So I’ve been commissioned to do some artwork for a project my friend is working on. The artwork in question needs drawings of C’thulu, one of the Elder Gods from the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
Now, I’ve seen lots of other artists’ depictions of C’thulu, but I’d prefer to go to the source material for inspiration (as when I’m drawing based on other artists’ reniditions, I feel like I’m plagiarizing).
So the question I have, is, what book or short story contains an actual physical description of C’thulu?
Old Howadr Phillips wasn’t really big on concrete descriptions. He seems to have preferred to suggest rather than describe, if you know what I mean.
To get an idea of what the Big C looks like, I would start with The Call of Cthulhu. The description of the idols and our title entity is (so far as I remember off the top of me head) fairly complete in that novella. Rather suggests an unholy cross between an octopus, a dragon, and an ape from what I recall. In the flesh, he’s a lot bigger.
I am no illustrator, but the suggestion of tentacles and malevolent eyes sums the image up for me…
A well-known science fiction author once told me that she thought the key to understanding Lovecraftian horror was in sharing HPL’s distaste for seafood.
Cthulhu had always sounded to her like he’d be simply delicious sauteed in a little butter and garlic and served with a crisp Chablis.
The first Cthulhu story contains a description, and I think actual pictures drawn by HPL. I got it at home, in a book called THE ANNOTATED H P LOVECRAFT, I’ll try to find it tonight.
From memory, I believe he is described as having multiple feelers/tentacles, wings, a dragon-like tail, and claws…anything else is probably speculation. But he is supposed to be somewhat amorphous…he can change shape and proportions at need.
The best source would be the short story, “The Call of Cthulhu”. I’m sure there’s a description there, the protagonist encounters the big guy and rams him with a cruise ship…
The Lovecraftian horror does not lend itself to visible representation. Viewing Cthulhu would blast the sanity out of mortal men, so any drawings of the physical monster’s body would be necessarily tame. How can you draw a good picture of what the human mind can not comprehend? You may be limited by the contract of your commission, but I’d try something, as you said different, like drawing the effect of viewing Cthulhu would have… such as an artist screaming in insanity before a sketch of a vaguely humanoid octopus and portfolio of spilled photographs or some other such nonsense that tell the viewer that to see Cthulhu would be to go insane… then there is always the abstract.
A couple of good stories for help your on the way:
Call of Cthulhu
The Dunwich Horror
The Haunter of the Dark
The Color Our of Space
Be sure to read Pickman’s Model. It’s a story of an artist who painted the unknowable horrors from life.
Way to give away the entire point of the story, Pyrrhonist. Very nice.
[Axel Foley]
OK, party’s over! You can all go home now! Pyrrhonist f*cked it up for everyone!
[/Axel Foley]
Just a nitpick, John, but Lovecraft didn’t come up with idea of the Elder Gods. That was more the manufacture of his “successor” August Derleth. In fact, several times throughout his life, Lovecraft protested against the organization of the monsters he created being organized into any discernable pantheon.
As Necros says, much of the “Cthulhu Mythos” wasn’t Lovecraft’s.
He wanted to write horror, but was bored with the usual vampire/werewolf/ghost subjects. He wrote a few stories about ancient unspeakable horrors and sent them out to friends and publishers, as well as ‘editing’ stories from other writers, often completely rewriting them into the same sort of thing that he was doing.
Several other writers picked up his themes and made their own additions, which Lovecraft later used himself.
That was one of the early examples of collaborative universe-building, which would be interesting even if the stories weren’t so damn creepy!
