good news? Check this out: [link]
Dude, we're getting a Del Toro-directed/Cameron-produced 'At the Mountains of Madness' movie! How awesome is this!
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Lovecraft is complex but awesome at once. My favorite stories are the ones with the devolve humans that live underground, the rats in the walls that turn out to be humans that farm humans and thefish people in Innsmouth.
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I am right there with you.
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