How is there not a Lovecraft thread here? Hell, there's a Samantha Shannon thread!

Anyway, although I'm at work and don't have access to my books to take pics and do the 37 step "Upload Shuffle" just now, I really wanted to kick off a thread dedicated to that "Old" Gentleman of Providence with my sincere enthusiasm for the recently received (by me) 12 volumes of the PS series LOVECRAFT LIBRARY illustrated by Pete Von Sholly.

Although a pretty dedicated Lovecraft collector, I didn't bite on these for various reasons- until the recent PS sale that cut the price in half for the whole run. I couldn't pass that up and I'm really glad that I didn't. These turned out to be a welcome surprise- something that I seem to have more and more difficulty finding in today's limited edition market, with a lot of "That's nice- put it on the shelf and forget about it" books. These carefully thought-out, and smartly-produced little books demand constant perusal. I think a lot of people were on the fence with the art on these. There's no doubt that Sholly is a fine accomplished artist, but is he right for Lovecraft? I really didn't think so- at first. Especially if you just go by the covers- which seemed too bright and cartoon-y for me. Even after I got the books and realized how different in execution the interior illustrations struck me, the covers still seemed too.. garish, I guess. But, so were the Weird Tales covers back in the day. Not really comparing styles- because Weird Tales' covers were... better, but, I get what Sholly was going for with the tone, perhaps on these covers. And, they're growing on me. (I had a very similar reaction when I got PS's SKELETON CREW- although not bowled over by the cover art, I really liked what Sholly did in the interiors)

But, the real star of these thoughtfully put-together volumes are the contents: all the related stories (even stories by other authors that inspired HPL to write the story at hand are included!), insightful intros and articles by Joshi, Sholly, and various others. I can't put these cool little volumes away. Just ping-ponging through all of them at once. Very neat, I say.

Anybody else get these? Like them? Hate them?

Ron