The Great Race of Yith

After a too-long absence the talented Joe Broers returns to our pages with this outstanding take on the Great Race of Yith. 

Port Said, 1922

The harbor at Port Said, at the entrance of the Suez Canal in Egypt. The domed building in the far background is the Port Administration and the city proper is to the right. In the foreground harbor workers refuel a steamer with one basket of coal at a time.

As the port linking East and West it's an ideal location for all kinds of pulpy goodness. It's one of the few cities outside the United States that was visited by one of Lovecraft's protagonists- Nathanial Wingate Peaslee traveled through Said on his journey to Australia in "The Shadow Out of Time".

Miskatonic Australian Expedition Photos

The new run of Miskatonic Australian expedition gear based on Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time" goes on sale tomorrow, but I have a pair of retouched photos for you today. Just click through for the high resolution versions and then run off copies using a photo printer or commercial photo kiosk.



Prof. Ashley of Miskatonic with one of the first stones uncovered by the expedition.



The S.S. Lexington being towed into Port Hedland by a harbor tug. From here the expedition would travel overland to the De Grey river, where a chartered steamer with a shallow draw would take them to the edge of the interior desert.

Update: RXGrafix did an awesome take on the Prof. Ashley photo. I shied away from aging it too much because I wanted to keep it generic, but they just nailed it.

Australia in Black and White

This scan of the "Australia" article from the 1922 edition of "Winston's Cumulative Loose-Leaf Encyclopedia" makes a handy background prop for any "Call of Cthulhu" scenarios involving the continent down under. Download the full PDF from Google Docs over here.

Vintage Map of Australia

Continuing with this week's theme of props related to Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time", a vintage map of Australia and it's environs. This was scanned from my beloved 1922 edition of "Winston's Cumulative Loose-Leaf Encyclopedia". Just click through to download the high resolution version from Picasa. Tomorrow I'll have the complete Australia article from the set.

From Paper Props

"The Shadow Out of Time" Expedition Gear

The new order of patches and pins based on Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time" have already arrived, but I'm waiting on a shipment of mailers that are scheduled for delivery on Thursday. If the postal gods smile upon me everything will be on sale this weekend.



The sets will include an embroidered patch and brass lapel pin with the Australian expedition's "Ab Aeterno" logo along with a postcard and the usual extras for $19.99. 100 will be available, and once half are sold I'll have the patches and pins available individually, for $5.99 and $9.99 respectively.



As with the ATMOM gear I'll be taking orders all weekend and then mailing out the packages first thing Monday morning. In case you wanted to get a head start on your "Shadow Out of Time" prop collection take a look directly below this post. Lovecraft's story includes almost all the information needed to fill out the passage tickets for the entire Miskatonic expedition, including all the members:

Professor William Dyer of the college's geology department - leader of the Miskatonic Antarctic Expedition Of 1930-31 - Ferdinand C. Ashley of the department of ancient history, and Tyler M. Freeborn of the department of anthropology - together with my son Wingate - accompanied me...My correspondent, Mackenzie, came to Arkham early in 1935 and assisted in our final preparations.

That last would be Robert B.F. Mackenzie, the Australian that originally uncovered the mysterious desert ruins. As for the departure itself:

Sailing from Boston aboard the wheezy Lexington on March 28, 1935, we had a leisurely trip across the Atlantic and Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal, down the Red Sea, and across the Indian Ocean to our goal.

There's a good chance Lovecraft based the ship in his story on the actual S. S. Lexington of the Colonial Line, which served Boston, New York, Providence, and New Bedford during the appropriate time frame.

Australia, Revisited

Over the weekend I took another crack at the "glamour" shots for the Miskatonic University Australian expedition patch and lapel pin. Thanks to the new camera these came out much better than the original pictures.

The Curious Case Of The Mystery Mythos Movie: Part Deux

Last week, during a discussion of Tom Sullivan's impact on Mythos art, I mentioned my desire to track down an article about the ill-fated "Cry of Cthulhu" movie he was involved with in the late 70's. Within hours an incredibly helpful reader provided me with a scan of the article from Starlog #24, but I haven't had a chance to do anything with it until today. Here it is.



