Cthulhu: The Ancient One Tribute Box

The signature character of author H. P. Lovecraft’s darkly fantastic fiction, Cthulhu is as emblematic for Lovecraft’s fans as Darth Vader is for Star Wars adherents. Both feared and worshipped in the stories, Cthulhu has since been the subject of new fiction, artwork, role-playing games, toys, and other items celebrating Lovecraft and fandom for weird tales. This totemic set includes a hand-painted figurine suitable for display or dark contemplation, an altarpiece stand, and a booklet discussing the Ancient One’s place in Lovecraft and popular culture.

“[BOOKLET TEXT EXCERPT]Cthulhu is the emblematic figure that has come to represent the supernatural world of author H. P. Lovecraft's darkly fantastic fiction. An ancient cosmic being of unfathomable power, Cthulhu waits dreaming in a sunken city deep in the ocean until the right alignment of stars awakens him, with uncertain (probably apocalyptic) results for humankind.He's also Lovecraft's most popular creation, and has become a terrifying yet oddly beloved tentacle-faced ambassador for Lovecraft and the world of weird fiction in general, representing a sort of cosmic terror that can only be described up to the limits of the human mind, but which substantially exists beyond its reach. Lovecraft's influence, and Cthulhu in particular, have made their way into contemporary literature, movies, comics, games, crafts, art, memes, and other tropes of pop culture-embraced in a sometimes doomy, sometimes humorous way (as though to insulate against their darker implications.) Lovecraft himself situated his work into a tradition of supernatural and 'weird' fiction in relation to work by writers such as Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, and Robert Chambers. He lays out some of his thoughts about this sort of tale in his 1933 essay 'Notes on Writing Weird Fiction.'[set extract] I choose weird stories because they suit my inclination best-one of my strongest and most persistent wishes being to achieve, momentarily, the illusion of some strange suspension or violation of the galling limitations of time, space, and natural law which for ever imprison us and frustrate our curiosity about the infinite cosmic spaces beyond the radius of our sight and analysis. These stories frequently emphasise the element of horror because fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions.[end extract]Cthulhu first appeared in the story 'The Call of Cthulhu' in the February 1928 issue of Weird Tales, a pulp magazine to which Lovecraft would contribute dozens of stories, including 'The Unnameable,' 'The Dunwich Horror,' and 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.'It's generally come to be agreed that the name of the character is pronounced k”

"A truly evocative work of art-one that brings Lovecraft's word-picture of Cthulhu to three-dimensional life."
-S. T. Joshi

Steve Mockus is a San Francisco-based writer and the author of the Mr. Spock Logic and Prosperity Box, How to Speak Zombie, Stick Man's Really Bad Day, and the Stoner Coffee Table Book.

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