Big Daddy from Kotaku
Alien from azhrialilu
Tentacle alien from Swishrelic
The Light Knight from batsax
Batman by birdsigh
Cthulhu by demona_hw
Dalek by UT Events
Dalek by Afraid Of Ducks
Master Chief from sleepi_tama
Jabba from Godlesswanderer
Optimus Prime from dalangalma
Snobot from frauclouds
Robot from gremlindog
Space Invader from gremlindog
TARDIS from MommaHeva
Temple of Doom from Geektopia
Totoro from Super Punch
Darth Vader from greycap
An alternate universe where we're all snowmen from VoIP

[via Topless Robot]

Crucial Stories

There are so many terrific, iconic stories by HP Lovecraft that no introductory list could ever satisfy completely. But here are eight stories and novellas that will introduce you to the main concepts in Lovecraft's world, as well as exposing you to some of his obsessive preoccupations. You can read the full text of all of these stories at Project Gutenberg.

"At the Mountains of Madness"
The tale of an ill-fated expedition to the mountains of Antarctica, this story explains the ancient, alien history of Earth as well as giving us a glimpse of "the Old Ones," the "shoggoths," and some backstory on the "spawn of Cthulhu." When the expedition discovers an ancient, alien-built city buried beneath the ice, they also find out what led to that city's demise. And let's just say it had to do with giant, shambling, polymorphous beings. What's great about this story is that it explains how many of the spooky, seemingly-magical beasts we encounter in other stories actually have an extraterrestrial (or biotechnological) origin.

"Call of Cthulhu"
While it may not be the very best of Lovecraft's stories, this tale introduces his most legendary monster and the madness it can bring upon the world. Just one glimpse of the tentacled visage of Cthulhu, and the non-Euclidean geometry of his city, is enough to turn an entire boat of tough sailors into shattered husks.

"Shadow Over Innsmouth"
One of my personal favorites in the Lovecraft canon, this story is also one of the more thoughtful, character-driven pieces that Lovecraft ever wrote. It's the tale of an antiquarian who comes across a forgotten, decaying New England town filled with oddly-mutated people who worship a strange deity called Dagon. Here we see Lovecraft dealing with an issue that preoccupies him in many stories - the terrifying and seductive results of a carnal intermingling between alien monsters and humans. Our hero is at first repulsed, then fascinated, by a town whose alliance with Cthulhu's spawn has resulted in a strange (and possibly beautiful) hybrid culture.

"Dunwich Horror"
Here Lovecraft delves deeply into the power of a mystical book he mentions in several stories, the Necronomicon by the "mad Arab Abdul Alhazred." A young antiquarian seeks the mysterious book at Miskatonic University (another favorite fictional institution of Lovecraft's), and then discovers that it holds a key to stopping a terrible force growing inside the barn of a local farmhouse.

"The Colour Out of Space"
One of Lovecraft's most straightforwardly science fictional stories, about a meteorite whose color begins to colonize everything around itself.

"The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"
Sometimes called Lovecraft's only novel, this story is really more of a novella. It is also, like "Innsmouth," a revealing character study as much as it is a tale of historical terror whose claws reach into present-day Providence, Rhode Island. Ward, a young antiquarian (yes, Lovecraft has a lot of these), becomes interested in the papers of his ancestor Curwen, a man who grew rich trading in mysterious items from overseas, as well as in the slave trade. Curwen also built a house outside town, atop a vast underground catacombs devoted to nefarious experiments with the undead. Slowly, Ward is consumed by his obsession with Curwen, eventually attempting a dangerous experiment that will allow him to communicate with this once-powerful wizard from beyond the grave. There are several autobiographical flourishes here too, as Lovecraft sets the story in places familiar to him in Rhode Island, as well as bringing in characters who resemble historical figures in Providence history. It's an incredible, must-read Lovecraft story, full of the historical details that he loved as well as an alternate history of the slave trade that involves spirits as well as people.

"The Horror at Red Hook"
This is Lovecraft's classic story of the ghoulish goings-on beneath the cosmopolitan streets of New York City, where the writer lived for a few years in an immigrant neighborhood known as Red Hook. Here you'll see Lovecraft's usual obsessions - the horror of miscegenation/hybrid cultures, ancient forces from prehistory - set in an urban landscape rarely glimpsed in his generally-rural tales.

