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H. P. Lovecraft, Zombies, Slender Man, and Aliens

6/6/2014

35 Comments

 
Today, for a change of pace, I thought I’d talk about some recent—and weird—references to H. P. Lovecraft in the news. Let’s begin with Escape from Zombie Earth, Scotty Richards’s comic book mini-series inspired by Lovecraft and set in an Arkham, Massachusetts overrun with the undead. According to Kalkion writer Patrick Dooley, the comic took its inspiration from “one of the first zombie stories ever written, H.P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West: Re-animator.”
Now that’s an interesting assertion. In the six-part serial, which ran in Home Brew in 1922, medical student Herbert West develops a serum whereby he can chemically reanimate corpses, and these corpses become violent and eventually kill their resurrection artist. The great horror anthologist Stephen Jones considers the story an early specimen of zombie fiction, including it as an exhibit in the Mammoth Book of Zombies. Kevin Boon, writing in Better Off Dead, says that Herbert West makes the first link between zombies and cannibalism, and Marcus F. Griffin, writing in All About Zombies, called the story “the first known work of fiction to feature zombies that bear semblance to their modern-day counterparts.” I’m not sure how much we can agree with that, since the “zombies” of Herbert West cannot reproduce through biting, and they do not spontaneously generate. The idea that the ravenous dead feed on humans can be traced from vampires and ghouls back at least to the Greek Heroes, who took sustenance from blood sacrifices, which the Greeks believed were originally human before the substitution of animals.
Picture
Reanimating the dead was a key element of wizardry. This image shows John Dee's friend Edward Kelly calling up a spirit.
Picture
The eighteenth century vampire scare was based on a fear that the rotted dead were rising from their graves, as in this 1820 image.
The idea of a risen corpse was not particularly unusual, certainly not for a horror writer as well-read as Lovecraft. For example, the 1902 horror story “The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacobs contains the gruesome suggestion that the rotted corpse of the protagonists’ son has shambled its way home. Poe, too, has a sort of precedent in “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” where a corpse is hypnotically preserved in living death. Lovecraft, in Supernatural Horror in Literature, writes of risen corpse stories dating back to Classical times, particularly the “Philinnion and Machates” tale (also known as the “Bride of Corinth”) given by Proclus in his commentary on Plato. Lovecraft cites, too, the animated corpse from The Monk, and that of Poe’s “Ligeia,” and similar tales.

But the closest precedent is of course Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which shares many similarities with Herbert West. Both feature young students who engage in unhallowed art and who bring the dead back to life. Both protagonists use science for their unholy ends, and both are pursued and suffer death at the hands of their vengeful creations, who hate them. The “cannibal things” the West undead do are amplifications of the Frankenstein Monster’s murderous rampages, just as the multiple undead in West amplify the one and a half undead Victor creates in Shelley’s novel.

S. T. Joshi refuses to see an influence from Frankenstein on Herbert West, and he on at least five occasions (reprinting the same text in different volumes) writes that the two cannot be related except through “the most general influence” because the Creature was a patchwork of corpses while West reanimates whole bodies. Being different, they therefore cannot be related. This is ridiculous. In 1825, a Gothic chapbook knockoff of Frankenstein called “Monster Made by Man; or, the Punishment of Presumption” involved scientist Ernest Wahlberg injecting a chemical elixir into a clay sculpture of a man and bringing the monster to life. Not only did it replicate the content of Frankenstein (though reversing the central tension of the novel by making Ernest love and accept his monster), it even borrowed part of the title of the stage version of Shelley’s novel: Presumption, or the Fate of Frankenstein. Does the change from jigsaw-corpse to clay eliminate the influence? Joshi posits that “the core of the story is so elementary a weird conception that no literary source need be postulated.” It’s true that necromancy is indeed an old and weird conception (Odysseus called up the dead, who consumed wine in lieu of blood), but the parallels between Lovecraft and Shelley are too close to attribute to the random operation of chance.

That brings us to Adam Wynn’s sports column in the Barrow County News, who for whatever reason decided to devote a column to advice from Lovecraft. Here’s a bit of what Wynn said:
I’ve been reading a lot of this guy’s stuff lately. If you’ve never heard of him, he’s best known for being one of the earliest true horror writers.

