The Outer Dark
“Scott Nicolay analyzes horror like no one else out there. Give his show a listen, I guarantee you won’t regret it.”—Max Booth III, 8 Great Podcasts for Writers, LitReactor.com
Scott Nicolay
Ana Kai Tangata
Page 18 of 20
Nick Gucker, AKA Nick the Hat, one of weird fiction’s most beloved artists and the designer of The Outer Dark’s logo, shares his secret superhero origin story growing up weird on the water and in the woods of rural Alaska, how he journeyed south to Seattle to study art and play in punk rock bands, his early love of Ambrose Bierce, an affection for the surreal naturalist horror of Algernon Blackwood, physicality and monsters in William Hope Hodgson’s work, strange fish and the deep abyss of the ocean in his art, peeling back and creasing the skin in anatomy class and beyond, an odd subliminal influence of Dr. Seuss fueled 
perhaps by the more disturbing aspects of Yertle the Turtle and the sheer terror of the pants with nobody inside them, designing the logo for The Outer Dark, finding a home at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and NecronomiCon Providence, adventures in Bali and Asian influences on his art, his favorite punk rock outsider artists from Blinko to Walsby, complexity in his art as a way to entice observers to explore the image longer and more deeply, collaborating with authors/publishers/magazines/convention organizers throughout the Weird Renaissance, recent work including the cover for Orrin Grey’s Painted Monsters and Other Strange Beasts (Word Horde), his commitment not to indulge in the exploitative side of pulp art, what he’s working on now and next, and his recommended artists working in the Weird today including Mike Dubisch, Mike Bukowski, Jeanne D’Angelo, Dave Felton, Chris Mars, Skinner, Paul Komoda, Josh Yelle, Allen Williams, Robert H. Knox and Liv Rainey-Smith.
This archival episode will be available again at This Is Horror soon. In the meantime, subscribe at iTunes or Blubrry to make sure you don’t miss an episode.
More Links:
“What Was I Scared Of” By Dr. Seuss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxuhKur2IYo
https://www.outsiderart.co.uk/blinko.htm
https://www.pusfan.com/art.htm
https://dennisdread.blogspot.com/2007/06/legacy-of-mad-marc-rude.html
https://www.brianwalsby.net/BrianWalsby.net/Home.html
Next week’s guest: Craig Laurance Gidney, author of Skin Deep Magic (Rebel Satori Press) and The Nectar of Nightmares (forthcoming from Dim Shores)
This week The Outer Dark welcomes Niels Hobbs, executive director of the Lovecraft Arts and Sciences Council and prime mover behind the biennial NecronomiCon Providence. Niels discusses why he and others resurrected this convention after a dozen years of dormancy and its emergence as the essential summit for writers, editors, artists and academics in the world of H.P. Lovecraft and weird fiction, the transformative nature of NecronomiCon 2013 as a catalyst in the Weird Renaissance, the exponential growth of contemporary high-quality Weird fiction, the small press explosion and its mutual support network, the importance of pie, the generally good-hearted nature of the weird fiction community, his early love of fiction and the arts, Lovecraft as a gateway drug on the way to the complex, vibrant and international continuum of the Weird, punk rock, marine biology, the unique weirdness of Providence, confronting and moving beyond racism/sexism/homophobia in Lovecraft’s work and some corners of his fandom, the fantastic array of artists embracing the Weird today and the joy of assembling the Ars Necronomica exhibitions of 2013 and 2015, more triumphs and challenges of the 2015 NecronomiCon, and looking ahead to NecronomiCon 2017 (Aug. 17-20, 2017) without abandoning Lovecraft but expanding to a broader, more diverse, global vision of the Weird. Niels also reveals some of the names on his dream guest list for 2017 including Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, Ellen Datlow, Chesya Burke, Craig Laurance Gidney, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, Usman T. Malik, Junji Ito, and others.
This archival episode will be available again at This Is Horror soon. In the meantime, subscribe at iTunes or Blubrry to make sure you don’t miss an episode.
