The ending of Celephais. (Note from February 6, 2012: I went back and modified this page after first uploading it, so the ending is a little different from what went up back in 2011.)
As I worked on this story the depressing aspects of it increasingly rushed to the front of my mind. Of course, as other folks have said, whether the ending is happy or sad depends on your perspective, but more than most of Lovecraft’s stories, this is a tale that drips with despair and contempt for the ‘mundane’ world. I can only imagine Lovecraft’s state of mind as he wrote it. You can sense a little of the same bleak portrayal of the modern urban world in the fragment “Azathoth” when he talks about how “wonder went out of the minds of men…” and in “The Quest of Iranon,” but I prefer “Celephais” to “Iranon.” (And I prefer “Azathoth” to both of them, but how to adapt Azathoth?)
What a wonderful day it is (or was, since the sun is already setting) here in Seattle. Beautiful and green and summery. And I’m proud to announce on this lovely day that I’ve finally launched a Kickstarter project to raise money for a graphic novel collection of all my Lovecraft Dreamlands stories! The book will be approximately 176 pages long and will contain Celephais, The White Ship, The Strange High House in the Mist and my long out-of-print Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath comic series. If I can raise enough money by November 6, the project is a go!
In the process, I’m going to go back and retouch Dream-Quest and redraw some bits of the stories (there is a page missing from Strange High House which I need to redraw since I lost the original art, and there are some sloppy panels in Celephais that need redoing). I’m basically going to do the best job on it that I can, and my next job is to work on the cover and the map which will go in the book. If you like my work, please share the Kickstarter link and tell everyone you know who likes Lovecraft. (Or just everyone.) As rewards for backers of the project, I’m giving out sketches, original art pages, copies of the book (natch), a poster map, and an illustrated PDF of “The Club of the Seven Dreamers,” a RPG adventure I wrote as a tribute to Lovecraft’s “Hypnos” and “The Green Meadow”.
Anyway, wish me luck! I will be updating this site with new and found material and artwork over the next two months inbetween retouching the old Dream-Quest pages. Please check out the Kickstarter page, and thank you for all your patience and support.
NEXT UPDATE: Soon