"The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath"
This is another of Lovecraft's near-novels, and is a crucial part of the author's surreal "dream cycle" of stories that involve the swashbuckling dream hero Randolph Carter. Unlike Lovecraft's usual heroes, who tend to be nerdy antiquarians or shivering half-monsters, Carter knows how to use a sword and trick the gods. In this adventuresome tale, we follow Carter through the dream world, from a city of cats (Lovecraft was very fond of these furry creatures), all the way to the Moon where a god of space (an "outer god") known as Nyarlathotep or the Crawling Chaos tries to trick Carter into abandoning his quest to dwell one day in a perfect city he once dreamed about.


Crucial biographical details

Though his stories are fantastical, Howard Phillips Lovecraft often pulled bits of his real life into them. Raised in Providence, Rhode Island, at the turn of the twentieth century, Lovecraft was a sickly child who was passionate about both ancient history and astronomy. Some of his first writing is about astronomy, in fact. His fixation on history was related in part to his fascination with pure Nordic cultures, and he once described himself in an essay as a "chalk-white racist."

But he was also a bundle of contradictions. When Lovecraft became a young man, he began contributing to - and eventually editing - the premiere pulp science fiction/horror zine of his day, Weird Tales. Through the group of friends he made while contributing to Weird Tales, he met an independent businesswoman named Sonia Greene. A Jewish immigrant to New York City, she brought Lovecraft to the city and they eventually married. So despite Lovecraft's horror at miscegenation, and his protestations that he was a racist, the one romance of his short life was with a Jewish immigrant.

After their marriage deteriorated, Lovecraft returned to his hometown of Providence in the mid-1920s, where he wrote some of his very best stories. Though he was poor, he was happy living with his aunt in a large house, and often spent his days hiking around Providence and writing in the city's beautiful, light-filled library called The Atheneum. When his aunt died, and then his good friend Robert E. Howard (author of the Conan books and a Weird Tales contributor) committed suicide, he fell into what today we would probably call clinical depression. He grew steadily more destitute, ate poorly (he mainly consumed bread, candies and coffee), and his health declined. He died at the age of 47, in 1937, shortly after completing his novella "The Shadow Out of Time."

The definitive biography of H.P. Lovecraft is S.T. Joshi's H.P. Lovecraft: A Life.

Crucial literary connections

Two of Lovecraft's best friends and correspondents were Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith, both contributors to Weird Tales and famous pulp authors in their own rights. Howard's work is probably remembered more today, with the help of the Conan movies, but Smith's work is usually deemed of higher literary merit. Prime Books is about to issue a handsome collection of Smith's stories called The Return of the Sorcerer.

Another of Lovecraft's great friends and literary champions was the writer and editor August Derleth, who kept Lovecraft's work in print long after the writer had died. In fact, it is probably Derleth's editorial efforts we have to thank for Lovecraft's cult status today.

One of Lovecraft's greatest influences was the Irish fantasist Lord Dunsany, who wrote about faeries and dreams in a poetic style that finds its way into Lovecraft's work as well. Like Dunsany, Lovecraft wrote reams of poetry but is largely remembered for his fantastical stories.

Crucial adaptations of, and immersions in, Lovecraft's tales

There are so many amazing stories, comic books, and movies that have been influenced by Lovecraft - not always in a good way - that it would be impossible to list them all. But here are some standouts.

Dreams in the Witch House
This was Stuart Gordon's entry in the "Masters of Horror" series on TV, and it's a great, modern-day adaptation of the Lovecraft story. There is even a moment when we see some terrifying geometry that is, in fact, sort of terrifying. Gordon has adapted several other Lovecraft tales, some more faithfully than others. While Gordon's Re-Animator is a true cult classic, it shares almost nothing with the Lovecraft story that inspired it, other than the main character's name, Herbert West. Same goes for Gordon's film From Beyond, which was inspired by Lovecraft too.

Dagon
A truly great Stuart Gordon adaptation, however, is Dagon - based on the short story "Shadow Over Innsmouth." While some of the movie is by necessity campy - sorry, but there is just no way to represent the church of Dagon without some seriously goofy outfits - it captures the poignancy of the original story. The ending of this movie is possibly the most truly Lovecraftian moment I've ever seen committed to film. (See a NSFW clip from the movie here.)

The Resurrected
Based on "The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward," this horror movie is true to the original, but occasionally uneven in execution.