If you enjoy people like Stephen King and...well...does anyone else even matter in modern horror? Like I was saying, if you enjoy Stephen King’s writing, you have Mr. Lovecraft to thank for being such an enormous influence on the bespectacled genius with goofy hair.
Now, let us stipulate that Wynn is not a literary critic, but even so, is it even possible to write for a living and remain unaware that horror fiction existed prior to the 1920s? I guess when Stephen King is your yardstick for genius, everything else fails to measure up.

The bizarre part is that Wynn decided to write about Lovecraft as part of a column on the importance of diversity. Now, to be fair, Wynn specifies that he’s not referring to ethnic diversity but rather to diversity in one’s athletic endeavors; nevertheless, the fact that he read Lovecraft and failed to realize that the horror writer was a virulent racist casts an eerie pall over his discussion of Lovecraft vis-à-vis diversity and smart life choices.

Finally, in building on my discussion from the other day on the Slender Man stabbing, I offer this bit of trivia: The creator of Slender Man, Eric Knudsen, said that Lovecraft was one of the influences behind the fictional character, according to Rolling Stone: “I was mostly influenced by H.P (sic) Lovecraft, Stephen King (specifically his short stories), the surreal imaginings of William S. Burroughs, and [a] couple games of the survival horror genre; Silent Hill and Resident Evil.” I imagine the tentacles must have derived from Lovecraft, though if you squint the whole of Slender Man seems like an out of focus caricature of Lovecraft himself. The faceless character, however, seems to me to share elements with the Dick Tracy villain The Blank (1937), the comic book character The Question (1967), and also the masked slashers of 1980s horror, particularly Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees, not to mention the Buffy villains The Gentlemen. The background-lurking of the Slender Man is damnably close to the similarly-dressed Observers from Fringe (2008-2013), themselves modeled on the mythical Men in Black from UFO mythology. The closest analog would be the Doctor Who villains The Silence, but they didn’t show up until two years after Slender Man.

Now to tie it all together: The Men in Black have folded into their folklore with the Black Man of the Woods, a demonic figure identified with the devil. He famously appears in Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker,” but he also shows up as an alternate name for Nyarlathotep in Lovecraft’s “The Dreams in the Witch House.” Do you know what else Nyarlathotep was? Well, in “The Rats in the Walls” he is also “the mad faceless god” at the center of the earth!

Now since we’ve already given Lovecraft credit for Slender Man and for the zombie genre, we might as well go for the trifecta and note that another story that heavily references Nyarlathotep, “The Whisperer in Darkness,” is also one of the very first modern alien abduction narratives, complete with a backwoods setting, strange surgical experiments, and the aliens’ ability to leave behind no trace of their existence. And not only that: “Whisperer” was explicitly modeled on Arthur Machen’s Novel of the Black Seal because Lovecraft was fascinated by that story’s tales of strange supernatural creatures that live in the deep woods—where the Slender Man makes his home! In “Whisperer,” by the way, Nyarlathotep is said to “put on the semblance of men, the waxen mask and the robe that hides…” So, essentially, here he again looked like Slender Man or Michael Myers or Scream’s Ghost Face. But now with 75% more extraterrestrials.

So, in sum, Lovecraft has played a role in the development of ancient astronauts, alien abductions, Reptilians (with an assist from Robert E. Howard), zombies, Men in Black, Slender Man, etc. etc. etc. As much as I love his fiction, perhaps our culture might have been a bit better off without his unintentional influence on occult and fringe culture.
35 Comments
.
6/6/2014 08:01:53 am

Lovecraft's Herbert West is the bridge between
Dr. Frankenstein's necromancer lore and the
entities that bedevil poor Rick Grimes in the
Walking Dead universe that has spawned one
great video game and a good 'shooter" computer
game. Isaac Asimov himself has been quoted as
taking pointers from Mary Shelley's novel when
writing "I,Robot" and his Three Laws of Robotics
are an indirect kudos to Newton, Principia and
the Three Laws of Thermodynamics. The act of
creation, or animating, or re-animating creates
ethical questions. Excellent Blog~Post! Cool!

