Proppingupthemythos

Life hack?

Worried about keeping your Leaves organized until it is time to sew them together? Try this easy trick: stick a bobby pin on the top and bottom of the spine! It holds the pages together without damaging them, and has enough give to accommodate all twelve Leaves. Not too shabby, eh?

Thank You!

Hey everybody, 

Just a quick note to thank everyone who has supported this project these past six months. I can't wait for you to see what's next in the book. Not to be all mushy or anything, but when I'm aging these pages I'm thinking about the magic of sharing a story. We all are here becau...

Spoiler Thread for Leaf 005

Hello cultists! Let's begin.

Page 9 begins with a lengthy chant to Tsathoggua, lifted directly from a letter written by Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith. The reference to “the stone desert of K’li-Phon-N’yah” is of course a lame pun as Smith lived in California. I do like the ide...

Make the best of an unfortunate situation...

So I screwed up 100 copies of the next Leaf (always triple check your work folks), but rather than focus on the negative I am seeing it as an opportunity to begin practicing book binding!

So here we have a picture of what 16 Quires will look like. This is the 100 bad copies plus the 100 good copie...

What's coming next...

I'm hard at work getting these aged and ready for shipping out to you!

Spoiler Thread for Leaf 004

Welcome back! Page 7 has our first glimpse of a ritual. The Emanation of Yoth is a throw away reference from one of Lovecraft’s lesser known collaborations, The Man of Stone. Yoth plays a much bigger role in the story The Mound (both of these were collaborations with Hazel Heald). For the purpose ...

First look at Leaf 005

It's almost time to mail out Leaf 005! Thanks everyone for getting the word out. I'm going to include a business card with this mailing, so think about where it could go: give it to a friend, stick it in a book at your local library or shop. Stick it on a bulletin board or in a tip jar! Let's get to...

Happy birthday to Mr. Lovecraft!

Our friends over at the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society are marking the occasion by offering a free download of their radio adaptation of The Colour Out of Space. Stop on by and download yours today!

H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival

On my way back from the Providence edition if this year's Festival. I wish I could have stayed for all three days, but Saturday was packed with fantastic films! I can't recommend Cold Skin highly enough. Great to meet patrons (old and new!) and talk about my classic film Nyarlathotep. 

MonsterTalk Podcast

This is a fantastic two part interview with grimoire specialist Jerry Drake. Fascinating and entertaining listening! 

Presenting my copies, "Curwen" and "Whateley"

In making this book it occurred to me to actually bind two copies for myself, an aged but well preserved specimen (nicknamed the Curwen), and a worn, weathered, and damaged copy (the Whateley). I'm experimenting with a number of additional aging techniques that will make for fun posts down the road....

Drying time!

Today is the last day to get on the list for Leaf 004. These will mail out to you all on the 5th!

Repro book clasps etc.

Part of the fun of this project is visualizing what your future Necronomicon will look like. To that end, this site offers some fantastic eye candy.

Lovecraft Film Festival returns to Providence!

Just a quick note that I will be making the trek down to Providence next month as they are showing my first Lovecraft short film (Nyarlathotep) at this year's festival. I'll be doing a Q&A as well as promoting the Matzke Necronomicon. If anyone is planning to attend I'd love to say hi and shake ...

Spoiler Thread for Leaf 003

Abdel's reference to his writing as a "Worke of Darknesse" is an important point, as he clearly doesn't dislike or fear these revelations. So I am staking a claim early on to a range of words that we may view as negative, but that Abdel (and his fellow travelers) see as positive. Azathoth being dubb...

History of the Matzke Necronomicon (Matzke-nomicon)

John Fleming: I am named after my great-great-grandfather so here is a ready-made backstory for the book! He brought the family over from Sylesia (Germany/Poland), but was already fluent in English. Owning this book could be part of why he fled the Fatherland...

Sculpture and Nomenclature...

First off, I know I owe you all a Spoiler Thread for Leaf 003. It's coming soon, I promise!

In the meantime, I've tried my hand at rock carving. This soapstone Cthulhu is my first attempt but I'm pretty happy with how he's turning out. 

Now I have a question for all of you: I feel like ...

Happy Friday the 13th!

Here's a sneak peek at Leaf 004 and a glimpse of some unfortunate souls who moved their lips while reading the incantation...

"Remember, remember the fifth of..."

Another mailing has gone out to all you wonderful people. Thank you so much for your continued support and enthusiasm for this project. I realized that I hadn't written about why there is a delay between the end of the month and when the envelopes go out: Patreon takes five days to process payments ...

"The book had... feet!"

Just throwing this out there as an interesting option for your finished tomes. The boards would need to be pretty thick, but it looks darned cool as an added oddball detail.

What did books look like in the 1650's?

My Necronomicon has a publishing date of 1648. Here is a real tome from around the same time, and with many similar features! This book ran 1,000 pages, featured woodcuts instead of engravings and had densely packed text and marginal notes.

I am excited to share this with the group as it really de...

Spoiler Thread for Leaf 002

Leaf 002 was a real milestone. How do you start the Necronomicon?!? I decided to start with the meaning of Al-Azif, (the whispering of demons) as that is the source of Abdel’s occult knowledge. I’ve then thrown in two new elements: the "Worm Toung" and “cursed with sight beyond [his] ...

Azathoth and the Green Hour

Here's a sneak peek of Leaf 003!

Organizing my Thoughts

Yup, index cards and an old filing drawer. It's better than a Common Place Book in that I can shuffle and arrange the cards as I go without having to rewrite or scratch things out. Anyway, it it doing wonders for the part of my brain that loves planning! 

Research Materials

One way I have found to wrap my head around this crazy project is to visualize it as 200 short stories, each spanning a length of about two pages. Sure they need to connect in certain ways, but it helps to break it down into individual beats that I want to hit. What I need now is a good way to store...

A Three Quire Circus

Here's a quick mockup of what three complete quires will look like gathered together. Please help spread the word so we can get to 100 Patrons as at that point I'll be able to double my output!

Protection Spell

Going forward I am going to use sheet protectors inside the envelopes. I want these pages to arrive safe and dry. Please let me know if you have any other suggestions on this topic. 

Leaf 002 on the drying rack!

Just a quick shot of the pages before I start packaging them up to mail out.

Spoiler Thread for Leaf 001

This will serve as a place for me to give a peak behind the curtains (at least a little) on what went into making the first leaf. I'll break it down page by page, with the cover being page 1, the Order of the Inspirati being page 2, and the last two being pages 47 and 48.

IF YOU HAVEN'T...

What to Expect in the First Hundred Pages

As the first Quire takes us pretty much to the halfway point of this milestone, I want to explain a few of my ideas for this section of the Necronomicon. First, Lovecraft wrote in a letter to Clark Ashton Smith (dated Nov. 18th, 1930) that he imagined the book would contain various adventures of Alh...