Well, another Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention for 2015 has come and gone, and with it we get another convention program book: Windy City Pulp Stories #15.
This year’s theme is H.P. Lovecraft, the celebrated pulp horror author, along with Street & Smith’s comic line. It’s the 125th birthday for Lovecraft, and the 75th anniversary for the S&S comics. Most of the contents focus on HPL.
We get a large selection of articles on Lovecraft. From David Keller are two articles reprinted from the 1940s. The first is a good, general article on Lovecraft, and the second is on his astronomical notebook.
Author F. Paul Wilson (Repairman Jack, etc) remembers “My First Lovecraft,” and his experience reading “The Thing at the Doorstep.” Gene Christie looks at “Collecting Lovecraft: A Gallery,” with the covers of early sources for Lovecraft works.
“Lovecraft and Pseudo-Mathematics” by Robert Weinberg takes a look at Lovecraft’s use of pseudo-scientific thought in his writings. Then we see “How Great Britain ‘Discovered’ H.P. Lovecraft.” “The Call of Khalk’ru and Other Speculations” by Will Murray investigates the origin of Khalku’ru in A. Merritt‘s works.
S.T. Joshi, Lovecraft expert and editor, examines “Lovecraft and Weird Tales.” Doug Ellis examines “A Lovecraft Rarity”: Lovecraft’s draft card from WWI. Weinberg, again, takes a look at an unusual Arkham House book in “The Truth About The Shunned House Hardcover.” From August Derleth, whose Arkham House helped preserve Lovecraft and other authors from obscurity, we get “The Arkham House Story,” which first appeared in 1952.
There are a pair of fiction sections. The first reprints a trio of Lovecraft short stories: “The Doom That Came to Sarnath,” “Celephaïs,” and “Herbert West — Reanimator.” The next has fiction influenced by Lovecraft with “Lovecraft: A Lasting Influence” by Tom Roberts, and two by Weinberg: “Chant” and “Sydney Taine vs. The Slime God.”
We then get a trio of articles about art and Lovecraft that includes on by Will Murray on “The Art of H.P. Lovecraft,” with some of Lovecraft’s sketches.
For the Street & Smith comics, we get a pair of articles, including one by Anthony Tollin, who is behind Sanctum Books, which is reprinting the Street & Smith pulp heroes (and including some of the comics in them as well). Tollin’s article gives an excellent overview of the entire history and line of S&S’s comic books. The second article focuses on their sports comics before looking at their lesser titles.
It’s another great collection of articles and materials. Anyone interested in Lovecraft should get this collection.
