Proppingupthemythos

Framed!

Hey fiends,

I realized I had never shared the original photo of your humble scribe that became the portrait painting of Sir Randolph Carter.

Sir Randolph is one of the many fortuitous plot seeds Lovecraft left in a story (in this case 1926's The Silver Key) that has allowed me to expand the Necronomicon while keeping true to his vision. The Carters are a family of warlocks and occultists, so of course "the first Sir Randolph Carter who studied magic when Elizabeth was queen" would...

"Blessed little Piece of the Night-- Tsathoggua's youngest & tiniest son!"

So wrote Lovecraft, after learning of the death of a kitten.

My dear Renfield, an old man at ten and proud member of Kappa Alpha Tau, passed away in my arms earlier today.

Renfield had a small role in the film Tome Alone, and generally supported the book project by ignoring me when I was writing (unless it was meal time). I miss him.

A Spare Leaf...

If you joined this project before August of 2022 you should remember the infamous Ink Spatter'd mailing. This was Leaf 95, at the end of the Eighth Quire, and a chunk of text was lost in the making of the page. I dropped black ink on every one of the 180 printed pages and mailed them out, secretly vowing to fix my error. Then the paper shortage struck, and life got in the way.

But 11 months later I have made it right and mailed off the corrected Leaf to all the members who were affected...

Mark your calendars: June, 2027

I decided to crunch the numbers and see if I could provide an actual end date for the project. This required some math and I will share it here in case I did it wrong!

First some history. The goal of this project is to make an 840 page Necronomicon. This is based on a desire to incorporate Lovecraft's reference to a spell on page 829 (in a letter to Clark Ashton Smith) and to provide some distance between the page referenced in the Dunwich Horror (751) and the end of the book. My origin...

Notice Given

This past Friday I told my boss that I would be leaving the company. I am quitting my "day job" to create the Necronomicon full time.

I am so excited to be able to devote more time to this project, while at the same time being able to see more of my family. These past five years I have been creating the pages of the book in my personal time, often at the expense of family time. I have even taken the project with me on vacation!

I am so thankful to all of you for your support and e...

A Guide to the Ninth Quire

Here is an overview of the most recent Quire to help folks keep their pages in order. If you find that you are missing something please send me a note!

I have a big announcement coming up in the next few days...

II. An Antecedent and a Horror

Hello!
This seems like a pretty good opportunity to do a recap of the project, and an introduction. In the last few weeks over twenty five new members have joined up, so I want to welcome them, and explain the process I use for this project.
In my version the Necronomicon is a codex comprised of four Books, bound together in a series of Quires or Gatherings. Each Quire is made up of twelve Leaves, for a total of forty eight pages.
As the Leaves are mailed out, they nest into each ot...

A Guide to the Eighth Quire

This guide is long overdue, but hopefully it will help folks looking to keep their Leaves in order. If you find you are missing any or need further help please send me a note and I will get you squared away. For reference, the next mailing will be Leaves 107 and 108 which represent the end of the Ninth Quire.

The guides to the previous Quires are in earlier posts here, and will all be gathered on an external website for the project very soon. Not that I am leaving Patreon (far from it),...

The Paper Chase

Hello fiends! 

As longtime Patrons know, there has been a global shortage on paperstock leading to the original base paper for this project getting discontinued. 

I found a substitute from a different company, but then that paper as well was discontinued.

Now I have found a new steady supply, and so with the start of Booke III (the month after next) we will start using the new stock.

In the photo above I have an example of the original paper (left), the new s...

When it's your birthday you can wear your cult robes to breakfast

Greetings!

I am 46 today, which is an important age for fans of Lovecraft. I think about the Old Gent a lot, and knowing that my Great Grandmother was born the same year as him and lived to be 95 I can't help feeling that his life was far too short.

This week the most recent Leaves went out, and hopefully they are a welcome surprise for a few reasons. A splash of red to commemorate an important milestone, and the return of the original paperstock. I bought out the last of one dist...

Project update, and Laird Barron

Hey fiends,

The latest Leaves are at the printers now and we are back in production. I have a backlog of emails to respond to and questions to answer so I will try to tackle those quickly. 

Next month's mailing will feature an important milestone and so I will be springing for some red ink to mark the occasion...

In less happy news, the amazing contemporary horror author Laird Barron (a huge inspiration for me) needs some help with medical bills. Please have a look if y...

Happy Solstice (+2 days)

Hey fiends,

I hope the darkest days of the year find you safe and well. I have so far dodged the various colds and flu strains spreading across the land, so I give thanks to Tsathoggua for that.

My mom (who is my unlikely co-conspirator in this enterprise) is recovering from heart surgery. We moved her closer to us over the summer and so I have been able to help her with day-to-day needs while she heals.

But between this and the "Peak season" at my primary job I am afraid I ...

Paper Delay (again)

Greetings Fiends,

The supply chain crisis has hit me again, with my new distributor refunding my money two weeks after marking the paper as sent. I have found a *new* new distributor, and while the paper is significantly more expensive, it doesn't appear to be in short supply.

But what this means is that I am a month behind. My best solution is to pause payment for a month, and then continue as planned. So no money will be collected on December 1st, and the shipment that goes out ...

Doctor's Orders

Hey fiends,

So this was the message I got from my doctor after my last physical. We have never discussed Lovecraft or my book project, but the intake nurse asked about my tattoo so she must have tipped him off. Anyhow, good advice and straight from the source of all chaos and madness.

