It is not directly related to Providence, but there is plenty of H.P. Lovecraft and even a bit of Alan Moore at the L.A. County Museum of Art’s Guillermo Del Toro At Home With Monsters exhibition on display now through November 27.
The show travels to the Minneapolis Institute of Art next year February 26 through May 21, 2017 and then to the Art Gallery of Ontario from September 30, 2017 through January 7, 2018.
Guillermo Del Toro is, of course, the director of numerous fantastic and horrific films. He is also big fan of both H.P. Lovecraft and of comics.
The exhibition displays visual art, sculpture, films, props, comics and other objects, primarily from Del Toro’s personal collection. This is topped off by some similarly-themed artwork from the museum’s collections.
I did not expect to see any Alan Moore, but, among a lot of original comics art, there are two framed From Hell pages, but Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell.
Other original comics art on display includes Richard Corben, Robert Crumb, Will Eisner, Rick Geary, Moebius, Winsor McCay, Mike Mignola, Gahan Wilson, and Jim Woodring.
Lovecraft is represented by a life-sized realistic sculpture, the work of Thomas Kuebler.
There are also several Lovecraft busts, a painted portrait and even some preliminary sculpture renderings for Del Toro’s proposed adaptation of Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness.
There are several of Del Toro’s notebooks on display. These are reminiscent of a Commonplace Book, and include Del Toro’s own sketches.
There is plenty more to see, from Lord Dunsany, to Edgar Allen Poe, to horror artists H. R. Geiger and Zdzisław Beksiński. Plus lots more life-sized horror sculptures.
If you find yourself anywhere near Los Angeles, Minneapolis, or Ontario, make plans to check out this exhibition likely to appeal to readers of Providence.
Facts in the Case of Alan Moore's Providence 
I am still upset that the rather meh PROMETHEUS resulted in us not getting what could have been an amazing AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS.
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Was Prometheus based on At the Mountains of Madness?
I saw Prometheus back when it came out, and agree it was quite meh/didn’t really make much sense.
Or is there some kind of studio/contractual thing regarding Prometheus that is prohibiting Del Toro from making At the Mountains?
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I think Fuzzy Bastard is referring to the plot similarities. you could argue they’re superficial similarities or you could argue they’re very fundamental similarities. It’s unfortunate that there have been so many things that riff on the ideas of Mountains of Madness that an adaptation at this point almost seems redundant in a world with The Thing, Prometheus, Hellboy, etc.
It could still be done, you always would have needed to add some character stuff to that story to make it a palatable movie, so it could theoretically still feel original. and cut out the penguins…
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Leave out the penguins? But they’re almost my favorite part!
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those damn penguins… they always struck me as one of the all-time goofiest Lovecraft concoctions. probably because they’re not at all “lovecraftian”!
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Did anyone read League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Heart of Ice? Moore and O’Neil try their best to make penguins scary.
I think while a lot of people can at least sorta share HPL’s revulsion towards undersea creatures, penguins are on the long list of things that gave Howard the screaming meemies but make the rest of us go, “…… wait… that?”
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*Did* penguins scare HPL? I thought that he included them largely as a note of deliberate humor in an otherwise relentlessly grim tale.
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I was referring to del Toro’s note, where he said the stories were just too similar: http://io9.gizmodo.com/5908278/did-prometheus-kill-guillermo-del-toros-mountains-of-madness-movie
Although there’s some reason for some tiny bit of hope: http://www.tor.com/2014/07/07/guillermo-del-toro-at-the-mountains-of-madness-adaptation/
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Thanks, MS and That Fuzzy Bastard!
I haven’t read At the Mountains of Madness (in fact everything I know about Lovecraft is from Providence and these annotations haha), but reading the Wiki plot, I can see how Prometheus is somewhat similar if you switch Antarctica for alien planet. There’s also that “a black, bubbling mass, which they identify as a Shoggoth,” and I remember a black goop as being a big part of Prometheus. And the big alien who just wakes up and wants the astronauts dead is fairly Elder Ones-ish.
It’s too bad Del Toro feels that way, but I’m glad there’s some hope. Then again, maybe a new original work by Del Toro would be even better?
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damn i’d kill for some of those From Hell pages! del Toro owns the final page!
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Eddie Campbell was selling From Hell pages in his self-published comic book Bacchus about ten years ago. I snapped up the Christchurch Spitalfields splash page that way, which I think he charged me about £80 for. It’s framed above my desk as I write this in my North London home, just a short walk from the real church itself.
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oh ye bastard paul slade! jealous.
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He signed it for me too!
Living as close as I do to Spitalfields, I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw that page was still available on the Bacchus list I happened to see. I’ve been offered quite a bit of money for it since, but still not enough to consider selling.
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