Call of Cthulhu (movie)
This silent film is set during the era when the story is supposed to take place - the mid-1920s. So the modern-day filmmakers have tried to create what they imagined a movie of the story would have looked like if it had been released at the same time as the short story itself. And they succeed incredibly well. This is retro-futurism at its finest, with gorgeous, expressionistic sets that look like something out of 20s horror classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Call of Cthulhu (RPG)
My favorite role-playing game ever, in which you can choose to be in a 1920s Lovecraftian scenario, or a contemporary one. Either way, you have to try to finish each quest without losing too many sanity points. Yes, the game has sanity points. Need I say more?

Hellboy (comics)
While the Hellboy comics created by Mike Mignola are not directly retelling any particular Lovecraft story, they are set in the world of the Lovecraft mythos. Several Lovecraftian monsters and wizards make appearances in Mignola's comics, and Mignola's illustrations are in my opinion the very best way to climb inside Lovecraft's crawly, dark imagination. (The image at the top of this post is a portrait of Lovecraft by Mignola.)

The Atrocity Archives
The first book in Charles Stross' Lovecraftian "Laundry series" of stories and novels, this set of stories takes us into a Lovecraftian world where a secret group called The Laundry deals with otherworldly phenomena and Nazis try to harness the powers of Cthulhu.

Evil Dead Trilogy
Sam Raimi's splatstick homage to Lovecraft begins with people who decide to mess around with a copy of the Necronomicon - and find out what it's like to do battle with the dead, from our dimension and others. The series begins with the movie Evil Dead, and ends with Army of Darkness.

The film focuses mostly on Lovecraft's influence, and includes interviews with luminaries like Guillermo Del Toro, Neil Gaiman, John Carpenter, Caitlin Kiernan, Stuart Gordon, Ramsey Campbell, and Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi.

Learn more via the Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown official site.

Much of Coulthart's work is inspired by mysticism and Lovecraftian horror. He has frequently collaborated with comic book writer Alan Moore, and illustrated David Britton's Lord Horror, a Lovecraft-themed book so controversial, it was declared obscene and banned by a Manchester magistrate. Coulthart's 2006 book, The Haunter of the Dark: And Other Grotesque Visions includes selections from Lord Horror, as well as illustrations based on Lovecraft's own stories and attempts to visually represent the cosmic entities he describes.

[John Coulthart via Dark Roasted Blend]

R'lyeh
Cthulhu Rising
Azathoth
The Call of Cthulhu — Opening Page

The Haunter of the Dark — Federal Hill
The Haunter of the Dark — Inside the Church
Yuggoth
Dagon
R'lyeh

Nyarlathotep

Shub-Niggurath


Yog-Sothoth

The Dunwich Horror — Wilbur Whateley

A creeping, wet, slithering scent, dripping with seaweed, oceanic plants and dark, unfathomable waters.

What is wrong with me that I totally want to buy that now?

I'm also intrigued by the smell of Nyarlathotep:

Brooding, yet electric: the scent of buried secrets, roiling nightmares, the essence of the Crawling Chaos, the Father of Knives and Locusts, the Hunter in the Dark. This is the blackest of ritual incenses charged with flashes of ozone.

Seriously, I'm glad that goths are so entrepreneurial. There are many more lovely sniffs to be had here, from a perfume of the Deep Ones, to eau d'Herbert West. All are 5 ml for $15.

via Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs Thanks, Snackypants!

The Thing

There are two movie versions of The Thing, which is itself based on a short story by John Campbell called "Who Goes There," but every iteration shares the same basic structure. An alien beneath the ice of Antarctica gets thawed out by a lonely group stationed on the continent during winter. It slowly picks off members of the group, perhaps most spectacularly in John Carpenter's movie version, which is packed with terrific, gory effects of alien/human slaughter.

"At the Mountains of Madness"

This classic short story by H.P. Lovecraft is about a group of explorers who discover an ancient city buried beneath the ice in an Antarctic mountain range. Within the city, they find evidence that Earth's earliest inhabitants were aliens who took up residence in the once-temperate South Pole. They lived in a state of advanced civilization, occasionally having problems with other alien groups (like Cthulhu's spawn, which live in the sea). But finally their city descended into decadence, and the polymorphous slave beings known as Shuggoths began to take over. Eventually it emerges that some of the Shuggoths still live, and the human expedition may have released them upon the world.