More Links:
https://necronomicon-providence.com/enter/
https://www.providencejournal.com/article/20150816/ENTERTAINMENTLIFE/150819592
https://cthulhuwho1.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/mythoscon-2011-program-booklet-jan-6-9-2011.pdf
https://www.amazon.com/The-Weird-Compendium-Strange-Stories/dp/0765333627
https://www.outsiderart.co.uk/blinko.htm
https://www.worldcon.fi/
Next week’s guest: Nick Gucker, AKA “Nick the Hat,” cover artist and illustrator
Daniel Mills, author of the 2014 critically acclaimed collection The Lord Came at Twilight, discusses how his writing engages with historical voices such as Hawthorne, Chambers and others, rediscovering obscure authors of the 19th and 20th centuries who delved into weird, ghosts and the supernatural, the tendency among contemporary weird writers to be archivists/archaeologists digging into old sources for forgotten gems, his wistful yearning for past eras such as Colonial America versus confronting the spiritual corruption of American history in his stories, presenting a mannered lyrical approach to storytelling in a fresh and contemporary application, the artistry of depicting grotesque material with beautiful prose, modern cinematic writing versus language itself as “a world where you can disappear,” narrative restraint and the horror that happens offstage, courtships that reflect the intersection of deeply repressed desires and warped worldviews, clerical characters and the contradictions of America’s Christian mythos, creative misremembering, balancing presentism and historicism, discovering a shared New England sensibility with Matthew Bartlett, NecronomiCon Providence and the excitement and critical mass of today’s Weird Renaissance, the resounding influence of John Bellairs, upcoming projects including short stories, a novella and a second novel inspired by the spiritualism and theosophy movements of the late 19th century, and his current recommended reading including Reggie Oliver and Orrin Grey.
This archival episode will be available again at This Is Horror soon. In the meantime, subscribe at iTunes or Blubrry to make sure you don’t miss an episode.
More Links:
“Brickett Bottom” by Amyas Northcote: https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0606161h.html#s2
Next Week’s Guest: Niels Hobbs, Director of NecronomiCon Providence.
s.j. bagley and Simon Strantzas converse about collaborating on their new Thinking Horror journal premiering in October, why it’s important now to have a journal that focuses on the philosophy and criticism of horror, the theme of the first issue “Horror in the 21st Century,” addressing the problematic nature of how the term “horror” is viewed by mainstream movie/reading audiences versus writers, the curse and boon of the horror boom of the 1980s and 1990s, the transgressive possibilities of horror, an ever-wider, ever-deepening field of diverse writers and content, the importance of recovering older weird writers to seeding the Weird Renaissance and the importance of the Weird in horror now, Weird horror as a mode to reconcile the self with an ever-expanding world and the relationship between contemporary Weird fiction and modernism, Asian and African influences on horror and Weird fiction, understanding the different facets through which specific writers see horror, upcoming issue themes, the importance of affordable reprint editions, the future of horror, their reading recommendations including Steven Millhauser, Kristi DeMeester, Michael Wehunt,Daniel Mills, Helen Marshall, and Jeffrey Thomas, and when and where readers can get copies of Thinking Horror (paperback and eBook).
This archival episode will be available again at This Is Horror soon. In the meantime, subscribe at iTunes or Blubrry to make sure you don’t miss an episode.
More Links:
NEXT WEEK’S GUEST: Daniel Mills, author of The Lord Came at Twilight
“H.P. Lovecraft and Racism: Moving Past the Howies.” A Special Presentation of the Panel at NecronomiCon Providence, Sat. Aug. 22, 2015.
Moderator: Niels Hobbs. Panelists: C. Morgan Grefe, Andrew Leman, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, David Nickle, Faye Ringel.
Panel Description: Lovecraft was a racist. Whether you believe that his racism was only privately expressed in letters (and somehow ignore the racist aspects of his stories) and that his views softened later in life, his racism is now an undeniable aspect of his known personality. So how can we respond to this in a productive manner, and create a weird fiction community that is welcoming of diverse voices? Within this discussion, panelists will explore how Lovecraft’s racism shaped his work, and how contemporary fans can still love the craft without necessarily loving the views.
This archival episode will be available again at This Is Horror soon. In the meantime, subscribe at iTunes or Blubrry to make sure you don’t miss an episode.
More Links:
https://davidnickle.blogspot.com/2014/08/dont-mention-war-some-thoughts-on-hp.html
https://www.silviamoreno-garcia.com/blog/necronomicon/
https://www.rifuture.org/lovecrafts-racism-a-tough-issue-at-necronomicon-providence.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/08/hp-lovecraft-125/401471/
https://www.salon.com/2014/09/11/its_ok_to_admit_that_h_p_lovecraft_was_racist/
Photo credit: Todd Chicoine
NEXT WEEK’S GUESTS: s.j. bagley and Simon Strantzas discuss new critical journal Thinking Horror.
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