Reply
Clint Knapp
6/6/2014 09:11:32 am

Let's not ascribe unnecessary depth to a topic that doesn't deserve it. The Walking Dead's creation has a lot less to do with Lovecraft and Shelley than it does George Romero. Kirkman's own statements about the creation of the comic are very explicit in this regard:

From: http://blogs.amctv.com/movie-blog/2009/11/qa-the-walkin/

Q: The Walking Dead is a stellar example of the zombie genre. Where are your influences?

A: My absolute favorite zombie movie is Day of the Dead. They’re in the bunker, the zombies look the coolest out of any of the Romero movies and I really like the story, the misery that these people have to go through. Shaun of the Dead comes in a close second.

Reply
spookyparadigm
6/6/2014 12:26:58 pm

I'm convinced that the zombie craze would not have happened but for the use of zombies in a lot of 1990s video games, because they were relatively easy to program as enemies. All the "survival horror" games took a lot of inspiration from the original Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, or to a lesser extent Night of the Living Dead. And the gun-bunny survivalist aspect has been a huge part of the zombie craze, especially early on.

Mix in the humor element from Return of the Living Dead in the 1980s when the new zombie thing gets going in the 1980s-retro 2000s, and boom, there you are.

Clint Knapp
6/6/2014 07:00:24 pm

I'm with you on that. Look at The Walking Dead. The comic's primary draw was the human aspect- how to survive in the zombie apocalypse, the trials and tribulations of the characters, and the occasional shock-moment when a beloved character died or was mangled. It was, in effect, Dawn of the Dead in comic form. The show obliterated all of these points and made it about gun-nuts and zombie shooting.

As a piece of writing, it's a horrendous show. The characters fall flat- often pale imitations of their original comic portrayals. The story moves at such a snail pace almost nothing ever happens from one episode to the next, and it relies on an after-show hosted by that awful Chris Hardwick to attempt to inject some deep meaning that just isn't present in what has become nothing more than a random series of events stringing together the next big zombie shootout.

The show succeeds because the culture is currently fascinated by doomsday preppers and the desire to shoot eachother and get away with it. It's a world where Right to Carry becomes a non-issue and there's no such thing as that nasty, evil Big Government telling trigger-happy morons to stop shooting at the neighbors.

I will say this: I loved Dawn and Day of the Dead. They were original, and something not seen before. They explored the human side of the apocalypse, but between those two moves Romero said just about all that can be said about people and zombies. Everything since has been derivative garbage paying lip-service to those themes without really adding anything to the genre.

.
6/7/2014 04:26:39 am

The Walking Dead point & click interface video game by
Telltale has its merits, it actually has a story-arc like the
comics that inspired the TV series but creates totally new
characters. do not confuse it with the PC 'shooter' with bros
Merle+ Daryl, it breaks new ground as it visually connects
up to and builds on the universe created by the comics. it
impels the gamer to make tough decisions, each of which
may impact the characters in the story. it has gotten praise.
Script~wise, the Walking Dead game is on par with a very
typical episode from the series. AMC took over from the guy
they hired to produce/direct the six episodes of the pilot, a
gutting of the budget and a fragmenting of the story into a few
sub-plots slowed down the pace, the series is not going in
the direction the comics took, but there are cross-overs and
a tendency to follow a theme to the point where it is exhausted.
several more seasons gives them loosely the same number
of episodes DEXTER has, and an almost permanent niche on
Netflix --- i agree the sub-genre begins with George and ends
with Romero, and not much else of note. The Talltales game is
cutting edge despite or because of its interface and format, i've
seen YouTubes of gamers who play out the episodes bursting
into tears as poor LEE EVERETT is about to turn undead, this
makes the game almost unique. there is a cottage industry of
YouTubers who play games and say whether they are worth a
second glance or even being a cherished possession if the frugal
unwash'd have yet to purchase or rent them. hardened gamers
who are like WWIII erupting inside the context of a typical shooter
teared up. This is not normal, games tend to be simple & topical.