The X-Files movie

The 1998 movie that came out of the popular alien-paranoia TV series includes a final set of scenes that take place in a secret underground lab in Antarctica, where aliens are being studied. We know the aliens are dangerous, and are associated with the black oil that has been mind-controlling several humans in the show. As the movie ends, a spaceship beneath the lab rises up and takes off. More black oil to be unleashed on the world? Aliens finally freed from prison? We may never know.

Alien vs. Predator

A group of explorers travel to Antarctica (this plot is starting to sound familiar, isn't it?) to investigate a mysterious heat signal in an ice field. They discover a vast, underground structure that looks sort of like a temple. It turns out to be a holding tank for aliens, and a group of predators have awakened them in order to have a fun hunting expedition. Unfortunately the human explorers are caught between the predators and aliens, and some of them get used as alien-hatching vessels so the predators can have their fun. When things get out of control, the humans have to decide whether to ally themselves with the dangerous predators if they're going to escape alive – and prevent the aliens from being unleashed all over the Earth.

Alien

It's possible to claim that the original 1970s Alien movie is about ice-bound creatures awakening to kill, kill, kill. The aliens that Ripley's vessel stumbles across are on what seems to be a frozen planet.

"A Colder War"

In this short story by Charles Stross, a Cold War-era nuclear submarine finds a Cthulhu-esque creature beneath the ice. It's an even greater threat than nuclear war, and makes the cold war pale by comparison.

Mammoth

Perhaps one of the greatest kitchen-sink monsters ever created, this movie's eponymous creature is discovered frozen whole in the arctic ice. But when the ice melts and (of course) the mammoth escapes, we discover that not only is it a reanimated paleolithic beastie, but it's also controlled via wireless by a group of hostile aliens and it's got the power to suck people's lifeforce out using its trunk. So it's an alien-controlled vampire dinosaur. And it's pissed. Watch the alien vampire mammoth wreck havoc among drunken teens, including Summer Glau (!) at a rave in the forest!

Transformers

In the first Transformers movie, evil Deceptacon leader Megatron is found deep beneath the ice, and as he thaws, his evil world-destroying powers grow.

Demolition Man

In the movie version of Demolition Man, set in the near future, supercriminal Phoenix is thawed out of deep freeze to face trial. Unfortunately he kills everybody in sight and escapes, to engage in a zillion acts of crime in a city unprepared for such a dangerous criminal. Luckily the city is able to defrost our cop hero too, whose skills dealing with violence were honed during Phoenix's era.

Dinosaurus

In this flick from 1960, a team constructing a harbor on a Carribbean island accidentally unearth two dinosaurs, a T-Rex and a brontosaurus. Of course the kaiju are struck by lightning and brought back to life for a mega-rampage – though sadly they aren't controlled by aliens or capable of sucking people's souls out. A caveman is brought to life with them, and serves as is the friendly defrosted foil to the dinos.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

This classic 1952 Ray Harryhausen movie basically started the giant atomic monster genre. A "Rhedosaurus" is awakened in arctic circle by atomic bombs, and unleashes monstery, claymation madness upon the world.

Doctor Who, "The Ice Warriors"

A new ice age is sweeping over the world, and a team of scientists and maniacs is desperately trying to find a way to roll back the glaciers. And then they find a weird Viking warrior-esque figure trapped in the ice for millions of years... and when the ice defrosts, the figure awakens!

Heroes

At the end of last season's superhero soap Heroes, Tracy uses her freeze-ray powers to freeze . . . herself! She goes mega-icy and then shatters into a million pieces to save the son of her dead, ultrastrong mutant genetic clone "sister" Nikki. But she'll be back this fall in the new season, all thawed out and healed up and ready to engage in all kinds of evil.

Frankenstein's Monster

In this early-70s comic from Marvel, the Frankenstein monster emerges from an arctic glacier twice: Once to battle Dracula, who injures him; and a second time in the modern world, aided by Frankenstein's distant, gothy relative Victoria Frankenstein. Though revenge and killing were among his goals after his first thaw, by the time he thawed a second time he was ready to fall in love (with Victoria) and fight for great justice (with Iron Man). Frankenstein's Monster teaches us that taking a second ice nap can be redemptive.

Terminal Freeze

In this novel by Lincoln Child, a group of explorers living in "Fear Base" underneath "Fear Glacier" encounter – surprise – something they need to be afraid of. It's a frozen, catlike creature that they plan to defrost when they return to civilization. But unfortunately it defrosts before the group makes it home, and people start dying. This is yet another tale in the sub-sub-genre established by "Who Goes There," the short story on which The Thing is based.

