Posted in: Comics | Tagged: cthulhu, kickstarter, lovecraft

Lovecraft For Everybody With Cthulhu Is Hard to Spell: The Terrible Twos

Published Sun, 15 Mar 2020 08:30:31 -0500

Title: Cthulhu is Hard to Spell: The Terrible Twos

Creators: Russell Nohelty, Kristen Simon (editor), various creators, including Paul Jenkins (Spider-Man), Ray-Anthony Height (Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur), Christian Gossett (The Red Star), and 70 others.

Close date: March 26th

Platform: Kickstarter

Logline: Cthulhu is Hard to Spell is our love letter to Lovecraft fans of all kinds, from those that obsess about Cthulhu, to the ones that never want to leave Arkham, to the ones that keep a copy of the Necronomicon under their pillow, and everyone in between. Whether you are a casual fan or a rabid one, we've got you covered.

The second volume is on Kickstarter now.

When I started designing the Cthulhu is Hard to Spell series back in 2017, it was on the back of my first anthology, Monsters and Other Scary S&#t, which was my first major win as a creator.

After that book delivered to fans, I went back to ask what they liked and didn't like about the first book. They said a lot of things, but there was one answer that kept bubbling up again and again: people wanted to be able to share the anthology with everybody, including their children, and the first anthology was simply too violent for most little ones.

So, when we went to deliver a new anthology for fans, I wanted to make a book for everybody. At first, that meant a book that you could share with your children but enjoy yourself, but soon enough it expanded out from that into Cthulhu is Hard to Spell, an all-ages appropriate Lovecraft anthology.

It started out as a simple concept. Eventually, though, it morphed into an ethos to build the kind of book that you could share with anybody to indoctrinate them into the madness of Lovecraft, whether the already loved Lovecraft's world or were just getting started with it.

See, Lovecraft…well, he has a very high bar of entry. He never explained anything in his books, and even when he did, he often only did so once, which is wonderful if you're in on the universe, but makes bringing in new readers very hard.

And Lovecraft fans want nothing more than to bring new fans into the madness.

We wanted an anthology that allowed fans to share the universe they loved with the people they love.

Yes, the Cthulhu is Hard to Spell series has plenty of the psychological and cosmic horror that Lovecraft pioneered, but the book has more than that, too.

At its core, Cthulhu is Hard to Spell tells stories of the gods and monsters of the Lovecraft universe in all their forms and iterations. It's horror stories, yes, but it's also cute stories, funny stories, and slice of life stories that build upon the mythos and give people a lower barrier to entry way into the universe.

For example, my story in the second anthology, Cthulhu is Hard to Spell: The Terrible Twos, follows one of the Great Race of Yith as it returns from projecting its body into the future, missing its target, and being embedded into the mind of a cat.

For people that know Lovecraft, they can enjoy the twist on the Yith, but even if you do not know the Yith, you can enjoy the story because it's funny and has kitties in it.

This is how we indoctrination newbies into the madness. From that simple story, we have introduced the Yith, and their back story, into somebody's mind, so that when they experience the Yith in Lovecraft's world, they are already aware of them and can have a more immersive experience.

And we have stories like this throughout the anthology. I hope you'll check out our book on Kickstarter and join the madness yourself. Whether you are a huge Lovecraft fan or have never read his work, there's something for everybody inside its pages.