.
6/15/2014 03:58:18 pm

THE RETURNED the 2013 movie is actually a rather
brainy and well written zombie flic with just a minimal
amount of blood + gore. i liked the way it was filmed.
a brainy zombie movie seems almost an oxymoron...

Jason Vorhees
6/7/2014 05:20:50 am

I became more and more supernatural in every sequel in my films, like Michael Myers in Halloween

Reply
spookyparadigm
6/6/2014 08:28:53 am

You've previously said (I believe in our discussion of Reptilians and Shaver and Doreal etc) that you haven't followed ufology as much as ancient aliens. In addition to them being one and the same, you're missing out on huge pieces of the puzzle.

I suspect Whisperer in Darkness did partly inspire the MIB. Not their existence, but the turn they took with Albert Bender and Gray Barker. Bender and Barker were both big science fiction fans. Bender was a contactee with more than a few issues. He published a flying saucer zine, and when he folded it, either he or Barker concocted the MIB warned him to stop explanation. This was then followed up by the story of what happened next, when Bender was transported to the alien base in Antarctica, where the horribly monstrous aliens could lose their human disguise, and show their terrible true reptilian forms.

So yeah.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_Barker

http://clarksburglibrary.info/gbarker.html

http://www.csicop.org/SI/show/gray_barker_my_friend_the_myth-maker/

http://journal.borderlands.com/1962/review-bender-flying-saucers-three-men/

Obviously, there was other stuff in the air by then, but it is very clear to me that Lovecraft's impact on the admitted fiction world is at most equal, and probably lesser, than his impact on the world of occulture. As I suggested in the other post's comments, his hoax-like writing style made this almost inevitable.

Reply
spookyparadigm
6/6/2014 08:35:34 am

To be clear, while the bits I just cited above call to mind other stories (ATMoM, Nameless City/Medusa's Coil/etc.),

Bender's MIB call to mind the shadowy conspiracy of silence (Brown to some degree, but especially Noyes and his car, which is for some reason a focal point of description in both the MIB lore and in Whisperer), specifically focused more on the evidence than anything else, of the men around the Mi-Go in Vermont. The use of the disguise is shared, but that's far less connective as that would be a common plot device and frankly points more to the Reptilian lore emerging at that time out of Lovecraft and Howard than anything else (Doreal and other Shaver circle folks also wrote of a Rainbow City in Antarctica).

Reply
spookyparadigm
6/6/2014 08:43:20 am

More broadly, Lovecraft seems to be a go-to name for "influence" in a lot of things these days where the connective tissue isn't there. For example, I can't count how many steampunk creations, or worse, definitions, which talk about Lovecraft as an important literary precursor. He's not steampunk in the slightest. Instead, the second Lovecraft Renaissance, of the 2000s, hit at the same time that steampunk was becoming a full-blown subculture instead of just a literary genre or aesthetic. There's nothing wrong with mixing the two, but he isn't steampunk just because your favorite goggle-wearing friends play games based on his works, especially since his works share nothing of the maker or postcolonial ethos found in some steampunk works, and the man and his protagonists are near perfect anti-steampunk villains. Now, Wilbur Whateley could be re-imagined into a sympathetic revolutionary antihero (perhaps as the precursor to a story that takes place in the postapoc as a lot of sp stories do).

Reply
An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 09:02:42 am

You know, I'd never paid attention to the confluence of Lovecraft and steampunk popularity. It's certainly a more pleasant question than "is Josephus a big fat lying forgery?" at this point.

I would argue that certain facets of Lovecraft's writing style tend to fit well with steampunk, like the use of baroque, over-complicated descriptions, and those influenced a lot of writers. I suspect that most modern writers owe at least a passing debt to Lovecraft simply for influencing how they wrote, but I agree that stylistically, there's little in common. There's no reason they can't mix, but no necessity for them to do so.

Reply
spookyparadigm
6/6/2014 12:38:39 pm

Lovecraft writes in a Victorian style, but with content that was cutting edge. So you could go that way.