I'm amazed that the two color pictures of the film's special-effects maquettes have been floating around in my brain for thirty years. Then again, after reading the details of the proposed script, including the always classic "young couple discovers their new home has a terrible secret" angle, maybe I justifiably suppressed the text of the article. The script has an...interesting...take on the Mythos. It definitely strays out of the canon quite a bit, but I have a feeling that if the movie had been made it would be a cult classic today. That "cliche be damned", kitchen-sink approach to horror can produce some fun little films, like the original "House" with William Katt.

Oh, one last thing. I'm not a believer in synchronicity, but it is an amusing coincidence that "The Shadow Out of Time" and it's backstory was such an integral part of the "Cry of Cthulhu" screenplay. Is it possible that some dark corner of my mind actually remembered that bit and dredged it up just as I was finishing my own "Shadow Out of Time" project?

Miskatonic University Australian Expedition Patches And Pins

In 1935 Professor Nathaniel Peaslee of Miskatonic University lead an expedition into the Great Sandy Desert of Australia to investigate ruins allegedly dating dating back thousands of years. For years rumors have swirled about what the party actually discovered buried there in the sand. Were the ruins the sole surviving evidence of a culture dating to before the accepted settlement of the continent? Or, as have some have speculated, were they all that was left of an ancient city intimately tied to Prof. Peaslee's own well-documented history of amnesia and strangely detailed dreams?

The world may never know the answers to those questions, but now you can own these commemorative reproductions of the embroidered patch and lapel pin worn by members of the Miskatonic Australian Expedition.



Both the patch and pin are based on the expedition's original logo design. The rayed sun motif of the Miskatonic University seal rises from from behind the deep-red stone of Ayer's Rock, while above them are two stylized Aboriginal glyphs- the horizontal parallel lines symbolizing a journey surmounted by the concentric circles marking a destination or campsite. Below that, the latin phrase "Ab Aeterno" or "From the beginning of time", the expedition's motto.



The embroidered shoulder patch is 4" in diameter and features a heat-seal backing so it can be ironed-on to clothing.



The 1" lapel pin is die-stamped from antiqued brass and features a butterfly clasp backing.

This is a short run, fan-based project based on H. P. Lovecraft's classic "The Shadow Out of Time". There are a limited number of patches and combined patch and pin sets available. Each patch is $5.95, while patch and pin sets are $12.95. Shipping is calculated when you checkout using PayPal and should run around $2.00 to $2.50 for US orders and approximately $1 higher for international orders. You'll receive a prompt notification when your package has shipped, usually in less than 24 hours.

If you would like to purchase multiple patches or patch and pin sets please contact me at propnomicon@gmail.com for discounts for bulk purchases and shipping. Please feel free to email me if you have any other questions or concerns.

Update: Sold out!

"The Shadow Out of Time" Sandstone Slab

"But what I have to tell is more than this. Two years ago, when I was prospecting about 500 miles east in the desert, I came on a lot of queer pieces of dressed stone perhaps 3 X 2 X 2 feet in size, and weathered and pitted to the very limit."

One of the iconic items from Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time" are the inscribed stone blocks that mark the location of the ancient city. About a week ago I decided that a specimen of the carving on those stones would make a great prop for two reasons. First, it would make a fantastic backdrop for my collection of artifacts from the Miskatonic Australian expedition. Second, since mysterious stone carvings are central to some of the most notable Mythos stories (At the Mountains of Madness, The Whisperer in Darkness, etc.), it would be a good opportunity to figure out how to create realistic depictions of dressed stone.

"Then I met Dr. Boyle, who had read your articles in the Journal of the American Psychological Society, and, in time, happened to mention the stones. He was enormously interested, and became quite excited when I shewed him my snapshots, saying that the stones and the markings were just like those of the masonry you had dreamed about and seen described in legends."

After Googling around a bit it seemed that carving a block of foam insulation would be the most effective way to reproduce the "Shadow Out of Time" slab. Home haunters have been using sheets of construction foam to make tombstones and graveyard markers for years, so it wasn't hard to find useful information. This in-depth tutorial on creating Halloween tombstones by Keeba is one of the best and proved to be an invaluable resource. I also stole some of the techniques used by wargamers to create miniature stone terrain features, like using a long blade to cut natural looking fracture planes out of the stone.

"As a mining engineer, I have some knowledge of geology, and can tell you that these blocks are so ancient they frighten me. They are mostly sandstone and granite, though one is almost certainly made of a queer sort of cement or concrete.