This is a simple, bloody tale of a group of friends whose boat is wrecked off the coat of a tiny Spanish fishing village. Turns out this village long ago turned to Cthulhu worship so that they'd catch enough fish to sell. And once in a while they have to sacrifice a few people to keep up the old fish deliveries from the deep. Oh and also, they intermarry with Cthulhu's spawn so much that they are all turning into fish-frog people.

This is one of the best cinematic adaptations of a Lovecraft story you'll ever see, by the way. It's pulpy, scary, and worth a look.

[Dagon via IMDB]

Twilight Creations are known for their dark themed games, the most famous of which is probably Zombies!!! Knizia has won numerous awards for his "European style" board and card games, including Samurai, Lost Cities, Lord of the Rings and Kingdoms. His games tend to be interesting mathematical puzzles with some sort of theme loosely overlaid. This can work very well (Lost Cities is a fantastic game), but I'm not sure it will make sense combined with a cosmic horror back story.

Each player will work to line up numbered tiles on the game board, trying to rack up points and simultaneously block their opponent from getting points. I'm sure it's a great game, but in this case, the theme seems to have been very loosely applied. It's basically a math game with a picture of Cthulhu printed on the background of the board.

In all fairness, the game isn't actually out yet - just some preview pics of the board, so maybe there's a ton of awesome cultist powers or investigator abilities that flesh out the theme. Plus, it could offer a nice alternative to marathon games of Arkham Horror. Image by: Twilight Creations.

“To Mars and Providence” by Don Webb: Set in Lovecraft’s hometown, “To Mars and Providence” blends Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos with H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. It’s an apt conflation since Lovecraft’s short story “At the Mountains of Madness” helped popularize the concept of ancient astronauts, the notion that creatures from afar arrived on Earth long ago, and, as with Wells’ buried Martian invaders, they will one day emerge to destroy humanity. Lovecraft himself is the star of Webb’s tale, and is still mourning his father’s death when the Martian invaders touch down on Providence’s Federal Hill. He soon learns that the Martians have arrived on Earth not for some desperate land grab, but because they are fleeing Mars’ fearsome sleeping Elder Gods.

Charles Stross’ Bob Howard Series: Stross’ tales of Bob Howard, an agent for a British secret intelligence agency known as The Laundry, are frequently described as Lovecraft meets James Bond. Magic exists as a form of applied mathematics and it has all sorts of dubious uses, such as summoning beings from other dimensions and yoking demonic beings to mechanical bodies. Another Stross story, “A Colder War,” poses an alternate history of the world where the Antarctic expedition of “At the Mountains of Madness” actually happened, and a follow-up expedition leads to increased Cold War tensions.

Parallelities by Alan Dean Foster: Max Parker, a tabloid reporter, finds himself traveling uncontrollably between various parallel universe. In one universe, he wakes up to find that the Elder Gods have taken over the world, just as Lovecraft’s stories predicted. Despite the awesome terror and regular human sacrifices, most humans on this Earth go about their business as usual.

Shadow Scourge by Mark Ellis: The post-nuclear holocaust universe of Ellis’ Outlander series is already replete with tyrannical gods. Mystical creatures from Sumerian and Celtic mythology have manipulated humanity’s fate since the beginning of time, and now live among us. But it isn’t until the 13th volume, Shadow Scourage, that the series’ heroes must content with Ocajinik, an ancient force living beneath the bayous of Lousiana who echoes the Old Ones of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.

“Maureen Birnbaum and the Looming Awfulness” by George Alec Effinger: The titular character of Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson engages in a genre-bending romp through space and time. In the penultimate tale, Maureen (Muffy to her friends) is sent back in time to fight off the Lovecraftian horrors of Yale University. And, when she relates her adventures to a friend back in the present, she takes a moment to poke fun at Lovecraft’s somewhat florid writing style:

"Bitsy, have you noticed that my narrative style has become like, you know, dated, clumsy, and ornate?"

“Pickman’s Modem” by Lawrence Watt-Evans: Published in the anthology Cthulhu 2000, Watt-Evans updates and parodies Lovecraft’s story “Pickman’s Model,” about a artist who painted brilliant but disturbingly ghoulish works. Instead of paintings, the narrator is disturbed by postings on an online bulletin board, whose author is in the thrall of a demonic piece of machinery.

“Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell, Jr.: Campbell is another writer inspired by “At the Mountains of Madness.” His fictional team of researchers also travels to Antarctica, where they find an alien spaceship buried beneath the ice. And, as if in imitation of an Elder God, it starts to devour everything in its path. “Who Goes There?” has enjoyed a long legacy of its own; it inspired Howard Hawks’ film “The Thing from Another World” and John Carpenter’s “The Thing.”

The Spiraling Worm by David Conyers and John Sunseri: Like Stross’ books, The Spiraling Worm combines the Cthulhu Mythos with spy thriller trappings. Seven interconnected stories follow Australian Army Intelligence Mahor Harrison Peel and US NSA Agent Jack Dixon as they battle Lovecraftian monsters intent on having humanity as a snack.

The Tommyknockers by Stephen King: Much of King’s work is strongly influenced by Lovecraft, with extradimensional beings invading small New England towns. But The Tommyknockers, inspired by Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space,” is the most clearly rooted in science fiction. A novelist from Maine discovers a long-buried alien pod, which, when opened, begins its conquest of humanity, transforming them into the aliens who left the pod behind.

The Mind Parasites by Colin Wilson: Wilson wrote several fantasy stories extending the Cthulhu Mythos, but, with The Mind Parasites he takes Lovecraft’s ideas and makes them his own. Much as the sleeping god Cthulhu touches the minds of some men in dreams, the parasites of Wilson’s novel live in the consciousness of human beings, gradually draining our life force and threatening us with annihilation. But unlike the hopeless protagonists of Lovecraft’s stories, who must either forget what they know or surrender to madness, Wilson’s heroes push forward, trying to save the world by improving the cognitive powers of mankind.

“A Study in Emerald” by Neil Gaiman: The 2003 anthology Shadows Over Baker Street challenged writers to place a Sherlock Holmes story against the backdrop of the Cthulhu Mythos. Gaiman created a Victorian era tale with an alternate history twist: the Great Old Ones awoke on Earth several hundred years earlier and, after a war with humanity, rule over all mankind. The Old Ones portray themselves as benevolent, though immortal and autocratic, leaders, but some humans in London are starting suspect that they are, in fact, soul-gobbling monsters. Gaiman also authored the much more humorous study “I, Cthulhu.”

Vade Mecum is a 160-page hardcover book with full-color art. And the art is amazing, really helping to evoke the gloomy, decadent world of CthulhuTech. This is definitely not a game for young children (if you couldn't tell by the cover). Further enhancing the "futuristic Lovecraftian" atmosphere are seven short stories, so there's plenty of backstory to flesh out your campaign (so to speak). For more hardcore gamers, there's plenty of crunch for the $39.99 cover price, including, "more than a dozen new unspeakable horrors, including the option to portray corpse-eating ghouls as Characters."

I'm not sure anything else in the book will top that, but it also has over 20 new "machines of death," a bunch of new magic rituals, a system for psychic powers, and three new professions. It could be interesting to play a Zoner, a character who starts out insane. Or perhaps you'd prefer portraying the lovechild of a human and an otherdimensional being. There are detailed fighting trees that allow you to chain together certain moves for devastating attacks, and those attacks can target specific body parts with the hit location chart. It's all fun and games until someone suffers a "Genital Injury." Ow.

Apparently, the CthulhuTech core book has been selling very well (the first printing sold out), so if you're looking for an RPG that's quite a bit darker than the usual swords and wizards affair, there are some kindred spirits out there. Image by: Catalyst/Widlfire.

Jenna MacNipperson (Cameron Diaz) is a spoiled daddy's girl on vacation in Cancun. When her island-hopping party boat runs aground on the ancient city of R'lyeh, she accidentally awakens the slumbering Cthulhu (voiced by Terry Hatcher), The Thing which cannot be described. One look at MacNipperson's Manolo Blahniks and Cthulhu knows they will be BFF - literally, for all eternity. From Cyclopean masonry and non-Euclidean architecture to Rodeo Drive and Hollywood afterparties, the world is their oyster as these two outrageous debutantes embark on the Final Shopping Spree.