But I don't think that's most of it. To be honest, I don't think most people who mention Lovecraft online have read much of his stuff. They've played games based off it or seen other pop culture that references it.

There should be nothing terribly zombie-ish about steampunk, other than the Frankenstein and co. stuff mentioned in Jason's post above. But you get a lot of zombies in steampunk culture too. Because while there is a real ethos there that is part reaction to late consumer capitalism, part the Maker movement, part postcolonialism (though only part), and part a fantastical response to concerns about sustainability, a lot of what you see in steampunk culture is a reflection of contemporary geek/art concerns.

Matt Mc
6/6/2014 12:57:28 pm

I have not read much steampunk but one of my favorite novels of the [sub]genre is Cherie Priest Boneshaker which does have zombies (or zombie like creatures). I have not read the rest of the books in her series but if you have not read Boneshaker I highly recommend it.

An Over-Ignorant Grunt
6/6/2014 01:00:40 pm

Is over-ignorant, and pompous with it.

An Over-Educated Grunt
6/6/2014 02:05:13 pm

Fortunately, there's no such thing as an over-ignorant grunt. Ignorance is part of the job description for that job.

Varika
6/6/2014 05:08:23 pm

spookyparadigm, I disagree that zombies shouldn't be part of steampunk. Steampunk is intended to be based off of science as it was known during the early Industrial Age--a la Jules Verne, etc.--and a belief in the reanimation of corpses was certainly a part of that. Frankenstein was not isolated, but instead reflected actual fears present in the society of its time. Stating that steampunk has to be LIMITED strictly to Frankenstein-style zombies is unfair, though, when Spiritualism is also something that should definitely be considered part of the Steampunk ethos, giving the genre another possible reason for the reanimation of the dead.

Of course the genre reflects contemporary concerns, though; so does every other genre. Modern elves and druids are all about carbon footprints and conservation, romances involve Greenpeace and terrorism--sometimes even together--even comic books struggle with terrorism and healthy lifestyles. That's the nature of fiction. HG Wells' The Time Machine reflected a fear of industrialism, Verne an early interest in space travel and deep sea exploration....even going back to the Arthurian legends reflected a general societal preoccupation with the state of souls and with politics.

An over ignorant grunt
6/7/2014 05:06:43 am

I hate Scott Wolter
I love the myth of Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ
6/7/2014 05:07:47 am

Yep, I'm at least as bad as Scott Wolter, if not worse than him

Matthew, Mark, Luke. John
6/7/2014 05:10:48 am

We made up the Gospels
The reason why they all contain differences and contradictions is because we all had different takes
Religious inspiration lies behind their composition, not historical fact.
Nobody can prove they were written during the first century, because they were written during the second century -- when believers in the corporeal Christ started outpacing the believers in the incorporeal Christ in a big way

Josephus
6/7/2014 05:13:50 am

I never mentioned Jesus Christ in my works

My reference to Eleazer of Masada is the earliest known reference to Gnosticism, and I intentionally left out Jesus Christ in those passages.

I was a turncoat and a follower of Rome and I regarded Vespasian as the true Messiah, as I stated many times in my works

New Testament scholar
6/7/2014 05:24:58 am

I don't have to provide reasons and explanations as to why I date the Gospels to the first century. The Gospels were written during the first century because I say so. That should be enough. And take no notice of 19th century scholarship that claimed the Gospels were written during the second century.

.
6/7/2014 07:15:33 am

the Biblical thread is the previous and prior one,
this one is dedicated to STEAMPUNK and the
BIG, HUGE mechanized spider seen in the film
version of WILD,WILD WEST. trust me on this!

Quintus Publicus
6/7/2014 07:27:03 am

I have seen someone roll out dozens and dozens of incoherent off-topic messages in countless other threads

An Over-Educated Grunt
6/7/2014 08:57:07 am

Boy, you must be a wonder at family gatherings.

I'm somewhat flattered that you'd take, by my count, two days trying to irritate me. I pity you out of it, too. You display all of the hallmarks of a fanatic, and all of the hallmarks of a follower as well, no matter that you see yourself as an iconoclast, telling truth to power.

