Sunder

By Eroyn Franklin

eroynfranklin.com

So I've been reading a bunch of HP Lovecraft's stories recently so that I can run a Call of Cthulhu campaign. I'd never read them before as I'd heard they were...filled with ideas, but also racist and weirdly written. And they definitely are weirdly written, though I've yet to run into any of the super racist stuff I'd kind of been led to believe existed in his stories (that's supposed to be HP Lovecraft, the comic is the Planetary/Authority crossover). There's just the kind of casual background racism I sort of expect from early 20th century fiction. Despite that I am generally enjoying them, and it's kind of cool to finally read these stories after so much time reading things influenced by them. Plus I'm super excited to be running a game based (somehow) on the mythos.

So then I picked up this short zine that uses a word that wouldn't seem out of place in a Lovecraft piece as a title, and found the contents kind of creepy. The zine features illustrations of the author and text describing how they are feeling mentally and emotionally. Now, I'm pretty much entirely making up any connection between the two works, but when the text talks about "the space between the warp and weft", and the "absence that gives other things their shape", I'm more or less convinced it's describing the indescribable and unnameable worlds and creatures that exist in Lovecraft's work. The accompanying artwork is kind of creepy and reminds me of the flickering of dimensions and loss of self that exist in Lovecraftian fiction. 

But like I said, I'm making all this up as I'm in the middle of reading The Dunwich Horror. But I guess I liked the zine, even if the last page made me shudder.