The Art Of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos (Hardcover)

~ Fantasy Flight Games (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This full-color volume collects the best art from Fantasy Flight's acclaimed Call of Cthulhu collectible card game, as well as from 25 years of Chaosium's legendary line of Call of Cthulhu role-playing game products. In these pages are glimpses of the most terrible beings ever to exist, whose very names are spoken of in whispers, if at all: Mighty Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep and He Who Shall Not Be Named. Strange and alien races swarm here: the Fungi From Yuggoth, the star-headed Elder Things, the slithering Formless Spawn and awful chthonians. The Art of H.P. Lovecraft's The Cthulhu Mythos contains hundreds of full-color pieces of art, from fan favorites such as Patrick McEnvoy, Michael Komarck, Jean Tay, Thomas Denmark, John Gravato, Aaron Acevedo, James Ryman, Felicia Cano, Linda Bergkvist and dozens more. Once you see these blasphemous visions, you will never forget them.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games (November 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1589943074
• ISBN-13: 978-1589943070
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #275,034 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Art, But Not Exactly What You Might Expect, November 22, 2006

By	Pulpiteer (Abilene, TX USA) - See all my reviews

Don't get me wrong, most of the art in this book is quite stunning, with only a few amateurish pieces mixed in. The problem is, the book should be more accurately titled "The Art of the Call of Cthulhu Collectible Card Game," as 90% of the art seems to come from that source. Unfortunately, that means pages of art that is not Mythos-related at all, portraits of human characters who exist only in the CCG game world and not in the larger Lovecraftian literary circle. Some of this is evocative for the time period and provides decent visuals for CoC role-players, but I do feel we would have been better served by more monsters and fewer gangsters and flappers.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Less than was led to believe by the other reviewers., February 9, 2007

By	Scurjovgawd (Salisbury, Ct USA) - See all my reviews

I love art and SF fantasy illustration and I am an admirer of Lovecraft's writing skill and imagination. The cover art on the book is great! The interior work does not suffer for quaility, so why the low review?
Because I found the book itself disappointing, it lacks inspiration. I have seen most of the images online. I don't doubt that many of the artist are fellow fans of Lovecraftian lore and imagery, but they (as far as I know) got paid to paint these illustrations for the CoC card game, hardly a paeon to the muses.
To be fair, I was warned by several of the reviewers of what the contents amounted to, it was the reviewers who were gushing about a book with a fair amount of mediocre art work that I could have paid less heed to.
If you are desperate for Cthulhu related images, get it. If your merely curious, let it pass.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing. 80% filler, November 6, 2007

By	Vorthog (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

When I think of Lovecraft, the first thing I think of is of course his nightmarish creatures. Unfortunately, while there are some great paintings of them in this book (including the amazing cover art!), I was very disappointed to find that most of this book was in fact uninteresting paintings of flappers and gangsters and such. -- In other words human secondary characters created for the Call of Cthulhu CCG.

I was expecting much more in the way of monsters and cults, etc., but the vast majority of the paintings have little to do with this.

Still, the ones that I did like were so good (my fave was the painting of Shub Niggurath) that the book still earns a passing 3-star rating from me.

If buying this book, be prepared to get only a very minimal creature fix, along with a large dose of the irrelevant.