You make broad, sweeping pronouncements, without supporting them with even the remotest attempt at rigor, and these pronouncements are never your own, but derived from the work of others. Anyone who disagrees with you can't possibly disagree because that's where the evidence leads them, it must be because there is something wrong with them. The only possible correct interpretation on the facts is yours. Any evidence that contradicts your position is to be cast away, derided, dismissed - "closet churchgoers" comes to mind, as if your average theologian is a closet churchgoer. You share the same scorn for expertise as the average Bigfoot believer or UFO researcher, choosing instead to rely on your own self-education, which, I'll grant, is an admirable start, but there's no rigor to it. You're all hat, no cattle.

Anyway, as I said, flattered that you're trying to irritate me, but you're on the wrong track if that's your plan. You and Phil Gotsch are in good company in the "people I ignore out of hand" bin now. Enjoy each other.

Ted
6/7/2014 09:52:24 am

You need to have your pomposity punctured

.
6/7/2014 10:08:26 am

technically the BIG robot spider in Wild, Wild West is steampunk.
perhaps third or forth or fifth rate steampunk, but its steampunk...

Ted
6/7/2014 10:30:50 am

I fully agree and support that statement - even though its not supported with even the remotest attempt at rigor

Clint Knapp
6/7/2014 07:13:13 pm

Thanks, Grunt. Glad someone said it.

Shane Sullivan
6/6/2014 04:03:29 pm

Another author, Robert W. Chambers, also wrote of characters who looked like they were masked but wore no mask, in stories set on distant worlds circling aliens stars, and at least one story about a marble statue coming to life (although they were flesh-and-blood before turning to marble).

He had a tangible influence on Lovecraft, as well.

Reply
Only Me
6/7/2014 11:05:23 am

Jason, it appears you may have to clean this comment section of the ramblings of the multiple-alias offender that ruined the last one.

As to Slender Man, I was thinking he may have been partially inspired by the paranormal sightings of "shadow people". Monsters & Mysteries in America once did a segment on them, and the descriptions of the shadow people are remarkably similar to Slender Man. Of course, one is a work of fiction, while the other relies on your ability to accept the existence of incorporeal, possibly transdimensional beings who torment the living and can be repelled by entreaties to God.

Reply
Clint Knapp
6/7/2014 11:57:13 am

The Hat Man i referenced in the earlier Slender Man discussion was a part of the overall "shadow people" phenomenon. In particular, the Hat Man is a specific shadow person who appears to wear a fedora hat (all the rage in trans-dimensional fashion!) and sometimes has red eyes, but is otherwise identical to shadow people in appearance. According to the Coast crowd, the Hat Man is either the leader of the shadow people or actually the devil himself- though at least one "researcher" believed she had a relatively friendly, almost guardian-angel-esque, relationship with the Hat Man.

I'll admit, I haven't the desire to actually go and track down the first references to the Hat Man and determine whether or not that particular shadow people variant predates Slender Man's inception or not. I want to say it does, though, as it seems like something that's at least been around since the Art Bell days of C2C.

Reply
Only Me
6/7/2014 01:07:05 pm

Duh! I completely forgot about the Hat Man. He was mentioned specifically in that episode on M & M in America.

I've found the phenomenon predates Slender Man. C2C has had shows about them as far back as 2006 (Shadow Beings, 03/27/2006). They are also featured in Greg Jenkins's "Florida's Ghostly Legends and Haunted Folklore: South and central Florida", Pineapple Press Inc., 2005. Heidi Hollis has had a lot to do with popularizing the belief, especially with her appearances on C2C.

Of course, the idea goes back even further, with the appearance of shades from the underworld and other shadowy creatures being commonplace in folklore.

Ted
6/7/2014 01:30:20 pm

Who are you accusing of rambling?

Reply
.
6/9/2014 05:58:44 am

me or thee, and not in a tidy & choice
james joyce manner as in the many
rambles thru the many brambles???
atheism vs deism vs creationism???
John Milton's Para!dice is totally LOST.

Reply
niran sahu link
12/17/2014 07:15:27 pm

kandetara ps komna dst .nuapada pin.766106

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