Greetings! I'm writing here today because I have written a darkly humorous takeoff on Lovecraft in my book The View From A Roadside Madhouse, which, along with the entire book, I believe that many people will find very interesting and delightful, and so wish to advertise here. You may read a description of my book at: http://www.xlibris.com/TheView.html and it is available from Xlibris Corporation, 436 Walnut St., 11th Floor, The Independence Building, Philadelphia, PA 19106, U.S.A. for $18.69 plus $3.49 shipping and handling and .99 cents per copy cost for orders up to 300 here in the U.S. and $18.69 plus $12.95 shipping and handling for the first book and $5.95 shipping and handling for each additional book and the same .99 cents per copy cost for orders to countries outside of the U.S., and all persons ordering my book must tell Xlibris their street addresses, since it is delivered by UPS and UPS won't deliver to p.o. boxes. My book may also be ordered online at: orders@xlibris.com and those ordering this way must inform Xlibris of their daytime phone numbers, credit card numbers, street addresses, city, state, zip code, and country of residence. My book has been reviewed by LadyPagan, who loves it very much and has it featured on her web site (www.ladypagan.com) under Read & View, and may be contacted at: ladypagan1@hotmail.com, and she will be able to tell you more about it. If you need any more information from me about my book, please email or write to me and I'll be happy to answer you. I'll be looking forward to your replies. Sincerely, John D. Partin P.O. Box 7823 Flint, Michigan 48507 U.S.A. artisson27@hotmail.com

I anticipate I will read your tome in the very near future.

good fortune to you,

Such attempts at comedy show a lack of respect for both HP Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and other writers in the same genre. Do many other readers agree? Please let me know!
Surely comedy belongs eleswhere, away from the genres of fantasy/horror? However, there are cases of indivdual horror films which have combined the genres quite well, especially Peter Jackson's infamous "Brain Dead" movie, perhaps.......


From Julian



julianuk@37.com

You don't want to respect anything to much. Life is crap enough as it is with out being all serious about it.

Actually I see no relationship between respect - and comic adaptation. Every thing is open for the latter and really does not (for me) impact on the former.

Comedy is the parody of 'other' culture. Name a funny joke that does not require cultural awareness? Aliens would be confused.

You don't ever laugh at Lovecraft's dialogue? Or the incredibly repetitiveness of it all? If its always so unexplainable why did he write so much about it?

I loved the exploding sheep in Brain Dead and the line
"ouu good I got a chunky bit" I use it all the time.


P.S:
How many Lovecraft character's does it take to change a light bulb?

Two - one to change it the other to describe what it reveals as indescribable.

The attitude expressed in the preceding post is certainly Post-Modern comme il faut. Everyone is entitled to react to parodies as one pleases, of course, but the question, I think, is really the following: Where does affectionate satire turn contemptuous? I certainly would not defend the latter if it were directed at anyone whom I admired, no matter how much Lyotard or Baudrillard might approve (Aside: In my experience, those who advocate having a humorous and irreverent attitude toward all and sundry tend to draw firm and convenient lines when their own sacred cows are led to the abbatoir).

So far as the parodies themselves are concerned, to me, the most effective Lovecraftian humorists are unintentional: I refer to all the appallingly bad "mythos" fiction that, for some reason, still abounds. I cannot comment on the story that is the subject of this thread, because I have not read it, nor do I intend to do so--not because I object to parodists, but because I object to such self-promotion on a message board devoted to the works of Clark Ashton Smith

Lovecraft had a great sense of humor, as can be seen from a reading of his epistles; & that humor was often introduced, subtly, into his fiction. He was always dead serious as a Literary Artist, certainly, but his sly humor may be found in things such as "Herbert West--Reanimator" and "Pickman's Model." And, of course, one cannot read "The Horror in the Museum" without howling like a maniac.

"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.

I don't think anyone will ever top Peter Cannon's "Scream for Jeeves," a collection of three HPL classics rewritten in the style of P.G. Wodehouse.