But one man wants to ruin the fun: detective Hutch Fleming (Martin Lawrence). This uptight officer of the law wants to nail the girls for credit card fraud, as well as a series of mutilation murders. Wacky misadventures ensue when Cthulhu and MacNipperson avoid Fleming's bumbling justice. When the Star-Spawn of Cthulhu and a host of cultists show up, you know the fun is just getting started. I smell franchise!

Here is a touched-up version of the same galaxy so that the tendrils are more obvious. The image you saw on top shows what would be visible to the naked eye, which is pretty damn cool. So what's this galaxy all about? Explains Phil "Bad Astronomer" Plait:

These tendrils have been a problem for astronomers: they’re very narrow (only a couple of hundred light years wide), have masses a million of times that of the Sun, and should fall apart rapidly (they’re blasting out into hot gas which should disrupt them, they’re massive enough to collapse under their own weight to form stars, and tides from the galaxy itself should shred them). Yet they seem at least semi-stable, lasting for hundreds of millions of years. What holds them together?

Turns out it’s that old standby, magnetism. Recently released Hubble images (like the one above) have given astronomers insight into the structure of these tendrils. Hubble’s hi-res view shows details previously unseen in the tendrils, allowing astronomers a better view and the ability to determine the magnetic strengths needed to hold the tendrils together against the forces that would rend them asunder.

In case you weren't already convinced that this was Cthulhu's home galaxy, that freakish and inexplicable persistence of the tentacles in the face of massive force should confirm it.

R'lyeh! R'lyeh! Actually, come to think of it, R'lyeh would make a great name for this galaxy, don't you think?

The Magnetic Tendrils of NGC 1275 [Bad Astronomy]

OK, this might be a cyborg monster, or just a person in mecha armor. I think the giant creature might be working with the human, since they don't appear to be fighting. I love the way this image almost looks as if it's underwater. You can see more of Jangariyawong's work in his portfolio.

Concept Space Scene [via Concept Ships]

The Lovecraft-inspired Lords of Cthul will be a tricky faction to manage, as their big beasties don't deal the raw damage that the other kaiju are capable of. They also need to manage their non-giant minions better, since they can fuel themselves with the lifeforce of the hapless cultists and minor demons.

Meat Slaves are basically walking incubators for other (nastier) monsters, while Task Masters (pictured) use telekinesis to chuck friends and foes across the game board. It looks like Monsterpocalypse won't be based around predictable 1-on-1 monster battles, but will instead make a combined arms tactical approach crucial for victory. If only they could get the license to make a Cloverfield unit. Images by: Privateer Press.

Lords of Cthul. [MonsterInsider]

The Korean researchers used nanotechnology to build the shape of the virus, then added self-assembling molecules. The result: an artificial virus with the filament shapes seen in the image. Such a shape will allow it to last longer inside a person's body.

Why is this important? Medication delivered directly to cells with an artificial virus is like using a professional assassin to take out your target. By comparison, conventional medication techniques are more like running around a city firing a shotgun in random directions. The other major bonus? That thing totally looks like some kind of microscopic spawn of Cthulhu. Image by: Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

Filamentous Artificial Virus from a Self-Assembled Discrete Nanoribbon [Angewandte Chemie International Edition] via Nobel Intent.

Here's this year's standout Cthulhu for president shirt. Every election season, you've got to vote for the creature who does not represent the "lesser evil," but this tee takes it one step farther. Love the "Ia Ia America Fh'tagn" slogan here — it makes me think that somewhere in the ocean deep, slimy tentacled creatures are singing the praises of the U.S. government. It's good to have allies!

For those who are tossing their lot in with Admiral Adama, leader of Battlestar Galactica, there's always the swag available through AdamaforPresident.org. There's this poster (at left, available in larger sizes obviously), and a simple "Adama 08" tee. No word on his running mate. May we suggest Helo? Anybody who can mutiny against Starbuck can certainly hold his own against Adama. Plus, he has that hybrid baby which makes him totally plugged into the next generation.

Reynolds/Washburn tee [Ziraxia]

Cthulhu 2008 tee [Zazzle]

There's just something so perfectly absurd about combining a shambling horror with a cutesy saying that gets to us. It might be hard to take a tentacled beast that has come for your soul seriously after seeing some of these, but we wouldn't mind seeing them pop up as comments from time to time. There's a bunch already up at the Lolthulhu website, and you should feel free to make your own. Of course, it's a lot easier to find a picture of a cat doing something strange that it is to find a photo of a Shoggoth. [Thanks, Kit!]