Okay, pedro, you’re right, it’s totally not work-safe. I’ve changed it. I was just thinking, y’know, there aren’t any actual boobies right there on the page with Warren’s column. But of course, if the work IT department sees you surfing Suicide Girls, that’s a paddlin’.

As to Hollywood not (successfully) co-opting him, the most common theory I’ve heard is that Lovecraft keeps the monster half-hidden, or offstage in most cases. I mean, sure, they ram a boat through Cthulhu himself at the end of “Call of Cthulhu” (which, now that I think of it, is totally Hollywood - “Gibber, you son of a bitch.”), but that’s probably the least compelling part of the story. Also, I think a lot of the effect of the stories depends on the narration. “At the Mountains of Madness” is another one where practically all the action takes place offstage, and most of the best bits have the protagonist/narrator just wandering around the ruins, reading hieroglyphics. Again, there’s the shoggoth at the end, and that’s a genuinely scary chase I think, but that’s it. The rest is all narrative.

I was glad to see you mention Zombies as currently that’s my fascination and media obsession. I find the zombie to be the weirdest of Western metaphors and it doesn’t surprise me that zombie-as-horror has made a comeback. I mean…the horror isn’t some implaccable beast from the Outer Realms. It’s your fucking neighbor! That’s horror!