io9: Cthulhu

Support Your Candidate for Scifi President of the United States

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:00:00 PDT

It's just not an election season here in the United States — it's smartass t-shirt season. To celebrate the fact that fictional people and monsters would probably make better presidents than the real-life humans currently running, we've got a few choices for scifi presidential swag for you. First up is the lovely Firefly-themed "Reynolds/Washburn" ticket (that's the captain and pilot of the smuggler ship Serenity). Personally, we'd prefer Reynolds to run with his first officer Zoe Alleyne, but we'll go with this because their slogan is so good. Below we've got treats for those who are campaigning for Cthulhu or Battlestar's Admiral Adama.

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]

Nevermind the Lolcats Here's Cthulhu

Kevin Kelly — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 08:40:32 PST

The only kinds of kittens we've really referred to here at io9 have been War Kittens, although there was a Laser Kittens entry that popped up during our Terminator photo contest, and we told you about Sex Kittens Go To College. However, as cute as they are, we've been dying for a meme to replace the lolcatz that have swept the nation. We need fret no longer. Check out a meme destined to spew forth from the bowels of other dimensions and onto our screens.

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!]

Cthulhu + Mechas = CthulhuTech

Kevin Kelly — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:00:22 PST

You take a shambling horror from a Lovecraft story, pop a couple of shoulder cannons on it and a replace a few tentacles with laser beams, and you've got yourself a whole new kind of horror: CthulhuTech.

According to the CthulhuTech Web site:

CthulhuTech is an innovative storytelling game that started out as a combination of two popular genres. The first was that of cosmic horror, made popular by H. P. Lovecraft and culminating in the modern day with elements of Mike Mignola's Hellboy and John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness. The second was that of giant mecha Japanese animation, made popular by such series as Robotech, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Rahxephon.

Personally, we can't think of many things scarier than a 500 foot tall monster sporting tech weapons. If it had another fearsome baddie to square off against, you could sell popcorn and front row seats for miles.

In fact, Paramount if you're still listening, just give the Cloverfield monster some sort of a blaster or missile pod in the sequel. Then we promise we won't complain. Check out Wildfire's CthuhuTech game on their site, where you can order everything you need to open dimensional portals and summon demonic forces. We didn't see any Shoggoths with armaments, but when you combine these two genres, you just know it's coming.

Cthulhu Tech

In Which Cthulhu Kicks Cloverfield's Ass Without Ever Showing Its Face

Annalee Newitz — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:30:08 PST

All this talk of the Cloverfield monster has made you forget the original monster from the sea — the monster whose aspect imparts such eldrich horror that to look upon it is to GO INSANE. Luckily some have kept the true faith, and in 2005 released one of the greatest monster movies in the past decade: The Call of Cthulhu, a pitch-perfect recreation of H.P. Lovecraft's original short story, complete with the melodramatic fear-awe. The best part? It's a silent film.

Call of Cthulhu emulates movies from the period when Lovecraft invented the monster whose tentacled, alien power has haunted pop culture for nearly a century. Don't worry — there are no spoilers in this clip. You'll see a group of unlucky sailors who happen upon Cthulhu's scary city, just risen from the depths of the ocean during a storm. The men are terrified by its non-Euclidean geometries and shocking statues. You'll have to watch the movie if you want to see what these inventive filmmakers did to create their Cthulhu.

What's great about this short film, which is available on DVD, is that it manages to hover between devoted homage to Lovecraft, and slightly campy tweak on the original. It would be hard to recreate any Cthulhu story without some acknowledgment of its purple-prosey, over-the-top-ness. And these actors, in their 1920s pancake makeup, manage to convey that with their intense ironic-seriousness.

I thought Cloverfield was actually a great monster movie, but Call of Cthulhu has it beat for sheer originality and verve.