Lovecraft’s Journal is coming along nicely! Slow, but continued progress is being made. I should be able to show images soon of the first prototype for an artifact that is discovered in the story. This is by far the hardest book I’ve worked on, partially because it’s huge and has dozens of different pieces, but also because it’s much more than a book. The way I envision this project once it’s finished is more of an experiential discovery than just a read. What does that mean, exactly?
Imagine, if you will, receiving a package with a somewhat archaic sounding letter from a very old friend. You remember them being of less than sound mind and that they passed, unremarkably, many years ago. You open up this dusty and ancient looking box, careful not to damage it and discover a plethora of stained old pages within. There are letters from professors at prestigious universities and telegrams from an expedition you’d never even heard about. Carefully handling the crinkly old pieces of paper, you begin to read…
You look up at the clock in surprise as it strikes midnight and suddenly the shadows in the room seem much larger and malevolent than before. You’ve been reading for hours and didn’t even hear your better half when they said goodnight. Oh dear!
But you can’t stop. You can’t put it down. For there’s a journal from that long ago expedition and you’ve been flipping through the pages, reading the scrawls from Miskatonic University’s Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Tyler Freeborn. What was it that he discovered? Was he slowly going mad?
You mark your page and reach deeper into the box. Below the journal are a pile of sketches and maps and newspaper clippings, all stained from age and scribbled profusely with arcane notes. In an envelope are dozens of small pieces of some letters or notes of some kind…all torn and burned at the edges. What the hell are these?
Beneath this, you feel something lumpy wrapped loosely in a dank old piece of burlap and tied with twine. Hanging from the twine is a tag with something you can barely read….warning.
This is what I mean by experiential. You’re part of the story, you need to piece it together and try to figure out what all these things mean. Are they connected somehow or really just the ravings of a lunatic?
A telegram from the book, printed for Art Attack 2018.
