I was just reading Graphic Classics 4: H. P. Lovecraft, and in the forward, among all the praise, Gahan Wilson mentions that in a certain New Yorker cartoon, his ghastly flasher was a specific literary character. Wait, let me back up a second. One of his cartoons feather a man, in a trench coat, flashing “a little ol lady and her small dog by opening his (its) raincoat to reveal (it)self as none other then the monster Wilber Whateley!”
So, and reader of the magazine would recognize the scene as being weird and strange, and would enjoy the comic. However, some who has read Lovecraft’s story “The Dunwhich Horror” would recognize Mr. Whateley. So, I ask you, the reader’s to tell me, what details do (filmmakers/authors/painters/architech) add to works which are not necessary to enjoy the work, but can be notice by one who knows. Examples would include people seen in reflection in the eyes of the subjects of paintings, minor back-ground characters in novels, which actual turn out to be cameos from other novels, and misc. throwaway lines.