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BryanBaugh — The Colour Out Of Space
Published: 2008-09-02 22:50:49 +0000 UTC; Views: 31119; Favourites: 490; Downloads: 3793
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Description
I've always been a big reader / fan of H.P. Lovecraft's fiction. Love his crazy, cosmically horrifying imagination, his wordy, luxurious writing voice, and his dark, unswerving certainty regarding the unavoidable, miserable future for the pathetic little human race.So I've been struck by the urge to do a series of illustrations based on his work.
Here's my illustration for: "The Colour Out Of Space".
This is one of Lovecraft's better-known stories, it has been reprinted again and again in many of the different collections that have been published over the years. A very easy one to find if you decide to go looking for it.
The fate of the poor farmer and his family is horrible enough... But the part that creeps me out the most is the discussion of the farm animals "falling apart".
I always had a thing for sad, tragic, tear-jerker horror stories, and "The Colour Out Of Space" is one of the best ever written.
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Comments: 195
One of my absolute favorite Lovecraft stories. I love your take on it. Especially the animals falling to pieces. I always found this to be a very sad story, with the family slowly falling apart and going insane through no fault of their own.
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Amazing work, really brings out the Cosmic Horror of Lovecraft at his very best!
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Thanks! One of these days I gotta get back to this series and draw more Lovecraft!
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Great illustration, as always!
Oh yeah, its a real faucet runner - seeing the tragic end of the poor animals and innocent family just slowly falling to pieces...literally...See, now wouldn't that be great in a novel form? Watching the day-by-day destruction of the Gardener family?
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Have you ever read Stephen King's short story "Weeds" or Thomas Ligotti's short story "The Shadow at the Bottom of the World"? If not, then I think you should, because both were clearly inspired by The Colour Out of Space
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Oh, thanks. Yes, I've read "Weeds" (great stuff!) but not Liggoti's, which is strange, because Ligotti is a great writer. Thank you!
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Yeah, you can actually find The Shadow at the Bottom of the World for free online. If you can't find it, I'll send you a link, it's really creepy and unsettling!
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This picture capures the story so well. It's the best of Laovecraft's tales.
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Thank you so much for your compliments on my art.
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Verrrry nice. My one objection would be that as far as I can recall, the crumbling was a _drier_, less gooey sort of decay - but it gets the general idea over very well.
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It was a tale that shaped my life, just as "Lord of the Rings" was another.
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I just read the story. It's horrible that they become so...gray and frail and broken, and that a colour from space, that no one can describe, did it.
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"What it is, only God knows. In terms of matter I suppose the thing Ammi described would be called a gas, but this gas obeyed the laws that are not of our cosmos. This was no fruit of such worlds and suns as shine on the telescopes and photographic plates of our observatories. This was no breath from the skies whose motions and dimensions our astronomers measure or deem too vast to measure. It was just a colour out of space — a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes."
The Colour Out of Space (1927)
Got this off Wikiqoute. Hope you liked it.
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Thanks a lot Derrick
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Thank you for the comment.
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you're welcome. Aside from The Colour Out of Space, do you know any other really creepy cosmic horror stories by Lovecraft that are similar?
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The Call of Cthulhu. Not by heart, but I manage.
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Okay thanks. Also, are Pickman's Model, From Beyond, or Cool Air any good?
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Do you mean pics or stories?
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My bad I get confused very easily.
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Very good. I finished reading the story just now and thanks for helping me visualize what that "color" did to the land and to the Gardners. I think this story deserved a movie, do you know if there is a movie about it?
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There was also a movie from 1987 called The Curse
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There was a movie in the 1960's starring Nick Adams and Boris Karloff called "Die Monster Die" which was very loosely based on "The Colour Out of Space". Or at least it starts out that way, then the story gradually skews off in other directions. But it has the meteor and the decay of the land, and some great looking squid like Lovecraft style monsters locked in cages at the end.
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this was the scaries book... novel? i ever have been reading
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This was a good story, indeed.
On the subject of HPL stories, you thinking of doing illustrations for Dagon, The Shadow Out Of Time, or The Whisperer In Darkness?
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I've been lax about this the past few years... but my plan was/is to slowly but surely create 10 illustrations, of my top 10 favorite HPL stories, saving my #1 favorite for last, of course. But no, none of those you mentioned rank among my top 10.
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Wait, what ARE your top 10 HP Lovecraft stories?
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If I ever get back to this series you will find out!
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I JUST read this story a week ago! Awesome depiction of the poor family living too close to the meteor. You've illustrated it exactly as I pictured it while reading.
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Thank you for saying so. I appreciate the kind words!
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Huh, I always pictured the animals (and later people) to be more...what's the word I'm looking for?.....Dryer and crumbly. Not so, wet and oozing as you drew them. Still, very impressive work!
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Glad you like it, thanks for commenting.
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Thank you. I take that as a compliment!
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I´ve always said to myself that I should read something from Lovecraft. Sadly, no library in my vicinity has anything from him! And new book is very expensive :/ Oh well...
But this is very disturbing, even though it has no blood or extreme gore. This definitely should be official cover for the book!
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Aww thanks for saying so, I appreciate it!
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I love it! There aren't many short stories out there that reach Lovecraft's sense of raw suspense and terror, and this particular story of his I've been utterly incapable of making an appropriate illustration for. You've really hit it with this! The sepia tone really pushes the old New England farm sense. I also love the kid in the well ^_~ Great job!
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Aww thank you very much for your kind words! I need to get back to doing more Lovecraft artwork!
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You did a terrific job at this illustration. Most of H.P. Lovecraft's stories are more obsessed with indescribable monstrosities than human beings, (one of Lovecraft's bigger flaws as a writer was his misanthropic attitude towards people in general), but COLOUR has an aching sadness about it that adds an additional layer of pathos to the horror. Lovecraft's best work by far.
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Thank you for your kind words on my illustration!
I disagree that HPL's "misanthropic attitude towards people in general" was a flaw.
That said, "The Colour Out of Space" is unusually sympathetic toward its human characters, which gives it a different kind of punch.
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I regard it as a flaw, simply because Lovecraft often seems to actively favour the monsters in his stories over their victims - hence the misanthropy - which emotionally distances the reader. COLOUR is one of the exceptions, which is why I view it (and this fine picture of yours) so highly.
On a side note, I'm something of a fan of "sad, tragic, tear-jerker horror stories" myself. One of my personal favs is THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT, by William Hope Hodgson. Check it out if you haven't already.
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