They bear evidence of water action, as if this part of the world had been submerged and come up again after long ages - all since those blocks were made and used. It is a matter of hundreds of thousands of years - or heaven knows how much more. I don't like to think about it."

After hacking out the basic shape from a 2" thick sheet of insulation with a boxcutter I did the final detail work of the carving with an X-Acto knife. In the process I produced a huge amount of blue foam bits that I'm still cleaning up three days later, so if you're intending to attempt a similar project yourself I'd heartily recommend having a good vacuum cleaner on hand. After that I painted the slab with a base coat of dark brown, over painted the brown with a color wash of yellow ocher and dark tan, followed all that up with a black detail wash, and then finished things off by drybrushing the raised areas with antique white.

Here's the final result:

Miskatonic Australian Expedition Photo #2

A shot of the Pinnacle Desert in Western Australia.

Miskatonic Australian Expedition Photo

A casual snapshot of the Miskatonic expedition's campsite taken right before breakfast. Based on the rocky terrain and low hills in the background this photograph was probably shot the day the party entered the desert basin proper.



To recreate this as a prop photograph just click through to the full res version, download the JPG, and take it to your friendly neighborhood photo kiosk. It's a bit small for a full sized 4x6 print, but it will look fine in smaller formats. If at all possible avoid using kiosks that use branded photo paper (the kind with an annoying logo repeatedly splashed on it) so the final print looks at least reasonably period.

Vintage Australian Map

Another filler prop for "The Shadow Out of Time"- a period relief map of Australia. Click through the graphic for the medium resolution JPG or download the high resolution PDF over here.

"The Shadow Out of Time" Wallpaper

The title pretty much says it all- a collage-style wallpaper based on the Miskatonic University expedition to Australia in 1935. Click through for the fullsize version.

Slow, But Sure

Sorry about the lack of substantive updates over the last few days, but I've been busy trying to get everything ready for "The Shadow Out of Time" offering. Both the patches and the lapel pins have arrived and I'm really, really happy with how they came out. This is the first time I've delved into offering pins, but after this experience I'm most assuredly going to be doing it again. I'll post some pictures over the weekend so you can see for yourself how great they look.

Despite the early arrival of the pins and patches I'm still shooting for June 15th as the day everything goes on sale to the general public. I'm anal about getting packages in the mail as fast as possible, so I make absolutely sure I have enough mailers on hand to avoid any delays. Right now those mailers are winding their way across the US and should arrive next week.

In terms of price, individual patches should be around $6 while the pins will be slightly more, probably around $8.

In the meantime, here's a work-in-progress shot of one of the other things I've been fiddling around with:

Miskatonic Australian Expedition Map, Redux

Thanks to the talented Tiffany of Curious Goods for helping make sure the PDF for the Australian expedition map passed muster. Just drop me an email if you need a copy. Here's the release version:



And the colorized version:



For my first attempt at mapmaking I think it came out well, but I suspect I'll be coming back to it in the future to tweak it as my skills improve.

Finished Miskatonic Australian Expedition Map

Here's the finished map from "The Shadow Out of Time". Unfortunately, Blogger seems to place a 1600 pixel limit on a jpg's maximum size, so the original 11 x 17 image is considerably smaller here. I'll see if I can find someplace to host the full-sized pdf.



Update: If you would like the full PDF just drop me an email and I'll post it off.

"The Shadow Out of Time" In Google Maps

This is a rough map I've been using to figure out the presumptive route of the Miskatonic Australian expedition.


View Miskatonic University Australian Expedition of 1935 in a larger map

"Shadow Out of Time" Map Progress

Here's what I have so far for the "Shadow Out of Time" map.



Now that the overall shapes and major land features are in it's just a matter of adding details. The fine line work needed to recreate the look of a map printed off an engraved steel plate is tedious beyond belief, but the results so far are encouraging.

Update: Ack! I didn't realize that doing a low res export from Illustrator would cause such a bad case of the jaggies. Rest assured, the final map won't have that.

Pin Design

Here's the die pattern that will be striking the Miskatonic Australian expedition pins.



The finished pin will have an antiqued brass finish and a butterfly clasp in the back. The only change from the conventional black and white logo is a highlight line along the top of Ayer's Rock. This is the first time I've done a pin so I'm looking forward to seeing both how it looks and how it sells.