The dreaded supply chain issues that have been in the news have at last impacted the book project. You may have noticed a change in paper with the last mailing, this is because the previous suppliers...

Product Testing

Hey fiends,

I am woefully behind on updates and correspondence, and I promise to get caught up this week. Here meanwhile is a photo showing my rigorous product testing of the RedBubble merch at my day job.

Merchandise of Madness!

Hello fiends! In honor of Lovecraft's impending birthday the official merch shop for Propping Up the Mythos is now live! Please have a look and let me know what you would like to see for future products.

https://www.redbubble.com/people/PropUpTheMythos/shop?asc=u

I will be at NecronomiCon in Providence next weekend, so please say hi if you are also attending. Patron Allison Rich is ...

Tales out of Innsmouth

Hey everyone, after a rocky start to the summer things are sailing smoothly at last. We are just slightly more than a Quire away from being at the halfway mark, and done with Those from the Sea. Of course the 48 pages of that last Quire will reveal all sorts of secrets. 

Speaking of secrets, many of the names you have seen in these last two Quires (Y'ang Kthah, Gnaran-Hofash, Gba'Ktan, Shoggothrasn, etc) are culled from the letters of Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith. He sprinkled s...

Covid update

Hey friends,

I am sorry to say my whole family has been hit with Covid. I am so thankful that we are a fully vaccinated and in good health, but this is still a very difficult time.

Due to this unfortunate circumstance, I am making the following decision: there will be no mailing going out this month and instead I will do a double mailing next month.  

For those of you who have just joined, I will send out last month's mailing as a free installment.

Pending backord...

A Frankenstein mending!

My friend Michelle (from the amazing Green Hand Books in Portland Maine) shared this image of a sewn . I have never seen this done before but I am eager to try it!

The latest mailing

By now everyone should have received these pages, I'm just continuing to document the progress on a monthly basis. 

My wife recently had to have surgery so I apologize for being behind on questions about backorders etc. I will get everyone caught up, I promise. She is doing great and not complaining about my mediocre cooking skills.

A Guide to the Seventh Quire

Here are the twelve Leaves that nest together to make this Quire.

Please let me know if you are missing any or need additional help!

Necronom IV

Hey everybody,

I ran to WinterCon in NYC for the weekend to celebrate my 45th birthday. I met five members of the cast of Aliens (my favorite film) and this guy too!! Necronom IV is the name of the H.R. Giger painting that inspired the creature in Alien.

I am home safe and will get that Quire guide out ASAP. 

The End of the Quire

As promised, here is an image of the Leaves that should have reached you last month. As the title says, this is the end of the Seventh Quire. The next mailing starts a brand new Quire, so take care not to keep nesting them in the previous gathering!

The Eighth and Ninth Quires will round out our time with the Deep Ones and the Second Path. At that point we will begin Book III...

A possible mixup

Hey again,

With the most recent mailing I worry that some of the Leaves may have been sent in the wrong order. Please double check that yours match the image above.

I am also going to make a post like this each month going forward to help folks stay organized. I should have been doing that all along and I apologize for not.

It Takes a Village (or, Why Innsmouth Endured)

Besides the book I work a few jobs. On the weekends I pick up donations from local supermarkets for the Food Bank in my city. The physical labor is good exercise, it helps my community, and it gives me time to think. 

I think about how insular Innsmouth became after the town converted to Dagon worship. I wonder how the Order nourished and sustained the population. On some level, the town took care of its own, even old Zadok (but in the end I guess they "took care" of him in other w...

Snowed in at last!

As winter is finally upon us, I am thankful for my warm Hobbit hole and a full larder. My family is safe and healthy as we head into Christmas week. Thank you to everyone who reached out last month, it really meant a lot. 

My wife and I have two quirky traditions around this time of year. The first is watching the 6th season X-Files episode "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" every Christmas Eve. Ed Asner and Lilly Tomlin are just delightful.  The second tradition is to watch a v...

Giving Thanks

Hey folks,

I just wanted to tell you all how much I appreciate your support on this project.  My wife recently contracted Covid and even though she was fully vaccinated she has been having a tough time with it. My sons and I continue to test negative, as we followed the CDC guidelines throughout the exposure period, but it has been a rough few weeks.

The writing is the only portion of the book that happens in my home, so I want everyone to feel safe as they receive the next m...

A Halloween Tale

After moving around a bit when I was a kid my family settled in the New England town of South Paris Maine. On a hill behind my home stood an old abandoned house. Once while walking by the house a family friend pointed to a piece of paper stuck in an upstairs window and said "look Christian, it has your name on it". Ever since then this house has haunted me. I drove back to it today, after almost thirty years away, and took this photo to share with you.

Now if this all sounds a bit famil...

A collaboration to celebrate a collaboration!

In the spirit of HPL and Hazel Heald's co-authoring of The Horror in the Museum, I jumped at the opportunity presented by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society to synchronize one of their prop handouts with a page of my Necronomicon.  I urge everyone to order a physical copy of the CD and see the incredible work Andrew Leman and Sean Branney put into their props! One prop in particular would look quite nice nestled in the most recent batch of pages... 

2021-10-05 20:12:28 +0000 UTC View Post

A Guide to the Sixth Quire

Here is a handy guide to the last 12 Leaves. The mailing you should be receiving around now is the first set of Leaves for the Seventh Quire, so start collecting the new Leaves going forward in this set.

And here are the previous Guides to help everyone keep track of the previous mailings. If anyone is missing Leaves let me know and I will get you caught up!

2021-09-20 01:31:32 +0000 UTC View Post